Thursday, May 29, 2008

Small Business Web Design Development - Small Business Web Design Elements You Must Always Avoid

There are some critical web design development elements that small business owners must avoid when creating their website. This article will discuss what these elements are and how to correctly develop and design a website for small business.

As a web designer, you have to create your websites to give your visitors the utmost ease of use, the best feeling and most important of all a welcoming experience. It doesn't matter if you had the greatest merchandise in the whole world, if your website is badly done you won't be able to sell even one copy of it as visitors will be driven off your website by your lousy web design and development.

When I'm discussing a "good design", I'm not just talking about a good graphical design. A professional small business web design will be able to point out that there are many mechanisms which are put in place in order to create a good and effective website design -- accessibility web design, interface or layout web design, user experience design and of course the most clear-cut, which is graphic design.

Consequently, I have highlighted some characteristics of the worst web designs I've come across. with any luck, you will be able to compare that against your own site as a checklist and if anything on your site fits the criteria, you should know it 's high time to take severe action!

Small Business Web Design & Development Number 1 - Background music Unless you are running a site which promotes a band, a CD or anything associated with music, I would in actuality strongly advise you to stay away from putting looping background music onto your site. It might sound enjoyable to you at first, but envisage if you ran a big site with hundreds of pages and every time a visitor browses to another page on your site, the background music starts playing another time. If I were your visitor, I'd just turn off my speakers or leave your site. furthermore, they just add to the visitors burden when viewing your site -- users on dial up connections will have to wait longer just to view your site as it is meant to be viewed.

Small Business Web Design & Development Number 2 - Extra large/small text size As I said, there is more to web design and development than purely graphics -- user accessibility is one huge part of it too! You have to design the text on your site to be readable and reasonably sized to allow your visitors to read it without straining their eyes. No matter how first-rate the content of your website or your sales copy is, if it 's hard to decipher you won't be selling anything!

Small Business Web Design & Development Number 3 - Popup windows Popup windows are so unashamedly used to flaunt advertisements that in my mind, 90% of popup windows are not worth my consideration so I just close them on instinct every time each one manages to pass through my popup blocker and, well, pops up on my screen. Imagine if you had an extremely vital message to put across and you put it in a popup window that gets killed most of the time it appears on a visitor 's pc screen. Your website loses its purpose straight away!

In concluding this article, let me remind you that as a webmaster your job is to make sure your website does what it 's meant to do effectively. Don't let some inconsequential errors stop your site from functioning optimally!

About the Author

Copyright 2007. Give your websites a complete makeover with my powerful website design software and morphing tool. Take a walkthrough video tour and witness first hand for yourself how easy it is to transform your website and maximize your online profits now at http://www.kaleidosite-pro.com

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Web Designers Guide To Facing Writer 's Block

Much like those who are in the field of creative arts, web designers can also experience writer 's block. No matter how long you have been in this business or the years that you have rendered service to your web design company, there are times when you simply get stuck with no novel ideas to keep you going in your web design/copy write project.
However, there are a few ways by which you can deal with these blocks. Here are six tips that I have found to be useful in generating new ideas and be of productive service to your web design company once again:

1. Be ready for procrastination to come and block you. Do you notice that when you are assigned with a new web design project and find have to start working on ideas for it, you find yourself thinking about other ideas totally unrelated? You might start to think about how much it will cost to repaint your house, or when you would like to play golf, or what car you would suggest your friend should buy. These are just some of the ways that procrastination disguises itself. However, you should also recognize that these are the things that you actually want to do. So, you can write down the other things you would like to do and schedule them or have a web design to do list. I realized that once I write down this web design to do list, I do not tend to think about them as often time and again as compared to when I simply ignore them.

2. Start somewhere in the middle. If you ask other designers in your web design company, they will surely agree with you that it feels rather intense to have to start from the top of a page and design downwards. Of course, you will still have to do it that way when it comes to HTML or CSS coding, but when dealing with web design, you might find it easier to focus on the most important part first - the one that catches the attention of an online user. I would usually think of what it should look like in the middle before I move on to navigation, advertising and branding which are found at the top, sides or bottom of the web design page.

3. Make a draft of your web design on paper first. In your web design company, do you frequently see people writing rough drafts on paper? Although this is rather uncommon nowadays, I still find it more helpful to "web design" on paper first. It can be very easy to get all hung up on the technicalities in HTML or JavaScript if you try to do your initial web design on a computer. Web designing on paper is sometimes easier to do. Also, when you "Web design" on paper, it is does not take much effort to erase them or scratch them out when you need to make changes. If you hate the idea you came up with, you do not have to feel bad about throwing the paper right into your trash bin.

4. Take time to plan your web design. Planning is very important when starting a web design project. Unfortunately, it is the one that is taken for granted the most. Most web designers proceed immediately to developing pages or generating web designs without giving the project ample though. When you do this, you run the risk of over-budgeting, you might run out of time, or end up not meeting the client requirements - all of which your web design company will mostly likely not welcome. Take all the time you need for planning the web design project (as long as it is reasonable, of course). Taking the time to plan will not hurt your web design, but lack of adequate planning will.

5. Do not hesitate to ask other web designers for help. Never be afraid to ask for someone else 's help when the need arises. Surely, someone in your web design company will be ever willing to lend you a hand or provide you suggestions and constructive criticism. However, be careful about whom you ask the help of. Be wary of those who do not find good in what you are doing, as they will not provide you the help that you need.

6. If you are really stuck, try to do something else for a while. If there is no other way to go about your writer 's block, try to get your mind off to think about something else. Take some time to stop thinking about the web design and the current problem and allow your subconscious to rest for a while. I'm sure other people in your web design company have experienced waking up in the morning with a great solution completely formed to solve the problem.

About the Author

Moe Tamani is a Marketing expert with leading SEO services company specializing in SEO web design.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Affordable Website Design

Web design services are an essential commodity in today 's arena of computers and technology. Businesses always need new websites developed and updated from time to time. As such, an individual with knowledge of this technology can offer affordable website design services to businesses.

Many website design companies also can give affordable custom web design to help small businesses create a web presence that their potential customers can enjoy. With many different designs, styles, and choices available, a company can find an affordable web design with a certain amount of research.

If you are in a small-scale company or a home-based business firm, you can do website design by yourself with some knowledge. This will likely be a basic website, but the essential thing is posting your business name into the world wide web for potential clients to notice. Several websites and office supply stores give affordable website design software you can use for your website. With the right software and a do-it-yourself attitude, you can design your own website by the end of the day.

Developing an affordable website design might take some specialized learning. If you don't consider taking a few classes, you can find education training in your area that offers affordable website design training inexpensively.

You can also find reading materials such as books, magazines and software to help you design an affordable website by yourself. The more knowledge your have in the website designing, the more creative and unique you can contribute to your company 's site. And in that case, you may not need to consider an affordable web design company to help you with your project.

Affordable web design services are best given out by individual who have knowledge and expertise in this field. If you want a website for your small business, you might need to consider inviting a professional to work with you in your website. They will create not only a more professional-looking website design for your firm, but they can do it in a meager time possible compared to--in their absence. It is not something that can be taken easy when it comes to handling this for your business, so hiring a professional is the ideal alternative.

There are a number of companies offer affordable web design packages for small-scale businesses. If you invite a company to create an affordable website, it will most likely be a very basic site that might not conform all to your business needs. For more specialized and uniquely developed sites, they normally post higher rates. As an option, you can get your affordable web design by freelancers who offer the same services. One advantage is that freelancers are more to be inexpensive and they provide your case more specialized attention. Several freelance web designers specialize in providing cheap web design and maintenance packages to save you from the hassle of creating it all by yourself.

An affordable custom web design is not difficult to achieve. You can create a it by yourself. If you want it to look professional, though, hire a web design company to ensure a professional appearance. A website design company will offer both creation and maintenance services, so your new website will be hassle-free for you. With an ideal website design, you can increase both your customer base and your overall profits in a short time.

Having a creative design is a great opportunity to grab the attention of your potential clients. Many companies showcase an affordable website design packages (as what has been said) so even small businesses can increase their web presence, while increasing their income potential at the same time. Usual web design packages include services for developing your website, as well as maintaining it for a considerable period of time as you may desire. With this affordable packages, increasing your business 's potential is not out of any business owner 's hand reach. Consider these things and you will see the difference that you like but never had been before.

About the Author

Stephen C Campbell is an Internet Marketer & Business Consultant, he coaches clients on how to use the internet to drive their offline business. Learn more about his resources at

http://www.EmailMarketingInformationCenter.Com/

Article Source: Content for Reprint

The Benefits of Using a Professional Web Site Design Team

Professional web site designers produce a remarkable array of web sites specific to each client 's needs. After all a web design team comes with a huge resource of designing skills. Find out the benefits of using a professional web design team rather than attempting to go it alone.

Because a design team encompasses so many different skills there is nothing that can't be designed. They combine their expert knowledge in web design with your business content and your theme, to produce a website that 's truly unique to your business.

The professional design team understands the importance of a unique and memorable web presence. If your site is redundant or plain it 's equivalent to having no presence on the web. When you hire a professional site design team they put together an effective marketing strategy by doing the research on similar products and services.

One of the elements that most people don't understand is Search Engine Optimization or SEO, which can make or break the success of a website. Your web design team will find the words used by people looking for the service or product you have to offer and then they will find the best keywords and phrases, which help you place in the search engines. This functionality by itself is one of the most important services your web design team will provide.

When you use a professional web design team your site will look professional and you will have a professional image. Remember your website 's homepage is your store and it 's the window into your business. A poorly designed website says don't expect much from the products or services. First impressions are everything on the web! A professionally designed website says a lot about your business, your products, and your services.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that your professional web design team is charging too much for what they offer. For your fees you will get a high quality website that will bring you income for years. A website with clean code and that has been search engine optimized is worth an awful lot. Most non technical individuals don't understand just how important SEO is. You can build a website but if no one can find you because you are too far down in the search engines you will not succeed.

Your web site design team has a reputation to uphold. They will deliver your site on time and they will provide you with ongoing support. They will help you with normal operating issues that might arise and they'll also be there for your future web needs. Web designers take their web site building seriously and they plan to stick by their customers over time.

Of course you should always read your personal contract for all the details of what your agreement with your web design team encompasses. Once you decide to enlist the services of a site design team it pays to spend some time on the web doing a little homework, seeing what each company has to offer. You should also pay a visit to their references and other happy customers to see what they have to say.

Your business is important so why not give it the attention it deserves when it comes to designing a website.

About the Author

Terry Fitzroy is a professional web design writer and author with experience in professional web design and leads a professional web design team.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Some Excellent Website Design Tips

Web Design is an area which can be extremely important to the success of a website. It 's fair to say that most people who design their first website don't do a good job. They may think that there design is good enough to upload to the web but in actual fact the only reason they think that is because they were the ones who designed it. This is a common issue which most amateur designers experience but it 's very important to keep practicing and keep telling yourself I can do better than this. It may sound cliche but practice does make perfect and the more times you redesign your website layouts, the better you will get.

It 's not impossible to design a great website on your first attempt but you shouldn't expect to. Please read the rest of this article and take note of the tips and advice given and you will be on your way to designing a website that is nice to look at and easy for people to use.

Keep it Simple
Most people who start off designing a website think that more is better. That 's completely wrong and will turn your visitors away. Do not have lots of images, background music, flaming text and a hundred different colors fonts. All this stuff will increase the loading time of your website and believe it when I tell you that most people get impatient after waiting more than 10 seconds.

If you don't believe me look at every popular website, take Google for example! All the site consists of is a plain white background, a nice logo, a few links and the search box. Some may say Google 's design is poor but experienced designers would say to you that it 's a nice design. Google became popular because it provided better content and loaded much faster than competing search engines at the time. Sites such as eBay, hotornot.com and papal all have simple designs but still look professional. That 's exactly what you should be aiming for with your website layouts.

Here is a more exhaustive list of design tips you should follow:

Don't use frames
Don't have background music
Don't have too many images
Stick to one main font for your text
Don't use too many colors for your layout, stick with 2 or 3 main colors
If using flash, don't overuse it.
Don't use things like flaming text, animated gif images they look tacky
Don't use bright text on a bright background and vise versa
Don't make your text size too large or too small
Arial and Verdana are the two most popular website fonts
Don't make the width of your website too large test it on multiple sized monitors and on several screen resolutions

The above points are very important. Please remember that having an excellent design is really no better than having a good design. However a good design is much better than having a bad design. The truth is that it 's your content or website concept that will determine the success of your website but having a bad design can affect your chances of success, so take note!

About the Author

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://myacetemplates.net/design.pl/photo-law.html/website.html

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Web Development, Web Design And Web Promotion Advice

If you are somebody who has an idea for a website, however are unsure about what to do next, then this article could be for you. I am going to explain about website development and give some tips about website design.

Content is all important when building a website and if you have a good idea however you feel you need additional content you can use other people articles for free as long as you make all the links on the article live.

There are three article websites I regularly use for this purpose:

ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, searchwarp.com.

These websites contain articles on most subjects and the articles themselves will include lots of keywords to enable search engines to pick up your site.

There is a very competitive market in website design services at the moment so you should be able to obtain a good deal.

Once you have your website you need to promote it and to gain a high page rank. To do this you need to build up the number of backward links you have.

A good way of doing this is by writing articles. There are number of reasons for this, firstly other people may want to use your article on their website. At the bottom of the article you are able to include a link to your own website, therefore when somebody includes it on their website this gives you a backward link.

You also obtain a backward link when you submit all of the articles to the websites mentioned above. Whats more all of these are one way links which have a much higher value than two way links. As we are all aware the number of backward links a website has is becoming increasingly important and the more links you have, the more visitors to your website you are likely to get and the higher page rank the website should attain.

Many people also read this articles on the article websites which could in turn result in more visitors to your site.

Graphic Design vs. Interactive Design

Can a graphic designer design a website? Of course!

But there are risks involved when someone who thinks in terms of paper and inches starts creating designs for screens and pixels.

In this article, we’ll look at what makes web design so different, and we’ll talk about what to look for in a site designer.

Usability

Ever clicked on a brochure or a business card? I didn’t think so.

On the web, your visitors take an active role in their own experience—meaning that if they don’t enjoy the experience, they’ll take action and leave.

A user-friendly site provides clear pathways to tools, products, or information. It communicates in the target audience's language, and it doesn't leave visitors frustrated, confused, or lost.

Take load time for example. Many designers get so caught up in creating fancy-schmancy landing pages that they forget the user. If your web page takes too long to appear—or if it fails to update users on loading status—you’ll lose visitors.

Think of it this way: if graphic designers are warriors in the battle against ugliness, web designers are warriors in the battle against ugliness and confusion.

Accessibility

This goes hand-in-hand with usability: make a site more accessible, and you’ll make it more user-friendly.

Accessibility is also a key area of difference between print and interactive: a graphic designer might not consider how a print piece will work for blind people, but a web designer must think about how a site will work for every potential visitor.

It’s not only possible to make websites accessible to people with disabilities—it’s often mandatory, as in the case of many government projects. And it should be. The web is an extremely useful tool for those with physical impairments.

And keep in mind that accessibility serves all users: in the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, “accessible design is good design.”

Ease of Updates

Every print piece is frozen in time. Once it rolls off the press, the text on that paper will be the same forever.

The Internet, on the other hand, is all about change. Interacting with an out-of-date site is like talking to a wall: it feels futile, lonely, and downright silly.

To make sure your site continues to feel current long after launch, your designer should forego the cutesy, clever, or trendy in favor of the clear, classic, and lasting.

Important considerations might include text vs. graphics, links vs. buttons, horizontal vs. vertical navigation, or the need for standard fonts (critical for dynamic text).

And, with content managers like Mighty-Site putting updates into the hands of site owners, web designers must create templates and style sheets that will continue to look great every time you update content, add pages, or change images on your site.

Search-Engine Friendliness

If you’re concerned with your rank in search listings, you need to choose a designer who'll help you speak to search engines.

Some of the elaborate, flashy sites we see these days are in fact invisible to search robots.

A good interaction designer won’t let this happen: she’ll respect your SEO needs and create an attractive, content-ready design that search engines will love.

Browsers and Monitors

It’s true that computers and Internet browsers evolve quickly, but don’t forget that consumers are slow to change. We all know that guy who bought his monitor back in ’96 and still swears by it in 2008. In fact, around 8% of all web users still have their screen resolution set to 800x600 pixels.

A website that launches today might be viewed on hundreds of different screen types, in any of 4 major browsers. This means that words will wrap differently for different viewers, colors will fluctuate from one monitor to the next…the list goes on.

It’s hard to plan for this level of variability. But an experienced web designer knows how to handle the challenge.

That's why at Orbit, we check every web design on a variety of monitors and test site functionality across all major current browsers and platforms. It’s an essential step in effectively catering to online audiences.

To view the original article in its entirety, copy and paste the following link into your browser: http://www.orbitmedia.com/pages/april_2008/146.php. Please feel free to link to this address from your own web site.

About the Author
As a principal and strategic director at Orbit Media Studios, Andy draws on his knowledge of marketing, usability, and interactive design to lead strategic planning for the firm and its clients. Orbit specializes in web, print, and video design & development. Orbit Media Studios.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=250841&ca=Internet

Liquid Design: New Concept In Website Design!

According to design style, web sites can be divided in to 3 categories:

* Ice Design
* Jelly Design
* Liquid Design

Where as Ice websites are considered as rigid, the box that contains the content is fixed to the left. Jelly websites are in between the flexible and rigid websites. The box containing the text centered at any resolution thus maintaining equilibrium. Liquid web sites are the utopia of flexibility; it makes the site free from all constraints. The feature, which makes liquid sites as unique, is their capability to expand or shrink to the available space on the screen monitor. They are independent on browser, window size or on the resolution the user is using.

The term "liquid" signifies that a website should flow effortlessly whatever space is provided. Whether you use a high-resolution monitor, this may mean that you need to resize your browser a little, which most people in that situation do. The key objective of liquid design is to make a website more accessible and user-friendly. Liquid design is based on the fact that Web sites should be universally accessible disregarding the tools people use to view them. It should take in consideration the culture, language, disabilities and technical details hence; the idea of liquid design emerges.

Features of Liquid design :

One of the key advantages of liquid design is accessibility. Liquid design adapts to whatever screen resolution or device a user is working upon. It makes use of the entire browser window and so maximizes the amount of content being shown on screen at any given time. Liquid layout does have its downsides. Unlike fixed width design, you lose control over line length, flow and placement of page items. Line length in particular can create serious legibility problems at high resolutions when the eye scans back and forth repeatedly. In addition, the loss of control over layout means that it is very hard to lead the user visually to the content you wish them to focus on.

Features of Liquid design Layouts :

* It allows the maximum use of space and control of space in a window
* It allows the user to set type size while adjusting layout around that size
* It can be displayed on various hardware with different physical sizes

Demerits :

* It can produce illegible or hard to scan line lengths
* It can allow images to become out of proportion to resized type settings
* It can create serious issues when printing even cut off some content

About the Author

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=77206&ca=Internet

Toot Your Web Horn: The Best Ways To Promote Your Home Business Web Site

Traffic on the freeway is bad. Traffic on the Internet is good. With over 60 million web sites on the Net, you need a solid strategy for steering customers to your home business web site.

Search Engines

Search engines are the yellow pages for a home business web site. Over 80% of Internet surfers use search engines to find information on the web. To get the most traffic to your site, list with the big search engine players Yahoo, Google, and MSN. Smaller search engines also get results from the big three so you'll be covered in case customers visit less popular engines.

Looking Good

Your home business web site can be simple or complex but it must be functional and attractive. Make sure your site does what it is supposed to do - provide customers with concise, useful information about your product or service. Be wary of making things too complicated. The site should be easy to navigate or customers will look elsewhere.

Your home business web site should also look professional, not cheap. If you aren't design savvy, spend money on a good web designer. The investment will pay off by attracting more people to your web page.

On-line Ads

The Internet has many sites where you can list your home business web site for free. To guarantee the greatest exposure, place your ad on several (20 or more) sites and repeat the process every month.

Banner advertisements can be as effective as TV spots in increasing customer awareness of your business. A banner ad should be direct, i.e. promote a benefit of rather than just the name of the product or service. Try participating in a banner exchange program such as LinkExchange that connects your home business web site to other company sites that have similar customer bases.

Affiliate programs offer an excellent opportunity to promote your home business web site. Affiliate businesses post links to your web page on their sites. You pay them a commission or set fee based on the amount of traffic sent to your web site. Pay arrangements vary and can be based on the number of people who visit your site or the number of customers who purchase your product.

Bloggin' It

Bloggers are the hot new information medium. Getting them to write about your home business web site is an excellent way to gain exposure to potential customers.

Technorati Blog Directory provides a listing of blogs by industry. Do your research here to determine which blogs might be interested in writing about your business. Send a short, personal email to a few blog writers describing your web site and asking the blogger to write about it. Offer the writer something in return, for example, free product or a link back to his blog on your web site.

Off-line Ads

Cruising Down the Highway

Your car is a moving billboard for a home business web site. Window decals and bumper stickers are inexpensive ways to get the word out about your web site. Spend a few extra dollars for a personalized license plate with your web address.

Old Media Standby

Regardless of what the bloggers say, people still read the printed page. Run ads in the classifieds of large and small papers, trade magazines, and free weeklies. Your choice of print media will depend on the product or service offered and whether you do business locally or nationwide.

About the Author
Make money online - Complete money making site set-up FREE! Go To: http://www.myaffiliatestarter.com/pips.html Read more great articles like this at: http://www.myaffiliatestarter.blogspot.com Get started today.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=84653&ca=Marketing

SEO Web Design: How To Use SEO Book Information

SEO web design is essential for high search engine listings, and the right choice of SEO book can be use to achieve that. There are many SEO books on offer online, but most seem too much alike and appear to provide the same information. The best type of SEO book is one that provides graphic examples of how successful sites have become successful through effective SEO web design.

Search engine optimization is a subject about which very few have a true understanding. It starts with your website, and the way that you arrange your pages into the site as a whole. To most people, SEO is the use of keywords on your site, and I still read webpages and blog postings that promote as many keywords in a web page as possible. If it’s not the more the merrier, then it’s the 1% - 3% keyword density fallacy. Follow that and your site will disappear off the listings!

There is too much written online about SEO that too many people take as gospel. Let’s dispel a few myths and bring some reality into the whole subject of search engine optimization. Take a look at the term for starters. Search Engine Optimization. What does it mean? Optimize your website for search engines? Why? Surely you should optimize your website to provide the best possible information to anybody who visits it!

And that is what search engines such as Google are now insisting on. It is no longer easy to get high search engine listings without good relevant content. Now, 1% - 3% keyword density is keyword stuffing. In a 700 word article, 7 – 21 keywords are excessive. Google and the other major search engines look at text relevant to the keyword, rather than repetitions of the keyword, as being good content. Too may repetitions will be punished.

That being so, it also difficult to design web page for a high listing. That is because there are so many web pages with good content: keep in mind that it is individual web pages that are listed and not complete websites. There must be other aspects of modern SEO that are relevant to high listings, but what are they? Well may you ask. That is what many SEO experts that offer their services at high prices online would also like to know.

There are, in fact, certain aspects of your website design that are totally relevant to your listing position, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with the content on each of your pages. This where the right book information can help you – if you buy the right book. This type of information is so valuable that nobody is going to give it all away free. Many sites provide a lot of free SEO information that could help you to improve your search engine listing, but only if you are also aware of the other factors that could destroy it.

I have read a lot about Google PageRank, and how you cannot get your web pages listed without a good page rank. Nonsense. I have web pages listed in the 10 on Google that have no Google page rank, at least according to the Google PageRank indicator on the Google Toolbar. Page rank is not necessary, but it helps. However, if you apply other, more important, aspects of search engine optimization to your web pages then PageRank become relatively unimportant.

On the other hand, if you do not apply these SEO techniques, PageRank becomes paramount. It is common sense. Google does not put more emphasis on one aspect of optimization than another, and while external links are important, they are not critical, no matter what you read. Google states that they give a great deal of emphasis to incoming links from other relevant web pages, yet pages can be listed highly without them against stiff opposition.

How is that? It is due to good onsite optimization, and a great deal of thought put into the design of a total website, rather than web pages individually, and the way that onsite links are designed. SEO design is not a matter of believing what theory SEO book information tells you, but of personal experience, unless you are reading the right SEO book.

So get rid of preconceptions and don’t believe all that you read. It is easy to get listed on Google in less than 2 days if you know how to do it, and also to get listed in the top 10 in two weeks if you go about it the right way.

Stop bleating and get your head down. Study the subject and don’t complain if you fail. Others don’t so find out what they do and you do the same: if they let you!

About the Author
Peter doesn’t fail, and his websites are listed on Google within 2 days of him finishing them. Find out how on Improved Search Engine Rank where he shows you screenshots of his HTML showing you his website design techniques, and step by step instructions on how to do it yourself. He has several pages in the top 5 on all major search engines.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=172883&ca=Internet

Great Web Design Equals Great Sales

You have a fantastic idea for a business online. You know your industry and your products inside and out. You have a great marketing plan and you even shopped around and got the best rates for your merchant account, your shopping cart program for your website and you even calculated the shipping for your products so you got the best deal possible. Then, you bought a domain name, web hosting and your brother-in-law offered to do your website for free which saved you thousands of dollars. You held your breath as your site was loaded onto the server and ......nobody came.

You can probably go back to two reasons that your site isn't working for you.

Number one, the pages on your website aren't targeted so the search engines can index them for relevance. This means if you're selling electric dog polishers on your website, then you should name the specific page with the subject, mention that subject a few times on the page and if you have an image of an electric dog polisher - use the alt text option to describe the image as well because not all web surfers use images when they are checking out web pages. If you want the search engines to index your pages properly, give the text robots (called "spiders") food in the form of keywords that pertain to your website So the next person looking on Google for electric dog polishers will find your website.

Number two will be a bit more labor intensive to fix. Your website needs to look professional. This means no blinking text, no flashing police siren lights over your specials and sales, no dancing dog graphics; in fact - your site should be as fast loading and low graphic as possible. Look at some of the top sites on the internet such as Yahoo, Amazon, and MSN, they all have light backgrounds, graphics are kept small and most of all, their pages are text rich. Don't copy any of these designs for your site but rather learn from then and incorporate those winning techniques on your own pages.

You may have to make the hard decision to hire a web designer if you're not proficient in html yourself. You need someone that can make your site clean and fast loading. Use graphics on your site but keep them small - offer the option for someone to click and see a larger picture of an item. Also, create a text only page that is a site map listing every single page on your website so people can look up where they want to be quickly and the search engine spiders can index your website just as quickly.

Make sure that your shopping cart is easy to use and all the pages work. If your sales method isn't easy to use - your customers will go elsewhere where the shopping carts work quickly, are easy to use and don't require a lot of labor intense information giving. Also, put a privacy statement on every page - if you don't sell your customer's information to third parties, let them know. The more people know about your site and what your policies are, the more comfortable they will be doing business with you.

And those are just a few tips to get your new website rockin' and rolling towards success!

About the Author
David Davis, is the lead developer and project manager of Redfly Studios Web Design For more information visit http://www.redflystudios.com

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=103929&ca=Internet

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Why Do You Want A Good Web Design & Hosting On A Good Server...?

The answer is very simple for this question. Because a good web design attracts user and some time visitor loves the design and bookmark the same site for future visits or for future reference or might be interested in making the same web design for his clients or might be possible he/she will edit the same design. But this is true that your website must have a good design. Not only to attract the internet visitor but also helps in browsing the products & services, so that visitor can reach to the destination with the minimum number of clicks.

Web Designing - While audience creation, advertising and promotions drive traffic to a site, it's the design that either encourages visitors to explore or drives them away in frustration. A good design is, of course, aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, though, it engages visitors, makes it easy for them to navigate the site and compels them to explore the site further, purchase products and return another day. Attractive graphics that support the company's message are important. But large graphics that take a long time to load frustrate users. Many visitors won't wait long enough for the graphic to finish loading. Additionally, visitors are less likely to return to a site that has cumbersome or confusing navigational cues. Selection of a Web Designing Company is always a big game as far as your online business is concern. Web design differs significantly from design for other media. The most important difference is that the Web is interactive, incorporating hyperlinks and devices for immediate visitor feedback. Some sophisticated designs include dynamically generated pages that are custom-tailored to each visitor's interests, preferences and buying habits. To implement effective designs, our team of web designers and implementers has sufficient technical skills such as HTML coding, scripting and programming in addition to artistic skills. As the navigation reveals the structure and organization of the web site, It should provide a consistence and predictable way to find and focus on the information you want in the smallest possible number of clicks.

Web Site Development

When it comes to the website development, your Web Designing Firm must understand your business requirement and type of business or services you are offering to your customers. The quality of your services and the cost of the services or products. A good web design company can increase your web site traffic by offering a user friendly navigation in the web pages that facilitates user in finding the services & products. And once if user ready to purchase something from your website, my personal experience is, he bookmark the site. But only condition is he/she must got the best deal from your side. developing the web pages is might be a small task but arrangement or the content and intralinking of the web pages is always a important point. A Web Development Company first creates a complete rough website structure and then proceeds for the final structure which would be the best in nature with the design, pages, content arrangement, link color, and link names, CSS in the site, the color combinations and the use of the images. There is no question that when it comes to fast and efficient display of graphics on Web Pages, smaller is better. Techniques optimizing the color depth of the Web - friendly GIF and JPEG images for the fast download and applying simple height and width HTML tags are the secrets of our greatest site design. There are certain factors that search engines do not like. While keeping those factors into consideration, we will create an extremely search engines friendly website. The secret of great page design is to create a page grid, build tables, work with color and use type. Innovation & focus on the target visitor drives our creative team to custom design each site with a right combination of text layout, fonts, colors, backgrounds, pictures, animation’s, icons & bars. At UWS India we do not just develop web pages; rather we nurture your dreams into your website.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is like a supporting hand when it comes to any online business through a website. An excellent web server supports your website in term of web site speed, performance, executing queries, database queries sent by you or your potential customers, enquiry management with its security and best performance with maximum uptime. At any point of time if you or your visitor looks for your site or click on your site link form any location in the world, a good web server returns the response immediately that helps user to browse the site and choose the product & services he/she want. The identities of a good web server are... It must respond to each & every request sent to the server, minimum or limited domains hosted, updated with all new available features and all those features your site requires, security of the website and your database, maximum uptime, and all. You may choose a cheap hosting from any vendor if you are new in the online business through website but if you are a professional, you would not like your site to host on a discounted server with approx 2000 domain hosted or with bad performance. A good Web hosting Company can solve your this downtime, security, features, and performance problems.

About the Author
Ultimate Web Solutions is an internet marketing company operating in New Delhi, India provides Website Designing, Website Development, Website hosting, search engine optimization, link popularity building and SEO friendly web design service, along with domain name registration. http://www.ultimate-websolutions.com/

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=25800&ca=Computers+and+Technology

How To Design A Winning Web Site That Converts Visitors Into Buyers

When you are thinking about starting your own online business you have to be able to convert your visitors into buyers. Let's face it, you can have all the visitors in the world, but if they are not going to buy anything then you are not going to end up with any money. Your website visitors are the blood of your online business. You must do everything in your power to make sure your website visitors convert into sales.

The whole point of having a web site is to make money. However, there is no reason to worry. There are a few different tips that you can use that can help you convert your visitors into buyers, and keep them coming back for more time and time again.

The first thing that you have to have is a good marketing ad. You have to get the people to the web site, but you want to get them there because they are thinking about buying. If they are just going to go then that does not do you any good. You want them to come with the mind set that they need whatever you are selling, and that can be done with a great ad. Also, you have to make sure that you place your ad on a web site where people are going to see it on. Be sure to target the right audience for your market. If using pay per click, use long tail keywords. I am a big fan of long tail keywords as they produce much lower cpc's and above all, greater ROI (return on investment).

After you get your ad where people can see it, you are going to notice a lot more people coming to your site. This, of course, is a good thing. Now you have to make sure that your web site is pleasing to the eye. You have to make sure that when people get there they know what you are trying to sell them, but at the same time, they are not too overwhelmed. If someone gets too overwhelmed on a web site, a lot of times they leave without looking around. So make sure that everything on your web site has a place that it can be displayed away from everything else.

Last but not least, you have to make sure that your web site is running fast. If you get someone on your web site that may want to buy something, and your web site starts moving slow, they are going to want to go somewhere else. People in this day and age want things to start running faster. People have to be able to get to your web site, get what they need, and leave. If they can not do that then it is very unlikely that they are going to come back and buy from you again. You want the people that buy from you to come back time and time again.

To Your Success!

About the Author
Do you want to learn more about Internet Marketing? I have just completed my brand new guide to Search Engine Marketing Success: ''How To Consistently Drive Thousands Of Targeted Visitors With Search Engine Optimization''. Download it free here: Search Engine Optimization Success. Serge Daudelin Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services.com. Serge Daudelin is a Search Engine Optimization specialist and consultant who has written over 300 articles in print and 5 published ebooks.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=251865&ca=Internet

Web Design Choice Of Fixed Width vs Liquid Layouts

If you have worked long enough for your web design company, or if you have tried designing a site on your own, you should already know by now that there are two kinds of web page layouts that you can choose from. Fixed width layouts are those wherein the width of the entire web page is set at a specific value, while liquid layouts are those wherein the width is flexible depending on how wide the online visitor's browser is. Choosing between these two layout methods can be a little difficult for a web designer, as each has its own benefits and deficiencies. Let us look through each and discover everything you need to know for you to make the right choice.

Fixed width layouts allow you to start with a specific size that you set. This allows you better and direct control so that you know how your page will look like, at least most of the time. They work best if you work with print backgrounds, as they allow for minute adjustments in the layout without inconsistencies across browsers and operating systems. On the other hand, with a liquid layout, you base the layout on a percentage of the browser's current window size. Liquid layouts allows for an efficient use of space given by any browser window or screen resolution. They are often used by web designers who want to get as much information across in a very limited space. Your web design company may ask you to choose one from the other depending on the needs of your client.

What is at stake for you and for your web design company when you choose between these two windows? Well, the method you choose has a large bearing not only on the final site design and aesthetics, but will also affect the ability of your online visitors to scan through the contents of your site. Furthermore, the layout can affect the ease, by which readers will find what they are looking for in the page, and can also reinforce or ruin your marketing efforts in the website. Thus, your web design company may stress the importance of choosing the right one depending on the message that the client wants to communicate across.

The Web Design Benefits and the Drawbacks

To help you and your web design company to decide on which to use, I will present the benefits and the drawbacks for each type of layout.

Fixed Width Layout

1. The web design Benefits

I. Allows you to come up with pages that look entirely identical no matter who is browsing and what type of browser is being used.

II. Elements such as images and graphics will not tend to overpower the text contents especially in smaller monitors.

III. No matter how wide the visitor’s browser is, the scan length will not be affected when there are large segments of text.

2. The web design Drawbacks

I. They will cause horizontal scrolling in small browser windows. Users generally dislike having to scroll horizontally.

II. Fixed width layouts usually result to large coverage of whitespace in large monitors such that there is a waste of unused space, and further vertical scrolling may be needed than necessary.

III. This layout can not deal with font size changes quite well. A small increase in the font may be tolerated, but larger increases can not be handled well that your overall layout may become compromised.

Liquid Width Layouts

1. The Web Design Benefits

I. This layout can contract and expand to fill in all available space on the page.

II. All available space is used up, thereby allowing you to display as much content as you need to in larger monitors, yet still remain viewable on smaller ones.

III. This layout can provide you consistency in relative widths, therefore allowing your page to respond dynamically to restrictions and specifications that may be imposed by your client, such as larger font sizes.

2. The Web Design Drawbacks

I Liquid layouts do not offer precise control over the page width and the elements on the page.

II. This layout may result to columns in the text which are either too wide for comfortable scanning, or too small for the text to show up very clearly.

III. Liquid layouts tend to have problems when dealing with elements in the page which has fixed width (i.e. image and graphics). If the column does not have enough space, some browsers may increase the column width, and all other elements in your page may not be in the proper order.

Many designers usually go for the mixed approach. You web design company may also suggest you to use both layouts depending on the page and the part of the site you are making. You can, for example, set your main columns to fixed width but make your side columns, headers and footers more flexible. With time and experience, you will eventually learn how to make the most out of the features of each layout type to come up with an optimized site.

About the Author
Semul Johnson is a Marketing expert with a leading SEO services company specializing in SEO web design.

Web Design And Development Tips To Maximize Your Site, Part 1

Web design is a very important part of operating your online business. Since there is not an actual store for people to walk into, the set up of your website will determine if they stay long enough to make a purchase or if they will got to another website. With so much competition in the e-commerce world, the consumer has the upper hand.

Getting people to your website is the easy part. Making it attracting and easy to navigate is much harder. The connection speed for your website will make or break the deal. Most internet users are not very patient when it comes to waiting for pages to open. On average you have six seconds before they decide to go somewhere else. If cool graphics on your website take time to open, you are better off without them.

The website should be appealing, but not overwhelming. The layout should have tabs to make the website easy to navigate. Some good tabs to include are products, shopping cart, about the company, contact information, and frequently asked questions. You can design your tabs to fit the product or service you are offering.

Customers generally don’t make a purchase on their first visit to a website. They often like to think about it as well as do some comparing. Offering a wish list is a great way for a consumer to save what they want to come back to finish the purchase at a later time. Sending an email to the customer at that time thanking them for coming to your website is a great way to keep your product fresh in their mind.

The checkout process needs to be very simple as well. Consumers don’t want to have to click many places to make a purchase. At the most it should involve three clicks. Set it up so that many payment options are possible to meet the needs of various consumers. It is good customer service to provide a confirmation number so that the consumer knows their purchase has been made.

About the Author
Use the Web Development Search engine at http://www.finalwebportal.com/ to find resources to help you further improve your site.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Commission Hijacker Hidden Inside Your Web Page Design!

As a person almost obsessed with Web site marketing, I am often at odds with my Web site designer friends as to what is important. They know that I love them and I mean no offense so all is good.

For all Web masters especially those who count on commissions selling other people’s products, some Web design flaws could really hurt. The following are some common and some not so common flaws that can rob you of commissions by masking your affiliate links from visitors without your knowledge, sending the visitors to wrong landing pages, lowering your Web sites search engine ranking and wasting your valuable time on maintenance and tracking.

Fixing these flaws creates a clear path to more productive Web design and higher commissions.

1- Error 404 Disease.

Test your Web site for this widespread and deadly disease that keeps sending your potential customers to the never land of server error 404. Go to your Web site home page, which in our case is http://www.askdomain.com. Then add a slash and something after the main url. For example, “emailmarketing.html”. The complete url of this example is http://www.askdomain.com/emailmarketing.html

What will you see? Our home page, right?

Now, go to your own Web site and repeat the process. Enter a url from a page on your Web site that you know does not exist. Do you see a message related to error 404? If so, your Web site is losing hard earned traffic and potential customers. Contact your Internet hosting provider to help you cure this and place a customized error message on your site. A custom error 404 message displays your sales message or redirects these lost visitors to your home page.

2- Long Affiliate Links & Ad Blockers

Long affiliate links always create problems especially when they break up in email campaigns. But now there is a more serious threat: Ad blocking. These ad blocking scripts view your affiliate links and banners as advertising, assume the client doesn’t want to see them and block them entirely from view. The dark humor in this is you’re your stats show the banners and links as displayed but the visitors do not see them. What will this do to your sales and commissions?

The most popular Internet Security and Firewall software comes with default ad blocking ON! Most if not all users will never take the time to turn it off for your sake or mine.

This blessing in disguise forces us to solve several marketing issues at the same time.The solution is fairly simple and it is done in four steps.

Step one - Create an internal directory and call it something like merchants or resources. We use “find” in one of our Web sites.

http://www.dailyfinder.com/find/

Step two - Create a page and name it after the merchant. In this case we called it “the business end of Websites.” The complete url looks like:

http://www.dailyfinder.com/find/the-business-end-of-websites--v19605.htm

Step three - Within your page, you can place a redirect url code. So instead of showing a link to :

http://www.prowebvalue.com/?hop=optiword

You show a link to:

http://www.dailyfinder.com/find/the-business-end-of-websites--v19605.htm

Of course in this example we are using a little more sophisticated system and database driven Web site and this is why you see those strange code “v19605.”

Go ahead and test both urls, you will not see any difference in destination, but Ad blockers may block the first one but not the second one. You can lose commissions using one and get paid using the other. Significant difference, don’t you agree?

This process will also help improve keyword base internal linking which we will discuss more in later articles.

3- Published Work-In-Progress

Don’t use your Web site as a filing cabinet for work-in-progress projects. Any time you place your work-in-progress page or script on your Web site, you risk having them included in search engines. Go to Google and type in:
site:www.yourwebsite.com

At risk of making it too obvious I like to mention that in the above url I mean for you to replace the term “yourwebsite” with your actual Web site.

Look at the list. Are these pages you want to have listed on the search engines? Click on a few links, do they end in error 404?

Remember that every unproductive page of your Web site may replace a productive and completed page on Google and other search engine directories. Can you see the damage this could cause? Yes, we can always recover but how long will it take?

Work-in-progress does not belong on your Web site. Complete your projects before you place them on line.

Warning - Before you remove any pages, make sure you have a back up and your customized error 404 is in place.

4- Missing robot.txt file.

Some directories and files are necessary for running your Web site but have no marketing value that you want to announce to the world. Robot.txt text file tells search engines to leave these files alone and do not index and show them to Web surfers.
For example, your image directory or your policies directory does not contain anything of value so you tell visiting search engines not to bother with them. An example of robot.txt file that excludes these directories is:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /policies/

For more details refer to http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html

Do you have a robot.txt file on your Web site?

May both Web site pages and days of your life be productive.

About the Author
For additional information visit: search engine marketing, Web marketing, and Web page design.

How To Find A Trusted Graphic Design Company Or Web Designer

It's long been held that trust goes a long way in building strong long term design relationships. Building all your hopes and dreams with one designer could leave you high and dry when they up their rates after you've committed to a job. So how do you go about finding a trustworthy graphic design company?

Word on the street
Some of the hippest young gunslingers are to be found hanging out in the gin palaces and opium dens of the ghetto. To the uninitiated this might seem like a frightening place to look for someone trustworthy to carry out your design brief but perservere and you may get to hear about some secret design meeting going down in the backroom of some crack festooned fleapit. Welcome to the shadowy world of the design behemoths.

Playing the field
With so many unscrupulous designers hawking their shoddy services, it pays the prudent design buyer to play off these scampa among each other. For instance one designer may be offering free lollipops with every logo design. Armed with this information, approach another design agency and see what kind of sweets you might be able to get from them in order for you to place an order. Who knows by this method of going back and forth you may be able to aquire a whole sackfull of candy at no extra cost. Sweeeeet!

Get to know your designer intimately
Mixing business with pleasure can be a dangerous pastime but when you are looking to build a long term design relationship, sometimes being bedfellows makes common sense. In much the same way as you would be unlikely to stab your husband or wife in the back (unless of course you wanted to murder your spouse in which case this makes perfect sense) it stands to reason that a designer you are regularly giving one to is probably going to be more receptive to your picky demands.

Money - the route of all evil?
So far we've discussed the psychological neccessity of maintaining a trusting relationship between designer and client. The other, sometimes neglected aspect is a sound business trust between the two parties. Ask yourself this question: is that shifty looking graphic designer going to be dipping into your wallet as soon as you're out of the room? If the answer is a probable yes then kick the devil into touch.

Listen to your heart
At the end of the day building up a trustful design relationship has to emerge from both parties. It's all very well you doubting the designers sincerity and to be fair who hasn't thought at one stage or another that a designer is ripping you off? But it's also important to trust your gut feeling about a person. There are a couple more points that you should always be aware of. Ginger haired people although renowned for their hostile nature are 99% of the time fairly honest. Blonds will steal your last penny and leave you with some hideous design work.

About the Author
http://www.mindtap.co.uk Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into the http://www.lunatrix.co.uk UK creative industries . A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design, http://www.cheap-design.co.uk logo design , brochure design, catalog design, flyer design and web design

Web Design And Seo Experts – A Guide For Small Businesses

If you are a small business and haven’t developed a website yet you are probably considering it, or you should be. If you are selling a product or a service, even if your customers are local then your own website can be a powerful marketing tool. It will only become so if the website is designed correctly, is search engine friendly and most importantly is user friendly. However you might have the greatest looking website ever but it is no good if nobody gets to see it! How do people get to see it? If it appears up there on the first two pages of the search engine then you have a good chance of picking up visitors. The alternative is to do what many larger companies do and that is go the pay per click route. In my experience this can turn out to be an expensive route.

So you have had your website developed now it must be promoted to make it search engine friendly and shoot up the rankings. How can you achieve that? You can do it yourself! There is ample free advice out there on the Web that tells you exactly what you need to do; a simple search will reveal all the information you need. Basically it consists of three things;

1. Add good content to your site
2. Develop links to your site
3. Update your site frequently

Okay so you are the expert in your field so adding good content linked to your keywords is no problem. Takes time and if you haven’t personally designed your site it might require you to embark on a steep learning curve. Otherwise pass the information over to your web designer. This ties in with number 3 on the list, updating your information regularly. By doing so you are adding more content and the more often your site content changes then the more frequently the search engine spiders will visit your site and the higher your ranking should be. I would recommend changing it on at least a once per week basis. Not of course your whole website but parts of it should be added to each week. Again takes time and a little knowledge of how your website works and how to update information on it.

Developing links to your site is probably the most time consuming activity of all. They are important. The more backward links you have the higher your placement in the search engines will be, so long as they are relevant links. Relevant links are ones that point back to your site from other sites with similar content to your own. So for example if you are a contract cleaner then a link back from an equipment or product supplier would be considered relevant, from a photographic studio would not be. Consequently you can go searching for sites that you might be able to link to and ask them. You could join a reciprocal links programme and not be certain of the type of links you are generating. Or you could pay an expert to develop the links for you!

A second way of developing good links is to write articles and submit them to the article distributors and e-zines. Again excellent for the links, driving customers to your website and spreading your own reputation across the Web. Again an amazingly time consuming activity.

A third way is to develop a weblog alongside your website. Excellent for ever changing and additional content and for getting links. It does require constant updating though, daily if possible!

So what does this all add up to? A huge investment of your time, when you should be concentrating on your business. So you do it in the evenings and end up with no social life and possibly no family!

I have been through this process of designing and developing the website and then promoting it to the point were it is ranked very highly on all the search engines for our keywords and also for some that are not! However the time it has taken up is immense and is ongoing because you cannot sit back and relax having achieved your high rankings because your competitors will eventually displace you. So I would strongly advise you, if you have the necessary resources, to invest in a good web design team who will also promote your website as an ongoing entity over time. If you have the money and choose your SEO experts wisely then it will be money well spent. Unfortunately at the time we were doing it we didn’t have the resources so it was a case of do it yourself or not at all, and over the course of the last two years I have learnt to become reasonably expert so see no need to employ somebody else to do it now.

About the Author
David Andrew Smith is the owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk a contract cleaning company which specialises in the care and maintenance of natural stone.

Web Site Design Mistakes – Database Parameters In URLs

Creating a web site takes thought, planning and execution. Unfortunately, many designs are dead in the water before they are even published as far as search engine optimization is concerned. Whatever you do, avoid these critical mistakes.

Database Parameters in URL

Many web site designers don’t take into account the effect of database parameters in site URLs. A database parameter tells the server what should be loaded onto a particular page when a viewer tries to see it. In essence, the page is “dynamic” because it is being pulled together with each click. Robot programs that are used by search engines to index sites hate dynamic pages. Often, they will not even index the pages and the page of your site is not listed in the search engine.

Let’s look at an example using the Nomad Adventure Journals site. The home page URL is aptly, http://www.nomadjournals.com - a static page. In this URL, there are no parameters telling the server to load anything other than a static web page. All search engines will index this page without any problem.

Now, what if we changed the page to something dynamic. Let’s say we designed it to record the session identification [identify the viewer] and dynamically load the pictures on the page. We would have one parameter for the session identification and four parameters for the various pictures on the page. The URL for the home page might look something like:

http://www.nomadjournals.com/home/index.html?&DID=9&User_ID&CATID=15&ObjectGroup_ID=39

What a mess. A search engine robot is going to balk at indexing such pages. It simply can’t tell what is on the page. If you have parameters and session identifications in the URLs of your site pages, you are going to have a very difficult time getting into the search engine rankings. Obviously, that precludes you from getting any top rankings and free traffic.

Fixing The Problem

Fixing the problem often is lengthy and costly depending on the number of pages on your site. If you have over 100 products, a complete re-design may be the best answer. If you have a relatively small number of pages, there may be less brutish options.

Converting pages to static html is a definite solution for smaller sites. Essentially, one would take the page for each product and convert it into a static html page. The domain would then be converted to short sub-domain. If a user then clicked on the “buy” button for the product on the page, they would be sent to a dynamic database page. The viability of this solution is dependent upon the layout of the site. Some sites can be fixed, some simply cannot.

In Closing

The database parameter problem is surprisingly common with sites selling products. A majority of site designers do not understand search engine optimization and don’t realize the problem they are creating. If you intend to build a database driven site, make sure you bring in a search engine optimization specialist before it is created. Nobody wants to spend the money to design a site twice.

About the Author
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

Web Design Vs. Print: How To Reach The Middle Ground

There are several web designers around that make the colored backgrounds of the pages for the web pages they produce. It is very common if the people that were once background makers prior to joining the internet place they are currently participating in, or some just were at one time in charge of this became obtainable by print medium. Don’t forget it is for sure that print makes safety and durability, which are a couple of things that aren’t currently in the Net. To be frank, however and chatting from experience I would like to put in, it is very common to let this slip your mind.

While one makes their internet site and let it be worked out on your browser, one should enjoy it to appear just as one would like it to. On the other hand, being that one’s web blueprint business forces one to see if it performs in other browsers, one might observe that they appear dissimilar. While one browses from one form on to another, one might see that there might be subtle but rough alterations. These need to perform as an excellent reminder that net makeup does not always need to have the durability or firmness that print might have.

However, while the net maker, one’s site make-up business will very possibly request one to have a working relationship with one’s clientele while the site make-up progression. Most customers will quandary on one to show them one’s older site make-ups and new make-up thoughts. Very often a net make-up business might get clientele complaints that are coming by way of the fact that the website is not the correct image of the copy. To keep away one’s net make-up business from this common problem one must learn to correctly work with one’s clientele.

While it may be prudent to have a portfolio made up for clientele to observe, you should keep it in your head that it isn’t completely a showing of what you can do in site make-up. When you let the client see the portfolio, have haste that they also know that the alterations it may look like on the end result of the site. Always tell them the truth straight up. If the client has specific things they want in a visual page and require a certain make-up, font and other site basics, have it in their minds that there will be potential differences like in the download timing and how to fix problems with their sites. Finally, one might want to have the knowledge of what form of area your business might take. If they enjoy Netscape on the Mac, as one’s client likes to perform tasks on Internet Explorer version 7 for the Windows operating system, make it clear that you have3 this in your thoughts while making up the designs. The site one makes up while the web design facade may look immensely altered on one’s display place.

What can one use to decide the compromise from web design or print? Usually you should think about the site make-up ways that one uses. Here are a few ways to make it easier for you to see the ways they may be different:

• You should have a good knowledge of who will be viewing the site. You should have access to the information of who your client’s goal audience is and what they like to do and use. If these people are more knowledgeable people, it is common that they would use UNIX or Linux on a 21-inch monitor. If the people are less knowledgeable about such things they would probably put to use an Internet Explorer 7 on a 14 inch monitor. If the site make-up is what is more suitable for your audience, one’s client won’t return to gripe about what the final project looks like.

• Check, check, and check once more. It is imperative to check your site make-up in all browser and operating system blend as is available to you. It is best if you simply have a great knowledge of the inner workings of the site yourself.

• Always remember about what it looks like in the final run. While browsers and operating systems can simultaneously be important, there is a single thing one should think of in site web design. If they are going to browse using a system unlike the one you made it on then it may not make for a good thing. The customers and their customers may come back to your company kicking and screaming and your employees will not enjoy that.

If you use CSS it may aide in getting more exact layouts, however keep in mind that your site make-up should never and will never be as exact as print. Keep in mind that this as implement of the make-up of your site pages to keep one and one’s web design company a large amount of heartache.

About the Author
Moe Tamani is a Dallas SEO consultant for a leading Dallas Web Design company.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=233620&ca=Internet

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Web Site Design Secrets To Improve Usability

Many amateur webmasters use too many unnecessary web design tools that add little value to their websites. This has resulted in hundreds of "junk" websites that contain too many graphics, animations, and text. Some of these web pages have as many as seven or eight distinct content areas enclosed in an 800 by 600 pixel screen: a flashing header graphic, several paragraphs of text, an opt in form, Google ads, Amazon ads, affiliate links, audio and/or video buttons to push, and sometimes even more.

Don't tempt yourself to make such glaring, embarrassing mistakes. Most web visitors will feel overwhelmed and unsuccessfully navigate such a site. Such a poorly-designed website forces visitors to make too many decisions because of too many distractions. More importantly, a poor layout impoverishes the content.

What is the answer? Most successful webmasters (i.e. webmasters who have visitors returning to their site) will tell you to create a clean and simple web design. Usability is the key.

DESIGN TIP # 1

A great website design encompasses three basic values: simplicity, clarity, and speed. In other words, you need a visually-friendly website, but at the same time each web page downloads quickly and users can navigate easily.

DESIGN TIP # 2

To design a site that shouts visual appeal, you can use simple graphics, color, and graphical text. At all costs, stay away from flashing animations and busy backgrounds. In fact, a white, cream, or light yellow background with black or dark blue text is best, if you want your visitors to read your text easily.

DESIGN TIP # 3

You don’t have to a graphic artist to design a visually-pleasing website. Grab a photo or two from a free stock photo site such as www.sxc.hu, add some colored text and a tagline using a graphics program like Windows Paint or Paint Shop Pro, and that's all you need for a header.

DESIGN TIP # 4

You should create a navigation with simple text links or buttons, either across the top, right under the header, or down the left or right side of the screen. Make sure you label clearly all text labels and images to indicate what the user will find when he or she clicks on them.

DESIGN TIP # 5

You can place an opt-in form and one or two simple ads in the left or right panes, with your content in the main center panel. Your content pane should be the largest area on the screen, so it draws the reader's focus.

DESIGN TIP # 6

Clean and simple web design extends to the layout of your content too. Text is most readable when you present it in "chunks." This means use short sentences and paragraphs of no more than two to four sentences each. Make liberal use of colored subheadings and bullets. Sprinkle a graphic or two per page to break up the text and add visual interest. Use margins (padding) around your text, so it doesn't bump up against the edges of your navigation and ad panels. Plenty of white space is important. Use a free readability tester at www.ReadabilityFormulas.com to determine the reading-level of your text.

Remember, squeezing as much functionality into every page as possible is NOT the right approach. What will keep people on your site and keep them returning, is a clean, simple, easy to navigate design.

About the Author
Launch a freelance career today! Download Melissa's free e-book, Creative Freelancing, at www.WritingCareer.com or visit her blog at creativefreelancing.blogspot.com/

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=231614&ca=Internet

Web Design Secret – Getting Started Is The Hardest Part

Do you realize thousands of new Websites are added to the incredibly vast catalogue of cyberspace every month? That’s really amazing, especially when you consider this could literally go on forever and the Web would never get “filled up”.

The Web really is an unlimited opportunity for growth and expansion, whether your aims are business, charitable, or personal.

However, quite sadly, I believe for every Website that does go live, there are many hundred other people who “want to” launch their site but just can’t find the confidence to do so.

Many people will tell me they “just don’t have the time” or they “can’t afford it right now” but the truth is these are just excuses in almost every case. Basic psychology suggests that we tend to put off, avoid, or make excuses for not doing those things we are afraid of for one reason or another.

The truth is most potential Website owners are simply intimidated by what they believe will be an ultra-technical process. And the great news here is that building a fabulous Website is not an overly technical process!

One really doesn’t need to become an expert in Web languages, domain and hosting management, or anything else to have a highly effective Web presence up and running within just a matter of days. As somebody who owned a profitable Web development company I will go as far as to say that you only need a basic grasp of about 10% of the overall body of knowledge in the Web design field to achieve great success.

This means for every 100 techniques you really only need around ten to do a great job on your own Website. How’s that for a shift in perspective?

You don’t need to know how to build fancy graphics.

You don’t need to understand complicated database functions.

You don’t need to worry about learning any programming languages.

(Seriously you need ZERO knowledge of Web programming)

You don’t have to spend a ton of money on software.

You don’t even need to spend a lot of time learning the basics. If you have been able to read this article without a struggle you should be able to learn the basics of quality Web design in only a few hours of study.

The most important part of your Website project is this: You must get started right away!

The biggest difference in folks who have their site online and working around the clock for them and people who never enjoy this benefit is so simple:

Those who have a Website took the first step and moved forward from there. And these people found that once they took action, even just a little bit of it, the rest of the process unfolded in front of them almost like magic.

I’m not going to tell you there isn’t some work and study involved. But it’s nowhere near as hard to understand and implement as you might think it is.

So don’t delay even one more day. Decide right now to start spending at least some time each day learning the basics and you could easily have your first site online in one week or less.

About the Author
Tim Whiston is a professional entrepreneur who enjoys helping other entrepreneurs achieve success. He has created hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit for his clients and owns many of his own Websites and products. Check out his Web Design Course for more great content.

Published At: www.Isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=236474&ca=Internet