Written by eric on April 29, 2008.
Posted in User Guide, Web Site Design.
WebSpawner members occasionally contact us to ask:
How can I add a game to my web site?
Adding a game to your WebSpawner web site is really quite easy and requires just a few simple steps.
First, you must locate a game that you would like to add to your website. While there are many good web sites online that provide games, one of the best that we are aware of is Miniclip Games at www.miniclip.com. Click any of the Miniclip games to try it in your web browser. When you have found a game that you like and wish to add to your website, click the Post to my blog/website button, as shown in the example below:
A window will appear similar to the one below. Click inside the box containing the code as shown, and the code should become selected; then Copy the code (Control-C on a Windows PC, or Command-C on a Mac).
Now open a new browser window and log in to your WebSpawner account at www.webspawner.com with your Account Name and Password. Under Step 1 select the web page to which you would like to add the game and click the
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Written by eric on March 26, 2008.
Posted in User Guide, Web Site Design.
In our continuing quest to address the questions asked most frequently by users of WebSpawner’s easy-to-use website creation tools, today we examine the following one:
How do I change the font size/style/color?
WebSpawner’s Webpage Builder uses predetermined layout templates and font sizes to ensure an easy-to-read website on computer monitors of all sizes and resolutions. This allows all viewers, regardless of whether they use a large or small computer display, to be able to easily view and read the text within your website.
When you Modify your webpage, the Headline and Body Text steps present a simple pull-down Text Color menu to select a color for the text … by choosing a color in the menu, the color of all of the Body Text or Headline text is adjusted accordingly.
However, you can also specify the font size, style and color of certain text (without affecting the rest of the text on your webpage) by using HTML tags in the Body Text area of your webpage. For details and examples of all the tags needed to make these changes, click the orange Resources tab in the Member Menu, then click the HTML Reference Guide, as shown here:
The HTML Guide provides an overview of many HTML tags, providing specific examples of how to apply the tags for the desired effect. The Guide is arranged to allow for easy reference by Tag (in alphabetical order) or by Category (Content list), and also includes a HTML FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to help you quickly locate the information desired.
The Font page in the HTML Guide gives an explanation and example of specifying font color and size…
<FONT SIZE=+1 COLOR=”#123123″>
The text here between the tags will be bigger and a different color than the rest.
</FONT>
When you enter HTML tags like the one above into the Body Text area of your webpage, the tags within the brackets (< and >) will be invisible and not displayed. These tags merely instruct the web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or other) how to display the text within the tag.
HTML tags specify colors using a six-digit hexidecimal code, which requires you to have a color chart in order to select the desired color and find the proper six-digit code. Here is an excellent color chart available to reference online: http://www.songweaver.com/html/colorchart.html
HTML tags can also be used to apply different styles to text. For example, to make text appear in italics, see this page in the Guide:
http://www.webspawner.com/cc/html/italics.html. The tag to italicize text looks like this:
<I>
The text here between the tags will be displayed in Italics.
</I>
To make text appear bold, see the following page for tag explanation and examples:
http://www.webspawner.com/cc/html/bold.html. The tag to make text bold looks like this:
<B>
The text here between the tags will be displayed in Bold.
</B>
The HTML Reference Guide contains numerous additional tags and examples to help you stylize the fonts on your website. Keep in mind that the HTML tags should be entered into the Body Text area of your webpage when you Modify your website.
Occasionally a WebSpawner member will inquire about changing the font face to a custom font. This is also possible using HTML tags; for example:
<font face=”book antiqua”>
However, WebSpawner recommends that you do NOT specify a custom font face, and many other webhosts recommend avoiding it as well. The reason for this is that if you specify a custom font which is not installed on the computer of a viewer of your website, the viewer’s browser will be forced to substitute another font and there may be unexpected display results or possibly even illegible text. It is actually the settings of the web browser on each viewer’s computer (and the fonts that are installed) that determines the font in which they will see the text of your website.
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Written by eric on February 22, 2008.
Posted in User Guide, Web Site Design.
One of the most frequent questions received by WebSpawner Customer Service is:
How do I get my website listed in search engines like Google and Yahoo?
Getting your website listed in search engines is probably the single most important step you can take to promote your website and increase the chances of receiving substantial visitor traffic. Building a website without getting it listed in search engines is kind of like having an unlisted phone number; it makes it extremely difficult for others to find you unless you directly provide them with the URL address for your website.
Getting listed in search engines is a process and does not occur immediately. For your website to appear in search engines the following things need to occur:
- The search engines must first be alerted to the existence of your website. This typically occurs by submitting a request for inclusion of your website to each search engine. It may occur automatically over time if your site is found by a search engine spider after it crawled a link on another website to your site… but submitting it directly speeds up the entire process.
- After each search engine receives the request for inclusion, it goes through a process of determining the relevancy of your website, which includes sending out a “spider” (an automated program that acts like a viewer) to visit your website and “crawl” its contents, which are analyzed using the search engine’s relevancy algorithms. Each search engine uses different algorithms to establish a relevancy score, and the algorithms do change over time, with relevancy scores varying as a result.
- Once the search engine has determined the relevancy of your website it will then make a determination of whether or not to list your website in its search index. As each search engine is an independent business entity there is no way to force a search engine to include any particular listing; each engine retains the ultimate authority over the decision to list a website in its index (or to not list it).
- On an ongoing basis, the search engine spider will review your site to make any necessary adjustments to how it rates the relevancy of your site against other similar sites already in its index. If the relevancy of your site drops too far your site may be removed from their index.
The process of getting into the search engines can take from a few days to several weeks (sometimes even a couple of months) depending on the search engine, how many submissions they have waiting before yours, and the rate at which they process those submissions.
You can visit each search engine and follow its instructions to submit your website yourself if you wish. Or, WebSpawner does offer a service in which we will handle the rapid submission of your requests for inclusion to more than 100 search engines and directories for a one-time fee. For more information and pricing along with a secure online order form, click the orange Promote Your Site tab in the Members Menu of your account, then click the Search Engine Registration link.
It is important before submitting your website to search engines to increase the overall content available on your website. Without a considerable amount of content there will be little for the search engine spiders to evaluate. The more prepared your website is for the spiders’ visits, the more likely it is that your website will be listed in the search engines’ indexes. Search engine spiders can read the text on your website, so the more unique and relevant information you can provide in text format, the better.
For more information on content and how it relates to search engine relevancy scores, see Improving your website’s positioning in search engine results.
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Written by eric on January 29, 2008.
Posted in User Guide, Web Site Design.
In today’s post we cover the use of Image Gallery Groups. Image Gallery Groups are used to group together multiple Image Gallery pages. With Gallery Groups, you can set up each webpage in your website to display different Image Galleries than the other pages in your website, so that only those Image Galleries relevant to each webpage are available.
The instructions provided in this post will be more relevant if you have already created several Image Gallery pages and have already added additional webpages to your website account. With an Enhanced WebSpawner website account, you can create as many Image Gallery pages as you like and can also add as many webpages to your website as you like, all at no additional cost (click either of the two links to see previous Blog posts providing instructions).
To illustrate the use of Gallery Groups, we will use an example website containing reviews of automobiles. The website has several webpages, each focusing on a different car manufacturer. Several Image Gallery pages have been created, each containing pictures of cars produced by different auto companies. The goal in using Gallery Groups with our example website is to have only the Ford car image galleries display when the Gallery button on the Ford webpage is clicked, and only the Dodge car image galleries display from the Dodge webpage, and so on. The Member Menu of our example website account is shown below.
To begin creating Image Gallery Groups, click the Image Gallery tool (under the orange Add-Ons tab in the Member Menu) as shown above.
The Image Gallery tool window displays with a few buttons and a pull-down menu of all existing Gallery pages as shown below.
Click the Manage Gallery Groups button.
The Gallery Groups window appears with a list of existing Gallery Groups (our example account has no groups created yet) and some buttons… click the New button.
Give your Gallery Group a name which will help you remember which webpage it should go with.. we’ll start with a Group for our Jeep Galleries and name it “Jeep gallery group” and then click the Continue button as shown below.
The Gallery Groups window reappears. Next, we select the new Gallery Group by name from the pull-down list and click the Edit button as shown below.
A list of all existing Image Gallery pages appears. Click to put a checkmark in the box next to each Gallery page to be included in this Gallery Group and click Update when done, as shown in the example below.
Now the Gallery Groups window appears again, this time showing our new Jeep Gallery Group in the pull-down list. We can now click the New button and repeat the steps above to create more Gallery Groups as desired for the Ford, Dodge, Pontiac, Honda, and Toyota Galleries.
When you have finished creating your Gallery Groups and editing each one to assign the Image Gallery Pages to the proper Groups, close the Image Gallery tool window.
The next step is to Modify each webpage and indicate which Gallery Group should appear when the Gallery button on that webpage is clicked by a website viewer.
Click to select one of your webpages under Step 1 in the Member Menu and click the Modify button under Step 2, as shown below.
Scroll down in the Modification form to the Image Gallery step, and select the desired Gallery Group from the pull-down menu, shown below.
Be sure to complete the Modification process by clicking Continue at the bottom of the form and then click the “I Like It” button at the test page preview to save and publish your changes. Repeat these steps to assign your other Gallery Groups to the other webpages in your account.
Gallery Groups have many different uses depending upon the purpose of your website. For example, in a family website, you can create a different Gallery Group for each family member, or for each birthday, holiday, or event.
A few parting notes:
- You can assign an Image Gallery Page to more than one Gallery Group.
- You can assign a Gallery Group to as many different webpages as you like.
- Each webpage can display either ‘All Image Galleries’ or just one selected Gallery Group.
- By using descriptive names for the Image Gallery Pages you create as well as for the Gallery Groups you add, you can make it much easier to keep track of things and have the desired pictures display from each webpage in your account.
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