Netricity Design: Website Design FAQ's

Code
1. What is HTML?: HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) is "code" to create websites. Browsers can read HTML tags to present the end user (like you looking at this page) with a nicely formated web page.
2. What is CSS?: CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) allows the web designer to separate content (images, text, etc...) from the formatting (text colors, borders, etc...) of a web page. This has several benefits including much smaller pages (in kilobytes or megabytes) because less HTML code is used in creating the page. CSS also allows the web designer to control the entire look and feel of a site using just one file. Need to change the font size across your entire site? No problem, the web designer can change one line in a CSS file and change the font on your entire site! CSS also helps in search engine optimization. Since there is less HTML code on the page for formatting, you increase your code to text ratio which can be a deciding factor in your search engine rankings.
3. What are PHP and ASP?: These are dynamic computer languages that can interact with a database like SQL or MYSQL to create a database driven site. These languages are often used with e-commerce sites so that the site owner can create thousands of products stored in an easy to use database and use template pages to show those products to their end user. Using these languages, a web developer can create one template page to show thousands of products without creating 1000's of individual static pages (which would be a nightmare to maintain) because they create special code to show different products depending on what the end user selects. These languages are capable of other tasks as well that are not related to e-commerce such as creating forms or polls.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
1. What is SEO?: Seach Engine Optimization is a combination of several technigues to help your website get to the top of the search engine results for certain keywords.
2. Can I do my own SEO?: Of course! Anyone can learn the techniques and apply them to their site. However, it's not as simple as reading a few documents and all of a sudden you're at the top of the search engine results. Netricity Design has been doing SEO for many years and have accuired knowledge and tools that help make the SEO process painless for you.
3. So, applying SEO to my website will get me to the top in no time?: Ahhhh...if only it were that easy. There are a lot of factors that lead to top results in search engines. This includes keyword competition, age of your site, proper website design, inbound links, etc... These are just a few of the factors. If it were that easy, we would all be at the top! SEO is not just a one shot deal, it's an ongoing process that really never ends. Depending on competing sites, the basic SEO building blocks may get you by for a while but you will eventually have to do more as competition for keywords gets larger.
4. Do I have to do SEO for my site?: Not at all. However, you can have the best site in the world with the best products or services...but if no one can find your site, who cares?