Navigation of ArtWebPresence.com

Websites can be simple or they can get very confusing.  My goal is to keep this site as simple as possible so you can easily navigate it and find information without feeling like you are getting lost.  And since this is a “how-to” site, it’s only fair that you understand how everything on it works.

Home Page

This website uses a Blog format.  That means when you arrive at the Home page, you will see the most resent article posted first and the dates progressing later as you scroll down the page.  The topics of the articles will vary from day to day.  These articles are also referred to as “posts.”

Page Tabs

The tabs across the top are “Page” tabs.  These pages are stand alone and will be updated and expanded upon as necessary, but the “topic” of information under the tab will not change.  Except for the Home page tab, of course; it carries all of the various articles.

Categories

Since I write articles to answer questions and the topics appear random, they need to be organized in some fashion.  So, the articles are grouped into categories based on their general topic.  There is a “Categories” box located in the right side column.  When you click on a category title, all of the articles grouped under that topic will appear for you to scroll through.

Tags

This is another way to find information about topics on a blog website.  When I write a blog post or article, I’ll assign specific words to that post called tags.  These are keywords of the main subject matter of the post.

When you click on one of the tag words, it will open a list of the articles that contain that that keyword.  It gives you a more specific search than the category topics.  Some blogs list the tags above or below each article.

With this blog I am using what is called a Tag Cloud.  The cloud will grow as the number of articles and tag words increase.  The words have different sizes based on the number of times they are used as tags.  So the larger the word, the more often it’s tagged.  And of course, the sizes change as the tag usage changes.  Every blog needs tags so I decided the cloud would be a bit more interesting.

Additions

Anytime I change or add something different to the navigations of this blog I will also add an explanation of it to this page.

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What are the Subscribe Boxes All About?

The right side column of this website blog contains three “subscribe” boxes.  People can be confused about these.  Below is an explanation of the purpose for each box so you can decide if you want to use it or not.

First Subscribe Box

We’ll start with the first Subscribe invitation where you receive a free report called “Your Art and the Internet.”

You’ll see fancy boxes like this on many of the blogs that you visit.  This is generally a newsletter subscription.  The newsletter gets sent straight to your email inbox.  It can be a weekly, bi-monthly, or a monthly newsletter.

To receive it you type in your first name and email.  When you click the “Subscribe Now” button your email address gets loaded into an automatic email responder.

Nothing happens to it.  It doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t get sold or traded; it just sits there until the next newsletter is loaded into the responder.  When the send button is hit for the newsletter, it is sent to every email on the subscriber list.  That is its sole purpose.

Because visitors to the site will subscribe in-between send out times for the newsletter, a free report is programmed to be sent out at the time of sign up.  It’s as if you’re getting the first newsletter immediately.

The Subscribe Here Box

This is the one with the strange orange symbol and says “subscribe in a reader.”  This is often the most confusing one.  It’s known as an RSS feed, which means “Really Simple Syndication.”

When you click on the orange button a page opens where you choose the “reader” that you prefer to use to follow and read blogs.  The most popular readers are shown first and then there is a drop down menu for other readers.

The “feed” service I use will send a copy of my latest blog post directly to your reader.  This is quite handy for the person who follows several blogs.  You can have them all sent to a single location.  They come to you at that location instead of you having to go to each of the blog sites.

If you have online email with Yahoo, AOL, or Google then you already have access to a reader.  If you do not, but would like to use a reader, then I suggest you set up an account with Google.  They have a very good RSS reader and you’ll want an ID with them anyway to use some of their other services that I highly recommend.

The Subscribe Via Email Box

With this option the “feed” service sends the latest blog post directly to your email inbox.  If you choose this option to read blogs, you should make sure that you “white list” the blog (add it to your email contact list) so that the filtering system doesn’t throw the blog posts into the spam trash. The “white list” steps vary from one email service to another.  If you are not sure how your service works, you can go to my white list page for instructional steps.

I use a reader for most of the blogs that I follow.  I also have a few favorites sent straight to my email so I never miss them.

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First Time Here?

If you have arrived for the first time and are not sure what to read next, be sure to check out the very first post dated August 1, 2009.  It’s called Mindset: A Starting Point.

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