How To Add Images In Dreamweaver
Adding images to your web page is very simple using Dreamweaver CS4 or CS5. Rather than explaining it all in text, I have posted a video below for you to check out.
I have found the process pretty much the same in both versions of Dreamweaver, and even all the way back to version 8. There may be just a few minor differences, but the process is all the same.
One of the things to practice when you are done with the video is to be able to add an image in the WYSIWYG mode, and then being able to add an image in the code section of your screen. This can give you practice in both and may allow you to control the placement with more precision.
So, open Dreamweaver, open a page, and follow along with the video below.
Choosing The Right Graphics
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Don’t just slap up a graphic or photo. It looks sloppy.
Here are a few tips for actually using graphics on Dreamweaver:
- 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.
- 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.
- Make sure your photos stay within the theme of your site as best as you can.
- 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.
- 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.
Graphics and Web Design
When it comes time to put together your website, and your are going through your Dreamweaver Tutorials, here are some tips that you can use when it comes to having a nice balance of graphics, text, video, social media, etc. when planning your site.
Tip #1 – Plan your site first – This may sound completely obvious, but most people skip it. In other words, what are you truly wanting to share on your site? What are the main pages/topics going to be about? How do you plan to grow your site on an ongoing basis? Just get out a piece of paper and write down the main topic or niche of your site. Under that, write the 3 – 10 different main sub-topics. These will be the main pages of your site.
Tip #2 – Planning for growth – This is the second step before design. You now have the main topic/niche, and then 3-10 subtopics or pages. Now, each of those subtopics is probably going to have a few pages coming off of it as sub-subtopics. This is the growth of your site. You will be adding to your site by building pages off of your sub-topic pages. These are like “support” pages that provide depth to your site.
Tip #3 – Site layout. You need to consider a design that supports this kind of layout. It’s like a heirarchy of pages. Do you want the navigation menu on the top, left or right side? How wide do you want your site? 720-1000 pixels is about norm these days. Will your site have columns or tables? I hope so. It helps organize your information so it doesn’t look like someone threw up on your web page. Sketch out on paper the layout. When in doubt, go to the top websites on the internet and see how they look.
Tip #4 – Put together some color schemes. Don’t go crazy here. You want color schemes with colors that work together. Again, you are not going for a design that looks like someone threw up on your page. One cool trick is to go down to a hardware/paint store and look at all the color swatches and see how those colors blend and work together. They pay people thousands of dollars to coordinate those colors. You can benefit from their work. That’s probably the best advice on this whole page.
Tip #5 – You need a balance of graphics, text, video, social media, etc. – The reason I said balance is that you need to build a site that is first of all for human visitors. Humans like content, pictures, video, etc. That is what keeps them on your site and not hitting the back button too quickly. However, you also want to build a site that is friendly to the search engines so they can index your site, so that people can find it when they search in Google. Google cannot read video, graphics, animation, flash, etc. If your site is only graphics, Google will not be able to read it. You need to have a decent amount of text as well so that Google can know what your site is all about. Like anything, you need balance. All text is boring, boring, boring. Too much graphics, animation, and jumping monkeys on your site can be turn off as well.
Just understand, you are not creating the first ever website. It may be your first ever website using a Dreamweaver Tutorial, but you’re really not creating something brand new that’s never been done before. Go and study some other sites that you like, take bits and pieces of their ideas to help create your own. Web Design, especially with Dreamweaver, is fun and rewarding. It’s even more rewarding when you follow some of these tips and you build something that gets ranked well and great reviews from your visitors.
What To Keep In Mind When Designing Your Website
Merely finding a site installed and operating is just one half the battle. The site ought to be developed taking specific factors into account. A negative web design choice can potentially cripple your site. So examine a few key elements to bear in mind when coming up with our web site.
Right on top of your list is your target market. Every site has a unique potential audience and should really be made accordingly. Content will be as important as colors, artwork, typography and also design of the webpage.
Very clear communication is crucial when coming up with a web site. After all the intention of the site would be to supply an exact message to your market so communication is essential. Think of the long-term ramifications of your website design. A web page filled up with showy animated graphics might attract a number of internet browsers at first, but could shortly fizzle out as consumers encounter problems with bad website functionality, reduced speed of launching websites and insufficient content.
Your web-site really should be intriguing, notable and fact filled, effortless to navigate as well as good enough to return to over and over. Make your webpage users really feel invited and secure if navigating your website and don’t at any time compromise user friendliness for style. A site with stunning designs but very poor navigation is certain to irk your visitors and leave them disappointed.
Thorough focus to detail demonstrates your professionalism. Don’t clutter your site with all types of material but maintain a beneficial steadiness of content material, images, typography, colorings and also content labeling. Superior typography plus a right mixture of colors unobtrusively increases your web site with high caliber craftsmanship.
9 Strategies For Web Page Design
If we want to develop our business in The Web, then it’s recommended to produce the best inventive site, so people can visit our web site and want to go ahead and take specifics of our services and products. It is said that the first impression may be the final impression as well as your web-site will be the very first impression on your target prospective clients. The impression should be put together by your innovative internet site in customer’s mind so it will be vital to make more innovative web page for first impression on our client’s mindset so that they want to visit the web-site yet again. To create one of the most original website, comply with below guidelines.
1. About Pages
If you want to get the thoughts of your visitors, then feedback is important. A “Contact Us” page can help to begin a relationship among you and the customers. You must offer your email address so a customer can contact you for support. An “About Us” page must be included to supply the information regarding your company. The information may be year of establishment, growth, and also name of country from where you work. You need a link to these places on your Home Page.
Your site needs to be interesting. The color selection for your websites must be looked excellent. The color of background has to be light as well as style has to be attracted by visitor first look. Be smart about this. No one likes to look at an ugly site. I’m not saying go over the top, but just get colors that work together. It’s not about spending a lot of money on graphic design either. The best advice here is to ask someone’s honest opinion about your design.
3. Professional
Your internet site needs to be professional, in proper title pages. This content needs to be well positioned and any unnecessary content has to be avoided. With a brand new site, it needs to be able to show your visitors that your site is growing. Don’t be afraid of too much white space either. Let the white space frame and border your content so visitors can easily view and read your site.
You need to aim for a minimum of 400-500 words of content on a page, with an upward limit of 1000-1200 words. If it is less than that, you need to work on adding more content. If it is more than that, you need to think about dividing that long page into two shorter pages. This is for both your readers and the search engines.
5. Text
The easiest sites to read for your visitors are a very light background with dark or black test. Unless you have a certain design you’re shooting for, that should be the standard. You need to try and have your text 11-12 point font. Don’t use more than one or two fonts per page. One font is generally more than enough. Also, do not use strange fonts that the average user will not have on their computer. Regular fonts are best.
If you’d like to emphasize something, you can use all caps or bold text, but use it with a purpose and use it sparingly. This type of text is used for emphasis, and if too much text is in all caps or bolded, it can easily be skipped over by your visitors.
7. Grammar
You must not be sloppy in written text which is written in your web page. I’m not saying you need to write like an English teacher, but avoid making poor grammar mistakes. Nothing is a greater turn off to readers than someone who doesn’t know how to handle grammar. You will lose a lot of visitors if your grammar stinks. If you need to, have someone proof read your content.
Usually designers use 2 kinds of formats for their graphics: GIF as well as JPEG. GIF is short for “Graphic Interchange Format.” For different types of images, this format is much better with only a few different colors like drawings, black and white illustrations, or cartoon-like images. GIF images also suppor transparency, which is nice if you do not have a white background. JPEG represents “Joint Photographic Experts Group.” It supports sixteen million colors, which will be the best suited for photographs of people and complex images.
One of the things you will want to learn is how to use tables. It helps layout your design and organize the content on your website. If you do not know how to use tables, either use a tutorial service like Dreamweaver Made Simple, or do some research on Google. But, if you are going to be working with websites, take the time to learn how to use tables. A site without tables can change dramatically with someone looking at your site in Internet Explorer, compared to Firefox, Safari, or another browser.
