Positioning Images with Titles / Captions

The images you place on your website pages work very hard for you in a number of ways. Not only do they add aesthetics to the design of a page but they also offer descriptive and informative benefits too. Making sure they look their best on your pages, are of the best possible quality and are working as hard as they possible can is very important when you build a website.

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Images on your Web Pages 

When you build a website and start placing images on your pages amidst all your text content, there are several ways in which you can make sure your images look their best. You have a great choice of flexible standard options within your Image Insert / Image Properties window. The settings in “Size”, “Position”, “Border” and “Space Around” can be used in a myriad of combinations to create all sorts of effects and styles for your images and text. Using these settings to their best advantage can all help to ensure that your text and images work together to keep visitors to your website interested and to make sure that your pages are a pleasure to view and read.

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Adding drop shadow to your images.

Adding drop shadow to core images on your primary pages can add depth and life to your pages. From a website builders’ point of view aswell as visitors, it makes images far more aesthetically pleasing than just a straight image with a simple line border. You can add shadow to images in your header now too with Reason8’s amazing new template builder. But how do you add them to your website pages? You can use a selection of free image editing programmes available online including paint.net or professional image editing programmes including Paint Shop, Adobe, etc., etc.

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Associations, Organisations and Links
 

Many online businesses, whether e-commerce or not, will have connections to associations, organisations, colleges, suppliers, affiliates, qualification providers etc. While you build a website, it can add authority and strength to your message to feature logos of all these connections. You can create links from logo images to the websites of these connections, which is a great way to obtain incoming links to your website from these connections. Reciprocal links can benefit all parties and are well worth a little time.

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Make the most of your images. 

When you build a website for your business, one of the first things you’ll need to organise are your images. Whether you have access to professional photography provided by a supplier or are using your own photography, the quality of your images is very important. Internet users will judge you and your products based on the images they see on your website pages and so the better the quality, the better the impression you give to those potential customers. 

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An Incredible choice of images for you to use!

Reason8’s new Website Template designer has one aim – to be the best template builder online! One way in which it is achieving this are with the vast amount of images available to website builders to use within their new website headers. WHATEVER your trade or business type, there are high quality images available to help you create the best possible header and introduction to your business website. “I haven’t got any decent pictures…..” is no longer an excuse or reason not to have a website for your online business. 

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Getting Artistic with your images.

In our last tutorial, we looked at how to prepare images when building a website using the free online image editing programme called DrPic. Click here to view the other tutorials. Today we’ll look at some of the more artistic options and settings available in this programme to help you prepare the best possible images for your pages. Images are by far one of the most important components of your website pages. Vital not only to display the products or services you are providing but they also add colour and interest to your pages. When a more artistic look is required DrPic can help you achieve this with some cool artistic effects.

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Working with Website Images - DrPic

In our last tutorial, we looked at how to prepare images for your website using a free online image editing programme called DrPic. Today we’ll continue to look at the options and settings available in this programme to help you prepare the best possible images for your pages. Images are by far one of the most important components of your website pages. Images are vital to display the products or services you are providing. They help create a first impression for your company and the people involved to internet users and they add that all important colour and interest to your pages. The quality of your images is vitally important and as a website builder you need to make sure you are using the best possible images available. An image editing programme can help you do this.

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Editing Images for your website

When you build a website, one of the most important parts of each and every page are the images. You’ll use images to show the products or services you provide, to create an impression of your company and the people involved, to grab internet users attentions or simple to add colour, interest  and life to a page of text. The quality of your images is vitally important. Rightly or wrongly, potential customers WILL JUDGE YOU based on the quality of the images you use, especially the images of the products and services you are providing. If you use grainy, low resolution images, which are pixilated, out of focus or just plain bad quality, they will reflect the quality of the products and services you provide and can actually discourage potential customers from doing business with you.

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Table Layouts

When you build a website you really need to make sure that your website pages are easy to look at and are designed in a way, which actually helps visitors to absorb all your information. Displaying your content as neatly as possible can help you to ensure this. One of the best ways to design neat and structured pages is to use tables. Reason8’s table function is incredibly easy to use and so will help you to achieve perfect structure on all your primary pages.

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Put a spotlight on your images.

Images are an integral part of any website, especially an ecommerce site, which will be using images to sell the products and / or services. Presenting your images in the best light is vital to help customers make that all important decision – to buy! If a customer wants a closer look at a product image, wouldn’t it be great if they could simply click on it and a larger version popped up in its own window? Well, brace yourself because your image presentation is about to get really exciting!! Reason8 have made life very easy for website builders with a feature called the Lightbox and you’re not going to believe how simple it is to incorporate this feature into your website.

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Adding a Drop Shadow to images.

We get asked all the time by website builders if its possible to add a drop shadow to images. And of course the answer is Yes it is possible and it does add a touch of depth and life to your pages too. You can use a selection of image editing programmes including Paint Shop, Adobe, etc., etc.
If you haven’t already got an image editing programme, we recommend a programme called Paint.net.

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Adding Video to your website

Since You Tube was launched in 2005, videos have become commonplace on websites big and small. Used properly they can add real value. Videos bring a dimension to a site that’s difficult to achieve with words and pictures alone. If you build a site using a website builder it’s just as easy to add your own videos. It can also be free too!

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Image Issues Quiz
 

The Tutorial Blog contains around 100 guides on how to get the best from your website. If you get stuck with anything while you develop your website using your website builder, there’s a fair chance you’ll find the help you need. If you don’t then leave a comment at the bottom and tell us what you need help with.

WIN Free Extra Pages for your website!!! 

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Make editing images a Picnik

It isn’t often that we make a song and dance about websites we’ve found.  But when we find something special we feel it’s important to shout about it.

When you build a website the quality of the images have a big impact on the overall look of the site. To get the very best out of an image it generally requires some form of editing. However, most photo editing packages are expensive and difficult to use.  As a result many small business owners have struggled to achieve the quality of image they require. Now the photo manipulation software provided by Picnik, provides all the facilities of a professional editing package without the cost or technical requirements.

To demonstrate just how good it is, they were acquired by Google last month for an undisclosed figure.

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Flexible Shopping
 

E-commerce is a continually growing shopping medium, which continues to out-perform high street shopping as shoppers look for both bargains and convenience. As a website builder, your E-commerce website needs to offer as much choice as possible to compete with the visible options and choice offered when customers actually go into a shop to browse. Your Reason8 Shopping Basket Wizard makes it very simple to offer such choices and options.

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More On Tables for Web Page Structure.

As we’ve said in previous tutorials, Tables provide website builders with an invaluable tool when adding structure to a webpage. Structure ensures that the content (both text and images) is laid out in such a way, which allows website visitors to read and take it all in easily. Dividing the various sections of information up on a webpage provides each of those sections with a more prominent share of the spotlight. Overall, structure makes the first impression of a webpage far more aesthetically attractive and so encourages viewers to stay for longer and take in more information.

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Design great pages using Tables.
 

When you build a website for your business, you’ll no doubt have a huge amount of information to include within your website pages. Your Reason8 Website Builder offers a host of tools and functions to help you design your pages so that visitors and viewers can easily take in your information. Encouraging visitors to your website to stay long enough to take in sufficient information to encourage them to respond to you is the key. One proven way to achieve this is to create website pages, which are easy on the eye and allow visitors to take in all your information in the simplest and most pleasant way possible. Adding structure to your pages to organise your content is a great way to do this and one of the most effective ways to add structure is to use tables.

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Keep your Text in Line

“Remember that writing for the screen is not the same as writing for paper. Website builders need to keep their content punchy, simple and to the point.”

Grabbing and holding the attention of visitors and browsers flying through the net can be achieved in many ways, but one of the main ones is with your text content. Filling your pages with endless scrolls of text will lose their interest in seconds, they probably won’t get past the second line before giving up and moving to a website with more images and less text. People read for pleasure but not when they’re looking for something. Sourcing specific information needs to be a simple and speedy task.

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Website Style

As you build and develop your website, it’s important to maintain any existing corporate or company image or brand awareness. If you already have existing literature, logo’s, brand logo’s, corporate colour schemes and / or font styles, then include them within your website style and design. As you use your website builder to create your website keep in mind that clients who have already seen your company image or those who will see it in the future can recognise you easily when they find you online.

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Effective Marketing of Your Website.

Once you know your customers, you can target them more effectively as you’ll be able to guess what keywords they’re most likely to type into a search bar when looking for products and services like yours. Create a list of these keywords and make sure you include them in the content on your pages. Your website builder optimisation system can then pick out the best keywords and optimise your pages with them. Your target audience will then be able to find you as and when they need you.

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand your customers so well that your products and / or services fit them perfectly and sell themselves.”

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The Issue of Website Images.

The images you place on your website can play several roles. Descriptive - they can show viewers exactly what you do and offer in a fraction of a second. Invitation – Choosing the right images can encourage visitors to look further into your website. Attention – Images can grab people’s attention far better than text, especially if those images are animated. Sales – The images for the products you’re selling through your website can, in some cases, make the difference between a client making a purchase or not. As a Website Builder, giving your website the best images you can, will ultimately help your website perform better for you and your business.

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S.E.O Your Images

A website that’s been built with search engines in mind is far more likely to achieve a better position than one, which is just designed to look nice. Having a website, which does both however, will of course put you several steps ahead of your competition. The great thing is that all Reason8 websites are built in such a way that every possible area of your site is highly visible to the Search Engines. This means that while you use your website builder to make sure your site looks great and provides all the right information, Reason8 concentrates on the visibility and optimization side of things. What a Team!!

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Reason8 Build a Website Blogs

I hope you’ve all enjoyed and been helped by these Tutorial Blogs. The Blogs offer constant access to step-by-step guides on how to make the very most of your Reason8 Website. If you get stuck when you build a website with Reason8 you can look for tutorials covering the following subjects:

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Keep your Pages Fresh and New.

When you build a website, its vitally important to keep your web pages fresh and new. Search Engines are programmed to notice new information and changes to web pages, so it doesn’t only work to keep your customers interested, it keeps the search engines on their toes too!! Of course as a Reason8 Website Builder, you have the simplest of tools to be able to do this. Your page editor makes it extremely easy to add new images and text as and when you launch new products or introduce new services for your customers.

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Adding Flash Animation to your Website.

Grabbing the attention of visitors and passers by is one of the main aims for all website builders. One proven way to stop people in their tracks and catch their eye is with movement. An animated Logo or slogan, a selection of descriptive images morphing into one another, a full movie with sound…. They all work to encourage visitors to spend extra time on your site, giving you more time to get your message across to them. This movement or animation is provided by an application called Flash.

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Helping Search Engines to Find your Keywords

You may be surprised to know that Search engines don’t actually find websites. They find Web Pages. They look at each page on your website as individual documents. They know that all your pages are part of the same website and are all related and linked but the content on each of your pages is individually reviewed. The complex process managing the visibility and optimisation of each of your individual pages is based on this knowledge, which is why each page has a Title, Description and a list of keywords. You can view these by clicking the Google Icon next to each page in Step 3.

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Shadow on Website Images - Another Dimension!

Images are an integral part of your Website for several reasons. When you build a website, images provide; visual aesthetics; visual information; they improve your page design; helping to create a web page which is easy on the eye and encourages visitors to stick around longer; they are vital in making best use of one of the Reason8 Search Engine Optimisation processes, which entails all images being tagged with your top key phrase., etc., etc., etc. We looked at the various options you have when placing your images but we’ve recently been asked if it is possible to add a shadow to your images?

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How does Reason8 Optimise your Website?
 

When you first start thinking about building a website for your business, one of the main criteria you should really look for is Effective Search Engine Optimisation. There are plenty of companies out there offering websites, which you can build yourself but many of them hide lots of extra costs for services and functions which really should be included as standard. Search Engine Optimisation being one of them. It's very much like buying a car and then finding out you need to pay extra for the steering wheel??!

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Index / Menu Pages - Part 2

This Blog is Part 2 of a series looking at different ways to display your products and services. There are various ways, but we recommend going for the clear, easy to browse options, which will encourage visitors not only to click further into your site for more information but could also encourage maximum response and purchasing. Here, we're looking at using Visual Index or Menu Pages. Index or Menu Pages are a great way for website builders to display a breakdown of the products you have available and the various categories and groups of products you specialise in. Click to see Part 1.

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Index your Website with Images!

Index pages or Visual Menu Pages are a great way for website builders to display a breakdown of the products or services they have available. Ideal for websites with or without a shopping basket, it can help visitors to find what they're looking for quickly and easily by clearly showing the various categories and groups of products you specialise in. 

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Website Image Quality - Good Shot !!

The quality of the images on your website is very important. Professional website builders know that there’s nothing worse than blurred, out of focus or pixilated images, especially if they’re the images of the products you’re trying to sell. Consumers commonly judge the quality of products they see online by the quality of the image portraying it. Can you imagine Marks & Spencers, one of the market leaders in high quality food and produce, promoting a new food range with a pixilated image? Or Land Rover, launching a new vehicle with a grainy, low resolution image. It just wouldn’t work but then it wouldn’t ever happen. Now I know you’re not M&S or Land Rover but the principle is still the same and you could well share some of their customers.

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Take Control of your Web Pages.

Your web pages work so very hard for you and can do so much to make sure your website is performing at its best. All you have to do is feed them and give them a little inspiration and guidance every now and again. Their extensive list of skills includes: invitation, salutation, inspiration, instruction, education, direction, interaction, entertainment, demonstration, advertising, marketing, sales, optimisation, administration, security, customer service, accountancy etc., etc., etc.…….. They could be one of the cheapest and most industrious one-stop  workforces ever known to man, so they've got to be worth a bit of TLC every now and again don’t you think!

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Colours, Harmony and Headers

When Building a Website, lots of bright, primary colours are dreadfully uncomfortable to look at, and should be avoided when the aim is to invite people in and encourage them to stay a while.

Simple pastel shades do not strain the eyes, are easy to look at and absorb, and can look more stylish. Think clean or contemporary.

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Pretty as a Picture!

In our previous blog, we looked at Image Preparation as part of the website build process. So now you've got a selection of web ready images.... lets look at how best to use them on the page!

Open the editor on the page you'd like to work on. The first thing is to decide roughly where you want the picture to sit. Have a look at the whole page including your header, text and any existing images and look for a position, which will help to balance out the page. You don't want all your images bunched together at the top, bottom, or just one side of the page. A page with balanced images helps to break up the text and provides a more pleasant reading experience for visitors and let's face it, we want them to enjoy reading your page for as long as possible, so lets make it easy for them.

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Is a picture worth a 1000 words?.........

When you are talking about websites - if they're well placed, good quality, well optimised and in the correct format, then absolutely YES!

Site navigation, interactivity, content, delivery, and a multitude of other issues affect a user's perception of a website. However, images are probably the most obvious part of a great website build. Imagine a website, or other media such as magazines, newspapers or TV or billboard adverts without any images……..!?

Good quality, carefully compressed images, can add to the appeal and instructive qualities of a website. Equally, poor quality images, which take far too long to load can affect peoples perception of the entire site and indeed the company or business behind it. How often have you opened a web page and found yourself waiting for ages for the images to load or worse.. got impatient and gone elsewhere?

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