Web Building Resources

List of topics on this page:

• Recommended Hosting Providers
• Online Photos
• Free Photo Editing Programs
• Free Graphics Programs
• Free Clipart
• Free Web Page Templates
• Computer Help, Tips and Newsletters
• Search Engine and Ranking Resources
• Color Information Resources
• HTML Resources
• Free Word Processors
• CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
• JavaScript Resources
• World Wide Web & Internet Resources
• Keyword Tools
• Buying Content for your Website
• Article Directories
• The Most Popular Search Engines

Recommended Hosting Providers

(See the topic on Hosting Companies for information on the Basic Starter plans that each company offers).

Online Photos

iStockphotos - Nice photos at very reasonable prices.  Royalty Free.  As low as $1.00 each.  Lower cost than professional Websites.  Photos provided by amateur photographers and enthusiasts.
stock.xchng - Free photos.  User contributed.  A good variety.
Dreamstime - Very good photos.  As low as $0.74 ea.  Royalty Free.  Photos provided by amateur photographers and enthusiasts.

Free Photo Editing Programs

Picasa from Google, easy user interfaces. Allows you to edit, organize and share photos.
IrfanView  A basic photo editing program, one of the simplest to use but a good one.
AutoStitch - A windows program that lets you stitch several pictures together
GIMP  A powerful photo editing program, Mid-level to Advanced users.
Paint.NET  For Windows.  Mid level, very good.  A little longer learning curve.  Like Photoshop.  Does things like cropping and resizing an image, plus some special effects.  Requires .NET Framework 2.0 installation.

Free Graphics Programs

Paint.NET  For Windows.  Mid level, very good.  A little longer learning curve.  Like Photoshop.  Does things like cropping and resizing an image, plus some special effects.  Requires .NET Framework 2.0 installation.
Expression from Microsoft  (A sophisticated program with three-dimensional graphics)

Good - Free Clipart

Open Clip Art Library - Free Clipart.  All user contributed, but some nice stuff.

Free Web Page Templates

Free Layouts - Free Website Templates, Free Myspace Layouts, and Flash Templates.
Open Source Web Design - An Open Source Site where you can add templates to their data base if you have some you'd like to post on their site.
Open Web Design - A community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates and design information

Computer Help, Tips and Newsletters

Kim Komando - Nationally known.  Lots of helpful tips, free programs and free Newsletters.
Langalist - Good computer tips, somewhat technical.  Has a good, free Newsletter.
Glossary of Computer and Web Terms
Convert MSN Favorites to IE7 Favorites

Search Engine and Ranking Resources

Search Engine Resources
SEO Elite  One of the best SEO tools around.  Has many functions. It's one that I personally use.  Click on the link to find out more or to watch a Demo Video.
Search Engine Spider Simulator  See how a SE spider views your web pages.
Whois Source  Find out information on a Website

PageRank Resources

Page Rank Checker - fill in a page URL and see what the PR is.
PRchecker - They have a FREE PR icon that you put on your Web page and it shows the PR of the page.
PageRank Calculator - kind of like an online puzzle.  It gives you an idea of how PageRank is calculated.
Whitelines -   A short explanation of Page Rank with some graphic examples.
Wikipedia - Page Rank  -  A very in-depth analysis of Page Rank
Google Toolbar - The easiest way to know the PageRank of any Web page.  It's a FREE download.  It will integrate with your Web browser and display the PageRank of each Web page you visit. 
 

Getting Links
LinkMetro - Free Link Exchange service.  They have a form which you fill out to trade a link and automates the process.  Premium Service for $19.95 / month
LinkMarket - Another Free Link Exchange Service
LinksManager  - A tool to manage your web links.  Free 30 day trial, $19.95 / month.
Text Link Ads  Link Purchasing
LinkAdage  Buy and Sell Links and Link Auctions
Text Link Brokers  Buy Links and Link Management Services

Free Link Resource Tools
Yahoo Site Explorer:   This is a special Yahoo site that allows you to find the Web pages that have links pointing to a particular Web Page.  Using the search box, type in link:http://URL.  Where URL is the page address. 
Link Popularity Check by Marketleap - You enter your URL and up to three URLs of your competitors and it will generate a report telling you how many links you have pointing to your site and how many to your competitors sites, as well as listing other sites that you can compare to.

Color Information & Resources

Pantone: What Is Color
Browser Safe Colors
The Color Wheel
Color Theory
Color Scheme Generator
Color Scheme2 Generator

HTML Resources

HTML Reference
W3C's home page for HTML - Official Guidelines on the proper use of HTML
W3C official List of HTML Elements
W3C official List of HTML Attributes
W3C Cascading Style Sheets Level 1
W3C Cascading Style Sheets Level 2

Free HTML Tutorials
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/
http://www.w3.org/2002/03/tutorials
www.webdesign.org

Free HTML Editors
Selida
Amaya
NoteTab Light
CoffeeCup
Macromedia Homesite

Free Web Design Programs
Nvu (Donation Requested)
First Page 2006 by Evrsoft
Open Source Web Design  Free Web Templates

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets

• The Complete CSS Guide by Web Standards Software and Learning - One of the best presentations on CSS information that I have found on the web.

• Introduction to style sheets - CSS Information by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

• Cascading Style Sheets, level 1 - CSS Information by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

• Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 CSS2 Specification - CSS Information by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

• Zen Garden - A great example of what can be done using CSS.

Free Word Processors

OpenOffice - A package of programs containing a Word processor, spreadsheet & database
Zoho - Online Word Processor.  Create documents, edit them, and share with anyone

JavaScript Resources

The JavaScript Source - Free Downloadable JavaScript code snippets

Free JavaScript Tutorials
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
http://javascript.internet.com/
http://javascriptkit.com/

World Wide Web & Internet Resources

W3C's home page for HTML - Official Guidelines on the proper use of HTML
Internet Society (ISOC) - Internet Main Administrative Body, which develops and sets the Internet technology standards
World Wide Web Consortium - (W3C) Develops the WWW standards
Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers - (ICANN) Official list of Top Level Domains

Keyword Tools

Keyword Elite
Click to find out more or to watch a Demo Video.
This product is from SEO expert Brad Callen for $167.

• Analyze Keyword competition: Quickly see how hard it will be to rank well for a specific search term.
• Uncover hidden 'niche markets' and get your products noticed among the thousands of other niche products on the Internet.
• Find out why some of your keywords are just not getting enough traffic.
• Discover keywords that will automatically generate low-cost traffic and quick sales!

Nifty Keyword Tools

• Good Keywords
  A free Windows software tool for checking on keywords for your web pages.  Displays keywords and phrases and lists how often they have been searched for.  Also includes a site popularity meter and a link popularity meter.  It is a 500 KB free downloadable program.
• Keyword Suggestion Tool
  A free tool from Digital Point Solutions that will show you the results from both Wordtracker and Overture of how often a particular keyword (or phrase) is searched on and will also give you alternative suggestions.
• Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool.
  An online free program that displays the number of searches, over the last 90 days, for a keyword that you enter, plus 99 other related keyword terms. 
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
  A free online program that allows you to enter a Keyword and it will return a list of "More specific" Keywords, a list of "similar Keywords" and a list of '"Keywords" that users have searched for, in addition to searching for your original Keyword.

Buying Content for your Website

Two of the better article writing services (for a fee):
www.elance.com
www.rentacoder.com

Article Directories

Some of the main directories that accept articles:
www.ideamarketers.com
www.ezinearticles.com
www.contentdesk.com
www.articleworld.net

One of the better automatic article submission services (for a fee):
www.submityourarticle.com

The Most Popular Search Engines

There are hundreds of search engines on the web.  The following is just a small list to give you an idea of some of the more popular Search Engines.