Better Website Development

Your Companys Website Professional Online Presence

2009-03-03T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Carla Reis

A website image should match a company's quality objectives to build your company's online presence. Does yours? The truth is a poorly designed website can damage a company's online presence. More so, your website is your online presence. Internet users expect a reputable company to have a high-quality online presence reflected in a quality and professional website. Think about it as an electronic business card or brochure; a first-class website shows that a company is serious and professional. A website that is well presented, designed and developed will open a myriad of options for low-cost marketing and client acquisition.

This is the first segment in a three-part series that addresses the guidelines on how to plan, present and develop your company's website. The full series includes:

Professional Online Presence
Quality Web Site -- Quality Approach
Website Design, Development & Marketing Aspects

Your Company's Web Site Professional Online Presence If your company strives for quality, this should be expressed as much by your website as it is with your company's products and services. From now on, consider your website as an extension of those products and services; consider it as your company online presence. Ask yourself what is important to you and your customers when it comes to the services or products your company provides? Is it the advantages like quality, performance, presentation and reliability that are offered? Does your current web site reflect this? Revisit your company's mission statement is this also reflected in the website?

It's amazing how many companies do not have a professional online presence for fear of expense (in which case, they often opt for a "do-it-yourself" product). A well-developed, well-designed website is not a cost; it's an investment, and any related expenses will convert into new clients. At present, there are several reputable organizations that will help your company build an effective web site for a reasonable price.

It is proven that R.O.I is quickly met when the website properly addresses your requirements and /or target market. Keep in mind that your website is the least expensive 24/7 (worldwide) salesman that you will ever find.

It's important to find a team of website design experts who will listen to you, understand your needs, and not only follow your guidelines, but also present you with new options and suggestions to increase your sales and customer acquisition. A good team will produce a professional online presence that is in tune with your company's image, excels in usability and is search-engine friendly.

Online marketing for your website is also very important since your utmost goal is to attract users that search for the products or services you offer. A high-quality website that is lost among search engines is like placing an expensive ad in a magazine that nobody buys. If Web browsers cannot find your site, they are limited in how they can purchase your product or service. Treat your we site as a marketing tool, not only as a source for company information.

Summary: A professional online presence and a quality website are the most important investments you will make for your company; it will reflect your company's image, and the products and services you offer. Seek a website design company that is willing to learn about your company, and its products and services. Get involved in the website development process and offer your opinion and suggestions after all, you know your market and your company.

Carla Reis
President
Quest Quality Solutions
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Copyright 2005 - Quest Quality Solutions.
This article can be reproduced in its entirety, if the author credit is retained and there is a prominent source link to www.questqualitysolutions.com.

Carla Reis has a Bachelor Degree in Arts and a Diploma in Web site Design; she also has several years of experience in Web site design training, Search Engine Optimization, and management. Carla's experience with Web site design and Search Engine Optimization [SEO] began when she was the training manager for one of the biggest Search Engine Marketing companies in North America. She developed the company's training manual and SEO certification exams to better qualify the staff and deliver high quality services to the company's clients. After managing the training department and organizing the working flow and distribution for the company, Carla decided to venture on her own. She started her company in 2004 Quest Quality Solutions. What began as a one-person business has expanded to a team of professionals and has been growing in a steady pace.

Maintaining Your Business Website

2009-03-02T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Tim Knox

QUESTION:
Should I build and maintain my business Web site myself or pay someone else to do the work for me? -- Wesley L.

ANSWER:
When you say, pay someone else to do the work for you, Wesley, I am going to assume that you are talking about hiring a professional Web site designer to do the work and not your next-door neighbor's teenage son. If my assumption is correct, then read on. If not, go ahead and flip over to the comics section. You will get no good out of the advice I'm about to give, so you might as well consult Dilbert for your hot business tips.

Should you build and maintain your business Web site yourself or pay someone to do it for you? Let me answer your question with a couple of my own. Number one: is building and maintaining Web sites the key focus of your business? Number two: could your time be better spent doing more important things like, oh I don't know, say running your business? If your answers were no and yes, respectively, then you have no business building and maintain a Web site.

Remember this: every minute you spend on tasks that are not related to the key focus of your business is time spent to the detriment of your business. In other words, every minute you spend focusing on tasks that do not contribute to the growth of your business and thereby increase your bottom line is time wasted.

If you want to be a web designer, be a web designer. However, if the key focus of your business is building widgets, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that your time would be better spent building widgets, not Web sites.

Case in point: I once had a very wealthy dentist ask if I could teach him how to maintain his Web site so he wouldn't have to pay me to do it. Now my teeth had helped put this guy's kids through college, but that didn't seem to matter. At that moment he was more concerned about having to pay for changes to his Web site than my personal oral hygiene. Sure, I said, I'll be glad to teach you how to update your Web site, just as soon as you teach me how to clean my own teeth so I don't have to pay you to do it. He got the point. And he charged me enough for the cleaning to keep his site updated for months. Smart man.

Many business owners think they can't afford a professionally designed Web site and that simply is not true. While the old adage, "you get what you pay for" is never more true than when applied to Web site design, having a professional web designer do the work for you is money well spent. A well-designed Web site can bring you a many-fold return on your investment. You can't say that about too many other collaterals.

While it is best to leave Web site design and maintenance to the experts, it is up to you (or someone considered a subject matter expert within your company) to provide the designer with the content (text and photographs) that best conveys your company's message to your customers. A Web site, no matter how well designed, is meaningless if it lacks the content required to interest customers in the products you sell or services you provide.

Here's are a few questions that, once answered, will help ensure that your Web site's message is as appealing as its design. Go over these points with the designer before the design process begins as the answers will help determine the direction your Web site's design should take.

What Is The Purpose Of Your Web Site?

Most business Web sites have two purposes: (1) to educate the consumer and, (2) to sell them products or services. If you sell shoes, for example, the purpose of your Web site is to educate potential customers on the quality and durability of your shoes and as a result, to sell them shoes. If you paint houses the purpose of your Web site is to educate home owners on why your services are superior to other painters and sell them on hiring you to paint their house. By defining the purpose of your Web site you will give the designer the information required to create a Web site that best conveys that purpose to your target audience.

Who Is My Target Audience?

Your target audience consists of those folks you want to attract to your Web site: potential and current customers, future and current employees, possible investors, etc. Anyone who might be interested in your company and its products or services is a member of your target audience. Correctly identifying your target audience is vital since your Web site should be designed specifically to appeal to your target audience.

Put yourself in their shoes (or in front of their computers). Imagine your Web site through their eyes. If you were visiting a Web site such as yours what would you expect to find and what would you be disappointed not to find? Identify your target audience, then have your Web site designed to fulfill their needs and surpass their expectations.

What Content Should My Web Site Feature?

Your Web site content should be driven by the nature of your business. If you're a real estate agent, your site should feature photographs of homes you have for sale and information on buying and selling a home. If you own an auto body shop, your site might feature before and after photographs of cars that you have repaired. Remember to determine the purpose of your site, then develop the content to serve that purpose.

What's My Competition Doing?

The last question you should ask is one of the most important: What is your competition doing on the Web? Do a Google search for similar businesses and click around their Web sites. How are their Web sites designed? What message are they trying to convey? Are they doing a good job of conveying that message and as a result, selling products? What do you like about their Web sites? What don't you like? Make note of the things you like and the things you hate, then share your findings with your site designer.

Remember, you're not stealing trade secrets here.

You're just borrowing ideas.

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim's latest books include "Small Business Success Secrets" and "The 30 Day Blueprint For Success!" Related Links: http://www.smallbusinessqa.com http://www.dropshipwholesale.net

Getting The Balance Right

2009-03-01T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Mark Adams

Having spent a number of years in the internet design and marketing industry I have seen how important the balance of web design / optimization is to the success of any e-marketing venture.

In the past I have had clients who were frustrated by the fact that competitor web sites ranking high in the search engines were of poor quality compared to their own.

When I looked into this it was obvious what was happening. The so called poor quality sites were composed of simple navigation and then lots of pages with text and an odd image here and there. The clients web site in comparrison was an all singing / dancing mix of flash and bright graphics. The text in the site was limited to a few lines here and there.

Here was an excellent example of two web sites built at different levels. One was basic and probably built by someone at home while the other was professionaly built by a designer. In my mind I was in no doubt that the professional site would probably sell more than the basic one. The only catch here was that the professional site was nearly invisible to the search engines due to the nature of its design and content. A great looking site that no one can find.

Had the web site been built with optimization in mind then it would have probably had far more success. Just because a web site needs to be optimized does not necessarily mean the design has to be sacrificed. There are many ways a web site can be made search engine friendly and still look and function professionaly.

When a visitor arrives at the web site then first impressions really do count. A business does not have very long to promote itself so its important that any visitor is given good reason to stay and explore other pages. This is when clever marketing and copywriting take over from the initial optimization.

If you are thinking of having a new web site built then think very carefully about how it's design / content will influence its's position in the search engines.

If you have a high ranking but poor looking site then consider adding some enhancements that will not affect it's current position.

If you have a site that is extremely search engine unfriendly then consider having it completely re-designed.

Marketing Advice

The best things in life are free so I give this information at no fee.

Creating A Website Based On Adsense Revenue Model

2009-02-28T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Lata Tokhi

The latest craze sweeping the webmaster world is creating 'Adsense Websites'. Webmasters are busy cranking out a number of websites aimed to earn entirely from Adsense, with few of them finding the success they hoped for. Creating Adsense Websites is a wonderful idea provided you play by the rules. Creating spammy websites with hardly any content and a whole of links based on 'high-paying keywords' is more likely to get you banned from Google Adsense than earn you high profits you dreamed of.

A small content website created on a specific theme with Adsense ads integrated properly into it, is the correct way to earn from this revenue model. How to logically create a new website based on Adsense Revenue Model is discussed here:

1. Identify High-Paying Keywords

The first step is to decide the theme of your website. Since you are creating a website entirely for Adsense, it might help if you first took time to find out the highest-paying keywords/ads. Advertisers bid for keywords on Google. Some keywords are very expensive and if ads for such keywords are displayed on your website, and clicked upon, your earnings may increase dramatically.

For a list of High Paying Adsense Keywords, visit http://www.momtycoons.com/earning/adsense-keywords.shtml

> To do your own research, use http://www.iotaweb.org/. Type in the desired keyword and the tool will tell you the highest bid on it.

> If you have a Google Adwords Account, log in and use the tool for finding the bid rates for different keywords.

Choose a topic which is fairly high-paying as well of your interest.

2. Build an SEO Website with Useful Content

Once you have chosen the theme topic, start building your website. Register a Domain Name, Set up a Web Hosting Account, choose a simple and fast loading layout for your website and add start adding content. Add at least 10 articles on the topic you have chosen. You can get the articles for free from an Articles Directory but it is best to put original content into an Adsense website. Write the articles yourself or Hire a Content Writer.

Optimize all pages for Search Engines. Use Heading tags, proper titles and keyword-rich content. The more SE optimized your page, the more relevant will be the ads that are displayed.

3. Integrate Adsense Seamlessly

Add Adsense code to every article page. Take time and choose ad formats depending upon your website layout and integrate the ads seamlessly within the content on each page.

Read more about integrating ads seamlessly in your website content at http://www.momtycoons.com/earning/integrate-adsense.shtml

4. Increase Website Traffic

Your website is now done and you need interested visitors to visit your website, read your content and click on your high-paying ads. Start promoting your website by submitting articles, using signature tags, link exchanges etc.

Lata Tokhi is the owner of Mom Tycoons: http://www.momtycoons.com, a website with useful articles and advice for webmasters on topics such as starting online business, setting up websites, marketing and promotion, increasing revenue and sales, search engine tips etc.

Four Ways Of Keyword Research

2009-02-27T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Nik Chauhan

Steps to be followed in website development and Marketing

Keyword Research

Before one goes for the website development one should always do some research work on Keywords.

Why Keywords?

Keywords are analytical part of an website which helps in bringing up the site in search engine rankings.

It can be difficult to choose the Keywords that describe your business so that users will see your website when they perform an online search. How do you go about it? This article offers some useful tips.Obviously, you want people who are searching for what you can provide to find your website near the top of those results pages. How do you manage this feat?
The easy answer is "by using keywords and key phrases."
The tricky part of that answer, as you might have guessed, is that you need to use the right keywords. choosing the wrong keyword would do no good from search engine point of view.

Choosing and researching good keywords is a process that takes several steps. I won't have the room to cover all of the steps completely in this article, so I will cover the rest in a subsequent article. Basically, the process goes through four stages:

Collecting initial keyword ideas.

This is also known as brainstorming. Come up with plenty of ideas; ask other people for ideas, too, including your customers. In this article, I'll discuss some do's and don'ts so you can target your ideas a little, and maybe even come up with a few you wouldn't have thought of originally.

Checking keyword research tools.

There are online tools that offer information about the number of times users perform searches for specific words. This is very important, because it will help you not at all to optimize for a keyword the search engines never see. Two of the best-known keyword research tools are Wordtracker and Overture.

Selecting keywords.

This is the point where you put the information from your research together and decide which keywords are going to deliver the best performance for you. Note that I said "performance;" the best keywords might not be the ones that will deliver the most traffic.

Analytics.

After you've chosen your keywords and optimized your site, you need to perform measurements to see whether it's delivering the amount of traffic and conversions you expected. You can use this information to make adjustments and refine your keyword strategy.

website development and marketing is a hot topic to discuss but here one finds quite a few ways how to deal with it. For more information you can find on site: Website development

Things To Consider Before Starting A Website

2009-02-26T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by DeAnna Spencer

In the time that I have been using the Internet, (since 1996) I have seen a lot of websites. I have seen a lot of good websites and I have seen a lot that were just plain awful. Here are some things to think about before you start a website.

What is the purpose of your website? Is it meant to be primarily a sales site or is it meant to be purely informative?

Once you have decided on your website's purpose, you need to decide on a theme. There is nothing worse than going to a website and having to play guess what this website is about. To pick a theme, I suggest that you write down a list of things that you are interested in and/or knowledgeable about.

Once you have written your list down, you need to do some research. Use a tool such as the search term suggestion tool on overture to see if there is a demand for your topic. If you type in your topic and see a lot of searches done for your topic then you should use that topic. If you don't see a lot of searches done for your particular topic, try another one.

Now that you have picked a topic that is in high demand, you need to either develop a product that fits the theme of your site or find a product to sell that fits within the theme of your site.

You also need some sort of freebie to offer on your site so that you can build your own opt-in list for marketing purposes. You should offer an ebook or a special report. Maybe even offer an e-course. Whatever you offer, make sure that you have a way of capturing the email addresses of your visitors. These people will become your "warm market" or people that you can market your other offers to.

You will need to find a hosting company to host your site. Free Web space is fine for just casual websites, but if you are serious about making money online you should eventually graduate to a paid host. The reason behind this is that many people perceive a site hosted on a free web space to be unprofessional. I don't agree with these people myself, but you do have to deal with what the majority thinks in this industry.

You also need your own domain name. See the above tip.

You will need to code your site. You can either learn how to do this yourself or you can hire someone to do it for you. The amount of money you have to spend on this endeavor should help you to decide whether or not you want to hire someone.

Lastly, you need to figure out how you are going to promote your site. Here are some suggestions:
writing free articles for reprint in ezines and on websites.
buying advertising in ezines
buying advertising on websites
trading links with relevant sites.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of things to think about when starting a website. This article's purpose is just to get you started. You should certainly read everything you can find about doing business online while you are building your business.

Copyright 2004 by DeAnna Spencer
This article may be reproduced and redistributed freely on the Internet as long as the resource box remains intact.

DeAnna Spencer is a virtual assistant that helps entrepreneurs run a successful business by providing affordable administrative help. She also publishes a blog for small business owners. Visit this small business resource today.

Make Your Website An Online Sales Tool

2009-02-25T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Andrew Rowe

In today's day and age just about every company has to have a website. It's widely accepted that if your company doesn't have a website, it's not considered credible in its market. Yet how many companies actually consider their website to be truly an online sales tool? In fact most companies spend a lot of money to design and build fancy websites but they neglect to think of how they're going to turn the website into a work horse for generating leads and online sales opportunities for their company.

Most business owners and executives don't understand that even if they're not engaged in selling a product through an e-commerce system, there's still a great vast opportunity to increase their lead generation through guerilla marketing techniques related to internet marketing. And the core competencies in that area are performing good search engine optimization and having strong pay per click advertising campaigns that are focusing in your core markets.

85% of business buyers go to search engines to find vendors when they don't have a preferred source, so it's absolutely critical that you have an online presence and that you are well optimized with your website so that when people type in keywords related to your product or service you come up at the top of the search engine, whether it be MSN, Google or Yahoo. From there once a person who's searching for your product or service clicks through to your website, what do they find? Do they find a nice "about us" page, or a pretty picture of your company? Or do they find readily engaging tools, free guides and offers that compel them to actually click on an offer and fill out a form and convert themselves into a sales lead.

Companies that are building websites without thinking about optimizing them for the search engines and without thinking about optimizing them for conversion of sales leads are entirely missing the boat. If your company is in the process of building a new website or redesigning its website and it's not considering search engine optimization and developing great offers and conversion mechanisms in calls to action on its website, my suggestion is don't waste your money. It's not enough today to just have a nice piece of brochure-ware that does nothing. Companies that are really winning with their marketing expenses as it relates to web presence are the ones that understand the power of internet marketing and are turning their websites into workhorses for sales.

About Cube Management

Cube Management delivers sales acceleration services to emerging growth and mid-market companies. The experts at Cube Management work across the entire spectrum of marketing, sales and business development to provide customized solutions (whether recruiting, interim management or consulting) that drive revenue and profit growth. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process & People to produce winning results. Download the Cube Management Inside Sales Guide and the Cube Management Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide.

Importance Of Website Audience Analysis

2009-02-24T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Gene DeFazzio

Analyzing the Website Audience

The webmaster should analyze his prospective audience in light of the message he is attempting to convey. You must be concerned with the range of ages represented in your visitors, the education and experience of this audience and their knowledge and opinions on your main theme.

You must adapt your website as specifically as possible to the audience that you are trying to reach. You will need more than a superficial knowledge of your target audience. What are their intrests, are they educated or uneducated, are they experienced or inexperienced, what are their opinions and prejudices and what is their economic and social level.

The webmaster should never fail to consider the emotional state of his audience. Establish a common ground of feeling. You must analyze and utilize their motives and intrests if you are to relate what you have to say to their habits of thought and feeling. To do this you must know as much as possible about the behavior and needs of the people who will be visiting your website.

Often, the subject of your website will give you a hint as to the character of your visitors. If they are intrested enough to visit your website then you can expect that they have an intrest in what you have to offer. Understand your audience in terms of the trends of the day as revealed through newspapers, magazines, broadcasts, the movies and web surfing. Compare the customs, standards, traditions and manners that you possess with that of your target audience and create a common ground with them.Define and Refine

There are 4 steps, that if followed, will define your target audience and refine your site to meet their intrests. They are;

1) Investigation - Consider the purpose of the website, the layout that best projects the idea that you wish to convey and characteristics of your prospective audience. List possible topics and select the one best suited to all aspects of the situation: your intrests and qualifications, the requirements necessary to promote your ideas, the necessary content to accomplish this and the expectations and characteristics of the audience.

2) Organization - The next step for the webmaster is to determine the structure of the website. The webmaster must decide the logical requirements of the subject matter and the most appropriate way to adapt it to the prospective audience. Only after a webmaster has selected the topic, has analyzed the particular audience, and has collected the proper content will they be equipped to plan the structure of the website.

3) Method of Expression - The third step in building an audience friendly website is to express the thought in a way that will communicate to your audience exactly what you intend. The central theme should be easy to follow, the vocabulary must be suited to the understanding of the audience and be interesting enough to hold the attention of your visitors.

4) Mastery of the Content - You must master the content of your website and present a logical sequence of ideas leading to a particular goal. Set up your website in such a way that there is a smooth progression from one idea to another. Make clear the exact meaning of what you are saying each step of the way.

Gene DeFazzio is the webmaster of http://www.rocketface.com. Rocketface(R) Workshop is an attempt to gather together, in one place, information on how to design a website plus a few of my own thoughts. Every attempt has been made to eliminate technical jargon and buzz words.

Four Strategies On Finding Out What Visitors Think Of Your Website Information

2009-02-23T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Chris Le Roy

The Internet is what I consider one of the most awesome things every created. I am of that generation that grew up with computers and the Internet has really been a god send for me as it allows me access to places and people I would never have had the opportunity to meet. It is also the source of some of the best information you could ever wish to garner. But! It is also the source of some of the worst information as well.

Website owners, just like you and me really need to carefully look at the material that we provide on our websites and consider the issue of whether everything we are providing is really what our visitors really want. So, the question is, how do we find out?

There are four simple key strategies you can use to find out whether the visitors to your site actually value your information. The four strategies are

1. Email the Visitors
2. Survey the Visitors
3. Put Feedback Ratings on the Page
4. Email to Friends buttons

These four strategies might seem obvious or simple but how many people actually use them. Not too many.

Why Put These Strategies Into Place?

The key reason for this is that by understanding what your customers are thinking you can tailor the information on your website so that they are more inline with what they want. For example, and I will use my own training company as an example, if we had let say a sudden rush of 10,000 visitors to our site and they told us via the four strategies above that they wanted more information on Excel, what do you think we would do. We would add more information on Excel. If through the Feedback ratings we got higher positive responses for say articles on Pivot Tables, what would we do? We would put more articles on Pivot Tables onto our website.

Let me give you another very clear reason to do this. My team and I run a website in Townsville, Australia called GetTheRightPrice.com. This website provides the fuel prices for the local community and tells them where to get the best price. For three years my company had been running this site to the tune of $100,000 plus a year. We had struggled to work out how we could run this site and make a profit. Over the three years we used some of the strategies above to learn one clear lesson. Nobody in the community was prepared to pay for the fuel price, which meant we had to change our way of thinking to find a model that worked.

Okay so let's look at the four strategies.

Strategy 1. - Emailing Your Visitors

This strategy I personally think is quite simple and straight forward, but it does rely on one thing. You need to be asking your visitors what their email addresses are. If you own a website and you aren't collecting visitors details, then what are you doing. Remember one thing, always ask your visitors their first name and their email address so that when you send out an email, you can address the email to them personally. You will always get more responses if you address the visitors by their first name.

One other thing, get the visitors details into some sort of Customer Database as soon as possible. There are lots around.

When you email your visitors you could ask them simply some questions to reply to, you might ask them to complete an attached survey or you may just ask them to give you some feedback on say a certain webpage.

One thing to note too, sometimes people can be very shy about completing a survey via email. You may want to consider finding a way, with this strategy where they can reply, but anonymously.

Strategy 2 Survey the Visitors

This is one, I have been using a lot of late and I have learnt so much about my customers. You can survey the visitors in two ways, have a link on the page that takes them to the survey or you can use what we call an Exit Survey. This was a strategy I learnt from a series of interviews done by a gentleman called Mr H. There are about 5 hours of discussions on how to really make an effective website in these interviews. An exit survey is where a screen will popup as they leave your website and done effectively is a really simple way to learn what your customers think.

I thought when I first used it people would be really anti the technique, but they haven't been and I have got some really cool information from my customers. One thing though, if you are using Pay-Per-Click search engines, then they usually frown on this technique. But, if your traffic is from other websites then I encourage you to use this technique.

Note a few things though, for this method to work, the questions must be extremely simple and quick and to get the optimum responses back you need to make sure that you offer the visitor something. In particular some Free Gift like an eBook, article or report and make it something worthwhile not rubbish. Nothing irritates me more, than registering for something free and it being a load of rubbish. If you do this, it will affect your credibility.

Strategy 3 Feedback Ratings On Your Webpage

Feedback ratings are definitely what the big boys are using. If you visit sites like MSNBC and go to their news articles, at the bottom of each article you will see the ability to define how you rated this story and they give you five stars to click on. With this sort of information what you can do is to then look at the styles of articles you are providing and provide more in that category. This will ultimately help you to attract the customer back in the future.

The other key thing with this style of tracking is that you can work out if a particular author or style of article is more attractive to your visitors. It can also help you work out whether its worth paying to get a key author to write for you.

Strategy 4 Email This Article To Your Friends button

This strategy is really an extension of Strategy 3. What it essentially requires you to do is to track how many times somebody forwards your article to a friend. By looking at the statistics from here, if a certain style of article is being emailed then you may again want to look at getting more articles in that category.

What's the bottom Line?

The bottom line is this, the more you learn about your customers behaviors, what they like, what they don't like, who they are etc, the more effective your website will become and the more likely people will come back to your website.

The other thing I would like to put to you, is not to lose your statistics. You need to be looking at them regularly. In our centre we use Microsoft Access to view and evaluate our statistics. Trends change in the marketplace and what works today may not work in the future, so by keeping those statistics you will be able to see if the trends are changing.

Chris Le Roy is the Managing Director of One-on-One Personal Computer Training and has been training people in building websites and using the Internet through his company for 10 years. If you would like to listen to the interviews mentioned in this article click on the link http://www.1-on-1.biz/dms.asp

Whos On Your Web Team

2009-02-22T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Jeanette S Cates, PhD

One of the phenomena of the Web is that it all looks so easy. After all, it just takes some typing, a few graphics and a link here or there to create a web page, right?

But it's more complex than that when you're serious about doing business online. In fact, it takes a TEAM to create a profitable online business. So who is on your web team?

You, the business owner, are an important part of the web team. You are the person who sets the direction. And you ensure that direction is followed. Just because you are not technical does not mean you should compromise your vision. Stick by your guns and have the technical staff set it up to your standards.

Your Web Designer. He or she is a professional who combines both artistic and technical skills. They may choose to outsource the graphics or the programming, but their specialty is ensuring that your site looks good and functions properly. Your web designer may only create your site, then leave the maintenance to someone else in the organization or they may stay on for the maintenance role. You definitely need someone who can create new pages, add links, and respond to the changing environment of your online business.

Most web designers are not Internet marketing experts. You or the Internet Strategist need to tell the web designer what standards you want applied to your site. You are the manager of the process. The designer works for you. Even if they think a fancy graphic would look good, you should ask them to refrain, unless you know it will enhance sales.

Your WebMaster. This person makes sure your server is running properly and that all of the backend services that your web designer depends on are operating properly. Your webmaster may be the same as your web host, depending on the complexity of your site. In some cases your web designer may also be your webmaster.

But never assume that all of these roles are being done by a member of the team. Instead, ask if they will perform specific functions. What is not being done can hurt you more than what is being done.

Your Internet Marketing Strategist. This person understands how business is done online. She understands your business goals and sets out a plan to ensure you are able to achieve those goals online with your website and the marketing activities prescribed. The strategist looks at every aspect of your information assets that can be turned into information products or free offers, as well as at your website. The strategist may be a one-time investment or it may be someone you work with regularly.

Your Internet Marketing Team. These are the people who do the activities included in your strategic plan. These activities may include registering your site, marketing your articles, creating link exchanges, and running your pay-per-click advertising campaigns. This role may be done in-house or outsourced. But it is one that is ongoing.

Regardless of whether or not you've ever outlined all of the activities that are involved in creating, maintaining, marketing and profiting from a website, they do all exist. And if you've been wondering why it just doesn't seem to be "happening" for you - it could be you've left out an important function and/or member of your web team.

Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet Strategist who works with independent professionals who are ready to turn their knowledge and their websites into gold. Dr. Cates offers a one-time Brain Dump Special for online business owners seeking guidance. http://www.YourInternetStrategist.com

Web Business Overview Have A Plan

2009-02-21T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Halstatt Pires

So you've decided you'd like to go into business on the web, eh? This article will give an overview of options that are available for your web business and will help to give you an idea of what goals should be set for your project.

After deciding to be a web entrepreneur, the next step is to create a business plan. Business plans are as essential to a web entrepreneur as blueprints are to a construction worker. To build a business most efficiently, you must first be an architect and plan how you would like your business to look, what it will do and how your goals will be accomplished.

There are many ways a person can go about making money with the Internet. Options include selling products as a wholesaler or retailer, selling services, promoting products or services as an affiliate partner, selling advertising, selling email or demographic information, selling subscriptions to sites and any number of other ways and combinations of money making ideas.

A good business plan will include details on the service or products you will be offering, growth goals for your new business, projected expenses and losses, employee projections, and any other information you will need to clearly outline your successful business. Though there are many approaches to the actual construction of a business plan, a month by month or quarter by quarter analysis is common.

For example, if your online business will be selling widgets, you may want to go through, month by month and estimate the total number of widgets you will sell, the cost of selling these widgets, expenditures on marketing, hosting and overhead, and any other foreseeable factors you can think of. If within six months you want to begin selling skyhooks as well as widgets, this should also be accounted for in your business plan.

Before moving on to our next topic, it is important to remember that business plans are constantly changing. Some of your projections will be difficult to make accurately, so do the best you can with the information at hand. As more data becomes available through research and experience you will be able to make revisions to your business plan. I am of the belief that it is generally a good idea to make profit projections on the low end to start with. If you believe you can sell between 10 and 100 widgets your first month, it is better to plan to sell only 10, and be pleasantly surprised when you sell 55, rather than to plan for 100 and fall short of goals that have become unrealistic yet necessary for the survival of your business.

After you have a good plan for your business, the next step will be to research your business. But that's a subject for the next article.

Halstatt Pires is an Internet marketing consultant with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing firm in San Diego offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com

What Hosting Companies Dont Tell You Could Hurt You

2009-02-20T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Dave Young

Did you know that hosting companies overcrowd their servers despite all the issues caused by servers running hundreds of accounts? Are you aware of what happens if your website is hosted on a server that's overcrowded? You're probably thinking to yourself, "what do you mean overcrowd their servers?" Overcrowded servers mean big money for your hosting company, but also big problems for your website.

Hosting companies are willing to sacrifice the success of your website in order to build their own profit. The more accounts hosted on a server, the more revenue they can generate. Greed takes priority to a hosting company. Sure the plans they offer sound good, but do you really know what's going on behind the scenes? After they take your hard-earned money, what happens next? Unless you're a system administrator or network engineer, you probably have no idea how your website functions on an overcrowded server.

If you've reviewed or researched hosting companies you will notice they all look the same. They offer similar packages, claim they provide support, and appear to have a network worthy of the highest caliber websites. But what they don't tell you is the type of disk space or bandwidth your website will be using. They don't mention possible security risks. And they especially don't mention how many accounts they create per server.

Avoiding the problems associated with overcrowded servers is extremely easy

To read the entire article, visit http://www.gp-host.com.

Dave Young is the President/CEO of GP-Host, a division of Gluepoint, LLC. GP-Host provides a unique hosting environment for entrepreneurs and business owners. info@gp-host.com

How To Build A Quality Website

2009-02-19T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Nowshade Kabir

The other day I received an email from a guy asking whether we could build his eCommerce website. Since Rusbiz is a company which has a full service web solutions development department, I sent him our executive brochure by email and asked if I should send him our website building checklist. The answer I received was "Can I work directly with your web programmer and tell me what your hourly rate is?" I wrote him back that there is no problem in working with the programmer, but we use a team of experts to build a website and he will be much better off if he goes by a flat price for his project instead of going by hourly rate. Apparently he did not like the idea! Too bad!

Web development services fundamentally differ from say an attorney's services. If you are working with a professional company, depending on the size of your web project a team of people will work on it. Namely: your account manager, lead programmer, web programmer, designer, Content editor, database programmer, web promotional specialist, and web administrator. The tricky thing about website is starting from making your site by yourself on Geocity or similar free site builders to hiring topnotch web development companies that charge thousands of dollars the range is way too broad. Often, people select a company to do their web development job based on their subjective perception not based on knowledgeable decisions. Although, price should be a key issue, you should not go for a company just because it quoted you a cheap hourly rate! Many fall for nicely designed previous works of the vendor. The design is also only a part of the whole project, albeit a very important one but don't make the mistake of overemphasizing on it! A beautifully designed website with nice graphics and pictures is not necessarily a good eCommerce website. It could be even just the

Website development is increasingly becoming a sophisticated task with narrow specialties. Before handing over your job, make sure that the company does have all the right people in their team. The team may also consist of other specialists apart from the ones listed below:

Team Members and Description of their Services

Project or account Manager
This is the person who manages expectations through a project's lifecycle. Determines project needs, outlines specific deliverables and oversees the process and team from start to finish. He or she also maintains ongoing client communication and education throughout project. Handles budget and scope issues, including weekly status updates and additional changes.

Art Director/Designer
This person oversees visual design process. Helps transforming client expectations into the right visual look and feel. Applies technical and user needs into final UI (User Interface) design. Works with project manager and the client to establish a clearer vision of the site.

Information Architect/Designer
Defines overall site organization and layout from an informational, navigational and functional perspective. Works with client and project manager to determine overall content strategy and site structure, page layout and interaction through out a site. Participates in usability testing and works with developers to bridge gap between design and technology.

Developer/Programmer
This person works on writing and coding programming parts of the web site. Oversees design and ensures effective translation to HTML. Also works with other developers of the production team to maintain standards for coding. Depending on the size of the site, there could be several programmers involve in a project.

Content Manager
This individual provides a consistent style and tone of the site. She works closely with client to gather all information and materials for the Web site. Understands fundamentals of content development, and has a clear understanding of the overall goals and communication objectives of the site. She works with the designer to implement content in an efficient manner. She also works with Web Promotional Specialist in order to bring the content inline with search engines' requirement.

Technical Lead
Provides management and direction of the programming team for back-end projects such as database development or system integration specialists. She acts as a liaison between front-end and back-end teams.

Database Programmer
Depending on the needs of the website, a database specialist may necessary to handle the development of various catalogs and various database issues.

Usability Specialist
An individual with a background in human factors engineering and/or cognitive psychology who has a broad understanding of usability issues on the Web. This individual should have knowledge in information design, navigation and Web development processes.

Web Promotional Specialist
Helps optimizing web pages for search engines. Understand the fundamentals of search engine optimizations and aware of the latest changes in the algorithms of mail search engines. Make recommendations to the client and help him popularize the website. This individual works closely with content manager, designer and developer.

Now, for your website you may or may not need a team with all the members stated above, and in some cases one person may have knowledge of two fields but it is better to understand that in the ever changing world of the Internet if you are serious about your web business, you better build your site with the help of real experts of each core area.

Statistics shows that almost 70 percent of web projects do not finish on expected time frame with allocated budget. To reduce your risk while ordering your new website or revamping your existing one, take the following steps:

Check out the vendor's site thoroughly.
Do they follow what they preach? How the site looks like? Are you going to buy a product from the look and feel of the site? Check out the example sites. Are they good enough?

Find out if the team consists of professionals.
Ask them detail questions. Check out cross reference. Talk to the team members directly.

Write a clear well-defined technical scope.
Develop a thorough technical scope before starting building your eCommerce site. This will eliminate confusions before they occur. You will have a coherent picture of the required time and budget. You will also understand your own needs better. A scope is like your business plan and works as your road map. Spend enough time to make your scope as meticulous as possible. Once you finalized your scope, no matter what, don't try to change it at later stage if you want to finish your project on time.

Work closely with the team.
Ask questions whenever they arise to the individual of the team, whom they concern most.

An astounding large number of site owners are not happy with their websites. A little preparation and follow-up will help you avoid becoming one of them.

Nowshade Kabir is the CEO of Rusbiz.com, a global B2B Portal, which helps companies build web store, buy and sell products and services using eMarketplace, eCatalog and other features. Rusbiz also offers website development packages: http://www.rusbiz.com/design_package.html

Flash Deadly Sins That Can Kill Your Web Business

2009-02-18T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Alan Steward

Looks like every client wants a Flash site these days but the reality is...as flashy as these sites may look, there are many negatives you may want to consider before delving into Flash.

Deadly Sin One - Long Load Times

This is the most obvious problem with most Flash sites. Flash files can get large in a hurry and if the page takes too long to load, your visitor will move on without even seeing your site. Ideally, you would want your Flash web page to load just as fast as a 'regular' page with text and images. And yes, it can be done!

Problem #1 - Images

The whole reason why Flash was developed was to be able to use vector graphics on web pages. Vector Graphics are infinitely smaller than pixel based images, they can be resized to any size and animated without creating large file sizes. Unfortunately, many designers use regular pixel based graphics like photos in their Flash design and end up with huge files. Rule #1 for good Flash design should be...Use Vector Graphics only!

Problem #2 - Sound

What is a good picture without sound? Once you have this great Flash animated page, you want to add sound to it. This is the #2 culprit resulting in large file sizes and slow loads. The trick here is to use loops. Flash Music Loops are ultra short slices of music, that when looped in Flash play great background music sound tracks that load fast and sound great. You can find Flash Music Loops at http://www.flashmusictracks.com These loops that are near CD quality and most are only 15k or less in size. They also offer a free Flash Music Player that allows for the music to continue playing even if the visitor switches to another page, you can even select a different music track or stop the music at any time while browsing, totally impossible with any normal Flash implementation. Another thing that helps keep file sizes down is to use low-res MP3 files for button effects and sound effects. You don't really need 128k MP3 quality when most computer's speakers will sound just as good with 24k or 32k MP3s. Another easy file size saver...use mono!

Deadly Sin Two - Missing Links

This fact is often overlooked. When you use Flash Buttons and Links, search engines will no longer find your links on the pages. This can be extremely disastrous for your search engine rankings. Search Engines need to be able to follow links to successfully index your site. Plus, the more well placed links the robot finds on your site, the higher your ranking will be. When you use all Flash, you won't have any visible links and you effectively kill any chance of being found on search engines.

What's the answer here? Use a Flash/HTML hybrid page. Even if you have Flash links, still try to duplicate those links on the bottom of the page in HTML code so the search engines can find them.

Deadly Sin Three - Compatibility

This factor used to be important but today it's no longer relevant. In the early days of Flash, many web users didn't have the Flash plug in and they moved on to another site rather than to download and install Flash just to visit your site. This is no longer an issue. 99% of all web users will have browsers that can 'see' Flash pages and you no longer have to design a Flash and Non-Flash Version for your site. If your visitors run for the hills rather than stick around to visit your site it's the load time, not compatibility that is to blame.

So what is a man to do? You want Flash but you still want quick load times and good search engine rankings. It can be done but you need to design your Flash site with all these factors in mind. It is possible to design Flash Pages that actually load faster than many 'regular' pages with lots of graphics. A good hybrid design with enough HTML elements can get you ranked well with the search engines. The FlashMusicTracks website mentioned above is a perfect example. It uses Flash Banners and Logos only, everything else is HTML. The site looks good, sounds good and everything loads very fast.

So, you don't have to be afraid of Flash killing your web business if you use Flash wisely.

About The Author

Article by Alan Steward, Webmaster and Sound Designer at http://www.musicleads.net.

You are free to use this article on your website or in your ezine as long as you do use it in its entirety.

Earning From Your Website

2009-02-17T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Helen Peshkova

Before you start building your site, ask yourself "WHY?". Why did you decide to build your own web site. How are you going to earn money? Creating simple homepage will not get you any money at all nor you receive lots of visitors. Your website must be the part of your business. It also must be the part of your business plan.

When you are planning your website, ask you the following questions:

1. Who is your audience?
Your main goal is to provide information to meet the needs of your key audience, in a manner that is user-friendly. Audiences may include your clients: businessmen, professionals, etc.

2. What goals do you want to achieve with this site?
What problems is your Web site trying to resolve? What are the advantages to having a Web site? Think about these questions as you prioritize your goals, and use them as a guide in your decision-making.

3. Is the information you want to provide the same information that your audience wants from you?
Your perceptions may dramatically differ from their perceptions! Involve your visitors, listen to their comments, test your site with them. Approach your information as if you were a user visiting your site for the first time. Does it make sense?

4. Is your information easily accessible?
Do not put up roadblocks! Make information available with as few "clicks" as possible. Always make contact information readily available. Don't put up "under construction" pages -- this frustrates users, who may not return to your site.

5. Is your content style appropriate to your audience?
Unless your users are expecting to find a text-heavy page, keep your copy simple and short. If it isn't immediately obvious what the purpose of the page is, the user probably won't read more than one or two sentences before moving on.

6. How will you keep the content up-to-date?
Who is responsible for hosting and updating website content? How often will he or she do it?

7. What is the structure of your site?
It is very helpful to sketch out a "site map" of your content in order to organize it effectively. Site maps help determine navigation across your site as well as the "breadcrumb" element on your pages. It may be helpful to create a map of your content as it exists on your current site, and another for how you envision the organization of your new site.

Written by Helen Peshkova, RichTrack.com.

http://www.RichTrack.com is one of the first business oriented education portals. It's the leading online business information network for millionaires. The goal of RichTrack.com is to present business content in a professional, helpful and practical format that helps you getting rich.

Nonsense Why Do I Need A Website

2009-02-16T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by John Krycek

"I don't sell anything online, I don't advertise online, in fact I don't really even know how to use a computer... why should I pay for a website?"

If you don't feel a website can help your business grow or increase business sales, or if you're happy with the site your nephew made for you over half a decade ago... then you're not intune with current business trends and business practices.

Fear the unknown no longer!

Don't feel inferior and don't let that notion frighten you... that's why were here! To educate and help you understand exactly how our design and website services can help you.

You shouldn't do something because everyone else is. As far as the internet is concerned, there are definitely good, sound, solid reasons for having a web presence. This article will touch on just a few... and none of the following points have anything to do with selling a product or service of any kind online. All of these reasons affect your brick and mortar business... in a positive way!

The reasons you should have a website in plain English.

Even if you never use the internet, MOST of your customers do. In early 2005, Google announced it had over 9 Billion pages in its index. Common sense should tell us that there must be something to this internet marketing!

By having even a simple, informative website about you, your product or service, you open an instant, FREE door to perspective clientele that you never had before. This is the digital information age. The purpose of the website is to give yourself a billboard in it. Even the simplest website can:

Instant Access to your business Collateral- Provide Downloadable forms, price lists, sale sheets and brochures to people researching a purchase. House a forum via email to quickly and easily answer questions about your goods and services.

Reduce Costs- A strong enough web presence can eliminate many print advertising and other campaign costs. Even on the most rigourous web campaigns, the advertising cost per customer is far, far less by comparison.

Give People What They Are Looking For- More and more people research a company or product online before face to face contact. Today people expect to find a web site for a company with at the very least further information on services or products.

Always On- Information about your company is available 24/7, locally, nationally, and globally at no extra cost. Imagine the cost of a direct mail piece through the post office to every address in the world with a computer!

Cost Effective- Can easily be the most cost effective advertising and marketing medium of communication to existing and potential customers.

Showcase What You Do Best- If your product and service is quality and you're a one person operation, your website can focus on your business and open the door to people who might not be thinking of a smaller business for their needs.

John Krycek -- As the owner and creative director of theMouseworks.ca I've found the best way to help people with internet marketing is to first help them understand internet marketing! Read more articles on the insights and secrets of web design and search engine optimization in easy, non-technical, up front English!

A New Meaning Of Denver Web Development

2009-02-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Writen by Groshan Fabiola

The term 'Web development' has a broad meaning, because it refers to everything that is included in creating a successful web site, from graphical design, to programming, configuring the server and search engine optimization. Today there are thousands of web development companies, small ones with few employees and large ones with hundreds.

You can find a large number of web design companies in the city of Denver. Denver's web development industry has evolved quite a lot, the clients now have many offers to choose from.

The Denver web development firms are Internet marketing companies concentrated on both web design and business, and they can help anyone interested in launching his business on the Internet and creating the site that's best fit for him. Most of the Denver web development companies can take care of everything that is required for a site to be successful - its graphical design, appearance, and of course they also take care of search engine optimization and upgrades. The Denver web development companies also have servers that offer reliable web hosting solutions for all types of business, offering dedicated hosting, colocated hosting, shared hosting, or unique solutions.

The strategy applied by the professional Denver web development companies consists in talking to the customer first, finding out exactly what he wants, then researching the specified domain, looking for similar material that worked for other sites, and then beginning the work. When the site is finished, the Denver web development programmers do everything that is possible to raise the site's page ranking, from search engine optimization to writing and submitting articles.

If you own an outdated web site the Denver web development firms can easily transform it into a sharp looking, up to date one, and they can design special custom applications that fit into your site, and last, but not least, the Denver web development firms have special promotional offers

Many Denver web development companies are known worldwide, they have years of practice in this domain, and they are receiving offers from people and firms everywhere, providing 24/7 customer services.

This fine article is written by Grojan Fabiola during a very carefully research on Denver web development. Any other useful information or advice and turning points about Denver web development you can find by clicking the link.

How To Promote Your Law Firm Website On The Internet For Maximum Profit

2009-02-14T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Michael Turner

Making maximum profit from your law firm website is important, but as a lawyer you might not have any clue about search engine optimization and Internet marketing for your legal site. However, it is not so difficult to poise your website to be successful online even if you are not experienced with Internet marketing and driving website traffic. All you have to do is review the following tips and include them in your website marketing plan. Before you know it you will notice that your website counter is recording more hits per day and telling you that your directories, keywords, and links are working.

Tip #1 - Submitting to Law Directories

Take some time online to orient yourself with the myriad of law directories available. Register your domain name and the type of law you practice with as many law directories as you possibly can. By doing this, people searching through law directories for a lawyer will have your website as a choice when making their decision on which attorney to hire. As a result, your website should be as comprehensive as possible with every bit of information related to your niche available to visitors. Many people use directories now instead of the yellow pages so when you list your site with these directories, you'll get targeted traffic to your website and ultimately more clients.

Tip #2 - Optimizing for Specific Keywords

Nobody knows what the search engines will be looking for in the future, but right now keywords play a critical role in the ultimate ranking your site receives. When individuals search for specific words online, search engines give them pages that are optimized for those keywords. Because of this fact, you should be sure to include your industry specific keywords as well as location and the specific type of law you practice. By doing so, you will get more targeted traffic because your web pages will rank well for the keyword phrases your potential clients are using to search the internet.

Tip #3 - Incoming Links

Like keywords, incoming links are the other major consideration search engines use when ranking your site. Regardless of whether you get other websites to link to you or use auction sites like eBay to auction off your services and include links in the text, when you have more links you will have a better result with clickthrough traffic and also the search engines. Better search engine results means you will have more traffic and more sales. It is certainly worthwhile to put some effort into building links.

Include these three tactics into your law firm's Internet marketing strategy and you'll be surprised at how quickly they will work for you in generating more traffic and more clients. It is also important to keep in mind that you should regularly update your website, check your links, monitor your keyword positioning, and build your directory listings.

Michael Turner reveals his foolproof way to increase website traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it free right now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Internet Marketing 5 Reasons Why Your Business Must Have An Online Presence

2009-02-13T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Dean Mercado

The Internet has officially changed the face of business and in case no one has done this for you already, let me be the first to formally welcome you to the "Information Age", or should we call it the "Internet Age".

The Internet is simply not a fad or a flavor of the week. It is the real deal and it is here to stay. It may morph in one way, shape, or form however, it is here to stay and the most successful businesses are taking advantage of it.

So why exactly should you take your business online? Although there are tons of reasons, here are 5 key ones:

1. It is expected. Quite simply, the Internet is one the first (if not the first) places people look to find out more about you, your business, and/or your product. They look for your website as well as information they can find out about you from other websites. Yes, I dare say it, in 99.9% of the cases, it will damage your credibility to some degree with a prospect if you cannot be found out there.

2. It is cheap. Never in history has a marketing medium been available to all businesses, no matter the size of their company or bank account that afforded them so much possibility for success.

Obviously money if applied properly can increase your results on the Internet; however, you really can get started with little or no money. Skeptical, just read some of the books from the "Guerrilla Marketing" series by Jay Conrad Levinson.

3. It is immediate. Face it. We live in a world of instant gratification. We want everything yesterday. If something is not immediately available, we just may lose interest or worse yet get it from somewhere else like your competition.

4. It is 24/7. The Internet simply never sleeps. Having and implementing an effective Internet strategy can be like having a well tuned marketing and sales force that continues to do your bidding around the clock.

5. It is global. Why limit your business to the 15 minute radius surrounding your office? Your current competition certainly isn't and new competitors are seemingly coming out of nowhere every day.

Look at the Internet as a means to allow you to share your genius with prospects who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to experience what you have to offer.

So in closing, what's the best advice I can muster up on this topic? Make a sincere effort to understand the Internet and the sheer power and opportunity it brings to your business. Create a plan of attack and get in the game. Play on the grandest court available today, the Internet!

Dean Mercado is an Internet marketing coach, strategist, author, and speaker. Dean and his company Online Marketing Muscle help entrepreneurial professionals leverage the power of Internet marketing to turn their businesses into money magnets. Visit Online Marketing Muscle for many more Internet marketing tips.

http://www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com

Getting The Most From Your Web Site

2009-02-12T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Trelian Gada

In today's business environment, the online business has begun to play a major role and having a website for your business has become an issue of paramount importance. Not only having a website, but online business needs a marketing plan, a plan for the website itself and involves a lot of thought process. The very first thing a business needs is a website. The website should have its own business objectives and a clear cut long term goal. Website strategy should always be long term and not short term.

The online business planning and strategy implementation begins once you have a fully functional, professional looking and optimized website. Measuring your online business is no mean task. Due to latest trends in dynamic content, you may put up a different promotional or discounts or deals on a weekly, monthly or even hourly basis. A baseline measure is possible only when you measure your business during a quite month of no promotional and deals are put up. This will indicate the performance of your online business more accurately and help you plan ahead. Keeping tabs on all happenings at the site should be monitored.

Bringing visitors to your site is important. This is called traffic generation. But once the traffic arrives, it is your websites responsibility to make the visitor make a purchase. The number of purchases compared against the traffic is called the conversion rate. The conversion rate can only be bettered by your website through promotional, discounts or deals or any other way you think fit.

Traffic generation can be achieved by search engine optimization, the process through which your site can be edited or developed to rank higher in the search engine results, preferably in the first 10 or so. Use organic procedures for long term results.

Putting up forms when a visitor comes to your site may not be helpful, after all many of the visitors find this irritating and time consuming. Even if the visitor does fill in the form, it is not necessary that he makes a purchase.

Always make sure that the navigation through your website is simple and easy. The prices and product description pages should be easily accessible and clearly worded. Put yourself in the visitor's shoes and imagine you are trying to buy something on the internet. What would you like to see in a website Simplicity, Navigation, Pricing, Ease of Use, Testimonials, and Transparency? Make sure that your site fulfills these pre conditions.

If in doubt, get the website assessed by a web development and design or SEO professional. You will not repent the advice.

What Is Ajax

2009-02-11T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Nipun Chadha

We were getting a number of querries from our clients and friends, asking about what AJAX is? With the development of Microsoft's Live, everyone is going crazy about AJAX. So, we at Xaprio Solutions thaught of publishing this small article about AJAX, which will help you guys understand it better.

Like DHTML, LAMP, or SPA, Ajax is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies together. In fact, derivative/composite technologies based substantially upon Ajax, such as AFLAX, are already appearing. The Term AJAX refers to, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

For a number of tasks, only small amounts of data need to be transferred between the client and the server, allowing a number of Ajax applications to perform almost as well as applications executed natively on the user's machine. This has the effect that pages need only be incrementally updated in the user's browser, rather than having to be entirely refreshed. "Every user's action that normally would generate an HTTP request takes the form of a JavaScript call to the Ajax engine instead", wrote Jesse James Garrett, in the essay that first defined the term. "Any response to a user action that doesn't require a trip back to the server such as simple data validation, editing data in memory, and even some navigation the engine handles on its own. If the engine needs something from the server in order to respond if it's submitting data for processing, loading additional interface code, or retrieving new data the engine makes those requests asynchronously, usually using XML, without stalling a user's interaction with the application."

Traditional web applications essentially submit forms, completed by a user, to a web server. The web server does some processing, and responds by sending a new web page back. Because the server must send a whole new page each time, applications run more slowly and awkwardly than their native counterparts.

Ajax applications, on the other hand, can send requests to the web server to retrieve only the data that is needed, and may use SOAP or some other XML-based web services dialect. On the client, JavaScript processes the web server's response, and may then modify the document's content through the DOM to show the user that an action has been completed. The result is a more responsive application, since the amount of data interchanged between the web browser and web server is vastly reduced. Web server processing time is also saved, since much of it is done on the client.

The earliest form of asynchronous remote scripting, Microsoft's Remote Scripting, was developed before XMLHttpRequest existed, and made use of a dedicated Java applet. Thereafter, remote scripting was extended by Netscape DevEdge at around 2001/2002 by use of an IFRAME instead of a Java applet.

http://blogs.xaprio.com

7 Killer Ways To Increase Your Online Sales

2009-02-10T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Tony L. Callahan

Every online entrepreneur I talk to is asking the same question, "How do I increase my online sales, NOW?"

Online selling is essentially a numbers game. The more visitors to a site, the more sales that site will make. The number of sales made divided by the total number of visitors to a site is called the conversion rate. A typical site will have a conversion rate of between 1 and 2 percent, or 1 to 2 sales per 100 visitors.

It is obvious that if the number of visitors increases, and the conversion rate remains the same, then sales will increase. Traffic is the first variable that most online marketers attempt to influence when they begin their online marketing campaigns.

There are two basic problems with the increase traffic method. The first is that it is expensive to run advertising and improve a site's ranking in the search engines. The second, and subtler issue is that there is no guarantee that the conversion rate will remain constant.

So what about increasing the conversion rate? Using the example above, if the number of buyers could be increased from 1 or 2 per hundred visitors to 2 to 4, sales will have doubled! So what can be done to increase a web site's conversion rate? Below I list 7 techniques designed to accomplish this goal:

Provide plenty of testimonials
These testimonials should be from previous customers and should include specifics as to how the product or service helped them solve a problem.
Obtaining testimonials is no problem, just ask. People love to be asked what they think; most will be willing to share their thoughts on your product or service. Implement a process of following up with your customers with a questionnaire. Leave plenty of room for their comments and make it clear that their comments may be used in your advertising.
Improve your follow up
Many people will not buy the first time they see your product. In fact, some experts claim that people must see your message seven times before they are ready to buy. Autoresponder courses are a great way to follow up with the potential customer. There are many free autoresponder services on the web. I use FreeAutoBot.com.
Give away free samples
By letting your customers try before they buy, you can significantly increase your sales. If you sell an information product, provide a few paragraphs or even the first chapter by autoresponder. This technique also helps to improve follow up by guaranteeing you obtain contact information.
Give a bonus product
Everyone likes to get something for nothing, especially if that something is perceived as valuable. E-books make a great bonus, especially if they contain original content. If you are unable to create your own e-book, you could give away someone else's. Free-eBooks.net is a good resource for finding E-books to give away.
Focus the web site
Use the Direct Response Site model. A direct response site is one where the customer's choices are very limited. Essentially they can buy the product, bookmark the page, subscribe to your ezine, or leave the site. The more options a visitor has, the less likely they are to make a purchase.
Follow on sales are crucial
It is well known that successful businesses make 75% of their sales to repeat customers. Start a free ezine and get your customers to subscribe. Get their permission to send them information on upgrades and new products. On their receipt, mention a product that compliments their purchase. Don't have a product to offer for follow on sales? Find and join an affiliate program offering products of interest to your target market.
Change the web site copy
Appeal to target emotion rather than reason. People respond more intensely to emotional appeals than to intellectual discussion. Design your copy to focus on the visitor's dreams, desires, fears or goals. Position your product to appeal to their emotional needs.

Implement these seven tips, and watch your online sales increase.

About The Author

Copyright 2002 Tony L. Callahan, All Rights Reserved Tony L. Callahan is president of his own Internet marketing company, Link-Promote.com. He also publishes Web-Links Monthly, a newsletter full of tips, tricks, tools and techniques for successful web site promotions. http://www.link-promote.com/wlmonth/subscribe/index.html.

Why You Should Know Html Code If You Are Building A Website

2009-02-09T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Chris Le Roy

Back 20 years ago when the Internet was just in its infancy, the only way to build a webpage was simply to use notepad, a free text editor supplied with Microsoft Windows. Now as the Internet has become a collage of music, special effects and flash, the art of writing HTML code is slowly being lost to HTML Editors like Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX. Yet, whether you like it or not, to be able to effectively build websites you still need to know at least basic HTML Code.

Let me explain

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is in all essence the language of the World Wide Web. Without HTML our Internet Browsers like Netscape, Internet Explorer or Firefox would not be able to interpret our webpages. HTML is made up of a series of tags that describe the inner workings and structure of how you want to present your webpages. Now in all seriousness you could survive building webpages without knowing one little bit of HTML but to be truly successful on the web this is not true.

Search engines are now one of the main tools utilised on the web and everyday you see Microsoft's MSN, Yahoo and Google jostling for the number one position in the search engine stakes but as a web programmer being able to position yourself into a top ranking spot is probably one of the most important skills you will need to master. As being in one of the top positions for your keywords means that you will be receiving free focused traffic to your website which is much better than having to pay for it via Google's Adword, Overture and any one of the other text ad based services.

So why is knowing HTML going to help you in getting your website positioned into a top spot in the search engines

The first thing you need to know is how to correctly format your header tags of your webpage because without properly formatted header tags, the search engines won't know what your sites about and what keywords you wish to associate with the webpage. One of the big issues I have seen with some of the HTML editors is that they don't address this issue of Header tags or in particular meta tags, which means if you are building a website you are already compromising the websites ability to be placed into the right position within search engines.

For example many of the HTML editors will provide you with popup forms that will help you set your meta data for your descriptions and keywords but they miss out other important meta data such as whether the search engines spiders should index all the pages, the language of the webpage, the character set and what type of document you are creating based on the HTML Standard.

PLEASE NOTE: I have substituted the < > tags with [ ] brackets simply because many of the article submission companies and websites will not allow you to lodge articles with HTML Tags in the body of the article. To use the code sample below in your webpages simply replace the [] square brackets with the < > tags

[!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"] [html] [head] [meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"] [meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"] [meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0"] [meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"] [TITLE]Your Title Goes Here [/TITLE]

[META NAME="description" CONTENT="Your Description Goes Here"] [META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Your Keywords Go Here"] [META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,all"> [/head]

[/html]

One thing I should note is that just because you provide all this information does not mean that -

a) All Search Engines use this information b) You are guaranteed to get a top place in the search engine

But having each of these small elements in your webpage, certainly do when put together makes an improvement in your search engine place. Remember though that every search engine is different and that the algorithms they use for website placement is incredibly complex and certainly a well guarded secret but if you do add these elements at least you will get a few points in the positive direction.

There is another reason for putting this information into your website. Not having some of this information can also affect the ability of a visually impaired person to view your website. This might sound a little strange but visually impaired people have tools that convert screen webpages into brail messages. However, in some cases not including some of the information outlined above in your meta tags like the content language and character set can affect whether their brail software will read your website correctly. So if your customer base is built on say a 30% market of those people who are disabled with visual impairment then you could be costing yourself money.

One of the other key reasons why you should know how to write at least basic html code is to help you build incoming links to your webpages. A technique you can follow to build those incoming links is to write articles that provide information for people about what you do. For example if you owned a Golfing Website that sold all things Golf, then you might consider writing articles on how to select a Golf Club or where the best Golfing Clubs and ranges can be found.

When you are submitting your articles to places like EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com or ArticlesON.com they will ask you to use certain html tags to help accentuate your article. For example generally in the body of your article you can only use things like bold, italics, underline and list items but in other areas like where you put your details you can add things like Hyperlinks and Hypertext. Now in the three article submission sites mentioned before, if you want to add a Hyperlink then you must know your basic HTML code, because they do not build your links for you, you have to write the HTML Tags from scratch.

When you are building your hyperlinks to link back to your webpage, you will want to make sure one two things -

1. The Hyperlink, that is the webpage or website you are linking to contains the keywords in either domain name, folder name or webpage name. 2. Make sure the Hypertext or better known as anchor text uses your keywords as well.

Let us look at a basic example. If I had written a really cool article on a brand new Golf Club that I knew was going to sell millions and had a lot of interest in the market then my link back to the webpage that provides more information on the Golf Club would be built in the way shown below. Let us say the name of the Golf Club is called the Lion Heart X9.

[a href="http://www.GolfProAustralia.com.au/LionHeartX9.htm]Lion Heart X9 Golf Club[/a]

Note -Once again the < > tags have been substituted with [] brackets simply to meet the article submission requirements. You must use the < > bracket tags in your webpage or you webpage will not work.

If you didn't know how to write the hyperlinks in the way shown above and the search engines found your articles on a number of different websites, then they would not be able to give you credit for the links back to your website and again this is going to cost you web traffic.

The bottom line is this. If you want to build serious webpages and sites that are going to make you money, you will definitely need at the very least good basic skills in using and understanding HTML code.

Chris Le Roy is the Managing Director of One-on-One Personal Computer Training. His computer training company provides a range HTML Code Cheat Sheets and Microsoft FrontPage 2003 Cheat Sheets for helping students get to know how to build webpages and the underlying HTML Code. All the Cheat Sheets are available in PDF Downloadable format or a Laminated Format.

How Worldly Is Your World Wide Web

2009-02-08T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Cheryl Lockhart

The growth in Internet usage around the world is astounding - 146% in the five years prior to March 2005. And it's not just European and North American users on the Net. The fastest growth was found in Africa with an almost 200% increase in usage. I am often pleasantly surprised as to how fast the internet connections are in 'developing countries' like Indonesia - much faster than the connection at my parent's farm in rural Alberta in fact!

But wait - don't rush off and start translating your web site into Mandarin or Setswana just yet. 'Internationalizing' a web site it does not necessarily mean translation, at least not initially.

Who is really your customer?

Just because you sell the greatest new gardening tool, it doesn't mean that you will sell directly to every green thumb gardener in the United Kingdom - you would use a sales agent or distributor, right? So it makes sense that you would use your web site to find a British business partner rather than direct customers. Use your web site to advertise as if you were hiring a new employee and list the experience and contacts your new partner must have. I recommend that you prepare a 'Partner Inquiry Questionnaire' that will weed out the truly interested from the rotten apples. If they take the time to fill it out, they are serious. If not, you haven't wasted your time.

If you have already identified a partner, use your web site to promote them. List their contact details - use a page titled 'International,' 'Distributors' or 'Global Locations' and link to their web site. If they don't have one, or it is very basic with little or no information you can provide a valuable service by linking to technical information on your site, or provide them with simple programming code that they can incorporate into their own site.

Not world wide - yet

If properly promoted, your web site will generate inquiries from all over the world. However, if your company is only shipping its widgets in North American right now, save everyone time and effort by clearly stating so right on your web page.

If you have plans to enter new markets in the near future, invite interested customers to be put on an e-mail notice list. It's an excellent way to gauge market interest - and think of how easy it will be to hit the ground running with this list of prospects, once you do enter the market.

Where the heck is Saskatchewan?

When that awesome new prospect visits your 'Contact' page, is it clear who you are and how they can reach you? Be sure that your contact information is understandable by anyone who reads it, regardless of where they are from.

- Don't use abbreviations like St. or AB. Spell out the entire word.

- Be sure to indicate which country you are located in. International customers may not realize that Saskatchewan is a province in Canada.

- If you have a toll-free number, indicate where it works (e.g. in North America only). For other numbers, be sure to include the country code.

- When listing your hours of operation, use the 24 hour clock and note the time zone (and if applicable, whether you observe daylight savings time), relative to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). For example, a business in Alberta could indicate that its hours of operation are:

Monday - Friday, 08:00 - 17:00

November - March: Mountain Standard Time (MST) = UTC-7

April - October: Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) = UTC-6

Keep it current

I hate visiting web sites with a 'What's New' section with an entry from 2001, the year the web site was launched, or worse - nothing is new! Be sure to announce your international activities - trade shows you will be attending, new markets launched, successes abroad...

Be wary of any listing any information that, while useful for your domestic customers, can create conflict for your foreign partner. For example, an on-line price list is useful in Canada but dangerous if you charge a different price for your export customers. The same principle applies to products that you may not be able to offer in all markets. Be clear and you should be able to avoid any conflicts.

We're not in Saskatchewan anymore

It's time for your web site to reflect your global aspirations, whether or not you are a world class company, or intend to be someday!

And if you are still intent on translating your site, consider that there are 291 million English language Internet users, 113 million Chinese and 67 million Japanese followed by Spanish (57 million), German (54 million and French (37 million).

Cheryl Lockhart of International Strategies Ltd. assists small- to medium-sized Canadian and foreign enterprises navigate the complexities of global business development. Services include international project identification and management, market research and analysis and foreign partner development.

To learn more about exporting and gain access to more FREE e-zines, visit her web site http://www.intl-strategies.com

Web Accessibility For Screen Magnifier Users

2009-02-07T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Trenton Moss

The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing web accessibility on to a website. Screen magnifiers are used by partially sighted web users to increase the size of on-screen elements. Some users will magnify the screen so that only three to four words are able to appear on the screen at any one time. You can try using a screen magnifier yourself by downloading the Zoomtext screen magnifier from http://www.aisquared.com/Products/ZoomText8_mag/FreeTrial/Z8FreeTrial.htm for a free 30 day trial.

The good news is that some of the basic principles for improving accessibility and usability for screen magnifiers users, also increase usability for everyone. To help, we've listed six ways to improve accessibility and usability for screen magnifier users:

1. Don't embed text within images

Text embedded within images can become blurry and pixelated when viewed in screen magnifiers, and therefore completely illegible. This is especially true when the image text is rather poor quality, so if you absolutely have to embed text within images then make sure the image is of high quality. Many screen magnifier users can find it quite difficult to read text at the best of times, so when it appears fuzzy to them it can become difficult to impossible to read.

It's not usually necessary to embed text within images anymore, as most presentational effects can now be achieved with CSS. By embedding text within images the download time of each page can become significantly greater due to the weight of these images - for users on dial-up modems it can be a real pain waiting for these images to download and render.

If you're not sure if a piece of text on the page is embedded within an image or not, try highlighting the text. If you can highlight each letter individually then the text is real text and isn't embedded within an image.

2. Clearly separate sections of the page

Different sections of each web page should be clearly separated through the use of borders and different background colours. Screen magnifiers users can only see one tiny section of a web page at any one time so it can sometimes be hard for these users to orientate themselves within the page.

By using a blue background colour for the navigation, for example, screen magnifier users can quickly move through the page and when they see a blue background they instantly know that the content are has finished and the navigation area begun.

Likewise, by separating different sections of the page with borders, when a screen magnifier user moves over that border they know they're moving into a different section. One especially common form of this, is using a vertical bar to separate horizontal navigation items.

Separating different sections of the page with background colours and borders doesn't only increase usability for screen magnifier users - it increases usability for everyone. When regularly sighted users scan through a web page, if the content, footer and navigation are all effectively differentiated it's very easy to quickly gain an understanding of the on-page layout.

3. Use clear and descriptive headings often

When screen magnifier users move their magnifier across the screen one of the items that stand out to them is headings. By ensuring heading text is large, and perhaps by differentiating it through the use of colour, it will stand out to these users.

Screen magnifier users usually have to stop the movement of the magnifier when they want to read a piece of text, so when they see a heading, they can stop and read it. Because headings (in theory at least!) describe the content contained beneath them, screen magnifier users can read a heading, gain an understanding of the content beneath it, and decide whether they want to read that content or not. If not, they can simply move the magnifier down the screen and stop at the next heading.

Headings are incredibly useful for fully sighted users too for essentially the same reason. When you scan through a web page, headings are one of the items that stand out to you. Again, you can read the heading (or listen to it for a screen reader user), and provided its descriptive, instantly gain an understanding of the content beneath it. You can then keep reading or skip on to the next heading down the page.

4. Ensure link text is descriptive of its destination

Link text such as 'click here' and 'more' should be avoided and replaced with link text that adequately describes the link destination. Link text, along with headings, is one of the items that stands out to screen magnifier users (and all users for that matter) when browsing a web page. If 'click here' is used then these users (and in fact all users) will have to search through the text before and after the link in order to work out its destination.

5. Avoid scrolling or flashing text

Scrolling or flashing text is generally known for offering poor usability, as it means that users can't read the text in their own time. This is doubly true for screen magnifier users who read web pages at a slower rate - chances are that they won't have time to read the text at all before it disappears.

6. Front-load paragraph content

By front-loading paragraph content, screen magnifier users can access the main point of each paragraph immediately. Front-loading means placing the conclusion first, followed by the what, why, when, where and how. By placing the conclusion first, screen magnifier users can read the conclusion of the paragraph straightaway and then decide whether they are interested in reading the rest of the paragraph or not.

If screen magnifier users aren't interested in the content of a paragraph, they can move the magnifier down the screen and when they see white space they know that the paragraph has ended and the next paragraph begun.

This rule about front-loading paragraph content actually benefits absolutely everyone. By putting the conclusion at the start of the paragraph, all users can instantly gain an understanding of the point of the paragraph and decide whether they want to keep reading it (or skip to the next paragraph).

Conclusion

All-in-all, there are quite a few things that can be done to improve usability and accessibility for screen magnifier users. The good news though is that all of them improve usability for absolutely everyone.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy (Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

Four Key Steps For Building A Successful Website And Business Online

2009-02-06T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Kelvin Shaw

The thought of making money online from a website you just designed using 10-year-old crayola crayons, while knowing little to nothing about html coding, script building and placement into a webpage, let alone marketing a website effectively. Choose a web hosting provider that has everything you need and more to be successful online. The thought of where to begin can be daunting for some, usually most novices like me. However, I am living proof that the right service and tools are out there for you, the novice webmaster. Yes, you too can build a successful, money making website or a budding, profitable website business. The best part of your soon to be success in website design and promotion, is the fact that you won't have to pay an arm and a leg to get your hands on these powerful website building and promotional tools.

1. Easy to build "Great Looking" Websites

Building an online business does not have to be difficult especially when there are, 1000's of great tools and services that will allow you to build a good-looking website with an e-commerce functionality to it. However, how much will a good looking and functional online store cost you, will it be easy to customize it, and will it be compatible with most browsers that are used online today? Online business success consists of many factors; however, the most important factor comes from an old saying, "always make the best first impression." This is true in life and in business. Therefore, your website must make the best first impression it can. Using those free hosting services surely will not do the trick; however, one could make a good website using free hosting services. As for a business website, those free services will not do your business any justice. You will need your own domain name, good looking website templates that are easy to customize for your business. If you are currently running your online business using free hosting services or someone else's domain name, I highly recommend you to get your own domain name and website hosted. Find one simple service with one simple price for your hosting package plus a slue of website promotion tools, scripts, forms, list builders and so much more all for one tiny little price. You will also find that it is "Truly" the best deal on the Internet.

2. Online Business In A Box

In addition, you will get our "Business In-A-Box" aspect of your website hosting package. This can literally mean 1,000's of dollars to you in online sales and profits. You will get this absolutely free just for hosting with us. What is more is that you do not need any products. However, you can always add your own products if you currently do not have your own products or services to market online. Need a merchant account for your e-commerce, credit card accepting website, no problem we can help you with that as well. You can easily integrate these services into your domain when you sign up for our web hosting service.

3. Easy Website Automation

The success of your website and business largely depends on the automation of your website. This is true because the less time you spend on working on your website sending out email newsletters, thank you notices, and online business manual tasks; the more time you can spend on promoting and building your business and profits. Your credit card acceptance services can be integrated into your domain and hosting package at no additional charge. Go to our website and find out just how ridiculously inexpensive our website hosting packing is. Point your web browser to link in this article.

4.Website Promotional Tools

Once your website is completed, where will your website traffic come from? Choose an isp and website hosting services that gives you traffic generating tools and scripts to make your web business a success. Make sure that you also load all the key scripts to make your website more robot friendly. With a good website hosting service, you will get all the key tools and services that the big boys (webmasters) use to make their website an online success. The key part here is that you get all these extras FREE when you sign up for web hosting services that offer you all the tools you need for success. Get started today, what do you have to lose. Hosting with a good hosting (not simply cheap) is simply a "no-brainer" decision. Build and market your own professional website using all the website tools our hosting service provider gives you just for hosting with them. You can build a successful website in as little as a week or less. You even have guru's giving accolades to this website and system.

Review the system at EasyWebsitePromotions.com, the service and the price is an eye-popping low price, I could not pass this wonderful deal up. I highly recommend that you switch your current domain(s) to: www.EasyWebsitePromotions.com.

Kelvin Shaw, CEO of Global Team Success and part-time free lance writer in the home business market. Bening a home business owner is fun and rewarding when you have the tools, systems, and know how to be successful. If you would like to find out more about Global Team Success you can contact Kelvin at ceo@gtsexpress.com. Marketing Resources.

Getting Free Content For Your Site

2009-02-05T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Verapol Chaiyapin

Everybody know contents are important for a website, but not everyone is a good writer. One of the options is hiring a writer to help out with site contents. Writers often are not cheap, and they are not the only way to help you get great contents for your website.

1) You can get great contents from government sources. The great thing is the government sources are huge. It has the surprising range of information, and it is free, free, and free. You have to love it. For example, U.S. Government departments do not have copyright protection. The United States Postal Service is exempt from these rules. They have copyright protection for their work. You should also know that other governments may hold copyrights on their works. So it is still a good idea to check first, before they take their contents. Even with these exemptions, government content are a great resource to us.

2) You can also get free resources for your sites from content syndication sites. Site owner like you and me can pick up and use the contents from this site for free. Why ? Because, you have to link back to the author web site. That's the trade off. It is not a really a free lunch, but you can save money.

3) Product Information. If your site sell products, contact the manufacturer. Try to get your hand on the brochures, recipe, user manuals of the products.

Be smart about finding good contents, and you can save money.

Check out some funny joke and pictures Evil Pranks Office , Funy Medical Nurse Photos , Very Funny Cat Pics

Top Reasons For Small Businesses To Have A Web Presence

2009-02-04T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Tony Jacowski

Should a small business have web presence? Perhaps some quick facts should convince you that your small business needs a website. The Internet has more than a billion surfers every day and the purchases and payments done over the Internet each year crosses the $200 billion mark worldwide. Not a small amount at stake, considering the overall cost of Internet Marketing. Need more answers? Please read on.

Top Reasons for Small Businesses to Have A Web Presence

Here are the top reasons why you must not ignore having a web presence for your small business:

1. Immediate Access To The Largest Customer Base: The Internet shows your website to whoever requests it. With about a billion surfers online at any given time, having a web site clearly announces your business to all of them at the same cost that you would incur for a far less number offline. With high visitor turnout, you need not worry about conversion rates, at least initially.

2. Lower Marketing Costs: All you need to do to market your site is optimize it for the search engines before submitting it to them. Search engines are the biggest source of traffic to websites. Top rankings are sure to boost visitors to your site, thereby reducing your need for further expenditures.

3. No Need To Have Showrooms, Offices And Inventory, Etc: Save big on real estate, office purchases, and recurring costs due to them. You don't need to keep inventory or merchandise. Purchase and sell as you receive orders. This conserves your crucial cash for better utilization.

4. No Sales Staff Required: Sales are automated; hence, no sales staff is required. Your web presentation and online payment solutions are enough to make sales, as long as your sales message gets across effectively. So you will save big on salaries and other employee-related expenses. You will also save yourself the headache of managing personnel.

5. You Enjoy The Same Opportunity As The Biggest Player: The Internet, like time, is a great field leveler. It treats all sellers the same. You can enjoy the same kind of opportunities as that of larger companies, as long as getting the right customers to your website. How you make sales is up to you.

6. Your Competitors Already Have Plans For A Website: Who is actually your competitor? If you thought it was a company in your city or town, you may want to rethink that belief. Your main competitor could be any company across the globe, until you start localizing and target marketing. If you don't have a web presence, know that someone somewhere is walking away with your customers.

7. Generate Side Income To Compliment Your Main Revenue Stream: You can partner with global ad content providers for both content as well as additional income opportunities. There are a variety of such programs that pay very well. The most popular ones are text ads (Pay-Per-Click ads) and affiliate programs.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Creating Compelling Content Write It And They Will Come

2009-02-03T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Michael Klasno

In a previous ezinearticles.com article,"I Need real visitors, Not Search Spiders" we discussed the need for content. Well written, insightful, informative content will bring your readers/customers in and keep them on your site Long enough to hear about your products or read about the event you are sponsoring. What ever the object of your desire is content holds the key.

In that article the spiders were the object of our desire. My quote "... almost any written content will give you untold opportunities to flood the spiders data bank with keywords and phrases. Not just 10 words or 30 words but hundreds of keywords and phrases." Today I want to discuss the other reasons for fresh content. In a recent article on his How to Blog for Fun & Profit blog, T.L. Pakii Pierce lays out what he calls "The Four Pillars of Effective Blogs" T.L. wrote;

"You cannot create a success blog without compelling content. Compelling blog content is not a compelling sales message. It is much better to create compelling conversation that wins a relationship than to try to leverage your blog for an opportunity to deliver a compelling sales pitch. Looking for the sales pitch opportunity is much to short-sighted and usually ends up with you shorting yourself by not delivering valuable information that can boost your business in the mind of your audience."

TL's article is a must read if you are going to follow any of the sage advise you hear from my big mouth. (I have placed a link in my Bio sig below) He writes from the Blog perspective but his advice is relevant to all content minded websites. T.L. brings up one of my favorite topics, he talks about showing your passion, that passion is contagious and channeling your passion will help you write more compelling content. As he says, "write to inform." In his article he also discuses communication, credibility and community. I urge you to take a few minutes and study these points, the success of your website depends on a firm understanding of these basic principles.

You know your products or service better than anyone. Write from that knowledge base, communicate your ideas or thoughts with authority but more like a friend or trusted advisor. On target topic articles with minimal text link ads that educate your viewers or potential customers will serve you well in the long run. The content will remain relevant long after that item goes off sale.

Make your reader want to come back, offer a monthly newsletter, or better yet, create an articles vault. Share these articles with a "creative common copywriter license" and encourage other webmasters in your topic field to use or link to your content. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit -- and only on the conditions you specify.

I have spent the past 5 years building fishing and outdoor themed websites and If I have learned anything in that time it is that content is king. Float tube fishing articles and product reviews that were written over 4 years ago still bring a constant source of traffic from the search engines.

Write it and they will come.

Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist and CEO of Net Performance Group Inc. Net Performance specializes in fishing and outdoor website design and marketing. For more internet marketing articles by this author please visit: http://www.netperformancegroup.com/Articles/articles.htm

Here is the link the T.L. Pakii Pierce article.

http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com/
blog/_archives/2005/2/1/299656.html

Importance Of Web Application Developmentj2ee

2009-02-02T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by H. Serus

Because of growing importance of Internet in world wide economic, many investors are interested in its development. So surprising method is how will continuation to play a vital role to communicate world wide. "Web Application Developments" are only the keywords who guide you. There are many companies that require business-to-business interaction via web-services. Outsource projects transfer process is becoming most popular.

A web application developed in 3 tiers stage: User services, business services, & data services. The User service tier creates a visual gateway for the consumer to interact with the application. This can range from basic HTML and DHTML to complex COM components and Java applets.

J2EE Development services for established as well as emerging companies across the world. Zansys development center imparts the right Java development value to clients through its expertise in Java development services; proven project management processes, excellent technical resources, cost effectiveness, timely delivery, J2EE Development Services. Zansys is committed to offer their clients a state-of-the-art in Java development services by integrating technology, innovation and strategy with their business processes. Advantages of software development in java:

1. Multi-platform support language and support for web-services also.
2. Develop dynamic web applications for e commerce, e learning, polls, HTML forms processing, and more.
3. Combine Java technology-based applications or services to create highly customized applications or services.
4. Write powerful and efficient mobile application content, RPC.
5. Low - cost consumer products, and practically any device with a digital heartbeat.

H. Serus writes article and blogs. For quality resources of J2EE web development application visit at: http://www.kvcindia.com/blog

Simple Web Design Practices That Can Save Your Time

2009-02-01T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Varun Krishnan

Never Use Caps

Its a good practice to use all lower case characters in a url. Never try using all caps or first letter caps.Its really confusing.

Kill the spaces

Never use spaces in ur file names.Spaces can lead to the awful %20 signs in your filenames.Avoid using spaces for the same reason.

Use underscores and hyphens

You can use the underscore character and hyphen in place of spaces in your filenames.

Use URL encoding if necessary

Suppose space is unavoidable in the file name, then you must use url encoding for the same so that the space is replaced by a plus(+) sign.

Avoid @#$%&^

Avoid characters like the dollar sign and ampersand symbol.

Use short to-the-point filenames

Use filenames that are precise, yet simple.

Organize your content based on filetype

Split your site into many folders like images, scripts, media, files and pages.

Organize your content based on use

Split your content based on use and requirement.

Protect premium content / Restrict access

Restrict access to certain parts of your website if you dont want public access to them

Take regular backups

Taking a regular backup of your entire website is a good practice.

Get people to review your site

Criticism is definitely constructive. Get others to speak up about your website

Never put up confidential info online

Never ever try putting your confidential info like credit card no , bank accounr no etc online.

Varun Krishnan http://www.varun.vk123.com is a mobile phone/web enthusiast. He is a web developer and SEO consultant. He's currently heading http://www.fonearena.com

Real Estate Websites Avoiding The Embarrassment Of Broken Links

2009-01-31T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Brandon Cornett

Your real estate website should be the epitome of professionalism.

Why? Because websites reflect their owners. So if a real estate website is sloppy and full of errors, readers will think the same of the agent behind the site. And who wants an error-prone agent helping them with something as important as buying or selling a home?

Take hyperlinks, for example. A website with broken links does not inspire confidence. It does not convey attention to detail, which is what people look for in a real estate agent.

The Reason for Broken Hyperlinks
Broken hyperlinks happen for several reasons: (A) The link points to a file that no longer exists. (B) The link points to a file that has moved. (C) The link is written incorrectly.

Regardless of why broken hyperlinks happen, you should make sure they don't find their way into your real estate website. When you do find them, correct them immediately.

Broken links say a lot about a website, and none of it's good. They say...

This is an amateur, unprofessional site.
This site is not managed by anyone. (Known as the "ghost-town effect")
The owner of this site has no attention to detail.
The owner of this site does not care about the site.

Checking for Broken Hyperlinks
Obviously, you don't want your visitors to think any of these things. So conduct a daily walk-through of your website -- weekly at the least. Click on all the links (especially those that link to off-site information, as this information may have been moved without your knowledge). Make sure all images display properly.

A weekly review will only take you two or three minutes, depending on how large your website is. But no matter how long it takes, it's essential.

How to Automate the Process
For a faster and more thorough approach, enter each of your web page URLs into the link checker at this site: www.validator.w3.org/checklink. It will perform an automated diagnostic check of the hyperlinks on every page.

Some of the errors the program returns will merely be recommendations. You can be the judge of that. But it's a quick way to check links for basic functionality -- especially on larger sites with a lot of links and pages.

About the Author
Brandon Cornett wrote the book on real estate websites and web marketing. The Agent's Guide to Websites & Web Marketing includes more than 50 pages of tips and strategies, helpful illustrations, and a comprehensive review of real estate websites from all over the web. Learn more about this exclusive guide by visiting: http://www.armingyourfarming.com/products.

Vgs Visitors Grow Your Sites

2009-01-30T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Edward Charkow

I'm sure you have heard about Viral Marketing, but I bet you haven't considered how powerful some of those same strategies can be when you change it from getting others to advertise for you to getting others to GROW your website.

Instead of trying to think about how to have your sites be Viral think about how you can have visitors "GROW" your website! If they can put in their own input and actually have some kind of result or a page of their own they will pass it along.

Even if they don't pass it along, tell a friend, or do anything else they have added content to your website. That's something we all like to have right?

To really get a concept like this going you should pick a topic that people are fanatical about. I don't mean religion, politics, or any other potentially dangerous topic. I mean Sports, Hobbies, People, etc

For my example of what you can do to get fanatics being fanatical on your site is http://www.golfwarz.com . This site isn't horribly busy because it's never been marketed. It's an example of a product called SEOclickbank by Scriptmonthly that has been slightly modified (just changed a few form fields). It will let golfers complain about their clubs. Something that I am sure golfers do privately. It probably will never catch on with the older golfing community but for the younger golfers it will be fun.

It's not a great example because most golfers really don't want to spend time talking about how bad they are. They want to get better, not 'brag' about their shortcomings. If you can get the younger crowd posting in there a couple posts in a golfing related forum would probably get you some action the content they add will be search engine fodder. Juice that site up with a golfing tips newsletter, and some golf related affiliate products and you have a long term GROWING income stream. The best part is it's hands free and you don't have to add the content yourself.

This same concept can be modified to thousands of topics. You could make a site to let people talk about their bosses, their cats, anything.

I've given you a lot of ideas today. I hope you spend some time growing your network of websites and you start considering some of the virtual growth strategies I've mentioned here. Once you get a virtual growth site off the ground like this you can't go wrong.

This article was written by Ed Charkow of http://www.Stmadeveloper.com.

Ed is the lead programmer for Stmadeveloper and has been making viral and virtual websites for his clients for years now.

How To Choose The Right Internet Marketing Service For Your Company

2009-01-29T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Khemal Dole

If you need someone to help you with your online marketing campaigns and you can't find someone within your own company for the job, then you may want to consider hiring an internet marketing service. You probably well know that it is important to have a web presence, and that to obtain that presence you need a solid online marketing plan. Maybe you don't have the knowledge or expertise to do that on your own, and that is where internet marketing services come in. Hiring just ANY internet marketing service isn't going to cut it. When it comes to seeking out internet marketing services for your company, here are some factors to consider.

Any internet marketing services you consider should have the expertise you are looking for. This fact may seem obvious, but too often small business owners make a marketing decision based solely on how big the company is or how fancy their letter head looks. You should make sure that for the specific goals you have in terms of internet marketing the company you choose is right. Have they got experience in the areas you are looking to get help in? Are they dedicated to one area? Do they have their own products?

Secondly, internet marketing services that you trust to work with your business should have a working knowledge of your company. And in order for them to have that, YOU should have it. That is right; you need to know where your company's strengths and weaknesses lie. If you don't know your own company then a hired service won't either. The only way they will get to know your company is through you. So make sure you know your company intimately. Know where your company is positioned in the market and where you want it to be. Only then can you impart that knowledge onto someone else.

Thirdly, because anyone can throw up a website and claim they are one of the thousands of internet marketing services out there, you should check them out. "Google" them by typing their name at www.google.com. Read the reviews and see what they've been up to. Look for former or current customers you can talk to and ask for references if you can. Look for testimonials. This will ensure that you get a company that can truly help you with your company's needs.

Having a web presence is important. What is more important than that is making sure your web presence is taken to the masses in the right manner. If you don't know how to do that on your own, then it may be time to look for experts. Internet marketing services can help you get the exposure you need, but before you choose one make sure you know what you are looking for, that you understand your company's needs, and that you check out your candidates. Once you do that you will have the marketing expertise that can take your company into the "big leagues".

Khemal Dole owns and operates http://www.PaychecksDirect.com, a completely F*R*E*E service which helps many first-timers and even experts find their perfect Work At Home job. Visit http://www.PaychecksDirect.com right now and see for yourself why so many are flocking to his site.

Wise Words On Website Content

2009-01-27T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Matt Jackson

Websites come and websites go; it's a fact. It's also a fact that websites which have exceptional website content don't go very often. In order to win and retain business you need to be able to attract, keep and excite people's attention but for many that isn't always an achievable target. However without website content that can do this and do it quickly you are losing visitors and potential customers to your competition so if you can't create the website content that will achieve this and more you should consider getting someone who can.

Website content for visitors.

In bygone times keyword cramming your website content was the order of the day; it got you ranked high on search engines affording you plenty of hits to your website but in due course people realised that the visitors they were winning weren't actually taking advantage of the offers on site or clicking the affiliate links. Search engines also cottoned on pretty quickly to the art of keyword cramming and eventually devised a cunning plot that penalises you for the excessive use of keywords within your website content. This article uses a keyword density of just over 6% for the keywords 'website content' and that is just about right. You need to get the balance just right; not making readers obviously aware of the over existence of the term website content but including it often enough that it will get you brownie points with search engines.

Website content for search engines.

Search engines don't employ millions of people to trawl through the millions of websites and then judge how good the content is, instead they use robots or spiders that will crawl your website and measure the use of your keywords in order to ascertain the relevancy and usefulness of your website content. If they find it has too high a percentage they judge you to be a keyword crammer and you will be penalised. If it's too low they determine (rightly or wrongly) that your website content isn't relevant to potential visitors. Again you get penalised. You have to get the balance just right.

Website content that sells your product.

Your website visitors are your potential customers and they should be treated as such, but the average online shopper is very different in temperament to the high street shopper. They want to see useful content surrounding your products and they want to see it on a relevant topic. The latest and most common way to do this is through the use of a number of articles; these articles serve a couple of very useful purposes that we will discuss in a minute.

You should use website content that informs, excites and compels people to purchase your product and it should do so quickly. The average website visitor will give you 3 or 4 seconds before they decide whether to read on. If you can hook them within those few seconds then they become very strong leads; you know they are interested in what you have to say. That gives you the first sentence, possibly two to get your message across.

Don't forget that it can take up to four times as long to read off a computer screen as it can on paper so your website content should be restricted to a minimum of 300 words on a informative page to 1000 words on a page. Any less and you may struggle giving them anything useful but more than this and they'll stop reading. The optimum word count is between 500 and 700 words.

Articles that give value to your website content.

Used well a number of article pages on your site will serve as keyword specific website content pages and also to give your visitors even more information. If you have 50 keywords you want to use you could use 1 article for each keyword. This article would then act as a separate page of website content that will rank on the search engines for that one keyword. Each well written article that your visitors read will move them one step closer to purchasing your product so use them well.

A final word on website content.

The final thing to remember about website content is that it HAS to be unique. Copied or plagiarised website content will see you heavily penalised by the search engines and where a few dollars may have got you high up in the rankings with very well written website content, using stale copied website content will see you plummet to the bottom end of the search results.

About The Author
Matt Jackson www.webwisewords.com is the website of a professional freelance writer who specialises in writing exceptional quality, 100% original website content at more than reasonable rates. Having already written website content and online articles for thousands of sites www.webwisewords.com will give you a free quote and even throw a keyword density analysis and proofread of your existing website content into the bargain (just for requesting a quote!).

The Dos And Donts Of Launching A Small Business Website

2009-01-26T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Adil Wali

Launching a new small business website is often a long and painstaking process. And for most small businesses, the endeavor rarely ends in success. The terrain is mapped with freelancers, firms, and consultants that don't offer the same services and most certainly don't charge the same prices. Projects are often riddled with unclear expectations, missed deadlines, and ridiculous hourly rates. What's worse is that many developers have the audacity to ask for even more money halfway through the project. Even after all of the hard work is complete, most companies don't even see a return on investment.

If you haven't been there, you probably know someone who has. IT outsourcing and procurement is often times so traumatizing that many of us vow never to deal with it again. But the whole process need not be so difficult and fruitless. The purpose of this article is to aid you in launching a successful website with minimal pain and effort. Who knows, if you play your cards right, it may even be within budget and on time!

The Don'ts

Don't spend too much on web hosting. If you are a small business that is just beginning to define your online presence, you don't need a whole lot! You most certainly don't need 10,000MB (10GB) of web space and 100,000MB (100GB) of bandwidth each month. So don't pay for it! You might be thinking, "Well, if it's relatively cheap and I may need it in the future, why don't I just spring for it now?" That kind of reasoning paves the road to overspending. Besides, web hosts making such offers are hoping that you won't really use the massive set of features. Expert web developers and power users will use that kind of space and bandwidth, however, and the end result is a bogged down and slow web host. Go with something economical and reliable; it's probably even faster.

Don't mold your website to a pre-defined package. Although your local newspaper advertisement for development of a "5-page website with logo design for only $995" may be tempting, don't fall for it. Any company that sells you pre-set web site packages (or charges based on the number of pages) has the wrong idea. Web development should be a custom-fitting job. Your website is a business tool, and should be developed to exact specifications that enable it to complement the rest of your business. If you compromise your website's functionality, you compromise its ability to help you make money.

Don't start the project until you are fully prepared. The easiest way to ruin a web development project is to get started before you are ready. Everything does not need to be in perfect order when you are shopping around for development; however, once you select a developer and begin work, being unprepared will only slow your project down greatly and drive up costs. Avoid this by purchasing your domain and web hosting, writing out all content, and deciding on the general layout you desire, all before the project begins.

Don't compare apples to oranges. Not all web developers are created equal, so it is unfruitful and unwise to compare them on a single benchmark (such as price). While some "full-service" firms will create your website, upload it to your domain, and maintain the site to make sure it's up-to-date, others will simply e-mail you a folder full of files and expect you to know what to do from there. Similarly, some firms will revise the finished product over and over until you're satisfied while others believe you are paying them for one draft of work and no more. Be mindful of these differences and understand what is built into the different prices of each provider.

Don't focus too much on eye-candy. Remember what your website is for. Unless you are the exception to the rule, the purpose of your site is either to a) give information about your product/service or company, b) allow users to buy directly from the site or c) both. In all cases, the site must be easy to understand, navigate, and operate. If your site is so new-age and graphic intensive that users have no idea how to get around it, or worseit takes too long to load, you've defeated the purpose of its creation.

The Do's

Do have a marketing budget for your website. Launching a website without a marketing plan usually always results in a zero return-on-investment. Why? Because there are millions of sites on the internet, and if you don't market your site, no one will come. Unlike a typical brick-and-mortar establishment that benefits from exposure to passersby, your website will not be seen by anyone until you tell people that it exists. Take advantage of the fact that your website can reach more potential customers than a small storefront ever could. Set aside marketing funds at the onset of your project.

Do prepare a timeline for the project. Many developers work virtually, that is, directly through the internet such that you may never meet them in person. This style of work is very different than the conventional, and the lack of face-to-face contact makes it easy for both parties to simply forget about the project as time goes on. Ensure that your project won't stagnate. Prepare a solid timeline with clear milestones, expectations, and deadlines so that it is easy for both you and the developer to stay on target.

Do provide feedback in a timely and detailed manner. Although you are paying a design firm for its creativity, remember that ultimately what you say goes. You must be sensitive of the fact that development is a step-by-step, layer-by-layer process. If you don't respond with feedback immediately, developers will have already completed other layers of the site before your feedback reaches them. This means that they must not only re-work the layer in question, but also the following layers. Some developers have been "burned" so many times in this manner that they will wait patiently for your feedback before they go on to the next layer of work. This means that development comes to a screeching halt until they hear back from you. They may get so fed up that they take on another client while they wait, leaving you at 2nd priority.

Do research developers before setting a budget. There are two reasons to do your homework before you decide on a budget. First, setting a budget without understanding a particular industry is simply nonsensical. You must know the price ranges of development and also what type of service to expect within each range. Second, a small business website, unlike a typical personal expense, is an investment. The goal of launching the site should be to aid the company in making more money. If the site won't make money, don't create it! If you limit your budget at $1000 without understanding the investment or industry, you may get an excellent site in that price range that makes no money. You would be better off if you do your homework, however, and find that spending more will likely yield a return. For example, you might spend $4000 on a site that actually makes you and additional $20,000 annually.

Do plan to keep your site up-to-date. One of the biggest advantages to having a website is that you can quickly and easily update information. Nothing sends a more powerful message to a potential customer than a website that hasn't been updated for several months, or even years! You are telling people that the business is defunct or unpopular. Make it a point to update your site frequently, even if you don't have much to say. It will let your customers know that things are going well and that your company takes an active interest in keeping them informed.

Although the above Dos and Don'ts are definitely not comprehensive, they are a good set of guiding principles for any individual or small business owner looking to create an online presence. No set of rules if foolproof, however, and there are always exceptions. My suggestion would be to always err on the side of caution. Many of the cliché statements we've all heard will come in handy: there is no such thing as a free lunch, and, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Finally, don't be afraid to ask questions to people who know more than you. In fact, feel free to contact me if you ever get into a jam: adil@steezo.com. Good luck!

About the author: Adil Wali is Chief Operating Officer of SteeZo Media, a company founded in 1999 that focuses on consulting small and medium sized businesses in their efforts to create or revamp an on-line presence. Under Adil's leadership, the company shifted away from broad-based IT consulting to a more specific focus on matching clients with the most capable and cost effective developers. SteeZo Media also manages web development projects on behalf of clients.

Company information: SteeZo Media, Inc. 1809 McAdam Rd. Darien, IL 60561. 1-888-8STEEZO. http://www.steezo.com

Make Your Artist Website Sell

2009-01-25T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Josse Ford

Summary

Here's the scoop on what you must know when designing a website to showcase your art, impress galleries, and win over collectors. Learn how to avoid the mistakes most emerging artists make when creating their online portfolio.

1. You need an artists website

Any artist who can classify themselves as either "emerging" or "mid- career" will definitely benefit from having their own website to promote their work. At this stage of your career it is important to be able to have a place where anyone in the world can easily access and view your work.

2. Know who you are trying to impress

Are you trying to engage a Soho gallery to sell your $20,000 paintings or sell $5 prints to children in Korea? That Soho gallery might not be impressed when they see your online-store selling prints and art cards but on the other hand, you could make a very handsome living if you really knew how to market those art cards

3. Make your website fit with your overall art marketing strategy

A website is most effective when it is part of a larger overall marketing strategy for your art. This includes mailings, lots of in-person gallery visits and presentations, regular (physical) showings of your work, and developing relationships with the art world. An effectively planned website can greatly compliment and simplify your other marketing efforts.

4. There is a real market for art on the internet

The internet is quickly becoming an accepted place to showcase your art to collectors and arts professionals. They might still want to see your work in person before they buy, but the fact remains: they saw it first on your website! Having an online art presence is very important at this time.

5. Have your own website and a website portfolio service

A website portfolio service (e.g. www.absolutearts.com or www.art-exchange.com is like an online slide registry. For a fee you can upload images of your work together with a bio, artist statement, and resume. They have many visitors and are a convenient way to make your work accessible to potential clients. The down side is that they don't display your work well, and there is little flexibility in how the art is showcased.

Your own website, on the other hand will require more work to promote, but you'll be able to present the work in the most beautiful way. Remember the times you've been taken into the dimmer room in a commercial gallery? How that art which looked fairly good on the main gallery wall suddenly became something you had to take home? That's how a good artist's website should showcase your work.

We recommend both options they are a perfect compliment.

6. Have a website that collectors and art professionals will enjoy

Here are some common elements which most dealers and galleries would agree on for your website design:

Keep the site simple and elegant with the focus on the art itself and don't overpower the art with a site that looks too busy

Avoid advertising such as banner adds or sidebar adds. If you must have them, put them in a separate "resource" section

Avoid complex effects like flash movies. In the time it takes to play your exotic entry page, your visitor may have moved on.

Include your bio, artist statement, resume, contact information, gallery(s) of your work, contact information, and a pricelist.

7. Showcase your work beautifully

You need to have visual design skills to create a beautiful artist website. Here are some points to get you started:

Most Important: Use high-quality, professionally-photographed images. Excellence in, excellence out!

Keep the website simple and elegant with the focus on the art.

Create multiple galleries to compliment the work just as a good physical gallery would do.

Choose colors that compliment (not overpower) the work. Think of the colors you would use in a physical gallery to showcase your work neutral colors like crème, white, gray, and good safe choices.

Think "minimalist" not "busy" for the layout.

Keep your copy (text) brief. Let the art speak for itself!

8. Bring collectors and galleries to your website

Its no use having that stunning website sitting in hyperspace. Make it work for you! Here are the ways to bring quality visitors:

Search Engines: If your website has been well optimized for search engines, a search on your name or your style of art should bring up your website in the first few pages of results.

Letters of Introduction: A letter of introduction sent to a gallery or dealer is a very effective way to bring a qualified visitor to your website. Better still is to include a brochure or postcard of your work with the letter.

Advertising online or in magazines: For example, if your art is minimalist and modern in style, a banner add on an interior design website focused on the same minimalist ethic could draw a lot of traffic to your site.

9. You need to be able to sell your work on the internet.

But there are many ways to do it. More important than anything is that you have clear and up-to-date contact information on your website. If a buyer likes your work enough to bring out their checkbook, they will normally be happy to call you to close the sale.

It's also handy to be able to sell directly from your website, especially if you sell lower-cost reproductions. There are simple and cost-effective ways to do this.

10. Think again before designing your own website

Have you really added up the total cost? Here are some questions to consider before you start designing:

Do you have visual design skills/training?

Can you wait several months for the site to be ready?

Can you afford to give up a month or more of your valuable artist time?

Do you have all the computer software and the relatively-new computer needed to build a high-quality website?

Are you fully trained in your design software?

Can you answer "Yes" to all of the above? If so, you might think about doing it yourself. Otherwise, hire a designer!

11. Choose your website-designer thoughtfully

The most important thing here is to remember what you are trying to create a beautiful online gallery space to elegantly show your beautiful work this is very different from building a high-volume website selling printer ink cartridges and paper rolls!

Look for the ability to design a space to present your work. One way to do this is to find artist websites that you like and then contact the artist to get the name of their designer.

12. Know what you should pay

Artist's website development prices range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, bigger design firms have larger overheads and will be significantly more expensive. On the other hand, Joe down the street can probably build you a website for $200 but you probably don't want that website!

At Beautiful Artist Websites we have packages ranging from $700 to $2000 for simple elegant artists websites with different levels of functionality. We can also develop fully customized sites to your specifications with prices based on requirements.

© Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent. Josse Ford and Daniel Tardent are the founders of Beautiful Artist Websites. We design cost-effective artist websites that showcase and sell your work to arts professionals. Visit our articles page for effective art marketing tips and sign up for our free report: 6 Steps to Easy Online Art Sales.

How Disabled Users Access The Internet

2009-01-24T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Trenton Moss

In 1995 a new era of accessibility for disabled people began. The Disability Discrimination Act was passed, stating that:

"It is unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public."

A website is regarded as a service and the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been quick to apply pressure on to organisations to push this law into practice. Indeed, the DRC has now published its formal investigation into 1000 websites (http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf).

So, how do disabled people access the Internet? There are a number of different ways depending on their particular disability:

Blind users

Internet users who have no sight at all utilize a screen reader, which reads the content of the web page, or rather the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code of the page, back to them. These machines sift through the HTML code and the technology deciphers what needs to be read aloud and what should be ignored. IBM's screen reader can be downloaded for a free 30-day trial at http://www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html. Once you have downloaded it, go to your website, turn your monitor off, and try to navigate your website.

Partial/poor sight

To take full advantage of the Internet, users with partial or poor sight need to be able to enlarge the text on web pages. To verify that your website allows them to achieve this on Internet Explorer, go to View > Font size > Largest. If your site is accessible to this group of users then the size of the text throughout the page will increase. Users with poor vision can also use a screen magnifier. You can download a free screen magnifier at http://www.magnifiers.org/links/Download_Software/Screen_Magnifiers/ and see for yourself.

Colour blindness

It is estimated that one in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness (http://www.iee.org/Policy/Areas/Health/cvdintro.cfm). You can check how Internet users with different strains of colour blindness are viewing your website at http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html.

Deaf users

Deaf users are able to access the Internet in much the same way as able-bodied people with one key exception audio content. If it is a key function of your website for people to be able to hear a message, then be sure to provide written transcripts.

Keyboard/voice only users

Some of your site users do not have access to a mouse when browsing the Internet. Try putting yourself in their position by navigating your website using only tab, shift-tab, and the return keys.

Other users

Other people who may access your website that have disadvantages include:

Epileptic users who must always be careful to avoid seeing flickering between 2 and 55 Hz
Web users from outside your industry who may not understand industry jargon or acronyms
Web users whose first language is not English and who may not be able to comprehend complicated language

To really put yourself in the position of one of these web users try out the DRC's inaccessible website demonstration at www.drc-gb.org/open4all/newsroom/website6.asp.

About The Author

Increase Hits To Help Increase Your Business

2009-01-23T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Gil Tabasa

In this day and age most businesses consider having their own website; from informational based to the most advanced and complex e-commerce site. For the large enterprise, this become a vital part of their day to day operation, their web site embeds complex applications that exchanges critical information between their partners and clients. Web services are sometime employed in order to simplify their transactions and easily exchange critical information across their suppliers, clients and partners.

Small businesses however face a different situation, majority of them don't really utilize their web site's full potential, and they become satisfied with just having a dot-com after their business name, important factor are then ignored and become enslaved by their own contentment.

Time constraints and financial consideration are among the reasons

Major small business owners find it difficult to upgrade or enhance their website and place useful tools and simple applications that would help visitors or guess feel more comfortable using it. Study shows that 80% of them don't want to do it because of financial issue, 20% however, didn't want to spend time to revisit and look at what's lacking on their site. The cost of hostings, domain registrations and setup-fees has probably just gone to waste because many of them looked at it as totally marketing cost, when in fact it is also an investment that needed a return.

A website if managed properly would bring additional revenue for the business. How is this so? If you know how to unlock the obvious money maker capability of your website then its not only going to help you get more clients and make them happy, but would also give you extra revenue on the side.

It's all about the hits

Can you imagine if your site is doing 100,000 hits per month or more because you exerted enough effort to enhance and polish your website? Yes, its all about the hits, opportunities arise when you have this kind of visitors or guests every month. Why? - Simple, marketing, advertising and revenue. That's right, this is where it comes down to, by having hundred thousand hits a month, it's a piece of cake to approach certain advertisers and make extra revenue on the side and increase potential leads for your business.

Increasing the Hits will allow you to minimize the cost of advertising expense by doing them online as well as all your promotions thereby increasing your revenue. Happy customers and impressed prospects can bring leads to your business and increase sales.

So how can you really increase the number of visitors? Or hits? By applying some of the strategies below that you may feel mostly fit for your business.

Always update your website especially if your business releases new products all the time. Obsolete information can cause confusion to your visitors.

Enhance your site and make it more professional looking this invites visitors.

Offer tips and information regarding your field of expertise or your business expertise.

Your visitors or guests are your prospects and potential clients so why not take advantage of it and provide an eye-catching ad copy to get them interested in any of your ongoing specials.

Email list is one of the most important part of your website, if applicable, you should provide email list to visitors /guests so you can update them of new events or promotions you're currently running.

Contents vary from business to business, not all contents are applicable to any business, make sure that yours are useful to your visitors and the information must straightforward.

Submit your site to search engines, they're usually free but takes a long time, but if you link your site to someone already registered to say google, then it just takes days when google reindex the sites yours will be included.

Exchange links with different sites that are making the top searches on google or major search engines.

Always include your website to any promotional ads in the newspapers or magazines.

Place a "refer to a friend" form on your website, because if they enjoy being on your web then definitely their going to refer them to friends.

When you're done polishing your site, don't fail to take note of the changes by using website traffic analyzers or counters. You can sign up and download them for FREE or pay for it as part of your hosting service.

Results can vary depending on how well you implement the above, but there are plenty of books and articles out there that discuss this subject, I recommend you check them out to increase your knowledge in this area because its important that you use your website as a tool not only to interact with your clients and prospects but increase your business as well.

Guil Tabasa is a consultant for Altertek Solutions; he has been in the consulting business for more than 7 years now. He has helped small and medium businesses add value to their business that directly contributes to their revenue.

Get On The Web

2009-01-22T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Betsey Duggan

If you have a business, you must have a website. It is the way business is done. It's as important as the sign on the front of your building. Sales of online services and goods have climbed well into the billions and this is only the beginning.

What will a well designed and Internet ready website do for you? The question is what won't it do? It will drive new revenue, slash expenses and build customer loyalty while saving you time and making your work life easier.

Many think a website is hard to understand, harder yet to use, and hardest of all, to afford. Not true. A good website design firm, that speaks plain English, and is well versed in Internet marketing will help. These agencies should also give you a free review and perhaps samples of what they can do for you. Depending on your needs, some websites can be had for as little as $10 per month after the initial design and marketing fee. Caution should be exercised here. A very high priced website may not bring you all you imagined, but a very inexpensive one will surely disappoint.

After your website is built and ready to begin working for you, there is the tricky task of submitting and marketing to the search engines. Search engines like Yahoo and Google are where most of your prospects find you. Submission and marketing is a tricky proposition because the search engines change the rules often and there are very specific steps you need to follow so that you are ranked well. Everyone wants a first or second page listing, but getting there takes the work of an expert. Don't undertake this task yourself. Let a search engine specialist do it for you. Their fee will be worth its weight in gold.

Make no mistake about it; the Internet is the most powerful marketing tool we have ever seen. Build your website, market it well and watch your fortunes grow.

Betsey Duggan is president and CEO of McMann & Tate Advertising, a midwest agency that works to makes its clients stand out from the crowd. http://www.mcmannandtatesite.com

Using The Web Accessibility Toolbar

2009-01-21T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Trenton Moss

Testing a website for accessibility can be a time-consuming and laborious process. The free Web Accessibility Toolbar can do most of the hard work for you though and is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in accessibility.

The toolbar is not an automated testing tool so does require manual work from you. It's therefore able to avoid the many problems with automated accessibility testing tools. It doesn't require any technical knowledge so even the biggest technophobe can check their website for accessibility!

Installing the Web Accessibility Toolbar

You can download the toolbar for free from http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/toolbar, and after you install it, it will sit in the toolbar area of Internet Explorer. The total file size is just 550kb so the download won't take too long.

The toolbar only works on Internet Explorer on Windows, so if Internet Explorer isn't your first-choice browser you'll have to switch browsers when using it. (Alternatively, you can download the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox which offers similar, but not identical, functionality.)

Using the Web Accessibility Toolbar

Now you've downloaded and installed the Web Accessibility Toolbar you can start using it! There are 12 buttons in total on the toolbar, each with a down arrow to the right of the text. If you click on the down arrow for any of these buttons then a dropdown menu appears with all the available options (alternatively you can use the keyboard shortcut keys assigned to each button).

Checking for document structure

One of the most useful buttons is the seventh, Structure. It's essential that the structure within the HTML code accurately reflects the visual structure of the page. This is so that visually impaired web users using screen readers can gain an understanding of the page structure.

Some of the most useful items in the Structure dropdown menu include:

Headings - Shows which items on the page are labelled as headings within the HTML code. The main page heading should be a heading level one and other headings should be heading level two. Any sub-heading of a heading level two should be a heading level three, then heading level four and so on. Heading numbers should always be sequential - a heading level four shouldn't follow a heading level two if there's no heading level three. Headings are especially useful for screen reader users as they can call up a list of headings and jump straight to the section in which they're most interested.

List items - Shows which items on the page are labelled as lists within the HTML code, by displaying

next to any list item. Lists can be horizontal or vertical, and all navigation should be marked up as a list item. Lists are very useful for screen reader users as the screen reader will announce the number of items in the list before reading the list items.

Fieldset / Label - Shows which items on the page are called labels within the HTML code. After selecting Fieldset / Label, the text next to each form should say the word label next to it - if not, that text hasn't been called a label in the code.

Table border - Places a border around each table. Nested tables within tables can cause huge difficulties for screen reader users. After selecting this item, the first table will have a black border the second blue, then green, yellow, orange, red and purple. If you see any of these last four colours it's time to take a good look at the code behind the page.

Table cell order - Shows the order in which the page is read out to screen reader users (if a table is used for layout). Hopefully, the order should be reasonably logical.

Checking the site works under all circumstances

It's important that your website doesn't depend on any one type of technology, or users whose browsers don't support that technology may be unable to access your site. You can check to see if your site depends on any one technology:

Images > Toggle Image/Alt - One of the most useful functions on the toolbar, replaces images with their ALT, or alternative, text. Alt text is read out to screen reader users or displayed to web users with images turned off, instead of the image itself (e.g. users on dial-up modems may turn off images to speed up the download time of pages). It's essential that the ALT text provides an adequate description of the image.

IE Options > Toggle JavaScript - Turns off JavaScript. After selecting this option, work through the pages on your website - is the whole site still accessible to you?

IE Options > Toggle ActiveX - Turns off ActiveX controls. Again, after selecting this, work through your website to see if the whole site is still accessible to you.

IE Options > Toggle CSS - Turns off CSS. Are pages still legible? If CSS is used for layout then you will see the page content in the order that it's read out to screen reader users. (If you toggle image/alt after this, you'll have a complete visual representation of what screen reader users will hear.)

Other useful accessibility checks

There's a huge amount of functionality available on the Web Accessibility Toolbar, but some of the other most important accessibility checks you can carry out with the toolbar include:

Validate > W3C HTML validator > Validate HTML - Checks whether the page is based on valid HTML or not. If the page is not valid, you'll be told why.

CSS > Deprecated HTML > Deprecated elements & attributes - Checks for code that shouldn't be used and is being phased out. A new window will open containing the HTML code - anything in red is deprecated and should be removed.

Doc info > Page speed report - Examines all the files used to display the web page and prepares a report on the average download speed for that page for different Internet connections.

Doc info > List links - Displays a list of all on-page links. Screen reader users can call up a list of links and jump straight to the page in which they're most interested, so it's essential that link text makes sense out of context. Link text such as 'click here' should be avoided at all costs!

Colour > Greyscale - Shows the page in greyscale. Great for checking colour contrast.

Other functionality

The Web Accessibility Toolbar offers some other interesting functionality:

Resize - See how your website looks for users on 640 x 480px, 800 x 600px and 1024 x 768px screen resolutions.

Tools > Simulations - Put yourself in the shoes of a special needs users with these fascinating simulations.

Conclusion

The Web Accessibility Toolbar offers an enormous amount of functionality. Download it for free from http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/toolbar and start using it. Without any technical expertise, you can perform a mini-accessibility audit on any site in just a couple of minutes.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. Trenton's crazy about web accessibility and usability - so crazy that he went and started his own web accessibility and usability consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone. He also knows an awful lot about the Disability Discrimination Act.

You Can Prevent The Potential European And Asian Dominance Of The Internet Marketing Business

2009-01-20T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Shayne Pridham

If your site is still in English - only, you are not alone. You are actually in the company of about 75% of businesses. This gives European and Asian based companies a tremendous advantage, as most of them already offer Multilingual Websites - Europeans have a long-standing tradition of using multilingual Marketing practices.

European and Asian businesses are more experienced with International Multilingual Marketing.

Remember because the Internet really is Global, you could have a competitor you don't even know about located in Europe or Asia, reaching out to your customer base. Furthermore, depending on the extent of information offered on your site, your pricing, distribution and other business models can be studied by anyone with a web browser.

Not only will you be losing business by not reaching out to foreign markets, you may even be risking your current market. If you have a site on the World Wide Web, you have already, by definition, "gone global". Don't be surprised if there are some who reach your site and are offended at not having their Language preferences addressed.

If that isn't enough to convince you that the market demand exists to make your Website multilingual, then consider this;

* You automatically have a potential client base of 500+ million people worldwide, mainly consisting of well-educated 25-50-year-olds.

* By being on the web, You are already accessible 24 hours a day regardless of time differences.

* The advent of the Euro has made it much easier to break into the European markets.

* Non-native English speakers make up 95% of the world's population.

* There are only six main countries where English is the mother tongue - Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

* The rapid rise of a multilingual, multicultural on-line community

* The exponential increase of internet users who do not understand English

And most importantly, if wish to prevent the potential of European and Asian dominance of the Internet Marketing business, then consider meeting the world on its own terms - with A multilingual, multicultural Website offering Your Product or Service. It's not as expensive or as complicated as you may think.

Make Your Site Multilingual

Your Website is primarily a marketing tool you use to promote Yourself, A Product or a Service. You have built it and posted it because you want people to spend time looking at it. Keeping people interested and coming back to your site is the Hard Bit. People will spend more time and come back more often to sites that are in their native language and appeal to their cultural sensibilities.

Claiming that English sites are sufficient because most people who surf the Web speak English simply is not a valid call from a marketing standpoint. There is also the issue that business already on the Web have worldwide visibility and by ignoring millions in your audience by not addressing their linguistic and cultural preferences you could even be going as far as to insult them.

Almost everyone in Sweden and Holland speak English, but studies there show that they prefer to search the Internet in their native languages.

Research has shown us time again that web users are up to four times more likely to purchase when addressed in their native language, while visitors will stay for twice as long on a site displayed in their own language. The percentage of multilingual users greatly varies from one country to another.

The majority of people using the Internet speak a language other than English, most of these are able to search and surf only in their native language. Therefore web site translation and Multilingual Marketing are undoubtedly key Internet marketing strategies, That should be implemented as soon as possible.

The rapid rise of a truly multilingual, multicultural on-line World has significant implications for companies competing in the International marketplace and in local markets where they have to deal with language-specific communities.

The exponential increase of Internet users who do not understand English Implies that conducting your online business in multiple languages will be the difference between survival and extinction.

Shayne Pridham
CEO Affiliates-Surveys-Marketing.com
You Can Make Your Site Multilingual with just a few Clicks

Every Class Reunion Needs A Website

2009-01-19T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Robert Hirscheimer

The Internet has had a huge impact on class reunion planning. High school reunion website builders have made it much easier to find classmates, and communicate all the important details regarding the high school reunion. Virtually anyone can create an incredible class reunion website with no technical skills at all. The user just fills in forms and clicks on buttons and their class reunion website is created instantly.

High school reunion organizers everywhere are reporting that having a class reunion website has had a dramatic effect on the attendance at the reunion. Seeing pictures and stories from the year of graduation creates a nostalgic mood that makes classmates look forward to the class reunion.

Some class reunion website builders have special features that help class reunion organizers collect people's information, pictures, ticket payments as well as share event details, stories and more. The reunion organizer just fills in forms and clicks on buttons and their information is sent to one of many beautiful design templates. It is the best way to share all the event details, hotel information, and create a buzz that builds momentum right up to the high school reunion.

A Class reunion website allows the user to collect payments with a credit card right on the reunion website. The organizer can collect funds for tickets to the class reunion, memorabilia, or literally anything. This helps the planning process a lot because collecting everyone's checks is usually an unpleasant task, and can be a stumbling block when trying to plan any reunion.

The organizer planning the class reunion is able to quickly and easily upload pictures on their class reunion website and create unique pages that suit their needs simply by filling in forms with their information. Some popular page titles include "flashback", "teachers", "news", "committee" and "past reunions". The "classmates" page allows the user to put a picture for each graduate today and from graduation. There are also great features that entertain classmates such as quizzes, polls, music, video, message boards, a guest book and much more.

The quiz page can test classmates' knowledge of their high school history and the poll page is a great way to get a consensus on what everyone wants to do for various reunion activities. The class reunion organizer creates the questions and answers simply by filling information in forms and clicking submit on their high school reunion website. It is 100% dummy proof !

Putting all the details of events and map links on the class reunion website eliminates many phone calls to the organizer. The high school reunion website acts like a communications hub for the high school reunion. The organizer can send class reunion invitations by email with the planning tools and classmates can RSVP right on the class reunion website. This can save significant funds and make the job of planning the class reunion significantly easier.

The organizer can also post all the pictures and stories on the high school reunion website after the class reunion which allows friends who could not come to the school reunion to feel like they were part of the festivities ! So, if you are considering planning a class reunion, make your life easier and increase attendance by making a class reunion website.

Robert Hirscheimer is the President of http://www.myevent.com the #1 website builder on the Internet. Myevent.com allows anyone to create an incredible website with no skills for any event. There are special features for Wedding Websites, Class Reunion Websites, Family Reunion websites or a website for any event. The company also has a generic website builder where anyone can create a website for a business, foundation, association, corporate event or any other purpose. To create a website for a class reunion go to http://www.reunions.myevent.com and start a 7 day free trial with no credit card required. The cost is only $9.95 after the free trial.

Developing A Login System With Php And Mysql

2009-01-18T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by John L

Most interactive websites nowadays would require a user to log in into the website's system in order to provide a customized experience for the user. Once the user has logged in, the website will be able to provide a presentation that is tailored to the user's preferences.

A basic login system typically contains 3 components:

1. The component that allows a user to register his preferred login id and password

2. The component that allows the system to verify and authenticate the user when he subsequently logs in

3. The component that sends the user's password to his registered email address if the user forgets his password

Such a system can be easily created using PHP and MySQL.

================================================================

Component 1 Registration

Component 1 is typically implemented using a simple HTML form that contains 3 fields and 2 buttons:

1. A preferred login id field
2. A preferred password field
3. A valid email address field
4. A Submit button
5. A Reset button

Assume that such a form is coded into a file named register.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the register.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button.

[form name="register" method="post" action="register.php"]

[input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br]

[input name="password" type="text" value="password" size="20"/][br]

[input name="email" type="text" value="email" size="50"/][br]

[input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/]

[input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form]

The following code excerpt can be used as part of register.php to process the registration. It connects to the MySQL database and inserts a line of data into the table used to store the registration information.

@mysql_connect("localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd") or die("Cannot connect to DB!"); @mysql_select_db("tbl_login") or die("Cannot select DB!"); $sql="INSERT INTO login_tbl (loginid, password and email) VALUES (".$loginid.",".$password.",".$email.")"; $r = mysql_query($sql); if(!$r) {

$err=mysql_error();

print $err;

exit(); }

The code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields the loginid, password and email fields. The values of the $loginid, $password and $email variables are passed in from the form in register.html using the post method.

================================================================

Component 2 Verification and Authentication

A registered user will want to log into the system to access the functionality provided by the website. The user will have to provide his login id and password for the system to verify and authenticate.

This is typically done through a simple HTML form. This HTML form typically contains 2 fields and 2 buttons:

1. A login id field
2. A password field
3. A Submit button
4. A Reset button

Assume that such a form is coded into a file named authenticate.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the authenticate.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button.

[form name="authenticate" method="post" action="authenticate.php"]

[input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br]

[input name="password" type="text" value="password" size="20"/][br]

[input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/]

[input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form]

The following code excerpt can be used as part of authenticate.php to process the login request. It connects to the MySQL database and queries the table used to store the registration information.

@mysql_connect("localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd") or die("Cannot connect to DB!"); @mysql_select_db("tbl_login") or die("Cannot select DB!"); $sql="SELECT loginid FROM login_tbl WHERE loginid='".$loginid."' and password='".$password."'"; $r = mysql_query($sql); if(!$r) {

$err=mysql_error();

print $err;

exit(); } if(mysql_affected_rows()==0){

print "no such login in the system. please try again.";

exit(); } else{

print "successfully logged into system.";

//proceed to perform website's functionality e.g. present information to the user }

As in component 1, the code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields the loginid, password and email fields. The values of the $loginid and $password variables are passed in from the form in authenticate.html using the post method.

================================================================

Component 3 Forgot Password

A registered user may forget his password to log into the website's system. In this case, the user will need to supply his loginid for the system to retrieve his password and send the password to the user's registered email address.

This is typically done through a simple HTML form. This HTML form typically contains 1 field and 2 buttons:

1. A login id field
2. A Submit button
3. A Reset button

Assume that such a form is coded into a file named forgot.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the forgot.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button.

[form name="forgot" method="post" action="forgot.php"]

[input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br]

[input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/]

[input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form]

The following code excerpt can be used as part of forgot.php to process the login request. It connects to the MySQL database and queries the table used to store the registration information.

@mysql_connect("localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd") or die("Cannot connect to DB!"); @mysql_select_db("tbl_login") or die("Cannot select DB!"); $sql="SELECT password, email FROM login_tbl WHERE loginid='".$loginid."'"; $r = mysql_query($sql); if(!$r) {

$err=mysql_error();

print $err;

exit(); } if(mysql_affected_rows()==0){

print "no such login in the system. please try again.";

exit(); } else {

$row=mysql_fetch_array($r);

$password=$row["password"];

$email=$row["email"];

$subject="your password";

$header="from:you@yourdomain.com";

$content="your password is ".$password;

mail($email, $subject, $row, $header);

print "An email containing the password has been sent to you";

}

As in component 1, the code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields the loginid, password and email fields. The value of the $loginid variable is passed from the form in forgot.html using the post method.

================================================================

Conclusion

The above example is to illustrate how a very basic login system can be implemented. The example can be enhanced to include password encryption and additional functionality e.g. to allow users to edit their login information.

Used with the author's permission.
This article is written by John L.
John L is the Webmaster of Designer Banners (http://www.designerbanners.com).

Small Business Website Development The Major Problem

2009-01-17T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Bob Sherman

If you've got a small business, you'll probably want a website. Many consumers now have a broadband Internet connection and leave their computers on all the time. It's a lot easier for them to do a simple search on the Internet than to locate their Yellow Pages, flip through them to find the heading where your business is listed.

And, even if they did remember where their Yellow Pages book is, and found the heading where your business is listed, would your ad stand out? Would it have a description of your services or products, a map of your location, along with your current hours, and your phone number and email address?

You can add all this information, and more, to a simple small business website.

So, having a website can lead to more businessand more profit. After all, a basic purpose of a small business website is to allow a potential customer to find you fast and call you first.

=== Building a Small Business Website ===

So, let's suppose that you want to work with someone to build your small business website. How do you choose a good website development provider?

If you use one of the major search engines to find a provider who can do "small business website development" you'll probably come up with hundreds of sites. Some sites will provide instructions for you to develop your own website. Other sites will offer to develop your site for you.

Most business owners are pretty well occupied with the day-to-day process of managing their business. They don't want to learn a totally new skill.

If you are in this category, you'll want someone else to develop your website. But, there are still lots of choices.

After using a search engine to find a "small business website development" provider, you'll see sites that promise inexpensive or economical development. Some sites offer development for under $200 while others offer development for under $100 plus $10 a month for hosting.

Sure, some of these rock bottom prices don't include much more than a single page site. And there are add on services like an online merchant account (for selling products on the web), extra web space (for more pages), increased bandwidth (for more accesses and downloading), domain name registration, email addresses, and so on.

So, the actual price for your small business website development effort will depend on the purpose for your site. And, once you decide on a purpose, you will negotiate with the website development provider for all the features that support your purpose.

=== Your Website Must Be Found in the Search Engines ===

Now, here is the real catch. You can get a very pretty website from a number of providers. But, the question is: "Can your small business website be found when a potential customer is searching for services?"

I live near Royal Oak, Michigan in Oakland County. If I needed to find a furnace repair company I might use a search engine and look for a "royal oak furnace repair" company, or even an "oakland county furnace repair" company.

If my back was hurting, I might look for a "royal oak chiropractor" for help.

If I don't know the name of a particular business, I'll search using a generic term that describes the type of business or service I'm seeking.

Now you should see that a goal of your small business website is to be found when someone does a generic search for a local business that offers the goods or services you provide.

One purpose of your website is, after all, to allow potential customers to find you fast and call you first. If your website doesn't work hard to attract new customers and add to your bottom line, your money for website development was not well spent.

=== Good Search Engine Placement is an Ongoing Cost ===

Good placement in the search engines requires attention nearly every month. If someone is not updating and fine-tuning your website monthly, it's likely it will not be at the top of the search engines. While your website may look nice and give you a good feeling, it will not be working hard for your business like it should.

I spoke with a local chiropractor about his existing website. He indicated he thought it was at the top of Google for his name and his business' name. Yet, when I actually did the searches on Google, I found his site was not in the top 100 sites for either search phrase he mentioned.

Yes, he had a fine website. But nothing was being done to promote his website. His website needed fine-tuning to emphasize certain keyword phrases and it needed incoming links from other websites. Both of these activities require an ongoing effort.

So, do not think that just because you have a small business website that it is working hard for you. Just like any other employee, you have to keep paying month after month for it to be productive.

So, along with simple website development, you should ensure that ongoing efforts will be made to enhance the placement of your site in the search engines. And you should keep track every month of where your site is found in the major search engines.

This way, potential customers searching the Internet actually will find your site fast and call you first.

Bob Sherman is the owner of http://www.gobob.biz that provides a website development tool that helps deliver relevant content to Internet users.

Why You Need A Website

2009-01-16T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Jennifer Stewart

You hear a great deal about the Internet these days -- that it's revolutionised communication ... commerce ... education ... Life-As-We-Know-It ...

Is this just hype?

You be the judge:

AN INTERNET TALE

After spending over twenty years at the Chalk-face, as a high school teacher, the novelty had worn off somewhat, so I did what so many others are doing now, I started looking for ways I could achieve that most desirable of lifestyles and be my own boss.

Home Based Businesses (HBB) are the fastest growing segment of the economy with thousands of people launching out on their own every week.

But there are pitfalls in setting up your own business: capital equipment can consume huge quantities of your precious resources; advertising costs can be horrendous, but since they're the only way you can tell people about your product or service, you have no choice; printing costs eat into more of your money; then you have to pay for postage, long distance phone calls and faxes to suppliers and customers. And we haven't got to the problems that can arise when suppliers let you down, when there are problems with transport ... aargh!

If I sound as if I've 'been there and done that,' it's because I have. My first business was marketing a series of courses I'd written.

I had the courses printed; I set up a free-call number and a reply-paid postal system; I advertised in all the major newspapers in three states; I paid to have the courses mailed to those who ordered them, and I soon discovered that I was just covering costs ... but only just.

This certainly wasn't the door to economic freedom I'd visualised (OK, let's be honest, it wasn't the freedom I'd fantasised about. Where were the big cheques every week? Where was the huge customer base that was supposed to be clamouring for me to write more and more courses for them? Mere figments of my imagination!)

ENTER: THE INTERNET!

But then I discovered the Internet, and suddenly there was no need to print hard copies of my course; I could email the whole course to students anywhere in the world!

And it didn't cost me any more to send courses to a hundred people than it did to send one course to one person. Suddenly my running costs were reduced, and I was able to halve the price of my courses.

I could change the course as I saw the need, adding newer examples to keep it up to date, deleting sections I wasn't happy with, rewriting whole sections. Plus, I now had the most amazing advertising vehicle for my course -- a website!

I was able to put up examples of my writing; I could show people what was in the course; I could point out the importance of being able to write well. I could do anything! And this was all because of the Internet.

Mind you, it took me some time to work out how to actually build a website; I made some terrible mistakes and wasted an incredible amount of time -- time that I could have been using to build my business. (My first efforts are outlined in an article I wrote, The Saga of the alt tags: http://www.write101.com/saga.htm )

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

That was in 1998 and my business has expanded to include professional writing services -- something I'd never thought about doing. It grew because people I met through the Internet asked my advice about their own writing and then asked me to write for them; I now have clients from every continent (except Antarctica).

That's what happens with business opportunities -- they just sort of arrive out of nowhere, and you have to be ready to recognise them and grab them before they get away!

MASSIVE GROWTH

The Internet provides the greatest opportunity of all in its capacity to change the way we do business and communicate, and in the rapidity with which all this has happened.

In 1996, there were an estimated 40 million Internet users worldwide, but according to a study released by market researcher the Angus Reid Group, global Internet usage is well on its way to reaching 1 billion users by this year (2005).

Consider the following:

A world where e-mailboxes outnumber TV sets and telephone lines is probably only two years away.

According to statistics compiled by Messaging Online, the total number of e-mailboxes in the world has soared 83.5% in the past year. For comparison, the CIA says there are almost one billion TVs in the world, and according to the ITU there are less than 800 million phone lines. This means email has in 12 years done what it took 50 years for the TV and 125 years for the telephone to do.

Online advertising revenues are expected to grow to $28 billion worldwide this year, according to new Jupiter research released in June at the Global Online Advertising Forum in Cannes, France. Jupiter says that nearly 6% of all global advertising revenue will be spent online and that growth will partly be driven by the rise of the online population worldwide, which will more than double within the next five years.

Because of the swift time-to-market and the strong return on investment of e-mail, a new Jupiter report estimates that commercial e-mail spending will grow from $164 million in 1999 to $7.3 billion in 2005 - an estimated forty-fold increase in e-mail volume.

The online population growth in Northern Europe, Asia and Latin America will lead to a global melting pot in a few years, eMarketer predicts and most of the Internet's growth will be in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

eMarketer also predicts that wireless devices will link millions of new users to the web in the next few years.

According to the European Commission, Europe has one of the highest cell phone penetration rates in the world, with Finland leading the pack at 64.4% (Statistics from Masha E. Geller's MediaPost: http://www.mediapost.com)

Convinced?

WHY YOU NEED A WEBSITE

As well as using your website to facilitate your business, as I did, there are countless other uses:

Keep in touch with family. So many families these days are spread across the country and around the world. We miss out on all those precious moments such as new babies, first steps, graduations, birthdays, weddings ... but having your own website means you can post pictures of your family, you can even put up videos and recordings so everyone in the family can keep up to date.

Have you retired? Use the Internet to plan that great Retirement Odyssey; put up maps of your travels so friends can follow your trip; post your travel diary and keep the best travel memories fresh for all time.

Set up a site around your hobby, sport or craft and show off your work or collections.

Are you a member of a charity organisation? Build a website to keep in touch with members and benefactors. Use it to arrange fund raisers.

We all know that children these days seem to be born computer literate, so give your children the opportunity to explore their talents and to build their skills by giving them their very own website. If the Internet is going to play such a dominant role in our lives, your kids need to be thoroughly skilled in all its uses.

Developers have seen the writing on the wall and many are now building housing estates with Internet access a standard inclusion in new homes.

Websites are the way of the future and we can learn to use them or get left behind.

NB If the spelling of words such as "visualised" in this article worried you, please read this: http://www.write101.com/aus.htm

Jennifer Stewart has had her own web-based business since 1998 and offers ghost writing and other professional services to clients from every continent except Antarctica. Visit http://www.write101.com and subscribe to free, weekly Writing Tips: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Setting Up Your First Website

2009-01-15T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Cathy Goodwin

Q. Hey, Cathy: I'm just setting up a website. What should I do?

A. First, don't call the web designer yet! Write out a detailed summary of your ideal client, if you haven't already done so. Get very clear on what benefits you will offer and how you will stand out from the crowd. Before you spend days and weeks refining your copy, test your ideas on real people -- as close to your ideal client as possible. Study your competition to see what works -- and to avoid creating a "me-too" site that gets lost in the crowd.

Most important, get some confirmation that a market exists for your product. Do people actually use this product or service? Do they pay or expect freebies? Do they have a low-price mindset? Do they mind on the web? If you can't answer yes to all these questions, identify resources who can help.

If you are starting a brand-new business with a website, start small. Very small. Don't put a lot of money into your first website. If you want create a professional image, hire a designer, but keep costs down by setting up only a few pages. Your needs will change as your business grows.

Your site needs three basic sections.

(a) What the site is about. I recommend writing two or three sentences for your home page, enough for visitors to decide if they want to hang around.

(b) Who you are. When you're the product, include an "about you" page. I recommend a narrative format to hold readers' interest.

"Griselda began life in a cave somewhere in deepest Africa. After being abducted at age seven, she was taken to the US and... "

Be sure to include links to pages that detail your achievements. This is no time for modesty! List degrees, publications and certificates.

You may turn off some potential clients: some will be put off by too many or too few credentials, or they may have been burned by someone with a similar background. Better to lose them up front, I say.

(c) What you offer for sale. You need a page that describes your products and services in mouth-watering detail. You may include prices and a link to your shopping cart.

Some experienced web business owners choose to omit prices. They send price sheets to people who express interest in their services.

That's a judgment call, too. They hope to hook clients who are so enthused by the website they'll pay more. On the downside, some folks won't even ask -- they expect the prices to be a lot higher.

And you may include options: articles and downloadable ebooks, to allow your web visitors to learn more about you. Write in lively, journalistic, self-help style. Focus on topics that attract your clients' interest. If you sell fitness products, include tips on exercise.

How will visitors find you? You'll need a comprehensive plan including metatags, content keywords, link swaps and articles.

When will you see results? If you have little or no revenue after three months, experiment with tactics, such as getting your website known, revising your site for better navigtion. After six months, it's time for an overhaul. Investigate options for a professional website review.

I offer one-to-one consultations on career and business strategy.

About The Author

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com.

"Ten secrets of mastering a major life change" mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com

Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294

Developing Stateenabled Applications With Php

2009-01-14T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by John L

Installment 1

Developing State-enabled Applications With PHP

When a user is browsing through a website and is surfing from one web page to another, sometimes the website needs to remember the actions (e.g. choices) performed by the user. For example, in a website that sells DVDs, the user typically browses through a list of DVDs and selects individual DVDs for check out at the end of the shopping session. The website needs to remember which DVDs the user has selected because the selected items needs to be presented again to the user when the user checks out. In other words, the website needs to remember the State - i.e. the selected items - of the user's browsing activities.

However, HTTP is a Stateless protocol and is ill-equipped to handle States. A standard HTML website basically provides information to the user and a series of links that simply directs the user to other related web pages. This Stateless nature of HTTP allows the website to be replicated across many servers for load balancing purposes. A major drawback is that while browsing from one page to another, the website does not remember the State of the browsing session. This make interactivity almost impossible.

In order to increase interactivity, the developer can use the session handling features of PHP to augment the features of HTTP in order to remember the State of the browsing session. The are basically 2 ways PHP does this:

1. Using cookies
2. Using Sessions

The next installment discusses how to manage sessions using cookies...

Installment 2

Cookies are used to store State-information in the browser. Browsers are allowed to keep up to 20 cookies for each domain and the values stored in the cookie cannot exceed 4 KB. If more than 20 cookies are created by the website, only the latest 20 are stored. Cookies are only suitable in instances that do not require complex session communications and are not favoured by some developers because of privacy issues. Furthermore, some users disable support for cookies at their browsers.

The following is a typical server-browser sequence of events that occur when a cookie is used:

1. The server knows that it needs to remember the State of browsing session

2. The server creates a cookie and uses the Set-Cookie header field in the HTTP response to pass the cookie to the browser

3. The browser reads the cookie field in the HTTP response and stores the cookie

4. This cookie information is passed along future browser-server communications and can be used in the PHP scripts as a variable

PHP provides a function called setcookie() to allow easy creation of cookies. The syntax for setcookie is: int setcookie(string name, [string val], [int expiration_date], [string path], string domain, [int secure])

The parameters are:

1. name - this is a mandatory parameter and is used subsequently to identify the cookie

2. value - the value of the cookie - e.g. if the cookie is used to store the name of the user, the value parameter will store the actual name - e.g. John

3. expiration_date - the lifetime of the cookie. After this date, the cookie expires and is unusable

4. path - the path refers to the URL from which the cookie is valid and allowed

5. domain - the domain the created the cookie and is allowed to read the contents of the cookie

6. secure - specifies if the cookie can be sent only through a secure connection - e.g. SSL enable sessions

The following is an example that displays to the user how many times a specific web page has been displayed to the user. Copy the code below (both the php and the html) into a file with the .php extension and test it out.

[?php //check if the $count variable has been associated with the count cookie if (!isset($count)) {

$count = 0; } else {

$count++; } setcookie("count", $count, time()+600, "/", "", 0); ?]

[html]

[head]

[title]Session Handling Using Cookies[/title]

[/head]

[body]

This page has been displayed: [?=$count ?] times.

[/body] [/html]

The next installment discusses how to manage sessions using PHP session handling functions with cookies enabled...

Installment 3

PHP Session Handling - Cookies Enabled

Instead of storing session information at the browser through the use of cookies, the information can instead be stored at the server in session files. One session file is created and maintained for each user session. For example, if there are three concurrent users browsing the website, three session files will be created and maintained - one for each user. The session files are deleted if the session is explicitly closed by the PHP script or by a daemon garbage collection process provided by PHP. Good programming practice would call for sessions to be closed explicitly in the script.

The following is a typical server-browser sequence of events that occur when a PHP session handling is used:

1. The server knows that it needs to remember the State of browsing session

2. PHP generates a sssion ID and creates a session file to store future information as required by subsequent pages

3. A cookie is generated wih the session ID at the browser

4. This cookie that stores the session ID is transparently and automatically sent to the server for all subsequent requests to the server

The following PHP session-handling example accomplishes the same outcome as the previous cookie example. Copy the code below (both the php and the html) into a file with the .php extension and test it out.

[?php //starts a session session_start();

//informs PHP that count information needs to be remembered in the session file if (!session_is_registered("count")) {

session_register("count");

$count = 0; } else {

$count++; }

$session_id = session_id(); ?]

[html]

[head]

[title]PHP Session Handling - Cookie-Enabled[/title]

[/head]

[body]

The current session id is: [?=$session_id ?]

This page has been displayed: [?=$count ?] times.

[/body] [/html]

A summary of the functions that PHP provides for session handling are:

1. boolean start_session() - initializes a session

2. string session_id([string id]) - either returns the current session id or specify the session id to be used when the session is created

3. boolean session_register(mixed name [, mixed ...]) - registers variables to be stored in the session file. Each parameter passed in the function is a separate variable

4. boolean session_is_registered(string variable_name) - checks if a variable has been previously registered to be stored in the session file

5. session_unregister(string varriable_name) - unregisters a variable from the session file. Unregistered variables are no longer valid for reference in the session.

6. session_unset() - unsets all session variables. It is important to note that all the variables remain registered.

7. boolean session_destroy() - destroys the session. This is opposite of the start_session function.

The next installment discusses how to manage sessions using PHP session handling functions when cookies are disabled...

Installment 4

PHP Session Handling - Without Cookies

If cookies are disabled at the browser, the above example cannot work. This is because although the session file that stores all the variables is kept at the server, a cookie is still needed at the browser to store the session ID that is used to identify the session and its associated session file. The most common way around this would be to explicitly pass the session ID back to the server from the browser as a query parameter in the URL.

For example, the PHP script generates requests subsequent to the start_session call in the following format: http://www.yourhost.com/yourphpfile.php?PHPSESSID=[actual session ID]

The following are excerpts that illustrate the discussion:

Manually building the URL:
$url = "http://www.yoursite.com/yourphppage.php?PHPSESSID=" . session_id(); [a href="[?=$url ?]"]Anchor Text[/a]

Building the URL using SID:
[a href="http://www.yoursite.com/yourphppage.php?[?=SID ?]"]Anchor Text[/a]

Used with the author's permission.

This article is written by John L.
John L is the Webmaster of Designer Banners (http://www.designerbanners.com).

Have Answers For These Questions Before Building A Website

2009-01-13T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Suresh Babu

What is the purpose of the website?

Whom this website is built for?

Who is the targeted audience?

What is the demographic target?

What is the entry page?

What is the exit page?

Is your website designed for each class of visitors? Small, Medium and large

who do you want to attract?

How can you get them there?

Do you have a budget for Marketing?

What kind of marketing will be more effective?

Who is going to do the marketing? In-house/ Outsource?

Is your website optimized for the right keyword?

Apart from online resources do you seek offline marketing?

Is there a person dedicated to maintain the website on a regular basis?

What kind of programs is used?

Do you have quality outgoing and incoming links?

Is your website better than your competitor?

What is unique about your site?

Why should visitors buy from your site when there are hundreds of sites out there?

Is your site Search engine and user friendly?

Do the visitors know where else to go when they arrive to your page?

Are there different paths for visitors who may have different reasons for visiting the site?

Are there any distractions that can keep visitors from completing the tasks?

Is there enough information on the pages?

If a person comes back and ready top purchase will it be easy for them to purchase?

What makes the pages memorable and visitors will remember if they leave the site?

Does your website make visitors to trust you and proceed to buy a product or services?

Will visitors see what they are looking for right away when they arrive?

The Fox Internet Marketing Solutions
A Division of the Fox Advertising Agency, Inc.
9114 58th Dr. East, Suite 103
Bradenton, FL 34202
Phone: 941.758.2404
FAX: 941.756.6484
Email: info@foxadv.com
Website: www.foxadv.com

How To Create An Online Community Site

2009-01-10T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by David Feinleib

Today, it's easy to create a static web site. But on the surface it appears hard to create a dynamic, community based web site. Why create a community web site? Because it means that your users will be able to interact with your site rather than just view it. They will be able to add content, upload photos, post their own profiles, and even talk to each other via chat or instant messaging.

Online communities are all around us. Practically everyone has heard of MySpace and Yahoo Groups. If you're putting a web site up, however, why not hold onto your users rather than forcing them to go to another web site to share information and talk to each other? If you don't give your users the ability to do what they want on your web site, they will go elsewhere, and you will lose the ability to interact with them and see what they have to say. Moreover, every time one of the visitors to your web site posts some content, it makes your site more attractive to the search engines, which delivers more traffic to your site, resulting in more business for you.

Building a community web site is easy and can be free with the right software. Open source software, which is free of charge, makes it possible for you to get a community web site up and running in a matter of minutes or hours. You can think of a community web site much like a blog, except that instead of you being the only person who can post content, all visitors to your web site can post content too! That means you don't have to stay up trying to create page after page: your users will do that for you.

The open source software program drupal is a popular system for putting communities online. Drupal supports a wide variety of features, from basic content uploading, to support for user profiles, chatting, tagging, and voting. Suppose you're creating a web site about travel. With a community based travel web site, your users can talk about their own experiences too and vote on places to stay and things to see and do.

Among the many advantages of drupal is that you can start off with basic functionality and then add modules to enhance the core feature set. You can even design your own custom modules (or have others design custom modules for you) to enable new functionality.

Get started today building a dynamic, community based Web 2.0 web site rather than a static, non-interactive Web 1.0 web site!

David Feinleib is the author of the popular blog http://www.vcmba.com. He hosts an online home ownership community at http://www.homeownershiponline.com.

But My Business Doesnt Need A Website

2009-01-08T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Pamela Jacob

Revenues are often lost because many business owners don't see the value in having a website. They claim their products can't be sold online and technology is overwhelming. The fact is without a web presence they may be losing incredible opportunity. A well-planned, professional website can:

Expand Your Business:

Utilizing the Internet is a cost-effective approach to reaching a large number of people that are interested in your product or service.

The world is your oyster and you can reach your target market anywhere in the world.

Improve Your Image:

Not having a website can make your business look outdated and out of touch with modern technology. It doesn't pain a picture of success.

When you have a website that reflects the image you need, it will attract potential customers and keep your current customers on top of what you have to offer.

If you're in business, you have competition. Do your competitors have a websites?

Increase Your Profits:

A website allows you to be in business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Potential customers can learn about you anytime.

Marketing is the source of all sales. Leads and sales can be derived from traditional marketing, viral marketing, and marketing on the Internet.

April of 2004, "the active online population across U.S. home, work and university PCs totaled 155.1 million people"

source:comScore.com.

Imagine if your company could tap into a fraction of these potential clients.

Improve Efficiency Saving You Time and Money:

How many times do potential customers and existing clients call for basic information? A website allows you to provide instant responses to your customers' questions. What are your normal hours, what is your range of products and services, do you provide on-site estimates etc.?

The old saying time is money is really true in business.

People have come to expect businesses to have a compelling website even if the business does not offer products that can be purchased on-line. Potential customers are likely to browse for information about products and services before they make a decision on what business they want to work with.

Businesses can't afford not to have a website.

Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your website, or in your print publication provided you include the resource box at the end. Notification would be appreciated but is not required.

Is your website an integral part of making money in your business? Then you need to "Create the image you need to attract the customers you want." Pamela Jacob, owner of Artista Design, can help you do just that. She specializes in all types of visual mediums and has been in the new media industry for over a decade. To gain more valuable insights from Pamela Jacob visit: http://www.artistadesign.com

Webmasters Need To Know This

2009-01-07T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Francisco Santander

Most NEW webmasters don't have a clue...

What is the purpose of having your Web page? Do you even know what to make it about?

Let's review the facts:

So you were given free HOSTING (something beetween 5 megs to 100 megs) by your broadband company along with a free domain name registration... or you were surfing the net and you found that there are free hosts that you can use (of course by having them put ads and banners in any good or bad site that you create) and now you don't know what to use this Web space for.

That happens too often.

Now you are faced with the fact that you have to do something with that and your eyes go like $$.

You start thinking "I am going to make money on the Internet with the next best idea" (usually just by repeating old schemes) and the first thing you "come up with" is something like joining a PAID TO DO SOMETHING site and promoting your AFFILIATE LINK on your page.

You go by telling others how wonderful the program is and blah, blah, blah. You know what? it doesn't work... (most of the time) Then you spend months, don't see any traffic and you start thinking: "let's use AUTOROTATORS, AUTOVISITING SITES, MANUAL ROTATORS and so on, and you put a visit COUNTER on your page (you set it up for UNIQUE VISITORS) and start seeing how it counts growing numbers of visits only to realize that, as much as you don't pay any attention to the pages that your program shows you, most people don't pay attention to your content as well.

So you think: "how am i gonna get people to visit my site?"

Then someone tells you that the first thing you have to do is SUBMIT your site to the top SEARCH ENGINES. And you do.

And you wait......wait........wait.......wait.....and wait for the unique visitors to come and they don't come. Hey, you don't even know if you are listed or if you are, you are far from the first 100 pages of search results for the KEYWORDS people used. And despair strikes again.

Then you think: "I have to BUY ADVERTISEMENT"

You start spending money for ads that aren't usually too good at the CLICK THROUGH RATIO (well, you can use Adwords from Google, at least they don't charge you unless your ads are clicked) Anyway, you spend money and don't get any in return.

That is the sad story of more than 95% of webmaster wannabes on the net.

The following title will deal with CONTENT, the MIGHTY KING of the Internet; you have to think of a voice much like Sean Connery's to read the next phrase: "this is the stuff web pages are made of"

"Been there, done that..."

I know that most of you got discouraged by the last things I said. You think that publishing could be a waste of time and money, that everything has already been said.

Let me tell you, there are a lot of people who have not heard what's been said, so you can bring old and new INFORMATION and CONTENT to your web page presenting it in a brand new and imaginative way.

You have to have content, the community is starving for content, fresh new or a fresh view.

So, what is content?

Content can be almost anything: Articles, poems, pictures, opinions, jokes, e-books, etc.

Most people don't know this fact, but Google (tm) and most search engines reward pages with new content with a better ranking and punish duplicates (clones, copies, etc.), and better ranking is LIFE on the net (or so they say).

An example of content can be this article that you are reading right now. It's new, maybe not too fresh, but since English is my second language there probably isn't any content in the net that resembles mine (at least not in the way it is phrased).

Google (tm) and other search engines CAN'T see words inside pictures when they are evaluating content, so they see text only, which means that the more text, the more content and KEYWORDS they see. No wonder pages that only have pictures don't rank well.

On the other hand, articles, blogs and other text pages rank better. If you are not into making new content, you can have FREE CONTENT on your web pages. There are sites that offer free articles that you can put on your pages (provided that you don't modify them or take credit for them). Many people (authors) send their articles to these pages to get exposure, to publish the link to their pages (as I do at the end of this very page (don't blame me for using my own advice) or simply to get some attention. So content can not only be a way to rank better, but also a way to expose your views, opinions and your links.

You Have to Have a GOOD domain name.

Having a good web page is good, but nothing beats having a GOOD DOMAIN NAME for your small business. You cannot sell frozen fish using "www.thebestcarloan.com" you have to have something like "frozenfish4u.com." When people see the domain name of a company, they associate it with the product, it is impossible for them to think that your product is serious unless they see something related in the domain name. A domain name is a PLACE, a SPOT, your station, people think: "Hey, I don´t go to the supermarket to get medical services or to the doctors office to get groceries..."

Once you define the best name there is for your business, you have to register it.

Registering a domain name is very easy, just search for "domain name registration" and you'll get tons of registrars.

Well that's about all the information I can bring in this article today.

Visit my page: http://www.elmejorguia.com/Index_english.htm

The Web Your Window Of Opportunity

2009-01-06T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Dina Giolitto

Thinking about starting up a business? The web is the way to go. Look around! More and more, people are relying on the internet as an information resource, a way to foster personal relationships, and method of purchasing goods and services.

What would you think if you received a business inquiry from an unfamiliar company, and you looked them up on the internet to find they had no website? They'd seem a little behind the times, wouldn't they? They might even come across as slightly unprofessional. It would take away from their credibility, to see that they had no presence on the world wide web.

Likewise: if you own your own business or are thinking of starting one, the first place you should put your name is the internet. Why? It's the cheapest method of advertising that gets you the most exposure... and it's a way to present your offer to the world without ever leaving the house.

The web is reputation that builds on itself. It's a potential buyer sitting at home, typing your specialty into a Google search, and seeing your company pop up. It's your own website URL getting forwarded on via email. It's someone in a chat forum passing your good name along because you gave them a bit of thoughtful advice.

The web is your own portable office space, and it's practically rent-free.

Now you're probably thinking "Hey that sounds great... but I don't know how to create a website! And who has the time?"

I have the time. I make the time, because I love what I do. I write web copy. I talk with people who want to increase their exposure and grow their businesses. I take the time to learn about them and what they do. And then I wrap it all up in a neat, organized information package, and turn it into a professional portfolio that showcases the best of everything they have to offer the world. Web advertising really works. I should know. It's what I use to run my own business.

Part of the trick of web advertising is positioning. You want to speak to your audience in a way that 1) identifies their needs, and then 2) positions your company as having the solution. It's not a lie; it's just a strategic way of presenting yourself. If you do it right, it can one-up you over the next guy. How so? Putting out a quality product is only half the secret to being a successful seller. The other half is communication: in the right manner, and to the right people. I can develop an athletic shoe that will enable you to run 15 miles, but if I can't convince people that they might want to run 15 miles, I may as well not have created it. I can revolutionize a way to speed-cook chicken, but if I'm telling my story to vegetarians, it ain't worth a cluck!

Now that we've covered the basics of effective advertising: the time has come to build a reputation for yourself on the web! Remember that movie, Field of Dreams? If you build it, they will come. A website, that is. The current state of our economy is increasingly driving today's professional to seek options beyond the corporate job as a way to sustain income - and especially, to make use of their talents and expertise! Web-based businesses are hot. Free enterprise is exploding... and everywhere you roam, inspired entrepreneurs are eager to share their newfound knowledge. There's a lot of cameraderie happening, and networking with potential buyers has never been easier or more productive.

What will tomorrow bring? Your guess is as good as mine. But what I can tell you is this: if you've got a head for business, today is your day to shine! Make the web your window of opportunity while the going is good. If you don't... you may miss out on the chance of a lifetime!

Liked this article? Have more of the same emailed to your inbox each month. Sign up for the Copywriting and Marketing Ezine from Dina at Wordfeeder.com and learn to write search engine friendly web copy and market your web based business for free.

Developing A Theme For Your Website

2009-01-05T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Gene DeFazzio

The importance of a website theme

Every website should have some type of theme or a way of giving your site an identifying look. When visitors come to your website they should be presented with an experience that they will remember. Something that makes your website unique will go a long way in making your website memorable.

This can be through the use of a unique logo, a particular color combination or a recognizable idea such as gardening or pets. Let's take a look at some of the methods you can use to develop a theme for a website.

Developing a theme

If you have chosen a title for your website or business, think about what theme would compliment that title. Let your imagination take over here and think of several ideas and write them down. If you don't have a title or name chosen, think of the content, graphics and/or photos you're going to include on your site. Deciding on a theme might help you come up with a unique name.

A theme can be obvious . . . such as a greenhouse using gardening tools, flowers, etc. Or it can be a metaphor. For example, a website about babies could also use a ''gardening'' theme. The metaphors of seedlings, growth, nurturing, feeding and caring for tender plants would translate very well.

Expressing a theme

Another popular way to express a theme is to use thumbnails throughout the site that tell a story or express an idea. Thumbnails of snowflakes scattered around your website would be great for a website that deals with winter sports or some other cold weather activity or product. Also, using the thumbnail method makes your website easier to load than when using large graphic images.

When the theme is a particular color or color combination, the links, buttons and graphics should all reflect that color theme. Use it everywhere on your website. If a logo is used as the theme, that logo should be incorporated on every page. One such method is to incorporate your logo into your page headers and/or footers. This way your visitors will be presented with a repeating theme on every page of your website that they visit.

Summary

What you are doing, with a theme, is providing cohesiveness to your site - letting visitors know they are still in the same place no matter what section they are viewing. Web users don't like the feeling of being ''lost'' and will leave a site if they feel they don't know where they are or how to find information.

More importantly a theme should tell a story or convey an idea. Your theme should enhance your message. It can help to make your visitors understand what it is that you are trying to say. Picture your theme as a framework into which you are placing your message. Like the settings that a jeweler might use to embellish a gem your theme should present your content is the best light possible.

Gene DeFazzio is the webmaster and author of the Rocketface® Workshop. http://www.rocketface.com A website dedicated to the new and aspiring webmaster and home of the webmasters tutorial, "How to Design a Website".

Site Monetization Amp You

2009-01-04T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Matthew Keegan

The internet has some downsides as well as upsides to it. Speaking of upsides, if you are a writer then you know that submitting articles to various article directories is a great [and free] way to get your name out there. Compared to paying for advertising, article writing especially of the quality kind can help you get noticed. Getting noticed can translate into you selling your products, your services, market your writing skills, etc.

If you don't yet have a web site, then you really need to get one. If you don't want to put up with all of the hassles of managing a site, i.e., paying for web hosting, securing a domain name, making changes to the site, etc. then consider getting a blog and setting it up like a site. You can then add all of your articles to the blog for visitors to see and for search engines to index. Try Blogger for a free blog while you are at it.

Since you would be managing your own site, monetize it too. Yes, we all know about Google's AdSense program, but they aren't they only ones playing that game these days. I use Google, but I now also use Yahoo. Yahoo is working out nicely for me and I'll be getting a check right off the bat for one month's revenue [$100 per month minimum needed before payout]. No, I don't get a referral credit from Yahoo as I would from Google, but they are worth a look. Plus, they don't limit you to three ads per page!

So, if you are not yet managing your own site, then you are missing out. Jump in and get started and tap the internet revolution today!

Purchasing A Website Secrets That You Must Know Before You Delve Out Your Hard Earned Moola

2009-01-03T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Dennis Blasius

So, you picked up this article because you're interested in purchasing your very own website. Perhaps you've seen one that interests you or maybe you don't have a clue what type of site you want. It honestly doesn't matter which stage of the purchasing process you're in because this article is your handy little guide that will keep you from getting had.

In this article, we'll discuss how to choose the right site from the beginning, how to research it, and much more. By following these proven steps, you will choose the right site and make an immediate return on your investment.

So, sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee or tea, roll up your sleeves and get ready to learn the low down on how to purchase a website.

1. Know What You Want. First and foremost, you must decide what it is that you want to accomplish with your site. In order to make this determination, ask yourself the following questions: Are you looking for a site that will generate substantial profit or one that you'll own as a hobby? Are you looking for a site that will truly make a difference in the world? Are you looking for a site that targets a specific audience? Are you looking for a site that you can buy, improve and flip quickly for a profit? Are you looking for a site so that you can gain access to its domain name? In essence, whatever your goals are, you have to know what you want before you move on.

2. Be Honest With Yourself. Once you've pinpointed your purchasing goals, you should figure out if your goal makes sense. For instance, if your primary goal is to make a profit; you have to realistically decide exactly how much profit you want to make. You should now decide who will be your targeted market and what type of site will help you achieve your goals. Lastly, be specific about how you'll make your dream a reality.

3. Commit Yourself. Next, you must decide whether you have the time to make your purchasing goals a reality. Although buying an existing site takes less time than creating a new one, being a site owner to an existing site is still a lot of hard work. Don't take this for granted. Once you find the right site, you will then have to handle the transfer, control marketing and upkeep, deal with existing and new clients, and ultimately make or keep your site a success. You can't just "buy a site and then wait for it to achieve greatness." You have to work hard and be committed to making it successful.

4. Find Appropriate Sites. Once you're committed, you should find sites that appeal to you and your goals. These can be underperforming sites that have potential or they can be well established sites that have highly popular keyword niches. Either way you have to be willing to search deep on the web to find the right site for you. To do so, you should use main search engines to locate websites in your targeted industry. You can also visit sites like www.website-buy-sell.com that specialize in matching owners with potential buyers.

5. Compare and Contrast. Fifth, once you find a few sites that interest you, you must take some time to compare and contrast them. Rate them in terms of usability, marketability, overall design, use of graphics, site sophistication/depth, search engine ranking, and content readability, originality, and overall quality. Then, shortlist the ones that you're most interested in and be ready to follow the next steps.

6. Contact owner. Sixth, find out who owns it and then contact them via phone or email. It doesn't matter whether they've advertised selling the site or not. Once you make initial contact, be professional and let the owner know that their site interests you. Inquire about whether they would be interested in selling. If they are interested, ask them to provide you with an "asking price" as well as tracking and reporting information. If not, ask them to contact you when they are ready to negotiate. After you gather preliminary information, tell them that you will make some further evaluations and may be making an offer in the near future.

7. Appraise it. Either hire a professional appraiser or conduct your own site appraisal. If you do it yourself, be prepared for a lot of work. Either way, make sure that the appraisal is extremely detailed and contains key information such as: the site's usability, sophistication, cost of running it, current subscriber base (if any), trend information, value of the domain, who links to it, cost to develop the site further and integrate additional feature, etc. In essence, this comprehensive appraisal will be your blueprint of how much to offer.

8. Make Your Offer. Once you've figured out how much the site is worth then make your offer. Never be afraid to negotiate and always offer less than the site is worth and be prepared to justify why you're offering less. For instance, if you believe that the content will have to be rewritten then factor this in and deduct from the price. If you think additional features will need to be added to make it marketable then factor that in also.

9. Be willing to walk away. Don't get so caught up in the negotiating process that you lose sight of your goals. Always be willing to walk away if you aren't happy with the negotiating process.

10. Sign and enjoy. After you've reached an agreement with the site owner, make sure that you get everything in writing and that it includes detailed and comprehensive information. For instance, you can include whether the new owner can compete with you, how much support they will provide, whether they'll receive any profits, whether the content transfers over to you, etc.

In conclusion, purchasing a website can be a fun, rewarding, and exciting experience if you the follow the above mentioned steps. By doing so, you'll save yourself a lot of heartache, time, and energy and can do what you do best, run your new site.

Dennis Blasius recommends you check out: http://www.website-buy-sell.com/

Components Of A Great Web Site

2009-01-02T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Merle Stinnett

So you've finally decided it's time to create your own Web Site. After all, your friends and business associates have one and you don't want to be left behind on the Information Super Highway.

Great Web Sites all have a few common elements about them, and that's what I'll be discussing here. It's usually a good idea to plan the site out on paper before even touching your PC. It can be difficult to come up with content when staring at a blank computer screen, so get out an old fashioned pen and paper and let those creative juices flow. You want to be sure to include all there is to know about your products and/or services.

Once you decide on the main topics you'll be using, it's time to plan out the navigation. You need to make it simple and easy for visitors to find their way around your site, otherwise they'll get frustrated and leave. Keep the navigation consistent on all pages so your guests don't have to re-learn the menus from page to page. Graphic links are usually more effective than plain text, but make sure you use something readable and easy on the eyes.

Make sure the color of the hyperlinks coordinate with the rest of your site. You should include your contact information at the bottom of every page - at the very least, an email address. Businesses should also include phone, FAX, and company name. Not everyone enters a site through the front door and if you fail to include this information, they won't know where they are or how to get in touch with you with comments and/or suggestions. If you surf the Net for any length of time, you'll be amazed at just how many sites fail to include this vital information.

Including a FeedBack form is a good way to add some interactivity and makes it easy for people to ask questions without having to pick up the phone.

Graphics make a site visually appealing, but if you use the wrong ones you can leave a bad impression. If you must use a background, make sure it's not so busy that text cannot be easily read. Surfers are an impatient bunch, so make sure the graphics are compressed as much as possible so they download quickly. There are many online utilities that will perform this service for Free. One is located at http://www.webutilities.com/services/index.htm This Free compression service offers support for Gif, JPG, and PNG. You should save simple graphics in a 16 color format rather than 256.

If your site is large you might want to include a search mechanism to help visitors find what they are looking for. The more information you include, the harder it gets for visitors to find exactly what they want. A search form makes this simple. HTML editors like MS Front Page make it easy to insert search tools into your site that will automatically update when new pages are added.

Having a Web Site means making constant updates. People want to know that the information they are reading is fresh and new. That being said, you should include the last date the page was updated on all of the pages in your site. This lets the public know when changes were last made or you can include a "what's new" page that is specifically used for this purpose.

Adding a page of related links is another great idea. You can contact other site owners and ask to exchange links or just add other sites that you like which complement yours. By asking to exchange links, you help generate traffic for each other's sites. The best sites on the Net usually offer links to related Web Sites where more information can be found on the same topic. If you can write up a brief description next to each link, all the better. If you do include a link page check it from time to time to get rid of any dead links. It's annoying to click on a link and get an error.

If you take all of these tips and implement them on your Web Site, you'll have an interesting, well-designed site that people will want to return to again and again.

Anyone can get on the Information Super Highway, it's up to you what kind of car you want to be seen in.

Merle has been "working" the Net for over 8 years and has a Special Gift just for you. Download my FREE E-book "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy now at http://www.WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included.

Xhtml Extended Hypertext Markup Language An Overview

2009-01-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

Writen by Phillip Jr Kimpo

Many Web pages today are poorly written. Syntactically incorrect HTML code may work in most browsers even if it doesn't follow HTML rules. Browsers employ heuristics to deal with these flawed Web pages; however, Web-enabled wireless devices (such as PDAs) can't accommodate these hefty Web browsers. The next step in HTML's evolution comes in the form of XHTML (eXtended Hypertext Markup Language), which is basically a combination of HTML and XML.

History

As with XML, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was the force behind XHTML's development. When XML was introduced, a two-day workshop was held to discuss whether a new version of HTML in XML was needed. The answer was a resounding "Yes."

The first W3C Recommendation to be published was XHTML 1.0, which reformulates HTML 4.0.1 in XML and combines the strengths of the two markup languages. The recommendation followed from earlier work on HTML 4.0.1, HTML 4.0, HTML 3.2, and HTML 2.0.

The second W3C Recommendation was XHTML Basic. It boasts of images, forms, basic tables, and object support. XHTML Basic is designed for Web clients that do not support the full set of XHTML features; examples of these clients are mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, and set-top boxes.

The third W3C Recommendation to come out was on the Modularization of XHTML. It provides a means for extending and creating subsets for XHTML. The modular design introduced by this recommendation underscores the invalidity of the "one-size-fits-all" approach nowadays, especially with the advent of Web browsers that vary in capabilities (e.g. cellphone browser vs. desktop PC browser).

The fourth W3C Recommendation was XHTML 1.1 (Module Based XHTML). Here, a new XHTML document type is defined based on the modular design of the third XHTML Recommendation.

Profile

XHTML is a family of current and future document types and modules that contains all of the HTML 4.0.1 elements combined with XML syntax. XHTML is classified as an XML Application, and thus possess many XML features.

XHTML, described by Andrew Tanenbaum as a "language that is Very Picky", differs itself from HTML by its stricter syntax.

The current version of XHTML that is supported by browsers is XHTML 1.0, a W3C Recommendation discussed earlier. There are three variants to XHTML 1.0:

XHTML 1.0 Strict used for exceptionally clean structural markup; the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) language can be used with this variant to get the desired font, color, and layout effects

XHTML 1.0 Transitional best option for Web authors with webpages meant for general public access; takes advantage of XHTML features including style sheets

XHTML 1.0 Frameset used to partition the Web browser window into two or more frames

Syntax

The important thing to remember here is that XHTML is extended HTML. This means that writing XHTML code is very similar to writing HTML code. The only difference lies in the fact that XHTML is more strict and structured than its progenitor.

A good way of familiarizing yourself with XHTML is to get old HTML code and bring it up to XHTML standards. You'll need to keep in mind several rules:

All elements must be properly nested.

All elements must be properly closed.

All tag names must be in lower case.

All attribute names must be in lower case.

All attribute values must be properly quoted.

The "id" attribute replaces the "name" attribute.

All images must have alternate ("alt") text -- make the page accessible for devices that don't load images, or screen-readers for the blind.

All XHTML documents must have a DOCTYPE declaration, as well as the "html", "head", and "body" elements.

The "title" element must be present within the "head" element.

A good hands-on tutorial on XHTML can be found at http://w3schools.com.

Discipline and practice will allow you to master XHTML in no time. However, if you don't want to convert an existing HTML document to XHTML yourself, you can use HTML Tidy, a software that does the transformation for you. Also, you can use Amaya, a web browser and editor that saves HTML documents as XHTML ones.

Phillip Kimpo Jr. is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). A freelance writer and computer science graduate, he keeps a tech blog at Crimson Crux (http://ccrux.corsarius.net), as well as a literary blog at Corsarius' Slip of the Pen (http://corsarius.blogspot.com).

Why Should I Bother With Optimised Online Copywriting

2008-12-31T15:00:00.001-08:00

Writen by Jackie Griffiths

It's no good having a creative, individual website with brilliant, informative copy if customers can't find you on the internet. On the other hand, it's also detrimental if you have a website that can be easily found (has a high ranking) but people become bored and alienated reading it.

Producing effective online copywriting is a creative process blending art and science in a balanced technique combining many different elements. This integration of disciplines is required to satisfy both the technical and the aesthetic objectives of a website.

Optimised online copywriting should ensure that your website is:

 highly readable to your viewers

 highly visible to the search engines, and thereby

 commercially successful for you.

Many people and businesses don't have the time to actually write web copy themselves. A professional freelance copywriter can furnish you with keyword-rich, highly original web content to enhance and improve the quality of your website with the aim of transforming more of your visitors into customers.

Rarely will you get a second chance to engage your customer's attention, so your first shot must be formatted for maximum sales potential, catching the eye of the search engine robots as well. But not too much If your copy goes overboard in favour of the search engines it earn you a penalty from Google that will negatively effect your rankings. Your website must always have the reader as priority. This makes more business anyway.

Search engines provide a way for potential customers to find you on the internet. People type a keyphrase or keyword into a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN (or one of the many other popular engines) and this returns a page of listings - web page suggestions for that particular phrase or word. Obviously, you want your website to feature highly in this list.

Optimised online copywriting specifically targets the words and phrases people are using when searching for a product on the internet (Search Engine Marketing (SEM), keyword research). You want to make sure your website stays at the top of the listings so people go to your website before others. With targeted copy in place, search engines are more likely to index your web site on page one than if it does not include keyword-rich copy. This is an ever more important issue when dealing with Google, the leading search-engine today.

To rank highly in the search engines the words on your web pages should never be an afterthought, but should be included right at the beginning in the original design of your website. Content development is the most valuable asset web developers can utilise in the bid for productive, successful search engine optimisation and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Hiring a professional copywriter is a wise investment in your business future. Even if you don't want to optimise your site you should make sure that the words on your site are reasonable, enticing, spelled correctly and artfully arranged to engage attention. Just because you can type letters or write some emails doesn't mean you can write the copy for your website. The writing on your homepage is often how people determine whether the website is a scam or the genuine article. Your website's credibility takes a nose-dive if the spelling is wrong, or the grammar is incorrect, or it just reads like bad, clumsy English. People will be disinclined to trust your content.

Within the search engines new technologies and algorithms are being developed all the time to make search methodologies smarter, more astute. It's never a coincidence when someone types in a search phrase and your website is indexed highly on the page. Keyword rich online copywriting is a significant and critical component in gaining high rankings on the search engines.

Recently, Google has been pioneering a new trend of intelligent search engines which are not attracted by mere repetition of words throughout the text, but which look for meaning, attempting to make grammatical sense of the information, trying to understand what the web page is actually saying. This is forcing webmasters to improve the content on their web pages or suffer the consequences. The old saying has never been more relevant: "content is king."

Jackie Griffiths is Senior Copywriter at Freelance Copy UK:

http://www.freelance-copy.co.uk

Earn On Offshore Web Design And Development

2008-12-30T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Julia Ramyalg

If you have some experience in web site design and want to make good money you can try acting as IT-outsourcing partner. Learn more what you should know and how to start.
Why offshore web design and development?
Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 3-5 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $35-75; in UK - $25-50, in Ukraine - $5-20.
How it works?
Typical plan is like that:

You find a client who needs a web site, ask his/her requirements for the project and send to your offshore partner company.

The partner makes a proposal and gives you the project estimation basing on his hourly rate, for example, $10.

You mark up the rate $10/hour as high as you wish (and can - taking into consideration competition in your region, level of demand for web design services, and other marketing factors), for example to $30/hour, and sends the proposal to the client. So if the web design project is estimated on 50 man-hours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.

The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work.

You deliver the site to the customer.

Result - you have a satisfied client and good profit from the marked up price.
How to start?
The first and most important step is to analyze market in your region and decide if it's worth to start this business.
If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc. But don't be afraid if you are new to web design business. Believe in yourself and work hard and finally you will be rewarded for all your efforts. As in any type of business, starting the one in web design area, you must ask yourself general marketing questions:
1. Who will be your customers?
2. Why they will order the web design services exactly form you?
3. Where and how they will get to know about you?
Without having clear answers to these questions you shouldn't try to start anything.
The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner offshore web design company that will work as "development center" for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. There are many resources in the Internet where you can find necessary information search engines, web design directories, outsourcing portals.
For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases "offshore web design", "offshore web site design", "offshore web development" and analyze sites of your potential partners.
Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.
http://web-designers.bluegeckonetwork.com/
http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/
How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?
There are 2 main factors that determine your choice cost and quality of web design work.
Cost
Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on man-hour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.
Then you decide which profit you want to have and narrow down your search choosing companies with appropriate price range.
Quality
Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication. Pay attention to payment policy and method, conditions of ready projects delivery, warranties, post-development support and maintenance.
If all details are agreed you may start partnership. Sometimes the first project is quite simple to test abilities of both parties and if everything is going well the partnership will bring mutual benefits.
Julia Ramyalg
Marketing Director
IT-Inventors
IT-Inventors is a professional offshore web site design company. We are located in Ukraine and due to local economy we can offer your affordable rate $10/hour for custom web site design and web development services. It's at least twice less than average Western European rates and more than 3 times less than USA rates.
We have developed more than 130 projects for dozens of satisfied customers, established strong relations with partners from USA and UK.
Services we offer: Custom web site design, E-commerce web site design, Content Management Software integration into existing web sites, Real estate web site design, Flash sites design, Logo design, SEO.

Surveying Clients About Your Website

2008-12-29T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Tim Priebe

In a previous article, I talked about determining when and if a website should be redesigned. One of the suggestions I made was that to help you determine if your website should be redesigned is to send a survey to your top fifty clients or so.
I thought I would go ahead and list some sample questions that could be included on such a survey. Keep in mind that this survey can be used not only to determine if your website needs to be redesigned, but also to determine generally how effective your website is.
I suggest the following comments/questions be answered on a 1-5 scale, where 1 means strongly disagree, 3 means neutral and 5 means strongly agree. An N/A option could be included as well. You should also include a section for comments at the bottom.

I find it easy to navigate the website.

The content on the site is appropriate.

I find the site's content interesting.

The site's design looks dated.

I like the site's color scheme.

The site should be more interactive.

The site design is appropriate for the subject matter and content.

The title of the site is appropriate placed on each page.

The header of the site is an appropriate size.

The amount of space the navigation takes up is appropriate.

There are too many images on the site.

The site takes too long to load.

I will visit this site again.

In addition to those questions, the following may help as well.

I visit the site:
A. Less than once a month
B. 1-2 times a month
C. 2-5 times a month
D. 5-10 times a month
E. More than 10 times a month
F. I have no idea

I have recommended or talked about something on the site to:
A. No one
B. 1-5 people
C. 6-15 people
D. 15-30 people
E. More than 30 people
F. I have no idea

I spend the most time in the following section of the site:
A. Section 1 Name
B. Section 2 Name
C. Section 3 Name
...
Z. I have no idea

List five other, similar websites to ours that you frequently visit.

List five things you'd like to see on our site.

If you had to eliminate one section of our website, what section would it be?

Where did you first hear about our website?

Have you ever clicked on an advertisement that was displayed on our site?

There will probably be questions that are specific to your website that you should also ask. An arcade might ask whether the survey taker prefers arcade games or redemption games. A news publication might ask if the survey taker also receives a hard copy of the newspaper or magazine.
If it is possible, you should send out paper copies of the survey, but also make an online version available. Make sure you have the same questions and options in both places.
In addition to sending the survey to your clients, readers and/or customers, give them incentive to fill it out. Tell them they will be entered into some sort of drawing for filling out the survey. Make sure you include space for their name, address, phone number and email address so you'll know who turned in what survey.
Once you get the surveys, use Excel or a similar program to gather and analyze the data. Then you will know some ways in which you can improve your site.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

Building A Quality Website For 5 A Month

2008-12-28T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Ryan Bauer

Many people think that owning and running your own website is a big task something that requires you to give lots of time and energy. Well, that's what the big companies would like you to think, because that's what makes them the most money. The truth is that running your own website can be a very affordable and stress-free affair. With the help of tips you'll read in this article, you too can run your own website for only around $5 per month. Brown-bag one lunch per month and you've easily paid for it, it's that simple.
There are three things that any web master must have to run a website. A domain name (your address, something such as www.mywebsite.com), web hosting (this the physical place where your information will be held), and, of course, a layout with content to place on your website.
Most hosting companies now-a-days offer a free domain name to customers as an incentive to sign up, so choose your host wisely and you can kill two birds with one stone. This not only saves you money on buying a domain name, since you're getting it free, but also saves you the hassle of dealing with another sign up, since the host handles all of the technical aspects of setting everything up.
When picking out your host, you'll want to make sure you have plenty of space to store your files. It is wise to make sure that you have at least a few hundred megabytes (MB) of storage space to ensure you won't run out of room to grow. You'll also want to make sure you have at least a few gigabytes (GB) of data-transfer per month, otherwise you could have a "cap" on how many visitors you can have per month.
To choose a good host, you can check out an independent hosting review site - this will allow you to make an informed decision, avoid getting ripped off, and make sure you get the highest bang-for-your-buck possible. It's also much easier to use a legitimate review site than to go out and pick a host by yourself. Do be careful when picking out a review website though, as many of them are biased/paid off/operate off of commissions.
Always avoid "free website" places. They cover your site with ads, and as a rule are unreliable and slow.
Once you have your hosting bought and picked out, you'll have your own website! It's that simple. Of course, at this point it will be empty, but it is a blank canvas for you to create your website.
To start with, you'll need a design. If you have experience in computer graphics and design, and are creative enough, you can create your own design. However, if you weren't born an expert at creating websites, not to fear. You can use a premade template that you like, and add your content to that. A simple Google search will uncover literally thousands of free and low-cost templates that you can add your content to and call your own site. You can use a program such as Microsoft's Frontpage to edit the template without programming any code.
And that's it! At this point, all you have to do is write content to add to your site, and call it a day! It really is that easy.
Ryan Bauer is a large-scale webmaster who runs a Web Hosting Reviews website and writes how-to articles for advanced computer users and webmasters.

Build A Strong Foundation For Creating Your First Online Identity Notes For Beginners

2008-12-27T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Arun Tibrewal

If you are looking for creating your online presence you should follow some of the basic requirements so that your new website will have a strong foundation. Today internet is a growing media which can provide you maximum results, which no other media can do for you. If you think on right direction and take your action step by step, it is almost certain that your site will have a strong online presence and reach to the maximum of you potential clients.
Remember empires never built in day, but it takes years of dedicated hard work, devotion, patience and to work constantly towards creating it successfully. If you are a slow mover but consistent towards your work, there is no reason your efforts will fail. Small efforts which you repeat day in and day out results 100% success in due time course. It is always advisable to get some basic knowledge before you begin your journey to a great on line success. Here are some general points which explain in brief on the basic requirements of creating your first online identity.
Choose a descriptive and short domain name. It is essential to choose a good domain name. Don't go for any sub domain or free domain, but always have your own, as people will be remembering you with your name only. It should be a TLD i.e. yourbusinessname.com, .org, .biz and so on.
Select a quality host, which can provide you consistent uptime and have flexibility to upgrade or extend required features for running your site effectively. In general if you like to have a greater visibility of your website you should hire services from a experienced hosting company even if there cost is high.
Make your site plan first. Just open your notepad and write down what is your site all about, what it sells, how it sells, to whom it will sell, and other things. Create different sections of your site theme and note it point by point. It is always advisable in beginning; you should start with the basic functionality and upgrade it later on. This will give you an instant kick start and you can always enhance its functionality with fewer efforts.
Write a unique copy. If you can write good contents, you can make a strong presence in World Wide Web and well ahead with your competitors. Make a killer copy of your contents; it should be unique and relevant to your site theme. It is a word that sells into the market, if you feel you can hire an agency that are specialized in writing contents on given basic parameters. There are several of them available on net which you need to do some research before hiring one i.e. carefully analyzing there credentials.
Build a website which loads fast and navigated easily. Means your visitors should find easily what they are looking for. Don't make your site just for search engines but create one for your visitors so that they can brows your site without any hassles. Your design should be an eye catcher with less images and better content visibility. Hire a designer who knows about the website usability analysis, visibility, website utility and present your main theme visible within the design. In nut shell your website will be carrying your brand value and should be presented in a professional manner in front of your visitors.
Optimize your site. Do the basic optimization of your site for different search engines. Initially you need not to hire any SEO or apply any killer techniques, but do it yourself few things so that search engines can find your site easily i.e. writing a good title, description of the site, adding proper met tags a submit to the different directories and search engines. Once they crawl your site and index it properly, you can keep on adding relevant contents on pages. You need a lot of patience to get visible in search engines if you follow the ethical ways, as it provide you a longer stay and better visibility on web.
Market your site. A Business is all about what is it and how it is marketed. A well marketed site may virtually force a visitor to become interested and make them confident enough to buy the services from you. The basics of marketing is of your own knowledge and some preset parameters i.e. What you sell, How you sell, Where you sell, Who are your targeted potential clients, how much domain knowledge you have, What is the actual strength of your product and so on. Create effective sale letters, know your targeted customers, draw a plan and quickly start implementing that. A well drawn regular marketing plan combined with selective advertisement campaign, implemented steadily on right time can provide greater results on World Wide Web enable you to reach your goal successfully.
Promote your site. Promoting your site is a vital technique which can not be done in one day or overnight. To get desired results you need to work hard constantly so that you will be able to capitalize the maximum exposures on world wide and establish your solid online presence. You can publish a press release, write articles, manually add your site to different directories on section which is most relevant for your site theme, and distribute ezines, banner advertisements, and many more possible ways to promote it regularly on internet.
These are the basic and fundamental need to build an strong foundation for your online presence. Remember a tallest building on earth has the strongest foundation too that support its structure to stay longer on earth. Follow the ethical ways and simple rules and take a step towards building an foundation of your online empire.
Arun Tibrewal is an online marketing promotions specialist since 1998 and owner of I-wayhost - Web Hosting and its network sites. I-wayhost is dedicated to provide top class hosting services with there straight forward plans. Permission is granted to reprint this article as long as the resource box should keep intact with the following links.
(Customized billing solutions)
(Online Marketing Blog)

The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility Part 2 A Higher Search Engine Ranking

2008-12-26T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Trenton Moss

An additional benefit of website accessibility is an improved performance in search engines. The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site's about, and the higher your site will appear in the rankings.
Not all of the accessibility guidelines will help with your search engine rankings, but there are certainly numerous areas of overlap:
1. ALT descriptions assigned to images
Screen readers, used by many visually impaired web users to surf the web, can't understand images. As such, to ensure accessibility an alternative description needs to be assigned to every image and the screen reader will read out this alternative, or ALT, description.
Like screen readers, search engines can't understand images either and won't take any meaning from them. Many search engines can now index ALT text though, so by assigning ALT text search engines will be able to understand all your images.
2. Text displayed through HTML, not images
Text embedded in images appears pixelated, blurry and often impossible to read for users utilising screen magnifiers. From an accessibility point of view this should therefore be avoided.
Search engines equally can't read text embedded in images. Well, you can just give the image some ALT text, right? Unfortunately, there's strong evidence to suggest search engines assign less importance to ALT text than they do to regular text. Why? Spammers. So many webmasters have been stuffing their ALT tags full of keywords and not using them to describe the image. Search engines have cottoned on to this form of spamming (as they eventually do every form of spamming) and have taken appropriate action.
3. Descriptive link text
Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from link to link and listening to the content of the link text. As such, the link text in an accessible website must always be descriptive of its destination.
Search engines place a lot of importance on link text too. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say 'click here', search engines can't gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, 'widgets' then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.
One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, 'miserable failure'. So many people have linked to George Bush's bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush's bio appears top of the search rankings!
4. Website functions with JavaScript disabled
JavaScript is unsupported by about 9% of web users (source: http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/November/javas.php), either because they've turned it off (for example to prevent pop-up adverts) or because their browser doesn't support it. Many forms of JavaScript aren't accessible to web users utilising screen readers.
Search engines can't understand JavaScript either and will be unable to index any JavaScript-driven content. Perhaps more importantly, they'll also be unable to follow JavaScript-driven links. You may really like the look of your dropdown menu but search engines won't if they can't access certain pages on your site because there aren't any regular links pointing at them.
5. Alternatives to Flash-based content provided
Flash, like JavaScript, isn't accessible to many users, including those using screen readers. Equally, search engines can't access Flash so be sure to provide equivalents.
6. Transcripts available for audio
Hearing impaired users obviously require written equivalents for audio content to be able to access it. Search engines too can't access this medium, but transcripts provide them with a large amount of text for them to index.
7. Site map provided
Site maps can be a useful tool for visually impaired users as they provide a straightforward list of links to the main pages on the site, without any of the fluff in between.
Site maps are also great for search engines as search engines can instantly index your entire site when they arrive at the site map it. Next to each link you can also provide a short keyword-rich preview of the page. All links should, of course, be made through regular HTML and not through JavaScript (see 4. above).
8. Meaningful page title
When we arrive at web pages the first thing that appears, and the first thing that visually impaired users hear, is the page title. This latter group of web users don't have the privilege of being able to quickly scan the page to see if it contains the information they're after, so it's essential that the page title effectively describes the page content.
If you know anything about search engine optimisation you'll know that the page title is the most important attribute on the page. If it adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.
9. Headings and sub-headings used
Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from heading to heading, in addition to tabbing from link to link (see 3. above). As such, it's important for accessibility to make sure that headings are correctly marked up by using h1, h2 etc.
Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings describe the content immediately below them. Make sure you use the heading tags properly and don't abuse them, as the more text you have contained in heading tags, for example, the less importance search engines assign to them.
10. CSS used for layout
Screen readers can more effectively work through the HTML code of CSS-based sites as there's a greater ratio of content to code. Websites using CSS for layout can also be made accessible to in-car browsers, WebTV and PDAs. Don't underestimate the importance of this - in 2008 alone there'll be an estimated 58 million PDAs sold worldwide (source: http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr0603.htm).
Search engines also prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:
- The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines
- Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document
- There is a greater density of content compared to coding
Conclusion
With all this overlap between web accessibility and search engine optimisation there's no excuses for not implementing basic accessibility on to your website. It'll give you a higher search engine ranking and therefore more site visitors.
This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

How To Check If A Niche Site Will Be Profitable

2008-12-25T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Andrew Williams

To be profitable, there has to be:
a) Demand
b) Good affiliate programs you can promote (also high bids at the Pay Per Click Search engines is a good indicator).
To find out this information, I use Wordtracker and affiliate networks like Commission Junction.
Let's take the example of two potential niches and see if they are profitable. The niches I have chosen are "electric toothbrushes", and "hair removal".
Let's check Commission Junction (CJ) first.
Once you are logged in, click on "Get Links".
Select Links from the Search drop-down box, and type in hair removal into the search box.
Looking down the advertiser list of the results, you will see that there are several merchants offering hair removal products.
Click on the 3 Month EPC link at the top of that column to order the results by EPC. Those top performing ads look great. Check out the advertisers by clicking on the Advertiser link for any particular link.
(EPC is the amount of money the average affiliate makes per 100 visitors he sends to that merchant).
I clicked on Folica.com to see more information about that advertiser. Look at the EPC for the advertiser as this gives a better indication of overall advertiser performance than individual links.
A 3 month EPC of $17.63 (at the time of writing) means that for every 100 clicks from affiliate sites, the affiliates average $17.63 commission. Anything over $10 is good. You can also check out the 3 month trend for the advertiser. In this case, Folica.com have a very consistent EPC.
This is a good niche as long as there is demand.
Repeat the above steps for my other potential niche "electric toothbrushes". This time, just type in "toothbrush", not "electric toothbrush".
There are a few merchants there, but they are either new, or don't have any EPC data (at the time of writing this book). This lack of any clear data starts alarm bells ringing in my ears.
However, just to make sure, select "Products" from the drop-down search box, and type in toothbrush.
Ahh, now we have something. There are some novelty toothbrushes, and normal electric toothbrushes. Click on a few of the merchants and check out their EPC. When I checked they were a little disappointing, so I would rank the profitability of the toothbrush niche quite low.
I know I can find electric toothbrushes at Amazon and promote them from there, but Amazon has a very low commission rate.
Of the two, hair removal seems the better option. I hope it has a high demand.
Let's check demand
I like to carry out a couple of tests for demand. Firstly I'll check how many competing pages there are at Google for my main phrase. The higher the number, the more demand (since other webmasters have chosen to create pages on the topic). Secondly I'll head over to Wordtracker and check to see how many phrases are used to search for my niche. As I wont be able to compete in Google for my main phrase, I need to make sure there are sufficient phrases I can rank well for.
Let's look at this in detail.
1. Head over to Google and do a search for hair removal and electric toothbrushes,
hair removal - 25.6 million competing pages. electric toothbrush - 1.96 million.
(These figures were accurate on 13/02/2006. Click the hyperlinks for the two phrases to check what those figures are today).
OK, hair removal is looking promising.
Now head over to Wordtracker. Wordtracker in my opinion is the best tool for carrying out keyword research. I don't personally rate the accuracy of the Overture suggestion tool (and all keyword tools that use it for demand figures).
Login to Wordtracker.
In the Multiple Search section, click on Compressed search.
Type in hair removal, and select 500 from the Number of Results drop-down box.
Click Proceed.
When the results are all displayed, you will notice that 500 results are returned. This is good as it means that there are a lot of potential phrases for this niche.
Now for a little trick I use.
Scroll to the very bottom of the page. The table gives you the "Count", and "Predict" figures for each word.
At the time I checked, the count and predict figures were 10 and 12 respectively for the last phrase in the list.
This tells me there are a lot more phrases than just this 500. Correctly carrying out keyword research, will yield thousands of potential phrases for this niche.
As a benchmark, anything above a 5 for the last phrases in the results (assuming 500 results were returned), is a good indicator to me that the niche has a lot of phrases to target. The higher the value of the count for the last phrase in the list, the more phrases you will find for that niche when you carry out your in-depth keyword research.
Want to see an example?
Type in insurance and select 500. Scroll to the bottom. The count figure when I checked was 180 for the last phrases in the list. That means there are a huge number of potential phrases for the niche of insurance.
Another example. Type in barbie doll. The last phrases in the list has a count of 3, which means this niche has far fewer potential phrases than the insurance niche.
A final example. Type in cadbury chocolate (the best chocolate in the world in my opinion).
Only 52 rows were returned when I checked (not the 500 that were obtained in the previous examples), meaning this would not be such a good niche.
Before finishing our profitability and demand research, there is one other check I like to carry out. How much are these phrases attracting at the Pay Per Click search engines?
Type in hair removal at Wordtracker again.
Scroll to the bottom.
Click on the perform a competition search.
Select Overture and click the proceed button.
You will need to type in the security code displayed, into the small box before you can get the results.
Scroll to the bottom of the results.
At the time of writing, the top bids for hair removal related phrases were nearly $40.
Wow. Companies are prepared to pay nearly $40 per click at the search engines for some phrases related to this niche.
This niche is hot, and potentially very profitable.
Putting Adsense on our site could prove VERY profitable.
To read more about how you can avoid being labelled as a "thin" affiliate, download your free copy of "Creating 'Fat' Affiliate Sites".

How To Create An Effective Internet Business Website

2008-12-24T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Matt Bacak

An Internet business can rise and fall based on more then just the quality of the product or service they provide. Marketing your product or service can make or break your Internet business because if you don't promote your business effectively then you could end up with a garage full of extra inventory. Therefore it is imperative that you create a website campaign for your Internet business to avoid financial loss and the feeling of failure.
How should you create your website? What information should you put on your website? First of all let's change the singular "website" to the plural "websites". Yes, you should have more then one website for your Internet business. Many Internet website and graphic designers will advise that you have one major website for your Internet business. This is not the way to go.
Why? There are many reasons, but one major reason is that if you have only one website then you are barraging your potential customer with too many options. Having a long list of links on your website can drive your customer away from actually purchasing your product or service. Providing information regarding your company can be helpful, but also may become a distraction for potential customers.
How many websites should you have for your Internet business? It varies depending on your product and scope of services, however in general you should have the following three main websites: a branding website, a sales letter website, and a power squeeze website page.
What is the purpose of these three main websites? What information should you place on these websites? The major goal is to minimize the number of distractions on each website which can lead to a higher sales conversion rate. Create a website environment in which one major task is assigned to each website.
Following is information regarding the purpose and content necessary for the three major types of websites.
1) Branding Website: The purpose of the branding website is to brand you and/or your Internet business. Successful businesses create a marketing brand that a customer associates with their company. The sole purpose of the branding website is to promote your brand. You do not sell your product or service at this website.
2) Sales Letter Website: The sole purpose of this website is to sell your product or service. You can provide purchasing information on this website and allow your customers to purchase directly from this website.
3) Power Squeeze Website Page: The sole purpose of this website is to capture personal customer information. When customers reach this page you should request their first name, last name, and email address at a minimum. It is vital to capture this personal information as it enables you to build a relationship with the customer and market to them over and over in the future. The Power Squeeze Website Page should come right before the Sales Letter Website.
Incorporate these three websites into your Internet business websites to capture personal information, create customer relationships, and create an environment that effectively promotes sales conversions. Skip the old way of doing business with one website and diversify your portfolio of Internet business websites for financial gain and business success.
Matt Bacak, Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host became a "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to Retire From Your Job This Year and Still Make More Money Than the Average Medical Doctor... You Can Do It Once You Know the Proven Steps Outlined here! ==> http://www.internetmillionairemind.com

Make A Habit Of Analyzing Other Sites For Form Function And Design

2008-12-23T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Craig Dawber

The need of the hour is to analyze successful websites so as to obtain clues on designing and marketing your own site. Since this is a business that is growing in leaps and bounds, it is necessary to learn the good aspects to ensure you adapt all good aspects of the craft. While this industry is still in its infancy, the prospects are very good and this appears to be a business that is here to stay.
Aspects to Assess.
While browsing the internet and coming across sites that offer subscriptions, make a habit of analyzing them for their functionality, their design and structure. Some of the components that must be assessed are:
1. What is your initial reaction to the site?
A site has a positive effect on you when it meets your specific requirements. Many internet users do not like to be distracted by banners and advertisements. These are considered as distractions and therefore, many sites are constructed in a user friendly manner. These are constructed to give information to those who seek information on 'need to know' basis. The links and directories are available but require proactive steps from the user to access.
2. Does the site make a statement in terms of what it is meant for?
The site must make a statement in terms of its reason for being. A simple button 'About Us' provides information such as Who are they? Why are they here? and What do they want from you?
3. Has the Subscription Button placed prominently?
When the site requires you to subscribe, the information for subscription as well as costing should be prominently available. When you want people to subscribe, it should be made easy for them. The pricing page and payment details should be placed in several locations. Some sites place a Subscribe button on every content page that is made available to the public.
4. Are security aspects looked after?
The most important issue to look at is whether you are entering your personal information on a secure page. There are many sites that require you to enter your credit card number and information on an insecure page. This can lead to misuse of your important information. The best way to look or confirm if the site or subscriber page is secure is to look if the page has a SSL certificate. This can be confirmed by a small gold lock that appears at the bottom right hand corner of the browser when using Internet Explorer or a solid key in a small blue block appears that is available in Netscape Navigator. Another way to confirm this is by checking the site address; the "http" in the url changes to "https".
5. When you subscribe do you have to wait for an email with your username and password or do you get immediate access?
A great way to attract and keep subscribers is that they should not wait when they subscribe. As soon as they subscribe, they should be able to access the information they have paid for. To attract subscribers, do not make them wait.
These are some of the aspects that must be assessed when looking at sites that require subscription. These will allow you to design your site for users who are internet savvy, and can spot weaknesses without any effort. The design of the site should be catering to a customer base that is accustomed to using the internet and does not tolerate weakness in design and execution.
A great example would be to consider the internet as an expressway where these tips are exit ramps on which you do not want your customers. The site should be so designed that the customer is propelled towards the tool gate, is able to pay tool easily and can gain access to an unrestricted road beyond.
This article was written by Craig Dawber of smarket-associates.com Need advice and guidance with your online business check out the resources found in this website.

7 Easy Steps To Making Your Own Home Business Web Site

2008-12-22T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Bina Omar

Deciding to create a website for your home business is one of the best ways to maximize your business success. However, as a home business owner, you probably don't have any expertise in website creation, nor the money to hire an expert. The good news is that this by no means that you can't have a professional, functional, and appealing website of your own at an affordable price.
The trick is to know how to proceed, and what tools to use.
The following are 7 easy steps to get your own website off the ground with little or no experience.
* Step 1: Plan your web site
This is the stage where you decide the purpose of your website, what it will contain, and what keywords you need to focus on in order to attract the most people. You may even want to start thinking about the layout of the site at this point.
Before you go ahead, you must at least know what your site is going to be about and what you're planning to do with it. Planning is probably one of the more boring parts of the web building process, but nevertheless, remains to be one of the most important.
* Step 2: Register a Domain Name
Once you've done that, you can start thinking about your domain name. These days, you can get a domain name for as little as $8.95 a year . Getting your own domain name is one of the most important investment you'll ever make for your web site.
You can purchase your domain from any registrar on the net. If you're not familiar with any, check out: http://www.GoDaddy.com
Decide on an appropriate domain name that is easy to spell, easy to say, and isn't too long to be impractical, then register it. Your own domain name can instantly give you a professional aura even before your customers reach your web site.
* Step 3: Choose a web host
The next thing to do is to rent some space on a server that is permanently connected to the internet i.e. sign up for a web hosting account. Decide upon an affordable, reputable, secure, and well equipped web host company that can meet your requirements of web site design, minimum downtime, and reliability.
Depending on your requirements, you may want to check out the web host's support system, connection speed, storage space, data transfer limit, e-mail features, FTP access, CGI and PHP support and database access.
There are plenty of web hosts out there. Do your homework BEFORE you sign up with one. And when you first start up with a new web host, sign up using the monthly payment plan first. That way, if you hate their services, you can always switch after the first month.
If you're in a hurry, I recommend signing up with http://www.website-webhost.com. They're not the cheapest host out there but they provide many extras that could prove to be time savers to home businesses.
* Step 4: Search for a web site template
Okay! You have an idea of what your web site is about, you've registered a domain name and you've found a great web host. Now, it's time to look for the perfect web site template.
Why?
Well because it's a lot easier to start off with templates. And you can get a much more superior web design quality.
Web site templates are created by web design experts. who has the experience and skill to know what works and what doesn't. They've tried and tested more site designs than we'll ever want to see in our lifetime.
There are thousands of web site templates out there at our disposal. Just go to Google.com and type in "web site template".
You can choose free web site templates, or you can pay a one time membership to a template reservoir, or you can even pay per template. It's up to you.
My favourite is http://www.TemplateMonster.com.
* Step 5: Get some tools
Once you have a your desired web site template, you will need to get some tools to make changes to the template.
Since you don't know any HTML, you'd want to get web authoring software that will allow you to work 'visually'. What you need is a WYSIWYG web design software. And just in case, you decide to learn HTML in the future, get one that will also work in code mode.
There are many softwares out there today. The more popular ones include Dreamweaver and Frontpage. If you're after a free software, you may want to check out NVU.
You'll also need a web graphics software. Not so much to create a graphic but more to customize the images in your web template. To add labels on the buttons, for example.
A popular software is PaintShopPro. If you're after a free software, try out the GIMP.
* Step 6: Customize your web site template
Now that you have your web site template and your tools, all you need to do is customize the template.
When customizing a template, all you really have to do is replace the template content with your own. You may also need to customize some of the images. Usually, this would be the logo. Some templates uses button images as the navigation. You may want to add text to these buttons to set up your navigation.
Once you've customized the template, just upload it to your "rented" server space and you're live on the internet.
* Step 7: Learn HTML to customize further
Although you don't have to, I highly recommend that you learn a bit of HTML. You don't have to master it but knowing some basic HTML will take you a long way when it comes to having more control over your web site.
Follow these 7 easy steps and you'll have a smooth and affordable entry into the world wide web.
Copyright 2006 Bina Omar
Want to know more about building your own websit?. Sign up to WebBriefcase and check out Bina's free web building video tutorials at http://www.webbriefcase.com.au/ or mailto:subscribe@webbriefcase.com.au

Five Essential Questions To Answer Before Creating Your First Or Secondor Third Website

2008-12-21T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Cathy Goodwin

Right after the thought, "I need a website," people usually say, "I need a web designer!" Actually, before even whispering "web design," you need to answer these five questions in as much detail as possible. Once you're clear on your strategy, you can provide better information to your web designer. And most likely you'll be pleased with your new home on the web.
1. What is the purpose of your website?
When you're well-known through face-to-face contacts, your website will serve as an additional source of information to potential customers. You may need only a basic "calling card" site: a list of contact information, coming appearances and basic brochure copy.
On the other hand, your website may be your primary revenue source. In that case, you'll need to direct visitors to your "for sale" section and come up with a plan to take their money. You'll need a shopping cart and perhaps a merchant account.
2. Who will be your ideal target market?
Draft at least two hundred words describing your ideal client. Where does he live, work and play? Where does she eat and shop? What are your client's goals and hobbies? You're the psychologist: create as many details as possible. Some copywriters recommend assigning your target a name so you can see the person behind the credit card.
3. What action do you want everyone to take?
Your home page copy drives your website visitors to a clear, unambiguous target. Keep them on your site as long as possible and suggest a specific action. Buy an ebook. Sign up for your ezine. Sign your guest book. Make it easy for visitors to take this action, placing forms and links right on your home page.
4. How will you maintain your site?
Many new website owners budget the cost of web design and a year of web hosting. But that's only the beginning. A website that's unchanged will grow cobwebs. It's easy to tell when you've landed on a website where nobody's home. Something's broken. The whole place looks abandoned.
You'll need to replace broken links, fix spelling errors, add updates to your schedule, and a whole lot more. And in my experience, your website will look different after five or six months. Time for a new overhaul! That's why I say, "You need to become your own web designer, marry your web designer, or be prepared to pay."
5. How will you promote your site?
A website without promotion is like a 747 flying around the world without any passengers: expensive and useless! You can write articles as free content, swap links and submit your site to the search engines. Fill your website with content, update the content regularly, and write your copy with an eye to your keywords.
You'll have to budget time for promotion or hire an assistant. Planning ahead can help you create a website that makes your job easier.
About The Author
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com.
"Ten secrets of mastering a major life change" mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com
Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294

Functions And Subroutines In Asp

2008-12-20T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Rob Collyer

Functions and Subroutines in ASP

If you read our Tutorial on Include Files (SSI) then you learned how to encapsulate ASP code within include files and the benefits it brings us.

As developers, we should endeavour to make our lives easier wherever possible... no one wants to re-invent the wheel after all.

Functions and Subroutines exist to not only save us time, but to bring power to our ASP.

They are just another way of encapsulating code, but have a lot more functionality than just 'saving some code for later'.

First, let's look at Functions... Imagine a balloon salesman in the street. We've all seen them they require one piece of information when you buy a balloon, the colour.
Let say we asked for a red balloon... The balloon salesman armed with this 'information' then does a pretty basic action... he hands you the balloon. The balloon you received is a direct result of the information you gave the balloon seller.

Functions are just the same... they return to you a value based on the information you provided. Lets look at an example Function: -
<%
Function getBalloon(strColour)

Dim Tempstr

strColour = lcase(strColour) 'This converts the value lowercase.
Select Case strColour

Case "red" Tempstr = "Here is your red balloon"

Case "yellow" Tempstr = "Here is your yellow balloon"

Case "green" Tempstr = "Here is your green balloon"

Case "blue" Tempstr = "Here is your blue balloon"

Case Else Tempstr = "Sorry, we have sold out of that Colour"
End Select

getBalloon = Tempstr
End Function
%>
A Function is passed some information. The information we pass a Function, is known as an 'argument'. The information we get back from a Function is known as the 'return value'. Whilst a Function can have many arguments, it can only have one return value.

Let us look at one more example: -
<%
Function calcTax(amount, taxrate)

Dim Tempvar

Tempvar = amount * (taxrate / 100)

CalcTax = Round(Tempvar, 2) 'round the result to 2 decimal places
End Function
%>
Again, another basic example. We should notice this time that the Function accepts two arguments.

By now, we have some idea of how to write a Function. How do we use one?
Let me show you now how we can use the calcTax example.
<%
shoppingbill=goodsTotal + calcTax(goodsTotal,17.5)
Response.Write "Your shopping came to £" & goodsTotal
Response.Write "
VAT amount = £" & calcTax(goodsTotal)
Response.Write "Total Amount Due = £" & shoppingbill
%>
Above you see the example function in action... easy huh!

I have tried to make understanding Functions as easy as possible... Understanding a Subroutine (Sub) is now going to be easy for you. Imagine a block of code that performed some instructions based on information you gave it...
Sounds very much like a function, doesn?t it? Well this time, we do not get anything back. A sub does NOT pass back information it just uses the data we give it for some purpose.

I will use only one example of a Sub, and in the same example make use of the sub: -
<%
Sub Bday(strName, intAge)

Response.Write "Happy Birthday " & Name

Response.Write ", You are " & intAge & " years old today"
End Sub

'now, call the sub
bDay "Joe",26
%>
The above Sub, demonstrates my point. We put something in, it performs an action (in this case writing to the screen), but nothing is returned to us in the code. One thing that REALLY IS important when using a sub, is that we do not put brackets around the arguments... Because we do not have a return value we do not need brackets and in this case, if we try we will get an error.

Well, that just about concludes this article. We should by now be writing efficient code with the use of Functions and Subs. Don?t forget that if you use your functions and subs in multiple pages then you should really store them within include files for reasons of easy maintenance and better performance.
Rob Collyer, experienced with 20 years programming knowledge and site administrator of www.webforumz.com - Copyright 2003-2004

Beginners Guide To Starting Websites

2008-12-19T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Richard Pettinger

If you are relatively new to the idea of using the internet to sell your business it can be a little intimidating as there are many new things to learn however it is definitely learning about a few basic pointers before beginning, as it can save a lot of time in the long term.
1. Most traffic on the internet comes through Search Engines. The big three are Yahoo, MSN and Google, but Google is by far the most popular search engine. When building a website it is important to always keep in mind search engines. If you design your site well the search engines will reward you with a free stream of potential customers.
2. Choose your site name carefully. If you are wishing to sell Cycling accessories it is best to have the word "cycling" in the title. cyclingandcycles.com The actual title of a site is one of the most important criteria in determinining your ranking in the search engines.
3. There are no quick fixes to getting high rankings in Google. You have to be patient. New sites tend to get "sandboxed" for the first 6 months. This means that whatever you do you will get very low rankings, there is nothing you can do about this you have to be patient.
4. Be wary of SEO companies who promise you quick fixes. In some cases Google will ban sites who try to "cheat" the system. Generally it is best to avoid getting 1000s of free links from link farms. At best the links have no weight at worst Google may penalise you. There are many things that you can do that can cause your site to be banded. Some of them are included here http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html but there are more. Basically search engines dislike people who try to use fancy tricks to get artificially high rankings.
What makes a Successful Site.
1. Good Quality Content. This is the most important. If you have interesting pages that are clearly laid out, it will attract customers, and also encourage people to link to your sit. For example if you have a website selling cycling equipment it might be useful to have a section on your site with articles on Cycle training or advice on cycle maintenance. These articles could also involve the use of product placement. However if it is unique content the search engines will like it and also potential customers will be more inclined to visit your site.
2. Inward Links. This is when another website offers a hyperlink to your website. It is kind of like democracy. The search engines see a link as a kind of vote. If more sites "vote" for you then it implies your site is good. However links vary in quality. Links from powerful, large sites like the BBC, University sites .edu will count more than from a richardsblog.co.uk. Links are also more valuable if they are from related sites as well. There are various techniques for getting inbound links. This will be discussed separately.
Reciprocal Linking is when you link to one site and then they agree to link back to you. This used to be a big strategy a few years ago because it was a way to get many inbound links. However the search engines have cottoned on to this and have found ways to discount linking in this manner. One way links are the best. However reciprocal linking can help a little if it is from related sites.
3. High Rankings and Traffic This is related to 1 and 2 if you have good quality content and inbound links you will get more traffic from search engines. However there are other techniques you can use. Choosing your keywords is very important. If you try to get a high ranking for a phrase like "gambling" or "cycling" It will be virtually impossible to get into the top 10 or 20 (something useful to remember if you wanted to sell your site).
However although you may not get a ranking for bikes, if you choose a more specific phrase that people search you may have more look. For example you could choose a phrase like "winter cycling tops" or "Carbon Fibre Bikes" For these phrases it will be much easier to break into the all important top 10. thus you can get people entering your site through different pages catering to a specific target phrase. It is important to choose a niche for your product and specialise in that area.
4. Good Layout/ Design. There is a lot to be said for simplicity in designing websites. Sufers tend to be impatient and may not spend much time on a website. You have to engage them pretty quickly. Also it is worth remembering that search engines don't reward fancy graphics or flash graphics, they reward text.
5. Develop a loyal customer base. It is worth investing in developing a good customer base and emailing list. It is good if you can give a weekly newsletter or something to encourage people to subscribe
Richard is an economics teacher in Oxford and member of the Sri Chinmoy Centre. He edits a website about the activities of Sri Chinmoy Richard is also a keen cyclist he competes in cycling races across the UK.

Why Local Service Companies Should Have A Website

2008-12-18T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by John Daniell

The Internet is being used by local service business to improve sales today. Sales are improved because a website gives a company more credibility and in some cases generates leads.
Improving Credibility with a Website
The more a prospect can feel like they know you, the more comfortable they will be to calling you for assistance. Most yellow page and other ads only give a limited amount of space to share information with the prospect. An Internet website allows you (or your competition) to easily and cost effectively share this information.
Websites that help a prospect feel comfortable calling a local service business often include: a description of the products and services you offer, what makes you different from similar companies, and testimonials from past clients.
Websites don't need to be fancy or flashy. Most people prefer the simple informative websites that makes it easy to find the information they're seeking.
You can direct people to your website by publishing it's address everywhere (yellow page ads, truck signs, uniforms, business cards, letterhead, invoices, etc).
Summary
If you can direct prospects to a nice website, you'll have more credibility and therefore orders from them.
Generating Leads with a Website
When Americans need information, 65% of them go online to an Internet search engine before going to the yellow pages or any other median. This is amazing when you consider the Internet browser in its current form was introduced 10 years ago in 1995.
Adding "Cincinnati" to a search will give you information about jobs, real estate, hotels, used cars, etc in the Cincinnati area. Over time, people will be looking for Cincinnati electrical contractor, Cincinnati muffler repair, etc on the Internet. Google has also been testing local search functionality for over a year. When this technology is generally available, local searching will increase even more.
There may or may not be people looking for your business in your area today. A website optimization company can look at the numbers for your industry in your area and tell you if people are looking for you or not.
Summary
People may or may not be looking for your business locally on the Internet today? They will in the future. It makes sense to put a quality website in place for credibility today. It will then be in place for when people start looking for your specialty online in the future.
About Swordfish Computer Solutions
Swordfish Computer Solutions helps companies with website design, optimization, and other computer services. They can be reached at 513.683.2136 or http://www.SwordfishCS.com.

Css Maximum Benefits

2008-12-17T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Zoran Makrevski

What is CSS?
CSS is a simple file which controls the visual appearance of a Web page without compromising its structure. Using CSS we can control our font size, font color, link color and many other attributes on our web page. This will make our HTML code much more readable and the page size will be reduced.
Why to use it and how to use it properly
If you don't use CSS on your web pages and you have many tables and content on them, chances are that your HTML file size will be quite big. Fact is that we live in a busy world, and people are not will to wait more than 5 seconds web page to load.
From the other side some web developers implement the CSS on wrong way. They write their CSS in HTML code of the page, like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>My Page</title>
<style>
A
{
font-family: Verdana;
font-size:8pt;
color:black;
text-decoration:none
}
</style>
What is wrong with this technique? Well, imagine that you have site with more than 50 pages. One day, you decide that you want to change font color and colors of the links on your site. You will have to edit ALL the pages on your site, and do to that you will need time, because you place your CSS in your web page.
Better way is to save your visual attributes in separate, external CSS file, and to link that file with your page like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>My Page</title>
<link href="myStyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
Using this technique, you can change the look of your site within minutes, regardless of the number of pages, because your visual attributes are saved in ONE external CSS file. Edit that file, and you are done.
Benefits
Which are the benefits of using CSS? List is quite long and I will list here only the most important.

Your web page will load faster

Web page will become more search engine friendly

You can change you site appearance within minutes

You can write separate CSS file for handheld devices which will be called up instead of the regular CSS file

You can forget about creating printer friendly version of your site using separate CSS file when user chooses to print the web page.

Avoiding standard HTML commands like:
<font color="#0000ff"><font size=2>Product</font></font></font>
will help us to reduce file size, but that is not the only benefit. Using CSS word product in this example will be moved more close on the top of the document. Search engine will pick up more content and less code.
Imagine that you have 3 columns table on your page. When you see the code, you will notice that first come code for your table, and after that it come your content. Positioning your 3 columns using CSS instead of standard inline elements:
<table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="381" height="150" valign="top" bgcolor="FFEDD4">
My Product
</td>
<td height="150" valign="top" bgcolor="FFEDD4">
When CSS is used, your code might look like this:
<div id="leftcontent">
My Product
</div>
Again your code is much more clear, and your content is moved on the top of your document, making your HTML page search engine friendly, and reducing your file size.
Content is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization, and you will benefit with removing the unnecessary code in your HTML and create search engine friendly web page.
Validate it
Browser war is far behind us. Reality is that most of the people today use Internet Explorer, but you should try to be on safe side and ensure that your CSS code is valid. Not all browsers interpret the CSS on same way. You can validate your CSS here: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
About The Author
Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of SEO.Goto.gr.
Since 1998 has focused on E-Commerce and attempts to bring more traffic to the customer sites bring him in the SEO industry, and he is running his own company today.
Search Engine Positioning Firm
SEO.Goto.gr

Build A Web Site Build A Great One The Easy Way

2008-12-16T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Mike Dougherty

If I can do it, anyone can!
Before I put together my own web sites, I didn't have any internet experience and the thought of having to learn a new language called "HTML" sent chills up my spine.
Doing Nothing Is A Sure Way To Fail
But I knew that if I just sat there and let my fear of the unknown keep me from going forward, I'd never see my dream come to life.
Surfing The Net For Answers
So I started doing research on what it takes to build a web site and I surfed the net until smoke was coming out of my computer mouse.
I discovered two important things while searching high and low on the world wide web.
First, there are tens of millions of dollars being spent by a whole bunch of people who are all trying to convince you that they have the "secret" to success on the internet. And the noise level of all those voices talking to you at once can give you an acute case of information overload.
How Do You Build And Market A Web Site?
You need a way to build your web site, a company to host your web site (meaning a company that puts your site on the internet), and a company that can provide marketing services to get your site to all the search engines and directories so people surfing the internet can find you among the other millions of web sites out there is cyberspace.
Build A Web Site - So What's The Answer?
First of all there are no secrets to success on the internet. Like anything else, there is a learning curve, but the information is readily available if you're willing to spend some time discovering a few basic principals.
Building - Hosting - Marketing Your Web Site
The web site addresses that follow this article have some information that you may find very helpful in your search for a company that offers site building, site hosting and site marketing services.
Build A Web Site - Choosing A Service
There are several internet companies that offer site building, site hosting and site marketing services. I found one that I am 100 percent happy with for a number of reasons.
In making your decision, look for a company that does all the technical stuff for you and at no extra charge.
You should be able to concentrate on building your web site using an easy system that will help you produce a professional looking web site easily and quickly.
The company you choose should also provide some marketing services at no additional charge.
And the company you choose should provide you with on-going information updates, forums for discussing issues with other users and should provide you with detailed traffic reports so you can clearly see how well your site is doing.
Build A Web Site - Time And Money Saved
Now we're talking... With one company offering an all-in-one approach you don't have to evaluate and put together an intricate, expensive package of software tools!
Proof That They Work
The company you choose to build, host and market your web site needs to show you proof that their system works.
Are the other sites hosted by their company doing well and are a respectable percentage of them listed in those coveted top ten search engine positions? If they aren't, your chances are probably not so hot either.
Life Impact
Your web site can be a part-time or full-time venture and it should be a fun, creative and challenging experience.
And if you're looking to make some money with your web site and willing to put in some effort toward that goal, the company you choose to work with needs to play a big part in your success.
Build A Web Site - The Bottom Line
As I said before, there are several companies out there that provide site building tools, web hosting and internet marketing services. I found one that I'm 100 percent happy with and by doing a little investigating you can find one too... Just don't let all that internet noise get to ya.
Mike Dougherty is the successful webmaster of fun kid birthday parties.com, to learn more visit http://www.fun-kid-birthday-parties.com/how-I-built-this-site.html

Why 99 Of All Business Websites Dont Work

2008-12-15T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Brian K. Johnson

Despite the estimated hundreds of millions of websites on the Internet and the enormous sums of money paid to develop them the unfortunate fact is that most small business web sites simply do not work. By do not work I mean that they do not deliver on what is expected or promised. There are many reasons why websites don't meet the expectations of business owners and even more reasons why the promises of the Internet don't ring true but in general there are some very common mistakes that companies make when deciding to build or redesign a website.
This article will discuss some of the very basic errors that small businesses make and how to avoid some of the pitfalls of website development (see www.nikosoftware.com for more information). Most small to medium sized business (SMB) owners intuitively know that using the Internet as a marketing tool for their business will pay large dividends. Unfortunately, most SMB owners don't know how the web works or principles of e-marketing so they will make their first in a series of big mistakes by looking through the yellow pages and picking one of the many web developers listed.
This decision is usually based on the fact that they have a desire to work with a local "web developer" on Main Street, USA not knowing that this limits their own ability to have access to much more qualified professionals who may be located elsewhere. The SMB owner will generally meet up with one of these web developers who will get their head spinning with technical terms like HTML, C++, Java, databases, MS SQL and so on. Developers tell the business owner what is needed and extract their payment. However, web developers seldom have any idea of how Internet marketing works or how to drive profits to your business using the web.
This is the single biggest reason why most small business web sites fail. The local web developer will almost never explain to the business owner that their web site should be self-sustaining. This means that your website should be making you money not costing you money. Web sites should be listed on your balance sheet, not simply as an expense item. Web developers also never really explain how to achieve measurable results from your web site. The reason comes less from the fact that they are withholding information or just not concerned with the level of their work, but rather that most web development companies, due to the very nature of their focus, simply don't know how to do these things. Their job, as they see it, is to build or rebuild your website from scratch with the focus on coding only.
Rarely do they take advantage of dynamic modular development, which provides scalability and integrated functionality that reflects the individual business needs and goals of their SMB client. This would mean that the business owner, based on their changing business needs, would be able to quickly and easily create interactive functionality on their own, without having to re-engage the web development company. Unfortunately, web development companies want you to have to come to them every time you need to change something on the web or add functionality, like a simple form or a video clip or even e-commerce.
The business owner must rely on the web development company for every small task that must take place or hire an expensive staff member who is trained to do these functions. This is usually someone who used to work for a web development company. The cycle continues and the business owner is never able to break free of the constant costs associated with a web site that wasn't built properly in the first place. Frustration sets in and eventually the site goes stale and the business owner will begin to focus their attention elsewhere until another web development company approaches with a whole new set of promises and the cycle begins all over again.
Sometimes a business may have a great site with great functionality but are mislead by another promise of web development firms, who will claim that they need to have a number one position on search engines in order to reap the benefits of the Internet.
Holding the number one position on in the search engines doesn't matter!
Everyone has heard the story before "I will get your company listed on the top of the search engines." But, as you might guess, everyone cannot be at the top of the list and true professionals in the business know that. Search engines have very strict rules and complex algorithms, which change often. Actually, being in the third or fourth position is often more desirable and can generate greater profits for a progressive company. The goal should not be to be number one on the search engines but rather to generate high visitor levels on all of your web pages not just the home page. This means that your web site must have functionality or the ability to interact with your visitors. Web site functionality is what delivers the much-desired result not fist place ranking on the search engines. So what that everyone visits your website, but if you are unable to convert those visitors into customers what good does it really do? You are spending money and not making money.
If your site has been unattended for awhile it is generally because most web developers are just that, developers. Once they have finished a site they are off to the next development project. What small businesses need is a software company or an Internet consultant with a focus on web development. Having functional software on your website to attract and convert visitors into customers is of supreme importance. Software allows the non-technical business owner to manage or easily delegate the management of their web site to other non-technical personnel. This eliminates the need to have to continually go to web development companies for content and content changes.
For example, most businesses measure sales activity and distribution channels on a monthly basis. The business website is one of these sales channels. Having the ability to monitor the number of visitors and not just "hits" is crucial. What search engine did the visitor come from, what pages did the visitor enter on or exit on? This is key information that will allow a business to measure their progress against their competition. The bottom line is to think of your web site as a key part of your business and in so doing looking for a company that can provide a complete solution not just a web development company with a techie name.
If a business chooses a software company that integrates a complete and scalable solution with all of the business goals within the managing, design and hosting of your site, then the goals will be met. If not, the web site will not work.
To receive a free report on how to begin development of your company web site visit the resource pages at www.nikosoftware.com
Brian Johnson is Vice President of Niko Software Corp. and has consulted with over 300 companies on maximizing web tools to increase profits and web exposure. http://www.nikosoftware.com

How To Make Sense Of Your Websites Statistics

2008-12-14T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Donald Nelson

In the early days of the Internet it was common to visit a web site and see a counter informing you that "you are the 118,456th visitor to this site", and various webmasters would proudly talk of how many "hits" their sites were getting. Now, things have changed and you will mostly find counters on amateur sites, and wiser webmasters now know that the term "hits" doesn't really mean much.
The term hit refers to a request for a file on your web site. When someone visits your web page, they request your URL, but in order to see the page, they also have to get all the graphic files that are located on your page. So, one visitor to your page may be requesting 25 different files, and thus you have 25 hits.
The counters of the Internets early days only measured whether someone requested a particular page where the counter was located. They did not give any indication of what the visitor activity was like on the other pages of the site. Those counters often did not differentiate between a "unique visitor" and total visitors. The number of unique visitors is the number of different people (as measured by their computer's distinct IP number) as opposed to total visitors, which could even be only one person visiting the page many times. (I used to visit my first site a few times a day to see how I was doing!)
So what then is the professional and up-to-date way of gathering statistics and what are the statistics that really count?
Web servers keep logs of all visitor activity. When someone visits your site, he or she requests the various files on the site. The log records all of these requests and records other vital information as well including: the referrer page (or the last page where the surfer was prior to entering your site), what operating system the surfer is using, what screen resolution he or she is using, what search terms he or she made to request your site and a lot of other vital data that could be crucial to your ability to have Internet success or failure.
If you would look a the raw logs of your site you will see a long text file with the date of each entry and would see a few interesting items but you would not be able to put them together very well due to the volume of information. (a line of text for each file requested). There are log analysis programs that do this work for you. One way of using them is to download the log file from your server. Your host should be able to tell you where the file is located, and you can retrieve it using an FTP program. The log file is then fed into the analysis program and the results are generated. There are many programs that do this work. I got started with a simple program (open web scope-and there is free version available). Alternatively, your host may have an analysis program preinstalled on the server, and the results may be able to be seen online (some hosts have the Webalizer program installed for their client's use)
So what are the things to look for when analyzing the logs?
You should look for the number of unique visitors per day. This will give you an idea of how many people are viewing your site and will give you a broad overview of how you are doing.
Another indication of overall activity on the site is the number of "page views" per day.. Unlike hits, page-views refers to distinct html files or pages that were requested. Suppose you get 200 unique visitors per day, and there are about 2000 page views per day, then you can infer that your average visitor is viewing 10 pages of your site.
Another indication of overall activity is the amount of bandwidth used, or to put it another way, the total of the amount of data that has been transferred per day. This will vary according to how many visitors you have, how many files they view, and of course the type of site you have. If your site is heavy with graphics, or if there are e-books and mp3s to download then the data transfer on your site will be higher than on a site with plain text. This is an important statistic to look at if you have bandwidth restrictions. If you are not worried about this, it is also a good figure to look at just to see the overall activity of the site.
After you have seen the overall activity, it is good to look at the specifics and find more about how your visitors are using your site and how they got to your site.
One of the things I am most interested to see is what are the most accessed pages, and least accessed pages on the site. There are many ways to use this particular piece of information. For example, hopefully your order page will show up in the top ten. If no one is making it to your order page then maybe that is the reason why you are not making any money from the site. Or by looking at this list you may find some pages that are unexpectedly popular, and then you can add more content of the same type.
Related to the popularity of pages is the "click path" through the site. You can see the order in which people visit the various pages of the site and this information may help you to set up your site in a better way. Related to this are the "entry" and "exit" pages. Where do people enter your website? You will be surprised to learn that many people do not enter through your main page. Your inner pages may be attracting much of your traffic, and by learning which pages are popular entry points, you can set up other pages, optimize them and use them to attract more visitors. People have to leave your site sometimes, but it is important to know where the exit points are, and the "exit pages" stat will show you where these pages are.
How did the visitors get to your site in the first place? The referrers list will tell you this information. A referrer is a web site where a visitor was just prior to reaching your site. You can see, first of all, that if you have 100 unique visitors in a day, and if 50 of them were referred, this means that 50 of them probably typed in your URL directly or clicked on an e-mail link or used a bookmark, while 50 of them came from search engines or links on other web sites. Here you will find out which search engines are sending you traffic. You will find out which of your links on other sites are performing well. By carefully looking at your referrers you can go to work on improving your overall promotion strategy.
Another interesting piece of information related to the referrers are the search terms that were used in the various searches. This statistic gives you an idea of what people are looking for when they visit your site. This information can give you an idea of whether you are getting the right kind of audience for your particular product or service.
Finally there is also technical information about your visitors. What type of browser are they using, what operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) are they using? What screen resolution do they use? You have to make sure that your site can display well to fit the needs of the majority of your visitors.
This information can be obtained using many of the log analysis programs, and also some of the trackers which you can put on your site (for example www.extremetracker.com ) give some of this information. But remember that trackers often only give you the information about one page (where the tracker has been pasted in) If you want to get the total picture, the best way is to analyze the logs. By gathering and understanding this information and making changes to your site based on it, you may be able to increase the profitability and success of your web site.
© Copyright 2002, Donald Nelson, all rights reserved.
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization, http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html

Let Your Customers Redesign Your Website

2008-12-13T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by William Hanke

When you purchase a new item from a Yahoo! Store, you are asked if you'd like to provide feedback on the transaction. About two weeks after the initial purchase, an email from Yahoo! Stores shows up, asking you to provide feedback for the vendor. Whether your experience was good or bad, the opportunity is probably seized more often than not by customers.
Of course, I would bet that bad experiences are more likely to be posted than the good ones, but I'd bet the number is still substantial enough to affect the owner's website look and payment processes.
Does your website have a feedback form? Do you give your customers an opportunity to tell you how you did? Wouldn't those opinions help you shape your customer satisfaction and support foundations? I think so.
Your customer may have a great idea that would compliment your site, or a function that they would have liked (such as saving their information if they order often, so they don't have to fill in purchase forms over and over).
You can set up an automatic feedback email during the initial purchase, or you can send the customer a letter asking them to return to your site to provide information. Either way, this information can be valuable in making future visitors into customers!
Will Hanke is owner of Lighthouse Technologies, http://www.techlh.com a web design, programming and hosting company. He is also author of several software applications in use by companies across the US.

How To Get Visitors To Trust Your Web Site

2008-12-12T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Graham Jones

When you are standing in a store, looking at MP3 players and deciding which one to buy, it's not always the place you'd imagine you would be faced with the issue of how you trust people on the Internet. But that's exactly what happened to me yesterday.
I was in a large store in my home town of Reading, UK, looking for a hi-fi that would play MP3s and CD-RW. Behind me was a display of new plasma screen TVs. Now my plan was to look for the shape and size of hi-fi that appealed to me, then come home and find the cheapest price online. That clearly wasn't the plan for the couple behind me looking at the plasma screen TVs.
"Shall we get it?" the young woman asked her partner. "Why not?" he said, "It's a lot of money but at least we know if it goes wrong we can bring it back to the shop and they can deal with it. You can't do that on the Internet. At least in this shop I can look into the salesman's eyes and see if he's telling me the truth."
It's worthwhile reflecting that in spite of the huge success that many people have selling things online, most people do not buy from the Internet. Most people, like the man I overheard in the shop yesterday, would rather buy from a 'real person'.
Indeed, I came back from my shopping expedition yesterday to discover an email from someone on my mailing list. "Thank you for trying to sell me your ebook," he said, "but I've done a considerable amount of research about these things and I now know they are all a complete scam."
Trust - that's the issue Internet marketers have to face online. When we are face to face with a person trying to sell us something, we use body language, vocal cues and a host of other triggers to almost instantly determine whether or not we trust someone. Online, we don't have that opportunity. The psychological cues we rely on to determine trustworthiness do not feature on the Internet, which means we are much less likely to buy online.
Research on how we determine the trustworthiness of an individual has shown a surprising result. The main reason for saying someone can be trusted is not their apparent honesty. Instead, it is simply how much they appear to like us. The more someone shows they care for us, the more we trust them even if they are actually lying.
For people trying to sell things online this means you need to make your web site more personal and use things like video and audio to create a greater personal connection with your visitors. It also means being up-front with customer service issues, like guarantees, returns and so on. You could also consider using scripts that allow you to include the visitor's name in the page they are viewing. The more personal you make the visitor's experience, the more they will be able to use their inbuilt psychological trust analysis system. And that means more business for you.
Graham Jones is a psychologist who has investigated the way people use the Internet. His research can help you make the most of the Internet, particularly if you are hoping to make money online.

Increase Your Traffic By Recovering Your Lost Visitors

2008-12-11T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Shelley Lowery

If you spend any time surfing the Internet, you've probably encountered a few error messages.
Error messages have numerous causes, such as misspellings, outdated links or internal server errors. When an error is encountered, your server will display specific generic error pages according to the error. These error pages are not only dead ends, but they are also very frustrating for your potential visitors.
When your visitors mistype your web address or click on an outdated link and receive the dreaded error page, they'll most-likely click on their back button and never return. However, you can recover a majority of your lost visitors simply by taking the time to create some customized, user friendly error pages.
As servers run different types of software and do not function in the same manner, there isn't a simple method for creating custom error pages that will work with every system. However, if you have your own domain and your site is hosted on a Unix/Linux server running Apache, this article will assist you in creating custom error pages.
If you're not sure what type of server you're on, visit the following web address to find out: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/
Before we begin, keep in mind, editing your server files is serious business. Even one small typographical error can wreak havoc -- make sure you make a backup copy of any file you're planning to edit.
Guidelines for creating your error pages:
1. Create your error pages in standard HTML -- just as you would create any other web page for your site.
2. Don't alarm your visitors. Never include the word "ERROR" in large, bold text. Your visitors may immediately become alarmed and think they've done something to cause the error. Instead, be apologetic and encourage your visitors to click on the navigational links to locate additional resources and information.
3. Your error pages should look just like the rest of your web pages. Each error page should contain good navigational links, a search feature, and provide information in regard to the specific error they received.
If you'd like to see an example error page, visit the following web address: http://www.web-source.net/error.htm
Once you've created an error page, save it as the error name. For example, if you're creating a customized error page for a 400 Bad Request error, your page should be saved as 400.html.
Here are some of the more common errors:
400 Bad Request
401 Authorization Required
403 Forbidden
404 File Not Found
405 Method Not Allowed
500 Internal Server Error
501 Method Not Implemented
502 Bad Gateway
503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
Once you've created your pages, you'll need to access your server via FTP and create a new folder called "errordocs" where you store your HTML files. Upload your new error documents into your new folder.
Your next step will be to locate your .htaccess file and download it to your computer. (If you use FrontPage to publish your web pages, you cannot customize the .htaccess file, as FrontPage uses the .htaccess file. Editing the file may cause errors in your configuration.) The .htaccess file should be located on your server where you store your HTML files.
If the .htaccess file isn't visible, you can create one within a plain text editor. However, you must first make sure your server isn't configured to hide the file. Your FTP program should enable you to choose to display hidden files and folders on your server.
Once you've downloaded your .htaccess file, open it within a plain text editor, such as Note Pad, and add the following lines below any other text that may be present:
ErrorDocument 400 /errordocs/400.html
ErrorDocument 401 /errordocs/401.html
ErrorDocument 403 /errordocs/403.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errordocs/404.html
ErrorDocument 405 /errordocs/405.html
ErrorDocument 500 /errordocs/500.html
ErrorDocument 501 /errordocs/501.html
ErrorDocument 502 /errordocs/502.html
ErrorDocument 503 /errordocs/503.html
If you're creating your own .htaccess file, open a plain text editor and add the above lines.
When typing in the information, make certain you type it exactly as it appears above. You can include the error documents of your choice.
Once the file is complete, save it as .htaccess and upload it to your server, via FTP in ASCII mode, where you store your HTML files.
For additional information on File Transfer Protocol (FTP) you may visit: http://www.web-source.net/ftp_basics.htm
If you have a Windows operating system, you will be unable to save the file as .htaccess. You'll need to save it as htaccess.txt. Once you upload the file to your server, you can rename it to .htaccess.
That's all there is to it. When your visitors click on an outdated link, your custom error page will now be displayed.
Creating your own custom error pages is well worth the time and effort, as they will enable you to recover an unlimited number of your visitors. If you follow this step by step guide, you can have your pages up and running in no time.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, "Web Design Mastery" (www.webdesignmastery.com) and "eBook Starter - Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book" (www.ebookstarter.com)
Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley's acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies."
You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

5 Moneylosing Website Mistakes Fitness Professionals Make

2008-12-10T15:00:00.001-08:00
Writen by Lynn VanDyke

The fitness industry is buzzing with new marketing techniques. Big shot marketing experts are popping up, joint ventures are being formed and buzz words such as "passive income" are all the rave. Many personal trainers want nothing more than a simple and efficient lead generating machine that involves little time and little cost. These trainers are turning to the Internet for help.
I have been part of the fitness industry for over 5 years. One thing that I have noticed over these years is the lack of business skills personal trainers have. Let me drill down and be more specific. Personal trainers lack successful business skills. They may know how to work the biceps, but most do not know how to leverage their business online.
This particular article focuses on successful websites for personal trainers. This is an absolute must have. It builds credibility, draws leads, provides information to prospective clients, and earns passive income. A successful website should do all of these things. It should not take up time, cause frustrate, cost more money that it's worth or simply be an online brochure.
Here are the 5 biggest money-losing website mistakes fitness professionals make, and ways to avoid them!
1) Personal trainers choose a hosting company that does nothing for them. Hosting companies are well-known to lure fitness professionals into their business with the promise of cheap, easy and low-maintenance. Most personal trainers love the idea of low cost and low hassle. However, working with these low cost hosting companies can be a nightmare. Each additional tool, such as lead generation box, newsletter or traffic statistics, will cost additional money. Most websites will cost too much in hosting fees to be successful.
2) Fitness professionals use a fitness website template that they can customize. These templates sound great on the outside. Trainers can add photos and text. The problem is that these websites are never found on the search engines. They look clean and provide some information, but no one will ever find these websites unless they already know about it. This means that the website is not bringing in new, fresh, hot targeted leads. No traffic also means no passive income.
3) Personal trainers want to earn passive income, but they join up with affiliates that pay low commissions. I have personally made this mistake. I built a tremendous website with thousands of visitors each and every month. I was sending my visitors to a few companies that sold equipment or a nutrition program. If these customers bought from the website I referred them to I would earn a commission. They rarely bought, and when they did I earned less than $5. The lesson here is to have an excellent website coupled with an excellent affiliate program. Personal trainers need to find affiliate programs that pay larger commissions and have excellent ROI's (return on investments).
4) Fitness professionals never optimize their websites. Some trainers actually have nice websites, but as I mentioned above their site is never found in the search engine rankings. Most personal trainer sites are a total of 5 webpages. Those pages typically consist of the following: Home page, About Us, Services, Links, and Contact Us.
These pages will not rank at engines. The trick to ranking well at search engines is keywords. Successful personal trainer websites will have more than 20 pages of fitness and health related information. These pages will be optimized for one single keyword. Picking what keywords are good and easy to rank well for is the hard part. The hosting company should provide a keyword analyzer tool in the initial price if they are a good hosting company.
5) Personal trainers will pay a website designer thousands of dollars for a basic site or they let their friend do it for free. Big mistake on both ends. Personal trainers that give up control of their website to a distant designer or a trusted friend will soon grow tired of waiting for their changes to be implemented. Each time something needs to be added or changed it will take days if not weeks before it gets done. This is bad business. What happens when the trainer wants to run a two-day sale?
One more point about having a designer or friend doing the site, they do not know how to write sales copy. They do not know the fitness industry. They do not know marketing tactics to gain hot targeted leads from the search engines. They mean well and will provide you with an online brochure, but personal trainers that want to be successful know they must pull in lots of traffic each and every month. This traffic is the lifeline of passive income success and in-person training programs.
Personal trainers love to train people. They would rather change someone's life than spend days and days building a site or paying someone for a site that does not work. Gym owners, studio managers and entrepreneurial fitness professionals should take the first step towards a successful website. The investment is one they can and should be willing to make, but be sure the investment pulls in hot leads, pulls in passive income, and does not cause frustration.
Most websites are nothing more than an online brochure. They are never found on the search engines and it draws little to no traffic. Without traffic there is no one to sell back end products to. Without traffic there is no lead generating system. A successful website will provide a fitness professional with income. Without traffic there is no income.
Copyright 2006 www.strength-training-woman.com
Lynn VanDyke develops successful fitness professional websites. She provides several options for personal trainers and other business owners. Visit http://www.LynnVanDyke.com to learn more about her and her services. Lynn's fitness website is ranked in all 3 major search engines and is in the top 1% of all websites worldwide according to Alexa.