In this post, Court is going to help you find stock imagery.

As Website designers we’re aware of the vast resources available to us on the Internet that we can use to make great looking sites for our clients. But once we’ve done our part, people using our XSIS Content Management System sometimes get stuck when it comes to adding stuff in, especially images. A couple of posts back, Danilo explained how you can use Picasa to organise and manipulate your photos. But often the questions stands – where does one find good quality stock images in the first place? You could spend hours searching Google for what you’re looking for, but its tough to narrow down the best sites.

Never fear, here is a compiled list of some great *free* stock photo Websites. I’m pointing out these sites because of their selection, ease-of-use and quality.

Stockvault – Really nicely categorised stock. The site has a friendly, Web 2.0 feel and they have a massive database of shots totaling over 8,000.

stock.xchng – Over 300,000 completely free images. This site is legendary and according to them gets over 3 million hits a day.

KAVEWALL – This one’s a little different. If you want something with a bit of texture,or a detail shot, check out KAVEWALL.

A Digital Dreamer – This one doesn’t have heaps of photos, but they’re all really good quality. You can tell that these have all been hand-picked.

FreePhotosBank – Neatly categorised with lots of options and info about all the shots. Not a massive selection like stock.xchng, but the shots are usable and interesting.

More good sites – Free Pixels, open stock photography, Photogen.

So have a peruse and hopefully you find what you’re after. Wouldn’t hurt to say cheers to the Website owner if his site has what you want. If you’re still finding it tough you can always give us a call here at MaxGen Media. We have a few secret stashes which are bound to have the specific photo you need.

In this post, Danilo is going to discuss the finer points of Website formatting relating to usability.

It’s really important to know how to prepare your Web text so it can be easily absorbed by your audience. In fact, formatting your content can have a significant impact on how well people read, respond to, and retain what you have to say. In some ways it can be just as important as the substance of your content.

Font style

Your website needs have a consistent font style (font type, font size, font color, font spacing) across all pages. Changing fonts styles on every page will do little more than confuse your reader. According to studies, 12-point Times New Roman and 10-point Arial result in the fastest reading speeds. That doesn’t mean you can’t use other fonts – generally if the font you want to use is between 10-point and 12-point it should be all right to use. In the case of using an online editor (WYSIWYG), be careful because the more you change your text, the more “dirty” the text will be and may affect your SEO.

Use subheadings

People usually use headings, but rarely subheadings (the one you see above this paragraph). As people tend to scan pages, not read them, it’s very important to divide a long text with short and relevant subheadings. A good example is how Wikipedia’s pages are formatted.

Use bullet points

Presenting information with lists is one of the more effective techniques that will capture your reader’s attention. By put large parts of information in short extracts, listing makes reading and retaining information easy.

Highlighting text

It’s important to highlight words in the text flow if you want to give a different intonation and bring your point closer to the reader. You can make the text strong (HTML tag <strong>) or emphatic (HTML tag <em>). Don’t over-do it though.

In general, keep things tidy and to the point. If you’re looking over your blog or Website at the moment and aren’t sure if it’s easy to read or not, give MaxGen Media a call or email and we can arrange a consultation to give you a hand.