We have launched a brand new community focused blog - Web Design ZA! Tutorials and resources for the South Africa Web Designer community!

If you have an organization, are a freelance designer or small business looking to establish a presence on the Internet but are short on funds or budget then there are some very good options for creating an online presence for free. The blog format has become a popular format for publishing content on the Internet. A blog can be described as an online journal or “web log” from which the name is derived. This allows to the subscriber to easily update information about their organization and upload files, photos and other media that they would like to distribute to their readers, clients or supporters. Two names come out tops in terms of free online blogs, namely blogger.com (Google) and wordpress.com. Both are synonymous with blogging throughout the world. Registration is simple and free with both systems guiding you effortlessly through the process of setting up your blog. Once registered, you can customize the look of your website using the built-in systems of each blo... [More]

Our video tutorial on Youtube explaining how to make use of an external RSS feed in your own ASP.NET web application. RSS feeds are an an important part of your website design because they are one of the simplest and most effective ways to keep your content current. The tutorial is presented using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Download the tutorial files

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is modern way to use a website design to create a website layout and apply various styles to the website in conjunction with HTML code. CSS has been a standard in web design for some time and continues to grow as we can see with the new standards being developed in CSS3, the latest version of CSS. This means that it is worth getting to know and worth getting comfortable with using CSS in order to create attractive, accessible websites. CSS is a different type of mark-up from regular HTML in that it does not have tags stored in angle brackets  describe how elements of a webpage are displayed. CSS works according to a set of hierachical rules where the top most element sets a particular set of behaviour and any components that inherit from that element will have the same behaviour unless they explicitly override it. Traditionally, elements describing how the HTML elements in a webpage should display were included in the normal HTML markup of the ... [More]

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often seen to be a mythical practice with online marketing companies not always being transparent about how they intend to improve the rankings of a client's website. The truth is that search engine optimization is not an overly complex field, it simply requires constant effort and the right starting point. This article attempts to demystify some of the things that SEO agencies do in order to improve the ranking of their clients' websites by giving the reader a list of things that you can do yourself in order to improve your websites visibility on the Internet. There are a number of things that you can do yourself without the assistance of a SEO professional to improve your websites search rankings and improve its visibility on the Internet. The points mentioned below will help to promote your website by making search engines more aware of your website and it does not cost you anything to implement! Here are some pointers to market ... [More]

A website is essential in today's environment with more and more people moving to the Internet to find products and services. Website design is the process of creating a website and making it available on the Internet. The basics steps required to create a website and have it available on the Internet are not obvious for the uninitiated and so this article outlines the main aspects of website design. There are three main things that are required in order to have a website. DOMAIN REGISTRATION In order to have a website available on the Internet you need to have your website name (URL) registered so that the name of your website is known and points to the right place. URLs can be registered by most ISPs, website developers and website hosting companies. Indeed, IT Solutions offers domain registrations. You can of course register a domain name yourself but you will need to be able to provide DNS servers on your application. DNS servers are servers on the Internet which tell your browse... [More]

Choosing a hosting provider can be a daunting task with the many hosting providers and options available. It need not be an exhausting exercise though, if you know how to look for the features that are important for your website. Below are some of the more important aspects you should consider when choosing a hosting provider. BANDWIDTH Probably the most important consideration for South African companies is the cost and limitations of bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred to and from your website at any particular time. With websites being accessible to many users simultaneously it is important to consider what your peak demand on your site could be and choose a bandwidth allowance accordingly. Also a factor is the location of your website. If your target audience is mainly South African then it makes sense to host your website with a local hosting provider even if an overseas provider is cheaper. It is easier to deal with a hosting provider that ... [More]