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Whenever you create or design a Webpage design, the Layout of your Webpage is the most overlooked aspects in you design. Most of the people think on “how to do layout but forget the basics of Web layout.

Space and whitespace

You have to make use of the space that is available as a whole but do not be specific. In other words, you have to use layout sections that are relatively sized on your WebPages so that they can contract and expand to fit correctly fit the browser’s window. Here you have to keep in mind the screen resolution. Keep in mind that most of the Web designers have moved far away form the resolution of 640 x 480. Having only the logo on the monitor is not a good customer service.

Do use colours in order to define spaces. If at all you want to have specific width to your page, center your page on the browser screen and add a different colour to the background. By doing this way, it will help the page appear resizing for different browsers. Browsers which are large will have more background colours and the smaller ones will be having fewer colours.

Graphics and images

You need to align your images properly. Nowadays, the most common layout mistakes that is found is to put up images in to the pages in such a way that it looks more willy nilly without a proper or forgetting the layout. If you are just using the “img” tag and later write some text to follow the image, then you will be having the image and one line full of text to the right side of it. Make use of this “align attribute” and this will help you to make images to be the part of layout.

On your page, do balance text and graphics correctly. Along with animations and images, it’s pretty easy to get carried away and these both animations and images will make the page to read really hard. Whenever you’re considering the layouts for your WebPages, keep in mind that images are one of the major parts of your design bust not afterthoughts.

Width of your text

You have to mainly think of your text width. This text width is often called as “the scan length” and this refers that how many words will be displayed in one line. Many people will be able to read 7 to 11 words on a single line. If the line is longer than 11 words, it will not be able to read and it gets hard. If there are more words it will be very much distracting to read. When you are in to designing your layouts to your pages, ensuring that major areas in the page will display the text and that should be with readable width.

It is inadvisable to centre your text. The first technique that is learned a new designer in page layout designing is the center tag. Centring the pages is too hard and it is very much difficult to read.

If you have surfed Web for the whole day, in the Websites you will notice that almost all the Websites have themes for their site’s design and this design will be repeated across all the pages of that particular Website. On any of the Web design Website, there are lots of elements that will be repeated in many ways including left navigation and the header portion of that particular page.

When you write an article everyday, you don’t need to write HTML to add some of the standard elements. All you want to do is to write articles. The templates that are needed will be built by “content management tool and if you do not have the access to this tool, there are several ways to manage your Website without editing each and every page by hand.

What are includes?

In HTML, an include section is not just an HTML document itself but it is just a portion of another page and using programming these can be included in your complete Web pages.0020unofrtunately this is supported by HTML. So, you will require some type of scripts or programs to add your include files in to your pages. Most of the include files are the things that are repeated on several pages of a particular Website without changing the things like navigation, contact notices and copyright information.

“Server Side Includes”

SSI was the first one to be developed that allows the Web developers to include all the HTML documents in to another page. If at all your Web server supports SSI, you can easily create templates for your Websites.

Firstly, you have to save HTML for all the common elements of your Website as a separate file. For example: you can save your navigation files as navigation.ssi or as navigation.html.
Secondly you have to use SSI tag to add that HTML in each page of your Website. The SSI tag is “#include virtual” = “Path to File/include-file.html”.
Thirdly, you can use the same tag in all the pages which you want to include.

“PHP”
PHP is another level of server programming language. This language will let you to include all of your HTML documents in another page. This language is much like SSI. This PHP is also a Server level language like that of SSI. In order to add pages using PHP you have to follow these steps

Firstly, you have to save all your files separately in another document. For example: your navigation files can be saved as navigation.php or navigation.html.
Secondly, use this PHP code to include the page. The code is
<? Php
require ($DOCUMENT_ROOT. “Path to file/include-file.html”) ;?>
Thirdly, use the same code with each page to add your file.

“ASP”
ASP or “Active Server Pages” is just another way to add your files in another page. The method is same as PHP but the code is different. The code is
“#include file=”path to file/include-file.html”

JavaScript
This is also another way to add your files into another file. But this does not require server level programming. This is little bit complicated compared to other server level includes.

Firstly, you have to save HTML common elements in JavaScript style. In this file, any HTML written should be printed with the “document, write”.
Secondly you have to use the code “<script type=”text/JavaScript” src=”path to file/include-file.js”> < /script>”
Thirdly you can use the same code for including files in all the pages.

It would be more tempting to fly right into Web designing and learning HTML, JavaScript and CSS and all that, later part will be very fun. If you haven’t decided to consider where to put up your WebPages or when you want put up your WebPages what are all the privacy and legal issues that you might face and if you don’t consider all these issues before, you will run obviously into hardship. But without facing many problems, it is easy to get a Web hoster and to set up the domain. At once if you have all these in your hand, it’s easy to move forward.

Set up Web Hosting

When you have built your WebPages and until and unless you are going to display only on your system, you require a place to display your WebPages on the internet. The place on the internet is administered by a Web Hosting company. In the market today, there are a lot of Web Hosting options and it ranges from Web Hosting companies offering free Hosting service (usually ad-supported) to pay hosting services and in this paid services, you can own a server and maintain it according to your own needs or else you can share the space in the servers with other Websites as well.

The primary thing you have to do before constructing a Website is to find a good Web Hosting service.

Get a Domain Name

Domain Name (Definition): on the Web or internet Domain is nothing but the name by which the particular computer is identified. It is commonly allied to IP address. It can be purchased in various combinations of numbers, letters and symbols.

This isn’t absolutely significant for all the Websites and this is obtained because it makes your site to be accessed more easily. Most of the people have domain name for their site and will not expect to make money out of this. It is too inexpensive to have a domain name and if you don’t have one for your Website, it will be so silly.

Try to learn all the legal issues that are surrounding WebPages

As there are legal issues for each and every thing and even for these WebPages there are some legal issues that are to be considered when trying to put up WebPages. In these issues, Copyright is the biggest one- this means you shouldn’t copy other people content without their prior permission and also there some other issues like protecting and linking children online. So learning some of these basic legal issues will obviously help you.

If you want your customers to stray with you, protect their privacy matters.

As the days are progressing, privacy is developing as a legal issue on the internet as more countries are enacting their laws like COPPA to protect one’s privacy issues. So, for many people their privacy is very serious concern and if you don’t maintain your customer’s privacy, they will surely leave you. So be utmost careful while building the WebPages and collecting the data from other sites.

So get ready to construct your Website.

Bear in mind that planning is very much vital before constructing a Website and if you have plan in your hand, you can build a better Website and the outcome will be better.

CSS was developed to make a way for Web developers to define their feel and look of their own WebPages in the year 1997. Its main intention was to separate design from content so that HTML performs more functions that was initially based on- the content mark up, without worrying much about layout and design.

Until 2000 CSS didn’t gain much fame, when Web Browsers started using more of color aspects and basic front of CSS. At present all modern browsers support all the levels of CSS like CSS level 1, CSS level 2 and CSS level 3. Web designers who weren’t using CSS for their development and design are becoming the matter of past and it pretty important to understand and learn CSS as it is known to HTML.

CSS- Cascading Style Sheet

Here style sheet directly refers to documents. For document designs, style sheets are in the use for many years. For a layout, these sheets are the technical specifications whether it may be online or print.

Cascading is one of the special parts. The intention of Web style sheets are to cascade through a number of style sheets. Each and every Webpage is affected by one style sheet at least, even if no styles are applied by the Web designer. These style sheets are the user agent sheets (default styles which are used to be displayed if no instructions are provided). If at all a designer gives the other instructions; here the browser should know which of the instructions are in precedence.

Why CSS used?

To style WebPages, CSS is used but there is more to CSS. CSS is also used to style XML and XHTML markup; this means to you that, if anywhere there is XHTML or XML mark up, CSS can be used to describe how it will appear. CSS is used in defining how WebPages should look like, when Webpage is viewed from other media than in a browser.

For example: you will be able to create a print sheet which is styled, which will describe how the WebPages will be printed out and another styled sheet where the Webpage will be displayed on a projector for the purpose of slide show.

Why is CSS vital?

It is one of the powerful tools available. A Web designer must or should learn CSS because as it affects the whole tone and mood of a particular Website. Well, a written style sheets can be quickly updated and allows the site to change what is preceded or without valuing the changes to the XHTML.

Challenge before the person who wants to learn CSS is, there is a lot to be learned but when you start learning it doesn’t seems to be bulky. In CSS level 1 there are 60 properties and in CSS level 2 there are 70 properties. Compared to attributes and HTML tags, learning CSS is a cake walk.

As CSS combines, cascades and the browsers here interpret the directives in a different way, CSS will be little tougher than what is Plain HTML is. Once the power of CSS is utilized you will come to what is CSS?

It is pretty important to decide where you are going to host your Website than to decide what kind of HTML editor should be used to build your site. Now there a lot of Web hosting options available and it will be an important to make a good choice. Once you know what a good Web host is then you will be able to make a good choice.

Free hosting

Free Web hosting is absolutely free. The free Web hosters give free Web hosting service as they can put an ad on your Website through pop ups, scripts and frames. Compared to pay hosting service this free hosting is some what limited for example in this free hosting you won’t get much of software, bandwidth and space. You can avail the free web hosting done through a lot of hosting providers like through your ISP and Geocities etc.

Standard Web hosting

Standard Web hosting is the common form of paid hosting. Here, if you pay a certain amount of money for the hosters they allocate the required amount of space in the servers with high speed servers and many other amenities like software etc. most of the standard web hosters use a shared server where you will be allocated some 10GB in a 200GB server. In this server your files will be hosted along with 20 to 25 other Websites.

Some tips to select a good standard Web hosting package:

Bandwidth charges: if you want your get your Website to get larger views, ensure that there are no extra charges and there shouldn’t be any limits.

Server software: most of the standard hosting providers provide you with some software like Weblogs, PHP and CGI.

Administrative access: some of the hosters let you to telnet into your server and also provide you a Web based console.

Operating systems: choose Windows or Linux OS. The best OS for your sever is Linux.

With paid hosting services you can have your business running smoothly with more features along with security cover than a free hosting service.

Virtual, shared and dedicated servers

Dedicated hosting means, here you get your own server for your Website’s exclusive use. In dedicated servers you can have access to change the required content by going to the root level and this facility is available with only few hosters.

Unless you pay for a dedicated server you will be in the shared area or virtual area where you will be sharing the server with 15 to 20 Websites. It’s very useful to have a dedicated server for your business.

Collocation

After dedicated servers, collocation is the next step in dedicated service hosting. In this, it’s same as that of a dedicated sever where the server will be exclusively used for your Website but here you just own the entire hardware but not the hosting service company and you will be paying the rent for the physical space they provide with the internet facility.

Other types of Web hosting are:

Clustered web Hosting
Reseller Web hosting
Weblog Web hosting
File & Image Web hosting

It will be frustrating job to find out what has gone wrong with your Web design. Some of the things will be impossible to fix and some other things will be difficult and can be fixed but if you are very much systematic regarding your analysis, you can fix the problem very quickly.

Your HTML should be validated

Whenever you have the problem with your WebPages, do validate your HTML. There are several reasons behind validating your HTML but when you have a problem in your WebPages do validate your HTML. There are a many people who validate HTML automatically. If you have the habit of validating your HTML every now and then, it is well and good. By validating, it makes sure that it’s not a small problem.

CSS should be validated

The next place where you will have most problems is with CSS. Validating CSS serves same as validating HTML. If there are some errors, validation will make sure that, there will be no problem with CSS and that will be not the cause of your problems.

Validate other dynamic elements and your JavaScript

As validating your CSS and HTML you have to validate your JavaScript, JSP, PHP and other dynamic elements.

Simplify your Pages

If you have been validating your CSS and HTML regularly and it didn’t help, you have to narrow down the pages to fix the problem. One of the easiest ways is to delete some portions of the page until the problem is solved. Now, you have to cut down your CSS in similar manner. The thought behind simplifying your page is not that you will leave the entire page with the fixed amount of content but you are focusing on how to solve the problem that has occurred.

Subtract and add back

Finally if you have found the problem, narrow down the page and start subtracting the elements that give you problems. For example: if you have found the problem in certain division and along with CSS that styles the division, start to delete each line one by one.
After every removal test your page. If you have removed or fixed the problem you will come to know what kind of problem is that. Once you have solved the problem, begin adding the elements that you have erased and ensure that you have to test the page after every change. When designing a Webpage, you will come to know certain little things will make vast difference. You have to test the page after every check because you will come to know that place where the problem is occurred.

First design WebPages for standard compliant browsers

The most common problem faced by these Web designers is around getting the pages looking similar in all the Websites. It is impossible sometimes or difficult to have all the pages of all the Websites to have the pages similarly.

Keep your code simple

Once you have solved all the problems, you have to keep watching that similar problem doesn’t arise again.

If you have decided to run an E-commerce or an online store Website, you should have the knowledge of HTTPS (“hyper text transfer protocol with secure sockets layer”). “HTTPS” is nothing but a protocol to transfer your encrypted data through Web.

There are chiefly 2 main differences between an HTTP and HTTPS connection network.

HTTP connects on the port 80 while HTTPS connects on 443. HTTP encrypts the data received and sent as plain text while HTTPS encrypts in SSL.

Almost all the Web customers are aware that, they have to look out for HTTPS in URL and have to lock icon when they are in the process of transaction. If your storefront isn’t using HTTPS, then you are going to lose your customers. It’s common to find on Websites that some of the stores use plain HTTP to collect money including the customers’ credit card details and doing this way of business is very bad to you and your customer and you might lose your customer.

As mentioned above, HTTP sends and receives the data over the internet as a plain text. This means, if you have a credit card form which asks the credit card details of your customer and the credit card details furnished by the customer can be easily intercepted by anyone on the net by using “packet Sniffer” (a wiretap that is used to eavedrop the computer networks). Since there are a lot of “Free Sniffer Software Tools” (example: “Ethereal Network Analyzer”, “Network Probe”, “AnalogX PacketMon”, “Analyzer”, “Sniphere” and many other) and the people using this can be anyone. By using HTTP and if you are collecting credit card information, you are broadcasting the entire details of the credit card to the world. Later your customer will realize that his credit card information is leaked when comes to know that some theft has happened.

What are things you need to host secure pages?

There are only few things you require to host pages that are secure on your Website.
Firstly, Web servers like “apache” along with “MOD_SSL” that will support SSL encryption
Secondly, unique IP address (it is used to validate the secured certificate by certificate providers)
Thirdly, SSL certificate from the providers of “SSL certificate”

If you are very much sure about the first 2 items, contact your Web Hoster so that they can help you.

After obtaining HTTPS certificate

In your Web server, your Web hoster has to set the certificate so that each and every time a page is accessed, it has to hit the secure server. Once this work is done, you can carry on with building your WebPages that has to be secured.

Some of tips to use HTTPS

Point at all the Webforms on HTTP: whenever you go to the link of Webforms on your Website, get used to link them with full Server URL.

On secured pages use “relative paths” on images

Secure the page that collect and requests the data: this done because if your entire pages are secured, your server will slow down and the charge will be more.