This is a question that web designers often need to ask.

It is very important to know what you want to use your website for, before it is designed.

• Do you just need to display information of your company?
• Do you want to promote a certain service you are providing?
• Do you want to list your products?
• Do you want to sell products online?
• Do you want to talk about a specific subject or a group of subjects?

It is very important to know this, because there are aspects to keep in mind when designing each of these types of websites.

An informational website for your company could to have a corporate, straight forwards look. Sometimes this is even true for companies that deal with children, pets, and other playful subjects.
Websites for promoting services or listing products can have different looks. Promoting electronic services will probably have a different look than promoting childcare services. A hospitality product manufacturer would display his products differently than a machinery factory.

Knowing what the purpose will be also helps to prepare for targeting your audience. An informational site is more for others who need to find organizational information about your company or yourself. An e-commerce website, where goods and services are sold, needs a more wide spread advertising campaign, because the more people know of your online shop, the more you can sell.

Conclusion
Be sure you know what the purpose of your website is. This will not only help the designer create something that suits the purpose, but will make it easier to promote.

This is also one of the reasons why web designers can’t answer the question “What does a website cost?” with a straight answer.

People, who know that I’m designing, easily walk up to me with this question: How much for a website?

My answer usually starts with: How much does it cost to build a house? That usually brings the point across: You can’t know, until you know what’s supposed to be on the website.

To build a house you need to know how many rooms, what material is preferred, what kind of roof, etc. With websites you also need to know what the purpose of this site is, what type of applications are needed (guestbook, forums, portfolio, gallery, shopping cart).

And even when you tell a web designer what you need for your site, don’t expect a straight answer right away. They will always let you know that they need to check out every possibility for that what you want, so they can give you a right price.

But, it’s always good to know exactly what you want on your site, if you want a verbal estimate for building your site.

Get your butt off the computer, and in the kitchen. Or just print this out for the person who normally does the cooking in the home.

Let’s make some pepper sauce, or maybe just some healthy extra for your food.

What you need
2 unions
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of vinegar
3 juicy tomatoes
1 full celery stalk
2 peppers (add as much pepper as you can handle, or paprika if you don’t want the heat)
Salt for taste.
1 food processor with chopping blade

Preparation
Just throw everything in the food processor and start chopping at fairly low speed. Preferably use a manual food processor, Keep chopping until the union is chopped into 2-3 millimeter bits.

In case the vinegar is too strongly tasted, add a tablespoon of sugar.

Note: When eating food with pepper, always try a small bite first to see how much pepper is used.

Thought this was a web design blog
This is a blog by a web designer. I will have strange off topic articles in here too. But most of the time, I will find a way to tie it into web design. So here it goes:

Conclusion
In my opinion, this sauce (or salad, or whatever name it already has) tastes great. I like the fact that it’s natural, not cooked, raw. You can taste every ingredient in it. Yet it is so easy to make, out of ingredients that are present in almost every (non-bachelor) household.

Sometimes in life, so also in the web (design) world, simplicity is the key. Add a little of the right ingredients, prepare it according to your taste and present!

In my previous article I spoke about reasons why it’s better to use web standards when designing websites instead of tables.

Simonne Mathew found my blog through BegforPost, where bloggers can shamelessly beg for a review of their site. He decided to review my blog. In this review, it were these words that impressed me:

Rehuel explains the advantages of using CSS instead of tables in web programming. If I still had a shadow of doubt regarding this CSS stuff (which requires, at least from my side, a lot of study), now I am convinced it is worth the pain of doing it.

Also read his comments on the previous post.

This positive response to my writings made me decide to write a little more on the CSS subject. If you didn’t read my previous post, please do so now, so you have a better understanding of what we’re talking about.

Look ma, no styles
Let’s look at my blog again without styles. Go ahead, turn off the styles in your browser. Those of you who read From Tabled to Tableless design before I wrote this article will notice that there is a part that was not there yesterday. And look, this text is nowhere to be found on the original site.

Why?
Let’s first look at the “why” question. If for some reason people will view your site without styles, it’s good to let them know that this is not what the site is really supposed to look like. They see this, because either their browser styles are disabled, or they view it through a browser that does not know how to process stylesheets (or it does a very bad job in processing them). If it’s the latter, give them an alternative to be able to see the site the way it is supposed to be viewed: offer them to install a browser of which you are certain that it adheres to web standards.

Now you don’t see me, now you do
Right click somewhere in this window and select “View page source” or something similar. This will open a new window (or tab in your browser) with the pure HTML code that was received from the web server. Right beneath the <body> tag, you see the following code:
<div id="nocss">
<p><a href="#content">Skip To Content</a></p>
<p>You are veiwing this either because the browser did not load the stylesheet, your browser does not support web standards as it should, or you chose to disable stylesheets.</p>
<p>Rehu&euml;l recommends
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-3385129733653814";
google_ad_output = "textlink";
google_ad_format = "ref_text";
google_cpa_choice = "CAAQzcLH7QEaCD_4BVTjvVryKLGsuIEB";
google_ad_channel = "3411989245";
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>! It's a great standards-compliant, open-source, free browser.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you might want to consider upgrading your browser.</p>
<hr />
</div>
The first line defines a layer with id “nocss”. Later you will use this id to style this particular layer.
The second line makes a link to the content of the page. Actually, when you click this link, you will be brought to the tag with id “content”, which is usually where the real content of the page starts. On my blog, the content starts virtually right away, so there is not too much scrolling needed to view the content. But if you were to look at Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog without styles, you would need to scroll a long way down to reach the content you actually wanted to read. In this case, such a link to the content would be really advisable.
From the third line onward to the </div> closing tag for the layer, I defined the “you are viewing the site without styles” message. Within that part I added a referral link to download Firefox with Google bar. Right before the closing tag of the layer, I added a horizontal line (rule) by adding the <hr /> tag.

In my CSS stylesheet I added 1 line to style the tag with the “nocss” id:
#nocss { display: none; }
So when the styles are turned on, this style definition just tells the browser NOT to display anything between the tag with this id and it’s closing tag. This is why you don’t see this message when browsing my blog normally. But when the styles are turned off, there is no definition for this style, so the browser will display everything unstyled. You then see my message.

I want that too!
It’s very easy to have this on your own site. Just copy mine and put it your own HTML. But do it in this order, so visitors won’t even notice that you’re changing things around a bit:

1. Copy this: #nocss { display: none; } and paste it all the way at the bottom of your stylesheet.
2. Copy the first code mentioned and paste it right beneath your <body> tag. This tag can usually be found in the header file.
3. Change the message to reflect your own thought. If you want to you can leave my referrer number in the “Firefox with Google bar” link, but it’s ok to change it to your own. If you don’t have a referrer code yet,
   
4. Check out your site without styles!

WordPress users:
Your main stylesheet can be found by going to Presentation -> Theme Editor in you Admin section, and then clicking on Main Stylesheet or something similar.
The <body> tag can be found in the same Theme Editor but by selecting Header.

Other users:
The stylesheet is usually named style.css or some other name, ending with .css. To find you’re <body> tag you will need to look for it somewhere where the head of the HTML page is defined. If you’re not sure, and you don’t want to risk messing up your blog, contact me or any other web design expert for advise.

Final thought
Now that we know that there are browsers that display websites without styles, it’s good to let people know that the site actually looks different with styles and that they are not viewing the site as it’s supposed to look. Offering them a chance to download a browser that IS standard compliant is always good, especially for those who don’t know better than to browse the Internet with Internet Explorer 4.

If you don’t think it is necessary to display this message, at least give people a link straight to the content, so they have less scrolling to do.

When I started with web design in 2000, I learned how to make a website stick to it’s design by using tables.

It was kinda like an art to be able to use the right amount of nested tables to get the site to look just like the design. To Rafiek, Guillermo and I virtually any design could be converted to a web site. I remember working with Mariel, who visited from the Netherlands, when a little <td> messed up our whole design. But we were determined to find what the problem was, because “that” was what the site should look like, so we spent a couple of days looking for the problem. Too bad that site never got launched.

In 2004 I started to understand that those tabled site are a pain to view on mobile devices, screen readers and other, non-standard web browsers. I got to work on my first i-mode site, which was especially for mobile devices.

In 2005 I learned about web standard that dictate that design and content should be kept separate. Define the content using (X)HTML and style it, give it it’s look using CSS. This way, non-standard browsers that can’t process stylesheets can still display the content of your site without visitors having to scroll left and right. In that case, or if you just switch stylesheets off.

Let’s look at an example. If you’re using Mozilla Firefox to browse the web, click on View and then move your mouse pointer to Page Style. There you should see 2 options: No style and Basic Page Style. If you themed your browser, you should see the name of your theme as second option. This second option is normally selected. Go ahead and change it to No Style, while you’re reading my blog. Don’t get startled, you can always change it back to the previously selected page style.

So this is what my blog looks like without styles. Basically every web browser should be able to display this content. Now, if you have this browser window maximized, go ahead an “unmaximize” it. You can check that by clicking on the middle button on the top right corner of your browser, just to the left of the X button you use to close your browser. Click on the maximize button to make the browser shrink. Next you move your mouse pointer to anywhere on the left edge of the browser window, so you can see the “resize” mouse pointer, a line with to arrows pointing in opposite direction. Once you see that resize pointer, click and drag your mouse (this means move your mouse while you keep your button pressed down) to the right. Notice what happens with the content: the text is adapting to the size of your browser.

Go ahead and switch you page style back to what it was before.

So no matter how small the size of the screen you’re using to view my blog without styles, you can just scroll down and down without having to move left and right all the time. Imagine how much “fun” it would be if you are waiting for the bus to go to work and you want to quickly read the news online on your mobile phone. Instead of needing to go left and right and back to read the long lines that would have been kept at that length by tables, you get to read the news by just scrolling down.

Conclusion
So instead of concentrating on the look of the website alone, web designers are urged to concentrate on usability first, because if you don’t you might be missing out on a lot more readers than you think. In this technology age you should cater your website to everyone, no matter what device they use to visit your website.

Available at Amazon.com:
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)

While in the process of switching from full-time web developer to full-time blogger I need to make sure I don’t ignore steps 3 and 5, “Finish your current work”.

The last couple of days I have tried so hard not to get distracted from my work, and I succeeded most of the time. So now and then My Hattrick soccer team needed my attention. It also has been fun working with Andrew on Combust, which is close to entering the beta test phase.

So I’m trying to get my work finished, help with Combust and I am trying hard not to neglect my blog and it’s readers. So please, grab my feed and keep reading.

A huge “Thanks” to all my loyal readers.

Even though there are people who would like you to think that there are a lot of easy ways to get ahead in the blogosphere, the right ways to get ahead take time and patience.

This morning I read Seth Godin’s article about shortcuts people are taking to avoid certain obstacles. He described cab drivers who would take a 2 mile shortcut just to avoid a traffic light. This is compared to people who try all kinds of algorithms to fool the search engine spiders, hoping to get ahead.

Is all this necessary? Seth explains:

If you make great stuff, people will find you. If you are transparent and accurate and doing what’s good for the surfer, people will find you. If you regularly demonstrate knowledge of content that’s worth seeking out, people (being selfish) will come, and people (being generous) will tell other people. It turns out that it’s easier and faster to do that than to spend all your time on the shortcuts.

Let’s shed some light on the important information in this quote:

Make great stuff
When you produce quality content, people will find you and visit your blog. If you plan to serve the whole blogoshere with your information, make sure you have enough to write about. But if you plan to address a certain niche, make sure you focus on supplying “great stuff” to your readers. Which brings us to the second set of points.

Be transparent, be accurate and do what’s good for the surfer
Whether you choose to write for a specific group or for the whole blogosphere, make sure that you know what you are talking about. Even though blogging as a lot about one’s perception of things, be sure to check what others have to say about the matter. One example of this is Mitch Harper first out of 10 Tips For More Comments On Your Blog which says to disable comments for low traffic blogs, while most of the commentator on Darren Rowse’s Should Low Traffic Blogs Disable Comments? question, where Mitch also commented, think it’s stupid to first disable comments to later activate them. This crumbles a lot off the trust I have for the information that Mitch provides.

When writing a blog, it’s important to keep Search Engine Optimization (SEO) principles in mind. But it’s more important to write for human beings. Even if you tweaked your blog with the right keywords and work hard on choosing the right title, the right meta tags, etc, even if you spend thousands of dollars on ways to get yourself on top lists and on first pages of search engines, this all is of no use if visitors come to your blog only to find that this is not what they were looking for. Use emotion, write about people, write for people, express feelings, just let people feel that you are writing for them.

Regularly demonstrate knowledge of content that’s worth seeking out
The keyword here is regularly. Yes you should demonstrate knowledge of a subject, especially if it’s worth seeking out. But if there’s no consistency in the provision of this knowledge, people will not come back to see what you have to say, even if they want to. Because most of the time, after a couple of times they forget to look if there is something new and worth reading.

Summary
The main ingredients for becoming successful in the blogosphere are good, quality content, consistency and patience. All the other stuff is just to spice it up a little.

Just make sure you don’t overdo the seasoning.

PayPal has been around for a while. I’ve been trying for years to get a paypal account, but they still don’t have Suriname listed.

So I went looking for something different and stumbled upon Moneybookers (aff).

I went asking around and reading in forums and it seems that a lot of people, who live in countries which are not supported by PayPal, are using Moneybookers to both send and receive money. Some say that Moneybookers is far better in service than PayPal, while others think that PayPal has better service. The biggest problem Moneybookers has is that it’s not as widely used as PayPal. A lot of vendors don’t accept payments through their system (yet).

To me the most important question was answered: Are they to be trusted? Yes they are, according to a lot of people. So if that’s the case I won’t worry too much about PayPal anymore and just use their service.

Now it is up to us to spread the word about Moneybookers, so it gains more popularity, so it is better available for us to do business with.

Do you have something to add about Moneybookers? Just comment about it here.

I was stunned to see a digg pop up in my feed reader that linked to Dan Cederholm’s Flikr entry where he pointed out that LogoMaid, some mass logo producing company, has ripped his logo.

Within no time the web design community came to Dan’s defense in torpedoing LogoMaid and their representatives, who also comment.

This is outrageous! Dan is one of my idols, people I learned a lot from. “Bulletproof Web Design” is always on my desk, as a bible. Don’t go ripping off people’s work, especially not a respected example in the community.

The funny thing is that the designers claim that, even though their design was made after Dan’s, they are the legal owners of the copyright, because the copyright for their design was filed and paid for. Quoting copyright laws, which show that you don’t need to file a copyright to make it yours, you just need to publish it, a lot of Simplebits fans try to convince the designers that they are wrong, without any reasonable outcome. So instead of taking the logo down and apologizing to Dan and the web design community, they threaten to sue Dan on 2 counts: one for having the logo on the SimpleBits blog and two for “harming their goodwill”. I want to see them try!

I join the web design community in taking a stand next to Dan in the fight against rip offs. Do you?

Often we read about people trading their fulltime job for a different kind of job. After doing some research I decided to move from fulltime web designer to fulltime blogger. This is not a process that’s done overnight.

1. Start your blog
I think it’s very important to first start with your blog. This way, you can start building up a reputation in the blogosphere, while working on the other steps.

2. Look for new maintenance orders and cherish existing ones.
Maintenance of websites will guarantee a steady flow of income, so you won’t be left without income if things turn out differently than expected.

3. Finish your current work
It’s very important to finish your current work. Even though you’re planning to leave the web design scene when it comes to fulltime work, you don’t want to ruin your reputation in the local web design community. You might need them to fall back upon in case something goes wrong. Don’t make the mistake to spend more time on your blog, trying to monetize and promote it, then you spend on your existing orders. It might take you some time to get all the work finished, but when that is finished, you will have a lot more time to spend on your blog.

4. Keep posting regularly
While finishing your work, make sure you post in your blog on a regular basis. Regularly does not necessarily means daily. It could me every other day, or once a week, but make sure you are consistent, so your readers wcan get used to your posting schedule. If you don’t you might scare them away.

5. Finish your current work
Oh, I mentioned this one already? Maybe it deserves extra emphases. Your reputation is at stake.

6. Monetize your blog
While you’re finishing up, start monetizing your blog. See this as another one of your orders. Schedule a set number of hours you want to spend on adding and maintaining ads and other income generating aspects to your blog. You won’t get it right the first time, so you will need to play around with it a little. Maybe you can even ask your current readers what they think of the placement of your ads.

7. Research and blog
When you are finished with your orders, read the many resources available, online and in print, about how to successfully blog for money. Try to find out which of those techniques fit your niche, your style of writing, your design and yourself.

Then just enjoy working in the blogosphere!

I made the mistake to pay little attention to step 3 (and 5). At the moment there are a lot of customers on whose nerves I got. They can’t imagine what takes so long, even though I promised to have the work done months ago. I had to make new schedules and offer discounts to help get them back in better moods. So now I have decided to follow my own 7 steps. I will spend less time on my blogs and more time on my customers.

I will still try to make a meaningful post every day. But other work on my blogs will have to wait until I’m finished with my customers.