Web Design Software Information

It's a good idea to research online directories and magazines about your topic or on topics that synergize with your interests. This is partly so you'll be ready to publicize your site once it's online, but also because you may find you can publish quite a bit on other sites without having to create a full site of your own right away. You can always add a link to your "real" website later; meanwhile, you're learning what really interests your potential audience and establishing some online relationships.

Similarly, forums and social networks offer good opportunities to publish information and start creating a network of online relationships. Daniel Nations, the About.com Guide to Web Trends, provides a useful overview of the some of the most popular social networks.

Browsing the Internet with an eye to page design will help you find out what layouts, styles and color schemes appeal to you and match your goals for your site. Be sure to consider navigation and other usability issues. The classic book on this topic is "Don't Make Me Think," by Steve Krug. Jakob Nielsen is another web design usability guru.

An important part of planning by "thinking backwards" is to design your page or site so it can be found easily by the people who will value it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an art in itself, but there's plenty of basic information online to get you started. Sometimes the terms that you use personally turn out to be different enough from the terms other people use for searches that potential readers will miss your site. You can find the most relevant terms for your topics with the free Wordtracker keyword tool.

There's a lot of information online about "monetizing" weblogs – so you make money from the information you publish. Experts say the best way to start, though, is to just write about what interests you most and establish a growing audience before trying to add ads or sell anything. ProBlogger.net is one place to start learning about this. Steve Pavlina also has useful tips.

Software developer websites are good sources for detailed feature and system requirement information:

Adobe (Dreamweaver)

Avanquest (Web Easy Professional)

Blogger

CoffeeCup (Visual Site Designer)

Evrsoft (First Page 2006)

Infinite Sushi (ecto)

InstantSpot

Microsoft (Expression Web)

Nvu 1.0

Pablo Software Solutions (WYSIWYG Web Builder)

Realmac (RapidWeaver)

(Serif) Web Plus 10

Six Apart (Vox, TypePad)

Visual Vision (Easy Web Editor)

Windows Live

WordPress