HTML - Company Website Design Help

Heylo, been a frequent visitor of here for awhile now but never registered. Anywho, I'm in a bit of a stuck position with a website of mine for our family's condo we have in Destin, FL. I created the website maybe 3 years ago or so, when I knew little coding and what not, so I did everything in images using Adobe Photoshop.

Well, it's gotten really old/annoying to have to do the updating for my Dad & Step Mom and I'd like to make it into a regular website that they can update themselves. Sooo, I need to make it into a site where they can use an html editor to add text/images w/o using photoshop and moving everything.

Here's the website link to check it out for yourself:

www.sundestinresort.com

I recently updated it to make it have a small bit of php so that the header and footer only load once, while the middle part (including the side navigation) is an image alone with lots of maps for the links using Fireworks 8.

I'd really like to know how I can make it so that I can have the navigation on the left side alone, and then have the main text area an editable region. If this means losing the background image and making it white, that's acceptable.

I'm not really sure how to do this really (tables?) or what, so ANY help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, and I hope I've given enough info on what I'd like to do to get a couple good responses about this.


-Brent

Hey Chaps, Being a professional web designer, I used to read articles in this discipline and recently got a superb one and thought of sharing it with you..

Here are 15 important website design tips that you might not be aware of or have overlooked. Consider taking advantage of them if you haven't already done so...

1. Custom 404 Pages
Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a "Page Not Found" error message, which is neither friendly or helpful).

2. Redirect Non-www. To www.
Website visitors will often leave out the "www." portion when they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain URLs (http://domain. com) to the www version (http://www.domain. com) of your website.

3. Properly Sized Graphics
Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they don't require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time.

4. Favicon
Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism.

5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery
If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available.

6. Alternate Domains
Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website, simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.

7. Consistent Navigation
Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate your website, and become more comfortable as they move through your site.

8. Home Goes Home
The main graphic, company logo, or "header" at the top of the site should be included on every page in the site, and should always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the main top graphic from any page within the site.

9. Copyright Notice
Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.

10. Meaningful File Names
Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings.

11. Hyphens vs Underscores
When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

12. Alt Tags
Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.

13. Spell Check
Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words just shouts "unprofessional". Take the extra few minutes necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your website.

14. Test
After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities, only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing, they have "broken" something somewhere else. Make testing a habit after making even the most minor changes!

15. Keep It Simple
Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions from a website and navigation menu.

...
Good luck mate..

TIA for your response.

Hi everyone!

I've been away for quite a while and I'm very happy to see things are still up and running around here

It's been a fairly long time since I've focused on website development. However I find myself back in the saddle and ready to shine away my rustyness


Over the past several months I have noticed many sites around the world changing their website designs to a more image oriented design and with eye-pleasing results to many of their visitors.

Does anybody know if there is some sort of "website design standards" that came out detailing these new kinds of websites?

@Scoutt: I bet you know right off the top of your head



--
Thanks in Advance everyone!
ucm

Ok I need to take things like this forum:

http://lmiinc.com/forum/

http://lmiinc.com/forum/calendar.php

And make it active on the new site I'm building for LMI.

So what files exactly do I need to copy to the new directory & then reference as a link in my navigation bar in all of my .html files?

I have been using a Glitter Text creator from www.glitterfy.com but the html code includes the company name underneath the text. Is there a way of deleting the company name from the banner?

Here's the code I used:

HTML Code:

<embed src="http://text.glitterfy.com/show.swf?message=Terry%27s%20Site&font=http://text.glitterfy.com/fonts/plainn_lib2.swf&glitter=http://text.glitterfy.com/glitters/glitter6.swf&clickURL=http://www.glitterfy.com/&clickLABEL=Glitterfy.com&bevel=0&shadow=1&glow=1&blur=0&fade=1&blink=0&gb=2&ga=0.6&gi=0&gc=0&bb=2&bc=0&sb=4.5&sa=0.7&si=0&sc=0&blb=7&ls=6&fontsize=55&num=6" quality="best" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="527" height="110" name="Glitterfy Text" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed><br /></a>

I have managed to delete the email address which was also originally with the script. I know it's supposed to help promote the company, but they do rather spoil your website!

Leading SEO, SEM, SMO, SMM, PPC and Spam Building Company
Earn money by working with s[a, building company United Kingdom. We'll pay you for our permanent basis campaigns. You get what you pay for! Search engine optimization has evolved into a competitive, growing industry. There are plenty of hoaxes and scams on the web. It seems that as the Internet grows more complex, so do the scams. Choosing an effective company can be quite a challenge. There are many factors to consider when hiring an SEO service. This article gives advice on how to select a credible website optimization service.

Hi there

Sorry, i don't know if this is the correct section of the forum to put this in.

What I really want to know is, how do you get webpages to look like this:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lov...ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Can this be done using HTML and CSS alone?

I'm only referring to the design part of it, not what the page is able to do. Like play songs for example.

Thanks
Jackie xxx

I know HTML pretty good and I can get by w/ CSS - but what else should I know for web design?

Hey guys, This is my problem...--->

http://triplestarnews.com/needhelp.jpg

the original code is found on this page http://triplestarnews.com/main

any ideas??

thanks!

Eric

I would like to know if any one would like to make a web site for me i cant pay you. But if you would like The experience and or practice I would really like the Help. It is a web site for a audio/visual production company based in Ontario that specialize in audio/visual production for live events, video post-production, video conferencing, special effects, audio recording, audio mastering, podcasting, and other services.

If you would like to help me post here or add me on msn at jacob.pn@hotmail.com thanks.

Hi:

Currently, I'm making my web pages 'by hand'. That is, I use an editor, and laboriously crank out and test my pages on IE, safari, FireFox and Opera.

But this is agonizingly slowwwwww !

What tools do *professional* webbers use to build sites ??

What would you folks here suggest as a useful tool for web-building that would speed up my building, but result in clean editable pages ?

(btw, I'm an expert database man, but quit a neophyte in web design.)

My 'forte' is building Windows business applications (Inventory, Accounting, etc, etc) using xBase database software (i.e., the xHarbour language).

I can hardly wait until I can get 'behind-the-scenes' and do database work to back up my (pathetic) designs.

Thanks for any hints.

-Mel Smith
Mesa, Arizona

Hey all..

I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out what to do with my header area:

http://showball.com

Any suggestions? If certainly needs something more then there is now, there's to much empty space. Any thoughts would be certainly welcome. I seem to be a little stymied with this one..

Thanks
David

Hi!

I had my test webpage where i test my designs, scripts etc. working well but then my little brother change some stuff in both the html file and css file, I already fixed a lot but I don't know what's wrong now.

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>ComBBAT  - FRC Team 21</title>
<link href="http://demo.combbat21.com/css/general.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen, all"/>
<link href="http://demo.combbat21.com/css/img.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen"/>
<link href="http://demo.combbat21.com/css/print.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print"/>
<meta name="description" content="ComBBAT, Team 21 is a FIRST Robotics Competition team consisting of both Titusville and Astronaut Highschools in Titusville, Florida." />
<meta name="keywords" content="USFirst, robotics, titusville, brevard, florida, FRC, ASRC, boeing, FIRST, ComBBAT, team 21, govconnection, team, competition, FIRST, first," />
<meta name="author" content="Daniel Cuesta" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/favicon.ico" />
<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css"> 
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--JAVASCRIPTS-->
<script type=text/javascript"" src="http://demo.combbat21.com/js/addfav.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://demo.combbat21.com/js/slidehome.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://demo.combbat21.com/js/report.js"></script>
</head>
<!--|| -->
<body>
  <div id="container">
   <div class="br10"></div>
    <div id="top">
     <ul>
<li><a href="http://m.combbat21.com">mobile</a></li>
<li><a href="javascript: function('addfav')" >Bookmark us</a></li>
<li><a href="http://members.combbat21.com">login</a></li>
</ul>
             </div>
      <div id="header">
       <a href="../../../" id="logo" title="Home"></a>
        <a href="../../../" id="name" title="Home"></a>
         <a href="http://usfirst.org" id="first" title="FIRST" target="_blank"></a>
                                  </div>
              <div id="navbar">
 <ul>
  <li><a href="http://combbat21.com" id="n1" class="active">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="first/">FIRST</a></li>  
  <li><a href="about/">About us</a></li>
  <li><a href="multimedia/">Multimedia</a></li>
  <li><a href="resources/">Resources</a></li>
  <li><a href="contact/">Contact us</a></li>
 </ul>
    </div>
    <div id="breaker"><!--
<span class="pathway">You are he </span><a href="../../../../">Combbat21.com</a>
<div id="search">
<form name="cse" id="searchbox_demo" action="http://www.google.com/cse">
  <input tabindex="3" class="txt" name="q" value="" title="Search" /><input type="image" id="searchB" name="submit" src="http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/search-button.gif"/></form>
-->
</div>
</div>
    <div id="rightcol">
          <ul>
            <li><a href="about/">about combbat</a></li>
             <li><a href="first/">about first</a></li>
            <li><a href="news/">news</a></li>
            <li><a href="blog/">blog</a></li>
            <li><a href="calendar/">calendar</a></li>
            <li><a href="donate/">donate</a></li>
            <li><a href="sitemap/">sitemap</a></li>
          </ul>
       </div>
       <div id="leftcol">
<a href="javascript:gotoshow()"><img src=".jpg" name="slide" border=0 width=100% height=100%></a>
<script> 
<!--
slideshowimages("http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/slideshow/1.jpg","http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/slideshow/2.jpg","http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/slideshow/3.jpg","food4.jpg","food5.jpg")
slideshowlinks("http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=13285","http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=10092","http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=100975","http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=2876","http://food.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=20010")
 
var slideshowspeed=2000
 
var whichlink=0
var whichimage=0
function slideit(){
if (!document.images)
return
document.images.slide.src=slideimages[whichimage].src
whichlink=whichimage
if (whichimage<slideimages.length-1)
whichimage++
else
whichimage=0
setTimeout("slideit()",slideshowspeed)
}
slideit()
 
//-->
</script>
<noscript>In order to see the slideshow you must enable javascripts</noscript>
 
</div>
        <div id="content">
<a href="" onClick="window.print(); return false">
 <img src="http://files.combbat21.com/website/images/print.png" title="Print" alt="print button" class="tb"></a> 
         <h2>Welcome to combbat21.com</h2> 
<p>FIRST Robotics Competition Team 21 was started in 1996 to share and expand FIRST's vision with students of Astronaut and Titusville High Schools in Titusville, Fl. Our mentors, Scott Strickland from Boeing, James Rallo from Upper Mohawk Inc, Stephen Stout from ASRC Aerospace, Kevin Cunningham from USA, and Jeff White, assist the ever-expanding team of high school students design, construct, and program a fully functional ~120 lb robot and facilitate the development of important life skills such as teamwork, communication, and leadership. </p>
    </div> 
   <div id="sponsors">
    <p>The FIRST Robotics Team 21 gracefully thanks its sponsors:</p>
     <a href="" target="_blank" id="boeing"></a> 
      <a href="" target="_blank" id="govc"></a>
       <a href="" target="_blank" id="asrc"></a>
    </div>
    <div id="footer">
 <ul>
   <li><a href="/chforum">chief delphi forum</a></li>
   <li><a href="/mobile">mobile</a></li>
   <li><a href="link/">link to us</a></li>
   <li><a href="sitemap/">sitemap</a></li>
   <li><a href="sponsorus/">sponsor us</a></li>
   <li><a href="contact/">contact us</a></li>
  </ul> 
   </div>
    <div id="end">
<a href="javascript:popUp('http://www.demo.combbat21.com/report')">Report</a>
</div>
     <div align="center"><!--needed for ff-->
      <div id="bottom">
       <p>FRC Team ComBBAT 21. Copyright &copy; 2010. All rights reserved.</p>
    </div>
</div>
  </div>
</body>
</html> 

css:www.demo.combbat21.com/css/general.css
Thanks a lot to anyone that replies.

How do I begin coding a web design PSD? Any decent tutorials?

I know that one could use Adobe Fireworks and slice up the images, but I don't have Fireworks.