Working in the web hosting industry, I come across a lot of interesting sites and not surprisingly, I’ve found that a good number of new site owners have at least one of two goals in mind – to become well-known on the Internet, or to make money…sometimes even both.  It’s also not surprising to find out that less than an eighth of the people that have these goals will never meet them.

One of the more common trends I’ve noticed is the creation of free services.  No individual wants to pay for using things on the Internet nowadays, and anyone who has a choice between a paid and a free service will consider the free choice first.  Offering a free service also may mean big bucks for you in the long run, so if you were thinking about enhancing your presence on the Internet by offering a service, here are some tips to help get you started.

1) Come up with a solution

People turn to using services because they provide some kind of value that can help or solve a real-life issue. For instance, Mint.com offers free financial planning services. Facebook and MySpace offer social networking to help you keep in touch with other people. These services were unique to their time, which is why they are so popular – and now millions of people use them.  The first thing you should think about when starting any new service is what you can offer for people that may have a dilemma or need for efficiency. Stuck?  Carry a mini notebook around and jot down things that you do on a daily basis, then look back and think: Is there something on this list that would be easier to do or track if there was a something out there to help me out?  Also, don’t waste your time trying to clone free services that already exist unless you’re prepared to offer something that they don’t.  Instead, focus on coming up with something unique.

2) See what’s already out there

When I was in technical support, I would come across at least two customers every week that appeared to be starting some kind of social networking site, and some even admitted that they’re trying to launch the next MySpace.  Let’s get a reality check here – most of the popular social networking sites out there have been around for years and by now have millions of users, and are endorsed by multi-billion dollar companies.  You’re not going to have the next eBay or Youtube, so don’t waste your time trying.   When there are already hundreds of services offering the one that you’re trying to launch, you really need to know what you’re doing if you plan on being successful at reaching your target audience.  Your best bet at success is offering something that no one else does.

Instead, again, focus on bringing something new to the table or improving a service that isn’t as readily available.  One of the best ways to get attention for a free service is basing it off a paid one that is at least moderately successful.  The simple concept of something being free will entice your targeted audience to at least try it.

3) Figure out how you’re going to do it

Listen here, dreamer – if you want people to use your service, you have to do some a lot of technical planning.  Depending on what kind of service you’re starting, you may end up needing a design and custom content management software for your website, neither of which comes easy or cheap.  If you’re tech-savvy, expect to spend at least 10 hours a week for several months on development alone. If you’re not a technical person when it comes to programming and site design, well, let’s hope you have quite a bit of money saved up.

But – don’t just start throwing a bunch of junk together. You need to site down with a pencil and paper and plan out all the major aspects of your website before you get started.  This tends to be the most time-consuming part of the entire process if you’re doing this all yourself, because you have to think about how everything is going to tie together as far as programming, layout, and security.  Then there’s the actual doing of all this, which takes even more time.  Be aware of exactly what you’re needing and how long it’s actually going to take. Once you have a plan, start on it as soon as possible.  It helps to make an outline of what needs to get done, and then set deadlines for those items.

4) Think about maintenance

Running a service doesn’t end at its launch, that is, if you want your users to continue using it.  You need to think about how you’re going to support and maintain your service – your users may try to contact you every so often if they need help, or the site itself may eventually need maintenance and updates performed.  If you don’t think you’re going to be able to maintain the site yourself, see if you have any friends that will be willing to help out. Depending on how successful your service ends up, you may eventually need to hire staff members to help you maintain the site.

5) Make it free for them, but profitable to you

You’ll want to make all this worth your time, otherwise you’ll probably end up giving up.  Free services are almost always supported by paid ads, which offer a per-click or per-sale incentive for you.  Always consider putting ads or endorsements on the site that will bring in money, but make sure they are relevant to what your service is offering and they don’t affect the usability of the site.  Search places like Commission Junction for affiliate programs or other services that you think your users will find helpful. Either way, find ways to make your site profitable, whether it be supported by ads, or giving the option for users to upgrade to a paid service that offers a few more features.

6) Cover your ass

Believe it or not, people can pretty much be sued for anything nowadays, regardless of how stupid it is.  I’m not saying that you need to hire a lawyer, but you need to make sure your bases are covered when it comes to dealing with people that are either just out for money, or want to take things to the extreme by holding you accountable for their problems. Anytime you offer a service, you’re going to have people who are not satisfied.  Therefore, you’ll want to draft a Terms of Use and/or legal document on your site specifically stating that you’re not responsible for what your users do, or how your service works.  Basically, don’t offer any kind of guarantee, and let your users know that they are using your service at their own rish.  The exception is in cases where personal information is stolen, as if you obtain and store such information on your site you are responsible for its security.  That also brings up the point that you should avoid obtaining personal information for your members that isn’t necessary for then to use your site.  If you do have to obtain such information, take a few extra steps to secure it and cover yourself against liability by encrptying information and getting PCI certified by a trusted provider.

7) Make it known

You need to get the word out about what you’re trying to do, and set it up far enough in advance to where people are actually looking forward – and waiting anxiously – to using your service. This means using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media networks to tell everyone about the site, and reach out to other blog owners that may be interested in posting about it.  You’ll want to start letting people know about it at least 2-4 weeks before your expected launch date.  Your site should have a visually-friendly page up indicating what services and features you will offer, when they will be available, and that it’s free.  It may also be worth setting up a mailing list that people can opt into so they are notified of updates, and purchasing ad space on more popular sites, which can eventually pay off if your service is a success.

8) Stick with it

One of the hardest parts of starting anything is sticking with it. In this case, you may be looking at a project lasting six months to well over a year.  If you think about giving up, motivate yourself by thinking about how much money you’re going to make, or how you’re going to be helping people.  If you find yourself in a bind, consider getting help or making your goals a little more realistic.

Working with a webhosting company I get asked all the time — which programming language is better? It’s obvious that I’m more bias towards PHP, but there are other great languages out there that may be more suitable for certain people creating certain sites. I’ve decided to write a nutshell comparison on the most common languages, so you can decide for yourself.

PHP

My preferred language, PHP, is the most popular and widely-used dynamic programming language on the Internet. As a result, it’s increasingly become easy to learn (I have 4 brain cells and even I could do it) and can be run on virtually any operating system. It’s popularity has resulted in the availability of thundreds of contributions, modules, and addons for PHP to increase its functionality and integration with other software. It’s also free to download and easy to install (for most people), and is the most common in CMS’s and prebundled website software.

The major downside to PHP is that it’s so popular that security holes are being found all the time. Its very nature requires some configuration changes and restrictions in order to boost security.

Perl

Perl is one of the oldest and most successful languages to date. With thousands of modules that can be added, it can pretty much do anything. While it’s currently not as popular as PHP, it’s more efficient for server management in its double use as a shell scripting language. It’s also open-source and compatible for most all OS’s. The only real downside is that it’s not as quick and easy to learn, and even the simplest tasks can take more programming and lines of code to accomplish. Also, the camel logo is fugly.

ASP/VBScript

I’ll try to be nice about this one. Really, I’m not an ASP fan mainly because it’s proprietary to Windows and IIS. That being said, I’m sure you can figure how secure and reliable it is. It’s not as actively maintained by its developers (Microsoft) so major bugs have been known to linger for months — unacceptable for busy webmasters trying to manage professional websites. While ASP, .net, and VBScript (aka the ASP family) are all “free”, if you want any of the fancy addons or modules for them you’ll be owing Microsoft a nice little licensing fee. On a positive note, Chilisoft has made is possible to port ASP over to Linux, so it’s no longer 100% platform dependent.

JSP

Java Server Pages (developed by Sun) is more similar to the ASP framework, but targeted towards Java fanatics. Out of all the programming languages I’ve studied in school, JSP is probably my least favorite. Not only is it hard to learn, but there’s no such thing as simplicity with it. However, it’s very powerful software and is platform-independent, as long as you have a Java Environment for it to run in. Tomcat (an Apache Project) is the most common servlet container for JSP. But, Java takes up a lot of memory and JSP servers are very difficult to maintain and administer for non-experts.

Ruby

Ruby is one of the newer programming language to hit the web developer market, and it’s actually quite close in concept to PHP except that it’s 100% object-oriented, and very clean because you don’t need as much punctuation. It’s also very beginner-friendly, and is growing in popularity. The main disadvantage to Ruby is that it’s difficult to troubleshoot runtime errors because its reluctance to declare variables before their use. And being that it’s a newer language, there are definitely less resources available and not as many applications currently employing Ruby as a framework. However, it is cross-platform compatible, easy to install, and even easier to learn.

Python

I really don’t know a whole lot about Python other than that expert programmers claim that it’s such a strong language. I personally think it’s crap…my one shot at Python and I find out that it’s very whitespace/tab sensitive, so one extra space can ruin your program. Coming from PHP I don’t find that very appealing…I personally think it’s a mistake, and that its developers just call it a ‘programming guideline’ since they can’t figure out how to fix it. Really, there’s no huge benefit in using Python other than for your Google sitemaps, so all I’m going to say is steer clear.

HTML

I put this at the bottom of the list because I don’t really consider it a programming language, but it is the more predominate and widely used language that all the others revolve around. I do think it’s important that every programmer become an expert in HTML before going dynamic with their coding. While other languages rely on HTML for output, it’s very common for sites to be purely HTML and nothing else. However, HTML is a static language with no dynamic capabilities in itself whatsoever, so it’s somewhat boring on its own

Client-side

In a category all its own, there are several client-side languages that augment the others. Client side languages no require any server-side software to be installed, just a browser capable of interpreting them. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language primarily used in formatting and creating a uniform and repetitive style for use across multiple pages. JavaScript is a mini-java language used to create mild effects for a website, like popup windows and form validation. I also consider it to be very insecure, so it should be used sparingly. AJAX is a newer JavaScript framework that is more appealing to the eye and lets you create those special effects that you see on many web 2.0 sites…things like refresh-less page loading.

Yes, it’s another one of those. It seems that every blog has its own tips for increasing traffic, so I decided to add my own tips that seem to have worked for my site

My first website was bluebutterflyweb.net which was set up back in 2005 for a school project while I was learning PHP and simplistic web design. I eventually made that a personal site, but I didn’t really care about search engine placement because the only traffic I cared to generate was from my friends and colleagues. In August 2006 I changed the domain name to v-nessa.net. It wasn’t until I redesigned my site back in Dec of 2006 that I started caring about people actually finding my site…I only had about 400 unique visitors a month which is obviously equal to pathetic in the eyes of the internet world. Three months later, I look in my stats and see that the traffic has nearly quadrupled since my first launch. Putting the pieces together I came up with a list of what worked for me.

1) Write what people want to read.

The giant cluestick should have slapped you with this one. If you don’t write what people want to read, no one will read. Try to keep your blog focused on a niche…it’s ok to post on other topics occasionally, but try to keep your blog based on a general category to build a good reader database. For instance, you’ll see that my blog is primarily focused on programming and technology, with mild tangents of topics that no one probably cares about.
Also, be original. It’s ok to post on topics that are discussed in other blogs, but add your own twist and you’ll find that people will be less likely to turn their heads. You’ll always want “features” on your site that no one else has so people will have to go to your site to get it. You can offer your own scripts, themes, wallpaper, etc. to encourage people to come to your site.

2) Make it pretty

Have you ever seen a dog so ugly that you wanted to gouge your eyes out with a spoon rather than pet it, even though the owner says it the best dog in the world? I could probably say the same about your blog. No one likes an ugly site, or a site with a gazillion popups. Get yourself a good host, good blogging software, and a nice theme. I’m not saying this just because I’m employed there, but InMotion Hosting would be a good start for all of the above — for as little as $4 per month you get your choice of 5 bloggers that can be installed with a click of your mouse, not to mention a free domain name.

3) Watch your stats

Know where your traffic is coming from. I use AWstats on my server so I can see exactly how most people are getting to my site, like which search engine terms they are using, who’s linking to me, etc. I’ll occasionally see a crapload of search hits for a topic that I didn’t even write about…this lets me know what people are searching for and I’m therefore more likely to write on it because I know that people want to read it. It’s also helpful to know which sites are linking to yours so you can continue to keep tabs and possibly create even more traffic from that site to yours.

4) Search engines are your friend

This one should come second in the “duh” list, and it’s possibly the hardest point to write on in a post like this. I’m not going to lie — getting a good placement in search engines is not easy for some people, but if you don’t get listed no one will find you. There are a lot better resources out there that can elaborate more on this topic, but here are the key points:

- Check your code – You should make sure that the coding of your site will allow search engine spiders to properly crawl your site, meaning that your HTML should be clean and properly formatted. Using professional blogging software like WordPress can eliminate your need to worry about this.

- Use META tags, descriptions, and anything else you can squeeze in there – If you do a ‘view source’ on my site you’ll see that I have a variety of keywords set up. META tags are still valuable to most search engines, so don’t ignore them.

- Use SEF URLs – Search Engine Friendly URLs are formatted in a way that will allow search engines to find them. A link that looks like this will probably make Yahoo want to commit suicide:

http://domain.com/index.php?page=4&id=something&sess=123456778909

Try to make your URL’s formatted in a way that search engines understand:

http://domain.com/pages/page

If you are using software that generates dynamic URL’s like in my first example, you can create a rewrite rule in your .htaccess. Most software developers of blogging engines have additional plugins or re-formatted .htaccess rules that you can use.

You’ll also want to name the URLs approriate for the type of post. For instance, if you were writing a post on sex and candy, a url extension of …/sex-and-candy/ would probably score higher than ../index.php?page=123456.

- Use Sitemaps – I can’t stress how important this one is. A sitemap is just how it sounds — a map of your site. They are very easy to make, and can be submitted to Google or Yahoo in seconds. There are several sites out there who offer to generate them for you at no cost, but if you are using blogging software there may be a plugin available for you. For Wordress I use this.

5 ) Get listed

There are hundreds of blog directories out there, and the more that you can get into the better. If you go to the ‘Stuff’ section of my sidebar you’ll see several places that you can register your blog. This is called “Social Networking.”

6) Let people link

You should be somewhat reliant on other bloggers to help you, whether it be on their sites or in a blog directory. If you make this easy you’ll find that your visitors will actually do it, so add some links at the bottom of your posts to allow your visitors to instantly add your blog to social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Technorati, and Digg. I use Sociable, which allows you to add over 50 different links to popular directory sites, even though I only chose the most popular.

7) Socialize

This is a tip I kind of found by accident, when I started posting on my friends’ blogs and random forums. When people read my comments they clicked on my site too. Forums can be a little trickier, but you’ll want to try to link back to your site as much as possible without spamming. Put your URL in your profile and signature, and try to link back to your site if you have relevent information to share. For example, I recently posted my Ruby on Rails tutorial on the cPanel forums, and suddenly I’m getting 100 more visitors a month from people learning how to install Ruby. Do use caution with this method though, as some sites frown upon users linking to their own sites.

And I use the word “released” very loosely. Yes, I just upgraded my blog to use WordPress 2.2 after this guy made it sound delicious. No, I don’t regret it, but I do think it would be best to wait for a bugfix. I shall start with the positives:

- It’s optimized a bit more to help your site load faster. This may or may not be noticeable to you, but it probably is to your webhost

- It’s harder to break your site by enabling a botched plugin. I tried to enable Staticized-Reloaded and I got what I interpret as the “WordPress Screen of Death”:

This is also a shame because this happens to be one bad-ass plugin.

Now for the bad, which outweighs the good:

- Don’t be surprised if your plugin database disappears. From some odd reason, WordPress could only find it after I created a new plugins folder and copied over my plugin files again….and yes, I had to re-enable all 30 of them.

- WP-Cache no longer works (at the time of this writing), and you’ll find that enabling it will cause some strange behavior on your blog. Oddly enough it also caused my plugin database to be erased yet again

- TinyMCE (the WYSIWYG editor) malfunctions, esp. in Firefox when trying to use certain functions.

- You may need to tweak your theme a bit. I had to make several code modifications to my sidebar and header files.

- Your boobs might shrink in size. Oops, wait…that’s what happens when you stop taking birth control.

Anywho, those of you who are thinking on upgrading, be prepared to spend a few minutes messing with your site and testing your plugins and such. It may be a good idea to wait for a bugfix, which by WordPress history will probably be out within the next few days.

By: Jason O’Connor

I believe some people create and publish websites for the sole purpose of tormenting their visitors. Browsing various websites and navigating the Web can often be like trying to read on an airplane while a kid kicks the back of your seat and the baby next to you alternates between screaming, crying and drooling on you. There are some excellent websites out there to be sure, but there are also a lot of dreadful ones too. The latter are the bane of so many people’s existence, especially those who use the Web regularly.

The Net continues to grow in popularity and importance for consumers and businesses alike. Therefore, the quality of sites needs to keep pace. Creating and maintaining high-quality websites is more important now than ever. Higher quality equals more revenue.

The following lists the top ten ways that a website misses the boat and contributes to hair loss and nervous breakdowns. Notice the common thread that runs throughout each of these. Namely, a bad website neglects to consider the site visitor’s experience in some fundamental ways.

1. Animation

Seven year-olds like watching animated cartoons on Saturday morning, business people, professionals and most other adults don’t. Sites that include showy Flash animations as an ‘Intro’, animated gifs on every page, or flying words are really annoying. They take away from the content and distract the visitor from achieving their goals. Unless your site is an entertainment site, try to avoid maddening motion. However, if your product or service can be better demonstrated using Flash, Quick Time, or other multimedia, which is common, offer your visitors the chance to click a link to view it. But don’t force them.

2. Too much scrolling

Once I scroll down a full screen’s worth, my eyes start to blur, I feel slightly lost, my head spins and my interest wanes. Computer monitors really aren’t the best medium for reading. The Net and many sites are so big that it’s important to always provide a clear frame of reference for your visitors at all times while they’re on your site. If a page requires two full screens of scrolling or more, simply split it up into multiple pages.

3. Long, text-heavy and blocky paragraphs of unbroken text

I really have to be into a topic or desperately need to glean the information to trudge through big chunks of unbroken text online. If I’m just shopping around for a product or service, you’ve lost me if I have to endure this kind of torture. Again, it is harder to read text on the Web than in other mediums such as books. Additionally, Web users are notoriously impatient, so make your content easy to read and non-intimidating. Use titles, sub-titles, small paragraphs, bullets and numbering.

4. No obvious ways to contact the company

If all you supply is an email on your website, your legitimacy may be questioned. Why can’t you answer the phone? Why hide behind an anonymous and cold email address? Make it easy for your existing and potential customers to talk with you.

5. Unchanging or out-dated content

If I start reading content on a site and soon discover that the content was written three years ago, I split. Since there’s so much information out there, my reasoning is there’s got to be comparable information online that’s more current. If you keep your content fresh your site will attract repeat visitors. And repeat visitors are more likely to turn into customers.

6. Long page downloads

It’s amazing that this is still a problem. When I click on to a site and have to sit there waiting for it to appear in my browser, I start sweating, picking my teeth, tapping my toes, rolling my eyes and soon want to throw my computer through my office window. I’m obviously a little impatient, but again, I know there are other sites out there with the same information that will download more quickly, so why wait? I’m gone.

7. “Me, me, me!” instead of “You, you, you”

Generally speaking, no one cares about you, your company or your thoughts. What they do care about is what you can do for them. So sites that show pictures of the company building or tout their deep philosophy on the way business should be conducted really don’t bode well for keeping the interest of site visitors. On the other hand, sites that speak directly to potential customers about how they can solve their problems, make their lives easier, safer, richer or more comfortable have a much better chance of keeping the eyeballs glued.

8. Non-explanatory buttons or links

Here are some examples of buttons that leave me dazed and confused: A wedding site with a button called ‘Blanks’, a boating site with a button named ‘The Lighthouse’, a book site with a button called ‘The Inside Story’, or a Web design site with a button called ‘Tea Time’. They sound like Jeopardy categories. Imagine trying to find your way on a highway where its various signs read ‘Over Here’, ‘Moon Beams’, and ‘Lollypops’. Good luck navigating your way through. It’s the same with navigating websites. Button and link names need to tell the visitor where the link leads to. Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to know where they’re going before they click. However, there are times when naming a link an ambiguous name may pique the curiosity of a user and get them to click on it. But as a general rule, keep your links and buttons as descriptive as possible.

9. Inconsistent navigation

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and the waiter comes over to you and hands you five different menus, one for the appetizers, one for the soups and salads, one for the entrees, one for the desserts, and one for the drinks. Annoying. Now imagine if each menu had a different format, layout and method for listing the items. Brutal. I really don’t want to work that hard at picking out my dinner, I’m hungry and I just want a meal. Don’t make your visitors work hard either by expecting them to re-learn your navigation system each time they enter another section of your site. They too are hungry; for useful information and they’re even more impatient.

10. Inconsistent look & feel

When the look & feel completely changes from one page to another in a website, I think I am visiting another site, another company, a partner or subsidiary. I get very confused. This screams poor planning and often results from tacking on new sections later after the original site was built. This can lead to design-drift. It may be tempting to stray from the original design; you may have a better design now. But wait till you do a complete next-generation re-design of the entire site before introducing a new look & feel. If not, lots of visitors will be scratching their heads with one hand and possibly clicking away with the other.

Finally, any site that employs a number of these notorious features is particularly painful to experience. When I click to a website that has five different fonts and colors, scrolls down to the core of the Earth, incorporates zinging words and big fat blocks of text, lists no phone number and has content written and dated in 1996, I scream and know deep down inside that pulling my fingernails out wouldn’t be as torturous as having to remain there a minute longer.

I wrote an article a while back on PHP optimization, but it was pretty lacking in most aspects, probably because I’m a lazy poster. I’ve revisited that article and reposted to hopfully have it be a little more helpful on the area.

“My website is slow”

Yes, we’ve already established that. And while your visitors are waiting for it to load, they are probably Mapquest-ing your house and buying a shovel at their local hardware store. No one cares how hot your website is if they have to wait an eternity to see it.

Before we continue on this topic, it’s important for you to understand how PHP works. PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language that is executed server-side, therefore it generates dynamic content more quickly and efficiently than most other programming languages. The obvous conclusion is that the server your site is hosted on needs to provide a good PHP environment, and your site needs to be optimized to take advantage of that.

FYI, One of my other posts demonstrates a code addition that you can implement into your website to display how long a page takes to generate. This can be helpful in relializing exactly how long your site takes to load!

Setting the Server Environment

This section will probably not have much relevance to websites that are hosted on shared or free hosting plans, as most hosting companies shy away from making server-side changes. You may choose to skip this section and go straight to the programming concepts, my feelings won’t be hurt.

Your Hosting

If you are serious about your website and want the best performance possible, you should probably look into a v-dedicated hosted environment. The benefits of this is that 1) you are on your own server, so other websites will not affect yours, and 2) you can usually choose your own server configuration. If you need a quick and easy solution, InMotion Hosting offers a nice selection of v-dedicated hosting plans.

If VPS hosting is not an option to you yet, you can ask your host if they have any shared servers based on the configuration you need. There’s also the option of hosting your own website, but we won’t go into that here.

MySQL/PHP Versions

My website is currently running on CentOS 4, Apache 1.3.37, PHP 5.2.1, and MySQL 5. This does well for my website, but you’ll want to make sure that whatever combination you choose will work well together. I would say that PHP 5.2.1 and MySQL 5 are the best combination to use as long as your website software is compatible. If not, the alternative PHP 4.4.6 and MySQL 4.1 should be just fine. Keep in mind that as far as MySQL and PHP are concerned, newer is usually better.

PHP Accelerators

Hands down, a Zend/eAccelerator platform is the best way to go. Zend Optimizer is the most popular and stable (and free!) PHP acceleration agent there is, and eAccelerator compliments it nicely with its advanced caching and processing engine. Since I installed both on my server, I’ve noticed a considerably faster loading time in my website.

Zend can be installed easily by it’s autoinstaller, but if you need help installing eAccelerator, have a quick look at Shelby’s walkthrough.

Optimizing your Website

This section mainly deals with small modifications you can make to your site to help it load faster. I’m not going to go too much into programming here, but there are a lot resources online that can help you out in that department.

Keep Your Stuff up to Date

If you’re using bundled software like a CMS, blog, Gallery, etc., software developers are constantly making updates and improvements to up the speed and security of their programs. If you’re not willing to keep up with the newest releases, don’t expect peak performance of your site.

Caching

You know how when you go to a website a few minutes after you’ve already been there it seems to have loaded a ton faster? That’s because there are two caching agents in place — your ISP has cached that website into their nameservers to avoid having to do another external lookup, and your browser cached the website on your computer to avoid having to look it up, period. If you implement the same concept into your website, the logical conclusion is that the server will serve your pages more efficiently. The benefit of caching is that is generally uses less resources since the database isn’t being utilized as much, which cuts down on resources. Some bundled software will have an option or third-party plugin that can easily set up caching on your site. You can also use something like mod_cache for Apache to accomplish similar results.

What is all this junk?

Do you really find it necessary to bog your website down with ads and useless plugins? You’re really not doing your site (or your visitors for that matter) a favor by loading your site with a lot of junk. I’m not saying to stay away from plugins and ads altogether (being that my site uses both of all of the above), but to use them in moderation and be aware of the ones that suck. Honestly, there are a lot of really nice additions to some of my favorite software, but some of them can cause your site to load a lot more slowly.

Images

Lastly, most novice web designers tend to make this mistake when adding images to their sites. Since digital media has become more popular, it’s become a lot easier just to upload images straight from your camera onto the web. Most digital cameras nowadays take multi-pixel snapshots, which can amount to pictures that are several megs in size. What most beginner programmers don’t know is that when you upload an image this size and then just resize it with HTML <img> tags, it does NOT change the actual MB size of the image itself. Resizing the images with HTML also makes the pictures look crappy by reducing their quality.

If you are adding images to your site, you should take their loading time into consideration. Resize them first on your computer, then upload them to your site. You also try to use web-friendly image formats like GIF, JPEG, and PNG, which yield high-quality images without the massive size.

I never thought I’d say that about a CMS, but then again I said the same thing about Scott and look what happened there. Anywho, one of my friends showed me this new CMS that is purely Ajax on PHP, and I decided to give it a whirl. I might even switch my site over once I figure out how it works.

See it here.

If you haven’t heard the news, Radiant CMS is finally making its presence on the internet. Of course, you wouldn’t have heard the news unless you’re a dork like me. Anyways, I thought it would be worth mentioning as this is probably one of the sexiest content management systems I’ve seen yet. But really, I just like the color. And the logo’s nice too.

Check out Chris and Luke’s sites, which are currently running Radiant with Ruby on Rails.