CyberMasters

It doesn’t take a genius to make a professional site that will attract customers to your product and keep them coming back for more.  No, all it takes is a good guide—and there are plenty of books that can provide that guidance.  Let these volumes be the wind in your sails, the fire in your stomach, the wind beneath your wings, or whatever metaphor you choose.  The point is they’ve been proven to work, and you can make them work for you.

1. Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM by Andy Budd, Andy Clarke, Ian Lloyd et al.  Featuring lessons from 10 different web designers, this book will show you how to work within web standards to create vivid and attractive pages.  The wide range of designers makes this book perfect for everything from entertainment sites to business homepages. (more…)

If you’re looking to start your own website and haven’t done it before, it can be difficult to know how to start establishing your cyber presence. The type of site you’re planning to launch will affect later aspects of your website building, but the initial steps are more or less the same for everyone.

First things first, you’ll need a domain name. A domain name is the address of your website that users type into the address bar. For example, right now you’re on www.cybermasters.net . The part that comes after the www is the domain name, so the domain name for this site is www.cybermasters.net.  When choosing your domain name, you can chose from any combination of letters and numbers up to 63 characters. You should keep your domain name short, sweet, and simple. You also want it to be relevant to your website and the business you’re trying to conduct. Its best to go with a .com or .net extension, but most of these names are taken. However, it is possible to find a good .com if you look into expired domain names that are constantly being released into the market. The best places to get a domain name are Act Now Domains, Network Solutions, Register.com, and GoDaddy. Once you’ve picked a registrar site, search the name of the domain you want and it will tell you if it is available.

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If you’re building a website, you probably want people to visit it. While search engine optimization and marketing techniques can help you get traffic and clicks, it’s up to you to make sure people stay on your website once they visit it. The design, set up, and content are the most important aspects to consider when building your website.

If you’re a beginner at website building, it’s recommended that you use a website builder that comes free from your web host. They are simpler and easier to use than outside builder software. If you’re a more advanced website builder, it’s good to use a standalone website building program that can provide more flexibility and creativity. A popular choice is Microsoft’s Expressions Web , an updated version of the popular Front Page.

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