Posted by admin on June 8th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
AutoResponders are nifty scripts that run in your web server 24/7 serving immediate email responses to questions, support and sales. Think about this, your customer comes to your website and spends a round 200$ to get your product. And after the payment they don’t get back any response for the next 10 hours, would they like it? No, and this is more damaging if they have requested some additional pre-sales information and don’t receive any notification in the next 1 hour. In this Internet world, your competitor is just a click away. Your customer goes back to the search results and clicks the next website that gives a similar product. Lost sales, and more money in your competitor’s hands! This is twice the loss as the competitor is going to spend a percentage of the money in advertising the product or building a better product. Auto responders help reduce this possibility by carefully scripting the follow up messages based on the incoming queries your pre-sales information can be safely and securely delivered without delays. This translates into better sales.
There are many types of AutoResponders and there are many free ones offered by many companies. These are more an email farms than a good tool. In this age where spam is considered “Jail Serious”, partnering with these email farms is really damaging. The capability of setting up AutoResponders for free using your control panel gives you complete control and in synchronization with the availability of your website. Unlimited autoresponders provide you with the capability to schedule many different emails for specific category of customers or prospects. Usually when people signup for more information you should be delivering them on time at expected proven intervals not at your convenience. The auto responders extend your capability to sell more as you can deliver targeted parts of your sales copy based on the interaction with the customer. You can schedule multiple follow ups convincing your customer about the benefits. Only around 2% of all prospects buy immediately the rest needs more convincing. This can easily be achieved by these bots with precooked text. There are many articles written about what works and what doesn’t especially what is annoying and what is more helpful to turn prospects into customers. If your web hosting provider doesn’t provide this capability demand for this feature or take your business elsewhere.
You can find a web hosting provider who offers right from the basic package till the gold Web Hosting with unlimited autoresponders in edshosting.biz.
Author does freelance through the no fee free freelance website freelancefree.com.Author recommends the following Photoshop Tutorials Website for your further development - tutorialized.com.
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Posted by admin on May 17th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
Have you ever visited a website that was so bad that you felt
like it was sucking the life out of you? Sure you have, we all
have. We all know what a poorly designed website looks like. And
the sad thing is, internet surfers will more often than not
judge your company by your website. These web-surfers are your
potential customers, and the last thing you need is them fleeing
from your website just seconds after they arrive.
If you’re thinking of creating a website for your company, or
redesigning an existing one, here is a brief list of some web
design principles that should be followed:
1. Make sure it loads quickly.
You could have the best designed site on the planet, but if it’s
not in front of me within 3 seconds, I’m gone. Once you have
your website up and running, check it from a few different
computers. Make sure it loads quickly on other machines and
internet connections, and still looks good on a couple different
screen resolutions.
2. Use Consistent Navigation Layout
Never take away the viewer’s ability to navigate through your
site. If you have the navigation links to the various pages in
your website listed along the top or the left-hand side, try to
keep this placement on all subsequent pages. You want your
viewer to be focusing on your products and/or services, not on
how to get back to the page where they were at.
3. Color Theory
This has always been a favorite of mine. I’ve even been
criticized at times for paying too close attention to color
theory, but there are many studies which prove that color
greatly influences shoppers. This applies equally as much to the
internet. I suggest doing a search for more intensive articles
on color theory on the net; they can be a wealth of information.
But here are some brief examples to get you started:
- Reds / Greens : Hunger colors, great for restaurants, grocery
stores, and other food vendors - Royal Blue or Orange: Know to
appeal to ‘impulse shoppers’. - Blue: Color of loyalty and
trust. Calming color - Red: signifies action, passion, and
strength. - Purple or Black: Colors of royalty, sophistication,
or wealth.
Keep in mind the psychological impact of color also varies from
culture to culture, so be sure you know who your target audience
is.
4. ‘Dumping In’ photos and content
‘Dumping In’ content refers to placing images and text on your
website without paying attention to how it affects the overall
design of your website. Too often I see nicely designed websites
with poorly placed content.
When designing your website, it is a good idea to have all your
content written beforehand, as well as all the images you will
be using. Also, pertaining to images, try to have the image
incorporated more into the design of your site, rather than
simply having it as a rectangular jpg floating beside your text.
5. Research
Before you even sketch anything on paper, before you open up
Photoshop or even look at Dreamweaver, take a good look at other
websites. Famous artists still dive into the history books to
seek inspiration from the masters. Skilled painters still use
photo references of their subjects. There is no reason you
shouldn’t do the same type of research when creating a design
for your website.
A good place to start is to do a Google search for ‘best
websites’; this will usually yield some interesting results.
There are some brilliant web designers out there, and getting
inspiration from their techniques will make your website better
in the end.
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Posted by admin on May 14th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
Web Hosting - Made Simple
What is web hosting anyway? What do I get when I buy a web hosting solution?
To make thing clear from start let’s just say how it all works.
Web pages basically consist of text and images. Generically, the information contained by these files is called content. The look of the web page is called design.
In order to be accessible to online users, all these files must be stored on a web server. You can think of web servers as computers storing the files of tens or hundreds of web sites. These computers are all connected to the Internet through high-speed connection. When you access a web page, your browser connects to the web server that stores that page and downloads it to your computer.
So a web server is a must when you plan to share your web site content with online users via the Internet. There are thousands of web servers in the world, and there are companies that own them. Such a company is called web-hosting provider.
A web-hosting provider can have dozens of web servers hosting thousands of web sites. The web server computers are found usually in large numbers and are all housed in special buildings or sections of buildings called data center. Apart from the high-speed Internet connection, these locations are set up to ensure the optimum operational conditions and security for the web servers. HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning) control, fire protection, virus protection, data backup facility, power backup, even autonomy in case of disaster. Another term for the web servers in the data center is a web farm.
To be able to run your site properly you need a space on the web server to store your data and an Internet connection to it. The amount of data available to you on a web server is simply referred as space and is usually quantified in MB. The Internet connection needed so that your web site can be accessed online is referred as bandwidth and is also measured in MB or even GB.
Having the glimpse of the basics, it must be said that different web-hosting providers offer different space and bandwidth. Space and bandwidth are usually the main characteristics of a web-hosting plan.
The terminology associated with web hosting can be quite dazzling: virtual web hosting, dedicated hosting; co-locating hosting, shared hosting reseller hosting.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting or virtual web hosting are two terms for the same thing. Shared web hosting means that on a web server are hosted many web sites that all have a defined quota of HDD space and bandwidth. They all run simultaneously and there can be from hundreds to thousands of web sites on the same web server. Given the high number of web sites should you worry about exceeding the performance of the web server, issue better known as slow server response, meaning that your visitors will have to wait too long for your web pages to load.
That is usually not a real problem when dealing with serious web hosting providers, because the operational parameters of the web servers are monitored and appropriate actions will be taken in order to maintain the level of service contracted.
The greater number of web sites sharing the resources of a web server (HDD space, bandwidth, memory, CPU time), the web hosting provider can afford to offer its services at a lower cost. A minus would be that, even with high level of service, you will have to accept a slower server response time when choosing shared web hosting.
Reseller Web Hosting
When web-hosting providers offer their services, typically with a discount, to a third-party (a reseller that will thus become a web-hosting provider itself) and the latter subsequently offers web-hosting services under his branding. Indeed technically the reseller web hosting is very similar to shared web hosting, as many web sites end up sharing space and bandwidth on the same web server. The resellers usually are web designers or web developers who offer web hosting services as part of their integrated services. As the web-hosting provider offers resellers important discounts, the price they can offer is among the smallest in the industry.
Compared with the shared web hosting, this system has technical support problem. It takes time and communication problems may occur on the course of your problem from the reseller to the web-hosting provider. Unless your site is a personal web site or non-commercial one, this poor support issue is enough to not consider this your primary option.
Continuing this line of thought, how can you distinguish a reseller from a real web-hosting provider? It’s not the professional design of the web site, not even the support contact facilities offered as may resellers might have contracts with the provider on the technical support and the person taking your calls might be working for the provider and identify himself to you as an employee of the reseller. Solid company information is made available usually only by serious providers. The price, that can get as low as under 5$/month is another hint, but you should consider it carefully with prices dropping through the industry.
Dedicated Web Hosting
In dedicated web hosting one single web server is rented to a single customer. Although this is the common belief, web-hosting providers usually divide a single web server computer between up to three customers. On the other hand there are web-hosting providers that actually give an entire web server to a customer. Even with three customers sharing the web server, the dedicated web hosting option offers the customers the option to host more than one web site, configure the software to best meet the needs of his site or scale the available bandwidth.
The high prices combined with the availability of resources recommend this type of web hosting for highly important web sites such as e-commerce sites.
Co-location Web Hosting
Co-locating web hosting is similar with dedicated web hosting. The main difference is that while in dedicated web hosting the web server computer belongs to the web-hosting provider and is only rented by the customer, in co-locating web hosting the customer owns the web server computer. The web-hosting provider only houses the web server computer and sells bandwidth to the customer. This gives the customer using co-locating web hosting full control of the web server combined with the security of the data center.
Now you should be equipped with the necessary information to decide on you web hosting. You shouldn’t try and find the lowest price possible, but give some extra thought to the quality of service you are buying and to the support offered by a web host provider.
About The Author
Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com
), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more.
This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the “About” and “weblinks” are kept intact.
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Posted by admin on May 9th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
Let me start by asking one simple question. Would you turn in a
resume to the job of your dreams, without spell checking it? If
the answer is anything but no, then move along please, this
article won’t interest you. For those of us that would say yes,
we must ask ourselves why we would not validate our web pages
before turning them loose to the search engine spiders?
W3C the World Wide Web Consortium has set standards for a
reason. It is so that there can be protocols and guidelines
called W3C
recommendations, set to ensure long term growth of the
Internet. What does that mean to you? It means that the W3C is
looking out for us. The want to make sure that some genius
doesn’t come along and completely revamp the way a browser looks
at a web page, hence making ours unreadable. It also provides us
a means of writing code that will look the same, or very similar
across several browsers.
How does code validation effect search engine
optimization?
It effects SEO for many reasons. Foremost, it provides easy to
read code for the “spiders.” Most search engine spiders are
programmed to read code according to W3C. Although search
engines are pretty good about overlooking most of our common
errors, we are also pretty good about putting out some pretty
sloppy code. What happens to our web page, if a spider comes
across a tag that it doesn’t recognize? There is a good chance
that it may skip that section of the page, or even worse, move
away from the page completely.
What are the benefits of validating the code?
Aside from just putting out a piece of work that is correct, it
also shows an interested person, that you do things right, and
you take pride in your work.
Here are some other things.
1. It ensures that your code conforms to the World Wide Web
Consortium recommendations
2. Less chance that your visitors will run into problems with
your web pages, because of code errors
3. Makes file sizes smaller and more easily understood by search
engine spiders, thus making your website easier to index
4. Making sure that your site is Indexed the way you intend,
ensures that you get the search engine ranking that you deserve
5. Enables visitors to experience your website in many browsers,
the same way you see it
Ok, so how do we validate our pages?
After you have designed your page, and you think that you have
it correct, make sure that you have declared a doctype. Here is
a list of recommended doctypes.
Next, you can go to many different places online to have your
code validated. If you are using an editor, such as Dreamweaver,
some versions even have a built in validator. I prefer validate
directly from the W3C. Once you are validated, you get a
nifty little icon from them to show that you have validated.
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Posted by admin on May 4th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
It does not matter what you are looking for on the Internet
because everyone wants the same thing.
Whether you are trying to find out about:
apples, business, cats, dogs, energy, food, garbage, health,
insurance, jersey, knowledge, love, manuals, neon, orbits,
people, queens, rubies, stars, town, ushers, valets, women,
x-rays, yahoo or the zoo.
EVERYONE wants the same thing:
1. To find more INFORMATION on a subject.
2. To find PEOPLE with similar interests.
Basically, what you want to establish is your own personal
community of information and people.
Some refer to this as your niche or target audience.
Where does your search begin?
The question gave you the answer; start your research with your
favorite search engine.
1. Search Engines and Directories.
Top Ten Search Engines: http://emailexchange.org/promo2.html
I use Google. http://www.google.com.
That is where I begin my research.
Then, I suggest you hit at least the top 5 Search Engines And
Directories.
For a list, via Auto-Responder, of the “Top 10 Search Engines
and Directories!”
Send a blank email message to: mailto:Top10SE@emailexchange.org
Here is the List of the Top 5:
1. Google: http://www.google.com.
2. Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com
3. AltaVista: http://www.altavista.com
4. Excite: http://www.excite.com
5. AOL: http://www.aol.com
Review the Top 10 results of the “keywords” used in your search.
Do it from each of the Top 5 Search Engines above.
This will give you a solid lead to begin your quest. Because
your next task is to visit those 50 web sites.
Weed out the useless or dead links. Begin to form your community.
Bookmark all web sites that hold interest and promise.
When did you first discover the Internet?
It is a mysterious, scary, exciting, fun, never-ending adventure
that is full of daily learning experiences.
Whatever reason brought you to the Internet, be it personal
business, curiosity. you will soon discover that the Internet is
all about communication.
In fact, the Internet = Global Communication.
And, the foundation of that Communication, is email.
Therefore your next step is to reach out and “touch” that [
“community of people” ] you seek by sending email.
ALWAYS without resorting to SPAM.
Because it is against Internet rules and because it creates more
problems that it solves. SPAM is out.
With the list from above, decide if it is important to your
quest to contact the web masters of each web site.
The list of web masters gives you a good start on which to keep
building your community.
2. Mailing list.
Join a discussion or mailing list.
These are communities that already exist and discuss topics of
interest by e-mail.
The Internet discussion groups may be mailing lists, newsgroups,
message boards, chat rooms or IRC type chat channels, to name
just a few possibilities.
Seek out the moderated type lists as they are loaded with target
rich people. And you do not place ads in such groups, you
participate.
However, a 2 or 3 line signature on posts is allowed. Some
groups even allow larger signatures.
Here are some FREE Resources to find and Join Free Discussion or
Mailing Lists:
Liszt - The Mailing List Directory: http://www.liszt.com/
Search The List of Lists:
http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html
CataList, the catalog of 46,902 public LISTSERV lists!
http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
3. Your Signature.
NEVER underestimate the power of your signature.
During a one week period, my signature was the ONLY form of
promotion I used and in just five days we got over 1000 visitors
to our unadvertised web site.
How To Use Your Signature: http://emailexchange.org/sig.html
4. Ezines/Newsletters.
Whatever your interest, there probably already exists a network
of publications that tap into your community.
Tap into these publications, a few at a time, and you will get
an instant pulse on happenings online.
Top 100 Online Newsletters:
http://emailexchange.org/newsletters.html
5. Start Your Own Mailing List.
Email is the foundation of global communication on the Internet.
It is essential to begin your own mailing list of people that
AGREE to receive your email.
Perhaps once a week, with a word of interest, you send out a
mailing with info directly related to your common interest.
It is important to keep the lines of communication open with
your community of people.
This gives you a basic “Blue Print” to follow to either begin to
establish yourself on the Internet or expand on whatever you
have already accomplished.
Once you know WHY you want to contact people, then you will know
WHO it is you need to communicate with and for WHAT reason.
The basic resources outlined above will give you a strong
foundation to discover WHERE to reach that special niche or
target audience of yours.
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Posted by admin on April 17th, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
Designing your website can be a difficult task especially if you decide to do it on your own and you have no experience. There are many websites and web hosts that provide tools to allow you to build your website, but if you have no knowledge of what works and what does not work in web design, you could be setting yourself up for a big fall. Review the following suggestions, implement them into your web design, and forget about being the guy with a badly designed web page.
Suggestion #1 - Not Providing Information
One of the biggest design flaws of many different websites is the lack of information. The best websites have tons of information as well as FAQ sections where you can have the majority of your questions answered immediately without having to worry about contacting anybody.
Suggestion #2 - No Advertisements
Web surfers avoid advertisements, blinking text, and banner ads, so if these exists on your pages they will simply ignore them and leave. The biggest problem is that often times websites do not have actual advertising, they do have a design flaw which makes certain text appear as advertising. You should avoid this at all costs because people will not look at this favorably.
Suggestion #3 - No Marketing or Search Engine Indexing
Another problem many websites have is they do not put much effort into website marketing or search engine optimization. If you do not focus on this, it won’t matter how well designed your site is because nobody will be able to visit.
Suggestion #4 - Too Much Text
Remember to break up text, small paragraphs, bold words, subtitles, and the like. If you do not do this and simply have a page of solid text, people will more than likely leave than put forth the effort to read your text. Be sure to avoid this!
Suggestion #5 - Change Color of Links
Make sure you allow links to change colors when individuals visit one link. The reason for this is it gives people a sense of orientation as to where they are and how they got there. If you do not allow links to change to the normal purple for pages already visited, this will cause annoyance for many web surfers.
Suggestion #6 - Don’t Include PDF
Don’t save anything on your website as a PDF file unless it is very large and you do not have any other options other than saving it as a PDF file. Regular information should be easy and readily available on the website without requiring users to deal with a PDF file that slows down the whole operation and is generally a pain for most Internet users.
Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/
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Posted by admin on April 2nd, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
New Web sites are springing up online by the millions. However, when they don’t reach a level of success, the Web site owners assume that they can’t make money off the Internet.
Wrong.
The one thing that is important to know, however, is that you do have to work to make money online. Just like having a regular offline business, the online business needs to be taken care of, the Web site continually updated, and the customers made to feel safe and secure when doing business with you.
So, let’s devote this article to simple things you can do to have a successful online business. Remember that books have been written on this subject, so this article won’t be all inclusive by any means.
But, for the average Web site owner, it will give you simple steps to take to turn your online business down the right path toward achieving success.
Future of the Internet –
In January of 2003, Roy H. Williams, who is widely known and respected as the “Wizard of Ads,” finally declared, “Now is the time to get in.” For years, Roy has been watching and predicting the Internet’s future. Back in 1996, he declared, “The Internet is a baby born premature.” He even predicted the great dot com crash that we’re still recovering from.
So what does Roy have to say about the future of the Internet? Roy says that the buying public has finally figured out how to use the Internet and what it’s good for: specifically, “information gathering and features-based comparison-shopping.”
What does Roy suggest for Web sites today?
1. Ignore heavy graphic sites and focus on providing information for your visitors.
2. Build confidence by interacting with your Web visitors and anticipating and answering their questions.
3. Don’t think “advertising” - think information delivery.
4. Focus on Web site architecture (a simply designed site) and exceptional writing.
5. Help your visitors find what they’re looking for within a few minutes of landing on your site. If you make them hunt for information, they’re gone.
For more information such as what was mentioned above, subscribe to Michael Campbell’s newsletter. Michael is one of the most well-known Internet marketers, and his newsletter is exceptional. http://www.internetmarketingsecrets.com
For more information about Roy H. Williams and his advertising philosophies, visit: http://www.newsbios.com/wizard_of_ads.htm
So, with Roy’s predictions in mind, let’s look at some ways to make our Web sites stronger, more visible, and have a better chance at being successful.
Purchase your own domain name -
Having a professional image is very important on the Web, and it begins with having your own domain name. Having your Web site located at AOL or one of the free Web hosting companies takes away a level of professionalism.
Let’s face it: purchasing a domain is cheap! Did you know that you can purchase a domain name for $21.95 a YEAR?? That’s it! From there, you’ll want to use a professional hosting company, which will provide an address for your Web site. Combustion Hosting will be glad to take care of purchasing your domain name for you, moving your “old” Web site to their location, and hosting the site for you. Their rates to “host” your domain begin at only $15.49 a month, which is an excellent price. “Hosting” a domain simply means to provide an address on the Web for your site. http://www.combustionhosting.com/moreinfo
Naming your domain -
Before you rush off to purchase a domain, let’s talk for a minute about naming your domain. Most businesses want to name their domain after the name of their company, which is understandable. However, if you can name your domain using keywords that people might be searching for when looking for the products or services you provide, you’re giving your site a small edge with the search engines.
For example, if the name of your company is Simply Southern, and if you purchase the domain name simplysouthern.com, you’re not using any keywords in that domain name, and someone seeing that domain name will have no idea what your site is about.
So, why not purchase simply-southern-catering.com, which will give the engines (and your visitors) a keyword phrase that describes your site: catering.
Your e-mail address –
When you set up your own domain name, be sure to use that domain name in your e-mail address, such as:
Robin@searchengineworkshops.com
Again, this adds a level of professionalism to your business. In my case, I have an e-mail address through my local ISP, which is how I access the Internet. I use a nickname in that e-mail address. Therefore, rather than use that e-mail address, it would be better for me to use the above e-mail address that’s connected to my domain name and online business.
Professional image -
When you have a Web site, you want to portray a professional image. You want your visitors comfortable enough with your online business to purchase whatever it is you’re selling.
So, don’t let your 12-year old nephew design your Web site with cutesy graphics of cartoon characters. Instead, have it designed by a professional. To save money on Web design, you can always have the designer create the main page of your site and maybe one or two interior pages, and then develop a “template” for you. Templates are “skeleton” Web pages containing just the basic design, and you can then cut and paste the rest of your pages into the template and finish up the site yourself, if you’re comfortable with working on your own site.
If you have a software program that allows you to create and work on Web pages (which is called an HTML editor), you may be able to find templates for that program that will allow you to create your own site with a professional look. FrontPage is an easy to use HTML editor that is just like working with a word processing program. If you can use Word, you can use FrontPage. At the URL below, you’ll find a huge assortment of templates that were created just for FrontPage, which would make creating your own site very easy. http://www.thetemplatestore.com/frontpagetemplates.asp
You can also read this article about FrontPage, which contains a link to an online tutorial for learning how to use the program. http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/FrontPage.html
Or, if you’d rather have someone else create your Web site for you, look in your yellow pages and find someone locally. Or, try Look Sharp Designs, which will create Web sites for a very reasonable price. And, their designer also knows how to create Web sites that are “search engine friendly,” which is a big consideration when looking for a Web designer.
http://www.looksharpdesigns.com
Web site design -
If at all possible, keep your Web site design very simple. Don’t use frames, excessive graphics, database-generated pages, Flash home pages, or lengthy JavaScript. Each of these design strategies can present problems for you when you’re trying to get a good ranking with the search engines, which is where you’ll probably get the majority of your traffic.
So, if you hire a professional Web designer, make sure he or she knows that you want the design kept simple.
Let’s face it - when YOU go to a Web site, you would much prefer a simple Web site, wouldn’t you? You want to find what you’re looking for quickly and easily. You don’t want to have to spend time trying to find something. And, you don’t want to see a Flash movie that crashes your computer or that keeps you from getting into the site where the real content is. You want the CONTENT!
In fact, one study shows that Americans experience “search rage” if they don’t find what they’re looking for within 12 minutes.
Keep that in mind when you’re designing your own site. Use simple, clear navigation. Include a site map that has links to all of the pages in your site. This site map is valuable to both your users and the search engines.
Keep graphics to a minimum, and only use them when you want to point the eye to a certain location.
When you use graphics, here’s something else to consider.
Let’s say that you are a real estate agent, and your home page is covered with your awards, a picture of you, and maybe the logo of your company. Do you think your visitors care about your awards or your picture? No! They want to see pictures of the houses you’re selling! They want to learn about the schools in that area or the crime rate. They want to see a mortgage calculator. They want to see content! Put yourselves into the shoes of your visitors, and think about what your visitors want to see, not what YOU want to show them.
If you use a picture of a house on the main page of your site, use a picture that has a happy, smiling family in front of the house, obviously pleased with the new home that you’ve sold them. The visitors will automatically put themselves into the picture with the happy family, and they’ll be more receptive to becoming a potential home buyer. But, just a picture of a home on the main page of your site doesn’t evoke those emotions.
Or, if you sell toys, don’t just have pictures of the toys. Have pictures of smiling children playing with the toys! Appeal to the emotions of your Web site visitors.
Keep in mind another thing regarding graphics. The search engines can’t “see” the graphics. So, if you have a page that is loaded with graphics, there’s no way that the engines can know what the page is about. Therefore, offer a paragraph or two of text above the images that describes what the page is about. Give the engines something to index, and your pages will have a better chance of visibility in the search engines.
Build valuable content –
When people come online, they generally aren’t looking to buy something. Instead, they are looking for information. Consider your own Web site. What information can you provide that would help attract visitors (and search engines) to your site?
Let’s say that you have a local store that sells TV’s. Could you create content that would be beneficial and possibly provide cost savings to your Web visitors? For example, are there any little tips you could offer to extend the life of a TV? Or, could you write content that focuses on the latest innovations in TV’s? What about a page that deals with the history of television? The more content you build, the stronger you’re making your Web site, and the better chance you have that the visitor will return. Plus, as a huge bonus, the engines love a content-rich site, so you’re boosting your chances at better search engine rankings.
Remember that you’re also “introducing” your online business to these visitors. You’re creating name recognition and credibility. So, when the visitors are in the market for a TV, won’t they consider an online business that they can trust? Make it your goal to be that online business!
More to come later
As you can see, we’ve just scratched the surface when it comes to having a successful online business. In the next month or so, I’ll cover more tips, which I hope will help you turn your Web sites into true online businesses that will make you some money.
In the meantime, you may want to take some training that will help boost your chances at achieving online success. Here are a couple of choices:
Search Engine Workshops offers on location workshops in search engine marketing to both beginners and advanced folks. These workshops are held in various locations across the globe. http://www.searchengineworkshops.com
The Academy of Web Specialists offers online courses in search engine marketing, where you can take beginning or advanced classes online in the comfort of your own home. http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/courses.html
Copyright 2003 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.
About The Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for GRSeo software (http://www.se-optimizer.com).
robin@searchengineworkshops.com
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Posted by admin on March 22nd, 2008 — Posted in House Of Websters
All glitz and fizz The past was about ‘bells and whistles’.
Websites were designed to showcase the technology behind the web
rather than to be an effective communications medium. Flash was
used to “excite” and “engage” - its effect however was often the
opposite. And web navigation was sometimes an experiment in
obscurity making it almost impossible for the visitor to find
their way around. Entertainment was the mantra rather than
communication effectiveness. We want it now There are often only
a handful of reasons or actions for which the majority of
visitors will be at your site. They want to complete the task in
hand e.g find a price, book a ticket or get directions with
minimum fuss.
Unless a site is quick and easy to use it will be a barrier
rather than a gateway. Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, suggests
users spend on average less than 2 minutes on a website. The key
to engaging visitors’ must therefore be simplicity over
complexity; the need is less not more - less clutter, less blurb
and fewer barriers.
Why clutter-free design “When we’re creating sites, we act as
though people are going to pore over each page, reading our
finely crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things,
and weighing their options before deciding which link to click…
…We’re thinking ‘great literature’ (or at least ‘product
brochure’), while the user’s reality is much closer to
“billboard going by at 60 miles an hour.” –Steve Krug, Don’t
Make Me Think
The Internet is clearly a different form of communication to
more established media such as printed literature. However, it
is only in recent years that its intrinsic differences have
begun to make an impact on web design. I cannot count the number
of times I’ve heard of clients asking their web designer to ‘put
our brochure online’ - a brief that reflects a common lack of
appreciation of the web as a powerful but very different medium.
Ensuring that the design and layout of our web pages suit the
medium they are used in will help to ensure a positive user
experience.
Let’s look at a few practical ways of doing more with less to
make things simpler for our visitors:
1) Make pages easy to scan It’s a well recognised fact now
amongst web professionals that people rarely read pages online -
they scan, or “speed read”. Therefore, if the information they
need is not readily available they will move on - and quickly.
Sensible use of headings, subheadings and bullet-points help
bring a logical hierarchy to the page and allow visitors eyes to
scan through the page efficiently to find the information they
needallows visitors eyes to scan through efficiently to find the
information they need.
2) Give me some [white] space Subtle and thoughtful use of space
in page design helps guide a visitor’s eyes to important
information. It also helps to bring logical definition to
different areas of a page, which lightens the load on our brains
and allows us to focus on the task in hand.
3) Copy? Reduce it Visitors often won’t have the time or
inclination to read pages and pages of text in the hope of
finding what they’re after. We need to prune our web copy to
suit the medium - get rid of paragraphs and sentences that don’t
add value.
4) Simplify site structure Make sure that the sections of the
site are divided up logically and that the navigation is clear
and logical. Reduce the number of steps it takes to complete
tasks, especially when they lead to revenue generation - such as
the checkout process on an e-commerce site.
5) Follow standards When it comes to labelling navigation links,
it’s a good idea to follow standards that have evolved with web
development. For example, with contact details rather than
giving it a navigation label, ‘call for more information/our
offices’, the standard would be ‘contacts’ or ‘contact us’.
In closing… Some might suggest that these principles constrain
creativity. However, I believe that the ‘less is more’
philosophy heightens the need for a more creative approach to
communicating ideas and messages - communicating an idea in 10
words is a lot harder than using 100 words.
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