What Makes A Good Landing Page?

Embedded from the Pardot Blog

Web Design Help

Just found a really good site that could help me in the upcoming web projects we have. It's called Go Mockingbird and is basically a website that allows you mock up how you want your website to look and you can change bits of it when you want to. Better than using pen and paper as if you want to change stuff it's just a simple click not rubbing everything out or starting again. Click here to check it out.

Company

Haven't posted on here in a while.... Oops, been quite busy trying to design my website which I'm finally happy with, plan to have all the HTML and CSS done by the end of half term, then I can go onto the PHP, MYSQL and jQuery of it all. Should be all ready by the middle of November hopefully so I can test it ready for it's hopeful launch (30th November.) Might even do a Christmas background to give the site a more Christmas feel.

Thinking of different functionalities that I will one day have to add to the site and there's a fair bit. I'm going to need a PHP or jQuery which detects the date, if the date is December 1st - Jan 5th then I want to give it a Christmassy type background, if the date is Feb 1st - Feb 15th it'll have a valentines day theme to the site.

Another functionality I will eventually want to add to the site will be a checkout as guest feature. At the moment I'm unsure how I'd do that so I'll stick to having to register for now. The users won't get spammed with emails but some users don't like the fact that they have to give out information to a site which they may only use one time.

A way I thought up of having people maybe wanting to join up is their final input to site functionality. Should we be wanting to release a new feature to the site but are unsure on what we may put a survey asking what people would like most of all. This should give the users a better feeling of interactivity to the people who run the site.

The company is also going to have several social media platforms that people may contact us on should they wish to, we're planning on using Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Blogger.

Personal Site Redesign

I didn't really like how my site looked when I first designed it so I decided I'd redesign it before I actually launch it. All the back end coding will most probably be the nearly the same but I've done some changes to some of the pages.

This is what the home page of my site is going to look like. The large image at the top of the page is going to be an image slider which will automatically slide to the next image every 10 seconds, there will be 5 images for it to cycle through. The news section will have stories about what is happening, deals that we have or updates that are coming for the site. The 3 images at the bottom will also be on a slider of maybe 10 items. These will be the top selling items that are displayed here. I'm not really focusing as much on the design now and how good it looks I'll build on that as time goes on.

User Experience

This is a video that explains why the user experience is so important to Websites or potentially any other project that you can do. This is a topic I need to learn more about to improve my web design skills and continuously strive to improve upon

Personal Statement

My name is Robert Holland and I am currently a multimedia designer.  I’m highly motivated and passionate about what I enjoy. I’m very determined to succeed in everything I do. I can work very well in a team and can often help in the team with complicated problems that the rest of the team may not understand.

I have always had an interest in why certain objects we use look like they do, and even more of an interest in how the software used in computers, the internet, phones and tablets work and how they are made with particular reference to the coding and science elements contained in the back end rather than the front end.

I am applying for this course because I would like to enhance my current knowledge of computer programming and the science that is contained within the back end such as physics in video games.  I also would like to gain knowledge

 in algorithms that may one day help me when I create my own websites and programmes in the future.

The subject that I am studying at Coleg Gwent, City of Newport Campus has a brief relation to the course I have chosen via the scripting of different programs

for different media.  As my intended career path relates to the course I have chosen I continually strive to improve my knowledge and skill base in these areas.

I already have a small amount of experience in programming as I have been involved in a group project to program a basic social network website plus I have designed and developed my own website which I plan to use as the start up website for when my own business launches. I would like to further develop these skills that I have attained with a better practical approach with I can achieve by studying this course.

My hobbies outside of computers involve gaming, martial arts, running and cycling among many other things. I participate in these sports because they can give you a lot of alone time that leaves you free to generate new ideas and think of things in a different perspective than you normally would. I have also taken part in the 2011 Cardiff Half Marathon and finished with a time of 1:45:00. I also used to participate in martial arts in which I achieved a brown belt.

In the future I wish to become a freelance web designer for a while. Then start up my own companies including my own online shop, a personal software development company and my own social network.

The people that inspire me include Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs among others.  The reason being is that they revolutionised technology and how we use it in our everyday lives and without their innovative thinking this would still be a dream and not a reality.

Solution

Finally solved the problem I was having with my site. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to make a category and subcategory system so I'm kind of cheating in a way. I decided I'm going to use the URL to help me using the 'GET' method in PHP. Only thing is though SQL injections are possible so I'll have to find a way to fix that. Maybe an if statement like:
if($cat == necklace || $cat == bracelet){
do code;
}
I'll think of something I suppose. It's all falling together slowly should be done in a few weeks.