Web Design Online News Articles Information

Creating Joomla Templates

2009-07-11T07:58:00.004-07:00

Sometimes you may want to create your own Joomla template. It may be that you can't find that special layout that reflects your company's image in the manner that you would like. By being able to create your own design, you open up a whole new range of options.

Before you start creating your Joomla template, you will want to have some idea of what you want. Don't go into it blind. You can use a variety of programs that will let you sketch out your ideas, similar to Photoshop, or you can even just sketch it with a pen and paper. It really doesn't matter what you use, just get your idea layout down so that you can refer to it when needed. This way you won't leave out any aspects that you really want to include. You will make sure that all of the look and features and elements are there.

Next, you will want to decide what type of look that you want. There are actually two types. The first type allows your template to fit the browser. It will adjust its size to fit appropriately. The second type is a fixed sized template. There is no adjusting; it will always be the same size no matter what. With the fixed sized design, you will want to decide what the dimensions you will want it to be and where you want to place the different aspects. Just remember, with an adjustable design size, when someone maximizes the screen it could cause distortion in certain elements. So if you choose this type, make sure the other elements that you will be using will adjust accordingly.

Now, you will need to determine the layout that you want. Decide what will go where and the like. Once you have decided this, next you will want to convert your vision into HTML code. This is where designing and making your own template can become a headache. You will also probably need to write a correlating CSS code to go along with it. At this point, if you need help, there are a variety of websites that can teach you how to write either code. The websites require interaction on your part to make sure that you are doing it right. You can also find websites that can teach you step-by-step how to work and write your own Joomla design. It teaches you what goes in which directory and the like. Remember, all aspects of the coding and the directories, as well as files, need to work together and if you leave an important part out, more than likely, it either won't work right or won't look right.

After you have incorporated all the basics into your design, do a trial run to make sure that everything is working together and done the way that you want. If it is, you will be able to continue with adding modules and the like. If it's not, this is the perfect time to go back and fix it before all the access codes of modules and plugins interfere with the normal codes.

Go to Joomla Template Zone to get your free ebook about Joomla Templates at Joomla Template. This website also has information on Create Joomla Template and everything that can assist you with building a website with this software. Come by today to get free ebooks and information to assist you today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jared_Runcorn

Learn About Commercial Joomla Templates

2009-07-11T07:58:00.003-07:00

Joomla templates let you define the style and layout of your website on both the back end and the front end. There are two different formats for Joomla templates: back end templates and front end templates. The front end templates let you decide the layout and style of the actual website that is visible to your viewers. The back end templates define the layout and style that the administrator, editor and super administrator will see when they log in to make changes to the website or just to check the information.

Commercial templates are available all over the internet. All you have to do is search for them. Some websites require that you become a member and join the "club" to have access to the templates or you can just simply purchase them off of other websites.

Joomlajunkie.com is an example of a "club" website where you can become a member of joomlajunkie and then you will have access to several different templates with unique and stylish features and layouts. The hits per layout are absolutely amazing, so you know that that same layout and style is definitely being used across the internet.

Themejoomla.com offers commercial templates as well. For a single download, most templates cost $25. This is actually a fairly cheap and reasonable price for the template when you consider the amount of time and effort that it takes to create such a network of files and extensions that interact with each other to ensure that all aspects of the website work together and is designed the exact way that you want. Also, getting the website to work the way that you want is also difficult. $25 is a good price for a template. There is no limit to how long you can use a template. You can use the same template for years to come, so a $25 dollar investment for long term, unlimited use, is cheap.

If you continue to search, you will find many more design template sites out there. Because this is an open source software, anyone can write modules, components, plugins, and templates that will work with the software. The initial download of the core software will give you the core components and necessary items to get you started. You can then build functionality with different extensions, such as templates, plugins and the alike. This is exactly why the available options for the Joomla software is widely available.

The perfect template for your website is out there somewhere; however, if it is already available, 9 chances out of 10 there is another website that uses the same template as you have chosen. If you truly want a unique template that is a reflection of you or your company, you might want to consider hiring a designer who can write an original template for you website. This will guarantee that your website will be the only site that is using this design. Of course, you will have to pay the designer, but they will not be able to sell the design unless you confirm.

Go to Joomla Template Zone to get your free ebook about Joomla Templates at Joomla Template. This website also has information on Commercial Joomla Templates and everything that can assist you with building a website with this software. Come by today to get free ebooks and information to assist you today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jared_Runcorn

Why Your Business Needs a Website

2009-07-11T07:58:00.001-07:00

Having a website nowadays is no longer viewed as a luxury; in fact it is now considered to be a necessity for many businesses. Whether you are operating your business mainly from the web or managing a predominantly land-based business, achieving internet presence is highly important. The growing number of web users year after year is another proof that the Internet is one excellent marketing tool and venue for any business.

Nonetheless, getting a website is merely a single step of the entire process. Without a significant online presence, your site won't be able to attract enough traffic. Website design and the right online marketing tactics should go hand in hand, in order to generate quality and targeted traffic. Although website content is highly important, the design of your site is what compels a first-time visitor to stay attuned to your site and not to click somewhere else.

Since your website needs to be optimized for the search engines, people will find it easier to look for your product and service offerings. Internet users prefer using search engines when using the services of the web. If your business site is easily found on the listings of major search engines, it will be easier for your target audience to stumble upon your goods and services as well. This helps build an Internet presence and generates brand awareness too.

Search engine optimization can be done through various ways; however one of the most successful organic SEO tactics is keyword search and optimization. By analyzing and using the keywords used by your target market when searching for goods and services similar to yours, you are essentially helping your customers find your site. Other search engine optimization techniques include link list building, online advertising such as AdWords, and article submissions.

Having a website is also an effective way to generate the benefits of Internet marketing. Your website will serve as your online store, where you can discuss about the merits of your business or the benefits offered by your products or services. Since the Internet is widely available in almost all countries all over the globe, this helps you expand your market share, even within a limited period of time. By getting a website for your business, you no longer need to worry about global boundaries and geographical limitations.

If you want your business to attain growth and profitability without high expense, it's now time you consider getting a highly optimized website.

You can check further information of my Web Design service at my Web Design in Toronto page.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hassan_J_Sheikh

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

2008-09-25T00:23:00.001-07:00

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

How to get good at a lucrative web design business – it will require some hard work and testing, but it can certainly be done, even if you are just starting out. A lucrative web design business is one great way to explode your internet business. Also, a lucrative web design business is a great way to maximize your online business revenues.

So how do you use a lucrative web design business to explode your internet business and to maximize your online business revenues?

I have developed some incredible new innovations to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business.

Try these powerful new ways to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business:

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, first begin by building a list to which you can mail regularly. One of the most important things about growing any business online, especially a web design business, is creating a list of subscribers to whom you can promote your business regularly.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, send quality traffic to your web design business by writing and submitting articles to the major article directories online. They will promote your articles for you, and you can simply write and watch the quality traffic come in.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, use the web design business as an entry point for people into your business. Be willing to expand past just web design, and meet other needs of your customers.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, look for additional revenue opportunities and convert one time web design customers into long term customers by offering backend, related products.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_Mize

Web Designing - Make Your Online Presence Count

2008-08-20T23:18:00.002-07:00

Web designing is not a simple HTML (Hypertext Markup language) or CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), it is much more than it. Basically it is a conceptual process in which research, discussion, planning, implementation, and finally, evaluation of electronic media is done via various technologies such as markup languages like HTML which are interpreted and displayed by a web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs) or any other web browser.

The main purpose of web design is to create a website having interactive features and interfaces known as content that is presented to the end user as web pages when requested. Elements such as images (GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs), text, colors, tables and forms can be placed on the page using HTML, XHTML, or XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) usually requires plug-ins such as Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc.

Typically web pages are classified as static or dynamic.

• Static pages are those which do not change structure, content and layout with every request unless a web master or a programmer manually updates the page.

• Dynamic pages are those which change their content and appearance depending on the end-user's input or interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) We can even change contents on the client side or on end-user's computer by using client-side scripting languages like JavaScript, and JScript, etc. Dynamic content is often compiled and executed on the server through server-side scripting languages like ASP, PHP, Perl, JSP, Python, etc.

Basic Aspects of Design

Depending on the goals of the website and the audience, the website's requirements and aspects of design changes. For typical commercial websites, the four main basic aspects of design are:

-What kind of content will be required to meet our goals?
The content: The substance and information on the website should be relevant to the website and should target the section of the public that the website is concerned with.

-What kind of look should the website have?
The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.

-What kind of visibility should the website have?
The visibility: the website must be easy to find via most of the major search engines and advertisement media.

What kind of usability should the website have?
-The usability: the website should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.

Accessible Web design

For accessible web design, web pages and websites must follow certain accessibility principles like:

• Use sitemaps for proper navigation through the website.

• Use semantic markup that provides a significant structure to the web page.

• Provide suitable hierarchy among different web pages.

• Use a valid markup language like HTML that is supported by all the browsers.

• Provide text alternates for any non-text components like images, multimedia etc.

• Use hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context.

• Use CSS file rather than HTML tags for design and layout.

The website is an information system whose components are sometimes classified as front-end and back-end. Front-end is the observable content e.g., page layout, user interface, graphics, text, audio while the back-end comprises the organization and efficiency of the source code, invisible scripted functions, and the server-side components process output from the front-end.

Greymindz is a leader in Search Engine Optimization and Web Designing and Development providing innovative and effective solutions to synergize your business strengths by enhancing your reach to a targeted global audience.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amaan_Goyal

How to Choose a Web Design Company - Ask Good Questions!

2008-08-20T23:18:00.001-07:00

You know you need a new website, but where do you begin? Do you know what you want? More importantly, do you know what you need?

Most businesses really have no idea what they need when it comes to their website. They are too busy running their businesses. They may think they know what they like, but that may not be what they need and what ultimately makes their website a success. Both you and your web design company need to ask good questions.

You should be able to determine who can help you based on some basic information that your prospective web design company provides. If you choose selectively, you will find a web design company that is able to guide you through the development of your website by asking you the right questions that help you to determine what you need, and what will best serve your business, based on your company goals.

You'll need to know several things about the web design company before you choose. Ask for portfolio examples. Be sure you like their work. Ask for client references. Call them. Ask about the process. One of the biggest stumbling blocks between a web design company and a client is agreeing on the design. What if you don't like the way it looks? What is the limit on revisions and how does this affect the cost of the website? How will you make updates to the site? Is there a content management system? Many clients find themselves stuck with a company who doesn't have time for them once their site is launched and paid for. This can lead to your site becoming stale and outdated quickly. (Check Those References!)

One of the biggest concerns you should have is how the website will be marketed once its finished. If you choose a web Design Company with no internet marketing personnel, your site could be lost in cyberspace. These are all important questions you need to ask a prospective web design company.

Not only will YOU need to ask the right question, but your web design company should be asking good questions too, in order to develop a proposal for a new website that meets your business objectives. They should be asking about your business, your products and services, your current marketing, and about your company goals.

The most important thing a good web design company needs to ask is about your customers and specifically about your target market. Who are your customers (you will need to group them)? What do they need? How do they search? Are they technical or emotional? What kind of information do they need and want in order to make a decision to do business with you? What will appeal to them? All of these answers will determine the design, function and marketing of your site and thus your "needs" for a new website.

When you choose a web design company to develop a new website for your business, you are taking on a business partner. You should both determine if it's a good fit by asking the questions that will give you the answers you need to be mutually successful in your endeavor.

Written By: Randi Brawley, SYNERGe-marketing, LLC

Randi Brawley is a partner at SYNERGe-marketing, a full service website design, development and internet marketing company in Fairfield, CT. She specializes in helping small to medium sized businesses develop website and internet marketing solutions that are compelling and effective and that drive financial results. http://www.synergemarketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Randi_K._Brawley

Online Business and Web Design - Planning Goals and Online Features

2008-08-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

You know you want an online business, but do you know how to plan to build it? A good web design company will ease the website planning for you, and explain in understandable terms how to start. You need to be sure your webpage content and designs fully support your business goals. As first steps in building your business, plan on asking a good web designer to help define your online business goals, to identify essential web design features, and to suggest example page layouts that can attract attention to your business.

Determine Your Online Business Goals

A first step to plan your online business is defining your business goals. Do you want to conduct business only online, or do you want an online presence to supplement store or catalog business? Do you want a website for promotional marketing, or one permitting online shopping, or both? Also, what level of effort do you want to or can you make to promote and grow your online business? Many website owners have realized this: a good web design company can enable your site to automatically gather contact and needs information from potential customers. They also can save you time by helping to automate your advertising.

Ask What are Essential Web Design Features to Launch Your Business

Ask a good web designer about these four and other essential website features to launch your business:

1. A Compelling Presentation of Your Business Message: Since customers today are short on time and patience, and tend to be compulsive, your website homepage gets one brief chance to catch their attention. For example, a home décor store needs to present their unique, tasteful, and affordable merchandise with readable, compelling text in an attractive page layout. Include an appealing message about your business.

2. Attractive Web Graphics: As part of attractive page layouts, you need to artistically incorporate eye-catching web graphics (like attractive images and/or photos). This interests new website visitors in seconds.

3. A Compelling Merchandising Vehicle: You need an online vehicle that can move visitors to request your product or service, or to buy directly from you online. The vehicle can be well-designed page layouts for displaying your products and services, or an online catalog, or shopping cart pages.

4. Updateable Areas for Fresh Content: Once your homepage and merchandise have caught visitor interest, wouldn't you like them to return for more? Have updateable page areas for valuable, new offers.

Request Example Page Layouts for Your Business

After discussing good web design features with a web designer, ask for visually appealing, example page layouts that can attract attention and increase your potential to meet your business goals. You want layouts that combine clear organization, quality web graphics, user-friendly navigation, and well-written text.

Each of the above planning steps will help determine whether your online business starts with a good web design, and in a good position to attract the attention of your target markets.

© Copyright 2008. Afford Ecommerce. All Rights Reserved Worldwide in all Media. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article in an ezine, website, magazine, newspaper, or other media provided you also include the author name, company name, and copyright, include all of the links in my article and keep all links active, and do not add any text to or edit the article in any way. You also must follow EzineArticles Terms of Service for Publishers.

Thank you for reading these suggestions for planning your online business. It's rewarding when a little planning results in greater potential for your business. Please visit us at http://afford-ecommerce.com/ to learn about our many affordable, high-functioning, website packages (such as our Starter, Web Presence, Value-Added, and Ecommerce Website Packages). You are invited to contact Afford Ecommerce at http://afford-ecommerce.com/ae_contactus.php for a Free Website Consultation, or for answers to any questions you have about Afford Ecommerce web design services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marilyn_Kunze

Are You Looking For the Perfect Web Design?

2008-08-13T22:35:00.004-07:00

Every day worldwide millions of people log onto the Internet for business, entertainment and information. Anyone who has a website will cover one of these three aspects, which brings me to the point of web design. If you want your website to be found and used by the general public then you will have to have a site that is designed to appeal to your users.

There are many ways that you can entice someone to do business with you such as offering them a cheaper service than your competitors but on the Internet if you want someone to do business with you then your website needs to be user friendly and designed in a way that will make people stay on your site long enough to buy the products or services that are on offer to them.

The design of your website is more important than many people realise and often people design their sites with the wrong people in mind. A lot of people when they are first setting up their website will design their site in a way that appeals to them and in a way that they feel best reflects the business; this is the first mistake to make. When you are designing your website you need to do so with your target market in mind. You need to identify who you are aiming your website at, for example if you are aiming your site at a younger audience then your website should be quite funky and can include more flash as this will draw your audience in. If however the products or services that your business offers can apply to anyone of any age, such as mobile phones, you have to be careful when it comes to the design of your site as you need to design it in a way that will apply to all members of the public. The best way to go about doing this is by keeping your site simple and using neutral colours.

Your website needs to promote your business, you need to make people get involved in your business merely by the design that you have used. This may sound like a difficult thing to do but when you know how you can go about this with no problem at all.

When you are designing your website you should use limited colour and coordinate your website. As well as this you also need to remember that you need good unique content that is original. Your web content is the backbone of your website and it should be search engine friendly. You need to make sure that your site is easily readable and easily accessible for your visitors.

The design of your website can be the difference between your business being a success online and your business being a failure. You need to make sure that any phone numbers are placed in the top right hand corner under the sites logo and that your contact page should be clearly labelled. All of your pages should navigate to each other and the back to the main home page.

If you are struggling to get your site designed then you should enlist the help of a professional web design company to get the design done for you.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, who offer professional Web Design and Web Hosting services as well as all of your Search Engine Optimisation needs.

Please feel free to republish this article provided a working hyperlink remains to our site

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Helen_Cox

How to Approach Web Design

2008-08-13T22:35:00.003-07:00

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page. In typical examples of web pages they are either classified as static or dynamic.

With static web pages it generally means that these web pages don't change their content or layout with every request. If these web pages need changing or up-dates need to be made to them they have to be done manually by a web professional or programmer who will go into the site and update whatever pages need to be done. This can become a challenge if you are busy running other aspects of your business, which is why if you want you website to be made up of static web pages you should enlist the help of a web designer who will have the time and knowledge to be able to perform manual updates frequently on your website.

Dynamic pages on the other hand adapt their content and appearance depending on the end users input or interaction. With dynamic pages content can be changed on the client side by using client-side scripting languages (JavaScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, Perl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

As the Internet has grown and advanced so has web design and in the process mark-up language has changed to become more complex but also flexible, which allows you to add aspects such as images and tables to a web page.

Before creating and uploading a website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what is needed in the website. You should also thoroughly consider the audience or target market, as well as defining the purpose of your site and deciding what content will be developed are extremely important. When you are looking at the purpose of your website you should note down what you hope to achieve with your website and what users of your website will benefit from it. After defining the purpose of your website you should go onto describing the audience of your site this is because you need to know who you are aiming your website at and you need to known what your audience is looking for within your website.

The purpose and audience of your website should be reflected through the content of your website. When you are thinking about what content to place on your website you need to evaluate and organise what content needs to be placed on your site. Anything that doesn't fit the purpose of your site or that doesn't reflect your target audience should be removed from your site.

If you want the best from the design of your site then you should enlist the help of a web design company who will be able bring out the best in your site and as a result you will get more traffic to your site.

Helen is the web master of Discount Domains, specialists in all aspects of Web Design.

Please feel free to republish this article provided a working hyperlink remains to our site

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Helen_Cox

Choosing a Good Web Designer

2008-08-13T22:35:00.002-07:00

There are a few things that separate a good web designer from a bad one, but the effects it later has are significant. For instance if you hire a good web designer, you are assured quality work from this designer and you would get your money's worth. Hire a bad web designer then consider it money wasted as the outcome will undoubtedly be poor.

So, what differentiates a good web designer form a bad one? One factor is how professional they look, if your web designer has designed their site poorly with messy navigation and 2nd grade graphics, then you should obviously stay clear from these web designers. But if the site has a nice clean layout and is easy to navigate, I would advise you to inquire more about this designer, because if they've done a good job on their site, chances are their going to do the same on yours.

Another factor would be the designer's portfolio, if the designer even has a portfolio. If the designer doesn't have a portfolio then stay well away as this usually means they are inexperienced and will make quite a few errors. These designers may charge less, but in the long run, it's not worth it. Look for a designer with a nice looking portfolio with design work that you would like. This is very important as every designer has their own style. If the style doesn't suit you, then find another designer.

Last but not least, pay close attention to the designer's approach. What I mean by this is how they contact you and how often as well as the language they use. If their English is poor, chances are they don't speak English, in which case, this will create a barrier to communication, which you need to be able to go over concepts. The designer should also contact you regularly, keeping you informed on the project.

This isn't a fool proof list, but hopefully after reading this article you will be able to make an informed decision as to which designer you want to choose for your project.

This article was written by, Tobi Oduyoye, Co-Founder of Nitrostics. They have a portfolio at their website, which displays their quality work. Their site is: http://www.nitrostics.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=T._Oduyoye

Ten Top Tips For a Visitor-Friendly Web Site

2008-08-13T22:35:00.001-07:00

Make it clear what you do

It may be obvious to you, but your site needs to spell out to visitors what it's about. You'd be surprised how many sites seem to make the assumption that visitors will know the company, understand their products or services and are familiar with all the latest jargon. Make sure your home page states clearly, in a paragraph or less of readable copy, who you are, what you do and what you've got to offer.

Fulfill your visitors' expectations

Another simple way to make your site more visitor friendly is to make sure it reflects what people are expecting to find when they reach the site, whether through a search engine, a banner or pop-up ad or a link from another site. You can do this by first looking at the search engines' search logs to find out what people want and how they ask for it (try Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool), and then ensuring that your navigation and site messaging and content use those same keywords.

Put things where people expect to find them

Familiarity is a big part of usability. Research has shown that people expect site features to be in a certain place on the page. They look for the search box in the top right hand corner, the products or services down the left hand column, the check out in the bottom right hand corner, the main navigation along the top and the small print (i.e. terms of use, privacy) along the bottom.

Minimize the clickstream

More than 83% of Internet users are likely to leave a website if they feel they have too many clicks to find what they're looking for. So, for example, instead of splitting copy across several pages, with a click to move forward to each page, put it on long, scrollable pages with quick navigation links so that people can jump to the content they want, while staying on the same page.

Have an About Us and Contact Us page

Credibility is fast becoming a key usability issue. If people are going to entrust you with their credit card details or consider you a serious contender for their business, they want to be sure you really exist. We've all come across web sites that don't even have an address, never mind a telephone. That's why it's essential to have an About Us and a Contact Us page - to not only reassure people you're a proper business, but to give them a choice of contact options, including phone, email, directions and a map.

Increase your download speeds

Studies have shown that the average web site visitor will wait less than 9 seconds for a page to download - and the days of universal broadband are still a long way off. So instead of tedious Flash intros or bandwidth-hungry graphics, make your site as lean and nimble as possible. By stripping out the superfluous code, which is often created by web design software such as Dreamweaver, your site can be faster to load, even during peak traffic times, such as immediately after an advertising campaign. What's more, there are estimated to be 743 million people worldwide accessing the net by phone and PDA, so anything you can do to make your site faster and more accessible, will help ensure your availability to this huge new market.

Be search engine friendly

Search engine optimisation, because it focuses on making sites more appropriate to visitors' search queries, more content-rich and better-connected to other relevant sites can make a site more visitor friendly, as a natural by product of the process. In addition, a site map, breadcrumbs and descriptive text links (rather than just 'click here') are search engine friendly features which also enhance the visitor experience.

Know your weaknesses

As well as knowing where your visitors are coming from (ie. which search engine or link from another site), it's also worth knowing where your visitors are leaving from - the quit spots, in other words. If you check your server log files, and see that people are regularly quitting the site at a point where you don't expect, such as between two related pages, you can identify and fix errors in your navigation, download or transaction systems.

Create escape hatches

Conversely, you need to give visitors the opportunity to make a quick getaway. For example, every page should have a clearly marked link back to the home page. Likewise, your transaction process should offer people the chance to empty, as well as fill, their shopping baskets or opt-out from on-site processes, such as downloads, registrations or subscriptions.

Give a warm welcome to disabled visitors

According to the Disability Discrimination Act, web sites must be accessible to all members of the online community - including disabled visitors. Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) separates presentation from content, which not only makes the site accessible to people using assistive technologies such as voice browsers, but also enables visually impaired visitors, including the elderly (a growing online population) to resize formatting effects, such as colour and font size, to be easier to read. Other easy ways to improve your site's accessibility include ensuring links indicate content (i.e. not just 'click here') and giving informational images ALT descriptions and decorative images null ALT descriptions or alt="".

Fortunately, if your site is search engine friendly, you're already part of the way there. Assistive technologies work in a very similar way to search engine spiders, as they 'spider' the site, read the content and links and present it back to the user in a visitor-friendly format. Therefore, a site that's search engine friendly is already a good way towards being accessible to disabled visitors, as well as people using their phones or PDAs to access the net.

Rif Chia is the Founder & Private SEO Consultant of EzBusinessNeeds.com with more than 5 years experiences
SEO Web Design
Singapore SEO

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rif_Chia

Getting Right From the Start - Tags & Design

2008-08-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

I have met so many business owners whom are concerned over the performance of their website, only after a few years of operation online. It is a must to spread the message and educate the business world on getting right on your website framework. You can never imagine how much potential profits it can bring to the business. Remember what i am going to say will help your business website in search engine ranking which will improve your traffic.

Title Tag

I have said and wrote a number of articles on getting the right title and placing it just after the HEAD tag. The first line a spider read would be the TITLE tag and it carries significant SEO value because it tells the spider roughly what kind of content that webpage carries. Title tag is also displayed in search engine result on top of the description and it tells a searcher what he/she will be expecting from the website. Put your important keyword in your title, a good example would be Confectionery Packaging | Global Distributor for a packaging company.

Meta Description Tag

This is the description of your website shown in the search engine result. Write this description carefully with relevant keywords. Spiders see this as a reference to the content that webpage contains.

Keywords Density

Getting the correct keywords density ( around 3% - 3.25% ) is common. Keywords are important words that you believed a searcher may type and find you via the search engine. Identify the correct ones and you are on your way to the top of the SEPRS.

Nested Tables

I am not saying having nested tables are not good. Spiders simply do not like nested tables and to prevent them from further indexing a webpage, we try to reduce the use of nested tables. Replacing them with CSS would be good. Even my website is currently using a bit of nested tables and i am in the process of changing them with CSS scripting.

TITLE tag in a href

Many do not make use of this tag in their links. Having them is good and it tells the spiders what kind of link they might expect. It carries SEO value by further securing the correct keyword. a href=http://www.ezbusinessneeds.com title=Search Marketing and SEO Web Design

ALT tag in img

Alt tag is commonly used to show text in case the image is unable to load in browsers. Spiders do not view image, they aren't human. So by providing spiders with ALTERNATIVE text will increase your target keyword density. This tag is normally used for blind personnel.

Well this shall end the TAGS for SEO Web Design. The next thing you need to know would be the scripting method that affects search engine indexing. I will write the article another day, see you around.

Rif Chia is the Founder & Private SEO Consultant of EzBusinessNeeds.com with more than 5 years experiences
SEO Web Design
http://www.ezbusinessneeds.com - Singapore SEO

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rif_Chia

Do I Need a Business Website?

2008-08-06T23:53:00.004-07:00

In this day and age, I cannot image any business that does not need a website. People like to have the option to learn more about your company, whether the products you have or how your company got it's start, from the comfort of their own homes. We live in an instant gratification society. If you can't give them what they want now, the will move on to a company that can. This is the same with information.

I guess the question shouldn't be "Do I need a website", it should be "where can I get an affordable website".

Now, if you can make your own site, the only problem you have to worry about is hosting. This is your most affordable option. Hosting is very affordable and painless. From 9.99 a month and up, you can reserve a domain name and hosting. A great domain and hosting company is kittypickles.

If you have some basic HTML, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc skills, you can simply purchase a template for your business. They come loaded with graphics, menus, and some even come with flash animations. All you have to do to them is customize it with your information. A good template site is templatemonster.

If you are not familiar with site design software and code, then you'll either need to research design firms or find a free-lance designer to create your site. If you choose to use a firm, be sure to compare. Make sure to take a look at their portfolios, check them out on the better business bureau, email past clients. Also, keep in mind that price doesn't always equal quality. Some new firms offer great rates while they expand their portfolio.

If you'd like to contact a free-lancer, place some ads in Craigslist. You'll find many great designers and coders here, all of which are pretty affordable.

For more business ideas, tips, articles, news and kits, visit http://bizlearners.com

Brynn Yardley

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brynn_Yardley

Why Your Website Should Include an About Us Page

2008-08-06T23:53:00.003-07:00

I want to talk about the importance an about us page can have when it comes to marketing your home business. By the time you finish reading this article on you will know a few tips to make your about us page a pre-sell page for your website and products.

Think about how you surf the Internet when you land on an interesting website. Do you find yourself clicking on the frequently asked questions page as well as the about us page?

Depending on the depth of the website you may very well go to these two pages before you spend much more time looking at the rest of the website. As a matter of fact, the average person spends less than one minute on a website so they are going to choose what they look at carefully.

This is why it is worth having your about us page right up front where they can find it. You're about us page gives you a chance to build some credibility on your background and what are trying to do with your website.

You can also include various things such as pictures, videos, audio, and these sorts of things. It doesn't have to just be business oriented either.

It's a great place to include little bit about your wife, kids, your hobbies, how your business is doing, etc. You really can get a lot of mileage out of an about us page if you try to think of it through the eyes of your visitor.

If you have any doubts about how to do this go check out the about us page on your top competitors websites. Jot down notes and begin to formulate a plan of how you want to develop your own page properly.

The thing you have to remember is that your visitors probably do not know much about you. Even if you've been around as an established Internet marketer over a period of time very people few people know who you are.

As a matter of fact as Internet marketers we tend to live in a very shielded world compared to the average surfer. Once you realize that people really do not know who you are it should help formulate your plan to bring out your about us page in a positive manner.

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas on why your website should include an about us page. You also should have a few tips now on how to properly develop yours and get the most from it.

David Ogden is an established online marketer who specializes in practical website resources and advice that have helped many people like you start their very own home based business. He can help you launch your very own money making website today, ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now, guaranteed!
Work at Home Training for Success
Make Money Online Now!
Copyright: David Ogden

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_J_Ogden

Marketing Tools For Your Home Based Businesses

2008-08-06T23:53:00.001-07:00

Starting a home based online business is not that easy. First, you are just one of the many budding online entrepreneurs hoping to make a mark in the Internet. There's always a risk that you will fail especially if you don't have the right amount of exposure and contacts. You can't also expect to have your business flourish right off the bat since there are just too many competitors, no matter which field or industry you are in.

So how do you make sure your online home-based business? You need to learn a couple of tricks in order to make your venture competitive, if not successful. These are basic Internet tools and methods that help businesses in getting enough exposure and profits, things that every budding online entrepreneur like you should learn.

First, you should have a good, catchy, and easy to remember domain name. Your domain name is the first thing your customer will remember, so make it catchy. Your website likewise has to be easy to navigate, and equipped with commercial tools like a shopping cart as well as a payment system.

You should also learn search engine optimization or SEO. This is using the keywords most of your clients will search for in various search engines. When you have the right keywords in your website, then your website will rank highly in search engines, which mean more traffic and more earnings for you.

You also have to learn the AutoResponder or AR which helps you capture the essential contact information of those who visited your site. With this tool you can get the e-mail addresses of your visitors, and then you can send them newsletters or e-mails regarding your new products and services, and even special promos. Thus you don't need to hope that your visitors will remember your website, since chances are they will visit it because of the email and newsletter you sent them.

You can also opt to put a blog or RSS feeds since it builds trust as well as maintain the good relationship you have with your clients and visitors.

You also need to put in articles to your website. Remember that visitors value information before the products and services being offered. So you have to put concise, easy to read articles on your website. This will provide good information to your visitors and in turn, entice them to buy your various products.

Visit our home based business marketing tools website for more information. If you would like to see a marketing system in place, visit our xocai website to see it in action!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Troy_A_Shanks

The Reasons Why WordPress is Now the Best Website Builder Software

2008-08-06T23:53:00.000-07:00

WordPress is now the best software for designing, building and maintaining a website. Originally developed and designed for bloggers to create personal blogs, WordPress is now the world's most popular blogging platform. Recently it has been further developed and enhanced so that now it is also the best system for creating any type of website you might need. And it is free!

Yes that is right, the WordPress software is open source and as such it is free to download and use on your own website or blog. If you are thinking of building your own website then you do not even have to look for any other type of site builder system as WordPress does it all.

If you are not technically minded then you will be happy to know that in order to use this impressive content management system you will not require any specialist technical skills at all. If you can use Microsoft Word then WordPress will be easy!

You do not need to learn or code html or employ a programmer to build your website for you as with WordPress you will be able to it all yourself. No more wasted time or money as you can get WordPress today for free and start building your new site instantly.

One this amazing content management and site building software is installed on your web host's server you will need to find and choose a Theme to use with your site. The theme you choose will determine the layout and colors of your new website and can be changed with one click of your mouse so it is very easy to try different themes until you find one that you like.

If you want to change the whole look of your site in the future just find and install a different them and you are done. Once again there are many hundreds of free themes available as well as more complicated premium themes, which you may have to pay for. With WordPress it really is quick and easy to create a very impressive website.

To add different functionality to your site you have access to thousand of WordPress Plugins. These are small packets of code that you can seamlessly add to your website or blog that perform individual functions to enhance your website and make it do what you want. Again most of these are free to download and use.

Any website built with WordPress is easy to promote due to the fact that RSS feeds are built into the software and these are a great tool for letting everyone know about every new page or blog post on your site. The search engines, especially Google, just love WordPress and any sites built with this software will rank higher and quicker than any site built with more traditional methods or software.

If you need a great website that is easy to build and manage yourself then there really is no other choice. Do not waste your time looking at alternatives as WordPress already does everything you need. WordPress is the best software for building websites and it is free!

Just visit the Affiliate Blogger website to see how easy it is to build websites with WordPress and checkout our What Is WordPress? review for more details on all the different features of this awesome free software.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Joa

How To Improve The Professional Look And Feel Of Your Website

2008-03-11T02:35:00.001-07:00

Projecting a professional image is paramount to your website's success. It can make or break your online business. Use this handy article and links to improve the professional look and feel of your site.

First, take a general overview of your site. What is subject matter of your site? Define it down to a particular topic -- your niche.

For instance, you can have a website on Sports. You may have narrowed it down to a particular sport; say baseball. You may have narrowed it down even further, a particular baseball team.

Whatever the subject matter of your site, keep the content within your site on topic. Obvious, but important. Someone coming to your site to check out the Yankees -- don't want to find material on 'how to hook a rug'!

Make sure that you 'keep your site on topic'. This one thing alone will improve the professional image your site projects.

Next, consider your audience, who is it aimed at? Who are you targeting? For instance, if it's a general news site, it may be the whole world. Everyone is interested in the news.

If it a website on breeding dogs -- your audience is probably other dog breeders or those interested in dog breeding. Someone visiting your site will expect to see content/information on dog breeding.

Keep your site's audience in mind at all times.

Now consider the layout and design of your website. Is it appropriate for your topic and for your audience. Does the color scheme and design suit your subject matter? Does the design and layout suit your audience?

A website catering to young visitors, offering online role-playing games is not going to have the same layout or color scheme as a conservative business site. Appeal to your audience and subject matter; again, keep them in mind at all times.

In your site design, go for simplicity. Don't complicate them with too much flash and dazzle. Provide your visitors with what they're looking for -- and make it quick. Don't have your visitors jump thru hoops to get what they're searching for. Have an 'easy to navigate' linking structure.

Keep the overall design within two or three colors. You can even try an old artist's trick, make it almost monochromic with a complimentary color split to bring focus to your points of interests. Make sure your fonts are consistent and easy to read in all the different browsers. Keep the same logo or brand name on all your pages -- don't confuse your visitors.

Now, lets get down to some specific changes or additions that can 'tune-up' your website. These should improve the professional look and feel of your site.

Give Them Something to Remember You By!

1. Make a 'favicon.ico' file if you don't have one. Look down at your computer's task bar, you should see a version of a favicon of the programs on your computer. These are small '16x16' icons or symbols for your site or product. All major sites have them. Here's how you can make them:

Use a photo or paint shop program like Adobe or Paint Shop Pro. Just take your logo or part of it and reduce it down to a 16 x 16 image. Adjust the resolution and play around with it. You can just use a single letter from your site's name and jazz it up a bit. You need to upload this image to your website's directory in an ico file named 'favicon.ico' -- very logical Mr. Spock!

Extra help here: http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/favicon.shtml

Give Them Eye Candy!

2. Make a logo. Or have someone design it for you. Nothing says professional than a cool looking logo! A really good one will brand your site in the minds of your visitors. Have this logo on all your web pages.

Logo building help here: http://web-bureau.com/modules/logo.php

Put Them on the Map!

3. Make a Sitemap for your site. Extremely important, make sure you have a sitemap for your website. Place all the links (if possible) to your site on here. It will unify your site and be of tremendous benefit to your visitors. It's a common courtesy you cannot, must not ignore. Ideally, you should have a link to your sitemap on all your web pages.

Redirect Them!

4. Redirect Page. Create a redirect or error page if your web host doesn't provide one. This is a catch-all page for the '404 Not Found File' that pops up. It will make your site more professional; plus, you won't lose all those hard fought for visitors. Make sure your Redirect Page has a link to your Sitemap.

Try this link for help: http://www.clockwatchers.com/htaccess_redirect.html

Blog Them!

5. Start a Blog and RSS Feed for your site. If you haven't placed a blog on your site -- do it now! This is one addition to your site you should have. Start a blog on the subject of your site or something complimentary to it. It will allow for visitor interaction and will give your site a boost in the ratings. (Use the link at the end of this article if you need help with setting up a blog.)

It will also give you a RSS Feed which will allow you to syndicate your site's information or content. Place an orange RSS or XML button on your site. Since RSS is somewhat new - you might want to place a little note explaining xml or the rss feed. Always place your visitor's comfort in the forefront.

Send Them to the Doctor

6. Doctor HTML. Check the html code and spelling of your site. Sites like this one are great. They will give you a tune-up for free! I have used this one and it's excellent. What you're really checking for is browser compatibility and broken links. It will also squish your html to save on your load time. It will check the coding and any spelling mistakes on your site.

Correct any blatant 'faux pas' in your site's coding.

You can find the html doctor here: http://www.doctor-html.com/

You can also go to NetMechanic to reduce the graphics on your site. As the net goes broadband, this is becoming less and less a problem but it's always better to have a fast loading site.

GifBot by NetMechanic http://www.netmechanic.com/accelerate.htm

Keep Them Browsing

7. Next check your site in all the browsers. You might be surprised how your site looks in a different browser. Firefox is increasing it's users, check your logs, see which browsers your visitors are using. Make sure your site looks and operates perfectly in these systems.

If you have a lot of friends with computers, check your site on their operating systems and see how it looks. Make any necessary changes. You can also try AnyBrowser.com Screen Size Tester below.

http://anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html

Give Them Spider Food!

8. Spend a day or so, checking all your keywords. List down your site's major keywords. The ones you're targeting. Optimize for the search engines. Most of the traffic on the web come from search engines, so make sure your site is optimized for them. Make sure you have submitted your site to all of these engines.

Double check your 'title' and 'description' meta tags for any obvious mistakes. These get indexed and are often the first line of contact with any potential visitors to your site. Professionism here could have a significant influence on the amount of traffic your site receives!

Find some great Search Engine Optimization Tools here:

http://www.webconfs.com

Give Them A Gentle Reminder!

9. Make sure you have a Bookmark link. Simple, but many websites don't actively encourage visitors to bookmark their site. Have a bookmark logo or link on all the pages of your site. Remind your visitors to bookmark. It's a great source of free traffic.

You can get a free script from Michael Bloch: http://www.tamingthebeast.net

Give Them Some Jazz!

10. Jazz up your site! Try to find things that will make your site more interesting. Give your visitors a reason to visit your site other than the great content. Offer a free service, like the one the doctor uses above! Run a contest! Give away free stuff or extra bonuses if they visit your site. In whatever way you can, make your visitor feel special.

Maybe try a headliner from Feedburner.com for your rss feed. This will display all your headlines. Add audio and video "testimonials". Add other graphics like the ones mentioned here: favicon, bookmark, sitemap, etc.

But don't overdo it with the graphics, but add a few to make your site visually interesting. Even a visually bare-bones site like Google does this with their logo on special occasions. It adds a touch of style.

It is estimated that over fifty percent of net users now have broadband so the use of a lot of graphics is not as detrimental as it once was. But again, don't over do it, a little spice goes a long way.

But don't put style over substance. It all boils down to content. Give your visitors good valuable content or information and your site will improve faster than with all the points mentioned above. Don't forget that basic ingredient while you're fine tuning your site.

And don't forget your site's visitors. Make their visit to your site as pleasant and comfortable as you possibly can.

Always keep your visitor in mind.

Each one is a special guest. Each one deserves the best site you can produce. Each one is ...

A VIP with a cursor! Give them the Royal Treatment!

Your site will reap the benefits and look good while doing it!

Why Your Website Needs a Great Navigation System

2008-03-11T02:33:00.000-07:00

Traditionally the navigation menu is placed just below the header area or on the left hand side of the web page. Usability studies have shown that web site visitors instinctively look in these areas first.

Wherever you decide to place your navigation menu, remember that consistency is important. The most important thing is to place your navigation menu in the same spot on every one of your web pages. If you use an image to represent a navigational button, use the same image and the same color for that image on each page of your website. For example, if you use an image of a green house in the left hand corner of your web page as your "Home" navigational link, use the same green house image in the left hand corner of every one of your web pages to designate the "Home" link.

Your visitor should be able to find what they are looking for within 3 clicks of your home page. This is usually not a problem for small sites. However, if you have a large site with many pages, you will need to design a navigation menu that provides access to all areas of your website without getting your visitor lost or confused.

You may want to use a bread crumb trail type of navigation system for large sites (Homepage > Category > Subcategory > Content). Another option is to use a dynamic menu that changes according to the page your visitor is, but be aware that search engines may not be able to spider sites using dynamic menus.

Usability studies have shown that a navigation menu should contain no more than 8 links. The more choices a user is given, the more difficult it will be for them to make a decision. Also, if you have many links, your visitor may get the impression that your site is complicated and difficult to navigate.

If you have only a few links, use mouse rollovers to visually enhance your website. You will need to add some Javascript that pre-loads the rollover images and then add "onMouseover" events to your image links. Alternatively, use CSS for text rollovers that change the link color when the mouse cursor hovers over a link.

Navigation links should be considered the most important part of your website for two reasons:

1) They are used by your visitor to find content on your site.

2) They are used by search engines to spider your site.

The reason users visit your site is to get information. If visitors can't find the information they are searching for, they will click away, perhaps never to return again.

While different search engines have different rules on how they spider and rank a site, basically a "bot" or "spider" will visit a site, search for a "HREF" link and follow the links to other pages, indexing the pages as it goes along. If the "bot" or "spider" doesn't find a "HREF" tag on a page, it is blocked from going any deeper into the site. As you can see, you need to design your navigational system so that a search engine can spider all pages of your website.

Why Your Website Needs a Great Navigation System

2008-03-11T02:28:00.000-07:00

Navigation links should be considered the most important part of your website for two reasons:

1) They are used by your visitor to find content on your site.

2) They are used by search engines to spider your site.

The reason users visit your site is to get information. If visitors can't find the information they are searching for, they will click away, perhaps never to return again.

When designing your website, take the extra time to design a good navigational system. It is vital to your success!

Getting Started Selling Products Online Beginners Guide

2008-03-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

Like most small businesses your products or store has little or no national brand recognition. So how can you sell products online amongst the millions of other websites? Let this article serve as a guide to start selling your products online. There are an endless supply of tips and tricks to selling products online but the following are ones that I've had personal success with.

Professional Web Design

The overall look and feel of your website will have a great affect on people and the confidence to purchase from you. Most people are willing to make online purchases but with Internet fraud on the rise, you need a professional web site to build confidence in your customers. When new customers visit your site they typically won't research your business before making a purchase, they decide based on how your site looks. See our article on Small Business Professional Web Site Design and Layout Guide for more tips.

Usability

Usability is very closely tied to the design and layout of your website. Website usability is the practice of making your website as easy for customers to use as possible. If you want potential customers to purchase your products, you must make it easy for them to locate your products and find out any information they need to make the purchase. If potential customers can't locate products, descriptions, and prices quickly, they will go somewhere else. Many experts agree the the best websites allow viewers to navigate directly to products in three clicks.

Once customer is ready to purchase, the checkout process needs to be streamlined. Make the user fill out only what is required to make the sale with little extra. Don't display page after page of additional products, popups, questions, etc... This will only lead to more people exiting the checkout process prematurely. Once they have made the decision to checkout, don't give them any reason to change they're mind.

You must accept credit card payments for online sales. Giving customers multiple checkout choices increase your chances of making a sale but most customers will still want to purchase using they're credit card. Services like Pay Pal allow users without an account to purchase from your website securely without having an account.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

SEM is typically the process of marketing your website by paying search engines to display your ad when users search for particular terms. These ads are not part of the organic search results; rather they are displayed on the first page, many times above or to the right of the organic search results. This marketing has worked very well for many companies but it does cost money. Most services charge based on the number of times your ad is displayed (impressions) or the number of times your ad is clicked PPC (Pay Per Click). Most large search engines offer this service.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This is one of my favorite ways to market my websites. Search engines cannot tell you specifically what to do to increase your placement in organic search engine results. If they did, obviously everyone would change they're websites to rank high in the search results. This would result in sites ranking high that are not relevant to your search. SEO is a science to many people, they study sites that rank high, formulate theories as to why they rank high, test these theories on they're sites, and study the results. The three important things for small businesses to do from an SEO standpoint are:

1. Key phrases: Research popular key phrases. Find out what key phrases people use when searching for your product. You should define at least 6 key phrases for your products. Many times these key phrases include brand names. For instance, if you sold shoes online, some of your key phrases might be: Buy Shoes Online, Running Shoes, Brand X Shoes, etc...

2. Content: Populate your site with key phrase dense content. Make sure your site has the phrases you're defined in step one repeated on your website. You can't just list your key phrases; you must incorporate them into your website elegantly. This can be done by rewriting your product descriptions and writing key phrase dense content. In addition to making sure your key phrases exist in your content, make sure your content is unique. If your content can be found elsewhere on the web, you may be downgraded by the search engines and other sites with the same content may get preference in the results. Making your key phrases relevant and your content unique will increase your position in the results.

3. Links: Getting one way links to your site not only tell the search engines that you exist but can increase they're trust in your website. The higher ranked site that is linking to you the more trust you will inherit from that site. Getting links from sites, directories, blogs, and social networking sites that have similar content will help build trust with the search engines resulting in a higher position in the search results. Additionally writing and submitting articles and news releases with a link back to your site will build trust with the search engines that your site is an authority on the subject at hand, thus increasing your ranking with them.

There are many other tips, tricks, and rules to SEO and the more you study and tweak your site the better your search engine results will be. Make sure what you do does not have a negative affect on your ranking. Stay away from automated software or services that submit your site, link farms, spamming, sites that are not easily navigated by search engines, sites that use frames, all flash sites, any black hat tricks, etc... Make sure you research anything before trying it.

Products

Many people have found many ways to sell there products online. The following are two techniques that I have found successful

1. Selling large ticket items at cost. This technique is exactly how it sounds. If you can be the low price leader for your product this can generate sales and people linking to you. Obvously you won't make money selling products at cost, rather when the sale is made you make extra money on accessories or at lease gain a customer. Customers are loyal to websites they have already purchased from, especially if they received good service.

2. Selling unique or customizing your product. This can set you apart from others. You will obviously have the foothold on a unique product and limit your competition if you customize your products. Your task is to build the perception that your unique or customized product is worth the extra cost (if any). Building value in your product will reduce your competition thereby increasing your chance of making a sale.

If you do not produce your own products, try to find as many products to offer as possible, the more the better. This only increases your chance of offering the product a customer may need. Additionally, from an SEO perspective, rewrite all your descriptions replacing abbreviations and using keywords where possible. This will create uniqueness for your products increasing your ranking in the search engine results.

This is truly a beginner's guide to selling products online but following these guidelines will result in a solid foundation to build on.

The Online Video Spokesperson Presents A Personal Touch

2008-03-10T02:28:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you can't get any more interactive with Flash, DHTML and other dynamic tools available on the web today something else comes along to add new meaning to the word "interactivity". The latest buzz in web technology is Online Video Spokesperson. Online Video Spokesperson Technology gives the viewer the illusion that someone in front of the screen is talking directly to them. It somehow emulates the experience we have when watching a weather forecast. A weather man/woman is standing in front of a screen with a graphic representation of the weather on it and he/she explains what is happening. Online Video Spokesperson gives the web that personal touch that is as yet unrivaled.

Online Video Spokesperson is a method for providing live motion video that plays over the top of any existing website in fluid presentation without being restricted to a media player window. This amazing new technology allows internet marketers and web entrepreneurs to update, announce or present their products and services in a captivating, engaging manner that affects the buying decision of the consumer through personal interaction.

This new technology allows a real person to walk out over the top of an existing Flash or HTML based web page and deliver a promotional message, special offer or company information and direct them to your particular "call to action". There is no need to redesign the existing site in order to accommodate this feature. This tool virtually eliminates the need for headlines and catch phrases. What could be more effective than someone actually telling you what is important?

With millions of sites all over the world trying to catch attention, it is very difficult to keep visitors in one site for more than 3 minutes. Keeping the visitor for longer than that is an achievement in itself. Getting the same person to visit different areas of your site is the real challenge. If you are an online merchant such as Amazon.com, how can you sell if you're visitors don't stay long enough to look through your products?

Did you know that the television industry's key income generator is paid advertisements? And how do they make sure these advertisements are seen? They show blockbuster movies, game shows, soap operas, news, etc. Online Video Spokespersons function much the same way as these methods used by television networks to entice viewers.

Seeing a person moving around the screen provides the illusion of that person being in the same room with you and in front of you. An Online Video Spokesperson automatically raises interest in the site and has the effect of the viewer or browser to want to see more. It's very effective as an eye-catcher.

Online Video Spokesperson is a marketing tool that gives visitors of a website that much needed person touch that is found lacking in most websites today. Consumers on the web need to feel that the online company they are thinking of giving their business to is sincere and is able to give them the best service they can provide. An Online Video Spokesperson gives that much needed assurance.

User-Friendly Web Design

2008-02-26T03:54:00.000-08:00

It is very important when you are designing a website that you reign in your own creative impulses and work from the point of view of what the person looking at the site needs, rather than what you think looks good and attractive. A simple starting point is to ask yourself if the average person would have any problems in their navigation through the site.

A common complaint in web usability is the difficulty in navigating from page to page. This is where good web design comes into play. The most common position for navigation links on most websites is either at the left hand side, at the top, or at the bottom.

There is no reason to have links dotted all over the place, out of sight, and indistinguishable from the rest of the site. This is to ensure that the site rates highly for usability in the public’s eye. If you can make their journey easier, then they will be more inclined to return to your site again and again. Good web design should also be very professional looking. A nice color scheme, simple layout, and readable text is the very minimum that is required to make your website as accessible as it can be to the general public.

You should also pay attention to site construction when designing a website. That means that all links work, that all images upload, and that the time it takes for a page to present itself on the reader’s web browser is kept to a minimum. Nobody wants to wait two minutes to read a page.

On top of that, when the page does load, the layout has to also be visually appealing and simple, as opposed to flashy and artistic. When most people visit a website, they usually know what they want to look for, and don’t appreciate barriers being put in place for them to get to the information they need.

An Easy-to-Read Website For Your International Visitor's First Impression

2008-02-26T03:51:00.000-08:00

Creating a localized website will be a lot easier if your website is already easy for your international visitors to read. Ensuring your website is easy to read for foreign visitors to your website is an important step in internationalizing your website.

So how can you do make your website easy to read for your international visitors?

Most of the reasons why national websites fail to communicate with their international visitors are directly related to not implementing all of the standard best practices in creating a good website.

You have probably heard of most of these guidelines when creating your company website for your original market. But did you really apply them as best you could? Simply failing to implement a few of these will turn your international clients away and leave them with a bad impression of your company.

Remember for non-native English speakers something else happens before they begin to read your website. Their brain will recognize whether the website is in English or not and decide if they are capable or willing to read English at that time. This can take a few seconds before they actually begin to read your website.

Your foreign readers may be tired, may not feel like switching to a foreign language at that time. If their brain captures anything at that time that they perceive as an extra effort on their part, they will move on. This is when it is critical to have an easy to read website for your foreign business development.

Here are some questions to review your website with for that first impression:

Is Each Web Page Easy On The Eye To Read?

The majority of internet users today are non-native English speakers. English could be their second, third or even fourth language. Even if their language skills are sufficient to understand your website, they will probably need to concentrate more than you to read it. Make it easy for them. Provide them with:

* Titles and subtitles
* Headings and subheadings
* Short paragraphs
* Short sentences

Titles, Subtitles, Headings and Subheads

These add greatly to the readers' ability to understand your web pages quickly and easily. Remember to ask yourself how your international reader got to your web page.

What could your international visitor possibly want to ask you at each specific point in time on each web page? Use your titles, subtitles, headings and subheads as often as you can to communicate effectively to answer those questions.

Write titles and headings that:

* Mean something to your reader
* Give clear and easy explanations
* Tell your story as they scan through and get it
* Features and benefits work well

Short Sentences and Short Paragraphs

Short paragraphs will make your pages easier to read. Foreign readers are put off even faster by long paragraphs appearing to be difficult to read.

If your paragraph is more than 4 or five lines long, look for ways to make it shorter. Can a part of your paragraph be put into a list format? Cut out unnecessary words. Break it into different paragraphs. A one sentence paragraph is acceptable online.

Keep your sentences short. In each of your sentences, keep the subject, verb and object close together in each sentence. If you need to indicate additional information, find this information a place of its own.

* Use a new sentence.
* Put it under a separate heading.
* Can it be put in a list format?

Are You Saying Anything That Could Be Misleading?

International readers may easily be confused online. After this their first questions will probably include:

* Is this website in my language?
* What does this company do?
* Where is this company located?
* What are they saying?

Keep these questions in mind when you write your website. Continue to ask yourself what any of your visitors could be asking themselves and keep your international visitors in mind.

Consistent vocabulary.

Here are two examples to avoid:

Referring to one object as both a "Gadget" and a "Widget". Or using one industry's vocabulary in another industry where another word is used. This mistake can have disastrous effects if translated.

If you are offering one free report and calling it both a "Guide" and a "Report" in different places in your website, your international readers might have a harder time figuring out that you only have one free report to give away. This could make them feel frustrated and generate negative feelings when they can't find the second "report".

Are You Communicating Clearly To People?

Are you presenting your story clearly, putting everything into a context that is simple to follow? Make your story so simple to follow anyone would be able to understand it even if they haven't slept for a day or two.

Put first things first and follow through. Second things go second. If you feel you cannot do this easily, look for a way to tell your story differently. Can you use visuals or lists. Turn a process into:

* A number of different steps,
* List them and number them and
* Put each step on a separate web page

Are You Talking To Your Visitors?

Talk To Your Visitors

Say "you" when talking to your reader. And it is also preferable to use "you" when not talking about a specific person instead of "he or "she". Foreign visitors will understand this better.

Audio

If you have sound starting on your website automatically, ask yourself how this sound comes across in different cultures. Could it possible be annoying to anyone in any way? Some like it fast. Some like it slow.

Clear and Easy To Understand For Everyone

These are just a few elements to consider in creating websites. Implement them and implement them satisfactorily. Your foreign visitors may not necessarily find your website easy to read in English, but at least they will not be put off or confused.

If you do not internationalize your website, the negative effects on your international readers will be greater than on your national readers. Can you measure the cost of not communicating well with your international prospects and clients?

There has been a shift in internet user demographics with more non-native English language users today than in the past. Give your website a global reach with internationalized content.

How To Design a Website

2008-02-25T02:50:00.001-08:00

Every day, more and more people are learning how to design their own websites. In this article, I'll show you how to design a website the right way to ensure that you get something as close to your vision as possible.

Before you decide how to design a website, you have to know what options are available. This means you need to be familiar with the different ways people build websites. The only way to do that is to do some background research. Do you know the difference between HTML, CSS and PHP? It's important to understand how these different codes relate to building a website. By being aware of the different options that exist, you will have a better idea on what you will need to learn.

After you have an idea of the various different ways websites are built, it's time to decide what the purpose of your website is. Do you want to do business or does your website of a more personal nature? Is it something you plan on updating regularly, or will it have more static elements? You need to sit down and really ask yourself what the ultimate purpose of your website is and what you want it to do for you. Once you do this, you will be able to understand the scope of what you need to know, as far as how to design a website goes to get your finished product.

Finally, after you know what you want, then it is just a matter of going about achieving it. If you want something simple, like a blog, then you might start looking for website templates you can download for free, and simply modify. Or, if you need a site with only a few pages, you shouldn't have to study more than the basic HTML to achieve that. By having your vision, and coupling it with the different tools that are available to you, is probably the smartest way to go about designing a website.

There are also various tools that can help you on how to design a website. Typically these are web design software programs, most commonly known as WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for -- "what you see is what you get". These are great tools that help you with your coding, so you can edit your website visually, as well as through coding language.

Website Usability - Is Your Website Usable?

2008-02-25T02:43:00.000-08:00

Usability plays a very important role on the web. A website with poor usability will more often than not encounter a high bounce rate. A bounce rate is a common term for the amount of people who reach a site, but leave shortly after their arrival. A high bounce rate is just one of the many problems associated with poor usability. Remember that a website doesn't include an instruction manual, thus the user interface must be intuitive and highly usable in order to be successful.

What is Usability?

There are various definitions for usability from a plethora of experts, but most definitions generally state that a usable website will feature the following characteristics:

• Efficient and effective operation
• Quick and easy to learn
• Free of errors
• Memorable Interface

Benefits of a Highly Usable Website

There are numerous benefits of a highly usable website for both the prospective patron (user) and you as the website provider. With an increase in usability, users will achieve their goals more quickly and efficiently, which improves the likelihood of them utilizing your service or product. A highly usable website will also develop user confidence in a particular product, website, and/or company.

The most obvious benefit for the user is simply an overall increase in satisfaction. With an increase in user satisfaction, patrons will become more brand loyal and possibly recommend your website to their friends and colleagues. There are also advantages for the website operator/provider when it comes to increased usability. A highly usable site will reduce that amount of technical support needed, because of an overall reduction in user errors.

Common Usability Issues: What to Improve On

There are several places were users typically encounter usability issues on the web. Some key areas to look out for in regards to usability issues are page headings, primary navigation, and page structure.

Page Headings

All pages on your website should include a brief yet descriptive heading. Adequate page headings orientate users and inform them on what they can expect to find on each page.

Primary Navigation

Proper implementation of a primary navigation scheme is also important, because this is the principal means of navigation for your users. A poorly designed or over complicated navigation scheme may deter even the most savvy computer users.

Page Structure

Effective page structure may be one of the most important elements of usability in regards to web design. Remember, it's important to avoid cluttered or disorderly page content. Your content should always be presented in a clear, concise, and hierarchical manner. It's also of the up most importance to maintain proper page consistency through-out the entire website.

Landon Wisser is a content developer and web specialist at NLI Media Group.

NLI Media Group is an Austin based web development and media firm that uses cutting edge online marketing and traditional advertising and promotion to create premium brand experiences for clients.

Website Design And What Else I Do Need

2008-02-23T03:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of web designers will make you believe that a pretty looking website is enough for achieving an online success. There point is that when a customer comes to your website, they should like what you present to them. I do not argue with this point, however you should ask yourself the following:

1. What would bring visitors to my website: Although you may have a very good cheap web design, but you should also consider what would bring those customers to your website. Is it just the design or there are other aspects of the website design that your website designer should concentrate on. The challenge for modern website designers is to come up with a web site design that is not only attractive to visitors but also to Search Engines like Google and yahoo. Most of your visitors will come from these two search engines. A good cheap website developer will develop a web design that will be both attractive to a naked eye and search engine technologies.

2. How would I retain customer attention: With a good website design, you may excite the customer momentarily as they visit your company website. However, after those initial moments what will keep the customer interested in your website? A customer spends time on your website if they find enough information on the website. The content of the website should excite them. It should not just offer them sales but should also educate them. This can also ensure that the customers will return to your website in future.

3. How do customers navigate: There is no point in having information on the website if customers can't find it. A good cheap website designer will ensure that the cheap web design is user friendly and navigable. Visitors should easily find the information on your website without any problems. A good rule of thumb is that no information should be more than 3 clicks away on your website.

4. Can people contact me easily: Another aspect of a website design that many web developers and cheap web designers do not concentrate on is your contact details. I suggest that your contact details should be easily visible on your website. Make sure you provide your phone, fax, email and physical address. This helps in generating trust between you and your customer.

5. Do we need a Content Management System: If your budget approves for it and you want to maintain your website yourself and update information regularly with contacting the website development company or your web developer, you should get a Content Management System. A Content Management System (CMS) is a website application that allows you to manage your website without any knowledge of cheap website development. This allows you to keep the information updated on your website and provides a professional look to your website.

Build A Website or Build A Home Business?

2008-02-21T02:56:00.001-08:00

Three years ago I began learning how to build a website online. I read a couple of manuals and they were cover the topic of pre-selling. The whole concept was unclear and I didn't fully grasp this method of selling. Fast forward three years, and I can honestly say that I am happy with my progress, I am finally making money from home in my spare time, selling other peoples products.

So what is keeping you from making it online?

There are many obstacles, but the first and most important one is the greed factor that lures many into the trap of believing that making money online is easy and that you don't have to know how to build a website or how to market online. The truth is, you need to understand how to research your keywords, how to do SEO and how to stay focus. Without focus, all will fail. I have been there, done that and saw how I spent money day in day out, buying one product after another.

I never really took the time to read one product, I was looking for that one product that would make me an instant millionaire. Would you believe that even today many come online with the same thoughts, and are going through the purchase all symptoms, just like I did. You don't have to make the same mistakes I made. You have to stop buying products and join a program that works. Learn how to build a website first, make sure your making a profit with your first site and then move on to your second site or join a group of like minded people that are making money online.

A next myth is that you need many websites to make a decent living online, that is pure hype and baloney. You need to build a list and focus, while learning from those who have success online. Don't follow the losers and expect to gain, that won't work, they are buyers.

I have finally cut back on buying products, because I know what will compliment my business and improve the goal I have set for that website. I do plan all my website building effort based on a total amount of money I expect to earn. Once it reaches that goal, I move on and start a new site. Sometimes I hit pay-dirt, and then I scrap that site, add some videos to the site, until I get a great idea or research some keywords that looks profitable and start building a new site from scratch.

I seldom sell my domain names, because the older your domain names, the better they are ranked in the search engines. Now, I must be honest and tell you that this website building business isn't for everyone. If you have a nice hobby and would like to make some serious money with your online home business, then I would advice you to jump in and test the waters. Keep your focus, and build a website for at least three months adding content every other day.

This Race is not for the swift, the slow learner and website builder with the right tools will win. Just make sure that your a member of a forum, where you can ask questions and you will be leap years ahead of the rest. The final step is getting the right tools that will enable you to learn how to build a website, the fun way, where learning will seems like child's play.

Web Taxonomy Creation

2008-02-21T02:54:00.000-08:00

An important contribution to Public Understanding of Science and for enabling of new insights would be creation of an online systematic representation of scientific information that gives a holistic view of related knowledge. This would reuse information and ideas provided by other researchers. These systems organise and visualise information. Letondal [1] of the Pasteur Institute provides a tool to generate web interfaces for molecular biology programs using an end-user programming approach. TreeBASE [2] is a relational database of phylogenetic information hosted by the Yale Peabody museum. Hughes [3] of the Computational Biology Unit (CBU) University of Bergen has investigated visualisation of phylogenetic trees and written an application that converts the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) [4] taxonomic data into a format that makes it possible to visualise the whole of the NCBI tree of life. Klyne [5] of the Image Bioinformatics Research Group, Zoology Department, Oxford University makes use of Semantic Web technology to build an image publication repository. UK Moths [6] online guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland illustrates the role of amateurs who send in pictures to be categorised. Mammals Family tree [7] provides an innovative way of visualising complex trees as a taxonomy on a wheel, this is a technique which could be developed as an interactive visualization. Fishbase [8] is a web accessible and searchable resource for accessing fish information by various categories. IHOP (Information hyperlinked over Proteins) by Hoffman [9] provides a gene network for navigating more than ten million abstracts in PubMed [4]. By using genes and proteins as hyperlinks between sentences and abstracts, this converts the information in PubMed into one navigable resource. Proviision of 3D hyperbolic representations of trees is investigates by Hughes et al [10]. This capability could be provided on the web using Semantic Web Technologies [11] [12] and this would enable others to edit and interact with these represenatations.

To achieve the above a collaborative modelling approach is required. The literature on collaborative modelling is extensive. Huhns [13] and Paternò [14] both explain that alternatives to current software development approaches are required for ease of model creation. The need is to translate from a model-based visual representation understood by users to software. This makes it possible to engage with end-users and non-specialists in general. Johnson [15] explains that successful interaction requires mapping between levels of abstractions and that translation between these abstraction levels required by people and computers is difficult. Johnson explains that this problem often means systems are created that make users cope with the problems of mis-translation. The representation of rules and information can be illustrated diagrammatically and it is possible to describe algorithms through concrete examples rather than abstractly. Models must be designed and visualised so that they convey to users a representation of a problem that assists with their vision of it. This modelling approach is explored by Crapo et al [16] and is the basis of our visualisation techniques allowing the creation and understanding of taxonomies and models.

Scaffidi et al [17] show that most people who develop software are de-facto programmers lacking a formal computing background, this will often be the case for scientists and the public contributing to taxonomies. End-user programming is particularly important in this research as we are making software development accessible to non-experts. Research by Ko [18] explains the need for engagement of end-users, including non-specialists by providing them with the capability to interact and amend software. An e-science interactive environment is ideal for involving anyone interested in science to amend or produce personal content. The environment will benefit from an interactive e-learning approach influenced by 'Semantic Learning Webs' [19]. The capabilities we will provide over the web are similar, but more collaborative and advanced than provided by spreadsheets for modelling, and web editors for knowledge sharing. We will produce an alternative methodology for scientific modelling that hides the complexity of low-level programming code from users. This is a kind of meta-design, as explained by Fischer [20] that can be standardised to create a collaborative environment for sharing information among scientists. This builds on research we have undertaken to enable end-user programming. We will visualise scientific information and make this editable online. The system created must be judged accessible and user friendly by users. In addition, it must share information successfully with other software and people. So interoperability is extremely important, examples of interoperability research we will make use of are INTEROP [21] and MOMOCS [22], and combine this with a model driven approach. In order to achieve interoperability, the utilisation of open formats should be favoured in order to maximise chances of forward compatibility with evolving scientific models. We will also create or customise editing tools such as wikis blogs, and Semantic Web editors [23] to document the models and collect user's feedback. We will visualise scientific information and make this available online.

References

[1] Letondal C. - http://www.pasteur.fr/~letondal/ - Pasteur Institute, Computing Center.
[2] TreeBASE - a Database of Phylogenetic Knowledge.
[3] Hughes T. Phylogenetic tree visualisation - Tim's Home Page - http://www.ii.uib.no/~tim/frontPages/treesPage.shtml.
[4] Wheeler DL, Chappey C, Lash AE, Leipe DD, Madden TL, Schuler GD, Tatusova TA, Rapp BA (2000). Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Nucleic Acids Res 2000 Jan 1;28(1):10-4.
[5] Klyne G, 2007, Building a Semantic Web accessible image publication repository - Image Bioinformatics Research Group - Zoology Department - Oxford University.
[6] UKMoths - Welcome to UKMoths, your online guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland.
[7] Mammals family tree - Use zoom tool to see mammal details on the circle's edge - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6503045.stm - BBC News Science - Mammal rise 'not linked' to dinos - PDF Family tree visualisation.
[8] Fishbase - Taxonomy of Fish Species.
[9] Hoffman R, Information hyperlinked over Proteins - A gene network for navigating the literature.
[10] Hughes T, Hyun Y and Liberles, 2004. Visualising very large phylogenetic trees in three dimensional hyperbolic space. DA. BMC Bioinformatics. BMC Bioinformatics Apr 29;5:48.
[11] Eklund P, Roberts N, Green S, 2002. OntoRama: Browsing RDF Ontologies using a Hyperbolic-style Browser, The First International Symposium on Cyber Worlds, CW02, Theory and Practices, IEEE Press. (2002) pp 405-411.
[12] Talis Engage Community information at your fingertips - an online community information solution that allows citizens to organise, create and publish details of their events, organisations and groups.
[13] Huhns M, 2001, Interaction-Oriented Software Development, Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering.
[14] Paternò F, 2005, Model-based tools for pervasive usability, Interacting with Computers Vol 17(3), pp 291-315.
[15] Johnson P, 2004, Interactions, Collaborations and breakdowns, ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 3rd annual conference on Task models and diagrams Vol 86.
[16] Crapo A W, Waisel L B, Wallace W A, Willemain T R, 2002, Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, 1, pp 53-85.
[17] Scaffidi C, Shaw M, Myers B, 2005. Estimating the Numbers of End Users and End User Programmers. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, 21-24 September, Dallas, USA.
[18] Ko A J, 2007. Barriers to Successful End-User Programming. End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.
[19] Stutt A, Motta E, 2004. Semantic Learning Webs. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2004(10), Special Issue on the Educational Semantic Web.
[20] Fischer G, 2007. Meta-Design: A Conceptual Framework for End-User Software Engineering. End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.
[21] INTEROP
[22] MOMOCS - MOdel driven MOdernisation of Complex Systems.
[23] Quint V, Vatton I, 2005. Towards Active Web Clients. DocEng Bristol United.

7 Tips For International Markets - Website Design

2008-02-20T02:46:00.001-08:00

You need good web design for good online results.

For any website aimed at an international audience, be it a personal blog or a corporation website, the web design is even more critical for acceptance.

Good website design can be the difference between a first time visitors leaving after a couple of seconds or adding your site to their favorites.

Here are seven tips to help improve your design:

1. Speed of Loading

Most people will leave your site if it's not done loading in about 10 seconds. If you have an animation that loads so slow the "Loading..." sign appears on the screen, you will lose visitors who don't have a fast connection.

Keep in mind that less than 5% of the world has broadband and less than 10% of the users in the most active internet countries have broadband. The 56k modem still exists and is considered good enough by most people.

2. Text should be easy to read

The text size should be big enough, and the background should work well with the text. Black on white is used most often because it is the easiest to read. Don't decide to write green on red. If you want more color, choose very carefully to make sure it's still easy to read.

Choose a common font style, one that everyone will have on their computers.

Font size can vary, but your text must be a readable size and in a font that people consider easy to read. It may be hot with your friends to write in Agency, but that does not make Agency a font that is easy to read.

3. Your layout and design should be consistent

If you switch between styles too much, you will confuse your visitors. If the design differs a lot throughout the website, people may think they are now on a different website since the layout changed. This is confusing.

International visitors already have to adjust their cultural perceptions to take in information that is not communicated to them in a way they are used to. Creating a consistent feel to your website will make it easier for them to get used to as they navigate your website.

4. Your website should be easy to navigate

Each link should be clearly identified - don't use CLICK HERE. Give a description of where you want to take them.

Limit graphic navigation elements like buttons and tabs unless they are small and easy to load, easy to read, consistent. People will leave if they can't figure out how your Flash menu works (that is, if they waited for it to load).

5. Be careful with music and sounds

Different cultures will react differently to sounds. They may be used to different rhythms, a different volume or a different style of sales pitch,

Remember to verify your target audiences, if your web pages automatically load with a loud audio difficult to turn off. Very few people like to have music forced on them while they navigate, especially if they are already listening to music or if they are supposed to be working.

If you NEED the music, by default have it turned off with an easy button to activate the sound. Do not have the reverse as the default, forcing people to turn your music off or quickly close your web page.

6. Design for browser compatibility

Most people use Internet Explorer on Windows. But not everyone. Do you want to offend those that don't?

Since most people don't make the choice to change from Internet Explorer you should understand that those who chosen other browsers are probably more mature internet users. Do not offend them by not testing for their browsers.

If you are targeting technology driven markets, you should do some research. Your readers are more likely to use the newest browsers and gadgets such as PDAs and Blackberries. Having a browser window with frames on a PDA is a nightmare.

Remember to research all of your international audiences and make sure you can see your website as they see it. This might be difficult from your own computer screen.

7. Design for all screen resolutions

You may like to surf in 1240x1080 with your new screen, but some people still use standard sizes. When working on your website, resize the window several times to see what does not work.

What is popular in your international audiences?

Research your international audiences, test and adjust your website design

A little research to see how foreign visitors to your website actually see your website and how they react to your web pages might provide you with some surprising insights.

If you have a doubt, test, test and test! Find people in your target audience and have them surf. Many people like to be chosen as beta testers. You give them a sense of value that costs you nothing, helps you develop a better site, and starts word of mouth advertising.

Adjusting your web design to the feedback you get will make visiting your website a good experience to all of your international readers.

How To Design a Website

2008-02-20T02:38:00.000-08:00

Affordable Website Design - What You Get

2008-02-19T01:47:00.001-08:00

The true measure of a website's affordability is its value, not its cost. You can get an affordable website design for a thousand dollars, and if it includes powerful programming, custom graphic design, even some e-commerce and SEO, it is quite a value indeed. On the other hand, its title immediately changes to expensive if you only receive a few web pages, a stylesheet, and a site map. So how do you know how affordable a website really is? How do you decide what you should get to ensure that you are getting what you paid for?

Ever notice how a lot of web designers sell their services in packages? Take a look at the packages they offer. Are they looking suspiciously similar? Are you noticing that the main difference in the package is number of pages or improved hosting services (such as email accounts, bandwidth, and storage)? I've used packages like this as examples in a few of my articles; I like to call them "value meal" web design, not out of any actual value, but because they remind me a lot of a fast food restaurant where you buy for the burger but pay by the french fry.

Now of course, you aren't going to want to limit yourself to only a few pages or a few hundred megs of monthly bandwidth. You have ambitions! And that's how you wind up losing money. It looks impressive, and it's meant to, because you see how it already costs a hundred dollars or so just for a basic ten page site or a hosting plan with 10 MB storage and 100 MB bandwidth and 10 email accounts, so when you see that the $1,000 plan has a thousand pages, a gig of storage, 10 gigs of bandwidth, and unlimited email accounts, well, that's a pretty good value. Ten times the price for a hundred times the stuff.

It's a clever tactic, and it's no doubt a tactic intended to catch people who don't have experience with web design and web hosting and don't realize the actual value of the services being offered. First off, what are the chances that you're actually going to use a thousand web pages? Just so you know, that probably doesn't mean they write a thousand quality pages for your website. It means you can give them a thousand pages of text and they'll format it and link it up and lay it out. Not individually, of course. They're web designers; they have stylesheets and php inclusions and databases to do all that for them. But chances are, by the time you actually have a thousand pages worth of information, you're looking for a database-driven site, which dynamically creates individual pages, so the actual page count is irrelevant.

But what about that storage and bandwidth? A gig of storage and ten gigs of bandwidth may very well be required; you can manage with less, but if you plan for your site to grow, that's a pretty solid amount. The thing is, in the grand scheme of things, that's dinky. Bigger web hosts often offer hosting packages for under ten dollars per month that offer - ready for this? - thousands of gigs of storage and bandwidth. Not to mention unlimited emails, a few add-on domains, and a variety of extras. These small web design companies are offering you something called reseller hosting, where they buy a package from a big host and sell the hosting to their clients. The packages they provide are smaller than those the main hosting company, but will probably cost more, because they need to make a profit. It's a typical middle-man addition that saves you nothing, unless you really want to only pay one company.

So what should you be looking for in an affordable website design? You should be looking for a flexible pricing system that allows you to put what you want into your site, be it graphics or programming or e-commerce. You should look for a designer who has the experience to figure out how to build your site the way you want it and the creativity to show some style while doing so. You should look for companies that don't charge by the page, and you should look for a full-service, dedicated web host to house your final site (if your designer can recommend a good one, all the better!) In short, you shouldn't purchase a website that charges based on a systemic package that you probably won't use to its fullest. You should buy the site with a price based on what you'll use and what you get.

Easy Website Design Guide For Your Home Business

2008-02-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

In today's world, Internet exposure through a good and easy website design is a must for your home business. You don't need to be an expert web or graphic designer to build a good website. All you need is a clean, professional looking design and a simple layout to attract good traffic to your site.

In order to be profitable, your website must be based on a topic that makes use of your skills, knowledge and passion. Business success takes a lot of time and effort, but doing something you love will give you an edge over your competition and make the process a lot easier.

How to Design a Website

First, you need to create a plan similar to the following:

• Develop your content theme
• Define your website sections
• Determine your website pages
• Design your website layout
• Create a website template

Content Theme - You must have clear and concise content. Your website should include elements such as: news, advice, and articles related to a specific subject. The more specific your topic is the more high-qualified traffic you will be able to attract to your website.

Sections - You need to group your products or services by categories. Let's say for example, for digital cameras, your categories would be: 1) Point-and-Shoot Cameras, 2) Intermediate Cameras, and 3) Professional/Advanced Cameras. You may also want to classify them by brand, model, etc.

Website Pages - The specific area you are going to cover on each page: Home page, main category and sub-category pages, product or service detailed pages, contact us page, landing pages, resources, articles, etc.

Website Design Layout

Make a big first impression, and your visitors will be more likely to buy from you. Your site must look professional, organized and inviting. The most common layout elements are:

a) Header: Includes your logo, website name, and content related graphic.

b) Navigation Bar: Placed on the left or top of your site. It displays the titles of the main sections on your website so your visitors can find quickly what they're looking for.

c) Main Body: Is where you place your content and it's the focal point of your web page. Make your paragraphs and sentences short and to the point.

d) Footer: This is where you place links and information about your site such as Contact Us, About Us, Sitemap, etc.

Website Template - You save a lot of time when you create a template. You'll be able to use it as a starting point every time you create a new page. It keeps the standard elements that don't change on each of your pages like header, navigation bar and footer.

Do It Yourself Website Design

To get the most for your money check out Site Build It!. Their low price (a fraction of what other companies charge) includes a guide, industry praised books and excellent technical support. It also includes your domain name, web hosting, SEO tracking software to monitor and improve your site, plus the largest and most comprehensive forum I've ever seen. (For more information on Site Build It, visit my site and click on "Build Your Website" on the left hand menu).

Before coming up with any website design ideas, you should either learn some good guidelines or select a company with a proven system to guide you through the process.

Good Web Design is Not Enough

2008-02-18T01:16:00.001-08:00

When people arrive at your website you want them to be wowed. You want them to think that your site is the best ever and you may put a large percentage of your budget into Arizona web design. However, the problem is that it really does not matter how much money you spend on Phoenix web design you will not get the traffic you desire and few people will see how great of a design you really have. The reason this occurs is because you did not budget any money for search engine optimization.

It is very important to budget money for search engine optimization because otherwise you will not get your site ranked very high in the search engines. If your site is not ranked high in the search engines then you will not get much traffic. That is why it is so important to use Arizona internet marketing in addition to a good web design. At first it might seem like this is not necessary, that is until you learn how search engines work and how your site ends up being ranked. Once you learn this you will realize that search engine optimization is really important.

What you want to do is focus on getting your website ranked high by the search engines. This means you can have your site ready for it to be indexed by Google and other search engines. You will want to make sure you have plenty of content on your site too in order for the search engines to have something to index! When this occurs you will find that you can focus more on the actual design of your site later because getting your site indexed by Google is what is most important.

It takes a long time to learn about search engine optimization and what works with the search engines. And, things are constantly changing so you should always be focused on what currently works with the search engines. It takes a lot of time and effort, but in time you will figure it out and your website will benefit because of it. If your budget is large enough then you will want to consider using an Internet marketing company that knows the ins and outs of search engines and can help you get your site ranked sooner rather than later.

Caitlina Fuller is a freelance writer. You want them to think that your site is the best ever and you may put a large percentage of your budget into Arizona web design. However, the problem is that it really does not matter how much money you spend on Phoenix web design you will not get the traffic you desire and few people will see how great of a design you really have.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Caitlina_Fuller

Some Must-Have Features For Your Site

2008-02-18T01:13:00.000-08:00

Just don't focus on the home page, keywords and titles.

The first step towards making sales is by getting customers to visit your site and view your products, which hopefully, is what they are looking for. Attracting customers to your site through search engine optimization and better rankings will not guarantee sales of your products. The way you market and motivate sales will determine how interested a customer will be once they have visited your site. The information you provide must be factual and explicit, leaving no room for guess work or confusion. Likewise, if you sell more than one product, make sure that you provide all the necessary information relating to them, possibly on a separately linked page. Distinctive, easily visible and appropriate links to your site will attract a lot more prospective customers to pages that they can easily navigate through.

Understanding Your Target Customer

Your website may attract many visitors, but if you do not understand your customer base, your site will not produce sales and make money for you. A website is your "storefront window" where you advertise your goods and communicate with your customers. Communication works both ways: - you can send emails to clients and ask them to complete customer surveys and also have this on the site so that you can get ratings from people who are browsing. Ratings must be relevant, to help you get to know your target customers better.

Effective communication also means telling customers what they can expect from you when buying your products. Surveys should establish customer choices and why they like your products. Tell customers up front about discount prices or coupons, if your prices are lower than others and about your shipping prices. Respond fast to client questions and give proper product descriptions. Give details about your return policies and guarantees. Basic details on a customer contact form, such as name, address, age, gender, etc., will help you get to know your customers. Checking credit card records will also help.

Does your website give enough contact information?

Promoting sales from a website allows customers to buy your products 24 hrs a day. Customers may be from other states or countries, so make sure you always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address. People may want to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. If you do not check your website mailbox often, have your emails forwarded to another email address. Make sure that you provide your customers with enough payment options such as credit card, PayPal or other online payment services.

Small Business Web Site Design

2008-02-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

When considering small business web site design, one has to take account of the type of business before anything else.

Typically, a car sales web site would have an "image" that would be totally unsuitable for a ladies fashion outlet. A solicitors site would not be suited to the style adopted by a fancy dress store. These are obvious examples and in most instances the differences are far more subtle but important nonetheless.

The target markets differ greatly and this fact must be fully understood. A small business catering to those seeking a low price bargain has to have a sort of "low rent appeal". That's not to say the site should be a mess of broken links and unfinished pages. Think of it in terms of the "Red top" tabloid newspapers in the UK. They are properly laid out but have a brash cheap look that appeals to their readership.

Careful attention to this aspect of design will avoid the visitors gaining the impression that things might not be in their price range.

Of course, the reverse is true. Someone with a high income used to up-market stores and luxury goods will not be impressed with the low rent look and will swiftly move on.

When considering small business web site design, one has to take account of the type of business before anything else.

Typically, a car sales web site would have an "image" that would be totally unsuitable for a ladies fashion outlet. A solicitors site would not be suited to the style adopted by a fancy dress store. These are obvious examples and in most instances the differences are far more subtle but important nonetheless.

The target markets differ greatly and this fact must be fully understood. A small business catering to those seeking a low price bargain has to have a sort of "low rent appeal". That's not to say the site should be a mess of broken links and unfinished pages. Think of it in terms of the "Red top" tabloid newspapers in the UK. They are properly laid out but have a brash cheap look that appeals to their readership.

Contrast these with the more tasteful and sober impression given by the "Quality" dailies like The Times or Daily Telegraph.

In the USA the comparison could perhaps be between the National Enquirer and The Washington Post. This analogy can be applied anywhere in the world, only the titles of the publications change.

Careful attention to this aspect of design will avoid the visitors gaining the impression that things might not be in their price range.

Of course, the reverse is true. Someone with a high income used to up-market stores and luxury goods will not be impressed with the low rent look and will swiftly move on.

Think carefully about your target market's demographics. This doesn't mean targeting specific social groupings such as "Upper, Middle or Working" classes. It's far more subtle than that. Try to get inside the customers head and think as they would. What would a prospective customer expect to find?

One way of approaching this, is to think in terms of your own likes and dislikes but be careful not to let personal prejudices get in the way.

As an example; say you had an intense dislike of pop music and you were taking a 15 year old out to buy clothes. You would undoubtedly find your ears assailed with just the sort of music you hate played at full volume. The target market would love it - that's why it's played. Just imagine a "Teen fashion" store playing organ recitals - it wouldn't last long.

In summary: Ensure that your prospective clients don't suffer some sort of culture shock - don't go over the top with anything.

Have a clear image of the type of customer you have or maybe, seek and then provide a small business web site design that's in keeping with that image.

Website Graphics - How to Find Free Graphics for Your Website

2008-02-14T01:15:00.000-08:00

A website without graphics is like a painting in black and white. That's why more and more smart website owners look for quality, professional graphics to add life to their websites and make it more attractive.

You can add different types of graphics to your website - icons, people's pictures, backgrounds, business graphics, arrows, buttons, and so on.

Each of these types of graphics add a new element of style and professional image to your site, which adds to your credibility and also makes your site more "sticky".

Here are some ideas on how to use your graphics...

* Put them on your squeeze page to grab more attention to your signup form and increase your conversion rate...

* Add them to your sales letter to get your readers hooked to your copy and have them read it all to the end, and then lead them to your order button - for maximum sales...

* Add them to your product download area or membership site to add a higher perceived value to your marketing and gain your customers' trust...

* And much more...

But HOW can you find professional, high quality graphics online?

There are many websites that offer paid collections of graphics, but then again, you'll have to pay for them.

But the good news is, there are some special websites that offer high quality collections of website graphics - for absolutely free. So you can download them, save them, and use any of them that you like on your website easily.

So not only you will save money by discovering these free helpful resources, but also you can choose from a wide variety of website images, backgrounds, icons, and more.

Here is one resource where you can download a collection of free website graphics.

You can also find more good collections by doing a search in Google - our old friend.

Just make sure you pay attention to the quality of the graphics, because putting a low quality image on your site will actually make you lose credibility.

To your online success!

Affordable Website Design - The Right Price

2008-02-13T01:45:00.000-08:00

The very fact that you are interested in an affordable website design indicates that the price is a key consideration. Qualitative value vs. quantitative cost semantics aside, you have a budget. I've explained in the previous three articles in this set what it takes to get a good value from your website - a design based on actual functions and benefits rather than systematic price increases, a full-service dedicated web host, and an understanding of exactly what you want your website to do. With those advantages, you can be sure that you will only be paying for things that actually improve your website, rather than arbitrary markups designed to exact the greatest cost for the least amount of effort.

Naturally, this means that you are paying for the actual power of the coding, the extent of the design work, and of course, the overall time spent and difficulty encountered in getting your website on-line. Unlike strict pricing packages, these things are going to vary based on the individual site and the individual designer. It is for this reason that it is so critical to have an idea of what you plan to do with your website. If you can discuss everything with your designer on day one, you can be sure that the initial estimate will not be far off from the final price - unless you go and change your mind mid-way through the project, of course.

But no doubt you're sick to death of articles that have great keywords like "affordable" and "price" in the name and only give abstractions and indirect suggestions. So with the understanding that the suggestions below are based on my personal beliefs and not an industry standard (which to the best of this writer's knowledge does not exist), here are the sorts of prices that I think are reasonable to expect and quite affordable to boot:

At the very least, any professionally-designed website should offer an overall site layout, up-to-date xhtml formatting, and a stylesheet and linking structure where necessary. Ideally, the code should also be clean enough that another website designer can go in to make changes if you hire someone else for updates. Such sites might also offer minor additions such as basic programming (such as button images changing on a mouse over or other simple functions), some minor graphic design (a logo, button system, or other simple image), or some initial proofreading and keyword optimization of text (assuming you provide the keywords). Such a site should generally run for around $100-$200.

A more advanced site may include some solid programming, general graphic design, and/or more extensive SEO. It might bring into play a simple admin system or other database work, dynamic or dynamically created content, and the like. It may include a full graphical layout. If you're getting a couple of these things, but there won't be too amazingly much formatting to do, vicinity $500 is a solid value. It may go lower if the code is particularly simple and the graphics sparse, or higher if you need more or more complex systems.

Once you're getting into the realms of highly advanced custom coding and particularly elaborate graphic design, you're usually talking at least a thousand dollars, and maybe several thousand. These would be sites with customized shopping carts, forums, or chat rooms, or sites that require several different graphical layouts for different pages.

In the end, the cost of your site is going to be based on the site you need and the designer you choose. As a final suggestion, prioritize! You want an affordable website design, so it may be wise not to go all-out with the initial site design. Get the important functions up first, make sure the site looks good, start on the SEO. Then drive a few clicks to it, see how people respond, make use of any tracking systems that you can get from your designer, host, or third-party sources. As always, knowing what you want and determining the best people to get it from is key to obtaining the right price.

Affordable Website Design - What You Get

2008-02-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

Affordable Website Design - The Right Price

2008-02-12T01:34:00.000-08:00

Important Points For Effective Web Design and Traffic Generation

2008-02-12T01:33:00.000-08:00

Most People Believe a good website design is all what they need to get traffic and make their site a hit on the excessively competitive web world. This theme of jazz design driving traffic to a site is a recipe of failure.

A custom designed, heavy flash and excess java scripts is by no means going to generate traffic or sell your products. Most important thing is get a website layout done which provides for an easy navigation, sober looking design , user friendly interactivity is the most important thing for a website. No matter what you are selling or exhibiting it surely the prior stated features a re a must for any website to surge on the competitive web.

Points to keep in Mind

1) Never incorporate too much of a flash on to your website. It makes the user wait to access information which could be a drive way factor to your supposed clients.

2) Choose a sober Design, which goes down well with all the cultures. Different cultures have always shown for a difference in liking for colors and architecture. Select a design keeping in mind the location of your supposed visitors.

3) Keep the Navigation simple and user friendly. Easy Navigation allows novice and regular net users for time saving and less laborious way to retrieve the required information from the site. This can be a factor for which everyone would like to come back to the site.

4) If you are an online shopping site, make sure the prices are reasonable and also make the site interactive by allowing feedbacks, comments and compliments.

5) The most important aspect of generating traffic is to optimize your site. SEO is the most important tool for the success of your website.

It is important to select a good web design company, make a plan with them as to how the navigation interactivity and Search engine friendly techniques are going to be employed by them. Follow these steps and see your site the surge the mega market.

Build Your Own YouTube Clone Web Site

2008-02-11T02:14:00.001-08:00

Started in 2005, YouTube quickly became one of the hottest sites on the internet. Now youtube site serves up over one hundred million videos a day. According to the research site HitWise, YouTube can claim over 46 percent of the entire online video market. Considering that site was started by three twenty something techies in silicon valley, and then sold to Google for $1.65bln in late 2006, it is easy to see how the site has started a revolution in the world of online video.

Today the site serves up 100 million videos to users worldwide each and every day. From simple messages uploaded by users, to professionally produced videos, you can find almost anything on YouTube. The site really has become a phenomenon in the world of online video, and social networking.

YouTube makes a ton of money and if you could make only a fraction doing the same thing on your own (while having fun at the same time) it would be a very worthwhile money making venture. You can now create your own YouTube clone video site with pre build script with out the need for large investment or vc funds.

Here's how to get your own youtube clone site going:

1. vShare Youtube Clone script is a PHP script that allow you to build your own video sharing site like youtube. This script only cost $10, get a copy of the script from vshare.in

2. Once you have the script you need a domain name and web hosting to start your youtube clone. Find a domain name which is catchy, cool, or clever will go a long, long way in making your youtube script site not only popular but a money maker. Make sure your domain is easy to spell and not confusing. Video sharing sites need special web hosting to do video conversion. You can get domain name and youtube clone hosting from http://www.hostonnet.com/ffmpeg_hosting.php

3. To make money from youtube clone site, you need to signup with advertising program like Google AdSense, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc... and showing advertisements on your web site.

The Truth About Web Design

2008-02-11T02:13:00.000-08:00

When online users browse, they are usually in search of information or some products or services that are relevant to what they need. If they are directed to another website from clicking on an advertisement, they will be expecting to see something relevant.

However, there are some websites which are poorly designed, making users are unable to find what they need. And so, what could have been a sale would be business lost. And with too many incidents like these, your website will surely be bound to fail.

Here are things to keep in mind when coming up with the design of your website.

One things that is certain is that people would not be visiting your website unless they feel that they can easily navigate around it. So you would need to make sure that your website has a design which is very easy to understand, making it extremely user-friendly. A lot of people would not care whether your website is laced with elaborate design, as long as they would not be confused or lost in your web pages.

Make sure that you provide relevant, varied and up-to-date content so that your visitors would find your website interesting enough to come back for more.

Always keep in mind that viewers could just click away to a competitor of yours the moment they do not seem satisfied with your website and what you offer. Check if you are able to offer an edge over everybody else so that there is at least a solid reason for them to choose your website for their needs. You would also have to ensure that your website loads quickly as many people are impatient when waiting for websites to load.

Web Design Navigation and Architecture

2008-02-08T00:49:00.000-08:00

To use a website effectively, web designers much ensure that end users can:

* Know where they are

* Have confidence

* Be assured they can easily get back to where they have been

Websites consist of a number of pages connected by multiple hyperlinks. These hyperlinks should be defined and placed where they are easily visible. Mouseover effects not only add flavor to the links but also make sure that the user doesn't miss them.

Such architecture is referred to as a network, which contains pathways that allow a page to be visited repeatedly from many different locations. For most design situations, structuring begins with sorting out the distinct categories of information to be included in the site.

When users first arrive on a site they will have no clue as to its size, content or organization. Users must know what regions of the site exist and a site map can help provide this. Successful navigation should be possible on the basis of information provided on each page. If a page contains a number of clicks - able regions and several sets of buttons, the user is likely to get confused. One way to overcome this is to design is such a way, to that the structure is visible to the user and she can easily navigate through the site in a few steps. The Website Homepage

The homepage can set the tone of the whole publication and introduce users to the site structure and methods of navigation. It's like the cover of a book, which then draws the user into the site.

The right choice of a site-opening page can depend upon:

* The nature of the site's information

* The frequency with which the visitors revisit the site

* The frequency with which the site's information changes

Websites like BBC, Adobe and Macromedia are large websites visited by tens of thousands of people daily and servicing many repeat end users. They contain a lot of pages, covers a wide range of topics and are update frequently. Homepage Tips

Direct first time users to the site structure by introducing the navigation bar. Alert frequent users to recent additions. Some websites focus on introducing a firm's range of professional services. Here the focus is on establishing new clients and not providing a random access service. Such sites have a narrative structure as visitors to the site are looking for an overview of the firm, its history and track record.

The homepages of such sites must load quickly and allow repeat visitors to skip some of the overview information. Other sites offer the latest information, and therefore need to be updated frequently.

Web Design and Multimedia

2008-02-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

MULTIMEDIA FORMATS

Multimedia elements in web design (like sounds or videos) are stored in media files. The most common way to discover the media type is to look at the file extension. Picture formats are recognized by extension like .gif, .jpg as well as others. Sound Formats: - Sound can be stored in many different formats

1. The MIDI Format: -- The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a format for sending music information between electronic music devices like synthesizers and PC sound cards.

Sounds stored in the MIDI format have the extension .mid, .midi

2. The AIFF Format: - The AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) was developed by Apple. Sounds stored in the AIFF format have the extension .aif or .aiff extension

3. The MP3 Format (MPEG):- MP3 files are actually MPEG file. But the MPEG Format was originally developed for video by the Moving Pictures Expert Group. We can say that MP3 files are the sound part of the MPEG video format. MP3 is one of the most popular sound formats for music recording. The MP3 Encoding system combines good compression (small files) with high quality. Sound stored in the MP3 format has the extension. MP3

VIDEO FORMAT:-

1. The AVI (Audio video Interleave) format was developed by Microsoft. The AVI format is supported by all computers running windows, and by all the most popular web browsers. It is a very common format on Internet, but not always possible to play on non-windows computers.

Sound stored in the AVI format has the extension. .avi

2. THE MPEG Format: - (Moving Picture Expert Group) format is most popular format on the internet its cross-platform, and supported by the entire most popular web browser. Video stores in the MPEG format have the extension .mpg or .mpeg

3. The Quick Time Format: - The Quick time format was developed by Apple. Quick time is as common format on the Internet, but Quick Time movies cannot be played on a Windows computer without an extra (free) component installed.

How Clever Authors and Publishers Use eBooks to Grow Customer Confidence In Their Business

2008-02-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Throughout the world people are still reluctant to place credit card orders on the Internet, despite the high security generally involved. So companies have to work harder to win sales from their bricks and mortar high street counterparts and one way to do this is to attract visitors to your web site to download something special - for free - and ultimately to sell prospects on the benefits of ordering online, particularly from you!

The main benefit of offering free info products from your web site is to establish a relationship with individuals, and ultimately turn them into buyers. People are reluctant to order from faceless companies, people they may never get to see, and aren't even sure they exist.

Once they've emailed you a few times, received a regular ezine from you, once they know you exist and realize you have their best interests at heart, then they'll start buying from you in preference to high street suppliers.

EXAMPLES

These are examples of how to give free information products to attract people to your web site and generate confidence in your business:

• Say you are a travel agent selling discount tickets from airline consolidators. It's a highly competitive business as you will see from hundreds of small ads. from competing companies in weekend newspapers and glossy magazines. You could attract visitors to your site by offering a free book of money off vouchers to use at their destination. To do this, make contact with tourist offices in most popular destinations and offer to give them a write up in your free downloadable product if they agree to let you include a money-off voucher for your customers to use.

• Imagine you're selling a book about how to win competitions prizes, again a highly competitive product with dozens of sites selling much the same thing. To win business you offer a short report giving tips and techniques for writing winning slogans.

• Let's say you are selling Barbie dolls at your web site. Barbie dolls are immensely popular and literally thousands of companies compete for sales on and off the Internet. But you could easily attract thousands of people to your web site by offering a downloadable PDF file of knitting and sewing patterns for dresses to fit Barbie and other dolls sold on your site.

Cheap Web Design - The Right Tool

2008-02-06T01:15:00.001-08:00

You may be wondering, reading this set of articles, why exactly any business that expected to get anywhere would purchase a cheap web design. Even if they have access to the graphics, media, and well-crafted text to make it credible on the front-end, can any business website really make do without the powerful client- and server-side coding that allows such things as forms, calculators, database-driven mailing lists, and shopping carts? However, it is important to remember that a business website need not necessarily be an e-commerce website. In fact, even without a single form or function, a business can get a good bit of use out of even a simple website. The key is knowing exactly what the website is able to accomplish.

You don't have client-side scripting, at least not anything more powerful than maybe some navigational aids. You don't have server-side scripting. The combination of these two facts leads to one simple conclusion: your site is not dynamic. Visitors aren't going to be buying things on-line, participating in a forum, submitting their information or altering their preferences. If these are the sorts of things you imagine being possible for your site, then indeed, a cheap web design is not going to cut it.

However, you still have a use for your site. In fact, it is the oldest and most basic use for a site, a capability so basic that simply the fact that it remains so heavily used in this latter age of DHTML and streaming video is only a sign of its critical value to every potential webmaster. If anything, it is the most important function that any website can perform, an ability that shatters every dazzling Flash animation, surpasses even the most advanced of scripts and codes. Simple, straight-forward information.

The fact is that a cheap web design is an informative website design, and to use it for anything else is simply going to result in disappointment. Whether you are informing readers of reasons to buy your product or of news and offers, using a website allows you to potentially reach a vast market of buyers (assuming, of course, you can get onto the search engines, which is a whole other issue).

Your site doesn't have to be an informative advertisement, though, and in fact does not need to be listed by a single search engine to be of use to you. Instead, it can be a resource, providing your existing clients and even your employees with information. Naturally, this is in addition to all the worthy ways that an informative site can be used for non-commercial purposes.

Cheap is never going to mean powerful, or advanced, or versatile. These aren't the things you're paying for. However, it need not mean useless any more than it has to mean unattractive. By playing to your website's strengths, you can make significant use of it despite its limitations in the area of scripts and programming. It may never be a massive revenue-earning e-commerce site, but if you simply want to get some information on-line, a cheap web design is always going to be the right tool.

Cheap Web Design - What You Get

2008-02-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

In the "What You Need" article of this group, I discuss how you can get a cheap web design without sacrificing quality by providing the right tools. Give your web designer attractive graphics, a presentable layout, and interesting text to work with, and you can get a highly respectable website for a low cost. But then comes the question: why bother with a web designer in the first place? If you're doing all the graphics and text yourself, aren't there a bunch of free templates that you can use to get them up on the web just as well? In short, what do you get from a web designer when you're already providing most of what will be going into the site?

The first and most important thing that you get from a designer is knowledge and experience. Although the designer is not likely to create things for you if you want a very low-cost website, a reputable web designer won't just throw your site together and call it a day. These professionals can provide advice ranging from telling you how the size or file type of your graphics might affect the website, if your text is decently optimized for the search engines (assuming you provide the keywords you are trying to optimize for), and if the layout is likely to be too busy or cluttered. In some cases, the designer may even be willing to make minor edits and modifications to save you some time tweaking things. You can also get advice on using your website to its fullest, things like choosing a good hosting company and ideas for improving your layout.

Second, you get a website built using the tools and tricks of the trade, not just the pre-formatted, possibly out-of-date code of a template. This means a professional stylesheet that can make editing the layout much easier, properly optimized title and meta tags, maybe even some simple scripting functions such as buttons that change on mouseover. Some web designers may even incorporate more advanced code when creating a site just to make it easier for them. For example, even when a website doesn't quite rate the advanced server-side coding that php usually entails, the designer may still use include functions in conjunction with a stylesheet to get the same layout on all pages, further easing future changes.

And never forget that this means that you have a professionally-designed website made by a skilled creator who now knows your project and your product. If you later choose to expand your site, you already know where to find someone to do it; and this time, you can have your designer go all-out with more advanced coding and features.

Simple websites can be boons to a web designer; they may not pay much in and of themselves, but they likely pay the most for the time spent, and they don't come with the hassles of more advanced coding. As such, a designer worth its salt will do its best to provide its clients with every possible advantage for their cheap web designs. Elaborate graphics and powerful code may be beyond your budget, but you can do worse than having a professional's knowledge augmenting your site. When you hire a website designer to create a simple site, rather than slapping it together with a template, skill and experience are what you pay for, and those are exactly what you get.

Incorporating SEO Concepts With Your Web Design

2008-02-05T01:11:00.001-08:00

It is crucial to make sure that the web design you apply on your web pages would be user friendly. You can do this through making the navigation of your website organized and easy to do. Viewers of your website must be able to find the hyperlinks and other links of the other web pages in the website without much difficulty. Ensure that each page that is linked to main menu has the same title. The home page should always be accessible wherever the user is so that they could always go back where they started just in case they get lost. Also provide the correct title and link within the web pages as you refer to information.

Check the accessibility of your website across all platforms so that you would know that anyone could visit your website. Make sure that you would be fixing any incompatibility problems. Check your website display and make sure that you would be using the most common screen resolution. Use web colors, which are more visually appealing. Carefully integrate your plug-in pages and use the plug-ins, which would work well across all platforms. Try to avoid plug-ins that have to be frequently updated.

Make sure your web pages are interlinked with the other web pages on your website to ensure the ease of navigation. Place text links that have appropriate keywords for your website. If you would be using image links, remember to use the alt text keywords. Place the suitable Meta keywords and descriptions. Try to avoid the use of flash and JavaScript because they are not really good SEO methods.

Website Design Recommendations For Proper Usability

2008-02-05T01:10:00.001-08:00

Websites are made for specific groups of users to appeal a specific oriented market. Users must be proficient enough to analysis the website, find information, and immediately distinguish the subject of the web site. To improve the usability of the web site, a web site should have search engine friendliness qualities. Make the web site user friendly so that users can search the information rapidly and easily which enhance the usability of a website.

To obtain online business and e-commerce expansion proper website design and search engine promotion is the best way to get the advantages. By making a high-quality website, a business can produce significant leads, raises ROI (Return On Investment) & online sales. Through a quality web site, you can cut down your development expenses, and minimize the guidance and maintenance expenditure.

Recommendations for Website Design Usability :

• Easy and clear interface: Interface should be easy and clear such that visitor did not face any difficulty. Written text used should be simple to read.
• Simple Navigation: Website designing should be clear such that nothing will be hidden.
• Fast uploading: It makes the page to load speedily and if the page size is more than 20KB, waiting time should be less.

The most important website designing factors are:

• Website designing starts prior to the users view your site.
• Downloading speed of the website can directly put off a user to browse on another site.
• Unnecessary images & graphics which are not properly optimized over the internet can slow down the uploading time of the page.
• Introducing relevant information in very appreciable segments of the website will make it more helpful and will make sure that the design is resourceful as well as visually satisfying.
• Proper coding techniques should be used to make the website reachable.
• Use all the heading tags, proper HTML, XHTML mark ups, style sheets in the website elements.

Web pages designing are a grouping of contents & graphics. The visual impression guides a visitor is a challenge for the developers & designers. Proper written titles will symbolize more viewers to the website for a longer time. To create the most of overall usability, the facts on an each web page needs to demonstrate in a definite order. If the display of the main elements is in order, then it makes easy for a viewer to identify your website.

Ecommerce Web Site Design

2008-02-04T00:09:00.002-08:00

Ecommerce web site design that allows you:

* Have a product or service which you can sell online. Selling products or services online have, by far seen the biggest profit potential in the long run. Once you get a successful products or services, you can automate the system and move on to new products that will generate multiple streams of income. By this way, you let your customers to buy something online and complete a transaction by paying for it online as well.

* To require interaction with some third party web sites to be able to provide you this service. There are essential components of ecommerce web site that must be understood and planned for database drive, shopping carts, payment processing, payment gateways and fraud protection.

* Have potential to provide an excellent revenue stream for a business. The majority of successful ecommerce models often make use of several revenue streams, and could be claimed to fit into any or all of those broad categories.

If you want to build websites that are ecommerce ready, but don't have the ecommerce web site design experience needed to accomplish the task, you can hire an ecommerce web site design professional to help you with the trickier portions of site development. With a minimal amount of help from you, a professional designer can build web sites that are visually appealing and then incorporate the features you need to complete ecommerce transactions.

It might be a smart idea for you and your selected web design company to go over competitor websites in the same industry as yours. Analyze these websites for strengths and weakness. What makes them effective and what could be improved on? With this knowledge in hand you'll be able to build a better website.

Should you look to upgrade your website then re-designing or even creating a new design is just what you need. The experts in ecommerce web site design can help ensure future success for your business endeavor online. The designs are usually aesthetic that makes it pleasing enough to catch the eye of potential customers. You can do this with the help of web advisors, creative designers and the ones who can program your site for you and all this from a single ecommerce web design company. This can help you as a client get the maximum return on the investment of the web site designed.

Internet Web Site Design

2008-02-04T00:09:00.001-08:00

When it comes to internet web site design it is very important that you pick the right person to design your site. Taking your business online is just like opening a new store for the first time. The more you put into it the more you will get out of it. Your web site is everything when it comes to the internet. If it doesn't look professional you are losing business right from the start. People want to be able to trust and depend on you and your business or whatever it may be. Seeing bad web design is a turn off for almost all customers. Good web design is a key part of starting off on the internet.

One of the critical things you need to pay attention to is your internet web site design, especially that of the front page. This is one of the most compelling factors that affect user's decision to navigate your site or not.

Usually, internet web site design promotion services such as custom web design, ecommerce web design, banner and logo design, and special graphic design are part of a complete web development package.

There are many steps involved if you want to design a very proper web site. If you want to have a perfect web site which suits your purpose, you need to be really careful about its design. First of all, you need to know the target market exactly. You need to know the needs of your business online. The use of web site if clear to the web designer, there are better chances of designing an effective web site. Taking all these steps will help you in designing a web site which will be helpful in expanding your business. These keys can guide you towards a successful web design.

Web site design can be done in either way you will need to decide on which way you wish to proceed asks your web designer which type of web page design would be better suited for your web site design. Choosing a website designer is a very important decision, as a good website can bring you more business and a bad one can turn customers away. Not only will they do web design, but they may even offer something a bit more suiting, like domain name registration, web hosting, and web marketing. To cover all the bases you should find an affordable web site design service that has been in business for a fair amount of time, that can provide you with references and that offers estimates on the design that you are seeking.

Website Design For The SEO

2008-02-02T01:45:00.001-08:00

More and more people around the world are making use of the Internet in order to satisfy their various needs. So, if you're a businessman who wants to taste success in this techno-savvy milieu, then the Internet should be your ultimate choice.

Some people think that publishing a webpage on the Internet will help them get rich quickly. But, in reality, there are host of other things that you have to take notice of, if you want to find success as an Internet marketer.

SEO is one such aspect that the website designer has to be aware of while designing a website. If you have good SEO ranking, you have good traffic to your website and this will help boost your business!

There are several factors, which the company should consider before starting SEO optimization. You can start off by designing the website that will be compatible with all browsers and should enable the use of CSS and HTML tests.

You might have several webpages incorporated in your website, but it is essential to manage them well. When the user decides to navigate through the pages, the address of the page should be shown as the page gets loaded. The pages should not be mundane; they must carry something extra. This can be done by using the right fonts, tone, artwork and writing.

The fonts must be easy to read because the user might get bored or annoyed if you don't use the right font. The application of the right tone too is very important. Normally, a light background with dark color writing is preferred, but in some cases the trend might be reversed.

Pictures and graphics fall under the purview of artwork. They are crowd-pullers, but like all good things they should be used selectively. The content of the site is just as important for attaining high ranking in the SEO. Generally, the writing should be short and to the point. The use of keywords is also very important.

Building a site adhering to the SEO rules and regulations is not tough. But you can further improve your rankings by the use of frames. You can effectively make framed pages by the use of CSS, it can also be made by the application of HTML, but the process is time-consuming.

Another thing that should be kept in mind is to avoid the use of sub-directories. You should have one directory, if there are not too many pages in your site. The use of a big logo should also be avoided as far as possible, because the logo will make the content of your website heavy and thus, make your site slow to load. It will also eat up valuable space, which you might have otherwise dedicated to providing valuable information. While optimizing your site for SEO, you should also keep in mind that there are no spaces in the links and URLs you are providing.

Traffic provided by the SEO ranking can help you tremendously. Keep in mind though that without a good website that traffic is not worth anything. Track Your Conversion rate and it will help you find out how much each visitor is worth to your website. And if you can get visitors for less than that then you can scale your website to take it to the next level and generate even more traffic.

Business Website Design - The Right Tool

2008-02-02T01:44:00.000-08:00

A website can be quite the versatile program. When considering your business website design, you need to know what its goal is, what it exists for. There's more to getting your business a web presence than simply putting some pages up on the web, and the clearer you are on your focus and intent for the site, the better. A vast number of websites abound on the Internet, and many get lost in the crush, trying futilely to compete for a position on the search engines. Of the hundreds of thousands, even millions of sites that might come up for any keyword, only ten are selected for the august position on the first page. Like a magnet that can cling fiercely to metal placed inches away but which cannot even tug at an object a foot distant, the value of a website's ranking decreases exponentially with each successive page. It's a struggle to get to the top, especially for the highly competitive keywords that have the most searches.

So you fight your way through the millions of undiscovered, unoptimized sites that don't even come up before the engines simply ignore their presence. With skillful SEO tactics and cunning keyword selection, you forge your way into visibility in the top few pages. You tweak, you tinker, and you wait very patiently to finally get onto that top page. And then it's just you and the ten other websites that proved their ability to stay one step ahead of changing algorithms and advancing newcomers. Chances are you all have very similar title tags, since that's the single most important factor of SEO, so it comes down to nothing but those two lines of description to separate you from your nine opponents and the handful of sites that have paid to appear beside you.

And all that work is absolutely wasted if your site isn't as keenly focused as your keyword optimization campaign.

A business is about setting and meeting goals. You want to make a certain number of sales, bring in a certain amount of profit, add a certain number of people to your newsletter - whatever. A business website, thus, cannot be haphazard or random. Is your website intended as an advertisement, a way to bring in new leads and new sales? Is it a technological interface, designed to simplify and improve the functioning of your business? Is it an on-line store, allowing your visitors to make their purchase from home? Is it a font of information, providing those with an interest with knowledge of your business and goals? Is it a forum where your clients can communicate with you, your employees, and each other, allowing you to better serve them? Or is it a combination of some or all of the above, with numerous functions and options?

Knowing what you want your business website design to accomplish is, perhaps, the single most important step in creating your site. Colors pale in comparison, font means nothing, and functions are useless without a decisive focus driving your new program. By knowing what you want your website to accomplish, you can build it to accomplish just that, and then you work in the keywords that will bring people to it. A click on an unfocused site is no more useful to you than a click to a blank page, but whatever your goals and aims, a properly designed business website is almost always the right tool.

Web 2.0 - Web Site Design Tips

2008-02-01T01:43:00.000-08:00

When it comes to effective web site design as part of your Web 2.0 efforts, a couple of things need to be kept in mind. If you want your website to be stunning and effective, here are some web 2.0 web design tips to help you get started.

* Keep it simple

Having too many features can take away from the central purpose of the site. That does not imply bare, simple design. Instead it means using the minimum features required to achieve your objective. As part of quality custom web design you need to ensure this.

* Central positioning

When your web site design is built centrally it is more likely to give out an honest impression of your brand. Besides the brand messaging, it also is far more easy on your budget as you need lesser pixels or content.

* Less number of columns

The fewer columns you use, the more readability you infuse into your website. If you are hiring high quality web designers they will quickly tell you that cramming too much information on a page is always a bad idea.

* Making navigability easy

You don't want your website visitors to keep hunting for information on your site! Any section on web 2.0 web design tips will advise you to keep navigation obvious and easy to reach.

* Text size

As a way of infusing better readability it is also important to have bigger sized text. As part of good website design tips you can highlight important elements with a larger font size.

* Differentiating sections

You can also employ the usage of bright colors as part of your custom web design. This can help demarcate areas on the site and make it easier for readers to understand different sections.

* Rich aesthetic appeal

You want your site to look stunning. As part of that effort your web site design need to use good quality aesthetic elements. Aspects like drop shadows or reflections can really help jump start the look and feel of your website!

* Self explanatory icons

You can also use innovative icons which explain the concept better than plain text. Today the focus is on lesser usage of icons and more text. However, web designers tend to use such icons sparingly only in high value areas of the site.

* Labels

You can also use star shaped labeling in order to draw the visitor's attention to something. For example in your web site design you may want to showcase a special promotional discount etc. However, use these sparingly as over-usage sends out a 'cheap' signal to visitors.

* Large logo design

One of the aspects of web 2.0 web design tips is to use bold and large logos to draw more attention and create a statement.

Corporate Website Design - Way to Advertise Your Website

2008-02-01T01:42:00.000-08:00

With the popularity of the internet, online business has taken a sharp new turn to generate better competitive environment and more opportunities to reach to new heights. Organizations have now understood the special meaning of having a customized website to knock the doors of their ultimate users with extreme ease and ease. With this affordable source of internet, an organization can reach conveniently to millions of users and provide them 24x7 accesses. As a result, corporate have realized the need of a rock solid web presence through which they can fulfill their desires.

Benefits of Corporate Website Design

A web site can do wonders if prepared with a business point of view. It gives enough flexibility and efficiency to operate your business from the comforts of your home. A corporate web site helps a user to access all the relevant information about the company and its latest offerings. Also, as a user you can save a lot of your precious time usually wasted in exploring the company's offerings and other information. A corporate web design helps a business to become versatile in nature and helps it to attain adaptability in today's fast growing life.

Some of the important points that should be covered in a corporate website design are discussed below:

* Photo Albums
* Guest Books
* Message Boards
* Contact Page
* Links Page
* Site Map
* Area Map
* FAQ Page
* Customer Feedback Form
* Auto Responder
* Mailing List / Newsletters
* Calendar
* Articles & Press Releases
* Careers

India: Web Design Hub

India is one of the major destinations of Information related services including web designing and others. The country provides the best technology and skilled professionals who can create a very usable web site depicting your vision and requirements. You can further check the testimonials on the websites to avail the great creative minds to work for you and benefit your business at last.

Does Your Website Have a Call To Action?

2008-01-31T02:08:00.000-08:00

What is your company's website aiming for? Well, definitely as an entrepreneur your main aim is to sell the products of your company through your website. In order to grow interest in the minds of the visitors, you might use convincing words and attract them towards using your products. But the success of the site can be evaluated through the growth of the online sales of the company. Any website is loaded with valuable information, but when this information is added with a call to action, the site can achieve a great start.

So what really is call for action? Call to action is just a simple statement that gives instructions to the users on the steps that they are supposed to follow while going through the website. Some examples related to this phrase are "register now", "sign up", "get a newsletter", "click here" etc.

With the help of proper web design management, the company can turn any visitor of the website into a consumer of the goods of the company. Every website maintains a funnel process; the process starts with the visitor opening the page whereas the final step of the process where the options for the visitors are streamlined is the call for action. Call to action should be placed in a readily visible position and should be accessible to the visitors. This means that the positioning of the call to action is of vital importance.

Often while designing a page, the designers place the call for action at the bottom of the page; but, this is detrimental for the purpose of your company. The call for action should be placed on top of the web page, so that it catches the eye of the visitors and instigates them to think at the propositions and the benefits that your company is providing.

What's more, keeping the call to action on top of the page will make the visitors read the instructions and he might act on it. The text of the call for action must be written in such a way that it stands out from the other body texts. The call to action is best if written in bold and in different color (preferably in red). A button might work even better.

When the visitor clicks on the call for action, say "Subscribe", make sure that a link demanding some information of the visitor opens up. This will in fact help you in the future to keep record. But, plain words such as "Register", "Subscribe" etc has become mundane. To draw the attention of the visitor and to make him act readily, little jugglery of words is always beneficial. So, use the words such as hurry, now, soon, fast to enthuse the readers.

Call to action is the final step in the funnel process and helps the consumer in taking instant decisions. Moreover, the call for action is designed to infuse a sense of urgency in the minds of the users and thus, they can lead to huge profits. So, make use of it and give your business a new dimension!

Guidelines for Web Design with SEO Advantage

2008-01-31T02:07:00.000-08:00

Designing a user friendly site is very important. This could be achieved by integrating good navigation of web pages. User should easily locate link and hyper links of sites so that he/she could go through inner pages of the site. Each pages linked to menu items should be exactly matching menu title. Home page should be linked to each and every page so that user can access home page easily and where as be possible link all pages from one another, Provide appropriate link and title within pages while referring to information.

To begin with browsers - Check your design in different browsers and fix all incompatibility issues. Set most commonly used screen resolution and check whether site display is fine. Make appropriate changes if needed. Try to use web safe colors. Integrate plug-in in pages very carefully. Try to use plug-in which are compatible with all browsers. Avoid using plug-in which are frequently updated.

In order to make your site search engine friendly interlinking of pages is very important. Make sure that each page of your site is interlinked with other pages. Put text links with appropriate keywords for your site. If you are putting image link than do not forget to put alter text keywords. Put appropriate Meta keywords and description. Avoid using JavaScript and flash as they are bad for search engines usability. After all visitors are most important asset for your site and you want as many visitors as possible. These are few basic guidelines to follow before you start with your design.

Web Page Design - How HTML Stands for Results

2008-01-30T01:16:00.000-08:00

Web pages use HTML to display information over the Internet, using a browser (i.e. Firefox, Internet Explorer). According to dictionary.com, one definition for design is: to intend for a definite purpose. This implies that a designer should have forethought when constructing a web page design such that there is a definite purpose for each page. Of course the web site owner will want their site to be popular, and business web sites desire traffic to achieve a return on investment (R.O.I.) and traffic is the key. It is the search engine that returns the results page for a search. The keywords used help the search engines determine relevancy of the search to the web page.

The search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo!, MSN) are not human, but are programs written by humans and cannot actually "see" the images or "read" the text on the web page. It is important to impart to them well researched information that will lead the search engine to your web page and return your web page link to the searcher in a results page. Optimization of a page (Meta tags, keyword research, keyword density, and relevant links) can make the difference between whether your web page is returned in the first results page, last page or somewhere in between.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML contains the blue print of the web page and the specific information for the browser as to the layout of the page and how the search engines robots and people will view it alike. Each web page should be optimized individually, choosing appropriate keywords and connected including internal links and related external links to other web pages. This is important because the Search Engines do not spend lots of time indexing any one particular website, therefore making sure the pages are updated and link correctly will tell the robots that the website has not been abandoned and can be indexed.

HTML is used to formatting the page, creating lists, providing links between pages, add images, and use tables to keep this information in order and provide the information that may get you those top 10 results using well-researched keywords. The Meta Tags used in the HTML tells the search engine robots how to categorize the information and returns information to the screen for the user in the form of a results page. This is usually the result of a search performed by a user. At its most basic, a web page could be composed of a few basic tags and most likely it will also include words or rather content.

Additional Meta tags can be used to be more specific in its formatting and display instructions to the browser. For Example: Keying this into the Google search box results in reveals that there are 131,000,000 results for the keyword phrase web page design in .24 seconds and returns the first 10 web pages. This does not include the sponsored links (paid placement) using this keyword phrase. Then by examining the HTML page source (right click the mouse and choose view source) the Meta Tags for this particular HTML can be displayed. The number one web site (excluding the sponsored links) revealed that the title made use of the keyword phrase. The keywords included website, design and web design and the meta name description content contained the keyword phrase "web page design".

If all of the tags are removed from the source code, what remains is the heart of the page, or rather text. If a page is well written it will impart the information to the user desired when he or she selected the page from the results page. It is likely that the page will provide information for the viewer to read, look at or listen to in the form of a video, audio file, image or text. How the page is displayed is a choice of the author and this can make the difference between a plain page and a page that has all of the window dressings. Whether the reader has a pleasant experience or one that causes the reader to click off the page, and never returns to the web page in the future is dependent on whether the needs of the user were met.

The search engines robots (Google, Ask, MSN, Yahoo!, and others) look for and gather the text on the page using an algorithm and store this in a database. This algorithm determines what the search engines tasks are and tell them exactly what duties to perform and what information to look for on their search. Providing Meta tags the robots will assist them in their task to gather and categorize the web pages information in its database (used later in retrieval as a result of search). This is why optimization of a page can make the difference between whether your web page is returned in the first results page, last page or somewhere in between.

Remember to carefully choose keywords, and to use those keywords in the body of the web page, as well as in the title and even in the web page title, Meta description tag. Be sure to submit your websites URL to the search sites and directories and look for sites to link to yours to improve your search engine ranking and search engines will soon return your web page at the top of the results.

Seo Web Design The Basics

2008-01-30T01:15:00.000-08:00

It takes more than wishful thinking in order to land one of your pages in the top 10 of Google, but once you understand the criteria of what is involved, you can increase the likelihood for each of your pages if you start with the goal in mind.

Rankings are based on algorithms, therefore if you are operating within the guidelines of the formula, certain results are produced consistently as a by-product. Below are a few examples of clearly defined on-page SEO principles known for producing consistent top 10 results.

The first prerequisite for achieving top 10 rankings in major search engines is:

Meta Tag Optimization

Optimization of the meta tags is extremely important, but doing it wrong can result in penalties from search engines. Don’t stuff keywords in the meta tags (using words more than 3 times), keep your title on topic and brief. Using the short descriptive copy is more efficient instead of having truncated text scrolling off the page. There is nothing more unattractive to searchers than words getting cut off in mid-sentence or search results full - stuffing - stuffing even more - even more ridiculous keyword stuffing. No name calling here, but if you're still using this as an SEO technique, it’s time to cut your mullet and move into 2007 where things have changed a bit.

Your description should be concise and try to use actual search terms in your description (something most Seo companies won’t divulge). Any SEO company worth their salt knows that if you want to rank for a specific term, having the exact form of that key phrase in your title and description increases your ranking potential for that term. Keep the keywords with a higher priority closer to the front of the sentence and try not to go over 250 characters. This keeps your pages focused as well as makes each of the words more potent for ranking. The more words you use, the less potent they become. So once again, the short and sweet version works wonders for a two-fold purpose (1) the visitor, because it indicates to them what they can expect once they arrive and (2) the web bots and search engine spiders, who place a great deal of emphasis on the in title or in description data.

Optimizing your Hyper links

First of all a hyper link for those who are unfamiliar with the term is a fancy way to say link that includes the URL (universal resource locater) otherwise known as website or web address inside. Links can be used for internal purposes (within your site otherwise known as navigation i.e. link architecture or for external purposes such as linking to another website you enjoy or endorse. If the links are leaving you website and going to another site they are considered forward links or if your website receives a link from another site they are called back links. In either capacity the way that the strength of a link is assessed is from the anchor text or text comprising the link states. So, instead of using click here for a forward link an optimized version of that would contain a keyword which carries tremendous weight in search engines when referencing what the topic of the page the link leads to, as well as add addition ranking potential to the page that the link is located on.

Hyper link optimization plays a major role in SEO and after reading the entire series, you will know how to put these elements together to improve the rankings on each of your respective pages.

Optimization of Alt Tags | Alternative Text Tags

Since web bots and spiders can’t parse the data in an image or flash to determine what the image is, Alt tags allow webmasters to create a clear description of what the contents of the image are. If you have an image showcasing your company headquarters an ideal way to utilize the alt tag from this image would be “company name headquarters, city, state”. This way you could obtain the maximum value for this image as a contributing factor to your overall rankings with regional references as well as using the company name to reinforce your brand.

In the past, this was one of the most abused forms or search engine optimization and fell more along the lines of search engine manipulation. Companies would stuff every keyword possible in the alt tags in over inflate relevance for their keywords instead of simply creating content with value. Filters have been added to search engines to eliminate websites utilizing such tactics, but you would be surprised to note how many webmasters still use this technique. Fortunate for us and unfortunately for them, it nearly results in penalties in rankings every time pushing them lower on the totem pole for achieving top 10 rankings if even top 100 results.

Optimization of your Website Content

Optimization of your website copy otherwise known as content or words is the most important factor for ranking. Without going into too much detail, it is safe to say that the higher quality of content your pages have, the better they rank in search engines.

The reason is simple, think of the web spider as your friendly neighborhood reporter who is always looking to be the Johny on the spot to report the latest and greatest headlines to the web at large. These programs are more than just reporters, they have been designed to emulate human behavior and crawl through your pages much like a real human would. They follow links, take notes and even more so, if they like your content they come around more often to see if you have refreshed your data.

Knowing this it is important to write your pages for humans, since they actually pay the bills, but also to understand that you can create compelling text for the search engines to index as well. This is accomplished through word density, which is another fancy pants way of saying how many times a word appears on a page, and how close it is to other keywords that you have outlined as important within the document (using your links, titles and descriptions).

To add even more emphasis to a group of words for on page optimization, you can employ the header tags h1, h2, h3, and so on to reference the priority for those phrases or keywords on your pages. We explore specific uses of header tags at a later time, but the purpose for now is just to provide an overview of the basic elements involved in SEO Web Design.

Content truly is king, so the best way to grab the attention of the Google bot is to write world class content and sprinkle in optimization tactics for optimal effectiveness.

Site maps - What they are and how to use them.

A site map is essentially an index of the pages comprising your website. There are two different types of site maps;

(1) An HTML site map that is used for human visitors to find relevant pages and

(2) an XML sitemap that is designed for spiders to connect the dots and find your entire website when it is performing it’s indexing to create a snapshot of the contents.

Every page on your site should have 2 things in order to be taken seriously from the major search engines. Your site map and your privacy policy. Another thing you might wish to note, that if your physical street address is missing in action (in your contact page) on your website, your listings will probably have the same effect from Yahoo and some of the other engines. Penalties come in different shapes and sizes, so to avoid them it is better to be proactive and incorporate these three elements right from the start.

An HTML site map is nothing more than the link to your page with a brief description following it. This alone can affect where and how your page is ranked in the grand scheme of things. An xml site map on the other hand is something which is placed at the server level that spiders and web bots access (much like your robots.txt file) when looking for data to report back to the web.

Each and every one of the elements outlined above are inherent in our SEO packages and is part and parcel to the optimization process. I think that about wraps it up for this overview of the basics behind the fundamentals of SEO Web Design.

Overview Of Website Blunders

2008-01-29T00:41:00.000-08:00

There are many reasons for which a website does not perform as it is supposed to. The reasons for this are as varied as the different aspects that are involved in the creation and management of a website.

The choice of hosting services can have a crucial effect on your site's performance:

Free web hosting services provide limited facilities; smaller bandwidth, prohibition of inline linking, inability to upload certain file types, etc. All this limits the scope of your site.
Again a free hosting service makes it compulsory to place pop up promotional windows or logos in your site which irritates your viewers and decreases the professional appeal of your website.
If someone cannot afford to pay as little as $5 a month, then viewers may not find his services very reliable.
An appropriate domain name, which highlights the brand or services, is very crucial, especially from a SEO perspective.

The viewer makes up his mind to stay in the site in the very first page. For this reason it is important that your site does not have the following:

Large logos that have little connection with the site theme or content.

Complicated videos or designs that take a lot of time to upload.

Boring and misleading opening quotes which do not shed light on the site purposes.

One must avoid the following while designing the site.

Complicated site plan which confuses the viewers.
Immature designing(designs must be smart and impressive)
Presence of visual components which take a lot of time to upload.
Absence of site map.(makes it difficult for search engines to crawl a site)
No site search features.
Complicated order placement procedure.
No contact address.
Absence of viewer capturing and tracking tools(wherein the visitors leave behind their e-mail address)
Bad navigation
Ugly graphics
No duplicate site pages.
Appropriate title and taglines.
External links to competitor sites.
Broken Links
Never ending home pages.
Unwanted pop up windows or alert boxes

Content of the site is also very important. The following could be the factors that make the content ineffectual.

Limited content
Lack of focus
Formal tone
Not too technical or jargon heavy language.
Writing in never ending paragraphs
Plagiarism or photo or video copyright issues could get your company into trouble.
Grammatical mistakes

If above mentioned website blunders are avoided website performance will improve significantly.

Website Blunders - Not Stating Clearly What Your Business Is About

2008-01-29T00:40:00.000-08:00

Potential customers may reach your site and quickly leave if they don't see information right away. The average web surfer waits only a few seconds to look at the home page of a site before determining whether to look further or to move on. If you don't clearly state what your business is about you can lose potential customers.

The first page of your site is the place to give people this critical information. Customers can have a frustrating time if they spend time trying to find out more about what you do. Post this information so that it is easily visible. Provide even more information about your company on another page that visitors can easily get to via a link button. Customers want to know more about the company they are doing business with. Provide information such as your physical address and telephone number. Give people a link to send an email if they have questions that aren't answered on your site.

If you have high quality pictures that help to show your product or service try using them on your site as well. Pictures go a long way in presenting information. Just make sure that the pictures are clear and crisp and sized appropriately for the web page. If you don't have pictures you may want to consider hiring a professional photographer to provide the shots you need. Choose someone who has particular experience with web design so they will take the pictures in the correct sizes. They can also use digital enhancement to make the pictures look their best.

Even with pictures it may remain unclear what your business is. Put pertinent information on the first page of the site. Also, make sure to place the copy where people can see it easily without having to scroll down. A good web design specialist can help with copy and design. Think about hiring a professional copywriter to make the description as strong as possible.

Use web site statistics to ensure that people understand your web site. These are typically offered through your web site host and come in a variety of packages. Even the most basic will offer information about the amount of visitors to the site and how long they stayed and what pages they visited. Use the information to fine-tune your site. Be open to suggestions from friends or relatives who can often give you some good feedback on site design.

Online Business – Using Articles to Grow Your Online Business

2008-01-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

On of the greatest struggles when getting started online is getting your web site in front of the web market. You might buy traffic, or try to network, or even do some offline advertising. But you find that it is very difficult to get bona fide, interested people to your web site.

Article writing and promotion can do wonders for this problem.

When you write articles, include a link to your own web site in the bio section of your articles, and then submit those articles to various online article directories, you create two incredibly simple, yet powerful chain reactions.

The first involves the back links that are created to your web site via the propagation of your article and the included links as your article is posted on multiple web sites, both directly through your submissions, and virally through RSS feeds. Those back links are interpreted by the search engines as being indicative of popularity, and they tend to rank more popular web sites higher than less popular web sites.

The second chain reaction is that of the actual articles appearing in the search engine’s natural search results. This yields direct clicks to your web site when the search engines rank your actual article, rather than your web site, in the natural search engine rankings. When this happens, you receive clicks to your web site that are very specifically geared towards your target market.

The bottom line is, if you have an spare time at all are have a knack for writing, get writing. The returns are phenomenal!

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

The Importance of Website Reviews

2008-01-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

There are numerous companies that offer the service of a web site design review. There are several reasons that contribute to the importance of a web site design review. Many people have benefited from having a web site design review because this is a wonderful opportunity to receive a professional opinion on not only the design but the overall effectiveness of your web site.

Most companies that specialize in web site design review will review the following features of your website; the overall site organization, the web site home page, page titles, messaging, content formatting, professional image and the search engine friendliness of the web site.

The main focus of having a website review is to figure out how you can improve your web site. A web design review company considers how to increase the usability of a web site. The company will review and then evaluate how clearly the message of your web site is perceived by visitors.

With an experienced team of professionals reviewing your web site you can take your business to the next level. Custom web site design services assist and ensure the success of a web site. Many web site design review companies will even offer a free evaluation of your web site. This is an amazing offer that promises to take your business even further then you could have dreamed of.

There are over eighty million web sites currently on the Internet. That means that the competition on the Internet is often times plentiful and fierce. Let your web site gain an edge over the competition by having your web site reviewed. Many people have noticed an increase in business after following the suggestions from a web site design company.

When launching a web site put your best foot forward. Have your web site reviewed by a group of professionals who are focused and dedicated to making your web site an overnight success

Internet Marketing Strategies – Five Different Strategies for Online Income

2008-01-17T04:18:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to make money online anything from writing and selling your works, using EBay to generate income, doing various forms of freelance work, or even designing various items for other people or companies. Here I will discuss five simple, quick ways to generate online income.

Writing- With the internet earning money from writing is so simple. It can be writing anything from academic works (dissertations, essays, thesis, book reports, class homework, etc) to writing keyword articles for various people. You could write press releases for sites or news papers. Writing greeting cards is another popular avenue. The list truly is endless here!

Selling items – Selling anything is possible on the Internet. You can sell on EBay, Craigslist.org, any classified ads, or more. You can even design a website and sell many forms of things on it.

Telecommuting – Companies all over the world hire people to work from home these days. They set up a work schedule and allow you to perform various duties from you house.

Web design – If you are proficient with web design this is a GREAT way to make money. New people are choosing to launch web pages each day and some have no idea what to do. Promoting yourself and providing your services is a great way to make money and help others out.

Providing advice – this make seem a little strange. But people look to the internet to learn all kinds of different things. Providing a website that gives different forms of advice (be kind and correct) can help generate forms of income. You can sell E-books downloadable from your site and believe me people will buy.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Ecommerce Web Design Solutions - Keep It Simple

2008-01-17T04:16:00.000-08:00

Most of the web design enquiries coming through these days are requests for ecommerce web design solutions. Not only are we buying more and more of our products and services online, it would appear that many of us also want to sell online. Indeed, it’s not only large corporate companies trading online nowadays. In fact most of the web design quote requests come from individuals trading from home. People are selling flowers, their own music cds, chocolates. So there is a definite market for ecommerce web design solutions. It is however a very particular market segment and offering the right product at the right price is the key to securing the ecommerce web design business.

The best way to getting the right product to market is to start with the target clients profile and needs. Although we do design complex ecommerce web design solutions for corporate clients, there is a large market for the smaller customers. These customers are looking for 3 key product features: bespoke web design, budget price and simple to use. What is budget price for a bespoke ecommerce web design solution? And how simple should the web design solution be?

The web design industry is very competitive and sales is very price sensitive. Targeting the budget web design industry can be tricky. Price your ecommerce web design too low and run the risk of losing money or appearing too cheap. Price it too high and you could miss out on a whole range of the ecommerce web design market. Indeed, even an individual potential web design customer selling from home would expect to pay a price for a bespoke quality web design. People know that they have to pay a price to get a decent quality ecommerce web design.

Remember also that individuals selling from home generally require a simple backend from where they can easily upload their products. A standard and adequate web design feature set would include a dynamic category list, individual product image upload , title, description and price update through a simple secure backend page. This is all most potential ecommerce web design clients require to start selling online. Occasionally some clients may require special features like a simple stock management system. This is usually optional and is charged as an-add on from the outset. Keep the web design quote simple, transparent and explain everything before taking payment.

Security is an important issue as well. The standard ecommerce web design solution uses Paypal secure site to take credit card payments so security is less of an issue. However, if a web design customer requires secure credit card transactions on his/her own site then it is vital to use a reliable merchant provider and an ssl on the web site for security.Most of the web design enquiries coming through these days are requests for ecommerce web design solutions. Not only are we buying more and more of our products and services online, it would appear that many of us also want to sell online. Indeed, it’s not only large corporate companies trading online nowadays. In fact most of the web design quote requests come from individuals trading from home. People are selling flowers, their own music cds, chocolates. So there is a definite market for ecommerce web design solutions. It is however a very particular market segment and offering the right product at the right price is the key to securing the ecommerce web design business.

The best way to getting the right product to market is to start with the target clients profile and needs. Although we do design complex ecommerce web design solutions for corporate clients, there is a large market for the smaller customers. These customers are looking for 3 key product features: bespoke web design, budget price and simple to use. What is budget price for a bespoke ecommerce web design solution? And how simple should the web design solution be?

Increase Web Site Profits With Helpful, Quality Content

2008-01-03T03:08:00.000-08:00

Many businesses maintain a web site, but few make the most of that valuable piece of electronic real estate. For most businesses, web sites serve only as electronic brochures, listing their hours of operation, briefly describing services and giving some background on the professionals providing the services.

But marketing studies show that people visit web sites for information -- not just to find out what the office hours are or to request a call from a salesman. For example, if you're a fitness professional, visitors expect to find out what your exercise or weight loss philosophy is and what kind of training program you recommend. If you're a pediatrician, patients who visit your site want to know how urgent their child's symptoms are or how much Tylenol to give their 2-year-old. If you're a technology company, visitors expect to find out what your technology does and how it will benefit them.

Credibility & Reputation

Your clients and patients want to know that you're an expert in your field, but a pretty image on a web page doesn't make you an expert. Having answers to customers' questions makes you an expert. Filling your site with a rich supply of articles, answers to frequently asked questions, tips and advice helps people to recognize your expertise.

Build Client Relationships

Increasingly, the web is about relationships. Good website content helps you build relationships with your clients by keeping them informed. Frequently posting new articles, event information or relevant news updates lets your customers know that they are important to you. Imagine a parent who heard that meningitis broke out at her daughter's school. She goes to her pediatrician's web site and finds a new article about the breakout, what it means for her child and what kind of treatment or precautions are appropriate. She is thankful for the information and her loyalty to that pediatrician grows, so she is less likely to change doctors.

Help Prospects Become Customers

Imagine the person who's decided to lose weight and wants to know if Pilates is the way to go. If she has to choose between a Pilates instructor that has only a yellow-pages ad and an instructor with a web site that describes what Pilates is and what it can achieve for a person, which instructor is she likely to choose? Marketing studies indicate she will choose the instructor that demonstrates his expertise on his web site.

Be Easier to Find

Having lots of good, relevant content on your web site can increase the number of prospective customers that find you. Search engines like in-depth content, such as informational articles that match key words for your site. So people searching the web for someone with your expertise are more likely to find your site if it's loaded with informational articles and other good content. This additional site traffic increases response to your offering of services and increases sales of any products you sell via your web site. Contrary to popular Internet lore, web content that is optimized for search engines does not have to be useless to site visitors.

Increase Word-of-mouth Advertising

Word-of-mouth advertising doesn't cost a dime, but you have to have something for people to talk about. Web sites with good, useful content get more word-of-mouth advertising. Think about it: are you more likely to tell a friend about a web site with somebody's office hours and biography on it, or a site with in-depth information about a subject you care about? The latter, of course.

Types of Content You Can Put on Your Web Site

* Informational articles related to a service or product you provide, such as instructions for products or unique ways customers have used your services

* News and updates, such as notices about a new features or product lines available

* Multimedia, such as video product demonstrations or audio about how to solve common problems related to your business

* Blogs to keep clients up to date or to share your latest discoveries and revelations or talk about what you learned at a recent conference or program

* Reviews of products or books your customers may be interested in

* Answers to frequently-asked questions (FAQs)

* Detailed descriptions of services or products

* Your professional background and philosophies

* Calendar or schedule of events

Web Design Checklist - Make Sure Your Site Complies

2008-01-03T03:07:00.000-08:00

There are many companies that will design your website here in India and overseas. But, what most people do not understand are the technical details and standards that should be followed to get the most out of your website. When I design a website, I always follow the below checklist to make sure the site is easily accessible to everyone and usable.

Loading time is one of the most important factors in website designing. Statistics show that 80% of the users leave the site if it has not loaded within 10 seconds. Make it very clear to your website design company that the website should load quickly. Your website design company should do various tests on your website pages and send you a detailed report on the loading times.

Graphics such as pictures and Flash should not be excessively used. Pictures tell a thousand words but using too many pictures can make your site bloated and hard to navigate. Most people visit a website to access information. It is critical that information should be central to the designing of any website while pictures should compliment the information. Furthermore, pictures and technologies such as Flash can make your site larger in size thereby increasing the loading time. Also, some browsers are not able to view Flash properly. That is why Flash should be used very carefully and an alternative should always be provided in case the user is not able to view such technologies.

Navigation is one of the most important factors when designing a website. Users should be able to navigate the site with ease. Proper navigation should always include a top or a side menu, and a bottom text menu. Organization of navigational links in categories is very important if your site has many links.

Listing on search engines is particularly important for web businesses. It is essential that a website is configured properly for search engines such as Yahoo, and Google. Aspects such as proper meta tags, dynamic content, popular links, content, and headings often helps increase listing on search engines.

Accessibility is the key to a successful website. A website should be accessible to as many users as possible. This includes users with different browsers, varying resolutions, and visually impaired users. The final website must accommodate the different needs of various user groups to gain the maximum possible usage and exposure.

Use the above points as a check-list to make sure your website complies.

Web Designing - What's It All About?

2008-01-03T03:06:00.000-08:00

What does web designing mean anyway?

That's pretty simple as it is basically a way for your prospects and/or customers to find you from the comfort of their own home.

By just using their home computer and having an internet connection, business can reach more and more customers than ever before. The ability to talk and build that all important relationship with a customer all the way in Europe, is astonishing.

Now how in the world do you accomplish this!?

Well, it's really not difficult if you have the right know how and the right tools. There are many places today on the world wide web that offer specialized training for building a website. But you don't have to go that route, as these sites are usually extremely expensive and take a very very long time to learn.

You could of course hire someone to do your web designing but this will cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars and you won't have much control over the design.

The other route you can take is to do it yourself, this is not as hard as it might sound. There are many tools out there called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) where you just type in your content and you have a website. Again, not much control over your layout design.

The best way to get started on web designing is to learn just a little HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) Then you can either purchase or get for free, templates. These are sites that are built without any content, they already have graphics on them and easy to follow instructions anyone can follow.

The best place I know of that offers great tutorials on learning HTML in the shortest amount of time is http://www.w3schools.com/html

This is a free resource and you learn at your own pace right on your computer.

Just remember, that when you do learn web designing, first consider the purpose of your website, this will make things easier on you, espeically when you need to edit your web designing.

The Importance of Website Designers

2007-12-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

When you are searching for the best way to have a web design that can capture the attention of your visitors you need to consider using a website designer. It can make a big difference in the success of your website, which is one of the reasons you should use website designers. They can help you have the site you need to make a good impression and keep your visitors coming back. You do not have the luxury of meeting your visitors in person so you have to make sure that your website design is good enough to make that lasting impression that will stick with them.

Take a good look at your website and imagine it is someone else's. Then consider how you feel about the design. Do you feel like there are some areas that could use improvement? If so, then you can use website designers to help you make the necessary changes. You don't want a website that presents a bad image and reduces your sales. You need one that is interesting and can help your site reach its full potential in no time at all. Don't miss out on sales that you could be receiving if you just had a more interesting website.

Other reasons you should use website designers is because they can help you set up an email system that you can be proud of. They can also provide you with all the latest techniques that can show your potential customers that you have a professional website they can trust and depend on. They will also see this in the payment system that you use. Your visitors will be looking for a system that has all the modern security techniques in place to protect their personal information. Using website designers can help you accomplish all of this and more.

If you feel like your website is giving off the wrong impression or if you think its design could use some improving then you should consider using a website designers to enhance your site. If for some reason you are not getting the results from your website that you feel like you should be receiving then this could be your problem. In fact, having a good website designer can greatly enhance your site turning it into the money maker you always dreamed of. It is one of the best ways to get the results you have been looking for.

Small Business Professional Web Site Design - Concept and the Outline

2007-12-19T21:52:00.000-08:00

To have an online identity in the era of internet marketing a website is of utmost importance. It is the online representation of any company with an access to sell company's name, attract more visitors, generate more business leads, promote more sale of company's products and services and finally, it helps to reap more return on investment.

The existence of any business is manifest in different ways, and internet medium is the fastest and easiest means whereby a business gets noticed by the public at large. Once any information is put in the web, it becomes global. The intelligent buyers can easily know about any site and, off course, its products and services through that website. So the popularity as well as the promotion is best done by this flexible medium. A web site gives its target audience a chance to know the site in a best possible way.

Either small or large, a business is prescribed to have an affordable web site design in this highly dominated market where each and every time someone has to fight hard to sell the products and services. A Professional web design would give leverage to the company: whenever the users would search for the relevant products or services in the search engines, they can have the possibility of seeing the web site of that company.

In this case two things are vital: SEO or the Search Engine Optimization and the Web Usability.

An SEO is a marketing technique to increase the number of visitors in a website by adopting some methodical and intelligent rules; if the SEO is sound enough, the visitors can see your site in the Search Engine Return Page as and when they enter a keyword that is also targeted for your web site. So, the proper keyword targeted is essential, and that is another crucial part of internet marketing. Lots of researches have been there for this.

On the other hand, web usability is nothing but a feasibility by which a user can roam in a site, i.e. user friendliness. It is for sure that once you are able to bring a user to your website your next step would be to hold that user as much time as possible, and that is called site popularity.

At times by an effective SEO tactic you can bring users to your site, but from then on you should think of how long you can keep users in your site. And that part is solely dependent over a successful and professional web site design approach. The more the site popularity of a web site, the more would be the likelihood of any company to promote itself.

Following are the universal features in a Professional web site design; these aspects are responsible for the higher site popularity of a web site.

• Your web site should be easy to read
• Your web site should be easy to navigate
• Your web site should be easy to find
• Your web page layout and design should be consistent throughout the site
• Your web site should be quick to download

There can be two types of website designs such as: static and dynamic. A static website design is based on HTML codes, whereas a dynamic website design is developed with advanced and sophisticated technologies based on the information provided in the database. If you want to outshine high on your business, you need to have a website design and development that must be dealt with great care. Numerous companies are there in the market; they can give promising and affordable web site design solution at a cheap rate. At the same time, false promise making dudes are also in abundance.

Before making your web site design you should know about certain things to clarify, and rather ask yourself. In that sense, you must be aware of which are the aspects that need settled before the web design is made.

As such, there must be certain rules before asking for big or small business web design to any web design professional:

1. What is the nature of the business?
2. What is the company name?
3. What is the target audience?
4. What is the logo?
5. Does the company have any tag line?
6. How many pages the company plans to make?
7. What would be the intended navigational structure?
8. Would there be any existing site, which needs to be redesigned or would a completely new site be made?
9. What about the site preference? What are the likeable features in those sites?
10. Would there be any color preference?
11. Would the site be a dynamic or a static one?

30 Ways to Improve Real Estate Websites for 2008

2007-12-18T01:07:00.000-08:00

Real estate industry and especially selling real estate is very competitive, well known fact. Real estate agent websites attract new leads, visitors browsing information on your state, county, country and specific areas where you live and promote real estate. The following short list of ideas is not exhaustive and is nothing new to most of us, although a gentle reminder does help at times.

Attracting visitors to your real estate website is difficult as there are so many websites competing for the same web surfers. Visitors are looking for different things from real estate websites, although some common features can attract and keep browsers on your website for more than 3 seconds.

1. Good quality website design that is user friendly: Visitors to websites like to easily find what they are looking for and good layout and navigation could keep browsers on your site longer.

2. Quality Unique Content: Content of your website is very important! Website visitors are looking for specific properties & property information. Write specifically for your market, local area, types of property on your portfolio, services or products you offer.

3. Active Website: Who is going to keep visiting a website that has the same content for months. Add fresh content to your website daily if possible or at least 3 or 4 times a week. Visitors are looking for new information and this new information may well entice them be return to your website and mention it online or to a friend. Adding new content daily means spider returns to index your website much more often, resulting in quicker indexing of new content which also helps in search engine placement.

4. Link Building: Quality real estate and related website links help search engine placement for keyword searches.

5. Write about the place you live, add pictures and feature this on your website.

6. Article Writing: Write and submit articles about your real estate market or service. Works wonders for backlinks.

7. Write about specific products, services or after sales services you offer.

8. Online press releases. There are some good websites that provide a pr release or news release.

9. Offer a tool, article or useful information or report that you have written in exchange for a one way link.

10. Become active in your niche market online and offline. What about charity work?

11. Offer an affiliate program to attract more visitors to your website.

12. Submit a few good pages to Digg.com.

13. Optimize your website with relevant keywords searches and description. You are effectively matching keywords search by browsers to your website Meta Tags and content.

14. Periodically check that link exchanges that you host on your website are continuing to be hosted on the exchange website.

15. Back to Link Exchanges: Submit your interior pages url as this is specific information that people will search for and not a mass combination of your homepage.

16. Search for free property listing or advertise real estate free and submit a selection of properties from your portfolio. Why? This is free advertising, getting your name out there & client's property exposure and gaining a free link in the bargain. Do not just look at locally free sites, think worldwide also.

17. Become an authority figure for your industry: Take part in new groups on line, forums and real estate blogs and clubs.

18. Introduce a forum to your website: Visitors will keep returning post and discuss relevant real estate issues. Just getting it up and running!

19. Monthly news letters to subscribers about yourself and what your company offers, portfolio and offers you have.

20. About You Page: Be yourself and give some background and what you can offer. Potential clients like to know who they will be dealing with.

21. Form strategic partnerships with other property companies and websites in other market areas and related services. Promote theses strategic partnerships on your website. All good partnerships of course.

22. Run a competition that you can promote online and offline.

23. Display awards on your website for excellent service, leader in the industry, niche real estate market provider.

24. Interlink your website pages with a sitemap.

25. Swap and add link resources to higher value inner pages and not just a link directory. When adding links to inner pages combine them in paragraphs are sentences in text so it looks more natural for the spider when it comes. Also looks better than seeing a few stray links on page.

26. Form alliances or get involved with academic, government, or leading industries. This provides all parties good contacts and great credibility.

27. Promote yourself, real estate agency and website at trade shows and conferences.

28. Offer article submission that could be from running a competition, paid are through charity work. Also related companies wish to promote real estate goods and services.

29. Keep building valuable unique content that is timeless. In turn this expands the content resources of your website, search engine exposures and a rich resource for visitors.

30. Last but not least: Know who you wish to target, form an online strategy and plan that compliments your real estate business and of course know your target market.

Not much here although valuable to follow to attract visitors to your website and keep them there. Locally, nationally and internationally the real estate market is becoming more competitive and global and we all require finding ways to increase our online exposure.

Web Design and the World's Largest Pen Knife

2007-12-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

In the 2008 edition, Guinness Book of World Records will present the penknife with the most functions ever presented. This new life has 87 different tools and performs more than 100 functions. The knife's case is almost nine inches long by four inches wide and weighs about three pounds. As of this writing about 500 of the $1,200 Swiss made knives have been sold.

Web design is a bit like that Swiss Army knife. A properly developed website is compact and utilitarian. Your website can provide customers with multiple tools in a compact understandable design. The key will be to make sure access to the tools is simple and logical. Too many websites make the process more difficult than it needs to be and inadvertently repel potential online consumers who just don't want to spend the time to figure it out.

I remember camping with family and friends and a Swiss Army knife was used to trim small debris from around the tents. Scissors were used to trim excess string and certain types of rope. The knife served many purposes and was routinely called upon to solve a variety of problems and most of the time it did. One knife I owned even had a small pen that could be used in an emergency.

Work at developing a site that solves problems instead of creating them. Think about the logical steps your customer base will use to locate items and search for data. The tools you provide your customers with will be the tools that may ultimately sell your product.

Web builder technology can be as useful to website design as Swiss Army is to knives. Because the software was designed from the best of current web designs it can provide as many tools as that world record knife.

In most cases web builder software can provide significantly more tools for both customers and website owner than more expensive web design solutions.

When you compare features you may be able to upgrade from a proverbial penknife to a much larger utility knife in website design. Unlike most of life's options you really can do more with less. More website tools and possibilities for less money.

The growth of this sector of web design is important in that it dares to challenge the notion that only individual web designers are capable of completing a web design that can manage the needs of the individual business.

Perhaps the biggest reason many businesses do not look into web builder software has to do with a fear that they would never be able to develop the site on their own, no matter how many tools were available to them.

The truth is the actual building of the website is not significantly harder than developing a social networking site. It is fully explained online and customer support is available. In some cases you can hire a designer to work with you to develop the site if you are really unsure as to your abilities or if you simply do not wish to develop the site. In the end it is still an extremely cost effective solution to your web design needs.

The First Steps To A Successful Website

2007-12-15T02:38:00.000-08:00

Whether you decide to design your new website yourself or hire a professional web designer, a successful website must be developed with content, design, and optimization in mind.

The Content

Only you - the small business owner - can develop the content of your website. Because only you know exactly what your business does, what its goals are, and what you want to say about your small business. A copywriter may be able to assist you by putting this into words, but you are really the person who needs writes the content.

Break your content into small pieces that can be put into logical groupings (pages) within your new website. A good average is 250 words/page. Consider the keywords that visitors might use to search for you, and incorporate them throughout your website, with a density of approximately 3%.

The first page is your front door and should contain a brief description of you and your business: who you are, where you are located, and what you have to offer. Too much information on the homepage of your website can be cumbersome to visitors and may cause them to click away. You have merely seconds to grab your audience and entice them to stay. For this reason, take time to develop the content for this page. It will be well worth your time.

Develop the content for following pages in much the same way, keeping the information concise and on-topic. Incorporate references and ways to link to other pages within your website. Potential topics to consider are:

About Your Small Business, Industry News & Tips, Your Services & Products, Customer Testimonials, Contact Information, Employee Biographies, etc.

The Web Design (Layout)

Even if you have fantastic content, a poor web design that lacks originality won't keep your visitors on your website. A key ingredient to a successful presence on the World Wide Web is a well-designed website. And for many small businesses, it is worth paying a professional to web designer.

Take time to visit the website of your competition. Does it work? Does it draw you in, so you want to click deeper into their website for more? Or does it drive you away, leaving you uninspired, uninterested, and disappointed? You also should pay close attention to how graphics, images, and photographs are used throughout these website. Begin a list of images you will need to develop or gather to enhance your own website.

The most important aspect in your web design is the navigation, or the way you move visitors through your entire website. Make sure visitors can find what they are looking for quickly and easily. The obvious way this works is through the use of navigation bars. You can also help visitors move through your sites, and drive them to particular areas, by adding links to keywords throughout your web pages.

Optimizing Your Website

Optimization is the process used to bring your website to the attention of search engines. There are many different opinions on how this can and should be done. And strategies differ, depending on the size of your business, your product or service, and your budget. Yes, it's more than just submitting your website to Google.

As a small business web designer, I have many clients who are just starting their business and are on a limited or non-profit budget. So I believe it is always best to begin with the basics: a simple, logical navigation system that carries through your entire website; proper use of keywords and links within the body of your website; submitting your new website to free on-line industry directories where you may link to your website; and of course, submission to search engines. These are all things your web designer should be able to help with. Keep in mind that these are the basics. There are many search engine optimization (SEO) strategies available, like article submissions, back links, and pay per click campaigns. If you feel you are in a market that may benefit from some of these other strategies, you should seek further advice from your web designer or a reputable SEO professional.

No matter what your SEO strategy is, the hardest, but most important part is PATIENCE! It takes time for even the smallest changes to be picked up by the search engines. They crawl millions of sites each day, indexing the information and ranking them by relevance. The art of search engine optimization is extremely time consuming, so keep this in mind whether you do it yourself, or ask for the help of a professional.

5 Tips to Creating a Successful Website

2007-12-15T02:37:00.000-08:00

Building a website that is successful isn't as hard as you think. By implementing the 5 tips below you will make a better impression on your visitors. This, in turn will help build the reputation of your site and increase your popularity, which is the main goal!

1. Attractive design

The design of your page is the 1st thing any visitor sees, so making a good 1st impression is key. Make sure your color scheme is easy on the eyes. Too many overpowering colors can be a big turn off to some. Font size is very important as well. If visitors have to strain to read your content they will most likely just close the page.

2. Easy Navigation

Easily accessible info is a MUST! Try not to bunch too much content into one page. It's better to have more navigation links than for the visitor to have to spend 20 minutes looking for the info they want. Rather than spend the time searching through the site, they will just close it and go onto a site that is easier to navigate.

3. Content

Keep your content on subject and have plenty of it. Updating often is essential as well as dating your updates so that they can see that you do take the time to add new content. This will give you a better chance at being bookmarked and them returning.

4. Simple IS Better

Yes there are still people out there with slower connections. So try not to use too much flash or graphics that will add to your sites load time. Keeping it simple with a fast load time will net you many more visitors and sales than a graphic intense page that looks great but takes forever to fully load.

5. Webmaster Accessibility

Be sure to have a contact page with your email address or phone number so you can be contacted easily. This makes you easily available if someone has a question and trust me people always have questions!

These 5 simple things will help improve the experience of your site for all of your visitors and they will tell their friends. So you will have a booming site before you know it.

Website Updating Tools Including Adobe Contribute

2007-12-12T02:37:00.000-08:00

You don't need to go to your web designer for every change to your site - there's some great software out there that can help you make basic changes quickly and easily. The trick is knowing which changes are basic...and which are better left to the professionals. Below is an outline of updating tools and services ideal for an independent business.

Contribute

Cost: onetime $150 fee and your own time Convenience: high, no communication or waiting What Contribute Can Do: Let you update text and photos on sites built in Dreamweaver

I highly recommend Contribute to our clients because it's so cost effective and convenient. It allows you to do your own updates from your office whenever you want you want. Contribute works on all Websites built in Dreamweaver, which is most of them - your web developer will be able to tell you if it's right for you. It's wonderful to be able to fix typos, add new content, or change a picture without waiting for a developer to get around to your updates. Plus, with Contribute you don't pay a consultant's fee - there's no cost to you once you've purchased it.

Get Contribute by going to Adobe online, and paying for the download with a credit card. It's very easy to use, but if you'd like guidance there are several Contribute manuals available from Amazon.

When I polled the Contribute users among my clients, they all gave it between 8 and 10 on a scale of 1-10.

Your Web Designer or Virtual Assistant (VA)

Cost: hourly rates vary $50-90 Convenience: depends What the Web Designer or VA Can Do: update text, photos, add buttons, add charts, add keywords, links, probably anything you need

I recommend using your Web designer to change buttons, add features, add keywords and other tasks more complex than adding text and photos. These days, many VA's will also be able to add buttons, links, keywords and other medium complex .html changes..

Email or fax is the best way to communicate changes to your Web designer or VA. Give them clear and detailed instructions about what you want. Clear communication keeps the cost down, and facilitates timely changes.

Content Management System (CMS)

Cost: large upfront cost; most cost effective option for complex information Convenience: high What CMS Can Do: ideal for information that gets updated frequently and has a particular format...like a table

It's a good idea to consider a custom CMS when your site has an event calendar, news ticker or something like that. The CMS is designed so a non-techie can enter the data into the fields and upload it. The custom table is made once and the data replaced as needed.

Web Design - What A Beginner Needs To Know

2007-12-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

What is web design?
Web design is the process of designing and creating web pages and web sites. Some people use the term to describe creation of the entire website, while some make a distinction between web design, which involves the appearance of the website and web coding, which concerns the way it is constructed. In this article we will use the term to mean both the creation of the appearance and the underlying code.

What is the frontend and backend of a website?
The frontend is the part that is visible to visitors, and includes the HTML and JavaScript code that is recognized by most browsers. The backend is the part of the website that is not visible. This part can be coded in PHP, ASP, Perl or any number of different computer codes, and it is the part of the website that carries out more complex tasks, such as forwarding emails, checking form inputs or updating a database.

What does cross-browser compatible mean?
There are many more internet browsers than the popular Internet Explorer - Firefox and Safari are two other popular examples. Each of these different browsers interprets the code that websites are built from slightly differently. This means that a web page viewed using one browser may be very unlike from a page seen in another browser. If a website is cross-browser compatible, it has been designed to work in more than one browser. The ultimate goal is for a website to look and function the same, or at least look good and function well, in all browsers.

What is good web design?
Good web design should first of all meet the goals of the website, whatever they might be. To be effective the design should be visually appealing. However, there is much more to good web design than simply aesthetics. Good web design should create a website that:

* Achieves the goal of the website
* Has valid code
* Is visually appealing
* Is as clear as possible to the user
* Is fast loading
* Is accessible to all, including disabled users
* Is search-engine optimized

How can you design web pages well?
First of all, follow a methodical design process. If you do this, you have won half the battle. Good coding is vital to increase the speed a page loads and also for accessibility reasons. With respect to the visual design, this should be based on principles of website usage, such as where on a page a typical user will focus their eyes, and how they may scan through page.

How can you tell the difference between good and bad web design?
A bad visual design will be obvious at first glance, but a design that looks stunning, can still be very bad design if it is slow, or difficult to use. A well designed website will look good and at the same time demonstrate the attributes of good web design detailed above.

Eye Tracking and Web Design

2007-12-05T03:12:00.001-08:00

The state-of-the-art for website design continues to evolve as does the sophistication and experience of the website visitor. This discriminating surfer has pushed the web designer to reconsider what really works for the visitor instead of what looks cool. This new website design criteria is based on eye tracking research.

Eye tracking is a term used to describe how the eye moves along a web page. This eye movement is part cultural, part physiological and part learned. For example, Westerners will normally read a web page from the top left and then follow a downward sloping "s-curve" to the right. The curve will then move back to the left bottom and so on. This is why Google Adwords and Yahoo! Pay-Per-Click ads are on the right.

Recent studies now offer other conclusions. For example, text may draw attention before graphics or other images. We are taught at an early age that words are powerful and to be reckoned with. Stops signs say "STOP" and we hit the brakes, yet a stop sign without the words will only confuse us.

Our eyes easily fatigue of ornate or decorative fonts. Welcome and easy to read fonts include Arial or Times Roman or Sans Serif. Bold face and capital letters catch our attention but they lose impact if we use it too much. Bold face and capital letters scream for attention and should be used sparingly.

Our eyes prefer shorter paragraphs and shorter sentences. Also, people tend to read the lead sentence in a paragraph and then scan the rest of the page. This may account for the popularity of Hemingway or People Magazine, but I digress.

White space is good. Just look at the Google website and you will see what I mean. We also like simple formats such as a one column page layout; this is easier to read than a multi-column format. White space has a calming effect on the reader and helps them focus on what is important.

Website buttons and tabs work. They help us navigate around the site and we are comforted by them. Left and top navigation both work, but the top is preferred. Having a simple dashboard is essential for website usability. Busy websites create stress for the visitor and can send them away.

Website Building - Knowing Your Competition

2007-12-05T03:11:00.000-08:00

If someone told me they were going to design a car, my first question would be "what sort of car"? There is no generic car, there are sports cars, saloon cars, hatchbacks and commuter cars. The same goes for websites. And if you are thinking of designing your own site you need to make yourself aware of the kind of sites that are on the internet and the kind of information and content they represent.

The first thing you should do on deciding to design your own website is to look at other websites on your topic. For example, if you have decided to design your own gardening website then do a Google search on gardening and take a look at all the sites that appear on the first page.

What you will immediately realize is that each site is doing a different job, and each "job" requires different design considerations. For example, if I type the word "gardening" into Google search, then start clicking to view each site that appears in the listings. I find sites for a gardening association, a guide to gardening, a home and garden shop, a blog, and many others; and each of them takes a different approach to their design according to the kind of site they are and the kind of job they are doing.

Here's what I mean: the first site is for a gardening association. This site looks almost like a newspaper front page but in colour. It has a grid format, it looks tidy, but there are some nice photos of gardens and flowers, and some short article introductions which look interesting to read.

There is a clear menu in a column on the left side and some colourful but unobtrusive classified ads on the right. There are some icons which act like signposts to special pages or areas and, overall, the feel is colourful, warm, inviting and informative. Many of the topics in the menu seem to be about activities and people; there are dates and forthcoming events advertised.

Now I'll take a look at the "home and garden store" website and compare the two. The first thing I notice about this ecommerce website is the popup; the popup tells me there is a special offer available for this month only and do I want to go to the special offer page and find out more? I close that and take a look at the front page. It's very in my face. There are all sorts of adverts telling me this one is free or that one is cut price; some of them are animated. The format is similar to the gardening association front page but this one is more like a magazine front cover than a newspaper - it has a grid but a lot of images and titles break out of the grid to fight for my attention. As a gardener, I am already getting my wallet out.

Now let's take a quick look at the gardening guide website. The first thing I notice about the gardening guide site is that it seems to have the best navigation of them all. As soon as the page opens I can see some big navigation tabs which tell me exactly what categories of information are available and if I click on any of them I get to a page which then gives me a series of subcategories on that main topic. Also on the front page, very prominently, there is a search box which allows me to just type in my keyword and it will tell me what pages have relevant information to that keyword.

There are colours and some pictures on the front page but they are really secondary to this navigation. This site is clearly about giving me the information I need in the simplest and quickest way possible. The only additional elements I notice are the Google Adsense advertisements. Many information sites make money this way because these adverts are context sensitive; which means the adverts that appear on the page will be relevant to the information on the page. This is perfect for an informative site like this one. If I click on one of the adverts the site owner will get paid anything for a few cents to a few dollars.

Finally, we'll take a look at the blog. What is immediately noticeable about this blog is the photo in the header; which looks like it has been taken by an amateur, and I assume the person in the picture owns the blog, since they are planting a shrub and smiling at the camera. The other feature of this blog is that it has only two columns: a big wide column with articles in it and a narrow column on the left which contains a series of menus.

The titles of the articles are all different in nature to the titles of other sites, here they are written in a conversational way and some of them aren't even particularly informative about the content of the test that follows. Finally, there are hyperlinks in the blog to "recommended products"; which, in everyday language means Affiliate Programs. Many bloggers make some pocket money with Google Adsense, but many also make a good income from promoting products and getting a commission on sales.

To Be Or Not To Be Flash

2007-12-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

Flash Pros:

There are many compelling reasons for getting your website designed in Adobe/Macromedia Flash. Flash presentations are cool, have pizzazz and are great multimedia experiences.

* Animations:
Flash websites are ideal for such businesses as real estate that need to show moving panoramic views, virtual tours of a property, or stages of development from the plans morphing to a finished apartment building. Real estate presentations are often for a short period, the time it’s expected to take to sell the property. The real estate agent sends the visitors to the website and doesn't depend on casual searchers finding it on Google.

Flash animations are good for demonstrations of moving parts, or of tutorials. In fact anything requiring animation is often best produced using Flash.

* Multimedia:
Videos display on websites better if converted to Flash. Visitors are not asked to download a pluggin for thier browser.

Flash files usually take some time to load, but this is not a problem if a visitor has been directed to look at the Flash website for a reason. Maybe the visitor has already expressed an interest in the subject of the presentation, e.g. a real estate property, and wants more detail. Maybe the visitor wants to see a tutorial, or a demonstration. Such visitors are captive audiences so they do anticipate the wait.

Flash Cons:

* Slow loading:
Visitors who are not captive audiences, are often not prepared to wait for Flash files to load, or are frustrated by the wait. Some websites are totally in Flash, even moving from one web page to another taking much time. Some visitors may make the choice to not wait and are then lost to the website.

* Search engine listing:
Search engines index websites on the words in the website’s text. If the words are in graphic format (such as a Flash SWF file) instead of text format, then search engines cannot see them. If you can't copy and paste the words from the browser into Notepad or Word, then the text can't be read by search engines either.

* Search engine ranking:
Search engines rank websites on their order of relevance to a visitor’s search query. If a website has little or no text then it is not as relevant as websites with a lot of text. Such websites need a great number of other websites linking to them, often hundreds, in order to be ranked as relevant to a search.

We know of a business owner who insisted, against his designer’s advice, on his website being totally in Flash. He was jubilant when it did appear on Google as a new site for three weeks. His jubilance turned to despair when the website then disappeared out of sight.

Javascript can display movement, fade in photos and slide shows. CSS and javascript provide good navigation systems. We use Flash in websites, but only to animate something which needs animation and which won't delay loading the home page. We never replace text with Flash.

Conclusions:

* If the website needs animation, but is aimed at visitors who are directed there by specific marketing, a real estate display, a technical demonstration, or tutorial, then there are good technical reasons for the website to be built in Flash.

* If the website needs animation, but is aimed at visitors searching the web, then only the animation should be in Flash. The home page especially should not be in Flash, but should have all the text required for a search engine’s indexing.

* Who are the targets of the website? Captive audiences don’t mind waiting. Casual searchers may quit waiting and go look for other 'user friendly' websites.

Google Gets You Customers

2007-12-02T07:29:00.001-08:00

I started this article after speaking to two different marketing companies who were proposing websites for their new clients.

Marketing company A stated that they wanted a new website just to provide more information on each apartment in a large block they were selling. Visitors would be directed to the website by their print, radio and television marketing. They did not believe that search engine optimization was necessary and wanted the whole website to be in Flash - no words in text format - just in Flash graphics.

Marketing company B said they needed visitors to place detailed orders through a new website which had detailed choices of products and dimensions. However, because their product was so revolutionary they did not expect anyone to search the web for it. So they wanted no search engine optimization. They would drive customers to the website by radio, television and print advertising, plus they would put pretty girls on the streets handing out leaflets.

That gave me a good laugh, but also astounded me.

Radio and television commercials may have a wide reach for two minutes while they are on, but are potential customers going to remember a new website address when they next go to their computer? Of course they could use a search engine to look for it, but if the website has no search engine optimization, or worse still if it's all in graphics, the potential customers have very little hope of finding it.

Print commercials are a little better. A potential customer can later go back to the newspaper or magazine and find the advertisement, or in the case of the leaflet from the pretty girl on the street, it can be retrieved from the pocket or purse or bin.

But all that assumes the potential customers will act right away and go to the website. But what if they don't think about it until long after the commercial has played, or after the recycling bin has been emptied?

In that case the marketing companies must repeat the commercials and advertisements over and over and put more pretty girls on the street with leaflets, again and again, at great effort and cost to the client.

Marketing cost can be a big hurdle for a new product. Television, radio and printed advertisements can be a hundreds of times the cost of a website.

Marketing company A said their apartments should sell out in six months. But what if they didn't? The last apartment in a block could take a year or more to sell. A website is there for as long as you like. The only continuing cost is the hosting - a few dollars per month, compared with thousands of dollars per day on traditional advertising.

We know that marketing companies earn their money as a percentage of the advertising billings, but surely saving their client some expense while getting the customers must win points in the end.

And cost is only one factor. The internet reaches the Whole Wide World, while traditional advertising reaches only a fraction of the population. The potential customer must listen to the radio or watch TV at the right time, or look at the right page of the magazine or newspaper, or be on the right street in the right town at the right time and then not lose the leaflet. However the website is available in every town 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

So spend high on traditional advertising if you want to, but if you want your marketing to be viable in the long term you need to optimize your website to be found by search engines.

Google Gets You Customers

2007-12-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

Website Tips For Generating Income From The Internet

2007-11-30T02:22:00.000-08:00

If you are doing business on the internet your website is foundation of your business. It is very important for you to understand various ways to set up your website and drive traffic to it. Also designing your website correctly will help you to maximize your conversion rate.

Here are a few tips for designing your website.

Opt-In Form: Having an opt-in form on your website so that people can subscribe to your newsletter is one of the best ways to increase your value per visitor. The reason being is that once you capture your traffic's e-mail you can use it to build a relationship with your subscriber which is one of the most important components of converting traffic into sales.

If people know you and like you they will buy from you. It is that simple. By just allowing traffic to come to your site and then leave, you will never be able to build a relationship. When you have a subscriber's e-mail address you can build a long lasting relationship with the subscriber which will allow you to harness the true power of converting your website traffic into sales.

Blog Marketing: No matter if you are selling physical products, services, or information products blog marketing should be a key component of generating income from your website. If you have an ecommerce website selling products you can simply develop a blog in a subdirectory of your website and use this as a marketing funnel to sell your products.

For instance, your blog would be located at http://www.yoursite.com/blog. On the blog you would post reviews, tips and other related information about your products. These blog postings would then funnel into your ecommerce store to sell your products.

There are substantial advantages to blog marketing. You can profit immensely by driving traffic to your website by using some of the web 2.0 features of blogs and also by getting links in the many thousand blog directories on the Internet.

Also allowing users to comment on your blog posting can be another way to build a relationship with your users which will lead to more sales in the future.

Lastly, as part of your blog marketing strategy do not forget to have an opt-in form so you can capture e-mail address on the blog as well.

Organic Search Engine Optimization: Improved search engine rank in the organic search engine result can have a dramatic impact on your websites traffic and income you generate from the Internet. Designing your website with this in mind will help you generate income well into the future. Here are some tips:

1. Title Tags: On each page of your website it is critical the title tags mentions the keyword you are trying to target at least once. It is preferable if the keywords are earlier than later in the tag. But do not just put keywords in the title tag. You need to make the title tag catchy because this is what shows up in the search results. If it is not catchy then nobody will click on it. Do not make your title tag to long you keep it to 60 characters or less.

2. Meta Description: The meta description should be approached similar the title tag. Make sure the keywords you are targeting are in the meta description and that you make it catchy. It can be a little longer than the title tag but try to keep it less than 200 characters.

3. Website Copy: In your website copy make you sales copy with keywords in mind. Have an header tag with the page keyword in it and also look for related keywords that are semantically related. For instance, a related keyword to income is profit so I would use both of these keywords in my sales copy if I am selling a book on how to generate income on the internet.

4. Links: Get lots of relevant links to your site from other high quality websites in your niche. These links will help your website rank in the search engines. Be sure to include your keywords in your links and put a good length description around your link. Links to your website embedded in content seem to count more so this is a good focus as well.

Website Design And Keeping It Simple

2007-11-30T02:21:00.000-08:00

When it comes to the question of web design much is down to personal preference but there are some rules which really should be followed. The golden rule of web design is 'Keep it Simple'.

Simple, uncluttered and clean designs which are easily navigated make the best websites. Avoid flash, automations and sparkly graphics like the plague. They may be very clever pieces of programming but are an instant turn-off for most Internet users.

If working with a designer or if you are building your site yourself it is vital to remember that your website is the hub of your online business; it is the virtual representation of your company and this is one case in which people really do judge a book by its cover. An uncomplicated, unfussy and well laid out site will impress your visitors and future customers.

In formulating your website design you need to ensure that are your visitors receive the right impression; that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organised, focused and you really mean business.

A good ebusiness website will be easy to use. In ecommerce a website which is user-friendly will win over a flashy overwhelming site every time.

Ensure that your site loads fast if you do not want to lose visitors. Most Internet users will leave a website if it doesn't load completely within 15 seconds, so make sure the pages of your website are delivered to the visitors as soon as possible so they don't immediately click the back button on their browser.

Another hugely important thing to remember is to test each and every link on your site before it goes online. Broken links are not only irritating to Internet users but will also cause your site to lose credibility with the search engines and slip down their rankings.

When thinking about the design of your website bear in mind your own likes and dislikes. When surfing the web look at other sites and see how they are designed and how their navigation works

And, if you need to be convinced that a simple website design is the best. Take a look at ebay and Google ' two of the biggest and most successful websites on the Internet. Look at how simple the designs are, how the navigation is easy and how uncluttered they are.

Intro to Web 2.0 Website Templates

2007-11-22T01:46:00.000-08:00

Website Planning:

This is what you have to start thinking of before your web design company can create a web design for you or before you start thinking about what the website is going to look like.

- Pages: How many pages do you think that your website is going to require?

The majority of websites will have enough with 5 or 6 pages. The simpler that you keep your website the easier it will be for your visitors to find the information that they are looking for and the longer they will stay on your website. You want to avoid overly complicated navigation systems and dozens of pages to get to the point. Put yourself in the visitor's shoes.

Here is an example of a simple page structure for your visitors:

Home, About Us, Products, Services, Contact Us

The Pages are self explanatory which is important to guide visitors to the relevant information.

Now that you have defined how many pages your website is going to require, you need to start thinking about content.

- Content: It is critical for the success of your website and to keep visitors interested that you start creating quality content for your pages. Think about how many paragraphs you will show to visitors, perhaps a few pictures, etc...

If you want to have pictures on your website make sure that they are quality pictures and that they are in a high resolution format.

- Artwork: If your company has already some artwork it will be recommended to give this to your web design company. They will use it to create your web design. i.e.: logos, headed paper, complimentary slips, ads in magazines or newspapers, etc... - Keywords: Keywords are the target words for people to find you on the internet. You don't need to have hundreds of them. Just focus on three at the most. i.e.: "Mortgage Company", "Best Mortgages" and "Save Money".

- Domain: This is the famous www dot. It is best to keep it simple and easy for people to remember so that visitors can visit your website again and again without having any trouble finding it.

- Sacrificing Branding: Sometimes people have created over the years a well known and established brand and are not willing to sacrifice their brand for the sake of having a more relevant domain that says more about your business:

Here is an example: www dot jsmith dot com This is your invaluable brand the one that took so many years and so much effort and money to build up. If Mr. J.Smith, whose business is related to mortgages had a domain called www dot mortgages dot com this would be more relevant to the nature of his business and what he does and also this domain is much easier for visitors remember. The majority of good domains have been taken for many years now but consider the possibility of having hyphens within your domain or a word that identifies your business coverage. Here is an example: www dot mortgages-ireland dot com. If your brand was Nike you wouldn't need to think in domains like www dot sportswear dot com as it is recognized enough worldwide.

- But I already bought my www dot jsimth dot com what do I do with that now? Don't worry, keep it. You can have two different domains having very similar information on them or just simply redirect the www dot jsmith dot com domain to your new one www dot mortgages-ireland dot com.

- Cost for running your website: There are two main yearly fees for you to have your website up and running. The first fee will be your domain; this will need to be paid yearly to your Hosting Company. Prices vary depending on the kind of domain that you have. An average price for a .com domain is $7.00. The second fee that you will need to cover yearly is your Hosting fee. Hosting means that you are renting a bit of space on the internet for you to be able to display your website. We strongly recommend that you use a local hosting company as it is much easier to deal with them. The average price for hosting for a year is around $35.

- Market Research and Marketing Study: I would recommend that you do a bit of a market research and to see what are the major players in your industry are offering at the moment. Take a note of what you like and what you don't from their websites. Check on your competitors and do it better than them.

- Pricing Structure: Consider to show a price guide for your products or services if possible. This will truly help your visitors to make a decision. Clarity in what you do and how much you charge customers will be critical for a successful website. Perhaps you can offer discounts for online customers.

Learning the Web Through Experience

2007-11-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

I started as a website designer several years ago. At that time, website management was the #1 job in the country to have. So what did I do? I went to school to learn about website management. It took me a couple of years to realize just how huge and unspecific the term "website management" was. It wasn't a brief description like "PHP Programmer" or "Database Programmer." It was broad, covering the whole industry and if you think about it, it kind of implies that the person calling themselves a "website manager" can do everything. The same holds true for those individuals that call themselves "Web Masters."

I think working in the web/internet industry is sort of like being a doctor. You need to figure out what area you're going to specialize in and become very strong in that area. In my industry, it's best to figure out whether you're a good manager and can manage big projects, of if you really like design and graphics, or if you're great at programming and think in numbers and code. Whatever your desire, focus on it and become really good at it.

I decided to specialize in design and I think I'm pretty good at it, or so people tell me I am. I love it anyway and I guess you have to love something to be good at it, at least for an extended period of time. I've been tempted over the years to diversify and add things to my set of skills. I've tried PHP and started a class, but my design work got too busy and I had to remove myself from the class. Then I tried graphic design and print work. Then I got screwed on a job and had to eat $500 because of an error on the print work that the client approved. So I took that as a sign to focus on the web and my design skills. But a strong business isn't built with design skills alone, at least not for me.

After a couple of years working my design business, I got more confident and started to take on larger jobs. Then I got the call one day to develop a website that had a content management system that and a special feature that would create other websites and pull from the same database. My first notion was to RUN! But I remember my favorite professor telling me that I should "never turn down a job that I thought I couldn't do" and that "I should look at it as a learning opportunity." That was probably the best advice I've ever gotten. I still use it today and every time I think I can't do something, I just remember, every challenge is a opportunity for growth. How did I do the project? I hired a group of programmers to do the job for me and I did the design work. It's been a few years since that project and we're still working together today.

I'm still facing some challenges today. I am in the process of opening a full service website development company and there are several areas that are new to me. I've been around them in some capacity for some time but they really are new territory because I'm taking them on. I'm looking at website development and hosting as well as templates and website marketing. For a designer, this is all a challenge and I allow it to be and I face the challenge. I can't tell you how many times I've had to call support. And the one key feature I look for when taking this stuff on it, 24/7 live customer support. If the companies I chose didn't have that, I would really be lost.

The Paradox of Design and How to Break It

2007-11-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

Under the notion of today's fashionable status quo it has become readily apparent that looks can be everything, even permeating my thoughts as an adolescent where I can recall a line in an Iron Man comic book where a bystander asks (in regards to Iron Man himself) "Does the suit make the man, or the man the suit?" and dare I say it, we see the website as the same.

I've seen countless horribly designed websites that are supposedly serving incredibly run and notable companies and it's the paradox of design that leaves me confused and astonished and it goes like this: A great company should have an incredibly designed website. But, I've learned that a website is supposed to match the brand of the company, help build its image and remain congruent with the overall stratagem of the organization.

As I can attribute first hand experience to this paradox, we've undergone numerous projects and proposals where the client was looking to have the fanciest website, a gorgeous doorway page, or more images than you can shake a stick at and not just any stick. But, a ergonomically designed shaking stick.

If you're reading this with the idea that a website needs to be fancier than a 1960's jet setting socialite I'm here to tell you that you couldn't be further from the truth!

The website needs to be simple enough to for the user understand exactly their looking at with the first two seconds. Nothing is more annoying for the average Internet user than going to the website of interest and having to wait for something to load, trying to find the page you want that's hidden by mystery meat navigation , or having to go through more layers of a drop down menu than archaeologists go through strata layers.

You need to keep the amount of images to a minimum.

I'm a firm believer in keeping the number of images to a bare minimum, and I only advocate the use of an image if it's going to provide the utmost use in conveying a distinct and necessary message to the website user.

Keep things as bright and clean looking as possible

A website needs to be able to provide a bright and illuminating outlook on whatever content its presenting unless it's in your business's best interest to keep it looking as dark as possible (such as horror or criminal genres). I prefer to keep the overall background white or extremely bright and keep the text lightly contrasting to the white background. Therefore instead of using white backgrounds and black text I opt for dark gray text or dark blues/ dark reds, it'll provide greater depth to your website and it'll keep your users from growing tired of the black and white color scheme they've grown so sick of.

And that's it for now, by focusing on usability and ease of understanding your website will do terribly well in today's highly competitive online world. Ciao.

Quick Web Site Design - 3 Things to Consider When Doing Web Site Design

2007-11-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

Designing a web site will depend on the nature of your online business. Some web sites need lots of graphics to deliver effective messages. Some will need video and audio presentations. Other web site can be designed without so much graphics and advance designs. It really depends on what kind of web site you're running, what are your target audiences, and what are the capabilities of your web host.

1. If you write articles, publish ebooks, and generally targets web users interested for solid information, a text based web design should be enough. Make your web site as pleasing to the eyes as possible because your visitors will do a lot of reading in your pages. Employ a combination of white and light colored background and your text should be at the 11 to 12 point font sizes. This will make your site reader-friendly and your visitors will enjoy staying on it.

2. If you run a site that offer products for sale, make sure you have pictures of your products. Feature your main product on the home page and create tables if you will list products. Sizes of pictures should be no bigger than 30 kilobytes in order for it to load faster.

3. If you're targeting the tech savvy or you have a complicated affiliate marketing offer, create video and audio presentation so that your visitor will not get bored reading voluminous text. Video presentations are good marketing design, although it will be difficult to load especially for dial-up users. So be very careful when using this technology.

Web site design does not mean awesome graphics, interactive text, and great colors. It means finding the best way to present your content to your target audience in the easiest and fastest method. If you can create good web site design, you can be assured that your visitors will enjoy their stay in it.

The Importance of E-Commerce Web Design and CSS

2007-11-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

Today’s technology is strengthening at a tremendous speed; the internet has become a vital resource for the majority of the population and counting. More and more people are exponentially learning to use the internet on a daily basis. The internet is a BOOMING industry as you may know.

The majority of all users out there are on some type either a desktop or a laptop computer and this has usually been the case. So designing “to fit” was never really a large issue for web developers until recently more and more users are purchasing and services there internet capable handhelds, cell phones, tablets of all shapes and sizes. The most flexible type of layout that can fit across the majority of these platforms is what is called a liquid layout. It’s a mix of html, PHP/ASP or any flavor code but most importantly CSS. CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, a new feature being added to HTML that gives both Web design developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear.

These Style Sheets can then be applied to any Web page. This is a dynamic way to centralize the looks or style of any web site. This can also be applied when using different screen size. With your flavor of code added with CSS you can have the server displays the page to auto-detect which type of browser and or machine the viewer is looking at your site on, therefore it can auto-fit to the best perspective and layout, thus actually delivering your site to all users out there no matter what screen size or ratio they are viewing your site on. This a huge factor when developing one’s site and almost always goes overlooked when choosing a developer or firm to create your companies web site.

Now, if you do not plan ahead in the development stages you can lose a large percentage of viewers coming to your site. It’s one thing getting your traffic there, and to have a snazzy or flashy web design but allowing 100% of the viewers to actually see your site is a point this is far too often overlooked.

Testing The Waters With A Web Design Agency

2007-11-16T01:50:00.000-08:00

When selecting a web design agency, it goes without saying that you should take a look at the company’s own website in order to get a better idea of their skills and abilities. Similarly, you should ask the company for some references and to provide you with the URL of other sites they have created. Be certain to take the time to view several of these sites thoroughly in order to make sure they are user-friendly and are attractive. In addition, you can get a general feel for the designer’s methods and style while viewing these sites.

Selecting a web design agency should go further than just viewing sites the agency has created. In order to get a better idea of how the designer works, ask him or her to take a look at your current site if you have one and to offer suggestions. This way, you can determine if the designer has the ability to think on his or her own and to offer creative input. If you do not already have a website, select a few sites from the Internet and ask the designer what he or she thinks about the site and to offer suggestions for improvement.

Since you will have to work closely with the web site designer, you want to make sure that you can communicate clearly. By viewing sites together and discussing them, you can get a better idea of whether or not you are on the same wavelength. If you feel that the designer is truly listening to you and understands what you are looking for, you just might have found the right person to do the job. If not, take the time to discuss your ideas with other designers. There are plenty of web design agencies available and it is well worth your time to find the one that best suits the needs of you and your company.

Understanding Web Design Agency Philosophies And Methods

2007-11-16T01:49:00.000-08:00

When selecting a web design agency, one thing you should consider is the process the agency uses to take your design from concept to reality. There are actually three different methods or approaches that an agency may follow. These include:

Software-oriented
Design-led
User centered

An agency that has a software-oriented approach will generally have a very strong technical background. As such, they view the process of web design as a project that is similar to developing new software. With a software-oriented web design agency, you can expect the developer to logically look at your requirements and then write a detailed plan for achieving your goals. The developer will then test the design and deliver a final product.

A design-led web design agency, on the other hand, will view your website with a more artistic viewpoint. The process with a design-led agency is more on the concepts that will be used to develop the site. This concept is then tweaked throughout the entire process in order to guarantee it flows through the final design.

A web design agency with a user-centered methodology places most of the focus on the audience you expect to draw in with your website. As such, the designer is primarily concerned with how the final design will look and serve the needs of your target audience.

Good Website Design Practices

2007-11-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

Your website is where your business resides--it's kinda like the headquarters of an offline company. That is why it is very important to practice good design principles to make sure that it reaches out to the maximum number of people and sells to as many visitors as possible. Make sure that you have clear directions on navigation your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that your visitors can get around without any confusion.
Reduce the number of images that you have on your site. Too many images make your site load very slowly and most of the time they are often unnecessary. If you feel that any image is essential to your site, make sure that you optimize it using image editing programs so that they see a minimum image file size. Keep your content's paragraphs at a reasonable length. If your paragraphs are too long, you should split them up into separate paragraphs so that your text blocks won't be so big. This is very important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.
Make sure that your website complies with web standards at W3 and make sure that your website will be cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks out of frames in FireFox and Opera, you could lose out of a lot of prospective customers and visitors.
Avoid using script languages on your website unless it is absolutely necessary. Use script languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your website and even crash some browsers. Some scripts are not supported in all browsers, so some of your visitors may lose out on some important information because of this.

Do You Need A Website Designer?

2007-11-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

One of the first decisions you, as new internet business owner, must make is whether you will build your own website or if you will hire a professional website designer.
Either option is a good, but the best answer to that question will really depend on your personal situation. Here are some points to consider in choosing a website designer.
If you choose to hire a website designer, you don't have to worry about learning how to build your own website. You will then have more time to devote to other more important internet business tasks. However, you may not realize that technology advancements today have made it possible to build websites without the need to have any programming skills whatsoever. You can find plenty of website building tools that utilize a basic point-and-click technology and have a very user-friendly interface.
Another thing to consider is the website designer's schedule. You will probably not be the only client the website designer is working for. If you build the website yourself, you can instantly make any changes that you desire. Your turnaround time with the website designer will not be as quick. This can cause a delay in the deployment of your business plans. In addition, it will cost you money for any work the designer does so your business expenses will increase.
You can consider building your own website and only consult with a website designer when necessary such as when you need to incorporate special features to your website. This allows you to keep your costs down. However, keep in mind that the advanced website builders on the market today have many special features already available for you to download and incorporate into your design such as blogs, shopping carts and forums. When looking for a website builder, check to see if it has additional features that you can install on your own or pay a small fee to have the provider do it for you.

Good Website Design Practices

2007-11-12T02:44:00.000-08:00

Your website is where your business resides--it's kinda like the headquarters of an offline company. That is why it is very important to practice good design principles to make sure that it reaches out to the maximum number of people and sells to as many visitors as possible. Make sure that you have clear directions on navigation your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that your visitors can get around without any confusion.

Reduce the number of images that you have on your site. Too many images make your site load very slowly and most of the time they are often unnecessary. If you feel that any image is essential to your site, make sure that you optimize it using image editing programs so that they see a minimum image file size. Keep your content's paragraphs at a reasonable length. If your paragraphs are too long, you should split them up into separate paragraphs so that your text blocks won't be so big. This is very important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure that your website complies with web standards at W3 and make sure that your website will be cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks out of frames in FireFox and Opera, you could lose out of a lot of prospective customers and visitors.

Avoid using script languages on your website unless it is absolutely necessary. Use script languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your website and even crash some browsers. Some scripts are not supported in all browsers, so some of your visitors may lose out on some important information because of this.

Do You Need A Website Designer?

2007-11-12T02:43:00.000-08:00

One of the first decisions you, as new internet business owner, must make is whether you will build your own website or if you will hire a professional website designer.

Either option is a good, but the best answer to that question will really depend on your personal situation. Here are some points to consider in choosing a website designer.

If you choose to hire a website designer, you don't have to worry about learning how to build your own website. You will then have more time to devote to other more important internet business tasks. However, you may not realize that technology advancements today have made it possible to build websites without the need to have any programming skills whatsoever. You can find plenty of website building tools that utilize a basic point-and-click technology and have a very user-friendly interface.

Another thing to consider is the website designer's schedule. You will probably not be the only client the website designer is working for. If you build the website yourself, you can instantly make any changes that you desire. Your turnaround time with the website designer will not be as quick. This can cause a delay in the deployment of your business plans. In addition, it will cost you money for any work the designer does so your business expenses will increase.

You can consider building your own website and only consult with a website designer when necessary such as when you need to incorporate special features to your website. This allows you to keep your costs down. However, keep in mind that the advanced website builders on the market today have many special features already available for you to download and incorporate into your design such as blogs, shopping carts and forums. When looking for a website builder, check to see if it has additional features that you can install on your own or pay a small fee to have the provider do it for you.

The bottom line is that if you have a moderate budget and do not want to get involved with website design then a website designer is for you. However, if need to keep costs down and are willing to try the very advanced but easy to use website builders available on the market today, then do not be afraid to build your own website.

Productive Web Design for Your Business

2007-11-05T23:14:00.001-08:00

Any business looking for a web designer will find there is a wide range of web development companies providing website development services. Simply go to your favourite search engine (Google) and type in “web design” and the results will show hundreds and thousands of website development providers. The web design industry is very competitive, so how do you find a web design company which not only offers good design but also provides a website which has a the ability to achieve good ranking on search engines?

Listed below are some important website design tips:

Meta Tag Data – There are three types of meta tag data:

Title Tag – The title tag is important for website design search engine optimisation. The title tag is used to form a part of a search engine result. It is important to keep your title tag short but also try to list the most common keywords in your web page title tag. Each web page on your website can contain a different title tag.

Keyword Tag – The keyword tag contains words or phrases that potential visitors will use in search engines to find your business website. The main text on your website should also contain these keywords. Each page on your website should focus on a specfic keyword and the text information on this page should reflect against this chosen keyword.

Description Tag – The description tag is normally placed under your title tag and should contain a short description about your business. This is an opportunity for you to sell your products and services to your potential clients. Search engines use the description tag to form a basic description of your business in search results. It is advisable to keep your description tag short and straight to the point. Get your message about your business within the first two lines of description text.

Some other useful tips:
Keep your website up to date. Old information contained on your website is OK but new information is always more informative. A good idea to is build an archive system so you can keep old information but also provide your visitors with up to date information.

Do not write an essay about your business. Try to get your text information concise and informative. Split your information in to pages if you need to have a lot of text information on your website about your business.

Make sure your website is visually appealing. In most cases what you like in terms of design and not be the same for your client base. Get you designer to create an example home page as a graphic file and have the file sent to via email. Send this file to at least 20 – 30 other people, some related to your business and people outside of your business and get some feedback. Based on the feedback you will be in a better position to direct your designer / developer.

A Close Look at Blackpool Web Design

2007-11-05T23:12:00.000-08:00

Now that you have made the decision to have a website designed to showcase your company or organization on the Internet, you still have a few more decisions that you need to make. One thing that you have to decide is who is going to design your website and what you want it to look like.

If you plan on getting any real results from your website then you are going to have to do a little research before you run right out and hand your money to the first website designer or design company that you find on the Internet. Working with an experienced website designer is going to give you the advantage that you will need to deal with the huge quantity of competition that you are going to run up against on the Internet.

It is best if you choose a website design company that has had some previous experience designing websites in your business gene and can show you examples of their work. This is because experience really does count in website design, because people on the Internet tend to be a fickle lot.

You want your website to hold a visitors attention, so they will read all of the information that you have in it, because when people are looking at a website they will quickly go to another one if they become the least bit bored with it.

The last thing you should do if you expect to get viable results from your website is to hand the job over to one of the neighborhood kids who claims to already have designed a couple of websites and can save you a few bucks on your job. Doing this can result in you losing precious time and money in the long run.

Web Site Design Tips

2007-11-03T01:26:00.000-07:00

Ask your self these two simple questions before you begin your web site project. “What message are you trying to deliver and who are you trying to deliver it to?”

I feel this is where you need to start before you even talk to someone about Web Site Design.

Get to you message fast. What do I mean? Most people have a very short attention span. When I get to a site I want to know what the site is about fast. I do not want to read about how long you have been in business or that your company is named after your favorite hunting dog? Tell me about all that other stuff on secondary pages. What I want to know is how can your company or product help me now.

Do not overload your visitors with to much information. If you have multiple products that you will be marketing on your Web Site, Design the Site so that each product has a page. You should mention your products or services on the home page but do not go over board.

Do not over load your site with a bunch of flashy animations. It is a distraction from your message and that is not what you want your visitors to remember. You can use these animations on your site but pick and choose wisely where to use them.

Keep it Simple. All of us have gone to pages that were so complicated to navigate that we left and went to another web site. The first site might have had the exact item that we were looking for but we could not find it. That company lost a sale because their Web Site was too complicated.

Just Keep it Simple!

Does you competition have a Web Site? If they do, then take advantage of this. Do not copy the competition’s site but use it as a way to better develop your own site.

Keep your site up to date. Nothing makes me leave a Web Site faster than old out of date content or content that I have seen over and over again. If you no longer sell an item or offer a service, why is it still on your site? Why do you have a message about your half off end of the year sale when it is April? It does not take much time or effort to keep your site updated.

How will people find your Web Site on the Internet? This is a very important step. You can have the Best product on the Best Web Site and if nobody can find you then you are just spinning your wheels. You must choose the correct keywords and place those keywords in the proper place on your Web Site. If you call your product something, but the customers call it something else, then they will not find you.

Dubai Web Design - How to Build a Successful Website in Dubai

2007-11-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

Most business houses in Dubai work under the impression that flaunting a stunning web design in the Dubai web market is all that they need to make their website an instant hit. Well, they couldn't be more wrong!

A great web design for the Dubai market is one that is easy on the eye and features straightforward navigation, built-in interactivity, and great content. It should preferably also be built and suited for Dubai ecommerce (if required) and should be easily found on search engines.

As of now, there are only a handful of Dubai web development companies that are equipped to deliver a website that features all of the above qualities. So, you have to be careful in selecting a Dubai web development firm for developing your website. Nevertheless, whomsoever you select, the following factors must be incorporated in your website to make it a great success in Dubai's throbbing, red-hot marketplace:

1. Your website must feature a simple yet stylish design. Don't make a website with loads of flash and animations thrown in because they take considerable time to download and thus make the site slower. Remember, Dubai's Internet users who surf looking for business prefer fast and simple websites.

2. Needless to say, your website's navigation must be simple, logical, crisp and easy. Because that's what all serious Internet users expect from a quality website. If you are selling something then make sure that the firm you engage can flawlessly program and maintain a payment gateway tailored for Dubai.

3. Next is content, which as you know and, as the saying goes, is the king. If your website is content-based, then you have to ensure that it carries fabulous content. Remember, ordinary content is everywhere and every web user knows that. If and only if you hoist superb content regularly can you expect to accumulate a massive user database. Now herein lies the crunch - a whole lot of Dubai web development firms are not content-savvy, but there are a few who have an in-house content team or have tied with freelance professionals. You must entrust your web development work only to such firms. One more thing, if you are selling something and have built in a strong Dubai payment gateway, then all the content that you post on your website must, in some way or the other, lead to your Dubai payment gateway, because ultimately you want people to buy your goods.

4. If you want to hawk your product or service to Dubai's burgeoning Internet market, then you must get a Dubai ecommerce shopping cart built into your website. Of course, your product will succeed if it has value and is priced reasonably. Only the real professionals can help you build an error-free and smooth Dubai payment gateway - because not all web development firms in Dubai have adequate experience in building these.

5. Do not forget to build in interactivity into your site. Ask for feedback, take opinions, solicit suggestions, give away newsletters, do whatever it takes, but get some interactive elements going into your website.

6. Finally, your website must be search-engine-friendly - it must be easily found by the Dubai-based Internet users. And for that to happen you need your web development firm to perform a great Dubai SEO (Search Engine Optimization) job on your website. SEO in the Gulf region assumes great importance, and that is because the Internet market is growing and so are the number of online businesses. You need strong Gulf SEO in order to compete and make your profits.

This is what all you need to build a successful website in Dubai. Remember, the Dubai market is growing by leaps and bounds. The Internet penetration has reached 33% and is growing at a fast clip and multinational companies are setting up base in droves. If you want to do good business in Dubai, then having a good website is essential - not just a good-looking website, but one that has all the features listed above, with a strong focus on Dubai SEO because that is what is going to drive the traffic to your site.

Web Design - Importance and Usability

2007-11-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

Web design is the process of visualizing, planning and designing up of electronic media content by using Markup language and graphics on internet. Built with the purpose to market the goods and services, web site designs have become a modern day symbol to attract internet users to come and avail the services. This whole marketing process includes building concepts keeping goals in the mind, inspection of corporate image keeping in mind the brand promotion of the services being offered and providing the relevant content to give important market ruling information for users.

Web designing also includes many technical factors as to give a shape to your concept. It is a kind of an advertisement that needs to be effective and attract a large number of people to increase the sales aspiration of the website owner.

Benefits of a Web Site

Web design services are the ultimate solution for advertising on the internet. A web site is the perfect way to attract users who are beyond the geographical boundary. It reflects all the necessary and vital information about the company and reflects the aims and aspiration of the company in effective manner. Having a good web site also gives you benefit to increase your web presence and help you to enhance business profitability. One of the major benefits of making a web site is conveying of goals of the business.

For availing the right kind of web site design services, certain considerations should be made seriously. One of the importance points to keep in mind is the choice of information and layout. Layout is important as it gives the first positive impression on the onlookers. It is our tendency that if we like the outer part, chances are that the inner pages will be seen too. Therefore, it is necessary to make the home page really attractive and interesting to catch eyes.

Content is also a very important part of a web site. Infusing interesting and usable information will help in holding on users as the main purpose of internet surfing is seeking information and increasing knowledge.

A web site must be properly placed. It simply means that information must be given according to its relevancy. Unnecessary information must not be included and proper spacing must be maintained to balance the page.

Web Designing India

India has been a hot destination for providing services like software development, web designing, web development and others. Web designing India has become the answer for all web development solutions. Many big corporations are forwarding their works to India to get the specialized and skilled services to get the bets work done in a tight time frame. Web designing India is not glowing but also capturing a major part of the country's economy.

Secrets of Website Design for Small Business Owners

2007-11-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

For those who are set on designing their own website, a little HTML knowledge can go a long way. Many small business owners take it upon themselves to design their own site, but they use programs to write all the HTML code for them because they are unfamiliar with it and wind up with poorly designed websites.

Adobe's Dreamweaver is one of those programs that performs such functions. If you are going this route, a lack of basic HTML knowledge will run you into a lot of formating and design problems. Secondly, you will not be able to take advantage of many free fantastic HTML templates. There are lots of websites, such as the Open Source Website Directory (oswd.org) where you can download professional templates for free, and with a little HTML knowledge, fill in the blanks to customize the site to your needs, changing the color patterns, fonts, images, and more to make your site unique. Great places to learn basic HTML include:

* w3schools.com/html

* htmldog.com

If you are looking for text editor, like Dreamweaver, but don't have the dough to shell out, try Aptana (apatana.com).

When designing your website, make sure to go by the W3C standards (w3c.org). Different web browsers all read the HTML code a little different and valid code will help maintain as much uniformity as possible in all browsers.

HTML is just the beginning. CSS should be your next step in learning how to design a website. CSS will add the style to jazz up your website. Almost all of the templates you will find at oswd.org as well as anywhere else are based on CSS and HTML. CSS is a coding language that tells the web browser how to style the HTML code on the page. The CSS can be written inside your HTML document by inserting a style tag, , after the CSS code. You can also put the CSS code in a separate page and include a link to that page in the header section of your HTML page. Here are some great places to learn CSS:

* w3schools.com/css

* html.net/tutorials/css

Once you become somewhat familiar with CSS, CSS Mastery is a great book to learn from.

Try not to get discouraged when designing your own website. From the start you should keep in mind that it is not a weekend project by any means. It might take you several months, or even several years, to get a website design that you are happy with and want to show off to your friends. Best of luck!!!