Blog vs. Website

People ask: What is a blog? What is the difference to a website? Here are some thoughts and facts that I found and that aren't a secret:

A blog is a weblog where content gets updated on a regular basis. It displays in reverse chronological order. To avoid confusion with server log, weblog was named blog. A blog is in fact one page with monthly archiving. It needs to be updated with new content periodically; otherwise, people will lose interest in it.

Wikipedia definition
Definition of blog on the web
Tutorials by Jennifer [ A very interesting blog that defines blog and explains from scratch how to create your own blog ]

Whereas, a website is a collection of web pages. The first page of a website is called home page. A website has a defined domain name (address) on the world wide web. Websites basically aren't updated as often as blogs, they stand more for longer lasting information - certainly depending on their actual purpose.

Wikipedia definition
Definition of website on the web

I don't want to write more about what has already been written. Thus, if you are interested in more details, please feel free to visit one of the suggested links above, or type-in "blog" or "website" in Google search!

Thoughts On 'Planning Your Site'

Give It Some Thoughts if you are ready to get your first personal/ business website or if you are about to re-design your already existing site. In this document are some helpful thoughts and questions listed that should be considered in order to create a successful web presentation. Download PDF [ 72 KB ]

Do It Yourself - Update Your Website

You have a website and now you would like to do minor changes or updates to your site yourself. Below you find some helpful tools to take over.

Contribute 3 (for Win/ Mac) makes it easy to update and publish your existing website. A 30 day trial version available by Macromedia. The program is an affordable way to keep web content current and relevant - without knowing HTML.

TextWrangler (for Mac) is a text editor. At its most basic, a text editor is a tool for simply editing text. You can use a text editor for a wide variety of tasks from cleaning up data,..., to writing HTML or coding. You can download it for free at Bare Bones.

Notepad (for Win) is a text editor which usually comes already with your computer/ operating system.

Meta tags - Description & Keywords

What are meta tags? According to Wikipedia, Meta tags are HTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page. Such elements are placed as tags in the head section of an HTML document. more

Description and keywords are the most common used meta tags. They help search engines to find data throughout the world wide web. In addition, meta tags help ranking one's site. The description is a very short summary of your website content - around 150 characters, never more than 250. Whereas the keywords are catchwords that people may type-in in order to search the web for finding certain information. These words should be related to one's site content and listed in the order of importance (limit: 1024 characters).

So if you have to come up with keywords and a description for your site, think about who comes to your site. What would people type-in in search of your service or product. What words would you use if you were looking for your business?!

After you placed the meta tags accordingly, check how good you did by testing the site on a Meta Tag Analyzer!

Visit subject related links:
Writing Effective Meta tags By Donald Nelson
Different engines, different rankings By Yelena Shapiro with Etelka Lehoczky
What search engines don't like searchengines.com

Web Usability & Credibility

Web usability and credibility have gotten more and more attention over the last years. It's not only important anymore "to provide a website" to clients and customers it is also highly important to provide it in a way of being trustworthy, informative, and easy to use.

No matter if you are selling products or services, every visitor to your site is a potential customer. Therefore, your website has to be presented perfectly in the very moment one hits your site for the first time. You got only one shot to persuade the visitor to stay or to leave right away forever.

In order to make a "perfect" website (user-friendly, web creditable), there are some guidelines you can follow. First, long loading time, or annoying splash pages should be avoided - unless there is a real need in providing a flash intro or splash page. If you use sound make sure, it can be turned off or is played only a limited time. Keep in mind, loading will increase. Provide images in a nice quality but reasonable "size" - don't make the viewer wait forever to see the image.
User-friendly means also that a visitor can find his or her way easily around on your site; thus keep the navigation consistent in looks, positioning and order. To convey your message, provide rather less information, but deliberate. If you have big chunks of text, break it down with with interesting imagery ("nicely" compressed).

For more information on this topic, visit following subject related links:
Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility
Webcredible

Photo Services

Photo services I have already used and where I like the results:
1.) Kodak Prints
2.) Snapfish, a service of HP
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Domain Registration Links

1.) Dotster.com
2.) Register.com
2.) GoDaddy
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Web Hosting Links

Please find some web hosting companies listed below:
1.) iPower - The Leader in Web Hosting
2.) ix Webhosting - Click for details! Advanced web hosting plans from $4.95/mo + Free Setup. Special offer for all Webhostdirectory visitors
3.) Netfirms Web Hosting
4.) BlueFish Web Hosting - $6.95
5.) 1&1 webhosting
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Tips & Help Blog Intro

Find recommendations and help not only for your web presence on this blog...