Lists for Web masters

An effective web design is one in which your users are able to find information quickly and in a logical fashion.

Do they visit the content you want them to visit? Are they looking in the right places of your web page? Are you able to keep your user’s attention, or do they just leave quickly?

It’s not just about the content either. If your design loads slowly - or if moving from one section to another takes a long time - it affects the user’s experience.

These things can be the make-or-break factors between a user clicking on a link to find more information, or the back button to find it elsewhere.

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As a web designer or developer building a site, it’s helpful to first scout similar websites (i.e. the competition) to help you make design and development decisions. Knowing what websites work and which ones tank can give you insights and inspiration on what design elements, website features, and website content is effective.

To help you in your analysis, here are 15 top-notch, free, and simple web tools to help you learn more about a particular website.

1. Yahoo! Site Explorer

Site explorer allows you to inspect certain aspects of a URL. The “Inlinks” feature shows you details about web pages that link back to the particular URL you are exploring. Site Explorer gives you some insights on how popular a website is based on how many web pages are linking to it.

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Getting Started
These videos offer an introduction to webmastering.

1. How to Make Your Own Web Site: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use online tools to create a profitable Web site.
2. Matt Cutts Discusses Webmaster Tools: In this video, Matt Cutts explains how you use webmaster tools and optimize your site for Google.

SEO

Learn about strategies for improving your site’s search-engine rankings.

1. SMX Seattle: Matt Cutts on Duplicate Content and Paid Search: This Matt Cutts interview explains what you need to know about paid search with Google, as well as duplicate content.
2. Search Engine Ranking — Google Webmaster Guides: Check out this video, which goes over Google’s webmaster guidelines.
3. Google On-Page SEO Tips and Strategies: This video shares some page-level SEO techniques that you can put to work on your site.
4. SEO Title Tags: Check out this video tutorial to learn how you can make title tags work for you.
5. Why Google Likes Old Web Sites: Find out why Google and other major search engines tend to favor sites that have been around for a while.
6. Search Engine SEO Google Tips — Ecommerce Webmaster Guide: Gareth Davies offers five useful SEO tips for e-commerce Web sites.
7. Create Google- and SEO-Friendly Page Titles: This video explains a few strategies for page titles that will help get you better search-engine returns.
8. TrustRank Explained by Matt Cutts: Matt Cutts discusses the concept of TrustRank in this video.
9. SEO Best Practices: In this video, you’ll get a good look at some of the best practices for SEO.
10. Google’s Subscribed Link Feature and Webmaster Tools Gadget: In this video, you’ll learn about a useful new gadget on Google’s Webmaster Tools, subscribed links and more.
11. SEO Title Tags: Get an introduction to title tags and learn how to make them useful in SEO.
12. Google SEO Web Site Health-Check Tool: See how to diagnose SEO issues with this free tool.
13. Network Solutions Senior VP: Beginner Tips for SEO: On MSNBC’s “Consultants Corner,” Network Solutions senior vice president Stephanie Leffler discusses how you can get started with improving your search-engine rankings.
14. What Should SEOs Focus on in 2008?: Check out this video to find out what Google’s Matt Cutts thinks are important SEO issues these days.

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Image Management Tools

Aniga Gallery – Allows you to create picture galleries that use the WordPress comment system.

Batch Image Uploader – Upload and resize multiple images to your blog at once.

Duh Gallery – Simply creates a photo gallery from your uploads folder in WordPress.

ImageManager – Includes interface for browsing and uploading images and basic tools such as cropping and rotating.

WP Image Gallery – Create photo galleries from within WordPress and display them in posts.

fMoblog – Post pictures with descriptions from a mobile phone.

Pop-up Image Gallery – Photo gallery plugin with various options for transitions

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