Hello to all.

I am looking to build a new site and wonder if making a website out of psd images is bad? Like if you make the page in photoshop, and then slice it for coding, would this be bad because search engines will not index the pages because it is a graphic?

I see some many great temaplates our there which show the html and photoshop pages, but I cannot figure out how they do it?

Maybe they are using tables. But I want something that looks nice too.

Thanks for your help

Hi,

Its perfectly normal for a designer to create the look and feel of the website in photoshop. Slicing it up into HTML is another story.

There are a number of companies that provide this service for a minimal fee.

google: psd 2 html

What about search engine spiders? If most of your site is an image like backrounds, headers, footers etc, does this make it hard to have sort of decent rankings in the search engine? Or if you do have text within the psd site, then that text will be spidered?

The first point to remember that any image editor is simply for creating images used on a site such as a logo, decorative graphics, icons etc.

A web site is all about your content, ie your text and associated images - by "associated " an example would be a photo that accompanies an article and not something like a background image. Anything else is usually aethsetic and not absolutely necessary for your visitor to understand what you have to say.

For the most part search engines only see text, not images. Text is normally controlled using a html editor, or in some cases it's stored in a database and shown on a page by page bases as required.

depending on what version you have got of photoshop. Photoshop can create html code and psd's can be saved as html files you should take a look into this the only problem is that html code wont validate.

I am not sure about this but I think people create the web site with photoshop and then transfer it to dreamweaver for coding.Please correct me if I am wrong.

So would it make sense to use photoshop to make a background image, with sliced links for rollovers, and then make a text area for the content? I see templates on template monster that has a psd file and then an html file. I guess I am trying to do something like that which would not effect search engine indexing though

@colochris

You can use any half decent image editor to make a background image, photoshop is only one of many editors available.

If you're looking to build a site yourself the first thing to do is look into writing HTML and CSS because this is the core of any web site.

i've used psd images.... it looks and feels allrite..

or just get a html and psd free template and chage the images...the coding is then done

I always create the design in photoshop. Then write the code in dream weaver. then insert the images I need. Stay away from slicing in my opion.

I think it is ok just clean the code use external CSS and <% include %> (if using PHP)

Originally Posted by colochris

What about search engine spiders? If most of your site is an image like backrounds, headers, footers etc, does this make it hard to have sort of decent rankings in the search engine? Or if you do have text within the psd site, then that text will be spidered?

SE spiders don't care how your site is setup, you just need to have no broken links and all that obvious stuff. You can always validate your code to be sure.

I've done sites in Photoshop cs3 and after you slice it it uses table to just hold the images there. After you get your html file you need to either put the images in the table cells as background images so you can put text in, or create a .css file and use the sliced images.

i first design logo or banner i photoshop. then i proceed on slicing my design then to dreamweaver.

Normally, I design the graphics and images on photoshop... Then slice it and make a CSS format for the website...

I make in photoshop. Slice into dreamweaver then convert the entire template into CSS

Basically, if you use tables and / or divs within your PSD graphic, and lay text over it, search engines will still be able to find you, so I don't see it being a bad idea. As long as you don't create the entire psd with the text as part of the image as well. If that happens to be the case, you will not be found at all within the search engines. Just remember that the content of a website is made of these element's:

Text
Color
Images
Video

Text being the most valuable to search engines

Color being most valuable to anyone viewing (that's not a bot of course)

Images being most valuable to express an communicate something that cannot be presented in textual form

Video being most valuable to Educate your audience better

Of course, alignment as well...But if you have your common sense in place, creating a great site will take common sense and some time, creating a half a** site will take 5 minutes of your time and no common sense.

Use each of these like your internal senses and it will help you produce what you want

Depending on what version of Photoshop you are using, you can slice your image and change the output so that instead of using tables, it will output CSS. That is your best option.
Either way, you do not want to use an image for your content. Make a slice or however many slices you need for your text area. You then have to work with the CSS that Photoshop will give you because it will show the images inline. You will want to apply them to the background property. Then use those content areas for your text. You won't have any SEO problems that way.

All of our company uses photoshop.. its just easier that way! You can tweak the design as much as you like then turn it into HTML in dreamweaver!