Websites For Writers Why You Need One And How To Get Started Today

Writen by Stephanie Chandler

It may seem like the publishing industry's equivalent of Beanie Baby madness- everyone is talking about writer's websites. Freelancers and authors everywhere are jumping on the bandwagon, publishing sites to promote themselves and their work. This craze leaves many writers wondering if it's just a fad or if it's really worth the expense and effort. While it may seem like an overwhelming or frivolous endeavor, there are some solid business reasons why you should consider setting up your own website.

• Editors Like Writer's Websites. When querying an editor for the first time, you can add credibility to your writing resume by referencing your website. Instead of attaching clips, you can provide a link to clips on your site. This minimizes paperwork and lets you avoid sending email attachments that can get scrubbed or cause your email to be routed straight to the trash bin. It also makes the editor's job easier- which could cause them to reward you with a new assignment.

• Your Site Can Save You Time. When you put your clips online, you avoid having to copy them over and over again and instead just upload them once to your website. Your clips file can be as current and as varied as you want it to be. This can streamline your query process and ultimately make you more productive.

• Writers with Websites Get More Work. Writers with websites will tell you that they get more assignments as a result. When you start listing your site in writer's databases, job boards, on your resume and in directories across the internet, you inevitably catch the attention of people who do the hiring.

•Your Site Can Promote Your Work. Whether you are writing freelance articles, books, eBooks, copy for corporations or offering editing services, you can use your site to promote your offerings. Corporate clients will be impressed by a thoughtful website with samples and testimonials. Your site becomes a reflection of you and your work and can impress editors, agents and publishers. The more you work to advertise and market your site, the more attention you can expect to receive.

Setting Up Your Website

It's relatively inexpensive to start a website and often the biggest investment will be in your time. You can hire someone to help you get your site up and running, or you can take this on yourself.

If you want to have the flexibility to manage your site and change the contents frequently, it would be worth it to learn how to do it yourself. Microsoft Frontpage and Dreamweaver are two of the most popular software programs for website design. If you don't want to design it from the ground up, many companies offer templates that you can purchase for as little as $15. You can then customize the template to meet your needs.

If you decide to hire a website designer, there are many to choose from. The best way to find one near you is to ask writer friends or business owners in your community for a referral. You can also ask someone whose site you admire to share their designer with you.

Website Hosting

You can opt to use a free website hosting service like the one offered by Geocities, but keep in mind that you won't have your own domain name. Instead, your URL would look something like: www.geocities.com/mywebsite.html.

For a truly professional site, you can register your own domain name and have your site hosted for as little as $12 per month through providers like Yahoo. Yahoo also offers free tools for website design, so if you want to create a simple site with just a few static pages, their tools may be enough to get you up and running.

Though I use FrontPage for designing my business website, I found Yahoo's Site Builder tool easy to use and was able to design my writer's website in just a few hours. Check out the result at www.StephanieChandler.com.

Getting Your Clips Online

If you don't already own Adobe Acrobat PDF Creator software, you should give it some serious consideration. You can use the program to easily convert scanned files and Word documents to PDF format, making it easy for readers (editors) to view your published clips from your website.

The software also makes it easy to publish your own eBooks and other files that can be used for all kinds of business needs. Adobe allows you to create you first three PDF documents for free. You can also sign up for a subscription based service or bite the bullet and purchase the full software package.

Merchant Card Services

If you want to accept credit card payments online, you can attempt to get a merchant services account. Unfortunately, these are difficult for new businesses to obtain from the big banks due to the amount of fraud in the small business arena. There are many merchant brokers that provide credit card services, but keep in mind that you will have to pay a monthly fee in addition to the percentage per transaction. Luckily, PayPal has come to the rescue and now offers credit card payment services that are surprisingly easy to implement and do not involve a monthly fee.

Marketing

Once your site is live, you need to let people know you're there. There are endless opportunities for marketing your site on the internet. Here are some possibilities:

• List your website with all associations where you are a member.
• Trade links with other websites.
• Write articles for publications that reference your site in your bio.
• Write a blog and reference your site with each entry.

Website listings with the major search engines are calculated based on a number of factors. One way to improve your rankings with the search engines is to make sure you link is listed on as many other websites as possible. In addition to the marketing ideas above, make sure to submit your site manually to all the major search engines. You can access a free list of sources at www.BusinessInfoGuide.com/submitsite.htm

Don't Put Off Until Tomorrow…

If you're still not convinced that you need your own website, join some online discussions and talk with your writer friends. I have yet to meet a writer with a website who didn't agree it is a valuable tool.

Stephanie Chandler is the author of "The Business Startup Checklist and Planning Guide: Seize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams!" and the founder of http://www.BusinessInfoGuide.com, a directory of free resources for entrepreneurs. Sign up for the BusinessInfoGuide newsletter to receive hot resources and tips every month.

Building A Professional Website That Achieves Your Goals

Writen by Stoney DeGeyter

Your website is an electronic extension of your business. Poorly designed web pages often fail to provide users with a satisfactory online browsing or shopping experience. By nature of being an electronic medium, web surfers have constantly growing expectations from the sites they visit while online. The web page equivalent of local kid's $5 car wash flier, or a poorly produced cable show or infomercial is no longer effective when it comes to convincing shoppers that you take your business—or them—seriously. The appearance of your business website lends directly to your credibility. If you can establish credibility then sales will likely follow.

Meet Industry Expectations

A "professional" look can vary from industry to industry. For one industry you might need a site that screams "corporation," while another industry might perform best with a mom and pop feel, still another might need a fun or artsy look. Building your site to meet industry expectations simply means knowing your audience and what they expect. Be careful that you don't confuse any of the above with shoddy design. Whatever "feel" you give your site, make sure it comes out looking great.

Start by researching your competitors and taking an in-depth look at their websites. If all your competitors are going for a particular feel then maybe there's something to that. Be sure to do your own research so you aren't solely relying on what your competitors are doing. Often times you'll find that your competitors are doing the wrong thing entirely.

Overall, make sure you are doing what's right for your audience. In your design you don't just want to match your competitors, you should seek to exceed them. Have your site designed to look and perform better, while still providing the overall tone your target audience is looking for.

Incorporate Usability Elements

As you put together your design elements, think: usability. There is nothing more frustrating to a visitor than trying to navigate through a website that is poorly constructed and does not provide obvious, user friendly markers directing them to the information they came looking for.

Intuitive Linking

Use textual links within the body content as part of your navigation scheme. Your website is not a brochure where people flip from one page to another; it is an active document that should allow visitors to navigate as they read, following links to wherever interest strikes them. Contextual linking in the body content provides that avenue without forcing the visitor to rely on the main site navigation to decide what to do next.

It's the difference between asking your spouse what movie they want to see or asking if they would like to watch a comedy, sci-fi, action, drama or chick flick. With the first, you're forcing her to do all the thinking and decision making for herself. With the other you are simply presenting options, allowing her to make a decision based on what she desires. That is how you want your visitors to feel. You want them to go where they want, but at the same time be leasing them, through various routs, to the point of action (i.e. sale, conversion, sign-up, etc.)

Emotive Colors

Colors fuel emotions so be sure the colors you use for your website bring out the emotions that best reach your audience. Integrating color elements effectively can create a more inviting website that can easily lead your visitors to take the desired actions.

Calls to Action

You've heard the saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." On the web, many people try to get the horse to drink without even leading him to water. When visitors come to your site they need to be lead to their desired destination. Use visual calls to action throughout your site that will direct your visitors to click, buy, purchase, read, get, view, order, continue, apply, enter, or whatever else you want them to do.

Careful and strategic planning before you begin developing (or re-developing) your website can help you build the best possible website that meets both your, and your customer's needs. Consideration and implementation of the above mentioned elements will ensure that your website is effective at pulling traffic and converting your visitors into buyers. Throw in some quality customer service and you've got something for your customers to tell others about, which is the most effective kind of marketing there is.

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a search optimization marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (http://www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog. (ea)

Profitable Websites For Exclusive Industries

Writen by Patrick A. McIntire

In the region where my company is located, South Bend, Indiana, the demand for web design and associated services could be described as: leery. It's not that the locale is horribly lacking evolvement technologically; rather that so many proprietors in this area are very uncertain as to what the internet can do and how they can go about forming profitable web sites for their exclusive industries.

Small businesses and corporations need to understand that the internet is indeed a beast, but a beast that can definitely be tamed. In this market small business is primarily focused in independent food service establishments, manufacturing of RVs (recreational vehicles) and related accessories, electronics engineering, and various steel fabrication. While the majority of these industries don't necessarily have grand end-user sales growth, they do have a great potential for being leading providers in the field of B2B. Surprisingly enough, much of that success could come from establishing dynamic functional websites – but many just don't seem to want to jump on the bandwagon.

The trick is: to have a website with a national scope and feel to set them apart in the world economy from other local business.

Websites that primarily focus on B2B (business to business) sales and leads generation are new to many smaller markets. The internet is considered a point-and-click outlet for general merchandise. For almost as long as anyone can remember, many of the sales for such industries have been generated by cold-calling, sub-contracting, and other relationships such as contacts made at convention meetings, trade shows, and other conventions. It's surprising that so few of the businesses in this area haven't tried to expand their national sales by being a leading provider with expansive information available online.

The steps to creating nationally viable and profitable websites for exclusive industries are pretty simple in base form:

1. Introduce visitors to the website by offering easy access to information that includes the company's history, track record, solutions provided, and plans for the future.

2. Specifically list the company's target markets with examples of satisfied accounts, and extensive information on products and services.

3. Incorporate all of this information into a site that offers a look and feel like it's been designed by a professional team with appropriate vision to reach mass visitors in both domestic and foreign markets.

Many exclusive industries have a background in niche marketing that just doesn't give room to keep an open mind when it comes to new ways of doing business and getting their company's name and information out there. Once that hurdle is jumped, it's pretty just a matter of time before they start generating profitable new contacts who want to know more about the dominating international entity that they have become.

About The Author

Patrick A. McIntire is owner of TechniArtist Media, based in South Bend, Indiana. His company's focus is in creating national scope websites for low cost and local budgets.

patrick@techniartist.com

To People Who Want More Dollars From Their Website A Way To Go

Writen by Murtuza Abbas

One of the most difficult and time consuming tasks in this internet business game is to attract more traffic. It makes perfect sense to educate yourself and try to pull and convert MORE visitors into sales.

Everything you may have heard about increasing your website sales might be true. But this article will show you some amazing, proven ways to make your website sell more of your products and services.

It hardly takes any time to apply this 5 step system on your ad copy and you'll soon see your website cashing in more sales and filling up your bank account.

If you want to improve your website profits, sales and conversion ratio, then I urge you to take ACTION and apply the steps laid down in this article.

Now you can own some killer copy-writing tips that can skyrocket your sales without putting in any additional efforts to promote your site.

Let's get started...

STEP 1 - Guru Endorsement.

Hire a famous person to endorse your product or service. Make sure the person is well known to your target audience. Include their picture and statements on your ad copy.

STEP 2 - Your Picture and Contact Details.

Include your own picture on your ad copy. This will show people that you're not hiding behind your ad copy and will increase their trust. Also, include your contact information below the picture and a brief statement or quote.

STEP 3 - Give Donation.

Tell your potential customers on your ad copy that you will donate a percentage of their purchase price to specific charity. This will show them you really care about the people. They may just buy your product to donate to the charity.

STEP 4 - Ask Emotional Questions.

Ask your potential customers plenty of yes and no questions in your ad copy. The questions should remind them of their problem and make them think about what will happen if they don't purchase your product.

STEP 5 - Bribe Them to Read Your Copy.

Tell your potential customers they will receive a free prize if they find the five words in your ad copy that are misspelled or spelled backwards. The longer you can keep someone reading your copy the greater chance of them purchasing.

If you can use more new customers clicking on your ads and purchasing your products... and I mean TONS of new sales and profits without attracting tons of extra traffic, this article has shown you exactly how to do it.

These are some powerful ways to bring in all the customers you'll ever need and convince them to buy your products and services right NOW.

The kind of customers that will rocket your income right off the charts!

If you're sick and tired of low conversion ratio of your website and are serious to improve it, make sure you read this article once again and apply the 5 step system.

Where you can take your website profits using these 5 killer steps? It's entirely upto YOU.

There's never been a better time for you to make your website sell like CRAZY, than it is today!

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Checking Your Website In Multiple Browsers

Writen by Tim Priebe

As a designing and programming nerd, I am not one of the people who use Internet Explorer to browse the web. In a normal situation, I use Firefox. However, I'm not the only one. Statistics gathered on various websites show that as many as 30% of the visitors to your site might not be using Internet Explorer.

Just because your website looks fine on your computer doesn't mean it will look okay on someone else's. There is no way to completely control that, but you can do one thing to be safe. If there's one piece of advice I can give someone designing a website for the first time, it's to make sure you check your website in a variety of web browsers. In fact, I went so far as to purchase a Mac Mini just to check my clients' sites on a Mac.

On Windows computers, the browsers you should check your site in include (of course) Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Netscape. Macs also run all those browsers, although Internet Explorer is no longer available for download. Another big one for Macs is Safari.

This task might seem time consuming, and it can be. Maybe you just don't want to install all those browser. (I don't blame you.) Perhaps access to a Mac just isn't an option. Luckily, there is another option available. I have not used them myself, but www.browsercam.com will allow you to view screen captures of your website on a variety of different platforms, and even in a variety of resolutions. It is free to try out, but costs money if you decide to continue using it.

While your website certainly won't and can't look exactly the same in all browsers, it should be very close. And you should never have a message that says "This site best viewed with XXXX." What you are really saying is, "If you aren't using XXXX to view our site, we really don't care about your business."

Regardless of how you decide to do it, checking your website in multiple browsers is a must. It would be terrible to lose customers just because your website looked wrong in their browser.

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.

Setup Website Setup Your Business For Success

Writen by Rod Hodgson

Starting a business can be a very scary thing but if you are inadequately prepared, starting an Internet Business can be even more so. Where do I begin? What should I expect? How much should this cost? I hope to answer some of the common questions asked by business owners wanting to setup a website.

First you must register a domain name. This will be the address for your setup. Websites need to contain keywords but also need to be attractive to human readers, so do not get carried away by keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com domain names. Keywords do help, but you want a name that is able to be branded as well. I register all of my domains with godaddy.com. They start at around $8 a year for a regular .com registration but sometimes you can get a good discount if you sign up for another godaddy service such as private registration. This keeps your contact information hidden from the public. If you would like to see what kind of information is publicly available, do a Google search for Who Is when ever you get the chance.

The next task is to decide where you will host your site. The two most common types of hosting are Shared Web Hosting and Dedicated Web Hosting. For most starter websites Shared Web Hosting should be sufficient, but larger websites should enjoy the added benefits of dedicated web hosting. Shared hosting is going to cost around 10.00 a month compared to dedicated hosting which can run around $75 or more a month. If you receive a large number of visitors a day, or have a fairly large database driven dynamic website, dedicated hosting is the only way to go. Most Search engine specialists will recommend a dedicated server over a shared server even for small websites due to the possibility that your site could theoretically be penalized for shady actions taken by other websites that share your sever and IP address. So if you choose to start off with shared hosting, shop around and make sure you will be sharing your sever with a reputable company that hosts reputable websites. Even though some companies offer webhosting for $3 or $4 dollars a month, it doesn't mean it is a good buy. Spammers know where the cheap prices are, as they register them in bulk!

Now the fun part! The final task is the most challenging of all, the building of the website itself. You can outsource your web design with a website design company or you can opt to build it yourself. If you decide to build your own site, remember to practice common design recommendations like header tags and good text based navigation. Another important tip is to set a title, description and keyword tag in the head section of every page. A lot of people believe these tags are useless, but this is far from true. The title tag is the most important on page factor because it greatly affects ranking. The title tag is also important for enticing users to click on your listing as most search engines pull some of your listing information from the title tag. I try to keep my titles under 65 characters long. The description meta tag is also quite useful for ranking and can be quite a bit longer. Look at keeping your description under 250 characters, including spaces. I believe the keyword information is mainly used for categorization purposes. Just make a point to not repeat any words more than two or at the most three times or it may hurt you more than help.

If you would like more information on Shared Web Hosting or Dedicated Web Hosting, contact us at hostip.com. If you are looking for Website Setup tips and would like more webmaster related information, visit our other website Hosting-Spot.com

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Launch Your Own Website Today Its Easier Than You Think

Writen by Stephanie Chandler

Thousands of people are now making a living online and the opportunities are abundant as the Internet continues its growth. An added benefit of running an Internet business is that you can usually start one part-time while you maintain your job and steady income. An internet business can also be an extension of a regular brick-and-mortar business, adding credibility to your company and your offerings.

How Do You Get Started?

First you need to know what kind of business you want to run. Your venture should be something you can be passionate about and more importantly, something that can make money. Here are some options for generating online revenues:

 Sell a Product - This can be the most costly option since you have to acquire inventory and determine how you are going to sell your merchandise whether it's through your own site, eBay or other online reseller. If you are a collector, this could be a fun way to turn your hobby into a business.

 Sell a Service – If you want to provide a service such as writing business plans, website design, pet sitting, etc, you can use your website to market your business. A service business is typically inexpensive to start, however you need to calculate how much you will charge and how many clients you will need to service to generate income.

 Sell Information – People are hungry for information so if you have information that people want, you can potentially make a profit with your knowledge. You could sell reports, articles, classes and other learning materials Ebooks are growing in popularity and are fairly easy to create if you have Adobe software or use an eBook service.

 Affiliate Programs – Many companies, large and small, are offering affiliate programs including eBay, Buy.com and Amazon.com. When you sign up to be an affiliate, you set up custom links to products from your website. If the customer clicks through and makes a purchase, you get a small percentage of the transaction. To be successful with affiliate programs, you need to generate a lot of website traffic with a target market that is interested in the product links you are providing.

Setting Up Your Website

It's relatively inexpensive to start a website and often the biggest investment will be in your time. You can hire someone to help you get your site up and running, or you can take this on yourself.

If you want to have the flexibility to manage your site and change the contents frequently, it would be worth it to learn how to do it yourself. Microsoft Frontpage and Dreamweaver are two of the most popular software programs for website design. If you don't want to design it from the ground up, many companies offer templates that you can purchase for as little as $15. You can then customize the template to meet your needs.

If you decide to hire a website designer, there are many to choose from. The best way to find one near you is to ask business owners in your community for a referral. You can also ask someone whose site you admire to share their designer with you.

Website Hosting

Website hosting can cost as little as $12 per month through providers such as Yahoo. Yahoo also offers free tools for website design, so if you want to create a simple site with just a few pages, their tools may be enough to get you started.

Merchant Card Services

If you are going to accept credit card payments online, you can attempt to get a merchant services account. Unfortunately, these are difficult for new businesses to obtain from the big banks due to the amount of fraud in the small business arena. There are many merchant brokers that provide credit card services, but keep in mind that you will have to pay a monthly fee in addition to the percentage per transaction. Luckily, PayPal has come to the rescue and now offers affordable credit card payment services. They also offer free shopping cart software if you decide to add some products to your website. This is a great solution if you want to offer a few products for sale.

Automation

For a more advanced website, one that generates revenues around the clock, you should consider setting up website automation. Auto-responders can be configured to answer your incoming email messages automatically. You can use them to manage orders, newsletter subscriptions and most of your correspondence. You can schedule messages to go out at set intervals. For example, you can use auto-responders to send a weekly email to your customer database.

There are virtually endless possibilities for automating your site and making your business as efficient as possible and there are just as many vendors who offer these services. Keep in mind that if you add different services to your website such as auto-responders, shopping cart and merchant services, you are going to have to make sure each software package is compatible.

Business Licenses

Business license requirements vary by state, county and sometimes even by city. Be sure to make your business legal and talk to your accountant about whether you should set it up as a sole-proprietorship or a corporation. There are also some great home business deductions available. To locate licensing requirements for your area, visit the regional page set up by the IRS.

Marketing

While a great idea is a good start, it's the execution of an idea that makes a business successful. You can't set up a website and hope it will be visited, you must let people know you're there. To access a free list of places where you can submit your website to search engines for free, visit www.BusinessInfoGuide.com.

There are endless opportunities for marketing your site. Here are a few possibilities:

• Trade links with other websites.

• Set up an affiliate program and join other affiliate programs.

• Advertise your site with pay-per-click programs.

• Write articles for publications that reference your site.

Education

The best insurance for developing a successful business is education. You don't need a master's degree to run an online business, but you do need some tools and background. You can self-educate with the help of books, magazines and websites. Study your industry carefully and seek business start-up advice from fellow entrepreneurs. The more prepared you are, the more likely your business will be a success.

Stephanie Chandler is the author of "The Business Startup Checklist and Planning Guide: Seize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams!" and the founder of http://www.BusinessInfoGuide.com, a directory of free resources for entrepreneurs. Sign up for the BusinessInfoGuide newsletter to receive hot resources and tips every month.

How To Build A Professional Website

Writen by Nowshade Kabir

Do you know that most of the companies get their first website way off the mark? The reason is simple! Unless the owners are technologically savvy or have extremely clear idea of the benefits of professional website, for most companies it is more like a thing that you have to have since everybody else has one. Another reason is whether the company builds its website in house or hires professionals to develop it, website requires a certain commitment from the company management. Many senior staffs don't understand the seriousness of the web project as they don't have enough knowledge of what a professional website is capable of doing.

Today, most of your business processes can be managed through your company website. Using web technology skillfully companies are in a position to grow business many folds and generate significant sales through the Internet. Sales increase of 40 percent to 50 percent within the first year of launching a professionally built website is not isolated cases.

If you want to get your website right from the first time, or would like to revamp your existing website to a more aggressive sales channel that generates revenue, the following suggestions will help you getting the desired results.

Before you set out to build your website you should pull together enough content for your site. In the Internet content is the king! The number one reason for people to go online is to find information that they are searching. That's why to become a serious contender in the market you have to have a large number of pages with high quality content on your site. How many? There is no hard and fast rule, but for an average site it should be no less than 80 to 120 pages. Our content repository http://library.rusbiz.com a good resource for this purpose.

Once you know all the contents that you are planning to have on your website, the next step is to lay down the site structure. This might look complicated but there is a way out of it. Study the websites of your competitors those who are doing good on the Internet.

In offline world you probably already know who your competitors are. You also probably know, at least to some extent, which keywords your buyers will use to find a company like yours. Now, do a search using those keywords or phrases, check out the companies that are ranking best in Google, Yahoo and MSN. If these companies are selling similar products or services like you, they are undoubtedly your primary competitors. A systematic research of companies that are exposed heavily in search engines will help you see which key market they are targeting, how they are doing this, what marketing and promotional methods they are using to attract customers, etc.

Here I have listed some must have stuffs for a truly professional website:

A good company logo

For any business whether it is online or offline it is important to create a brand name. Branding helps people to recognize your company and associate it with your products or services. Your company logo is a key component in your branding endeavor. That's why you should consider developing a high quality, visually pleasant and easily recognizable logo if your company still does not have one.

Ability to register on your site

One of the main ideas behind a business website should be to build a list of prospective customers. If a person shows enough interest in your products and services and feels it's worthwhile to receive regular information from you and register at your website it means that he/she is a potential customer for your business. In order to entice more people to sign up, you should have a member's only section with valuable content, discussion boards, electronic journals, etc. A registered member of your site should receive news and information from you regularly.

Search ability for the whole site

All the information available on your website should be at the finger tip of the visitor. Not all visitors have enough patience to browse through the pages of your site to find out what they are looking for. A search mechanism that covers your whole site allows visitors to find required information promptly.

Electronic journal

This is a very good way to keep in touch with your clients and prospective customers. Through your ezine you will keep customers informed about new products, changes in specifications, upcoming company and industry events, press releases, etc.

Testimonials

Positive testimonials from your customers give potential buyers a feeling of extra assurance. Make sure that the testimonials are true, concise and clear.

Company and industry news and press releases

You should regularly update and post company and industry news on your site. If you are planning to launch a new product or service or arranging an event you should announce this type of news through press releases.

Feedback

Whoever wants to contact you should have the ability to do so the way it is most convenient for him/her. Your phone number should be posted prominently on your home page. There should be a feedback form, which a visitor can fill up and send easily.

A call for action

Each of your pages should be created with a definite purpose. Once a visitor read through the page you should give him direction what to do next.

Easy navigation to key pages

No information on your website should be located more than three clicks away. The home page and other key pages should have access from top menu.

Product or service guarantee

You should clearly stipulate what guarantee a buyer has if he is not satisfied with your products or services.

A catalog with shopping cart

If you have a website you must sell products and services. If you don't have anything of your own to sell you can always get relevant to your site products or services from other suppliers.

Product and service specifications

All your products and services should have precise, up-to-date and complete specifications with pictures.

Promotion

On your home page you should always have some types of promotion. A limited time discount, a free additional feature, two for one, etc. are examples of promotional advertisements.

Company history

Many prospective customers would like to know more about the company before doing any business. You should have a page with company profile, contacts, mission statement, company vision, etc.

When you finished preparing your site structure and gathered all the contents necessary, with the help of professionals create a detailed technical scope of the site. This will give you a clear picture of what you will receive when your site is ready.

This will also help you budget your site. The next steps that you have to take are:

1. Create layouts and designs for the Home page and the second major pages.

2. Create content surrounding two three key phrases per page.

3. Select designs for these pages.

4. Develop rest of the site.

5. Get peoples from different industries and backgrounds to have a look at your site once it is ready and give you honest recommendation.

6. Make necessary changes based on the new ideas that you have received from your friends, colleagues and workers.

7. Publish it.

Although, you should be involved in every stage of the web development, you should trust professionals to create the actual web site. Even as far as the cost is concerned, this will be cheaper in the long run.

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

Having A Domain Name And Web Site Gives Your Business The Key To The Door

Writen by Jesse S. Somer

Just like all things in life, the ways to run a business are rapidly changing and evolving. The potential involved with having a domain name/web site is staggering to say the least. A web site gives the consumer a 'shop front' that is not only open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but is also situated right on their desktop. Instead of being locked into only the immediate area, the whole world's marketplace becomes your sphere of interaction.

Customers can access information on all your products, no more salesperson with limited knowledge trying to explain something they no little about. No more waiting in lines for help, all people have access immediately.

The domain name of the website gives great freedom to the business process. Having your own name is like having an address, then infinite emails can be added to the name so different departments within the company can be reached without having to wait at reception. For example, sales@ Mary's Plants.com will put the shopper in direct contact with Mary's sales section.

As a business, the domain name adds professional authenticity, as your address is not affiliated with other companies. In the area of communication, the email system opens up many avenues. Instead of having to put clients on hold because of limited personnel, innumerable emails can arrive at once, even when there's no one in the office. Then you can pick and choose which one's to reply to first (the most urgent), while people browsing can wait till later. First come, first serve becomes obsolete as necessary customers automatically reach the front of the line.

Getting a website and domain name is an easy, simple, cost-effective process. You can register your name through web domain registrars like DomReg-M6.Net for as low as $15.00 U.S. per year. That is definitely a very limited risk compared to opening a store, renting a location, and the thousands of dollars involved in overhead costs. How can this be true? A key to the door for anyone who wants to enter a mega-mall that is as big as the Earth. Let's hope you've got something special to share and trade with the global community!

About The Author

Mr. Somer is a human analyzing the positive aspects of the information era, and sharing the facts with the technological novice. And currently he is writing for M6.net

sales@m6.net

Your Business Website What Should You Be Monitoring

Writen by David Malan

With so much happening on a daily basis, it's sometimes difficult to know what are the important things to keep an eye on when managing your business website. Here are a few pointers regarding some of the more important aspects of monitoring and measuring your business website's performance.

Monetary Performance

How you define your website's monetary performance, as well as how you measure it, is going to differ from business to business, but there are two specific aspects that most businesses will agree are fundamental:

1. How much money you are spending on developing, promoting, maintaining and managing your website.

2. How much money you are making from your website.

It sounds simple enough, but it's not really as cut and dry as you might think. Most business websites have a marketing value attached to them that is difficult to quantify. For example, how do you measure how much money you made from people who found you on the internet, then subsequently phoned you to make contact, or walked in your shop door?

As far as is possible, keep accurate records of all money flow attributable to your online presence. Record the costs of development, maintenance and promotion of your website. Record online sales in such a way that you can calculate the cost per order. Ask your new customers how they found out about you, then keep track of their subsequent spend with you. This applies not only to your first sale. If you acquire one long-term big-spend customer, that alone can very often pay for a good deal of your online costs.

If you have substantial online sales, make sure that you are able to account for these sales separately from your offline sales. If you run online promotions, ensure that you include a tracking mechanism that will allow you to determine where your sale was originally derived - that way you will be able to revisit profitable online promotion opportunities and avoid those that produce little value.

Marketing Performance

As alluded to above, your website generates more than just the direct revenue associated with immediate purchases. Your business website serves another important function -- that of marketing your business to the world at large in a way that you would find impossible to do yourself.

There are many many ways you can track the marketing performance of your website, but the most important thing is to keep accurate records and compare them month-on-month, then learn from them and keep improving your website accordingly. Here are a few suggestions to maximize the marketing benefit of your website:

1. Update your site regularly with updated information about your business, your services, and the value you provide.

2. Start a newsletter to keep in regular and direct contact with your existing and prospective customers

3. Provide online feedback facilities to allow customers to contact you with positive and negative feedback, as well as sales leads.

4. Provide online customer service tools such as online message box facilities to speedily assist customers

5. Update your site regularly with press releases and other newsworthy content.

6. Provide articles online to assist your prospective customers with information related to your products and services. You are, after all, an expert in your field, and this is a great way to share your knowledge and showcase your value to prospective customers.

7. Utilize traffic monitoring tools to monitor traffic to your site. A good software package should provide detailed statistics of your visitors, number of pages viewed, from which country they are coming, and so forth. Make sure you keep a detailed history of this information, it can be a great way to track the growth of your site over time, and there's nothing better than seeing a graphic representation of that growth.

8. Provide online survey tools. This is a great way to research your market, especially if you have a number of your clients subscribed to your newsletter. A simple link in the newsletter to your online survey can quickly provide targeted research results in record time. What better way to learn about your market than to ask them directly for feedback? Make sure that the results are stored in a database for subsequent analysis.

There's a lot to managing your online business presence, it is after all simply an online representation of the rest of your business. By focusing on the direct and indirect benefits, monitoring and measuring them, you are sure to keep improving the performance of your entire business.

David Malan is an internet and e-commerce expert with over ten years experience in designing and developing enterprise grade online solutions for business.

He owns and runs RealmSurfer Consulting, based in Perth, Western Australia.

Website: Web Design Perth
About: About RealmSurfer Web Design Perth

Server Side Includes Ssi With Asp

Writen by Rob Collyer

Server Side Includes (SSI) with ASP

People often have identical sections of code spread throughout many ASP pages, typically code at the top of the page (usually referred to as the header) and the lower part of the page (the footer). Similarly, you may have code that performs a certain set of instructions that you are repeating across multiple pages. Consider an example:-

<%
If foobar="yes" then
response.write "YES!"
Else
response.write "NOT YES!"
End if
%>

Ok, ok... it's simple, but imagine that you used this on multiple pages. What's wrong with this picture?

Well... you don't have to think about that long before realising that if you ever wanted to change something about that piece of code, you'd have your work cut out. you would have to change every page... everyone has done this at some stage and luckily most usually take the steps to learn a way around this problem.

If we could save our valuable chunk of code into a file and have that file accessed whenever we needed the code, then we no longer have a problem when it comes to changing things, as we simply update one file. Include files or Server Side Includes (SSI) as they are more commonly known are a powerful way to not only save time when it comes to maintaining and updating a site, but also increase efficiency and speed of that site too!

Ok, lets see how we use an include file... to start with we need to use one of two methods. The first one allows for including files relatively. By that I mean relative to the directory the ASP file that is using the include file resides. The second method includes files virtually. Including files virtually means that the path is taken from the root directory.

Consider that we are going to have a file (/main/somefile.asp) include another file (/includes/someinclude.asp).

To demonstrate, relative inclusion, look at this:-

<%
Response.Write "executing included code now"
%>
<!--#include file="../includes/someinclude.asp"-->
<%
Response.write "done executing included code"
%>

And here, we give an example of the other method, virtual inclusion:-

<%
Response.Write "executing included code now"
%>
<!--#include virtual="/includes/someinclude.asp"-->
<%
Response.write "done executing included code"
%>

Note the slight difference between the two methods. With virtual inclusion, you can move the file that calls upon the include file anywhere without affecting the outcome, because the path is always relative to the root. The same cannot be said however for relative inclusion. If you move a file that is using relative inclusion to a different directory, you'll most likely find the relative path is no longer correct.

From the examples above, you may also notice that both methods, when calling the include do so OUTSIDE of the ASP script block. This because #include declarations are not interpreted by ASP. Include files are included before a single line of ASP is processed which means the following WONT work:-

%lt;%
Page=request.form("page")
%>
<!--#include file="../includes/<%=page%>.asp"-->

We were attempting to perform a dynamic include and I would be the first to admit that the above would be very useful indeed if in fact it were possible. I do intend to cover a few methods that work around this set back but I know you will now be itching to get started right away on using include files to even worry about this, so I will cover it in a future article.

I hope that you have found the above informative and hope it inspires you all to write code that's more efficient and more easily maintained.

Rob Collyer, experienced with 20 years programming knowledge and site administrator of www.webforumz.com - Copyright 2003-2004

Search Engines And Customers Want Focused Web Site Content

Writen by Peter Green

How do you decide on the content, products and or services you will promote on your Web site.

Or should I go back one step further and ask why did you decide to create a website in the first place.

Just thought I would ask to see if you are still on track or if your Web site has strayed away from the original reason, product or service you started promoting.

We all know of the importance of owning a Web site and having the ability to promote our business on the Internet.

Many business people working from home require their own Web site to promote more than one company or product, so creating your own Web site makes good sense.

Little do many people know what is required to build a functional Web site, let alone a profitable one.

Most companies hire a web master and have copy writers and large advertising budgets. So how can you compete?

Lets go back to my first question, what you are promoting and why are you promoting it.

One would assume you fall in the category of running a one or two person, small business.

Weather your business started out from a hobby or from joining an Opportunity, it doesn't really matter. You will know your own reasons. Then you will have registered a (hopefully) suitable Domain name, one that described your business focus or reflected your business, its name or your own name.

Well I hope that is the case, as some domain name choices are very weird. Some sites use way out names, which have little or no meaning to the potential customers or site visitors.

Assuming you have a Domain name, hosting and a focus for your Web site the next step usually involves content and layout of your site.

Why then is so little thought put into the products and services we add Willie Nillie to our sites.

As an example, if a site is promoting Web site hosting, I would expect the focus to be Hosting and related services. There are many hosting related products and services that could be added to the site.

The idea of any Hosting related Business Web site should be to provide products, services and information that relate to Web sites that would be of interest to the site visitors and potential Web site owners.

Here are a few suggestion of possible add on's or value added products and services that blend in well with a Hosting site.

Domain Name Registration.

Web site Templates.

Web site Builder.

ISP and Dial-up services.

Search Engine Information.

Search Engine Submission.

Note.
All these value added products or services will be used by customers of most if not all hosting companies.

That's probably the main reason I use ItsYourNet hosting as they have the above list of services available to all their members or customers. There are many hosting companies but few that provide a one stop shop when it comes to Web sites resources and hosting. http://www.ItsYourNet.co.nz

But what I see so often with small business sites are a range of seeming un-related products and services, hey this is fine if you are providing a directory or information and links, but my way of thinking is to have a focused site using products or services that complement each other.

How can anyone promote their website if it contains 5 or 6 totally different and unrelated services. It can be done but will take a little more work!

Over the past few years many marketers have jumped form one opportunity to the next and have added a new page to their site to promote the new program they joined and deleted the old page.

Web sites are a long term way for promoting services as opposed to sending out email which is a one time promotion. This is very much hit or miss, depending on ISP Filters and is even effected on how the receiver is feeling at the time they receive your email.

Most search engines only allow you to list your home page. Ok so if you have a small write up of each service on your home page with links to the various other pages on your site. This will get your home page listed but not usually on the first page of search results.

Most search engines list pages dedicated or focused on one product or service higher than a page containing a product mix.

Good content is equally important for both search engines and site visitors. You can get past search engines by paying for placement to get hits or visitors to your site but there are no second chances with people, prospects, customers, site visitors or what ever you want to call them. If they don't find what they want on their first visit. There is little chance they will return a second time.

The point I am making is that the content of your site plays a very large part in the successful promoting of your site, so a little planning and providing value added services for your customers is a bonus for them and a bonus for your bank account too.

Web sites that have quality content that is focused on a specific product group or service seems to rate higher in search engines.

The content you place on your site, has, is and will always be the main factor for successfully promoting and listing your site in search engines and in motivating your Web site visitors into making a positive decision and finally it will determine your level of success too.

May your week be a successful one.

PETER GREEN
Editor of ~The INDEX Ezine~
Editor@Internet-income-index.com
http://www.Internet-Income-Index.com

Your Free Weekly Internet Marketing News, Ideas, Resources and Sources Ezine.

Top Mistakes First Time Web Developers Often Make

Writen by Tristan Jud

So you are new to web design and development. You are thinking of creating a web site, well below are the top 15 mistakes created by first time web designers.

Most people who are reading this will probably know these already but it was writting for those who don't know.

• Using frames
• Going overboard with high tech "tricks"
• Under construction signs
• Misusing Graphics
• Ransom note fonts
• Complex backgrounds
• To many animations
• Orphan pages
• No organisation
• No unique content
• Too many ideas
• No authoritativeness
• Outdated links or information
• Negative declarations
• Link problems

To often these mistakes are made, and it some times it cannot be helped. However if we try to keep these in mind we have a better opportunity to create a cleaner and better designed world wide web.

A well designed and developed web site can give you the desired effect that you are looking for. I have personally redevloped many clients web sites that were developed previously in the web page boom when businesses wanted web sites but didn't care what they looked like or how they functioned.

On the flip side you could say that in a few years won't we be saying the same thing about table designs. Well you are write we already are, there is a big movement for web sites to use CSS positioning now for the creation of layouts and there is not doubt that soon after that there will be something new.

So all we can do is develop using the latest technologies that will ensure us the chance to have a web site that will stay current for a little while.

Site Maps And Your Website

Writen by Tim Priebe

Sometimes websites have so much information available that it becomes difficult for visitors to get to all the information. There are many tools available in such a situation, including a site map.

First off, let's define what a site map (or sitemap) really is. Broadly defined, a site map is a page on your website that links to all the other pages while displaying the organization of the website. This is sometimes merely a list of links to the main page in each section of the site. Other times, it's a link to every single page in the site. So how do you know which of these you need, or if you even need either of them?

If you haven't already done so, make a flowchart or list that organizes all the pages on your site into sections. This can help as you go through the site map process.

Let's determine if you need a site map at all. The following can be an indication that you need a site map.

• Your site has pages that don't tend to fit into the typical categories on your website.
• The site is so large that not all the sections will even fit in your site's navigation.
• There is logical organization to the site, but individual pages are still difficult to navigate to.
• You made a flowchart of all the pages on your site, and it takes up several sheets of paper, or an entire marker or chalk board.

If a site map is appropriate for your site, do you need one that links to main pages in a section, or one that links to every individual page?

If you have even around fifty pages or more on your site, one page that links to every individual page can start to be a problem. Instead, you might try one main site map that links to a site map for each section of your site. Then, if you add a page to your "Features" section, for example, you only have to update the site map in "Features," not the one for the whole site.

However, if you're not even close to approaching one hundred pages, one site map with all your pages listed will probably be fine. This is a page where it is okay for your visitors to scroll down a bit. Just make sure that the site map is logically organized.

So if your website would benefit from a site map, go through and organize your pages (if necessary) and create one soon. The sooner, the better.

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.

A Web Site For Your Small Business How To Set Up A Website

Writen by Mamata Mohapatra

Your web site will be your window to the world. Even if you are not selling any product online still you need your customers to access you 24 hours a day 365 days in a year and you can pass important information to them by hosting frequently asked pages, product descriptions, product improvements etc. Your web site will be your office or interface to the world even when you are away in weekends, sleeping at nights or in an important assignment for your next business expansion. Then how to go about it? We will discuss some basic points here.

Your domain name:
This will be your first step in this direction. Go to www.namecheap.com or www.godaddy.com to book a domain name. Names are not that easy to get so try to get a combination of names best saying about your business or your brand name. If you have a brand name then it is a good idea to book other extensions like .net, .org and other extensions. This way you can prevent cyber squatters from using your brand names.

Your hosting Plan:
To host your website you need some web space. Market is crowed with hosting companies offering you different packages. The price is paid per month basis and rate varies with service and requirements. If you are not comfortable with all the technical terms like bandwidth, GB space, email etc then contact your web designer or the web programmer to handle the issue. Or go for the lowest one and based on the requirements you can ask for extra facility. Any time you can change your hosting provider if you are not happy with them. To start with you can spend less than $5 per month for hosting. If you have plan to store your customer details, newsletter management, member login etc then you will require database support.

Designing your site:
Engage a designer or web developer for your web site. Design of your site will depend on type of business you are. Avoid using graphics heavy animations or images in your site. Keep good content relevant to your business for getting good traffic from search engines. Search engines and particularly google loves good content so content with matching keywords of your business will drive more traffic and customers to your website. Keep a plan to improve or update your web site periodically.

Promote your Site:
Once your site is ready try for both online and offline promotions. Give a good press release; post your sites for review in popular web developer forums, submit your site to directory relevant to your area of business. Try to get some content specific keyword rich back links from different websites by contributing articles, participating in discussion boards etc. Better to have email address like support@mysitename.com than having support_1108@hotmail.com. This way you will be promoting your site brand name and inviting others to explore your site. You can print your site name in your visiting card, your letter pad and in other promotion materials like caps, T shirts etc. Finally this is not an one time job so keep an improvement or expansion plan for your website based on your business needs. There is no single magic formula to have one successful website but it is not difficult with good content integrated with your business plan and with user-friendly features.

Author is part of a team of web designers and programmers. The team works on web site maintenance, development, programming and search engine optimizations. Visit http://www.plus2net.com for programming tutorials, free downloads and articles on PHP, SQL and web design. Participate in forum to discuss all issues of web site development and promotion including site optimizations for search engines.

Step By Step Making Site On The Web

Writen by Haysam Eltabl

Creating your own website used to be something that only a few people knew how to do and now it is very easy to get a website on the internet. You don't need any technical knowledge. All you need to know is how to use a word processor.

The Four Questions

In this article I am going to answer 4 questions:
Why?
What?
How?
Where?

Otherwise known as:
Why should I build a website?
What should I put on it?
How do I build it?
Where do I put it?
Why Should I Build A Website?

As I mentioned earlier, it is now easier than ever to make a website. Every day thousands of people start their own websites. Within a few years there will be so many websites that some will never get visited.

Right now you are probably thinking: 'This seems like reasons why I shouldn't make one! Nobody will see it!' but there is a simple reason to start now. If your website is launched this year then there will be a lot less websites competing with you than there will be next year. Once you start getting traffic it will increase as more people connect to the internet. If you wait a few years to start your website it will be harder to succeed that it is now.

Probably by now you see why it is a better time than ever to start a website but you are probably now thinking 'What can I put on it?'

What Should I Put On It?

Building a website doesn't require a great knowledge! Everyone has a hobby and if you are interested in something then there is a good chance that there are thousands of other people interested in it.

For example if you know a lot about pets then you can create a pet website. Other pet lovers around the world will be interested in reading about your tips for taking care of animals, your photos and anything else you put on the website.

You don't really even have to have an interest to write a website about. Why not create a site all about yourself? You can include information about your interests etc., your CV, pictures of yourself, contact details and much more. You can even put your favorite jokes on it! The possibilities are endless.

As you can see you don't need to be a professor to create a website and if you put useful or interesting information on the web then people will visit it.

How Do I Build It?

There are so many websites that teach you to do that, try visiting Google sponsor sites or search Google below.

Where Do I Put It?

Nobody will be able to see your amazing website unless they can find it on the internet.You will find many free webhosting sites that offer hosting your site for free,just search Google and you will find hundreds.

Enjoy reading this useful ebook

Chapters

Chapter 1-Introduction to web design

Chapter 2-HTML

chapter 3-Java script

chapter 4-PHP

chapter 5-PHP&MySQL

chapter 6-ASP

Chapter 7-Style sheets

chapter 8-XML

chapter 9-XHTML

Chapter 10-SSI

chapter 11-FTP

Chapter 12-Flash

Chapter 13-Cookies

Chapter 14-WAP

Cahpter 15- Promotion

190 pages pdf format

download now http://ebookad.com/eb.php3?ebookid=23137

idoctor..webmaster

Importance Of Relevance In A Work At Home Business Website

Writen by Purva Mewar

There are many important aspects of work at home business or a website related to work at home business. RELEVANCE being the most important of all.

Relevant Topic: First and foremost the topic of the business you are planning to start should be relevant. Relevance in terms of interest. Can you relate to the subject around which your website or home business is going to revolve? If its something you don't really enjoy, the chances of your success reduce considerably. Choose a subject/topic/idea you would enjoy developing. Success will come more easily and you will feel really good about it.

Relevant Domain Name Once you decide to have a website you will next think of a suitable domain name. A relevant domain name is the one that has your main keyword in it. Or if you plan to brand your name then your name will be the domain name. If you ahve a website that sells music downloads and its called copperwire.com, it will hardly help.

Relevant file or folder names Your website will have many pages or folders. They will all be interlinked. Name all these pages or folders appropriately. A page that has information about tips on work at home business shouldn't casually be named page1.html etc. You'd rather call it "work-at-home-tips.html. Its better from the point of view of search engine marketing and promotion.

Relevant Content Relevant content means content with relavant keywords appearing at suitable places. Relevant content also means content related to the core theme of your work at home business. Irrelavant content will not help you move up the SE. It will do just the opposite infact.

Relevant Headlines and Title Tags Again relevant Title, Description and Keywords Tags are of great importance. And so are Headline Tags. Your Headline Tag should have your main keywords in it. This holds great importance while spiders visit our site. It matters A LOT for Headline Tags to match with other three tags, and that all of them have your main keywords placed properly.

Relevant Anchor Text and Linking Anchor Text While inter-linking the pages as well as while exchanging links have to be relevant. Keywords again are important. Apart from this, exchanging links with RELEVANT sites is very crucial too. A gambling site exchanging links with pharma site is an outright bad deal.

Relevant Keywords in Articles You should make sure that the articles you write, submit or reproduce on your site have, as far as possible, the same keywords that you are optimizing your site with.

These are some of the important considerations while trying to launch a work at home or any other website. Importance of RELEVANCE should be clear at stage one. It helps in the long run. I wish you luck with your venture and hope you will find the above information useful and of course RELEVANT.

The author is Purva Mewar webmaster of Work at Home Based Business websites, http://www.yesearnformhome.com and http://www.work-at-home-earn-extra-income.com

Content The Key To Increased Website Traffic

Writen by Donald Nelson

Everyone wants to have a lot of traffic to their website. In order to get this traffic many people try to work on their meta tags or even do tricks trying to get more visitors to their website. One of the simplest and most solid ways to increase the flow of traffic to your website is to offer more content. It has often been said that on the Internet, content is king. It is important to understand how more content can bring more visitors to your site and how to generate content that is related to your particular web site.

Why do you need more content?

Many websites are actually company brochures that have been adapted to the web. They merely describe a bit about the company or service and then add some contact information. Such websites usually have about 5-10 separate html files. If these pages have a good amount of text it is possible to optimize them for several keywords and web surfers may find the site.

However, if these sites are in highly competitive fields then it may be difficult to build a decent amount of traffic because search engines try to find the most important web sites that can answer a search query. Search engine robots look for keywords in the meta tags and in the text on the pages to determine what the site is all about. However the search engines also look at the links on the various pages. If your main page is about bicycles, for example, and you have links to other pages on your site relating to the same theme, perhaps, racing bicycles, mountain bicycles etc. then the search engine will conclude that the site is about bicycles, and if you have a lot of pages on this theme, your site should rank higher than someone with a company brochure site of a few pages.

In addition, as I have pointed out in a previous article each page, with its content on your particular theme, stands out alone as a mini website in itself and may come up in searches on the Internet. Thus people will often enter your site through the "side" or "back doors" and not the main page. The more pages you have the more chances of being found in searches, and the more different keywords you can optimize your site for.

So, by building a content rich site on a particular theme, you will boost the chances of your main page to come up in searches and you will increase the likelihood of overall traffic through your other pages coming up in good positions in Internet keyword searches. In addition to this, the more content you have the more respect your page gets from human-edited directories (such as dmoz -Open Directory Project), and other webmasters.

If you have quality content then you swill get more link requests, requests for permission to reprint your articles in ezines, more links to specific pages on your site. All of this will result in more traffic.

How to build more content?

Depending on the type of products or services you are offering, there are several ways to build quality content for your site. Here are a few examples

Product Reviews- If you are selling other peoples products, through an affiliate system, rather than just listing a link to the product, you can write a full review of the product, explaining how the product helped you and what are its strengths and weaknesses. This kind of content actually pre-sells the product, as well as being interesting reading in itself. If you have your own products you could give background information on it or get satisfied customers or users to write the reviews.

Background information- Every product or service exists in some kind of context. Suppose you have a hotel in a particular city. Instead of only listing information about your hotel, you could give some pages about the history of the city where the hotel is located or information about popular tourist attractions in that area. The possibilities are enormous.

Questions and Answers. Let your web visitors help you in the process of content creation. Start a questions and answers section on your website or in your electronic newsletter. Not only will you get insight into what your clientele is thinking, but by answering these questions you will generate useful content for your site and for your newsletters.

Bulletin Board Forums- Your web visitors can also directly write the content on your site through a bulletin board. Some bulletin boards are searchable by search engine robots, while others are not. If you have good content on the bulletin board you can also re-publish it on the main sections of your website to insure inclusion in the search engines.

Articles by others- There is no need to recreate the wheel or spend a lot of time writing, if that is not your cup of tea! You can also publish the articles of other people. There is a lot of quality content that is available free of charge. While you usually have to provide a link back to the author of the article, this is a small price to pay considering that some of these articles may pull in tons of traffic.

Finally, if you are wondering how to arrange the increased content you have two main options. Some people actually build a second content-rich website to draw traffic and then direct visitors to their sales site. Another possibility is to add an articles section to your existing site, or simply to link the new pages to the particular product and service pages that are appropriate. Whichever option you choose, you can expect to see an increased flow of traffic as a result of the quality content that you have added to your website.

Copyright 2003

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. His site features an article directorywith hundreds of articles that you can use on your website.

The Number 1 Reason Most Websites Fail

Writen by Michael Cheney

Failure, just like success, is measured differently by each and every one of us. What one man treats as success another may view as failure. For the purposes of this article a website that fails is one that fails to attract and convert enough targeted visitors into paying customers.

Yeah - positive feedback from your website visitors is great but let's face it - we're all in this ultimately to make more money.

Websites do fail. Lots of them fail. You will see many of them every day. Some of them fail to inspire or enthuse. Some fail to get found at all. Some fail to get completed. Some fail to understand the needs of the people visiting them. But there is an underlying common reason for all these failings..

"A Website? Yeah - We Got One Of Those Three Years Ago"

I guarantee you will have heard something similar to this statement before. Some people take the viewpoint that a website is something that gets done, the box gets ticked and that's it taken care of. They get a website because everyone else has one and it seems like the right thing to do.

They don't have a better reason than that. The information they put on the website is copied directly out of their latest brochure complete with company history, MD's mug shot and crappy photo of the offices. And that's it. The site goes live and they tick the box..

"The Internet Sucks - We Don't Get Any Business From It"

That's what these people say three years after their brochure website went live. It's been unchanged in all that time, it uses Frames, has a counter on it, has some 'funky' scrolling text across the top and an early 90s colour scheme. Why on earth haven't they got any business from it?!

And this my friends, is the number one reason most websites fail - the business owners treat the decision to get a website like it's the least important thing they will ever do. A necessary evil that has to be completed to keep up with current trends. Businesses like this will never get any business from their website and they don't deserve to!

Your Competitor Is Driving A Truck Towards You - Stand Still And You're Dead

It's that simple. Keep moving. Developing a website that brings you business is not a task it is a lifelong dedication to ongoing learning, application of new knowledge and continuous improvement. Keep moving, keep learning, keep improving your website, keep it up to date, overhaul it every two years, implement the latest technologies and industry practices.

Just remember what Darwin said;

"It is not the strongest or the bravest that survive. It is those that are most adaptable to change."

Stand still and you will get hit by the truck. Keep moving and you have a chance to remain in the race for success. Don't let laziness or fear of change lead to your failure..

Michael Cheney is Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM. Take the Free 7-Part Course "Internet Marketing Made Easy" and get your free sampler of 'The Bible' here: http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/marketing/

The Birth Of A Professional Web Site Part Eight Writing Effective Sales Copy

Writen by Shelley Lowery

A professional looking web site is a very important part of developing a profitable Internet business. However, your sales copy is just as important -- each will play a major role in your success.

The key to writing effective sales copy is simply learning how to write persuasive words specifically written for your targeted potential customer. You must feel their needs and write your copy with passion, excitement and benefits. Tell them exactly what's in it for them by writing copy that evokes a specific emotion and stresses your product's benefits.

Use the following formula when writing your sales copy:

A - Attention - Use a powerful headline that demands attention
I - Interest - Intrigue interest and create curiosity
D - Detail - Provide details about your product or service
A - Action - Call for action

When you begin writing your copy, your text should be written in a black, legible font with a light background. Avoid using fancy fonts or backgrounds that will make your text difficult to read. Write in small blocks of text with a space between each block. There is nothing that will make your visitor click away faster than a sea of black text --so make sure you use plenty of white space.

A great way to write your copy and come up with new benefits is to use the "so what" strategy. After each sentence, say to yourself, "so what" and then elaborate.

Example:

XYZ computers are lightning fast. (so what) They can process information faster than any other computer on the market. (so what) Your programs will instantly load on command, (so what) saving you hours of valuable time and frustration over the life of your computer.

Remember...benefits sell not features.

Headline

The first and most important part of your sales copy is the headline. If your headline doesn't instantly capture your targeted potential customers' attention, and arouse a specific emotion, the rest of your sales copy will be useless.

In order to write an effective headline, you must learn how to use specific words to achieve a specific reaction.

Before writing your headline, you must first learn a little bit about the basic human motivators. According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, human behavior is always the result of one or more of five basic needs. He listed these needs in a sequence that he refers to as "the hierarchy of human needs."

He believes that until a less important need is met there won't be any desire to pursue a more important need. Below are the five human motivators, beginning with the basic needs and continuing to the most important needs.

Physiological - Basic human needs include hunger, thirst, shelter, clothing and sex.

Safety (Security) - Human need for physical, emotional and financial security.

Social (Affiliation) - Human need for love, affection, companionship and acceptance.

Esteem (Self Esteem) - Human need for achievement, recognition, attention and respect.

Self-actualization - Human need to reach their full potential.

When you are aware of the basic human needs, you can incorporate these needs into your writing. A great headline will appeal to your potential customers' emotions. You must feel their needs, wants and desires and write your headlines with passion and emotion.

Introduction

Just as your headline is a very important part of your sales copy, the first paragraph is just as important. Studies have shown that if your headline attracts your potential customers' attention, and you can maintain their attention through the first paragraph, chances are they'll read the rest of your copy.

The first paragraph should clearly define the benefits that will be outlined within your sales copy -- identify a problem and promote your product or service as the solution.

Subheadings

Subheadings are basically just smaller headlines used to break up your text blocks. They also provide your readers with important highlights of your paragraphs.

Use plenty of subheadings throughout your copy, as not all of your visitors will read your copy word for word. They'll simply scan it and only read what catches their attention.

Remove the Risk

You must provide your potential customers with a solid, no risk, money back guarantee. In addition, provide a limited time free trial or download that will completely remove their risk. This will build your potential customers' confidence in you and put their mind at ease.

Call for Action

Once your potential customer has read your sales copy, you must direct them to your order page by asking for the order.

Use a P.S.

When your visitor scans your sales message, chances are they'll read your headline, sub headlines and your PostScript message. Place your most important benefits within your PS message.

Provide Testimonials

Testimonials provide a great way to reassure your visitors. Blend your testimonials in with your sales message. Avoid making your visitors have to click to another page to view your testimonials -- chances are, they won't. By blending your testimonials in with your sales message, you can ensure they will be read.

Long Copy verses Short Copy

It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy. However, some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can provide your visitors with both. For those who prefer a short sales letter, provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.

Try to keep your sales letter all on one page. Your visitors would much rather have to scroll through your letter than click through and load another page. With each additional click, you'll lose a percentage of your potential customers.

Your words should seamlessly flow together from your headline through to your order page. Every word, sentence and headline should have one specific purpose -- to lead your potential customer to your order page. The simple, well-designed web sites with killer sales copy make the sales.

(Continued in part nine)

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.

Website Success Is Key

Writen by Michael Faeth

The popular search engine Google indexes over 8 billion websites. Is one of them yours, or is your website just floating around in cyberspace and you're hoping your customers will just find you? Is your website a benefit to your organization or company? Is it just an expensive showpiece or is it of true value?

These are some of the many questions that can be asked when launching a new website. With so many different websites being published (some amazing, awful and otherwise), it would be safe to assume that most current business plans underway include the utilization of a website, and that most active companies are utilizing the Internet to some degree. If you are interested in publishing a website, or already have, here are some key elements that may help towards its success:

1. Domain Registration: Be sure to register your domain name (www.yourdomain.com) yourself or have it done within your organization, as opposed to letting a third party register your name. Without control of your domain name registration, you can expect to run into some unnecessary delays if the third party becomes unavailable, which is surprisingly common. You also run the risk of having the registration setup incorrectly or even losing the domain. Purchasing a domain is very easy and available at less than $10 a year, so it is a very inexpensive yet potentially valuable asset.

2. Hosting: After domain registration is complete, you will be in control of where to host your website. Your website will be hosted on an Internet server, a computer that will house your website files and process any functionality such as shopping carts, email, databases, etc. Shop around for hosting options, they vary from inexpensive do-it-yourself options, to managed hosting plans, to exorbitantly expensive plans that are unnecessary. What you need to accomplish with your website will determine what your hosting needs are. I have seen small, compact sites be very effective, so beware of purchasing 500MB of hosting when you may only need 10MB.

3. Design and Development: When it comes to website design, less can often be more. Your website should load quickly and yet be visually stimulating. Try to maintain a consistency of look with any pre-existing marketing material you have in place. Avoid bombarding your visitors with tons of miscellaneous information and links, keep your content precise and to the point, and be sure all of your links work properly and that information is presented in an organized manner. Further development can allow you to take online orders, process payments, store customer info in a database, etc. The type of development you need will depend on what your company wants to accomplish with the website. The bottom line is that even a simple website should be beneficial to your organization when well designed.

4. Caution: Keep in mind that anyone, anywhere in the world, can access your website, so take caution with what you make public. The Internet offers wonders of information exchange, but sadly that can sometimes work against us, depending on who accesses the information and for what reasons. One very bizarre and extremely sad case was the young pregnant mother that was murdered and her baby stolen, after her killer saw a picture of the pregnant woman on the Internet (selling dogs) and then setup a meeting pretending to have an interest in a dog. Focus on publishing informative content related to your products and services only, and keep personal or sensitive information private as much as possible.

5. Marketing: Once your website is designed and hosted you will be ready for visitors, but how are you going to get them to visit your site? Make sure a major search engine indexes your website. If the website is coded correctly, this will be automatic but may take a few weeks. Be sure your website address appears on all of your marketing material, and direct customers to your website for specific reasons, ie. coupons, specials, additional info, etc. Also, explore the many online marketing opportunities as well as traditional print ads.

6. Maintenance: Be sure to pay all domain registration and hosting fees on time. If you would like to be able to update and edit your website yourself, some professional website designers may offer this service. You may be surprised how easily it can be done and being able to do self-maintenance allows you to get the most out of your website.

Good luck and have fun publishing!

Michael Faeth is the owner of website and print design shop GLOBI Worldwide. Our clients include local and national companies, both large and small. For more information and to see our portfolio, contact http://www.globi.us or 559.355.3619. Special thanks to Suzanne Crosina-Sahm for editing the article.

136 Words That Will Reinvigorate Your Website

Writen by Jerry Bader

"It takes 136 Words to reinvigorate your website, and maybe your business.

136 Words to build an image and to establish a signature corporate personality.

136 Words to create name recognition and to imbed your identity in your audience's mind.

136 words to make you more than just a pitchman, more than just another interchangeable supplier.

136 words to turn commercial annoyance into memorable, meaningful, business conversation.

136 words that can be used on your website, email campaign landing pages, and digital presentations.

136 finely crafted words that when expertly written and professionally delivered, can turn your Web-presence around and maybe, just maybe, your entire operation.

136 Words to make a difference, the most important 136 Words your prospects will hear.

It takes 136 Words to create sixty seconds of audio.

What's your 136 Words?"

Defining the Problem

It is not surprising that many CEOs, marketing managers and business owners are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their websites. Everyone in business understands the power of the Web and we are all tantalized by its potential. But rarely does that potential get fulfilled. So whose fault is it? Well there is certainly enough blame to go around: website designers who don't understand business; IT departments that superimpose technical solutions on marketing problems; and business managers who fail to clearly define and deliver a simple and consistent marketing message.

The prime directive in any webmedia initiative (website, email campaign, or digital presentation) is to deliver the marketing message. It doesn't matter if you're big or small, have a huge budget or are working on a shoestring. It doesn't matter if your intention is to build market recognition, showcase corporate expertise, present saleable merchandise, distribute product knowledge, provide customer service, facilitate order-desk inquiries, drive brick-and-mortar traffic, or implement an e- commerce sales system; if you don't deliver a consistent and coherent marketing message, you will fail. All your efforts will be lost in the clutter and noise of a ferociously competitive marketplace.

Discovering the Solution

It is not surprising that the classic business consultant's opening question to a CEO is, "What business are you in?" Of all the complex issues corporate leaders have to contend with, this simple query is probably the most troublesome. Knowing who you are, what you do, and why your prospects should do business with you seems like something that every business professional should be able to rattle-off at the drop of a business card. But ask this question and what you get is a rambling explanation of company products combined with a series of B-school platitudes about striving to work hard to deliver the best widget.

Call it a value proposition, an elevator pitch or simply your 'raison d'etre.' What matters is delivering your marketing message. First you must define it in as simple terms as possible; then you must refine it into an accurate, articulate and understandable statement; and then you must deliver it in a memorable fashion in everything you do, at every meeting you attend, and on every website, email campaign, landing page, and digital presentation you make.

Understanding the Medium

The Web is a communication environment where its practitioners have ignored

the basic building block of effective communication - the sound of the human voice. Nothing makes us sit-up and take notice more than the sound of the human voice. It is an evolutionary imperative driven by the earliest recollections of our mother's voice and the reassurance of the protective psychological cocoon it created.

The sound of our name, or that of someone familiar, stops us dead in our tracks. No image, no text, no layout pattern has the Pavlovian effect of the sound of the human voice. It is the most powerful, the most memorable, and the most effective means of communication we have. It demands our attention and as Web-marketers we ignore it at our corporate peril.

There has developed over time a Web-orthodoxy, a set of acceptable ways of doing things, a litany of dos and don'ts that if scrutinized in the light-of-day prove to be next to useless - useless in doing what needs to be done - creating a memorable user experience that results in turning traffic into customers. If your audience can't hear what you're saying, how do you expect them to respond to your call to action?

Delivering the Message

So now you know you need to define and package your marketing message in a memorable verbal narrative that can be delivered using cutting-edge webmedia techniques on the high-speed broadband environment that now exists. Creating this memorable value statement is not just an exercise in marketing ingenuity but an assignment in business survival,

It takes 136 words to delivery a compelling sixty-second explanation of why customers should do business with you; the most important 136 words of your business life.

How to Create Your 136 Words

1 List all the human attributes inherent in your business personality.

An accounting firm may want to project stability, reliability, and a conventional outlook - think the avuncular voice of Walter Cronkite. An advertising agency might want to deliver a hip, cutting edge, in your face creative personality - think the edgy delivery of Chris Rock or Dennis Leary. Now before you get all excited and start shouting, 'how I am I going to afford these guys?' the answer is you don't. There are great voice actors available at very reasonable prices that can project the desired style and delivery.

2 What are the audio qualities of the Signature Voice?

Do you want a man or a woman, or a combination of both? Do you want a deep base voice full of conviction, a snooty British accent dripping in condescension, or a comic rapid-fire patter aimed to amuse and entertain?

3 What kind of language, phrasing, and cadence is required to give the Signature Voice its personality?

When we were looking for a Signature Voice for a DVD that was to be used at the Winter Baseball Meetings, we decided on a combination of Dizzy Dean and Mel Allen. The key was that 'good ole boy' southern charm conveyed through a combination of baseball jargon, phrasing, and dialect. We weren't looking for someone to imitate Dizzy Dean, just someone who could deliver the essence of Dizzy's love for the game.

4 Wet or Dry?

Have you ever watched one of those 'The Making of ...' documentaries on a how a movie was made? Sometimes they will show you a scene with dialog but no music or sound effects. It's really very flat, even with the actors doing their dramatic best. Voice without music or sound effects is called a 'Dry' delivery. When the effects and the music are added in postproduction, the scene delivers real emotional impact. The music and f/x provide emotional clues and memory hooks.

5 Write the script.

I find having the voice in my head is a great help in writing the script. Whether you're shooting for Sidney Greenstreet or Rod Serling, the cadence, phrasing, and language are what makes the script come alive, and creates the signature sound that will represent your company. Unrelated to the actual voice but definitely of importance to the script, is the point of view. The script should not be about you, it should be about how your audience can benefit from knowing you. Don't fall into the trap of focusing on you and listing a bunch of product or service features. Talk about what you can do for your audience, and in that way you will make a real connection.

6 Audition the talent.

Once you have a script, it's time to audition a number of voices to find the one that fits what you're looking for, and of course the price you are willing to pay. We generally have 50 to 100 people audition for each script. We then narrow the search down to the two or three best voices that fit the audio and budget requirements and present them to our client.

7 Implement on the Web.

Once the voice audio is complete, music and sound effects can be added if needed. The audio tracks are then cut into digestible clips, compressed, and converted into appropriate implementible files. The result can be delivered on a website, email campaign landing page, or digital presentation.

Jerry Bader is a principal partner of Ontario-based MRPwebmedia (http://www.136words.com, http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com). He can be reached at info@mrpwebmedia.com">info@mrpwebmedia.com, Telephone: 905.764.1246.