How to get around a good CSS code

CSS or “Cascading Style Sheets” is a simple sheet language used in customizing and designing the document and fonts of a web page. It uses words and numerical status in order to determine web page fonts, sizes and colours. It may seem like a complicated batch of words strewn together at first glance but it can be learned in a rather short amount of time. While it may become easier as you steadily grasp its program, it doesn’t guarantee that you will not make any errors. Like most encoded programs, your CSS will have to be reviewed in re-reviewed to detect any errors as even the smallest misspell can affect the whole page. On that note, I have listed the most common errors that CSS programmers, trainee and professional alike, makes.

1. Too much Whitespace

Normally, CSS encoders will contain whitespace in their codes in order to make the content easily readable. The downside is that if you use too much whitespace is that it can affect your loading speed among others. A better alternative would be taking out line breaks and extra spaces. This will help in shrinking your file size and removing any unwanted baggage in the web page.

2. Padding and Margins Confusion

For codes that do not use any background colour and borders, using padding and margins are the best substitute. But knowing the definition of each is crucial as they are both totally different forms of code. Padding is the room within the element inside the border while margin is the extra space outside the element. For example, if there’s no padding the margin should be able to compensate and vice versa.

3. Colour Declarations

Colour declarations is exactly that, it handles the fonts colours for your web page content so be sure to not use garish colours that may conflict with the background. There are 3 parts in colour declaration; these are the hash mark, redundancy and hexadecimal code. A hexadecimal code is important as it will ensure that all colours will be displayed the same on all web pages, the hash mark is then needed to validate the hexadecimal code and finally, redundancy is a common fixture in encoding CSS. Using any code that has more than one similar number or letter, it is a good idea to shorten the code to its first 3 or 4 characters. This will ease the loading of the page considerably in the long run.

4. Avoid Doing Repetition

CSS encoders will know exactly what this is. A lot of time, you may input so much code into your stylesheets that you may not even think about using shortcuts. In fact, compressing the code won’t have any negative effect to your web page if done right. It can even save you valuable loading speed since the page will have a more organized and compact CSS code to deal with. Another technique you can use is by grouping together similar codes into one line.

5. The Difference between ID and Class

CSS encoders have to options for the HTML style; ID and Class. These two are important and each has its own specialty. ID is a content that will appear only once in a page, examples are titles and headers to name a few. Class however can be used multiple times in a single page. A good example of a class type attribute would be a link. Anything that will most likely appear in different ages is considered a class type attribute.

All of these factors can cause some minor to moderate errors as it is very easy to look past this very simple codes. This article will hopefully give you a heads up on the little bumps when encoding CSS. Just remember to thorough and you’ll be fine.

A bumpy road for new webs designers

Back in the early days when web designing was still at its infancy, there were a lot of trial and errors in creating the fundamentals of a great web page. Nowadays, there are a lot of professional and web design freelancers that can help you make the best web page possible. But if you’re a web designer yourself and is just starting your career in the field you may experience some bumpy roads ahead. To help ease out your first venture in this field, I have compiled the biggest errors you can make when designing a website.

1. Not Giving the Correct Information

Most online users that are scouring the internet usually visit a site that catches their eyes in the first few seconds they see something interesting. For example, online shoppers will visit your website if they see something that fancies them. One of the biggest errors in online business sites to make will be to not give the specifics and important information. Worse yet would be to have the information posted on your site but being covered in irrelevant advertisements that they are getting skimmed over. When putting together content for your website, ask yourself what visitors would be looking for when browsing your page and make sure that that information are easy to spot.

2. Auto-opening a New Window

This one is a personal pet peeve of mine. I really hate it when I click a link on a website that just brings me to a new page of the site, and not a different website altogether mind you. Cluttering a visitor’s browser window with pages is one of biggest mistake a designer can make. A golden rule that is now being followed by most web designers is that you should never hi-jack a user’s computer, and auto-opening windows every click can be considered one of these offenses. Never put this feature in your website as all users prefer to just press back on the tool bar.

3. PDF Only Site

This one is more common than others mainly because it doesn’t really have many detractors but you should never use PDF for your site unless it is something that will be printed. A PDF formatted website is difficult to navigate as most online commands and shortcuts does not work, instead it is outlined into in document style navigation making cumbersome.

4. Leaving out the Colour Changes

One of the most helpful features when navigating a vast web page is changing of the font colours of links that you’ve already scanned through. This will help visitors of the web page to know exactly where they’ve been, a website that does not have this mandatory feature will increase the chances of confusion especially if you have tons of pages and links in your site. This is a sure bet to not have repeat visitors in your website.

5. Avoid Designs that Scream Advertisements

We’ve all been there, browsing through the pages and seeing something at side of the screen, it’s colourful and just screams for attention. A veteran web surfer will automatically know what this is, and 10/10 will just calmly brush past and never think about it again. These are the advertisements in websites that we’ve learned to completely ignore, visitors of websites will be there to only find what they’re looking for, and they don’t really like getting sidetracked by things that have no interest to them whatsoever. So, be sure to create banners that hold important content that does not resemble an ad. Be creative but study adverts on other online shops to know what to avoid.

Creating your own website from the ground up is a real time consuming effort, be sure to remember these grave mistakes in order to avoid them in the future. Again, sometimes trial and error is the best way to be successful. There’s always more to learn in order for you to create the best website design possible.

Is your website working for you?

There are some web page features that offer to be helpful but do the exact opposite. When designing web pages, you should think twice about incorporating any of these irritating features as all of the items on this list can greatly damage your reputation and any future visitors from staying in your website. The usual suspects before have been spam advertisements and slow loading but now we have a new set of unwanted features that can drive you mad in the long run. Here are a new set of features you should avoid when designing your web page.

1. Captcha

Sure captcha has it uses when weeding out spam bots online, but adding this feature to any comment box is very annoying, especially if you only want to comment only a few words, trying to read the convoluted jumble of letters will take you more time than actually writing the post. This feature however is important to the website owner as it removes any bots from spamming the comment box; however it also negates users from posting as most will unlikely trouble themselves with typing captchas which will then affect the look of your site due to an almost devoid comment section. If you have captcha installed and wondering why you don’t seem to get as much comments as traffic suggest, you’ll know why.

2. A mess of bookmarked icons

A lot of website has done and with actually good reason. Bookmarking or logging in using other popular networking sites will greatly be appreciated by users as they will not have to create new accounts for your site. They can use their accounts from previous sites which mean they can interact with your site immediately. The problem here is that if you overdo it, you’re going to have a mess of icons at the bottom of every post making it look ungainly and unprofessional. This is not a major gripe but it can lead to some distractions.

3. A new breed of pop-ups

Back in the heyday of spam adverts, pop-up have become the bane of many internet users browsing along their favourite website. It felt like a shooting game where you constantly have to close every single window that shows up. It has become less prevalent as years gone by and a couple of solutions were given like hiding the pop-ups behind your browser in order to deal with them later. However, now it appears that a new more annoying version of the pop-ups have surfaced, these are the ones that you appears and just halts your browsing, they make you interact with them to continue, some even has fake close buttons that when clicked will lead you to their link. Not fun and irritating are the best words to define this. Web hosts actually have no option but to use pop-ups in order to increase their traffic but it is a fine line to walk on.

4. Installed media

This one seems to be done with good intentions but again, may hinder the visitor’s experience when browsing. I’m talking about the aesthetics of the web page, adding designs, bells and whistles are all well and good but if it causes any sort of slow down or interference to the user that is browsing then I suggests you tone it down a little. Most websites will change their designs depending on the celebration of the month so you have to expect to encounter this, but the best way to go about getting with the celebration in terms of web design is to not deluge your site with trinkets that will no doubt only distract users.

Fine tune your website

While SEO is a great way to generate traffic into your website, there are actually more methods for you to employ that have no relation to using SEO. These are simple yet effective means in their own right that can help you expand your web page to even further users. In order to increase traffic into your website you’ll need just to follow these 3 simple steps, and I can guarantee that you will increase the chance of a spike in your online traffic. Check out portfolio.

Step 1: The Perfect Bait

If your website appears on the first page along with a couple of other similar sites, one of the key elements for the user to click on your site and ignore the rest is to have interesting and eye catching titles and headers. The short description below your website’s name is crucial as it will be the proverbial hook, line and sinker for you website. Make it interesting and direct so that you’ll catch the eye of users scanning down the page. A perfect and witty title can instantly grab attention so work on that, plus a little research on marketing never hurts. Study the key points of interest in your website and accentuate that but try to make it as compact as possible. Once users have taken the bait, you can bet they’ll choose your website while browsing down the list.

Step 2: Topics and Subjects

Most article writers and bloggers tend to gravitate to current events or what people are talking about right now to garner more hits. While this is a smart thing to do you have to understand that you are now in the heap of literally thousands to millions of other sites that are focusing on the same thing as you. You should never put all your eggs on one basket, nothing wrong with tackling current affairs but you should also key in on the more specific topics. Focus on a less talked about subject and pass it through the microscope, create topics about it and, I cannot strain this much more, be specific with your keywords. Being precise with your topic will help narrow you down on search engines and will increase your shot of being visible at the first page, maybe even the top of the list.

Step 3: Think Big

When it comes to websites the bigger your webpage the better it is. Polls have shown that larger websites tend to generate more traffic as they expand even more. This is a perfect example of escalation when you start with a simple website and then upgrade it to bigger and better design and content, so will your visitor hits. I am not saying that you immediately enhance your website; you have to have the right content in order to advance. This may mean that you have to steadily and gradually work on each aspect of the site in order to find what else is missing and develop on that.

Managing a website could be as fun or as stressful as you want to be, and making sure your website gets enough hits is the main hurdle for every website owner. This is basically marketing 101 with a little twist here and there. Keep your eye on the ball and you’ll be able to run your website smoothly and efficiently, but get distracted and it can cause a domino effect of problems. Just remember that there are more ways to generate traffic than optimizing SEO. I’m not saying you should skip fixing your SEO but add that with these list and you can really achieve your goal for your web page.

Has your website been hacked? Keep on reading…

A nightmare scenario for every website owners out there is to have their website where they invested much time and effort to be hacked. The worst case scenario is to have your website thoroughly hacked and you’re unable to even enter or log in. Data and personal information could have been stolen and the chances of a malware being passed through other visitors of your website are very likely. Fixing the damage will also take a lot more time or you may not be able to repair it all. Most likely, other visitors will steer away clear of your website in the future even if you have secured it and fixed any holes. So how does a website get hacked in the first place? Here are the most frequent reasons for hacker attacks and how you can prevent them from happening.

The main reason for a website to be hacked is because it has weak to no security defense installed. Another glaring issue is that your host server is vulnerable to online attacks; this could be a huge problem because if one of the sites they host gets attacked, chances are that the hackers can possibly be able to get access to all of the providers clients. Being vigilant and reporting any disturbances and irregularities to your host provider is one way to make sure that the provider is not the one that’s infected by a virus.

Always review the feedback of a server provider before registering and if they have a history of being hacked then look elsewhere for a better host server with better security measures for their clients.

Often times the problem originates from the hardware itself rather than the website. Viruses can be hidden within files in the computer that is only activated once you go online and log in a website. To prevent this, install the best and latest antivirus program and do a routine scan every couple of days or so. FTP and SSH using computers should be regularly scanned and you should leave off unencrypted passwords in FTPs. Always connect to a trusted network and if given the chance, use SFTP to browse the web as it can encrypt passwords being shared through computers.

Passwords are also targeted by hackers and are one of their main methods of hacking. Finding out the password could take only a matter of time for the more experienced hackers, having a simple password doesn’t help your cause either. To prevent this from happening, use a mixture of capitalized, numerical and symbols as your password. A seemingly random combination of characters work best and changing them every week will add to your defense against hackers. Always use your own combination rather than opting for auto-generating a password. As intricate as these auto-generated passwords may seem, it is still generated by a program and that makes it possible to be traced. If your website has been hacked before, thoroughly search for any new accounts made as this may be used as security hole for your website to hack again.

Content Management System or CMS are often used to easily manage your website and sustain properly doing task. A huge problem with the CMS is that it is one of the most vulnerable parts of your websites. It can easily be hacked if you’re not able to apply sufficient defense and will always present cracks for malwares to crawl into. Preventing this can be done by not giving any information to what version of CMS you currently have installed, conceal your directory structure and by not letting multiple application share your database information. A bad encoding can also lead to a hacked website, always scan through your custom CMS to see any imbalance or let a professional handle this part. Any 3^rd party plug-in should be systematically reviewed and read any feedback it has from other users before installing it.

There is no full proof way to make your website 100% secure from malware and hack attacks. Sooner or later your website will get compromised, the best method is to always monitor your system, keep changing your passwords weekly and do not install any unknown applications.