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A Webmaster’s Toolkit and Tricks
If you own a website, operate or run a website, or you’re
a webmaster, this article is for you. A successful website is created
and managed by a person with an effective toolkit who knows how
to use each tool. There are a huge amount of software applications
out there for people to use for creating, building, coding and running
websites. Here are the ones you’ll find in my tool box. I’ve
been using these for many years and have had wonderful success with
each one of them.
As a bonus, I am going to include a few tricks for
some of the tools that may be of interest to you. (These ‘tricks’
are for pc users only.)
** Toolkit Item 1 – Dreamweaver **
I have a client who owns and runs a small business website and who
has been using Microsoft Frontpage since he started. He is not a
programmer or Web designer and has been very frustrated managing
his website. Frontpage adds strange html code behind the scenes
that takes control away from the user and often produces undesirable
results. I suggested that he try Macromedia’s Dreamweaver,
which is the software I have been using for many years. It’s
excellent and does exactly what you want, does not add extraneous
code and makes the life of a webmaster a breeze. After playing with
it for a while, my client thanked me profusely for suggesting it.
Get it at http://www.macromedia.com.
Dreamweaver Trick:
To make a global change in your website, that is, change some specific
text or html code on every page in your site, here’s what
you do: In your top menu bar, choose ‘Edit’ > ‘Find
and Replace . . .’. In the dialog box that pops up, choose
‘Entire Local Site’ in the top dropdown box labeled
‘Find In’. This will allow you to make a global change.
Also, note the other choices in the dropdown box. Using this feature
will save you lots of time.
Dreamweaver Trick:
Did you know Dreamweaver has a ‘Check Spelling’ feature?
If not, go to the top menu bar and click on ‘Text’ and
then choose ‘Check Spelling’ at the bottom of the menu.
Or you could simply use your ‘Shift’ F7 keys.
** Toolkit Item 2 – Photoshop **
Since images on the Web are both illustrations and photos, Adobe’s
Photoshop is hands-down the best choice for graphics manipulation
for a webmaster. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but well
worth it if you want to include awesome graphics on your website.
It allows you to create buttons, borders, shapes, symbols and of
course, it allows you to change, alter, edit and improve any kind
of digital photograph. Get it at http://www.adobe.com.
Photoshop Trick:
The Web allows two main graphics file formats, .jpg and .gif. Therefore,
any image you plan to use on your website needs to end in one of
these two extensions. (The Web allows the .png extension too, but
you ought to use either .jpg or .gifs only). So, whenever you plan
to use a graphic on your website that you created or edited in Photoshop,
you need to save it as one of these two file extensions. And you
also want your images to be optimized so they are not large causing
long download times for your site visitors. Do this by going to
your top menu bar and choosing ‘File’ > “Save
for the Web . . .’. You will then be able to choose .gif or
.jpg in the top right of the dialog box that opens up. You’ll
also be able to see 1, 2, or 4 versions for the same image, optimized
in different ways and having different sizes for you to choose.
Always use this tool in Photoshop for Web graphics.
Photoshop Trick:
Want to create soft, almost rounded edges on your rectangular images?
Here’s what you do: In your vertical ‘Tools’ window
in Photoshop, choose the top left tool called ‘Rectangular
Marquee Tool’. Then click and drag your mouse on your image
to make a rectangle that is 5 to 10 pixels smaller than your actual
image. Make sure that it is equidistant on all four sides. Then
go to your menu bar and choose ‘Select’ > ‘Inverse’.
This chooses (or selects) everything outside the rectangle you just
made. Finally, go to your menu bar and choose ‘Filter’
> ‘Blur’ > ‘Gaussian Blur’ and type
1-5 pixels in the dialog box. That’s it, and now your image
will have soft edges.
** Toolkit Item 3 – WS FTP **
This is a great tool for moving your files back and forth from your
pc to your server. Dreamweaver has a feature that allows you to
connect directly to your server to download and upload html files
and images for your website. But I prefer to have more control over
moving files back and forth from my local pc to my server that houses
my website. Therefore, I use WS FTP (FTP stands for File Transfer
Protocol). This tool enables me to move my files with ease and with
complete control. Get it at http://www.tucows.com.
FTP Trick:
This is more of a suggestion than a trick. To make changes in your
html files, always download the latest file(s) from your website’s
server down to your local machine first. Then make your changes,
edits or updates, save your work, and upload the file(s) back to
your server. In other words, do your entire html editing on your
local machine and upload the latest version after your editing back
to your live server. Try to avoid editing files directly on your
server. This methodology will help ensure that your site visitors
don’t see files ‘in progress’ or errors.
** Toolkit Item 4 – WebTrends **
This tool is vital for anyone wishing to conduct intelligent e-marketing
campaigns and has interest in improving one’s website. It
allows you to analyze your website statistics. It tells you how
many people visited your site, how they got there, where they went
once they arrived and a huge amount of other critical data. Get
it at http://www.webtrends.com.
** Toolkit Item 5 – WebPosition Gold
**
If you want to know how your website is ranking in the search engines,
this tool is a must have. It allows you to set up a profile for
your website asking you to enter keyword phrases and choose search
engines. By running the program after you complete your profile,
it will tell you where you rank for each engine for each keyword
phrase. If you find that you’re not ranking well, you can
make changes to your website and run the program again in a few
days or weeks to determine if your rankings have improved. Get it
at http://www.webposition-gold-2.net.
If you purchase these tools and learn to use them
properly, you’ll have everything you need to create and manage
a website. Your toolkit will be complete. I am sure there are other
great tools out there, but these are the ones I use, (and I have
no affiliation with any of these companies). I’ve found them
to be extremely helpful. Another webmaster ‘trick’ I
use is to utilize great websites that contain excellent tips, tricks
and resources for creating and managing websites. Below is a partial
list of the websites I visit regularly.
Webmonkey – http://www.webmonkey.com
HTML Goodies - http://www.htmlgoodies.com
World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3c.org
Webmaster Directory - http://www.webdevsites.com
Free HTML Validator - http://www.feedvalidator.org
Webmaster resources from Webmaster Toolkit. - http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com
Webmaster.org - http://www.webmaster.org
The Webmaster's Reference Library - http://www.webreference.com
SitePoint : New Articles, for Web Developers and Designers - http://www.sitepoint.com
Webmaster's Color Lab - http://www.visibone.com/colorlab
SiteProNews - http://www.sitepronews.com
Webmaster Tool Collection - http://www.webmaster-tool-collection.com
Jason
OConnor
Copyright 2005
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Jason O'Connor is president of Oak Web Works (http://www.oakwebworks.com)
where you can get a free webmaster newsletter and he also runs Sports
& Broadway Tickets (http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com).
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