CSS Optimization

Reducing waste in your CSS files

CSS files can get messy. There are those talented enough to think through their HTML design in order to reduce the amount of CSS code needed. However, for most of us, or maybe just some of us, our CSS files get bulky. Bulky CSS files take up space. Lots of space means extra bandwidth. Extra bandwidth means money.

The goal of CSS optimization is twofold. First, it is meant to cleanup some of the CSS code in order to reduce the number of selectors and/or properties. Second, it simply is a means to remove the whitespace from a file in order to reduce its size.

The second goal is the one most sought after. The first is sometimes difficult to accomplish with a tool.

There are several tools out there that can accomplish these tasks. I will recommended two.

CSS Tweak is a beginner friendly tool that is excellent at removing the white space from a file without changing any of the code. CSS Tweak has the ability to tweak fonts, borders, backgrounds and lists, but its main use is for removing comments, zero units and white space. I suggest beginners focus on simply removing the white space in order to reduce the size of their files. Focus on the actual code once some confidence is gained in writing CSS files.

Advanced users may want to use Code Beautifier. While it removes white space just like CSS Tweak, it contains more power features. Code Beautifer can change the case of all selectors to reordering all your selectors (beware this can affect the output of your CSS code!). Power CSS writers may find more to appreciate about CSS Beautifer but they better be careful!

Each of the above tools is highly recommended. Play around with a scratch copy of your CSS file. Select a feature at a time to see what each accomplished/changes.

In the end, I believe, the main goal of CSS optimization is to reduce your whitespace so you can reduce the size of your CSS file. Reducing the size of your CSS file will save on bandwidth and may have an affect on the speed of your website.

Quickly Find and Edit CSS Elements

This article could be one sentence long: Use Notepad as a free css editor.

CSS files are just text files. Any text editor will do the job. However, once CSS files begin to get complicated or get large managing and editing them becomes more difficult if using a simple text editor.

Enter Top Style Lite. Top Style Lite provides a few extra bells and whistles that make editing CSS files easier. Let me run down the list of main features.

The main editing screen holds two advantages over Notepad or the run of the mill text editor. First, elements of the CSS file are color coded. It is visually easier to pick out element names or number values. Second, there is a gutter which contains the line number. I love line numbers. While they are not as important in CSS files as in other kinds of code, they still provide a very easy reference.

The right side of the screen contains two tabs: Properties and Selectors. The Properties tab lets beginners enter values into the various element types and Top Style Lite will enter the information for you on the main editing screen. This is a handy learning tool. More advanced users will skip this tab.

The Selector tab is the main reason I like to use Top Style Lite. The Selector Tab organizes the Elements, Classes and ID’s found in the CSS file. Every element, class or id is presented in a tree format. Within each category every selector is listed in alphabetical order. Need to change the property of a class and it is buried somewhere in the black and white morass of Notepad? EASILY find it on the selector tab, make your change and be on your way.

No, this is not quantum physics nor will this tool change the world. However, it is the simple things in life that make a difference. In your web development work, Top Style Lite will make the managing and editing of your CSS file less painful. Visit my blog post for more detailed information on Top Style Lite.

Turn Firefox into a web development tool

One of the great things about the Firefox Web Browser is the ability to extend the capabilities of the browser via add-on extensions. The list below includes addons that can turn Firefox into a handy web development tool. Not only will these addons help improve your Firefox experience, they will also aid any web development task.

• Colorful Tabs - I often have multiple tabs open within Firefox. Colorful Tabs makes each tab a different color. I find the color cues help me differentiate and read my tabs mor quickly and efficiently.
• Diigo Toolbar - Diigo is my bookmarking tool of choice. It allows not only basic bookmarking, but can be used as a robust internet research tool.
• ScribeFire - This blogging tool makes blogging easier and more productive. I can blog directly from Firefox without having to login to the admin page of my website. Saves clicks and time.
• Down Them All - Great extension that enables easy downloading of files. Great all kinds of files: html, css, images files, audio files, movie files, etc.
• Web Developer - Probably the best Firefox extension developed next to ScribeFire. It alone makes many web development tasks easier. Examine a sites css file or view a website within images or display its HTML on the screen, all with this one tool.
• Total Validator - The best website validation tool around come in its own Firefox extension. Not only validates the XHTML code of your web pages, but checks for spelling errors, accessibility problems and takes browser snapshots. All for free!
• Font Finder - Ever come across a font on a website and wonder what it was? With Font Finder now you can know! Highlight and click is all it takes for Font Finder to display all the pertinent CSS information about the highlighted text.
• Measure It - This extension makes working with layouts and images easier. Use it to measure the wide and height of anything within your browser window.
• Split Pannel - Compare two web pages side by side in the same tab. Great for comparing information from two web sites or for comparing development and production versions of your web site. No more clicking and flipping back and forth and forget about resizing your browser so the windows are side by side.
• LORI - life of request info - Measure download speed and page size of every website visited.
• Search Status - SEO tool for gathering information about websites. View PR and Alexa rank along with backward links, indexed pages and internal link count information.
• SEO for Firefox - Know Thy Competition. SEO for Firefox provides PR, site age, del.ici.ous, yahoo, technorati, msn and google link info, plus other handy information all within the SERPs of Google and Yahoo.
• Clear Forest Gnosis - Find all the relevant terms and phrases on a web page. Great for assessing competition and taking advantage of Latent Semantic Indexing.

Domains are an investment in virtual property

Every domain name you own is a piece of virtual real estate.

When you buy a domain (whether a brand new name or from someone else) you are making an investment.

When you sell a domain you are hopefully making money on your investment.

Where is the best place to buy and sell domain names?

For the beginner, consider Sedo. Sedo offers a well rounded suite of tools and services for buying and selling domain names. It also carries a sound reputation and is a safe place for beginners to sell or buy domains.

Buying Domain Names

A domain is like another kind of product. It can be bought and sold. Domains are unique in that they are not a tangible product. They are intangible or “virtual”. Since, there are many pitfalls in dealing with virtual products, sites like Sedo act as a third party liason between buyers and sellers.

It is fairly easy to find domain names for sale on Sedo. Just look at the home page to get started! Sedo offers multiple lists plus the ability to search for particular kinds of domain names. You can search for domain by length, suffix, category, etc. As a buyer you are protected by Sedo. All transactions between buyer and sellers are mediated by Sedo. If you commit to buy a domain name and Sedo is unable to get a response from the seller you are not obligated to purchase the domain name. While it maybe disappointing not to have purchased the name, at least you are not forced into the transaction in any way.

Selling Domain Names

Just like Sedo protects buyers, they also protect sellers. Sedo collects payment and acts as 3rd-party escrow agent in all money exchanges. Buyers make legal obligations to purchase domain and Sedo requires quite a bit of information from buyers to ensure they are who they say they are. Sedo also works with the registrars and both parties to ensure a smooth transaction.

Sedo offers sellers an option to promote “Feature” domains as well as Domain Auctions. Any domain name can be slated for auction. These domains go up for auction once their is interest from an initial buyer. It is definitely one way to get a little more money out of the domain transaction.

The strength of Sedo exists in their depth of available domains and their advance search mechanisms. The domain you want is never more than one search away.

For more information about choosing quality domain names, download my Domain Name Handbook. Written for beginners, The Domain Name Handbook takes a simple look at choosing, registering and managing domain names.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/buying-and-selling-domain-names/”>Buying and Selling Domain Names</a>

Monetize your Domain Names holding place

What is Domain Name Parking?

There are two definitions:

1. A basic holding place for a domain name that presents a web page to visitors without the need to purchase website hosting
2. Additionally, a service can be offered to monetize the above mentioned webpage.

This article discusses definition number two.

Generally speaking, domain name parking serves the purpose of monetizing well trafficked domain names without the need to setup web hosting. The functional process is easy:

1. Buy Domain Name
2. Sign up with Domain Name Parking service
3. Point domain name DNS servers to the domain name parking service

Done!

The caveat: I wish it were that easy then to make money.

There are two key elements to making money with domain parking:

1. choosing quality domain names
2. traffic

These are topics beyond this article. I mention them solely because it is easy for beginners to think that domain name parking is easy money. It takes some wisdom and savvy in order to do it right.

For the beginner, I recommend starting with Parked (aff). Parked is a relative new comer to the domain name parking space, but I feel it is ideal for beginners. Not only is their website very user friendly and intuitive, the process of signing up and getting started is fairly painless as well.

There are several things I like about Parked besides it’s beginner friendly-ness:

1. Creativity to the actual parked page. While there is not a whole lot one can do to a parked page to take it beyond a level of “blah”, Parked uses colors and images to make the page seem more welcoming and inviting.
2. Earn commissions twice a month (if indeed you make enough to earn a check every few weeks)
3. Active optimization of parked pages to make YOU more money.
4. Excellent reporting tools and graphs
5. They accept small portfolios even a portfolio of ONE domain name. This enables beginners to dip their toe in the domain parking waters.

For more information about choosing quality domain names and getting started with Parked, download my Domain Name Handbook. Written for beginners, The Domain Name Handbook takes a simple look at choosing, registering and managing domain names.

Disclosure: Affiliate Relationship

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/domain-name-parking/”>Recommended Domain Name Parking</a>

Creating, Registering and Managing Domain Names

Want to know how to register a domain name?

Curious how to transfer your domains to another registrar?

Want to know more about quality domains?

The Domain Name Handbook answers these questions and more.

Written with the beginner in mind, The Domain Name Handbook provides a basic understanding of domain names and introduces readers to more advanced topics.

Here is the Table of Contents from Version 1.0:

Introduction
Choosing a Domain Name
   Quality Domain Names
   Keyword Based Domains
   Brand Based Domains
Researching Domain Names
   Domain Research
   Domain Suggestions
Registering Domain Names
Transferring Domain Names
   Unlocking A Domain
   Completing the Transfer Process
Domain Name Parking
   Basic Domain Parking
   Domain Parking Monetization
   A Word About Cybersquatting
Domain Name Resources
   Domain Name Registrars
   Domain Parking
   Domain Name News
   Other Resources
   Resources on the Recommended Web Tools website

Downloading the ebook in PDF format is FREE. I offer a printable PDF version for $1 USD.

Updates to this ebook will be posted on the Recommended Web Tools blog. Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date!

Downloads

Download the Non-Printable version for Free

Purchase the Printable Version via Paypal for $1

Information you can use

The ebooks offered by Recommended Web Tools are meant to educate, inform and inspire.

This website was born out of the frustration in finding good software and sound information. As a beginner, I felt overwhelmed with my ability to evaluate and the limitations of my wallet.

All ebooks are in PDF format. If you need a PDF Reader, please consider using Foxit.

The ebooks in this collection come in two versions: Non-printable and Printable.

The Non-printable version is FREE. Download it and read it on your screen.

The Printable version costs $1 USD. For a buck, you can download a version of the PDF that can be printed on any printer.

Feel free to link to the PAGE of any given ebook. The links to the actual files are subject to change and are easily broken.

Find quality expired domain names

Just like other property (and yes, domain names are property), domain names can be auctioned off from one party to another. There are essentially two kinds of auctions. There are auctions for expired domain names and there are auctions for currently owned domain names. The latter gets a little more complicated so this recommendation will focus on the former.

When a domain name expires (something you should never let happen with your own domain names), it enters an “unofficial” grace period. The registrar for that domain name grants the owner some time to renew the name. This period can last up to 45 days. This is registrar dependent. The domain names current website is up and running during this time.

If the owner still does not renew during this grace period the website is eventually taken offline and the domain name enters into an official Redemption Grace Period. This period last for 30 days. After these 30 days, the domain name enters a 5 day deletion hold.

After these 5 days are over, the domain is officially deleted from the Shared Registry System and it is available to the public to be registered. It is at this point that a service such as Snapnames comes in. This graphic of the domain deletion process is quite helpful.

Snapnames partners with various domain registrars to auction off deleted domain names. Once a domain name is available, Snapnames holds a three day auction. The auction works like any other kind of auction; the domain is won by the highest bidder.

Is there a way to preview expiring domain names? There are two ways to see forthcoming expired names. Snapnames provides downloadable lists of soon-to-be-expired, soon-to-be-deleted and current auction domain names. Alternatively, DomainTools provides an online listing of all domains set to expire. This list is searchable and sortable. Remember, expired domains are not yet available. You have to wait the 5 day deletion hold period.

Snapnames offer two kinds of auctions private and public. Private sounds exclusive, but anyone can participate. Private auctions are only open to those who have pre-bid. The minimum pre-bid amount is $60. If more than one person pre-bids on a domain name, then it enters a private three day auction among those who pre-bid. Domain names that did not have any pre-bidders enter a public auction. Typically, quality domain names rarely make it to the public auction. Most are identified during the expiration process and pre-bid are placed.

It takes some expertise to begin to recognize quality domain names. I suggest the beginner first begin to learn about the world of domain by reading articles such as this one and by reading sites like Domain Name Wire.

Don’t forget to check out my Domain Name Handbook, a simple look at choosing, registering and managing domain names. It is available as a free non-printable download.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/domain-name-auctions/”>Domain Name Auctions</a>

Domain Name registration should be easy

Yes, there are a plethora of sites to register a domain name. Google ‘register domain names’ and have yourself a fun-filled time comparing prices and the like. Just about every web hosting company also offers domain registration. I am going to narrow your search down to two registrars. One for beginners, the second for those who need more tools to manage multiple websites.

For beginners, I recommend Aplus.net. Aplus offer numerous web based services including hosting and web design. I have only used them to register domain names. I used them for several reasons:

1. they offered excellent prices on domain names
2. they offered the ability to do private domain name registration
3. they are a well established medium sized company that is not to big for their britches
4. the registration process is easy

For beginners, I can not recommended them more highly. A fifth reason I recommend them is for their customer service.

It is amazing how many companies on the web feel they can get away with lousy customer service. Having used APlus over the last two years for a number of domain names, I can verify that when a call is placed to Aplus, a human answers the phone and the problem gets resolved. Yes, sometimes there is a hold time but I have yet to have a problem with their customer service. In a crowded market it is customer service that will begin to separate the big players from each other.

The regular price for .com, .net, .org domain names is typically $8. This is subject to change due to sales and specials that run regularly. Check the site for a current price.

Readers of this website will recognize that the themes of reliability and value occur fairly regularly. It is no less true when selecting a domain name registrar. Finding reliable customer service when it comes to maintaining a domain name will add value to a website. What good is a website that is tangled up in domain name hell?

So you have a name for your new website? Head over to Aplus.

(aff)

For those who are amassing a large portfolio of domain names I recommend Moniker(aff). Moniker offers a far better user interface to manage multiple domain names. At a lot of registrars, handling multiple domain names can become a tedious and time consuming affair. Moniker employs a batch tool for virtually every kind of action. Need to change multiple domain names to the same DNS? Its a snap at Moniker.

Moniker’s prices are a little more expensive than APlus or other registrars. You are paying for better tools and a better interface. However, I have found that they do offer private domain registrations at a lower rate than anyone else. So it all comes out in the wash.

Helpful tip: No matter who you choose to use as a domain registrar, do not use them for web hosting as well. I know it seems like a good deal to have your domain and websites with one company, however I have read about people who have had too many problems with that arrangement.

Domain registration should be an easy painless process. I have had good experience with both of these registrars and heartily recommend them both.

Don’t forget to check out my Domain Name Handbook, a simple look at choosing, registering and managing domain names. It is available as a free non-printable download.

Disclosure: Affiliate Relationship

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/domain-names/”>Domain Name Registration</a>

This website is written by Paul Flyer and owned and maintained by Flyer Computer Resources LLC.

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In general, even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this website are purely our own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

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We will not accept compensation to completely endorse and push a specific product. The goal of this site is to provide reviews and recommendations to beginners who find it hard to find a tool they can use.

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Pages and posts that are independent reviews will not be marked. It makes sense to only disclose those for which compensation is involved in some way.

One may ask “Shouldn’t a site like yours remain completely independent and not receive advertising of any kind?”

We suppose we could if we had the staff to produce something like Consumer Reports. Understand that we have a love/hate relationship with advertising. We hate being bombarded with ads everywhere. However, we believe advertising can be a service to readers if done correctly. All advertising on this site is passive (text links). There are no pop-ups, pop-unders or billboards. Also there is no word based intelligent text advertising littering the content of this site. We have one or two banners ads for affiliates who have no text link ad options. We really wish these companies would jump on the text link band wagon.

While we believe in giving our opinion in the form of review and recommendation, we believe in giving our readers a few other options. For example, while we love HTML-Kit as our HTML editor of choice, you will find other editors advertised on the Free HTML Editor page of this site. Within those contextual ads, you might see ads for NVU or CoffeCup. This exposes readers to other tools. They can take our recommendation and use it as a comparison when they look at the other tools available.

1. Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool
2. Absolute Color Picker
3. How to Build Websites
4. HTML Kit
5. HTMLDog
6. Nichebot
7. Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Selector Tool
8. Wordpress
9. Keyword Activity Tool
10. Total Validator

1. Web Development and Design
2. Web Tools
3. Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool
4. Removing Line Breaks After H1 Tags
5. Google Analytics Review Part 1
6. Keyword Suggestion Tools
7. Three Problems with Google Analytics
8. Graphic Design Tools
9. Keyword Popularity Research
10. Web Tools Directory

Find the best web tool for your task

Educating yourself on the basics of SEO is a sound investment

Everyone wants to make a quick buck. But how about making many bucks over the long term? Building a website with longlasting value is key. The first step is to educate yourself. Putting down your hard earned money for automated software will not do you any good if you do not understand the internet landscape. Educating yourself about search engine optimization will provide long lasting benefits that the latest trick or gimmick fail to achieve.

SEO is like playing your favorite video game or board game.

• if you don’t know the rules of the game:
  • you CAN’T play
• once you know the rules:
  • you can BEGIN to play
• once you have played for a while
  • EXPERIENCE is gained and the game can be won

• In SEO, most people don’t know the “rules”.
  • With a solid SEO education you be be beyond 95% of those on the web
• While there are many people who have dabbled with SEO, they are not proficient.
  • With a sound SEO foundation, you can optimize websites ahead of most competition
• There are people who are very experienced in SEO and they excel in most competitive markets.
  • Learning SEO will not help you compete with these people until you have gained a lot of experience. However, with a solid seo education you can understand what they are talking about. You can talk their language and LEARN from them.

The place to begin your SEO education is with Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.

Aaron, on page 39 of his ebook, lays out the challenge before any webmaster:

My general rule of thumb is to search for what you want to promote using your favorite search engine. Click on the first listing, if it is not good enough, then you should be there.

Do you think you can do it? With a strong foundation you can get there.

There are two things to remember about SEO.

• SEO Is Hard.
  • There is competition.
  • There is a lot of misinformation.
  • SEOBook lays out all that you need to learn to build successful websites
• SEO Is Easy.
  • A lost of markets practice no SEO whatsoever
  • Creating websites of value simply takes vision and focus
  • Read thru SEOBook quarterly and you will be far more advanced than most webmasters.

This website is full of recommendations. However, recommendations about ebooks are few and far between. I can tell you I have wasted more than enough money on ebooks. I am not about to send you to a site where I think your money is going to be wasted.

What can you expect from SEOBook?

• sound SEO advice
• a focus on the long tail
• discusses the need of being social
• focus on quality and value
• no formulas
• building a link campaign
• up-to-date: information is not 5 years old
• focus on what to DO
• themed around being useful, courageous and creative

For the price, you cannot get a better SEO education anywhere.

Buy The SEO Book Today

Find the HEX value of RGB color codes and vice versa

In HTML, colors are typically signified in one of two ways. The RGB value of a color is represented by three values. One value for Red (R), another for Green (G) and one for Blue (B). The value for each can be a number from 0 to 255. The total string for a color is written like this: 154,345,123. Typically, in most image applications, each value has its own field.

Sidenote: I thought the primary colors were red, yellow and blue? Why are red, GREEN and blue being used here? There is a difference between color as pigment (such as paint) and color as light. Red, yellow and blue (technically it is cyan, yellow and magenta) are the primary colors for pigment. Light replaces yellow with green. Its a little weird, because any color wheel you find among web graphic designers follows a pigment based paradigm. However, the behavior of pixels follows that of light. Anyway, the curious can begin their lessons in color theory.

Colors are also represented by a HEX value which is a series of six (6) digits: 003366. Read more about hex values.

Colors are most often coded in HTML using their HEX value. However, most image applications use the RGB value. Thus the need to translate one value into the other and the need to have a handy RGB to Hex Converter at hand.

A lot of sites have such a converter but the one at 321webmaster one has two advantages:

• The site is up 99% of the time. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to a converter I’ve bookmarked only to find the page no longer exists or the site is down.
• It works! There is nothing super special in coding a converter. However I’ve come across a few that appear on the web page but simply don’t work when executed.

The Absolute Color Picker can also be used as a RGB HEX Converter.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/rgb-hex-converter/”>Recommended RGB HEX Converter</a>

Creating a palette of colors for web design

Ok, so you have a base color that you like. What other colors go with it? How can you create your own color schemes?

The online color scheme generator by Color Schemer is an excellent place to start.

The scheme is based on the Color Schemer Color Wheel. The color wheel, shown below, places Red at the 12 o’clock position and Green at the 6 o’clock position. Orange is at 2, yellow 4, blue 8, and Purple 10.

Enter a base RGB or HEX value of a color into the schemer and hit the appropriate SET button. The Color Schemer will create a palette of sixteen(16) colors with the base color located in the top left corner. Colors horizontally along the top row are colors that are found moving clockwise around the color wheel. Vertical from the base color, the colors move counterclockwise around the colorwheel. Colors diagonal from the base color are complimentary colors.

The palette displays both the RGB and HEX value of the color.

The Color Schemer site also has a Gallery of Schemes. This gallery consists of user submitted schemes. Its a great place to get other ideas for colors. These schemes are typically from 4 to 10 colors and are available to be downloaded and used within the Color Schemer Studio desktop tool. The desktop tool is not a part of this review. The beginner should begin with the online version. An investment in the more robust tool should only be made if there is a great need (i.e. your doing this for a living).

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/color-schemes/”>Recommended Color Scheme Generator</a>

Grab a color for your website design

Beginners struggle to find the right color(s) for their website. With an unlimited palette, the amount of colors is overwhelming. It it hard to pick one let alone a collective scheme. For some, an uncertain eye about web design may make them reluctant to choose the right color.

A color picker tool maybe the solution to finding the right color.

What does a color picker do?

Typically, users maneuver an eye dropper tool over a color they see on the screen. This color could be part of the desktop, part of an application or more often, part of a website. Hovering, the eye dropper over the color will reveal its RGB or Hex value.

Have a site in mind whose colors you adore?
Use a color picker to find out their colors of choice.

I recommended two color pickers. One is fairly basic, the other offers a few more additional features.

The first, Quick HTML Color Picker, is a simple executable file that does not require installation into the OS. Simply click it and it opens. It works as described above. Hovering the eye dropper over a color reveals the HEX value. This value can be copied to the clipboard and then pasted into an HTML document. I keep this color picker on my USB stick so I can easily take it with me wherever I go.

The second, Absolute Color Picker, works similarly but uses a cross hair over a zoomed-in pixilated mini-screen to pick the color. It is necessary to install it onto your machine. Absolute Color Picker offers the following advanced features:

• keeps history of colors chosen - up to 12
• converts RGB to HEX and vice versa
• customizable color models - there are 8 tabs that display colors in various formats (brightness, radial, hue, 3D, Sphere, Hue 2, Pens, Hexagons). Users can view the color against other colors in each model and adjust it accordingly.
• adjust hue, saturation and brightness
• 17 color palettes

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/color-picker/”>Recommended Color Picker</a>

Effective, System Resource Lite, Easy to Use Antiviral Protection

There are a few basic criteria for any antivirus software:

• Works - no brainer. It HAS to stop viruses.
• Resource Lite - it can’t hog a bunch of system resources nor cause software conflicts nor slowdown the OS.
• Intuitive - Beginners should be able to manage it easily.

My recommendation for personal antivirus software protection that meets these criteria is NOD32 by ESET.

Who the heck is ESET and what is NOD32? These are names not generally thrown around when antivirus software is discussed. Keep in mind that there are far more players in the antivirus world than what is found on the shelf of your local big box computer store. Think outside the box!

Please keep in mind that this is a matter of my own personal opinion. I have done a lot of reading and comparison shopping and installing of the software itself before I recommend it. However, I do not have a lab to test every kind of software, let alone the kind of tools it would take to test antivirus software. I, like you, have to rely on others. At the bottom of this recommendation are links to other reviews and resources, plus links to two other antivirus programs that beginners should consider.

I came across NOD32 by happenstance. Upon visiting their site, I noticed right away that they took a different approach than other antivirus protection providers. NOD32 does not focus exclusively on virus signatures (though it does include this), but rather focuses on heuristics which is a big fancy word for creating a means of proactive detection when the “signature” of the malware is unknown.

I found the interface to be simple. A single small panel contains the general options. Clicking on an option opens a window next to the panel with more detail. Throughout, NOD32 tries to remain lightweight and unobtrusive.

THe NOD32 Control Center is very easy to use. It consists of fours sections:

• Threat Protection Modules
• Update
• Logs
• NOD32 System Tools

Update and Logs are easily understandable. The former accesses updates to the software while the latter provides access to the Event, Threat and Scanner logs.

System Tools provide for various means of configuration. NOD32 has been criticized for providing too many options that overwhelm the user, especially the beginner. Note to beginners: simply don’t change any settings, the default ones will suit you just fine.

The meat of NOD32 exists in the Threat Protection Modules of which there are five (5).

• AMON - file system monitor - provides settings for overall virus protection
• DMON - MS Office Document monitor
• EMON - MS Outlook email monitor (NOD32 emphasizes protection of Office and Outlook since these programs are often the specific targets for virus designers.)
• IMON - Internet Monitoring - checks all email whether Outlook is used or not
• NOD32 - the actual on demand virus scanner

The on-demand scanner is where the action is. It is here that users start/stop virus scanning.

There are four options

• Local - scans memory and proceeds to scan all local disks with minimum settings
• Run NOD32 - scans memory then gives the users options to scan particular targets
• In-depth analysis - scans memory and proceeds to scan all local drives with all maximum settings
• Diskettes - scans memory and tries to scan the A:/ drive

I would make two improvements to the user interface. The options above need to be relabeled/consolidated in order to make it easier for beginners to understand. The other is to rename AMON, DMON, etc. These names mean nothing to the user, though I’m sure they were chosen to conserve space.

A Local scan of my system took around 16 minutes and checked just under 65,000 files. The in-depth analysis checked around 287,000 files and took around one hour or so.

While I do think ESET needs to relabeled a few of their features, I still think the software is very usable by the novice. As always, if someone tries it out and gets stuck, email me and I will try to help.

Other Reviews
Pro-Networks
Network Computing
AV Comparatives
Tests, Scores and Compares antivirus software.
ESET NOD32 gained their Retrospective/ProActive Test rank of Advanced Plus. They also gained their
On-demand comparative rank of Advanced Plus.
Virus Bulletin

Other AV software considerations:
Kaspersky
Bit Defender

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/antivirus-software”>Recommended Antivirus Software</a>

Find a text link ads broker that helps you as a beginner

Text link ads are paid links that are placed on a website. These links can be bought (advertiser) or sold (publisher). These links can simply contain link anchor text pointing to a specific URL or they can be coupled with a fuller description.

Beginners should be cautious as they enter the realm of text link advertising. It is easy to overspend and not see a decent ROI. Expectations of revenue need to be adjusted as well.

For the beginner, we recommend visiting Linkworth.

Linkworth allows websites to be either an advertiser, a publisher, or both. Admittedly, Linkworth is not the prettiest website. However, there is a robust set of tools that allows for good user interaction.

As an advertiser I can create multiple text link ads (each with different wording, a different URL, etc.) and find publishers for each. Finding publishers may seem daunting when confronted with the large alphabetically ordered list of potential partners. However Linkworth does two things to make it easier for advertisers.

First, linkworth offers a robust search tool. Advertisers can search by keyword, category, linkrank, pagerank, sites that allow ad descriptions or not, link placement, amount of traffic, and price. These results can then be sorted multiple ways: by name, alexa ranking, traffic, linkrank, pagerank, etc. This kind of search allows advertisers to find the best partners for their site. It helps publishers as well. It helps them to be more easily found, rather than appear in the morass of a long list.

Second, Linkworth provides a featured partner listings. Publishers pay to be included in this listing, but this list is the very first thing presented to all advertisers. This makes it very easy to be found.

Linkworth also has the easiest means by which to display advertiser’s links: via RSS.

It is worth adding that Linkworth has notable customer service. The several times I had a question or issue, it was dealt with quickly and professionally.

So for beginners, Linkworth is recommended for its robust search capabilities and other tools, its easy ability to be found and for very good customer service.

Keep in mind, all of this alone won’t mean advertisers will choose your site. The very issues beginners struggle with the most, traffic and link popularity, are the same ones advertisers are using to assess your site. However, creating a site of value and potential can go a long way in attracting advertisers.

There are two other brokers worth considering as your site grows in traffic and link popularity.

Text Link Ads - TLA has a very sound reputation. However, it is hard to break in as a beginner. The main reason is the limited means by which advertisers can find potential ad space. For example, if I only want to return links costing $30 or less it is difficult to do so. I have to scroll the whole list or reorder it. Advanced searching would help both beginning advertisers and beginning publishers.

Adbrite - tends to cater to higher end, more popular, well trafficked websites. The beginner is lost in a sea of publishers and just can’t be found or considered.

One final note, Text Links Ads has produced a Link Buying Guide which is an ABSOLUTE MUST read. Everyone must read this before buying their first text link. It would be nice to see a corresponding link sellers guide.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/text-link-ads/”>Recommended Text Link Ad Broker</a>

Sounds approaches to gaining web traffic and revenue

To be known
To get traffic
To create revenue

Technically speaking, marketing is focused on the first part: to be known. However, on the web it is intimately tied to the other two, thus this section contains recommendations concerning all three. It is a challenge for beginners to weave these three together. It is easy to focus on one and forget the others. Hopefully, this section will help beginners develop a more sound approach to getting their website to the end result.

To be known

There are many ways for making your website known. Direct advertising consists of purchasing ad space in one form or another. Indirect advertising consists of link building, networking, and overall popularity of a website. We focus on a few of these options and recommended a best approach.

To get traffic

Sometimes it is hard to get that ball rolling. Ideally, once the ball gets momentum it keeps rolling and rolling and rolling…

To create revenue

There are multiple ways to create revenue from a website. Other than selling a product(s) outright, websites can considered a wide variety of advertising. Contextual Advertising, affiliates, text link ads are all ways websites can add to their revenue. We recommend a few key resources to consider.

Choose an item from the Internet Marketing menu on the left to learn more.

And as always, please pass along a link to Recommended Web Tools to a friend.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/internet-marketing”>Recommended Internet Marketing</a>

Optimize a PC by clearing junk data and cleaning the registry

Use a PC for one hour whether opening an application or surfing the web and the pc quickly becomes cluttered with junk. CCleaner is a free and fast way to maintain a pc and keep it clean. It cleans PC crud. In fact, the first C in their name stands for Cr…err…Crud ;-).

There are five clear benefits to using CCleaner:

1. FREE
2. Fast - cleanup takes seconds not minutes
3. Easy - simple menus, buttons and checkboxes
4. Spyware and Adware free (verified by Softpedia)
5. Lightweight - CCleaner is not loaded with bloat to slow down your system

What all does CCleaner clean?

• System Files
  • Empty Recycle Bin
  • Temporary Files
  • Clipboard
  • Memory Dumps
  • Chkdsk File Fragments
  • Windows Log Files
  • Old Prefetch Data
• IE
  • Temporary Internet Files
  • Cookies
  • History
  • Recently Typed URLs
  • Deleted Index.dat files
  • Last Download Location
  • Autocomplete for History
• Windows Explorer
  • Recent Documents
  • Run
  • Search Asst Autocomplete
  • Other Explorer MRU’s

Plus it recognizes a multitude of other applications and cleans up temporary and other files created by those programs. It recognizes Firefox and Opera and will perform the same kind of clean as it does with IE.

CCleaner will also work to clean up the system registry. CCleaner can back up the registry before any cleanup work is performed. It cleans up the following:

• Missing shared DLLs
• Unused File Extensions
• Active X and Class Issues
• Applications
• Fonts
• Application Paths
• Help Files
• Installer
• Obsolete Software
• Run at Startup
• Start Menu Ordering
• MUI Code
• Desktop Shortcuts
• Start Menu Shortcuts

CCleaner also provides an easy means to edit and remove items that Windows loads at startup.

Overall, CCleaner is a must have application for maintaining a PC. Review the five benefits above, they can’t be beat: Free, Fast, Easy, Spyware Safe and Lightweight.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/windows-cleaner”>Recommended Windows Cleaner</a>

Image resources to help make your websites shine

The tools listed in this category will help beginners create and manage a wide variety of imaging tasks: editing photos, creating web images, finding the right colors for a website, perform screen captures, and even a recommended video tool or two.

As always, the tools recommended here are beginner and wallet friendly. Unfortunately, because of the complex nature of most image software, most are not free. However, we tried to find ones that were relatively inexpensive. You won’t find a recommendation for Photoshop here. Not because it is bad software
(it isn’t), but because it is way beyond the price range for beginners (and beyond their learning curve as well). Neither will you find a recommendation for GIMP. Though free, we felt it was not beginner friendly.

What determines beginner friendliness in an imaging tool?

- great user interfaces
- intuitive design
- built-in easily accessible tutorials and/or excellent help
- the ability to easily manipulate and understand imaging tasks

Look over the list of tools to the left, click your need, and learn our recommendation. As also, feel free to disagree. Better yet, contact us with a tool you feel is better. We will review it and give our own opinion.

Find the right online payment system for your website

The following is a price comparison for a variety of merchant account/online payment options. I have created 5 different scenarios which vary the # of transactions and cost of widgets sold per month. Within each scenario are the price breakdowns for the following services: Google Checkout, Paypal Standard, Paypal Website Payments Pro, 2checkout, Electronic Transfer, Payquake, Greenzap and SWREG.

Rate information is linked to below. Additional details:

Google Checkout currently has one level of service. Google eliminates the gateway and statement fees of a typical merchant account. This scenario also assumes no Adwords spending. Google provides a certain amount of transactions for free depending on how much a seller spends on Adwords.

Paypal has several levels of service. I show both their Standard service and Pro service. The Standard service has no setup fee. The merchant rate is used when sales amounts in the scenario qualify.

Paypal Website Payment Pro service is the closest to a true merchant account. This service allows online, phone, mail, and in person payments just like a merchant account. There are two rates for this service: Standard and Merchant. The merchant rate is used when sales amounts in the scenario qualify.

Electronic Transfer is a true merchant account and has one of the lowest merchant account costs around. There is a $50 gateway setup fee.

There is a $49 setup fee for 2checkout.

There is a $89 setup fee for Payquake Pro. There is also an Annual Fee of $49.00.

There is a $100 dollar setup fee with Greenzap Gold. However, this is money that fills your account and is usable. Greenzap requires buyers to have a Greenzap account.

There is no setup fee for SWREG.

Rate Information:
Google Checkout
Paypal Standard
Paypal Pro
Electronic Transfer
2Checkout
Greenzap
Payquake
SWREG

Besides cost, there are other issues to consider.

Where does the payment transaction happen?

For the common user, switching to another website to make payment is scary. The savvy user understands the various payment programs and doesn’t mind being switched to a different site to make the payment. Are the products on your website geared towards the common Internet user or the savvy Internet user? That will help determine what kind of payment system you use.

Google Checkout, Paypal Standard, 2Checkout, Greenzap, and SWREG all conduct the transaction on their own website.

Paypal Pro, Electronic Transfer and Payquake are all true merchant account solutions which integrate with a shopping cart that would exist on your own website. Paypal Pro still requires you employ a mechanism to allow Paypal users to use their Paypal account.

Advantages of true merchant accounts:

1. Accept payments via website, phone, mail and in-person. Most offer virtual terminal services that allow sellers to make a transaction via a website portal.
2. Fraud protection including Address Verification Service.
3. Merchant accounts and their providers are more highly regulated and “watched” than third party merchant provider like Paypal Standard.
4. Money you earn is deposited directly into your bank account unlike third party services.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/merchant-account-comparison/”>Merchant Account Comparison</a>

Cheap web hosting for a single site

Mysitespace offers a reasonably priced plan to host a single web site. This is ideal for beginners wanting to host a website with their own domain name.

The Unix Pro plan details:

$4.95/month paid quarterly ($4.44/month paid yearly)
500MB storage
6GB bandwidth

The price is difficult to beat. A lost of hosts hover around $6.95 or $7.95 a month. For $4.95/month, Mysitespace’s plan is highly competitive. Not only is the storage and bandwidth more than adequate for beginners, but the plan also includes one MySql database (perfect for running a blog) and supports php and perl.

Customer Service

Mysitespace provides support via an email ticketing system. The account panel provides an interface for users to submit support tickets. Mysitespace states they will answer all emails within 4 hrs. I personally have had most of mine responded to within 2 to 3 hours. This may seem like a long time to some. However, for the price I am not going to complain especially since my problems are usually solved the first time around. I have been more than satisfied.

Cpanel

Like most web hosts, Mysitespace’s interface to the administrative website fuctions is Cpanel. Mysitespace tweaks and customizes the look and feel of cpanel just enough to be friendlier to users. I have found this to be helpful.

This plan is ideal if:
- you are a beginner looking to test the web development waters
- want to host a single site for a reasonable price
- want a cheap way to play around with developing real websites
- cheap sandbox

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/affordable-web-hosting/”>Affordable Web Hosting</a>

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A web page (all individual web pages) should be optimized for a particular keyword phrase.

Why?

When someone enters a phrase into a search engine, they are asking a question. The pages that return in the results are the answers that the search engine believes are best at answering the question.

The key is to create web pages that specifically answer the questions that searchers are asking. Enter keyword analysis.

Keyword analysis is a three step approach:

1) Find the questions (keyword phrases) that searchers ask about YOUR TOPIC

2) Gauging the general health of those keyword phrases - can they produce qualified traffic?

3) Can a page realistically grab part of the traffic for that keyword phrase?

Searcher’s Questions

Lets say a cooking website wants to have a section of web pages about lasagna. They enter “lasagna” into a keyword analysis tool. The results returned are a list of keyword phrases and numbers. Entirely forget the numbers at this point. Look down the list of keywords. These represent the questions searchers are asking about lasagna. Looking over the list is there a question or two that a web page could easily answer? The list contains a lot of references to lasagna recipes. Clearly, people are looking for lasagna recipes. In question form, they are asking “What are some good lasagna recipes?” Creating a web page or even a section on lasagna recipes maybe a good idea since there seems to be general interest in the topic.

Keyword Health

What is a healthy keyword?

Any keyword phrase in which there is a reasonable amount of potential traffic, relative to the industry to which the keyword is related, for a keyword of specificity.

“Lasagna” and “Lasagna Recipes” have the most generous numbers in terms of traffic. However, a keyword needs to be able to produce qualified traffic. Qualified traffic is best built with specificity. One and two word keyword phrases are generally best left for actual domain names or home pages. For internal web pages it is best to focus on three or four word keyword phrases. However, in this particular case, “lasagna” produces a level of specificity in many t0o word phrases: “seafood lasagna”, “vegetable lasagna”, “mexican lasagna”, “chicken lasagna”. Don’t rule out common sense when searching for specificity. In this case, these two word phrases fit the bill. In this case, a web page can be developed around each of these phrases. So instead of just one page about lasagna, there can be four pages about very specific kinds of lasagna.

But what about potential traffic? Each of those four keywords, according to a variety of keyword tools, could produce up to 50-200 visitors a day . Multiply by four (for each of the new lasagna pages) that is 200-800 a day or 8000 to 24000 a month.

A word about traffic. These numbers do not represent the number of visitors that will ACTUALLY end up on those web pages. It is simply a picture of POTENTIAL. There are no guarantees. A page not only has to be keyword optimized but other factors need to be in place before a page can rank well for a keyword phrase. What the numbers do indicate is HEALTH. For some out there, a potential monthly audience of 8000 to 24000 may be small. Remember, this is for four web pages. Four pages that could draw a decent amount of traffic into a much larger site. Remember as well, that these numbers are relative to the industry. No, they will not pull in the amount of traffic that “Pamela Anderson” does, but relative to the lasagna/food/cooking industry they are decent indeed.

It is best to use a variety of keyword tools to determine potential traffic. Each tool will produce a different number. Creating a RANGE of potential traffic helps set more realistic expectations. If a site ranks well for these keyword terms then expect anywhere from 25% to 75% of those potential traffic numbers to actually visit. How a web page is listed in the SERPS will affect whether it is clicked or not and that is an article for another day.

Keyword Difficulty

Questions have been found that can be answered. Healthy keywords have been identified. How difficult will it be to rank well for these keywords? Is it possible to rank well to grab a portion of that traffic? The simplest test is to perform a search. Type “vegetable lasagna” in Google and look at the results. Look for the following:

• How many of the top ten results are home pages? How many are internal web pages? The more actual home pages in the top ten, then most likely the more difficult it will be to rank well for that term. In the case of “vegetable lasagna”, there are no home pages returned. That is good news!
• Look at the web page titles. Does “vegetable lasagna” appear in the title of the web page? Do they appear together or seperately? Pages where the terms appear together will be more competitive than those where they are separated.
• Look at the web site description. Does “vegetable lasagna” even appear in the description? If yes, then more competitive.
• Look at the URL. Does “vegetable lasagna” appear in the URL? If yes, then it is more competitive.

While there does seem to be decent competition for “vegetable lasagna”, it is not formidable. Remember, a well optimized web page focused on a specific keyword can do amazingly well even with little offpage optimization efforts.

Read the keyword popularity research article to learn more about a sound keyword analysis approach.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/keyword-analysis/”> Understanding Keyword Analysis</a>

While Internet Explorer is on the majority of users desktops, Firefox has made steady inroads into the web browser market share. 42% of visitors to the RWT website use Firefox. We would like to see that percentage move over 50% by the end of the year. So, why choose Firefox?

Tabbed Browsing

Users work with multiple windows open. However, we have found that having multiple browser windows becomes overwhelming. Tabbed browsing means being able to open multiple websites within the same “window” session. Each open website exists on its on tab within the browser. Tabbed browsing provides a better user experience. It also maintains a certain level of organization. Additionally, multiple home pages can be set when the browser is opened. Tabbed browsing allows for a more efficient and effective browsing experience.

Standards Based

Firefox conforms to current W3C web standards. Why is this a big deal? When a website is developed according to said standards it will behave properly when viewed via Firefox. Other browsers overcompensate for poor web development. They “work around” poor code and display it how they think it was intended. While in some ways this is good, in the long run it works against having any sort of standards in the first place. Firefox avoids this by sticking to the standards.

Pop-Up Blocking

Firefox has a built in pop-up blocker. No need to install a toolbar or any other program. Users can allow pop-ups on a per-site basis.

Community

There is a large and supportive community of developers and users surrounding Firefox. This creates an immediate “help desk” of sorts. There are numerous sites/forums available to get help for Firefox if it is ever needed.

Customization

Through extensions and plugins, Firefox can be customized. Typically extensions consist of tools that make tasks easier. Take the Snapper extension as an example. It allows users to create a snapshot of any portion of the screen. Once installed no other software is needed and creating well-defined snapshots is a breeze. This is but a tiny example of the multitude of extensions available.

Our only wish is that more IT depts. within corporations would support Firefox. Once this happens on a large scale Firefox will easily catch up to IE in terms of market share. We would love to hear from you if your company officially allows users to use Firefox.

Firefox Help Resources
Open Source Articles
Firefox Support

While we strongly recommended Firefox, we also support the initiative of Browse Happy which seeks to have users switch from IE to one of four alternative browsers.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/web-browser”>Recommended Web Browser</a>

Life on the web requires a certain software toolset. While most of these tools are not web development related, they are necessary for anyone who wants to maintain a safe and efficient web experience. This Utilities section provides recommendations for software that fits in one of two categories:

Web Utilities

We cover software directly related to life on the web: Web browsers, email clients, firewalls, anti-virus software etc. As usual we try to find software that is relatively inexpensive or free. However, when it comes to some of the “protection” software such as anti-virus ware, we recommend products that do cost a little more. When it comes to protecting a pc, there is no need to skimp.

PC Utilities

Can’t access the web if the pc is running slow or is corrupted. We recommended software that keeps a pc humming along. We also recommended various tools that make a pc a far more powerful tool. Items such as desktop search, zip utilities and the like add a further dimension to the capabilities of a basic pc.

Our goal is to equip readers with a basic toolset. As always, we try to pick tools that are very beginner friendly. Look over the menu on the left and find our recommendations for a variey of utilities.

For some, validation is a royal pain. For others, website validation exemplifies the ultimate proof that code is poetry.

Why Validate?

• search engines can spider a page more easily. An error prone page gives spiders fits.
• clean web pages help attract and maintain web visitors
• web pages render better
• web pages are faster
• validation helps coders write better code
• validation is a great learning tool for beginning developers
• some clients demand standards compliant web pages

What tools can be used?

First and foremost, the tools provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are a good starting place.

Their HTML validator can only check one web page at a time. This is a problem with most validators. For large sites, it becomes difficult to maintain validation without some kind of enterprise wide tool (read: expensive). Most other validators use the W3C validator as their base.

Their CSS Validator checks a websites cascading style sheet to make sure their are no errors. The tool was recently updated in 2005 and it is much stricter. It now produces a laundry list of warnings. While these warnings do not invalidate a CSS file, they do cause beginners to have a small heart attack. Warnings are just warnings. The key thing to correct are the errors!

There is finally a tool on the market that makes validation quite easy: Total Validator.

Total Validator is an online and a desktop tool that can be used to validate any number of websites. It offers the following five tools:

• HTML Validation - Total Validator spiders a complete website and validates EACH page. Woohoo! No more validating a page at a time! Complete website validation is offered only through the desktop tool which costs $35. The online version will check up to 20 pages at one time.
• Accessibility - Total Validator will check the website for issues regarding accessibility.
• Browser Shots - Total Validator will take a snapshot of your starting page in any selected browser. Great way to see how your website looks in all the main browsers. Again, for a mere donation, this more than beats some of the services that offer this for a monthly fee.
• Spell Check - Woohoo! Spell check your WHOLE website! A life saver.
• Link Checker - Total Validator will check your website for all broken links.

This is an impressive tool. The only catch: you have to be responsible enough to run it often. And thats not the tool’s problem ;-).

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/website-validation/”>Recommended Website Validation Tools</a>

1. The Domain Name Handbook
2. Keyword Analysis
3. Search Engine Optimization Tip
4. Diigo Social Bookmarking
5. Website Validation
6. 10 Things Text Link Brokers Can Improve
7. 10 Text Link Advertising Pitfalls
8. Three Problems with Google Analytics
9. Merchant Account Comparison

What is ecommerce?

Commerce that is conducted over the Internet, typically via a website.

Any website that sells a product of any kind is an ecommerce website. Running ecommerce websites requires another set of tools and resources in order to make it successful.

While the principles of basic website development and design still pertain, ecommerce websites needs to concern themselves with moving visitors from landing page to purchase.

• Marketing

  A product, if it is to be sold successfully, needs to be known. On the Internet, various means can be employed to market a product or a website. We are developing a section related soley to Internet Marketing.

• Shopping Cart

  The user experience when checking out is very important. Shopping cart solutions can either be hosted along with a website or outsourced to another company.

• Payments

  Accepting credit cards provides additonal security and efficiency to any transaction. Choosing the right merchant account is critical.

• Tracking

  Who is buying the product? How are they getting to the site? What path do they take to get to make a purchase? Are sales goals per visitor being met? All these items need to be tracked in order to improve the performance of an ecommerce website. We will suggest the best tools for the job.

• Security

  Financial transactions need to be secure. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Using a SSL certificate in combination with shopping cart software is essential.

Find links to these and other resources under the Ecommerce menu in the sidebar. As always, please email us with any recommendations.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/ecommerce/”>Recommended Ecommerce Resources</a>

Can anyone develop a website? We argue that anyone who can create a well formatted document in a word processor can create a website. True, web development and design is a little more complicated, but the essentials steps are the same. With a little patience and perseverance, web skills can be nurtured and matured.

• Learning

  The two basic components any prospective web developer needs to learn are HTML and CSS. These two “languages” form the basic structure of any web page. Of any language within the computer realm, HTML is the easiest to learn. Know the basic structure of a business letter? Then learning the basic structure of an HTML page is within reach. We recommended both HTML Tutorials and CSS Tutorials for anyone to get started. We also recommended more comprehensive web site design tutorials that pull together both those skills to build quality web sites.

• Development and Design

  Learning the necessary skills is just the beginning. Put it into practice! We offer recommendations for web hosting which can enable development in a “live” environment. It takes time and much trial and error to pull together a well formed web site. We hope the growing resources on this site will help readers accomplish that task!

• Fine Tuning

  Web development and design is an “always learning” kind of experience. This site was redesigned four times before we were satisfied (not quite sure we still are). A fifth time can be counted if one accounts for a small reorganization of content. Please note, we were beginners when we began this site. This site is written for beginners because we understand the frustration in finding quality information and resources. Do not be intimidated by the big dogs. Keep it simple, be patient, learn and practice.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/web-development-and-design/”>Web Development and Design Help</a>

Tables in HTML can get messy and make your site “heavy” with code. Though CSS can be tricky at times, in the end you will have a slick looking “lightweight” site. CSS should be learned alongside learning HTML. The following CSS Tutorials should provide an excellent start.

What can be accomplished via CSS? Head over to CSS Zen Garden to catch a vision of what you can do. On this site you can see the power of CSS in action.

Having caught the vision of CSS, put it into practice. The first place to start is CSS Tutorial, yet another site in the Killersites family. CSS Tutorial introduces beginners to CSS in three simple lessons.

After those simple lessons move on to CSS Max Design to learn more about defining a website layout with CSS. Click on the Floatutorial section. Lessons eight and nine are web site layout tutorials. Practice building both a two column and three column layout. Try using the same content for each layout - this is where the power of CSS comes in. CSS can take any content, and then present it anyway you want. Go back to the CSS Zen Garden site to see how this works.

Once you have a three column layout, take it to the next level. Design it so that the content of your page comes first, and everything else comes last. Position Is Everything has a tutorial just for that task. Following their design, all columns will end up being the same length no matter the size of the content inside them, and it will translate well to all browsers.

For advanced CSS users, West Civ is the place to go. They offer a wide selection of free tutorials. You may also purchase some more heavy duty courses that go more in depth. Their prices are reasonable when compared to purchasing a computer book from a local retailer.

The following sites are all the tutorials needed to learn how to build web sites using HTML and CSS. For easy reference, those sites are the following:

How-To-Build-Websites
Killersites
Secret Sites
W3Schools
CSS Zen Garden
CSS Tutorial
CSS Max Design
Position Is Everything
West Civ

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/css-tutorials/”>Recommended CSS Tutorials</a>

For easy to read, short and to the point lessons about HTML, a beginner should head over to HTMLDog.

While offering lessons in HTML at beginning, intermediate and advanced levels, the language used is all beginner friendly. The best thing about the short lessons is the exclusion of extraneous discussion that is often found in HTML books that just end up confusing beginners. So while more can be said for each HTML element, HTMLDog offers beginners just the right amount to get the concept.

HTMLDog strongly encourages beginners to hand code web pages (we agree) and to follow XHTML 1.0 strict web standards (it took a while, but we agree to). For a closer look read this blog post about HTMLDog.

One of the more classic and better known site for HTML tutorials (and for basic HTML reference) is W3Schools. Their HTML tutorials cover the following topics:

• Elements
• Tags
• Formatting
• Entities
• Links
• Frames
• Tables
• Lists
• Forms
• Images
• Background
• Colors
• plus much more

Keep in mind the majority of the content is kept at the basic level. It is not necessarily the place to go to learn more advanced techniques.

Why W3Schools is recommended:

• Easy explanations
• Excellent reference guide
• Try-It-Yourself On-Line Examples
• Free!

W3Schools also has tutorials on the following topics:

• XHTML
• CSS
• TCP/IP
• XML
• Javascript
• PHP
• plus others.

For more mini-lessons and resources about HTML visit our blog archives.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/html-tutorials/”>Recommended HTML Tutorials</a>

We define website optimization as the process by which a website is streamlined to become more efficient for three audiences: the website developer, the website reader and the search engine. Or to put it in question form: Does the website work? Is the website usable? Can the website be found?

Developers - Does the website work?

A website that is broken is frustrating for readers and typically ignored by the search engines. Granted all websites are broken to some degree. It is difficult to maintain 100% validation. However some level of due diligence to website maintance goes a long way.

• Is the website filled with errors?
  • HTML Validation - the code is current and up to standard.
  • CSS Validation - the CSS file is current, up to standard, and efficient.
  • Feed validation - are RSS feeds accessible and valid?
• How fast do pages load?
  • do webpages load within 8 seconds?
  • image laden websites, though cool, slow a website down
  • table based websites are weightier than CSS based websites

Readers - Is the website usable?

Ok, now that a website works, do readers find it usable? A web developer may be his or her own worse critic, but there no one more critical than a reader/user. Users make decisions about a website in a blink of an eye. It is almost an impossible standard.

Consider the following:

• navigation - does the website make it easy for users to get around?
• content - is there real content that users want to read?
• value - does the structure and content of website add value?

Search Engines - Can the website be found?

You like it, your readers like it, can do the search engines like it? Is the content of the website structured so that the search engines can easily discern the nature of each web page. Remember, SEO is not about websites but about web pages.

Search engine optimization is a combination of the following elements:

• keyword analysis - what are people searching for?
• onpage optimization - how should web pages be structured?
• link building - how can others more actively link to a site?

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/website-optimization/”>Website Optimization Help</a>

mysitespace also offers free web hosting. Here are the details:

• Support for your own domain name or yourname.mysitespace.com
• 20MB of disk space
• 1 GB data transfer per month
• Power cPanel User Control Panel
• FTP Support
• Microsoft FrontPage® and Dreamweaver Support
• Web based file manager - easy to upload your pages.
• PHP and CGI (limited)
• Several pre-installed scripts.
• Fast activation.
• Your site must display a link or banner for mysitespace.com

Give their free web hosting a try. It’s ideal place to start for someone just beginning to learn the ropes of the web. The amount of disk space is very limited, but it is enough to play around with. We recommended free web hosting as a training/learning environment. Learning HTML? CSS? PHP? Sign up for free web hosting and develop in an actual “live” environment. Not only will those web programming skills be honed, but website administration skills as well.

Link to This Page:
<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/free-web-hosting/”>Recommended Free Web Hosting Package</a>

Choices choices everywhere. There are essentially six items to look at when deciding on a cheap web hosting plan : Reliability, Price, Bandwidth, Disk Space, Services and Hosting Location.

• Reliability. The web hosting industry is fraught with stories of downed servers and unhappy customers. The number one thing a web hosting compnay provides is uptime. Don’t pay attention to the percentage of uptime (ie many will advertise 99.9% uptime, etc.). Do pay attention to other user’s recommendations.
• Price. It is easy to overpay for services not needed. A beginner should look at paying no more than $5-$10/month. A lot of web hosting that is suitable for the beginner or even small to medium size websites falls within that price range.
• Bandwidth. For a text based/few images website like RWT, 5 GB of bandwidth would be the equivalent of 750 visitors a day or around 40,000 pageviews a month. Most web host offer at least 5 GB of bandwidth which is more than enough for beginners.
• Disk Space. Disk space keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. Diskspace starts at around 500mb and goes up from there. This website isn’t yet close to using up 100 MB of space. Web hosts provide more than is needed. However, graphic intensive or download intensive websites will need ALL the space they can get.
• Services. A web hosting company should provide a package that includes at a minimum: PHP, MySQL, and email. Any blogging application like WordPress or MovableType will require the MySQL database as well as PHP. Be careful with the version of PHP a web host provides. PHP 5 has been known to break many current PHP applications. Make sure any applications using PHP are compatible with version 5 otherwise make sure the web host provides a version of PHP 4.
• Hosting Location The actual physical location where the web hosting company’s servers are located is very important. Why? Back to point number one: reliability. Ask this question: Is the web hosting company located in a country where the infrastructure is reliable and stable? By infrastructure, we include items like the economy and utilities. Contact the company by phone to verify the location of their servers.

Keep in mind that 500 mb of storage and 6 GB of bandwidth is rapidly bring replaced as a “basic package”. Several hosts are now offering way more than a 1 GB of storage and over 100 GB’s of bandwidth within the $5-10 range. These numbers are more than sufficient for any beginner. Overkill really. But if they offer it take advantage of it!

Check out our recommendations for hosting multiple sites, free website hosting, and ecommerce hosting.

Link to This Page:
<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/web-hosting/”>Choosing a Web Hosting Company</a>

Registering for a domain name requires an individual or business to submit private information that can be easily accessible. anyone doing a WHOIS search can access this information.

Give it a try.

Go to any name registrar or go to BetterWHOIS. Enter the name of a website that already exists. The site will inform you that the name is already taken. It will also list the registrant info: the admin contact, the technical contact and even the name servers and ip addresses where their site is located. ANY domain registrar allows users to run this WHOIS information. Techies can run it via special tools or from simple command line sessions. Try it again but enter the information of a website or a blog of someone you know. Wha la!!..you now have their name and address and telephone number.

PROTECT YOURSELF!

Register privately. By paying the additional $9 or so to register privately all personal information is hidden. Yes, this doubles the cost of registration. However, some registrars already charge $15-20 for a regular registration. For $17 you can secure a private domain name registration!

Click here to see the comparison between a public registration and a private one:
Private Registration Example

In this age of security it is WISE to register privately.

Don’t forget to check out my Domain Name Handbook, a simple look at choosing, registering and managing domain names. It is available as a free non-printable download.

Link to This Page:

<a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/index.php/private-domain-name-registration/”>Recommended Private Domain Name Registrar</a>

My article on keyword popularity research pointed out the major flaws with all keyword analysis tools.

To overcome those flaws, a more comprehensive approach needs to be taken. Simply relying on a single tool is not enough. There are five key parts to keyword analysis and web page optimization:

1) Find popular/traffic driving keywords
2) Determine keyword health
3) Determine the level of competitive difficultly for each keyword phrase
4) Practice onpage optimization for each web page
5) Practice offpage optimization for each web page

This article will discuss the set of keyword suggestion tools that should be used to do comprehensive keyword research and find those popular and traffic driving keywords.

The tools listed here should help web masters determine answers to two major questions:

What are alternative suggestions for a keyword or a keyword phrase?
Is there potential traffic for this keyword?

Most tools answers both of these questions at the same time.

Web masters can, at the very least, glean a sense of the amount of traffic for a keyword. Discovering the actual amount for a keyword is impossible. These tools can let a web master know that there is enough health in a keyword to consider pursuing it more fervently.

There are two main tools that web masters to use to find the answers to these questions. The first is the Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Selector Tool (formerly known as the Overture Keyword Selector Tool). Use this tool to gauge the traffic a keyword phrase garners from Overture search users. Remember, Overture traffic data tends to be overinflated especially for popular terms. The key is to see if the keyword phrase has any decent amount of traffic. Also, look at the other keyword phrases that Overture suggests. Any others that are useful and have a decent amount of traffic?

Next mosey on over to Wordtracker. Enter a few of the keywords that have promising traffic according to Overture. Actually, only the very first screen in Wordtracker is of interest. The left pane will provide some alternative keywords. The right pane will produce the count or traffic numbers. The count number is from it’s Dogpile/Metacrawler data. There is no need to purchase a Wordtracker subscription. The number of interest is the count not the KEI. The count is the same no matter which search engine is used. Even though the free version of Wordtracker is pulling AltaVista data, the only thing it is pulling from AltaVista is the competition number. The competition number and KEI are not of interest at this point. See my Wordtracker review for more details.

Remember that Overture’s number is for the last month. Wordtracker data is over the last two m