In going through some of the different Dreamweaver Video Courses, you will some attention given to the use of graphics. Graphics are used for the human experience on your website (as opposed to getting your site indexed by a search engine). Graphics help visitors stick around longer and can make your site more appealing.

Like I mentioned in the last post, there needs to be a balance of textual content and the colors and graphics on your site.  Here are a few things to avoid first of all:

1. Stay away from the animated GIF sites. The last thing you want is to make your site look like is from 2003 with all of the flashing arrows, dancing monkeys, and bouncing balls.
2. Don’t put up a huge picture. When you take a photo with your digital camera, it is about 3-5 mb. in size. You don’t want that on your site. It will take forever to load.
3. Don’t just slap up a graphic or photo. It looks sloppy.

Here are a few tips for actually using graphics on Dreamweaver:

1. Organize your photos and graphics. Put them in tables, align them into the text of y our webpage. Place them on your site in an organized fashion. This is usually done by using the <table> commands and putting them in columns and rows. Or, you can use the align=”right” command to place the picture on the right side of your text.
2. Get a simple photo editor like Adobe Photoshop Elements and learn to resize your photos and make them smaller. Realistically, you can take a 3 meg photo and reduce it in diminsion and size to where it is now only 70-100K, with little loss of resolution for a standard web page.  If you really need the high res photo, then put the 70K photo on your webpage as a link to the larger 3meg file. The primary key here is faster page load time.
3. Make sure your photos stay within the theme of your site as best as you can.
4. Don’t steal photos. Use your own or use a service like http://www.bigstockphoto.com  I use them all the time. They have tens of thousands of photos and graphics for any theme or niche. They are dirt cheap.  I usually get the smaller, 1 credit photos, which are more than enough for what I need on my site. Listen, the very last thing you need is a letter from a lawyer demanding you remove their photo from your site and pay them a settlement fine. Stick with royalty free images.
5. Finally, check out other sites in your niche. Find the ones that are ranked well and doing well. See how they are using graphics and then use some of their ideas to build your own.

The different Dreamweaver Video Courses will teach you how to add graphics and images to your site. The right use of graphics are your site can and will set your website apart from others. Some people just don’t bother and their sites are boring. Some just throw up a bunch of photos and it’s a mess. Do it right and you’ll build a loyal base of visitors to your site.