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Web Development

Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites book

From the Back Cover

In this book, you'll learn how to:

  • Implement best practices in corporate web design, with a focus on common sections such as About,
  • Products and Services, Customer Support, and more
  • Use e-mail and RSS marketing to stay in touch with customers and prospects
  • Apply simple and effective search engine optimization techniques to push your website higher in search engine results
  • Advertise the site through e-mail, paid search placement, banner ads, and more
  • Explore server-side Reporting Services and consume them from local clients.
  • Write professional, accessible, and usable pages to make your site available to everyone
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Web Development

osCommerce: Professional Edition

From the back cover

osCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions and provides businesses with the ability to set up a sophisticated online store that will proudly compete against any other site at very low cost.

With the growing need for well considered, practical information on this topic, this book seeks to provide a comprehensive environment for learning osCommerce up to an advanced level. Written in a clear and concise style, this book will shed light on the oft times complex issues that surround building and understanding your online business. Utilizing this book means that you will spend time working constructively, achieving your goals using a professional methodology and developing a solid understanding of the way in which osCOmmerce can accomplish every need of your business.

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Web Development

Content Management Systems

This book makes excellent reading for anyone involved in the content management process. It will guide you through the process of arriving at a content management solution, including the background knowledge you need to know, how to go about getting a solution, implementing the solution, and migrating existing content to it.

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Web Development

Defensive design for the Web

Let's admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how.

Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.

In these pages, you'll see hundreds of real-world examples from companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo that show the right (and wrong) ways to get defensive. You'll learn 40 guidelines to prevent errors and rescue customers if a breakdown occurs. You'll also explore how to evaluate your own site's defensive design and improve it over the long term.

This book is a must read for designers, programmers, copywriters, and any other site decision-makers who want to increase usability and customer satisfaction.

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Web Development

Web Design On A Shoestring

With the struggling US economy, many businesses have had to implement steps to curb expenses and pinch pennies. One of the first areas to feel these cutbacks is the web site design and development group. Employees have been asked to fill roles previously held by other employees due to staff reductions. At the same time, these remaining employees are expected to execute robust and efficient mechanisms for their corporate web sites on a tight or non-existent budget. Developers and designers are looking for shortcut tools to get there. It's all about getting more bang for the buck. Web design on a Shoestring is the tool these web site developers and designers need. It reveals all sorts of free or inexpensive resources that are available but unknown. More specifically, Carrie Bickner shows you how any individual can do the things a team of web professionals are often brought in to do. Learn how to create a pennywise plan so that you avoid being nickled and dimed to death later. Find out the best ways to test your web sites efficiencies and functionalities. Understand the most effective content management systems, and the commercial products to use or avoid - all with no dollars being spent. Read More
Web Development

Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization

There's a time bomb on the web: user patience. It starts ticking each time someone opens one of your pages. You only have a few seconds to get compelling content onto the screen. Fail, and you can kiss your customers and profits goodbye.

You can't count on fast connections either. Most of your customers are still sucking content through a 56K straw. You have to serve up greased lightning or they'll bail. That's why you picked up this book. In it you'll learn how to cut file sizes in half. You'll trim (X)HTML, CSS, graphics, JavaScript, multimedia, and bandwidth costs. Real-world examples illustrate techniques with before and after code and percentage savings. After reading this book, you'll know how to make your pages literally "pop" onto the screen.

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Web Development

Designing With Web Standards

You code. And code. And code. You build only to rebuild. You focus on making your site compatible with almost every browser or wireless device ever put out there. Then along comes a new device or a new browser, and you start all over again. You can get off the merry-go-round.It's time to stop living in the past and get away from the days of spaghetti code, insanely nested table layouts, tags, and other redundancies that double and triple the bandwidth of even the simplest sites. Instead, it's time for forward compatibility.

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Web Development

Fundamental Web Design and Development Skills

Ever wanted to change direction in life and start a new career path? Just finished university or college and need a new challenge?

If you're considering a career in web development, this up-to-date book will provide you with all the core professional skills you need. As well as covering the web languages of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you'll be introduced to various aspects of design, such as navigation through a site, page layout, and the use of images.

You'll also find a discussion of the topics that concern current web professionals: the use of web standards, usability issues, making the site accessible to those with disabilities - and how to combine these with great-looking sites!

In a tutorial style all the way, the book ends by showing you how to upload and manage your site once it has been created, and where to go from here to progress with your career choice.

The book comes with a CD full of sample code from the book, and PC and Mac trial versions of the latest visual design tools: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Fireworks MX, and Macromedia Flash MX.

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Web Development

Practical Web Traffic Analysis

Once you've got a web site up and running it is all too easy to sit back and relax. But how do you know you did a good job? How can you improve the site you have based on real user behaviour? Without getting feedback from your users, how will you find out how it's being used?

Web traffic analysis allows you to gain some insight into your site users: where they come from, what pages they like, and how often they come back. However, as statistics are prone to being misinterpreted, your insight often has to be taken with a pinch of salt. This book takes you through the process of analysing your traffic, without taking for granted the statistics that you generate.

Assuming you have a web site, reading this book will help you learn:


 - The techniques for gathering data on your users.
 - Standards and Guidelines you should adhere to when interpreting your data.
 - What other sites are doing to ensure they respect the privacy of their users.
 - Insight into how real sites use web traffic analysis
 - Major case case studies from BBC News Online, eBAy, and ASPToday
 - Additional material from The Onion, SmartGirl, and The New York Times.

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Web Development

Web Graphics for Non-Designers

Have you ever wished that you could make your web pages look fantastic and professional, as well as having great functionality? Well, look no further. In this book we take you through the basics of web design, looking at using color effectively on sites, visual elements that work, and how to use text effectively, before going on to show how to put these elements together to make a well designed, brilliantly laid out web page.

We also compare and contrast graphics formats, look at how to optimize your graphics for best site performance, and review the best tools currently available for producing graphics for the Web, and which to choose to suit your needs best.

In this book we cover:

 - Effective use of color, visual elements, and text
 - Professional web page design and layout
 - The ins and outs of bitmaps and vector graphics, including using Flash, SVG and SMIL
 - Optimizing web graphics, for better site performance
 - Includes tutorials on Photoshop/Image Ready, Paint Shop Pro, and Fireworks MX

 

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