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Color Your Website With These Seven Tools

July 23, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
color_wheel

One of the hardest aspects of creating a website is selecting the colors to use.

Often you’ll start with a logo or a photograph that is the jumping off point for the color scheme. But where do you go from there? This can be a real quandary.

Thankfully, the web abounds with tools that can help you select the right colors for your new website.

Here are seven tools that can help make the difficult job of choosing a website color scheme that much easier:

  • 0to255 — a simple tool that helps web designers find variations of any color; perfect for hovers, borders, gradients, and more;
  • kuler — explore, create, and share color themes;
  • Color Scheme Designer — generate color schemes;
  • ColourLovers — a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns;
  • Color Palette Generator — create a color palette to match an image;
  • Color Schemer Gallery — website ready color schemes;
  • Daily Color Scheme — a new color scheme every day.

I’ve also listed these on the Resources page of this website which I’ll be updating on a regular basis.

What are your favorite tools for selecting website colors? Leave me a comment and a link to the website.


Photo: unleashingmephotography

Filed Under: All Things Web, Resources, WordPress

Why Your Business Needs a Website

May 28, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
Open for Business

With all the hype about social media these days, many businesses are neglecting their websites and focusing their marketing efforts solely on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some new businesses don’t even have websites. These business owners are counting on the popularity of social media to carry their message(s) to their customers. And, let’s face it, they think, social media is “free” and websites aren’t — so why not ditch the website in favor of a Facebook page?

That kind of thinking is wrong. Social media is not “free” — it takes a lot of time to maintain Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and time is money, especially for a small business owner.

Here’s the best reason to have a website: it’s the best way to reach your customers.

Think about this: what about your customers who aren’t on Facebook and Twitter? How do you reach them? What about the fact that Facebook’s advertisers are placing ads — perhaps competitor’s ads — on your page? What about the fact that you, the business owner, don’t own the information on your Facebook page? (Surprise! Facebook owns that data.)

If these facts don’t give you reason to reconsider your “I don’t need a website” thinking, consider this:

“Search engines, which are still the most popular way by far to find information online, use website and blog traffic to determine your ranking.” — Ramon Ray, Open Forum Blog

Here’s the truth:

You should be using social media to augment, not replace, your website content.

I could go on and on, but I don’t need to as Ramon Ray has already written a great post about this on American Express’ Open Forum blog:

30 Reasons Why Old Fashioned Websites and Email Marketing are Best for Growing Businesses

Read it. You’ll be glad you did.

Image Credit

Filed Under: All Things Web, Social Media

The Perils of Passwords

January 25, 2010 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment
safe

One of the most popular articles in last week’s NY Times was “If Your Password is 123456, Just Make it HackMe.” You’re probably laughing right now, but take a look at the article, and you might stop laughing when you realize that your favorite password — the one you thought was so clever — is actually on the list of most popular passwords.

There’s no question why we choose easy-to-remember passwords, even when we know we shouldn’t. Now companies are forcing us to choose something a bit more complicated than, say, “password” (number 3 on the list). Recently Twitter banned subscribers from using 370 of the most popular passwords. You can see a list of banned passwords here. Security experts have lots of advice on how to choose passwords; see the Times article for some tips and browse the comments for reader suggestions. At the least you should follow this advice:

… bowing to the reality of our overcrowded brains, the experts suggest that everyone choose at least two different passwords — a complex one for Web sites where security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for places where the stakes are lower, such as social networking and entertainment sites.

One tool that can help is the Secure Password Generator located at PC Tools, which will generate a random password; there is a secure version located here. Just remember to note the password somewhere so that you’re not locked out of your favorite site the next time you visit.

Photo: rpongsaj

Filed Under: All Things Web Tagged With: security

How To Tell If Your Website Has Been Hacked

July 8, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

In my previous posting, I discussed how users who don’t upgrade to the most recent version of WordPress can leave their websites vulnerable to hacking. But all types of websites can be hacked — not just those built with WordPress.

“If you own or manage a website, you are responsible for that website’s security. Compromised websites can infect visitors with badware, and are commonly blacklisted by search engines, web browsers, and security vendors. Many legitimate websites are the targets of malicious hacking attacks, during which code linking directly to badware is inserted onto an otherwise innocent, but poorly secured, website.” (StopBadware.org)

On a regular basis, all website owners/administrators should check their sites for badware by using these tools:

Hopefully, your website will pass these diagnostic tests. However, if you do find badware, you’ll need to remove it. You can find tips for doing this at StopBadware and BadwareBusters.

WordPress users can find tips on keeping WordPress installations secure at “Hardening WordPress.”

Once you’ve removed the badware from your site, you should request a review of your website from the services that have issued warnings: Google, StopBadware, and/or SiteAdvisor. If you don’t, visitors to your website may see the following warning: “This site may hurt your computer.”

Filed Under: All Things Web, WordPress Tagged With: Google, security, web tools

How to Create a Favicon

June 18, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

When you create a website, one of the things you should do before launching your site is create a favicon. A favicon is an icon that appears next to a URL in the address bar of a web browser.

To create your own favicon, follow these steps:

  1. Create the image you would like to use as your favicon using a graphics program such as Photoshop. If you don’t own a graphics program, you can use a free one such as GIMP. Because a favicon is tiny (only 16 pixels x 16 pixels), it’s important to keep the design simple.
  2. Save your design as a gif, jpeg, png, or bmp.
  3. Upload your image to one of the many favicon generators available on the Internet. I use the favicon generator at Dynamic Drive. Download the newly created favicon and make sure it is named “favicon.ico”.
  4. Upload your favicon to your website. It should be placed in the root directory of your website (do not place the favicon in an images folder).
  5. For HTML pages, place this code in the head section of each web page: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=/favicon.ico”> — if you are using WordPress, you can find instructions on editing your page header here.

That’s all there is to it!

Sometimes you can’t see your favicon even though you’ve followed all the correct steps. If so, empty your browser cache and then refresh your page. Your favicon should appear.

Filed Under: All Things Web, WordPress Tagged With: DIY, free

Stolen Websites: How to Protect Your Site

June 4, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

You’ve worked hard to create your website. Now it’s available for all the world to see. Unfortunately, some people will also believe it’s available to steal. Here are some ways to protect yourself against website theft.

  1. Copyscape: use Copyscape to search for copies of your web content. If you discover someone is using your work and passing it off as their own, dive into Copyscape’s list of resources and suggestions for what to do if you discover you’ve been plagirized. Place a Copyscape banner on your website pages. This does not protect your work, but it does discourage would-be thieves.
  2. Place a copyright notice at the end of each blog posting: “Copyright [year] [your name]. All Rights Reserved. Look at the end of this posting, and you’ll see my copyright.
  3. The folks at WordPress suggest using a more-detailed copyright notice on your blog, stating what uses you will and won’t allow. I’ve placed this copyright in my sidebar. If you do not want excerpts of your work used, you can modify the notice to remove that language. This article also includes some other great ideas for protecting your work and gives suggestions on what to do if your work has been stolen.
  4. There are good suggestions in an article at Freelance Switch, including a novel use of Google Alerts: “… choose one or more phrases that are relatively unique to your work, place them in quotes and set up a Google Alert to notify you automatically when a match is found.”
  5. Use watermarks on your images. Other suggestions can be found on this posting from Web Resources Depot.

While there are no guarantees that your work won’t be stolen, taking some, or all, of these steps should help. And should the worst occur, you can follow these steps to recover your website property.

Copyright 2010 Regina Fried. All Rights Reserved.

Filed Under: All Things Web, WordPress, Writing Tagged With: blog, Google, Images, web content

Browser Woes

May 29, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

You’ve finished creating your new website and sent it out into the World Wide Web. You’re so excited, you can’t help visiting it over and over, marveling at what you’ve accomplished (I know — I’ve been there). It looks great — looks great that is, viewed on your computer, using Internet Explorer (IE). But then a colleague calls to let you know that when he looks at your website, on his computer, it doesn’t look so great. In fact, it looks pretty bad. Why would this happen? It turns out your colleague doesn’t use IE. He uses Firefox or Safari or …

And that is the source of your problem: a website that looks good in one web browser, might not look good in another web browser. I call this the “Browser Woes.”

Let me explain.

A web browser is the software program you use to view web pages; you’re using one right now to read this article. Many people are surprised to learn that not everyone uses IE. In fact, there are many web browsers available — the most popular are IE, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera. Complicating matters is the fact that not everyone uses the most current version of a browser, so while you might be using the current version of IE (8.0), someone else might still be using IE 6.0. Websites also perform differently on different platforms (Windows, Linux, MAC OS, etc.).

Experienced web designers know that they have to test websites to be sure they work and look good in, at least, the most popular web browsers. When I’m creating a website, I use software to simulate how it will perform in various browsers. I also test it on different computers — both Macs and PCs. But what if you can’t do that? How can you test your website? Submit it to BrowserShots. Here is how the service is explained on its home page:

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

Browser shots is easy to use: enter the URL of your site and select the web browsers and platforms you want to check. Within 30 minutes, you’ll get a series of screenshots comparing, for example, how your website looks on a PC using Google Chrome to how it looks on a Mac using Firefox. Browsershots also allows you to click on each screenshot to see a larger image.

If you’re satisfied that your website looks good across the most popular browsers, you can launch it to the world. But if you see a problem, you’ll have to determine what is causing it, correct it, and resubmit the website to BrowserShots for another check.

If you notice that your site looks good in Firefox, but not IE (this is one of the most common problems web designers face), you might be tempted to simply slap a disclaimer on your website — something to this effect:

“This site works best in Firefox 3.0. Download it here.”

Don’t do it. You’re asking your visitor to take an extra step to view your site. And there’s a good chance that she might leave and go to a competitor’s site. Instead, fix the problem (try searching the web for help if you can’t figure it out on your own) or, if you can’t correct it, revise the website so the problem is eliminated.

Filed Under: All Things Web Tagged With: DIY, free, web tools

Will This Drive Traffic to My Site?

May 19, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

This is one of the most common questions clients ask me. With each revision or addition of new content, a website owner hopes s/he has finally discovered the magic formula for driving traffic to a website. Meta tags, Google sitemap submissions, links — do any of these work? And if not, what does?

I wish there was one simple answer, but alas, Sad Day (as my daughter would say), there is not. It takes work to rise above the cacophony of voices on the Internet. Since I launched my blog, I’ve been reading extensively on this subject and studying a lot of other blogs. The Internet is full of suggestions on how to promote websites and blogs — so many that if I followed all of the available advice, my fingers would never leave this keyboard. It’s difficult to separate the good advice from the bad.

I wish, before I had undertaken this task (oops! I mean labor of love), that I had read this excellent article by NY Times reporter Azadeh Ensha on this very subject. Of course, it wasn’t published then …

10 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Site

Some of these were on my To Do List and have already been accomplished, but HitTail is new to me. Oh, there is no rest for the weary.

Filed Under: All Things Web, WordPress Tagged With: attracting readers, blog, DIY

Writing for the Web

April 7, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

When writing web copy:

  • make it simple,
  • keep it short.

Readers on the web tend to scan text. They don’t read every word. Faced with a long block of copy and unfamiliar terms, they stop short. Maybe they leave and go to another site.

To avoid that, follow these suggestions:

  • Go easy on the jargon. Every industry has its own terminology and at times you have to use it. If your audience includes those unfamiliar with these terms, though, you risk losing those people. Use “plain” language whenever you can.
  • Lose the modifiers — adjectives and adverbs have their place, but you weaken your copy by overusing them. Use strong nouns and verbs and you’ll make your point — effectively and efficiently;
  • Axe those multi-syllabic words and long sentences. I’ve read that web content should be written at an 8th grade level. Keeping this suggestion in mind will help you write better copy;
  • Don’t try to cram too much into one place. Focus on one idea per paragraph;
  • Finally, another tip. Use bulleted lists. They make for easier reading.
Filed Under: All Things Web, Writing Tagged With: web content

Why Your Email Should Be Plain-Text

March 31, 2009 By Regina Fried Leave a Comment

From TechRepublic comes this great idea for ensuring that your emails can be read on all devices: use plain-text email. It seems that “reading image-rich e-mail messages on … BlackBerrys [and other smart phones] is a major pain.” Read the rest of the post here.

Filed Under: All Things Web Tagged With: Email
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