Which is more important,driving traffic to your website or encouraging as many people as possible to see your content? Believe it or not, they are not one and the same. Too often, we as website owners live and die by Web analytics applications. We fret about bounce rates, unique visitors and dwell time. However, when we focus so heavily on the performance of our website, we miss a fundamental point: we should aim to expose users to our content, not our website. The website is a tool to showcase our content, but it is not the only tool that does this.

The content matters, not the website. That is why each company provides numerous ways to access its content beyond the website. From Amazon's affiliate scheme to YouTube's embed feature, these companies can reach audiences that may never visit their websites.

While the points mentioned below will refine your strategy to deliver content to more people, they can not serve their purpose without an appropriate environment. In the age of social media and the rise of interactive web-applications such as Facebook, Twitter etc. building a community around your website is the most important way to drive traffic and keep the users coming back.

Which is more important,driving traffic to your website or encouraging as many people as possible to see your content? Believe it or not, they are not one and the same. Too often, we as website owners live and die by Web analytics applications. We fret about bounce rates, unique visitors and dwell time. However, when we focus so heavily on the performance of our website, we miss a fundamental point: we should aim to expose users to our content, not our website. The website is a tool to showcase our content, but it is not the only tool that does this.

The content matters, not the website. That is why each company provides numerous ways to access its content beyond the website. From Amazon's affiliate scheme to YouTube's embed feature, these companies can reach audiences that may never visit their websites.

While the points mentioned below will refine your strategy to deliver content to more people, they can not serve their purpose without an appropriate environment. In the age of social media and the rise of interactive web-applications such as Facebook, Twitter etc. building a community around your website is the most important way to drive traffic and keep the users coming back.

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for them and we find them, so you don’t have to.

In this selection we’re glad to present you Junction, Nadia Serif, Nilland, CartoGothic Std, Bergamo Std, Comic Serif, Birra Stout, Vegur and a couple of other high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for them and we find them, so you don’t have to.

In this selection we’re glad to present you Junction, Nadia Serif, Nilland, CartoGothic Std, Bergamo Std, Comic Serif, Birra Stout, Vegur and a couple of other high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.

We love desktop wallpapers. And we love beautiful ones most. And although we monthly publish desktop wallpapers of our readers (desktop wallpaper calendar feature), we thought that it would be nice to provide our contributors with some fresh inspiration and our readers with some nice wallpaper update for a lousy Monday.

The wallpapers for this post were selected over a long period of time; they cover mainly nature, abstract and digital art (further collections will be coming if you are interested). We've tried to pick only the most beautiful ones and hopefully you won't be disappointed.

Below we present a showcase of over 50 fantastic wallpapers that will blow your desktop away. Most of them are in HD and will make your desktop look as nifty as it is possible. Because the resolutions are so high, if one doesn't fit your screen, use your favorite image editor to refine its dimensions.

You may also be interested in the following related posts:

• Really Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• 100 Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers
• 70 Beautiful Dual-Screen Desktop Wallpapers

We love desktop wallpapers. And we love beautiful ones most. And although we monthly publish desktop wallpapers of our readers (desktop wallpaper calendar feature), we thought that it would be nice to provide our contributors with some fresh inspiration and our readers with some nice wallpaper update for a lousy Monday.

The wallpapers for this post were selected over a long period of time; they cover mainly nature, abstract and digital art (further collections will be coming if you are interested). We've tried to pick only the most beautiful ones and hopefully you won't be disappointed.

Below we present a showcase of over 50 fantastic wallpapers that will blow your desktop away. Most of them are in HD and will make your desktop look as nifty as it is possible. Because the resolutions are so high, if one doesn't fit your screen, use your favorite image editor to refine its dimensions.

You may also be interested in the following related posts:

• Really Stunning Desktop Wallpapers
• 100 Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers
• 70 Beautiful Dual-Screen Desktop Wallpapers

Today we are glad to release "Toys", a retro icon set that was designed by Helen Gkizi and released with Smashing Magazine for its readers. The set contains 9 "toys" icons (png, 128×128px) that may come in handy in a variety of settings – e.g. in projects related to children and family.

The files are transparent PNGs, and the source file (.eps) is included as well. As always, the set is completely free and may be used for any private or commercial project without any restrictions whatsoever.

Today we are glad to release "Toys", a retro icon set that was designed by Helen Gkizi and released with Smashing Magazine for its readers. The set contains 9 "toys" icons (png, 128×128px) that may come in handy in a variety of settings – e.g. in projects related to children and family.

The files are transparent PNGs, and the source file (.eps) is included as well. As always, the set is completely free and may be used for any private or commercial project without any restrictions whatsoever.

Instead of getting into the heads of successful designers, we should be getting into the head of the audience we're designing for. There are many ways this can be done, one of which is music. Relying on senses other than your vision can evoke a greater comprehension for what feeling must be conveyed through a design.

In my early years as a student, I had a difficult time adjusting to the thought process of a designer. I'm a hands-on learner, and developing design ideas is more of an abstract art. Being able to recognize a good design versus a bad design was never the problem, but creating unique designs was for me much like an artist trying to draw purely from memory that doesn't have that capacity. For a couple of years I treated design as purely an art, simply because I lacked guidance in this area and didn't know any better, hitting the ground running with a project without methodically seeking out inspiration appropriate for the task at hand.

Instead of getting into the heads of successful designers, we should be getting into the head of the audience we're designing for. There are many ways this can be done, one of which is music. Relying on senses other than your vision can evoke a greater comprehension for what feeling must be conveyed through a design.

In my early years as a student, I had a difficult time adjusting to the thought process of a designer. I'm a hands-on learner, and developing design ideas is more of an abstract art. Being able to recognize a good design versus a bad design was never the problem, but creating unique designs was for me much like an artist trying to draw purely from memory that doesn't have that capacity. For a couple of years I treated design as purely an art, simply because I lacked guidance in this area and didn't know any better, hitting the ground running with a project without methodically seeking out inspiration appropriate for the task at hand.

With the release of Silverlight 1.0 and its subsequent versions, a debate started among designers and developers regarding choosing between Flash and Silverlight. Silverlight faces difficulties in capturing the market because of the maturity of Flash. However, Silverlight has managed to keep up by including certain features that designers and developers have always wanted to see in Flash, such as search engine optimization.

In this article, we will discuss some of the technical differences between Flash and Silverlight to help you choose the technology that best suits your needs.

Flash uses the frame-based animation model. In frame-by-frame animation, we create an object for each frame to produce an animation sequence. For example, if you want to move something across the screen in 3 seconds, calculate how many frames 3 seconds will take, then calculate the matrices required for each frame along the way. Keep in mind that the player won’t actually maintain a frame rate unless you embed a blank audio track; otherwise, 3 seconds might turn out to be 2 or 6 or 5.

With the release of Silverlight 1.0 and its subsequent versions, a debate started among designers and developers regarding choosing between Flash and Silverlight. Silverlight faces difficulties in capturing the market because of the maturity of Flash. However, Silverlight has managed to keep up by including certain features that designers and developers have always wanted to see in Flash, such as search engine optimization.

In this article, we will discuss some of the technical differences between Flash and Silverlight to help you choose the technology that best suits your needs.

Flash uses the frame-based animation model. In frame-by-frame animation, we create an object for each frame to produce an animation sequence. For example, if you want to move something across the screen in 3 seconds, calculate how many frames 3 seconds will take, then calculate the matrices required for each frame along the way. Keep in mind that the player won’t actually maintain a frame rate unless you embed a blank audio track; otherwise, 3 seconds might turn out to be 2 or 6 or 5.

Using a light source the right way can add dimension and beauty to a website design. Strong light sources create a stark contrast between light areas and shadows in a design, making the elements look more realistic and dimensional and less flat. Some websites opt instead for a dim light source to create a soft glow around particular areas of the website, to attract the eye more subtly.

Lighting can also create a mood for a website. Some websites use bright swirls of light to show energy, while others use a dim glow to create a peaceful mood. In the examples below, you will see a wide range of lighting effects used, from subtle lighting effects to bold rays of light streaking across the page.

You can learn how to better use light and shadow to polish your page designs and make them stand out on the screen in our recent article 5 Simple Tricks To Bring Light and Shadow Into Your Designs.

Regular expressions (or regex) are a powerful way to traverse large strings in order to find information. They rely on underlying patterns in a string’s structure to work their magic. Unfortunately, simple regular expressions are unable to cope with complex patterns and symbols. To deal with this dilemma, you can use advanced regular expressions.

Below, we present an introduction to advanced regular expressions, with eight commonly used concepts and examples. Each example outlines a simple way to match patterns in complex strings. If you do not yet have experience with basic regular expressions, have a look at this article to get started. The syntax used here matches PHP regular expressions.

Graffiti represents an art form that is unrestricted, one that rebels against conventional forms of artwork. Graffiti is intertwined into human history, dating back to the Roman Empires where they were plastered onto walls to make political statements and satirize current events.

Modern graffiti achieves many of the same things - to state a message that doesn't necessarily fit into the norms of society. In this collection, for your inspiration and adoration, we present 40 remarkable graffiti and street artwork.

This article follows and adds to an article written last year, entitled Tribute To Graffiti: 50 Beautiful Graffiti Artworks.

Magento is a popular open source e-commerce software platform that has a modular architecture and is extremely flexible. It comes with a number of online shop maintenance capabilities. It is also simple to configure and easy to customize. And despite the fact that it was launched just last year, it has been gaining more and more popularity among Web designers and e-business owners.

Magento has a ton of credentials in its pocket from some very big e-solution players. Magento Enterprise Edition, a commercial version aimed at larger companies, was launched just a month ago. The CMS includes such advanced features as marketing, promotional and SEO tools; analytics and reporting; mobile commerce; catalog-management tools. And Magento users have the freedom to customize their store with new themes, templates and plug-ins.

Below you'll find a showcase of excellent Magento templates and resources for your e-commerce business. Hopefully, these templates and resources will serve you either as an inspiration for your themes, or as the foundation for your customized themes.

Sometimes small changes can have huge effects. Concerning conversion rates, which is the proportion of website visitors who submit their contact information or make a purchase, better Web design leads directly to greater revenue.

Most online store designers who want to optimize their conversion rates only concentrate on the “inner” part of the shopping process, the sales funnel. They focus on product pages, the shopping cart and check-out-process. This is good, but not necessarily sufficient. It is equally important that advertisements convert – just as the simple fact that users find the URL and that both (ads and URLs) perfectly fit the image conveyed by the landing page. Sound practices make for the most successful conversions.

There are thousands of tips and tricks for increasing conversion rates. There are various marketing techniques that aim at simplyfing the purchasing and the checkout processes. This article is the first part of our new 3-part-series "Optimizing Conversion Rates" that covers most important strategies and techniques that will help you boost your conversion rate. The second part will be published next week, and the last part will be published the week after that. The first article deals with "proper" advertising, building up trust and credibility and the handling of shipping costs.

It doesn't matter whether you are a designer, a developer, an artist or an amateur learner – at some point you need to improve the quality of the original picture or video. You may want to retouch and enhance his or her photographs and videos, make it look better, more spectacular and more original. It could be for personal or commercial use. Most of us know how to edit and enhance the digital photographs using our favorite image editing software. But when it comes to videos, the techniques are completely different from that of classic image editing.

In this post we present best tutorial for visual video effects that will (hopefully) teach you how to create impressive videos which can be used for your presentations or websites. Visual effects are used in post production which involves integration of live-action footage and computer generated imagery. You can use it to enhance or manipulate videos, just the way you usually do with image processing tools.

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• Adobe Illustrator Video Tutorials
• Best Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials