Vandelay Design

The first one and the one that came out of nowhere a few years ago and just crushed any and all the other design blogs that I’ve seen with the top notch amazing content, is Vandelay Design Blog. These guys don’t post often, but when they do, you better take an hour and explore the resources they recommend. Most of their posts come in a list format and the topics go from “35 Beautiful Web Designs Inspired by Nature” to “35 High-Quality and Free Paper Textures“, from “25 Excellent Photoshop Texture Tutorials” to “33 Letterpress Business Cards for Inspiration“. Like I said, very useful stuff. I subscribed to the blog via email and their posts get archived inside my Gmail and I can search for anything I ever need to find again.

Smashing Magazine

Most people have probably heard of Smashing Magazine, it is pretty popular in the Web Design industry for their excellent tutorials, various resources and inspiration posts. I love Smashing Magazine because every single post that ever comes out is an extremely valuable gem that is worthy of printing out, framing it and hanging on the wall. If you ever get stumbled on a problem while designing or programming and need a trick or a work around, you will probably find a tutorial on their blog that covers that topic. Their Inspiration category is stuffed with all kinds of inspirational posts and lists, from “Showcase of Sweet Chocolate Websites” to “Showcase Of Web Design In The Netherlands“, from “Designing “Read More” And “Continue Reading” Links” to “How To Use Help Elements To Improve Your Designs“. Subscribing to them via email is not as obvious as with Vandelay Design but you will find the Newsletter subscription link in the footer on their website. You will receive a list of posts from the blog a few times a month. If you’d rather sign up via an RSS reader, that is super easy, right at the top.

CSSClip

The third blog/website I love for getting inspired is actually a CSS gallery, but as we all know, there is a SCC Gallery on the Internet probably for every hair we all have on our heads. Some of them are OK, and some just plain suck. I found this one about 3 years ago and it’s stuck with me ever since. The reason I like it is because I hate to have to click around their site just to see a an ugly site, I just want to click through on the sites that have awesome design that I want to look at. CSSClip has the thumbnail images of the sites on their homepage and if you hover over them a bigger preview opens up in the banner area at the top of the page, so you can preview each site before having to click on it to see what it really looks like. This has been a real time saver for me and that is why I love it. You should check them out too.

Please tell us your favorite inspiration blogs in the comments.

Later,

~ Valik

You Might Also Like:

• Incredible Magazine-Style Designs
• 37 Comment Form Design Ideas
• Great 3D Resource Website
• I Heart Post-Its, Why Post-Its Is An Effective Designer Tool
• Three Awesome Web Design Lists For Inspiration

As website guides go, I’ve never seen a better, more organized and easy to use how-to guide on creating a website. Daniel Piechnick put together all the details that anyone would ever need to setup  a website in his new site that is all dedicated to this guide. I was actually surprised at how nice and clean the design work was and how accurate and in-details the information is. All the info you will need but at the same time he does not overwhelm you with extra unnecessary information. This is perfect for people interested in creating a website that are brand new to this industry. I was actually thinking to create something like this but never got to it and it’s awesome that finally something like that is available now for the newbies that is easy to follow.

Excellent job Daniel!

Source: http://websitesetupguide.com/

You Might Also Like:

• Web Design As A Hobby
• Web Design across Culture and Context
• What’s the Right Website for You?
• Spruce up Your Website!
• The Structural Approach to Web Design

I finally started a blog on affiliate marketing… This is a little shameless promotion but I really think some will love the content, if I may say so myself.

There is lots to talk about in the Affiliate Marketing industry and I wanted to take the plunge and start sharing finds and tips from my own research. I’ve already posted some very useful information on there that covers some stuff that a lot of the WDI readers might already know but there are a lot of things that you will find that are new.

One post that I want to highlight is on improving click-through-rate (CTR) on image ads. It illustrates some simple techniques you can apply to the standard image ads that you see everyday online, that will instantly improve the CTR. Got to know this if you create banner ads for sure.

Check out my internet affiliate business blog at RemoteAffiliate.com when you get a chance. You might even want to sign up for my affiliate business newsletter where I will be sharing some secret information that will not be found on the blog along with the regular posts.

Ok got to go… till next time,

~ Valik

You Might Also Like:

• Huge List Of 395+ Web Design Resources
• New Graphic Design Jobs Board Unveiled Recently
• Vintage Backgrounds
• Adding Custom HTML Box To My Facebook Page
• 490 Killer Designer Resources

OK, growing an email list is one of the hottest ways to make money online right now and I just heard Russell Brunson has built a system that will grow an email list like a virus and he’s letting a limited amount of people get in on the fun for FREE.

Also he offers an awesome sponsored spot in there for only $47 to grow it even more and faster, but this is optional. You can use it FREE to a great advantage. I just signed up and actually got the sponsored spot. I am recommending my readers to get yours as fast as possible because once the word gets out about this this might not be as effective as right now while it is new.

Go here to check it out: TheViralSecret.com

You Might Also Like:

• 10 Super Viral Marketing Ideas

Among many things that can be done to make your website and business or brand trustworthy there are simple little things that most forget, or didn’t even know about. We as website owners go through endless processes and upgrades to protect our investment, to protect from security breaches, to protect our property and our customer information, but rarely do we think about how much of an impact it would bring if the customers would actually know about the efforts put into that. These procedures and protection layers are very important but it is also important to let the visitors know that we take serious measures to protect them and their privacy. This is done by simply adding some badges to the website. Badges from trust and security programs and companies that people are used to seeing and naturally relating them to safety and security.

Here are a few good badges you might want to think about adding to your website.

BBBOnline Reliability Seal

Thawte

TRUSTe

GoDaddy Secured

buySAFE

ValidatedSite

You Might Also Like:

• The Importance of Trust