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Basic Tools for Website Building
from: IncomeVista.comThe tools of the trade for website building aren't carried in a toolbox or plucked out when needed. The tools for this business are kept on hard drives or online. They can be expensive, but they are valuable. Knowing how to use the basic tools for website building is crucial to any good site design.
Photo Software for Website Building
The most basic tool is image manipulation software. Paint Shop Pro and PhotoShop are two of the most popular programs, but they certainly are not the only ones available. These programs allow users to create their own custom images or to use stock images included in the purchase of the program. Text can be overlaid onto a graphic easily, and importing pictures from elsewhere is a snap. While getting started with image manipulation is simple, knowing all of the art-related terms is not. Layering, cropping, and shading all can be learned using help files and Internet tutorials, and these features really can give you the opportunity to make your images more professional.
Keyword Research for Website Building
Keyword research tools are another important piece of website building. Keyword research involves entering search terms related to your business and finding out based on the results how many people search for the terms. Better programs also include related terms. Google's keyword analysis tool includes synonyms as well, so a search for "Maui vacation" would include results for "Maui vacation," "Hawaii vacation," and "Maui trip" among others. These tools help writers know how to target their articles. The same article may get drastically different search-engine results by using "buy" rather than "purchase," for instance. Knowing how to read the results of keyword-tracking software is important for designing the content of a website.
Design Programs for Website Building
Websites are created, or programmed, using two methods. One is coding manually by knowing the tags to design an HTML or similar site. These programming languages vary in difficulty with HTML being the easiest to learn. Others, such as the .NET framework, can take years to master. To help with the process, several companies have software available to help with the process. A user can move around items on a website view, and the program will change the coding to make it match what the user wants.
Another type of software application for website building is the WYSIWYG (pronounced: wiz-ee-wig) editor. In these programs, the user does not see the code and needs to know nothing about how to design a site. He or she simply places various items, such as the header logo and menu buttons, on the page, and the program "codes" in the background. This code then can be uploaded to the website, and the site is made.
These tools are just the basics needed for website building. As one gets more advanced, blogging platform software, online file storage, and other programs may be necessary to design a site from start to finish. Using just these basics, however, it is possible to create a professional-looking site.
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