I would think with all that traffic (Alexa rank is 23,538), two books out, and a website with a page rank of 7 he would have done more with the site. He has Google adsense on there (meaning he’s trying to make money from the website traffic), but not in a place that will get enough click throughs and his website almost completely void of useful imagines and surprisingly enough violates many of it’s own rules. I remember how impressed I was with the innovative marketing strategy when I first learned of web pages that suck 10 years ago when I designed my first website.

[tags]web usability, web design mistakes[/tags]

[tags]dmoz, aol search business unit, odp, open directory project[/tags]

One of the biggest mistakes people make when looking for a web design firm is not coming to the table with a loose plan or idea for their website. There are some factors to think about before you start the search for a web designer or web design firm that will ultimately make it easier for you to get the right quote.

The more information you can provide, the more accurate the quote, and the easier time you’ll have wading through your options. Additionally, having an idea about what you’re looking for will save you from being up sold on a whole plethora of options you may not really need.

To that end, here are some tips and questions to ask yourself in order to achieve a more accurate quote and save yourself time and a large headache:

One, figure out what you want; this doesn’t have to be specific, it just entails that you have a general idea of what you want your website to do, your target audience and what features you want the most. What do you want to accomplish with your website and what is your first priority? (Top 4 answers: produce sales leads, sell products directly, promote a physical service or retail location and provide support/information for existing customers)

Two, do you want e-commerce functionality? If so, how many products or services do you want to sell? This doesn’t have to be a specific number, just an approximation.

Three, do you already have website copy or will it need to be written for/with you? This is essential to determine, as your website’s copy is one of the most important factors. Vibrant, targeted copy can make all the difference in your visitor conversion ratios.

Four, do you have a plan in place for SEO and Internet Marketing? If you don’t, this is highly recommended. Because of the competitiveness of the internet, having a strong marketing plan is essential. Thus, think about allocating at least an equal budget for the web design and SEO/Marketing portions of your website.

Five, try to find a company that will let you combine all your needs into one package. If you have to pay for each one separately, it will end up costing you more than one, comprehensive package. But if you need just one or two features, make sure you’re getting the best deal possible.

Six, do a little research before looking for a web design provider. If you educate yourself about basic terms and the functions normally associated with a website, you will be able to communicate more effectively with your web designer.

You already know the Internet is full of bland and un-exciting web pages where generic content can literally be cut and pasted onto any competitor’s site. To distinguish ourselves from the plethora of other web design sites, we have written articles, guides, and posted real information to provide you with some insight into our web design philosophy, knowledge, and experiences.

We focus on creating both beautiful and functional websites. The code for your website will be standards xhtml. The animation, if you choose to use it, will be in flash. The SEO will include article marketing, link building, blog creation, and more. Everything is done by one or two designers or writers, saving you the time, expense and hassle of going through a large web design firm.

One of our specialties is photo manipulation, which is a type of digital art. It is the technique of manipulating a photographic image digitally with similar or different elements. We love using digital photo manipulation and photo art in our work because they are relatively new and many techniques are still being refined and invented. Thus, pieces using well done photo manipulation appear modern, intricate and expensive. They suggest that a graphic artist or modern designer was employed to create a piece of art as opposed to a simple web design, card, or brochure, showcasing the fact that the client took their project seriously enough to make it beautiful, original, and modern.

Unfortunately, many web designers aren’t skillful enough at graphic design to produce intricate, detailed and believable photo manipulation, and that is why we place a lot of value on this service. Good photo manipulation is very difficult, so it is mainly done by graphic artists and is relatively rare on the web. High quality, original photo manipulation is included in all our designs.

Preliminaries:

When I use the term “containing” elements, I’m referring to the columns or boxes that hold the text, images, and other content. Containing elements may have borders and background images, but are usually just the visual containers for the important content on the screen.

Fixed width layout:

In a fixed layout, the size of each “containing” element on the webpage is specified exactly. The page will not change when you resize your browser window. It will essentially look the same on any browser or computer.

Liquid layout:

In a liquid layout, the size of the containing elements changes depending on the browser size and user preferences. The container size increases when viewed at larger screen resolutions and decreases when the browser is resized.

Advantages and Disadvantages (pros and cons):

Fixed width layout

Pros

Guarantees an easy to read line length

Allow images to be placed exactly in relation to other elements and type sizes

Allows designer full control over how the page is displayed (as opposed to the user)

Allows for predictable default printing behavior.

Cons

May create a type size that is not optimal

Takes control over page size and text size away from the user.

Doesn’t take advantage of screen real estate and may produce large unused portions of window space that could potentially increase the amount of scrolling users have to do (this is especially true at higher resolutions)

Liquid layout:

Pros

Allows for maximum use of space or screen real-estate. Also allows the most control over sizing by the user, because a user can resize the website to their preferences.

Allows text size to be changeable by user preferences, making it easy for people with vision problems to increase or decrease the text size on the page while the layout adjusts around the increased size automatically.

When designed correctly, it sets your website look slightly apart from competitors, considering most websites use a fixed layout.

Cons

If the screen-size becomes too large or too small it can produce unreadable text, or hard to read/scan line lengths

Can cause problems with *default page printing. (A separate print style sheet can be used allowing for perfect printing from any page despite a liquid layout, but if a separate style sheet for printing is not provided this con is valid)

As the website size changes, the image size to text proportion may create a less desirable look.

Modern Screen Resolutions and the prevalence of fixed width layouts:

The problem facing layout design in modern web design is the huge variance of common screen resolutions among potential website visitors. The smallest acceptable and still common modern resolution is 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall. With the recent surge in wide-screen and large monitors resolutions, a screen width of 1280 pixels plus is also very common.

Q. So how do you design a site that looks good with both a 800 pixel width and a 1280 pixel width?

A. Most web designers don’t, they use a fixed layout that’s 800 pixels wide and call it good. With that said, I have personally designed and have seen some beautiful layouts that look good and are readable at both those resolution extremes. The specific details of these layouts are beyond the scope of this article, but most of the designs I’ve seen or created that successfully accomplish this task use multiple content columns in combination with “padding” that is defined as a percentage of the screen. So when the screen is small, the multiple columns are very close together, but when the screen is large the padding increases proportionally and the columns are spaced further apart.

Recommendations and Analysis

Most websites should probably be designed with a fixed or “semi” fixed layout. It guarantees readability and perfect presentation of content. With that said, if your website contains a large amount of text based content (more then 3-5 paragraphs per page) or if the website would greatly benefit from a non-standard design scheme use liquid.

If you’re still not sure, choose fixed. A fixed layout is easy to maintain, and assures readability by all users and is easier for a web designer to code perfectly. A poorly done liquid layout will cause more problems then it will fix and annoy potential users. For example, one of my personal pet peeves is when a designer uses a single column liquid layout. My personal computer workstation consists of two monitors a 19 inch, and a 17 inch widescreen. When a website is designed with a single liquid column the width of the page usually is way too wide for easy reading, so I have to manually adjust the window size.

Additional Resources:

Fixed Width vs. Liquid Layout – Your Take : D. Keith Robinson’s Asterisk (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archive/2003/11/fixed-width-vs-liquid-layout-your-take)

Design by Fire: Liquid v. Fixed (http://www.designbyfire.com/000032.html)

molly.com Fixed Versus Liquid: The Beat(ing) Goes O (http://www.molly.com/2005/04/16/fixed-versus-liquid-the-beating-goes-on/)

A List Apart: Articles: Elastic Design (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/elastic/)