Synopses & Reviews
Spice up your site and increase traffic!Ho-hum Web sites don't stop a lot of visitors. With the step-by-step solutions in this book, however, you can make yours create a traffic jam. Add dynamic content to your home page. Make page elements—tables, borders, scrollbars—fit your overall theme. Display several different images in unique ways. Create multi-level or CSS-based menus. Boost value with maps, site searches, and RSS feeds. Choose a few makeovers or all of them, and watch your site come to life!
Makeovers that make your site stand out
- Homepage makeovers—what belongs where, what doesn't, and how to grab attention
- Layout makeovers—how to size pages, arrange content, and center pages in the browser
- Text makeovers—fonts, sizes, headings, and how presentation is everything
- Performance makeovers—tricks for making images download in a flash
- Form makeovers—ways to spruce up the most boring part of your site
- Site makeovers—learn to link without losing your visitors and how to maximize search engine rankings
Companion Web Site
HTML and image files for many of the makeovers in this book can be downloaded at www.wiley.com/go/makeovers
Synopsis
What this book covers: This book touches on the key elements of a Web site and how to improve each while improving overall site design. Covers -- Full site makeovers: Including improving user speed, building around color themes, and improving accessibility Page makeovers: Covers proper page sizing, boxed design, and working with tables Text makeovers: With focus on font selection and graphical alternatives Image makeovers: Guides readers through image and file sizing, incorporating text with images, and builing graphical buttons Navigation makeovers: Covers improvements you can make to navigation bars or menu additions that improve usability Content makeovers: A unique element that focuses on what a Web site says to the reader with advice on good Web writing, improving home page message, and dealing with scroll issues. Extreme makeovers: An expanded section showing how to incorporate several smaller makeovers into a major site overhaul
Synopsis
- Through stunning four-color images that demonstrate how nondescript "before" situations gradually become astonishing "after" results, this book offers readers simple steps to achieve unique outcomes
- Readers learn how to incorporate the latest Web-building techniques on their sites, redesign a site for optimum usability, limit user bandwidth needs, keep user experience consistent with CSS, and manage content
- The medley of makeovers includes: full-site makeovers (user speed, color themes, improved accessibility), page makeovers (page sizing, working with tables), text makeovers (font selection, graphic alternatives), image makeovers (incorporating text with images, file sizing), navigation makeovers (improving navigation bars, menu additions), content makeovers (better Web writing, enhancing the home page message), and an extreme makeover (combining several smaller makeovers into a major site overhaul)
About the Author
Richard Wagner is an experienced Web designer and author of several Web technology books, including Yahoo SiteBuilder For Dummies, XSLT For Dummies, XML All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, and JavaScript Unleashed. He is the former Vice President of Product Development at NetObjects and inventor of the award-winning NetObjects ScriptBuilder Web tool. In his non-tech life, Richard is also author of C.S. Lewis & Narnia For Dummies, Christianity For Dummies, and The Gospel Unplugged. His online home is at Digitalwalk.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction.
1 MAKEOVER ESSENTIALS.
Macromedia Dreamweaver: Your Command and Control Design Center.
Adobe Photoshop: Your Visual Sidekick.
Web Browsers: Your Test Suite.
Web Developer Extension for Firefox: Your Interactive Debugging Environment.
2 PAGE LAYOUT MAKEOVERS.
Moving from Table Layout to DIVs.
Boxing in Your Page’s Content.
Adding a Page Heading.
Centering Your Pages.
Adding Curves to Your Edges.
3 NAVIGATION MAKEOVERS.
Reorganizing Your Site for Easier Navigation.
Creating a Top-Level Menu Bar.
Creating a Vertical Navigation List.
Adding a Pathway to Your Pages.
Adding a Quick Links Drop-Down Menu.
4 PAGE ELEMENT MAKEOVERS.
Enhancing the Look of Table Borders.
Offsetting Page Elements to Avoid Eye Competition.
Using iframes to Package Your Content.
Bringing iframes to Life.
5 TEXT MAKEOVERS.
Selecting Fonts that Complement Your Site.
Replacing Normal Text with Anti-Aliased Text.
Replacing Plain Bullets with Images.
6 IMAGE MAKEOVERS.
Creating an Image Rollover.
Cropping Images to Shed the Useless Stuff.
Thumbnailing Images.
Displaying Multiple Images with an Image Scroller.
Displaying a “Lightbox” Overlay Image.
7 IMAGE PERFORMANCE MAKEOVERS.
Resizing Images Yourself.
Reducing Your Image’s File Size, Not Its Quality.
Preloading Images.
8 HOME PAGE MAKEOVERS.
Messaging Your Home Page.
Making Your Home Page Feel Alive.
Adding a Splash Introduction.
9 CONTENT MAKEOVERS.
Writing Web-Savvy Text.
Creating Intuitive and Usable Links.
Adding an Alternate Print Version of Your Web Page.
Adding an Alternate Print Version of Your Web Page, Technique II.
Adding a Subject and Message to a mailto Link.
10 FORM MAKEOVERS.
Validating Your Forms.
Controlling Tab Order.
Using CSS to Transform the Look of Form Elements.
Creating Graphical Buttons.
11 ADD-ON MAKEOVERS.
Adding Maps and Directions.
Adding a Site Search.
Making Your Blog Part of Your Web Site.
12 SITE MAKEOVERS.
Linking to Other Sites without Losing Your Visitors.
Creating Your Own Favorites Icon.
Improving Your Search Engine Ranking.
Converting Your Web Page to XHTML.
13 EXTREME MAKEOVERS.
Allowing Visitors to Adjust the Font Size.
Scrambling Your E-mail Links to Avoid Spam.
Displaying Different Content Based on the Frequency of the Visitor.
Adding an RSS Feed to Your Web Site.
INDEX.