Custom Web Site Design

By: Laura Quinn, Michelle Murrain, and Maggie Starvish

A Web presence is critical for almost every nonprofit, but creating a Web site can be daunting. It can take a lot of time, money, and technical expertise—things that are often in short supply. And just because you have a Web site up and running doesn’t mean your work is done. You still need to keep up with maintenance, updates, and desirable new features.

An open source Content Management System (CMS) can help. Generally speaking, a CMS is a software package that lets you build a Web site that can be quickly and easily updated by your non-technical staff members. These open source systems are created and supported by a community of developers, and can be downloaded without cost. Both their feature sets and their price tags make open source systems particularly attractive to nonprofits.

By: Alexandra Krasne
Indispensable tools your nonprofit should know about
Print Was This Helpful

Editor's note: This article was compiled with the help of Michael Janofsky using information from the Web 2.0 online event, held from October 24 to 28, 2005, in TechSoup's Emerging Technologies forum. Additional content provided by Ruby Sinreich.
Web developers, designers, bloggers, and even major media outlets have been abuzz with talk of "Web 2.0" this year. Though the term bears the familiar version number so often attached to software products, it doesn't actually refer to any one technology. Rather, Web 2.0 is the moniker for an emerging set of Internet-based tools and an emerging philosophy on how to use them.

By: Michael Fleischner

By now you've heard the term "Web 2.0"... but what does it mean and why is it important for all marketers? Here's a quick explanation and my thoughts on the importance of the Web 2.0 movement.

"Web 2.0" is a weird phrase. It began as the name of a conference, but the people organizing the conference didn't really know what they meant by it. Mostly they thought it sounded catchy. However, "Web 2.0" has since taken on a meaning. There are some interesting new trends on the Web, and it's the nature of a phrase like that to adhere to them.

Email spam is a huge headache for any Internet user, but there are ways to combat those nasty inbox invaders. Find out small steps to take to greatly reduce your spam population.

A website is a collection of web pages that features images, video, and content. There are various kinds of website including business websites, personal websites, forums, blogs, and family websites. You can design a website in accordance with your objectives, technical skills, and needs.

By: Kabir Bedi
Creating a successful online presence on the world wide web is not an easy task. And it is much more that creating an attractive design and building a strong website structure. Even before the website design & development process, you need to get involved in some strategic website planning activities to decide the course of your online presence.

Here are some key website planning considerations you should take care of before starting off the design and development process.

by: Brooke Marshall

It's easy to resent punctuation. Its purpose is to clarify sentences, so why are the rules governing it so complicated? There are so many exceptions, so many exceptions to exceptions — it's enough to make you want forego punctuation altogether.

Well, back when it was alive and kicking, the Latin language did just that — and it didn't stop there. Written Latin also omitted spaces between words or lowercase letters.

It sounds kinda nice, doesn't it? No more worrying about whether that comma is in the right place, and on the flip side, no more embarrassing urge to whip out a red pen and correct restaurant menus. What's not to love?

by: Shawn Blanc
When my 98 year old grandpa posted a comment on my weblog last fall it hit me in a new way just how much the web is a part of our society. If I open my laptop in a coffee shop and there's no wireless I practically don't know what to do. "What? No internet? I guess I'll play solitaire."

The more the web expands its reach the greater the need for those behind the scenes to create usable, sustainable and quality websites. There is much more to building a website than tweaking a free template, or adjusting an open source CMS.

I see it all the time: there are those people out there who have been working in a particular industry for years. They're wonderful at what they do, and they have a lot of knowledge from all of that time being dedicated to their field. But if you ask them about it, they'll just brush it aside, saying they're nothing special. The reason? Because to them all of the things they know seem commonplace. They've been working so closely with it for so long they forget that everyone doesn't know this stuff as well, and so they don't take advantage of chances to spread their knowledge around, and improve their image at the same time.

by: Martin Ludwig

If you're looking to collect information from your users, there isn't a much easier or more straightforward method than a Web form. If designed well, Web forms provide valuable information; if not, they may scare users away. With this in mind, here are a few key tenets of Web form design that every designer should know.

by: Joe Gillespie

Here are the two basic layers, one is the paper and one the colors you are trying out. The paper layer has all the elements as transparent holes. The color layer has just rough slabs of color. Manipulating the colors in-behind the page mask is quick and easy. This is the system I use to work out color schemes for Web pages or logos. I use Photoshop, but the same principle will work in any graphics editor that supports layers and alpha channels.

by: Sam Rayner
We're entering an exciting period in the history of the Web. Since the 90's, the Internet has embedded itself in our lives in ways we couldn't have imagined. I'd be hard pressed to find a lad in my school who doesn't have a MySpace, Facebook or Twitter profile, a Flickr account or a blog. Kids younger than me now interact confidently with the Web without fear of being labelled as geeks or nerdy.

Design on the Web has obviously come a long way too. The 'standards battle' appears to have been won, developers have been shown the light and it's only a matter of time before font tags and spacer gifs become a distant memory. We're past the 'browser wars' and Internet Explorer 6 is finally losing its stranglehold on the market, giving way to more standards-compliant contemporaries or at least IE7.

by: Niels Matthijs
HTML is hot again. Some time ago the HTML5 promo machine got up to speed, causing a little mini-fuss. In a parallel universe, others are still putting a lot of time and effort into the development of xHTML2. This (public) renewal of interest in HTML caused plenty of discussion, revealing several blank spots in the general knowledge of HTML. This article will hopefully plug one of the most notorious holes shut.

For many front-end developers, HTML remains mostly an excuse. It is viewed as a language of hooks, constructed for adding javascript, css and other enhancements to web documents. In recent events, this kick-started a small semantics debate again, where people were reminded about the semantic value of HTML. A reminder voiced by raging standardista, still fired up from previously fought debates and awareness battles.

By: Kabir Bedi

Social media is a refreshingly powerful concept gaining popularity on the world wide web. With its strong basis on communication and interaction, it follows the principles of free democracy - Of the people, By the people,

By: Jill Hart

Social media marketing should be an essential part of your marketing. But so many don’t do it right. These 10 tips will help you excel in your social media efforts. It’s official. Social media is here to stay. It’s not a fad like so many initially thought and it isn’t going anywhere soon. Businesses have realized that not only is it a great way to connect with current clients, but a great way to land potential clients as well. And that’s only the beginning. Social media also allows you to promote all your upcoming events and products, and even gives you front row access to editors and reporters who might write on your area of expertise. The possibilities are truly endless. But the big question now is, how can entrepreneurs best use the current social media opportunities to help increase business? Here are some tips we feel will help.
Ten tips to incorporate social media into your marketing plan: