Obviously, online sources for web hosting are one of the most convenient ways to search for the service you want. Any search engine will offer plenty of results on how to find a good web host package. If you don’t consider yourself to be computer savvy, you might also want to talk to friends and colleagues who have experience with web hosting and web hosting packages.

For a good list of reviews of web hosting service providers, you might start with a site such as the Web Hosting Inspector site (www.webhostinginspector.com). By following the links to their reviews, you’ll find a list of web host service providers. The reviews on this website are broken into sections with ratings given for each. Even if this site doesn’t include a review of the company you are considering as a web host, you might try using their categories to create a rating system of your own. Comparing bandwidth, web page space, reliability, customer service and speed, along with any factors you personally consider to be important, will help you find a good web host package.

Remember that you are a potential client and any web hosting company should view your questions as important. Whether you know a lot about web hosting or you’re a novice with little idea of how the process works, a company should be able and willing to answer your questions promptly. If the company isn’t able to quickly communicate answers to questions, you should question their ability and willingness to provide reliable customer support once the company has your business. As you consider how to find a good web host package, remember your first impressions.

As you work through the process of finding a good web host package, you should also keep a log of your search. While it will probably be easy at first to remember that you’ve already looked at Company A and discarded them because their customer service seemed weak, or that Company B didn’t offer free set up as part of their web hosting package, it probably won’t take long for the names and your impressions to begin to run together. Keeping track of which company you were and were not excited about following up on should be an exercise requiring paper and pencil (at the very least). Tangible numbers are a good indication of which companies will and will not likely be good web host providers, but remember to include your first impressions of the company as well. Was their website easy to navigate? Did they answer questions? Do they provide other services that you might need in the future? All are good questions to ask as you consider how to find a good web host package.

Brian Thorn is a professional writer for Webhostpacks. For more information and tips about hosting visit: web package hosting and cheap package hosting in the web.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Remember that domain names are unique – no two web sites can have the same name (or the same address). If you have an idea for a great name for your domain and that name has not already been taken, you can register your name even before you are ready to set up your website. This process is called “parking” the domain name and it ensures that the name will be available when you are ready to start your website. Many web hosting providers include domain names as part of the web host pack. Taking advantage of such an offer is one way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.

Security is another feature offered by web hosting companies and another example of how an online business can benefit from the right web host pack. In today’s climate, computer hackers, viruses and worms are simply a matter of fact. If an online business cannot assure customers that it’s safe to enter personal information on the company’s website, there’s likely to be few people who are willing to take the chance. Especially when it comes to financial information – credit card numbers and bank account information – security is vital. People who routinely shop online are usually careful to note the privacy policies and security systems in place before they order. While providing your own security is feasible, having a web host pack that includes a solid security system will help ensure that your company information and your clients’ information is secure. After all, how hard would it be to regain trust if you had a major security breach?

Finding a web host that has a pack tailored to your needs is important. While it’s probably going to be easy to find a company that offers web hosting that exceeds your current needs, it might not be feasible for you to take on that extra expense (especially during the business’s infancy). For example, you might need only a single e-mail account, but with a large amount of disk space. The web host packs with enough disk space also have unlimited e-mail accounts. If you can find a company that will tailor a plan to your needs, that company might discount the monthly fee as long as you don’t need additional e-mail accounts. If you do find a plan like this, remember to allow yourself room to grow in the future. Looking for tailored plans is just another way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.

Brian Thorn is an avid internet enthusiast who writes easy-to-understand articles about web hosting. Also check out: cheap web hosting package, internet service provider hosting and email domain hosting.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

There were several drawbacks however with eOrder. You should be the customer in Great Plains company database to be able placing the orders. Also if you were planning to customize eOrder – you could only do cosmetic style changes only – if you wanted to alter
scripts on the ASP pages – then you would have very serious eOrder upgrade issues. Upgrade simply wipes out your custom scripts and you had to reapply your customization to new version enriched ASP pages. Instead of following the way to move eOrder to ASPX or .Net platform.

MBS introduced eConnect, enabling web designer to “connect” eCommerce site to Great Plains backend. This is very elegant module and solution, however we are hearing a lot of complaints from developers on eConnect restrictions.

• SOP Invoice posting. It is not enabled in
  eConnect. However you should probably first understand the architecture of
  Microsoft Great Plains. Order takers supposed to enter Sales Order and submit
  it (place in the batch and save) to the manager for approval (taking off
  transfer/print/post holds). eConnect enables you to create or update Great
  Plains objects, but it doesn’t allow you to process them (post) – this would
  open a gap in the security/approval cycle.
• Order Transfer.
  Again – this is similar problem to the invoice posting. Both Order and
  Invoice could be subject to holds and approvals. eCommerce logic might need
  partial or full order transfer to invoice or even backorder, based on the item
  availability status.

Why would you then need
to purchase eConnect? Maybe just go ahead and program the connection in SQL
stored procedures? The answer is – eConnect allows you to allocate items in
Great Plains Inventory Control module. It would take you a lot of time (if you
are new to Great Plains tables structure and never coded in Great Plains
Dexterity). Plus eConnect allows you to create and update customer record in
Great Plains – this is however relatively simple to imitate in the stored
procedure.
Then what is the
solution?

• Do not allow order
  transfer and posting through eCommerce.
  This is probably the best advise we could give you – just create orders, or
  invoices, leave them to the Great Plains user to approve and post. However in
  some cases it is absolutely critical and required
• Look for Invoice
  posting stored proc on the market.
  You are not the first and not the last one to face this dilemma – somebody
  already has it implemented (SOP10200, SOP10100, SOP30200, SOP30300 tables)
• Small Business
  Financials. In your case – you
  need the whole set of stored procedures to enable eCommerce

Great Plains version: more likely you are using eConnect
for Great Plains Standard or Great Plains Professional 7.5, 8.0 and in the
future 8.5 or 9.0
Good luck in e-Commerce developing and if you have
issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job – give us
a call 1-866-528-0577!
help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba
Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization
company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York,
Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple
states and internationally (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master,
Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can
contact Andrew:
andrewk@albaspectrum.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

According to experts, the biggest mistake a website owner makes in this business is not being able to edit and upgrade his own website. That task is always being put into the hands of the webmaster. In the process, the “webpreneur” is left out in the dark and is not able to keep track of what is happening to his own site. It should be important that sites should reflect in them the presence of its owners to add some credibility and even more personal touches in them. This makes people relate easily and not be at the mercy of technical people using technical ideas on the readers. Not having to edit it yourself would also mean not having your own unique online home as other sites would definitely be edited by the same webmasters using the same concepts. For sure, readers would have noticed the likeness and will probably search for something more “different”. Remember that you have to differentiate your site from what is already in others to be able to be successful.

You cannot rely on the loyalty of people going through your site as they are capable of looking up on others when they tire of reading the same old things from your site. You also cannot just rely on search engines coming up with your site. There are many other available sites that these engines can come up with. By the time yours is shown, the readers would have found what they are looking for already if not being frustrated and impatient first.

Web sites should have a proper and solid foundation to retain its place among the others. With the proper background and resources, owners can achieve this and be stable enough to hold its own among its competitions. Not only that, updating these sites would also mean keeping up with the continuous streams of new and more sites that will still add to the many existing already.

Maintaining your own website means giving it some quality time of its own and taking care of it the way you take care of your business. After all, it is a part of your business and it also brings the money in its own little way.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Because there are many idiots are playing cut-throat price war. If you read Newspaper, you can always find kind of advertisement : RM 299 (USD 75) full package include domain name, hosting, design…… RM 100/year (USD 27) for web hosting…..

At the end, can they survive? Probable yes if they are one-man-show and can close many deals and leverage from the bulk orders. But when times go on, can they handle?

People in Malaysia are funny, they want to see the salesperson, see the product before they want to buy. That’s why e-commerce is still not popular in Malaysia (among Malaysian buyers). Similarly, If you charge RM 299 (USD 75) to include web design, hosting and domain. Well, I think you need to travel to client site to collect the information at least once. Then, just imagine how many tolls in Malaysia and how terrible is the traffic jam, and calculate how many clients can be approached a day and how much is the cost per visit.

So, tell me back, how much is the profit if the selling price is RM 299 (USD 75)? At the end , who suffer? The consumers.

Another key element that the consumers always ignore is , after creating a web site , what’s next? Many website owner just wait the visitors come and visit, then can get more enquiries from the visitors and eventually sell the products.

The fact is , no one visits!

If a website owner want to get more visitors ( traffic) to their website, just asking yourself : how do you find a company or product in Internet? The answer : Search Engine like Yahoo, Google or MSN. Similarly, listing the website in search engine is a MUST. If you don’t, then prepare to spend more money on off-line promotion : TV, Radio, Newspaper. You can still get many visitors : – but , mostly are local visitors. (unless you promote to overseas media)

That’s why I recently always advise the website owner to go for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Only with SEO, your website will not turn to white elephant project. Hopefully, the SEO service many not become the price war too in Malaysia. At least, to do SEO is not as simple as web design and web hosting.

Source: http://malaysiawebdesign.blogspot.com | www.issconcept.com, a professional web design company in malaysia.

Regardless whether you manage a small business, charitable organization, or Fortune 500 company, choosing the right web design firm can quickly become a full-time research project. With thousands of design firms to choose from, what factors truly determine which design firm is best for your business?

The primary considerations for choosing a web design firm are:

• Price
• Customer service/access to support
• Credibility indicators of the design firm
• Portfolio and design experience
• Other services offered (domain renewal, hosting, SEO)
• Turnaround time

Let’s take a closer look at each consideration in detail, and explore how to identify and qualify the right design firm.

Price

Like many products and services we purchase, both personally and professionally, deciding on a web design firm can often come down to price. But the value of the services rendered is really what’s important. A $200 web site usually turns out to look, feel and perform like a $200 web site.

The price of your site’s development will depend on three factors: the features of the site, the amount of content, and the service options included with the design package, such as hosting.

Because pricing varies by firm, here are several principles to use when determining the validity and value of a web design quote:

• Does the quote state one all-inclusive price for the entire project?
• Is there a reoccurring monthly fee for hosting?
• Is the site custom-built, or is it customization of an existing template?
• Is there a separate fee for content development, such as writing sales copy?
• Is domain registration/management included in the package?
• Will the firm provide multiple design concepts, prior to actual development?

It’s important to compare quotes from at least three firms to, determine the value of the services offered. Looking for the best value is important in a competitive service market.

Customer Service

There’s nothing worse than signing with a firm that offers a great product, only to find out they are impossible to contact. Consistent, open contact with your web design firm is important for ensuring success before, during, and after your web site is developed.

Throughout the design process, you may identify text, photos, or contact information you’d like to change before the site goes live. If you have immediate questions regarding your site’s development, you’ll be glad to have immediate contact with customer support staff by e-mail, telephone, or live chat.

If you are limited to e-mail technical support, consider other firms that offer a wider range of customer service options such as telephone and live chat support. E-mail is great for convenience – when it’s convenient.

Credibility Indicators

Identifying “credibility indicators” can help ensure a firm is trustworthy, and will be around after your deposit or full payment is sent. Credibility indicators include, but are not limited to:

• Toll free telephone support
• 24 hour customer service
• Better Business Bureau affiliation
• Human e-mail address contacts
• Google PageRank of 2 or above
• Presentation of a hard-copy quote/design contract

Design Experience/Portfolio

Does the design firm have experience in working with similar types of businesses? Even if a designer doesn’t have a web site in their portfolio related to your industry, the firm you select should have a strong working knowledge of how to develop an effective site for your business type. Product and service web sites are not the same. Your designer should have a plan of action for developing a site that reaches the maximum number of prospective customers in your target market.

A few good questions to ask about a firm’s design experience include:

• Does the firm offer a number of diverse, finished web sites available for review?
• Will the firm conduct research regarding my competition?
• Will my web site highlight the features, benefits and value of my product or service?
• Has the firm outlined a plan of action for creating an effective site, start to finish?

Design experience need not always relate to the type of web sites the firm has previously developed. If you have a specific look in mind, ask the firm if achieving a similar design is possible. The ultimate goal is to know you’re going to get a tangible benefit out of your site through effective, affordable web design.

Additional Services

Many web design firms offer design, but do not provide other required services such as hosting and domain name registration. Ideally, your web design company should be a full-service firm, offering at least basic hosting, domain registration and search engine optimization services tailored to your needs. Research each firm to determine other key lines of business, so that any future expansion of your site will be seamless as your business grows.

Turnaround Time

An effective website should take 30-60 days to go live, from the start of production. Unless you’re offering hundreds of individual products or services on your web site, the entire development process, start to finish, should take no longer than 60 days. Turnaround time should include:

• Upload of your web site to the hosting provider
• Configuration of any scripts or forms on your site
• Domain propagation (accessing your web site and e-mail via yoursite.com)

Hiring the cheapest, fastest, or most elaborate web design firm does not always equate to hiring the right web design firm. A limited amount of front-end research can save time and money in the long term, and maximize the sales revenue from your web presence.

One of the biggest flaws with website copy is inconsistency: for example the word ‘website’. Some sites spell it as one word, some as two words; as far as I am aware both are acceptable, but not both versions on the same site! In my opinion, a lack of consistency will deter a significant amount of would-be customers from using the services of a company that has not taken the trouble to proofread their website.
Poor spelling on a website is another costly but avoidable mistake.
The majority of visitors will leave the site very quickly if they find too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don’t really care; and they would be right! I am also convinced that copy that has been ‘padded out’ with insignificant trivia is also a big turn-off for visitors – clear, concise and informative is the order of the day.
Anything containing textual content should as a matter of course be proofread: it’s important that not only are mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar found and corrected, but that the text flows smoothly for the reader. The copy on a website should not be treated as the ‘poor relation’ of the project. You can have the most up-to-date, eye-catching graphics available but you will still need well-written copy to compliment them.
There are vast amounts of web design companies around that will happily inform visitors how they can supply them with a state-of-the-art website but then insert second-rate copy, which totally negates any good work they have achieved.
This will reduce the initial impact of the site, and more often than not will have an adverse effect on business.
Remember: if visitors to your site can’t find the information they are looking for because of badly written copy they will simply leave the site. The only people to benefit will be your competitors.

What do we want linking to do for us and what can linking actually do for us? Well we want it to get us traffic. Most of us think it can get us traffic two ways. One way we hope to get traffic is by making the search engines think we are good because of all the links to us. We are hoping that will rank us higher in those search engines.

All the SEO companies want to help us be on the FIRST PAGE of Google. Well with the billions of websites now and all the keywords maxed out – can we all be on the first or second page? Of course not! So, how much does it really matter where you rank in Google?

Let me give you an example provided by David Notestine from Zeus link management programming. He will provide server logs to back up stats that show:

• they get 6000000 hits per month for Zeus
• about 20 of those hits are from search engines
• about 3 percent result from paid adwords (not profitable he says)
• the remainder are from hits from links on other websites

What should we really expect from our linking strategy. Let’s get hits from links on other sites. Forget that other stuff about pleasing the Google Gods!

So why don’t we all help each other with good linking practices? If you are going to link to me so that others can find my site, why in the hell don’t you make it easy for those visitors to go from your home page to your link index? WHERE IS THE DAMN text to click on for links? If I can’t find it to verify my link, then I know damn well that your site visitors won’t find it or even look for it if it’s that hard to find. As you can see, this really irks me.

Secondly, for your link site to be useful to me, visitors need to find me or my product in that huge directory that we all are trying to develop. The best way to make it easy for searchers to find a link to a website or product is with a “search utility” installed and kept current on the page of that big link directory. Visitors can then search for a product, name or contact and get easy and immediate results.

Oh yes- one late addition here and get one more pet peeve off my chest. Don’t email me requesting a reciprocal link and then tell me to do the work at both sites by adding your link to my directory and add my link to your directory. This really gets my goat!

I hope you can see that a few little things like this will make linking work the way it should for ALL of us and not for just ten or twenty websites! It really can be a simple thing to make linking work for you!

Tom Henricks
Amateur webmaster for my little shopping website

http://www.tomsvirtualmall.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

If I had a dollar every time someone said they wanted to build a website, but didn’t know where to begin, I would be… well, rich. The problem doesn’t seem to be the actual creation of the site, but more the “what should it be about” aspect. Please note that, I am not in any way referring to e-commerce sites, corporate sites or any commercial sites, but purely about interest and general sites.

The problem lies in the fact that the essence of site creation has moved radically from where it started as an information and entertainment medium, it has changed to almost the opposite and in some cases even to complete rubbish.

So, before you even think of getting your little spot on the web, what should you be sure of, know and be aware of. What are the things that will make my site worthwhile and an asset to the web? What should I create to be able to cash in and earn some revenue for my days and months of hard work? Well, I would like to propose some basic ideas.

Firstly, I firmly believe that any author (website creator) should concentrate on things they know about or at least very familiar with. There would be absolutely no point for me to create a site on nuclear fusion (in fact starting would be a problem). You have to start with something that you can inform and/or entertain with, if you want your visitors to return at some stage. Use this wonderful platform to share your views and express yourself to the world. Not many other mediums allow this to such a massive extent. Share yourself!

The next important aspect, if you do want your site to really draw some attention on a ongoing basis, would be to ensure that the content on your site is as timeless as possible. I recently helped my mom create a site (http://www.mom2me.com) to host her recipes and it is an excellent example of a site that is timeless. Recipes do not get old. The information on your site, unless you want to constantly update it, should not get old either and a great idea would be to choose a topic for your site, where the information never ages. Jokes, photos, good articles etc. are all great examples of non-ageing content. Blogs are great for easy and quick uploading but still the material needs to be timeless as far as possible.

Try to be original. Easier said than done, I know, but try to not to start yet another site featuring the same old jokes. Not only will you never be able to ever monetize your site (earn revenue from it), but it would just be a copy of another person’s expression. Something as simple as creating a site on a smaller section of an existing site could be a great idea. What about a site dedicated to jokes about plumbers (if you really have to do a joke site). Be original not only in what you create, but what you represent as well.

Start small. I do not want to be the bearer of bad news, but you are not going to start a Google in the next year. Try to ensure that whatever you base your site on, is within your financial ambit and time sphere. You do not want to overextend yourself and leave the site halfway complete, by the time you realize that you have lost interest. It is always easier to add to a completed site and see it grow even bigger. Set realistic goals and try to achieve them within a specific period. Planning is critical and if you do it correctly you will never have to have those horrible “under construction’ pages on your site.

Lastly, and probably most importantly of all, think about how you are going to attract visitors, hopefully repeatedly, to ensure that you can earn revenue from your hard work. If you are thinking about making use of Affiliate Programs or programs like Google’s Adsense, always remember that they will require visitors. Visitors in return require a reason to visit in the first place and secondly to come back again and again. The only way you are going to ensure any form of revenue is by making sure your site is attractive, informative and generally a great place to visit.

In a perfect world, all sites would be as I described above, but sadly that is not the case. The good news is that due to the fact that more than 50% of sites are not that great, you are already halfway there, without even starting. Best of luck and I look forward to visiting your great site soon!

Werner Coetzee

Mom2me.com

Relevance to a search:

• The frequency of the search word on a web page is an indicator of its relevance. If a web page contains the word ten times on the page, it is ten times more relevant than a page which contains the word only once.
• The position of the search word:
  • In the title tag.
    In the HTML coding, the title tag is <title>(Your title words…) </title> This appears in your browser at the very top of the screen, above File, Edit, View… This tag is important to search engines as it is visible to the visitor, and ostensibly sums up the purpose for the page. Other meta tags are largely ignored by search engines.
  • In a heading.
    In the HTML coding, the heading tag is <h1> (Your heading…) </h1> This tag is very important to search engines as it is visible to the visitor, and ostensibly sums up the purpose for the page. The size of the heading does not matter. Take care not to have more that one such heading on the home page. (Don’t confuse the search engine).
  • In a link to another page.
    In the HTML coding, such a link could be <a xhref=”whodickies.htm” mce_href=”whodickies.htm”>Whodickies</a>. If “Whodickies” are important enough to have a link to them, they are very relevant to a visitor’s search for whodickies.
  • In the body text.
    Key words near the top and the bottom of the text are important. Certainly many search results show the beginning and end of pages.
• Proportion of the search words on the page.
  The intensity of key words in relation to the total words in a page tells a search engine if there is spamming. Experience has shown that if the key words in a search make up more than 10% of the total web page the page is marked down. Some experts say 5%.
• Number of inside pages linking back to that web page.
  The more inside pages linking back to the home page the more relevant the home page appears to the search engine. A website with 30 pages must seem to have more information than one with 3 pages.
• Number of other websites linking to that web page.
  A website with links from 20 other websites seems more popular than one with links from only 2 other websites. The quality of such links has a bearing. e.g. Links from other websites which display your key words are better that links from websites without those words.
• Number of articles published linking to that web page.
  Many websites publish articles on many subjects. Check the formats acceptable. Compose your article, then submit it.

Why do different search engines give different rankings to the same website? Each search engine may give a different weight to each of the factors above. Why would a website lose or gain ranking position, without any change? Search engines change their secret algorithms (formula of factor weighting) from time to time. Other websites may enter the lists, change, or leave the lists. Remember that the main reason for putting up a website it to be found by search engines, so do all you can to be friendly to them. More information on search engine optimization of websites can be found at platypus websites – www.platywebs.com.au

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

It’s all to do with supply and demand only around 135 people typed these key words in and the demand is around 620000 websites doing the same thing. When you pick your key words there needs to be a good demand for those key words. You can get lots of software that will look this up for you.

Spend time looking up key words that work else like me you can have a very good website all keyed for these words and get 0 hits. I started to think it was the design of the site, words like “FREE page ranking” would seem to be a good key phrase but the demand is 0 for this, humm this sounds a good phrase and so did 1650000 other website designers, so because I have looked up the phrase I now know not to spend hours designing a web page for this phrase.

Your website needs to be relevant to the phrase your using, If I type into Google ““Website promotion”” I expect to get sites for website Promotion, not a cook book!

This is why Google does what they do, they spider your web pages and the key words are taken. These keywords are from bits like the page title tags links hyper links, even the text that comes up when you hover over a picture.

Google also look to see the number of good links that point to your website, think about putting your url in your signature in any forum you have joined.

Key words need to be common and there needs to be a demand get Nichefinder or some other software to look up this information, it will save you months of time and work.

Lazerbri

http://www.gettothetop.info

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Keyword Optimization – How To Achieve It

The most important thing you can do for your business and your website is develop relevant keywords that are not too competitive yet generate targeted traffic to your website.

It’s called keyword optimization. Why is it important?

Because Keywords and keyword phrases do a coupleof things for you:

- With the right keywords, you will attract the viewers most interested in the items or services on your site.

- You will rank higher in the search engines for your chosen keywords, saving you thousands of dollars in advertising. It all starts, however, with the best keywords that pertain to your product or services.

When selecting keywords you should select 1 perhaps 2 of the most relevant keywords for each page of yoursite. I suggest using no more than two keywords per page, preferably one.

Why?

Because search engines strive to deliver the most relevant pages for the search term entered. The more focused your page is for the search term, the more relevant the search engines will find your page. The more keywords you use, the less focused your page becomes.

How do you find keywords that your target audience will use?

- Think like your readers. Take yourself outside your site for a minute and think about how you would find the products or services you are selling.

- Use Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/Type in your most basic keyword and it will show you the variations of the search term and also the count of how many times that term was entered in the search engine.

- Think of phrases as opposed to one single word. If you sell clay pots, think of keywords such as painted clay pots, or clay flower pots, large clay pots, buy clay pots. Use descriptive words when brainstorming phrases.

- Ask your relatives, kids and friends what they would type in to find your products. You would be amazed at the great ideas that can be generated. For example, I asked a teenager once what he would type in to find shoes online and he said ‘nice kicks’. As of this writing, Overture’s keyword selector tool showed a count of 12130. Hmmm, never would have thought of it on my own.

- Use a thesaurus or Webster’s dictionary to find similar words to your chosen keywords. Consider allforms of the word. For example, for the term supply there is supply, supplies, supplier, supplying. Thinking of allforms of the word help a great deal in brainstorming keyword ideas.

- If you have a website already, place a search engine on your site. This would be a search engine that you put on your site that searches only your site such as http://www.freefind.com/ . This will help you collect data on what keywords users are using. Once you’ve collected a good list of search terms you can use this to help you determine the best keywords.

Along this same line, you can also use your website server logs to gather information on the keywords used to find yoursite. Once you’ve made a list of the best keywords and keywordphrases, you will need to determine which ones are the best.

Your challenge is to find keywords that have a high usage count but appear on the least amount of competing web pages. Wordtracker.com is an excellent tool for helping you achieve this. Wordtracker’s ‘Keyword Effectiveness Index’ (KEI) will provide you with the number of times a keyword is used along with the number of competing web pages. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition. This means a better chance for you in getting to the top of the search engines.

Finding the best keywords and keyword phrases is an important part of your marketing mix. Find the correct keywords and build your content around them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seven Reasons Why Your Website May Be a BIG FLOP!

1. Long Load Times.
If your websites takes more then 30 seconds to load, especially on DSL/Cable then visitors will leave your website, it is as simple as that. You must remember that people want information and they want it yesterday (I know, I know). Since it is so easy to get information from many other sites online, you must make sure that they can get it from your site first and that they can get it quickly. This will keep them coming back to your website everyday, since it is so easy to get what they want.

2. Bad Navigation.
Your Navigation should be located in a easy to access area that the visitor can easily get to as soon as they reach your site. Areas include the top of the page, just below the header and to the left of the page. Navigation that is hard to find will leave a visitor feeling frustrated every time they come to the site. Even though they may get use to its unusual placement, they may not come back to get use to it!

3. Un-finished Pages.
There is nothing worse then coming to a website that has just had a new design done on it(even if it looks great) and finding out that even though the links are active, there is nothing on those sub pages. Of course a nice “coming soon” text can work to let them know the page is coming soon, it does serve us both best if the page and its content are actually there. So make sure all the pages are ready to go before you upload the new site.

4. Bad Color Combination.
All I have to say about this is live green, blue, brown and red may work in some way on a site design but I can’t imagine it looking good. Make sure to use colors that jive well with each other, that compliment each other and that doesn’t hurt or strain the eyes. One thing to make sure is that if you use a light color on the background then make sure to use a dark text and vice-versa. This will make it easier on all of us to read what is on your website.

5. No Contact Information.
We must all be in touch in one way or another. Well sort of! You Must have contact information on your site, it doesn’t have to be on the front page, but it should be at least on its own page. This will give visitors a way to get in touch with you if they need to ask you a question about your site or product.

6. Old Dates/Updated Often.
Make sure you update your site often. People come to your site for updated information, if what was on your site last week, is still there today, they probably won’t be coming back. Make sure old dates are taking off as well as new dates are entered correctly. This is extremely important if your site has to do with events going on in the community.

7. Script Errors.
Finally, make sure you test every part of your website, especially when it comes to scripts. Also have it set up so that if a script error happens you catch it before too many of your visitors do. This can be done by either checking the site each day(or a few times a day) or by having an automated email sent to you when someone experiences a error on the site.

I hope these tips help you build a Successful Website!

Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business and join in conversation at our forum at http://www.logo2d.com/forum & http://www.logo2d.com

©Copyright 2005 Logo2D.com : Feel free to use this article freely but please keep in the copyright

Source: http://www.365articles.com

When designing a website you needs to consider where to host the website, whether it will be with a hosting company or doing it yourself and then does the site need to be dynamic, written in asp or php or will static html suffice etc, etc..
These are a few of the questions that need to be asked in a web site design process and they can all be answered if one factor is considered at all times, always remember your audience. If you keep this in mind, your website will have the highest relevancy possible to your audience, this way your will acheive more repeat visits as well as building upon unique visits.
This factor is important for any website, whether its primary focus is as an ecommerce enterprise, or as a reference for a specific subject. If your website is relevant to a targetted audience they will return, increasing either your revenue or returning for more information on a subject to which you have become a leading source for.
These two examples are actually at two ends of the spectrum, one requires specific features that can only be sensibly achieved by a dynamic site, utilising a database driven website in either php or asp, and other is traditionally a static site, quick to load and favouring information over interactivity…….but it doesn’t have to be.
Once the structure of the website has been considered and the decision to be dynamic or static has been taken, then a host needs to be found that meets the demands that are expected today and hoped for in the future. Moving web hosts is possible but if it can be avoided by selecting the right hosting providor in the first place this is always preferrable.

The next step is designing the website, keeping the audience in mind. A website that sells products online needs to be able to highlight several offers at the same time, allow easy and quick navigation to product types by a variety of methods, either brand name or product type and instill confidence for being professional so the visitor will use their credit card without fear of being a victim of online fraud.
Many will be surprised to know the name of the website is not always the first and most important factor today in website design. With the volume of websites, it is content, relevancy and link partnership which are first in search engine optimising. The domain name is for branding, chosen to be easily recognised, and if possible one that contains your keywords for promotion. Websites that are being redesigned do not have this luxury so they do not have the distraction of considering the domain name as the most important factor.
Once the web site design is complete, the site is online and ready for business the art of search engine optimising and search engine marketing becomes the priority. Build it and they will come does not apply to websites, constant promotion is required, and if time permits, constant tweaking to make sure the website is reindexed on a regular basis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The average few pages small affair Web site with one form to answer, for instance, may experience affordable hosting with multiple-mail aliases, T3 connection and cgi-bin for about $20 monthly. In the case of the requirement for SSL Security you should be ready to pay approximately $60 monthly from your income.

The charges for setup count generally $50 although they can be more expensive if you need more than the usual. The price for all things needed for web hosting provider can vary from locality to locality. Famous companies and consecrated web sites are expected to pay more for these utilities.

You may complain about the sum you have for web hosting provider. If you want to surpass this problem you have to think about the exact services that you need and compare prices and accessibility because the possibility of discovering a better offer for web hosting.Competition is something which characterizes the nowadays world and there is no such thing as best or worst offer.But remember that when you have to make comparisons between Web hosting prices and the local ISP’s hosting, you are to pay $20 each month for access.

An aspect to be mention is how much of a problem-solver is a Web Host ISP. Every Web Hosting provider should take this occurrences into account as they come to light.You should start with questions like: what is the speed of functioning for that site during peak hours? This type of information is very difficult to obtain unless you check the web hosting provider’s list of clients.

References are most wanted when talking about this issue which is similar to shopping.It is a sort of pact of confidence:good references lead to a good company and so on.

For great web hosting options, affordable domain registration, Hosting Providers just visit us at http://www.webhosting-faq.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Like it or not, first impressions count and no more so than on the Internet. Your web site is the only way that visitors can judge you and your product. Give them the wrong impression, make it hard for them to find the information they’re after and chances are they will click away into cyberspace and never come back.
To avoid this happening to you, here are ten web design tips to help ensure that your niche web site projects a professional image :

1 – Use the KISS approach – Keep your web design simple and straight forward with clean lines and a suitable colour scheme. Avoid distractions like Flash presentations, animated gifs and audio which loads as the page opens.
2 – Visibility – Design for a screen resolution of 800×600 pixels and a maximum page width of 760 pixels so that your web site visitors don’t have to scroll from side to side to read your content.
3 – Graphics – Keep your graphics down to one or two smallish ones and optimise them to load quickly (You can optimise your graphics at www.netmechanic.com who offer a free facility to do this). Always add “alt” tags to each image, with a concise description, so that people who surf with graphics turned off and the sight impaired, who use text readers, know exactly what the image is.
4 – Load time – Aim to have your pages load in 8-10 seconds on a 56K modem. You can do this by keeping your page size down to about 10k or less.
5 – Use CSS – CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS enables you to define the look of your web site with various style elements like font type, size and colour, backgrounds, Hyperlinks and a lot more. By linking your HTML pages to a Cascading Style Sheet you can reduce the amount of code on your web pages and speed up load times.
6 – Navigation – Make sure your main navigation links appear in the same place on every page so that your visitors don’t have to hunt around for them. Your visitors should also be able to see at a glance exactly where they are on your web site, so include “You are here” links at the top and bottom of each page showing the path from your Home page, for example :
“You are here >> Home > Widgets > Redwidgets”
In this case Home and Widgets would be linked back to the relevant pages.
7 – Site Map – Include a Site Map on your web site listing the title of each page with a short description and a link back to the relevant page. Not only will this enable your site visitors to find their way around, it will also help to encourage search engines to spider your entire site.
8 – Readability – Avoid dark backgrounds and fancy font styles, if you have a lot of stuff to read on your web pages it is better to stick to a white background with black print as that is less fatiguing to read. Arial, Verdana and Times Roman are the most common fonts to use and the easiest to read. Oh and one other thing – not everyone has 20/20 vision, make your font sizes big enough for those people to read comfortably.
9 – Test – Test your design in as many browsers as possible. Although Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser, don’t ignore alternatives like FireFox, Mozilla, Opera, K-Meleon, Netscape, Safari, etc. they may only constitute 15%-20% of browsers, but that’s still millions of potential customers you might otherwise miss out on.
10 – Relevance – Don’t cover more than one major topic per page, this will help you get your message over more easily. Make sure that everything you are going to include on your web site is relevant to the niche market you are targeting. For example if your site is about golf, don’t include links to a dog training site (unless it’s about training dogs to find lost golf balls:-).
Copyright © 2005, André Anthony Niche Market Know-How

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

It’s commonly understood that “people buy emotionally, not intellectually.” Even when people think they’re making a rational decision, powerful subconscious factors come into play. To sell effectively, we’re told to anticipate our customers’ needs, to demonstrate that we “feel their pain”, and to respond to clues in their body language and tone of voice.

In the “real world” we do this very well. And we know that if we can have a direct, in-person conversation, there’s a pretty good chance that we’ll close the sale or keep a happy customer.

For the online visitor, your Website is the next best thing to that in-person conversation with you, your colleagues or employees. And since so many people are researching products and services on the Web, it’s critical that your site has maximum impact in persuading them to take the next step with you.

So how does your Website connect emotionally with your visitors? Do they feel listened to, understood and appreciated by your Internet presence? Are you instinctively meeting their real needs? Do your existing customers feel supported and valued when interacting with you online?

Or are you failing to evoke the crucial emotional responses which can significantly enhance your response rates, sales and ongoing return on your Web investment?

The Critical Emotions for Website Success

I’ve been working with client Web strategies in a wide range of industries since 1995. Based on this experience, I’ve identified some key emotions that you need to evoke in your online visitors to create and sustain a profitable relationship.

How well your Website does this can have a major effect on the visceral, instinctive reactions of your visitors, and their propensity to buy from or connect with you.

In total, I have twenty criteria for emotional connectedness that I suggest for any Website. That’s too many to discuss in this article, but let’s look at a few highlights:

Do I Feel Recognized?

When we first meet in a business setting, we’re introduced, or we introduce ourselves with some statement about what we do, and why we should connect with each other.

When we talk with customers or prospects, it’s important to show very quickly that we understand their issues and needs, and that we have ideas and solutions to address these.

The most important task for your home page is to accomplish this initial introduction. You’ve heard the “ten-second” rule about how long a visitor will stay on a site that doesn’t engage them.

So, does your home page really tell me what you do? Does it speak to me in specific terms that make very clear what services you provide, and what type of customers or clients you work with? Does it use language that I’ll understand even if I don’t know the jargon of your industry or specialization?

Sounds simple?

There are astounding numbers of Websites that fail to provide basic information on the home page. If your goal is to get the customer to visit your store, does your home page clearly show your location, and how to get there? Every time you force the visitor to make a decision, such as “Do I click on the Contact Us page to find their address?”, you open up the possibility that they’ll make the wrong choice (from your viewpoint), or worse still, they’ll just leave.

And is it clear to me whether you can – or would want to – help me? Are you geared towards corporate bulk buyers, or small businesses, or both? Do you operate nationally or only in your immediate location? Will your visitors know what you mean by generic terms such as “business systems” or “total business solutions” or should you be more specific as to what you offer?

Do I Feel Engaged?

As we continue our “real-world” conversation, we start to find common points of interest, whether personal or professional. We begin to feel that we can relate with each other, and this helps to build our business relationship.

So your Website has to make the visitor feel drawn in – that they want to know more about your business, your products and your services – but again, from the viewpoint of their needs and interests. And you have to give the visitor a clear sense that you want to find those points of connection, and to learn more about them.

If the visitor doesn’t feel invited in, if they feel left to themselves to find their way around – if they’re overwhelmed, confused, or simply not interested in your site, they’ll leave.

Does your site present a bewildering array of manufacturers, products, or options without any guidance as to selecting from these? Think about the conversation that you’d have with a customer in your store. You’d find out what they were looking for, and then you’d ask a number of questions to help them find the right solution for their needs.

So how can you mirror this process online? You could offer a “Help Me” page that guides visitors through some Frequently Asked Questions or other choices and provides links to recommended products based on their answers. You could incorporate an interactive chat facility with a customer service agent during office hours, or access to a searchable knowledge base.

Do I Feel Convinced?

If the visitor is seeing your business for the first time, they need to be comfortable that you are who you say you are, and that you can deliver what you promise.

One of the most important elements in establishing this part of the connection is to show the “faces” of your business. Have you noticed how many Websites don’t name any of their owners, or the people that customers will interact with? It’s much easier to have a conversation when I know who I’m talking to!

Customer testimonials and other third-party endorsements are critical elements in establishing trust – they say far more about you than your own marketing statements. How many sites have we all seen that trumpet “nationally recognized” or “premier provider . . .”? Prove it!

Include client quotes and success stories right across your site where they’re front and center as visitors are engaged in your content. If you win an award, tell the visitor what that means for them in terms of how you were evaluated.

Do I Feel Motivated?

Towards the end of our “real-world” conversation, we’ll hopefully close a sale, or we’ll talk about some next steps, or we might say “Let’s stay in touch”. To do that with our online visitor, we need to persuade them to buy something, or to tell us who they are, and give us permission to reconnect with them.

Too many Web pages tail off with no call to action or directions about where to go next. If you don’t issue a clear invitation, you again leave it to the visitor to work out what to do – and you run a big risk of losing them.

So at every point on every page where the visitor might be thinking “Tell me more”, or “How do I get this?”, provide a clickable link to the next step, to your shopping cart, to your newsletter subscription page, or to whatever you want them to do. Don’t wait until the end of the page – they may never get there! Look for the emotional “tipping points” on every page where they’re ready to talk more with you and grab them in the moment!

Diluting the Connection

Of course, it’s all too easy to undo all the good feeling that we create by frustrating or annoying the visitor, or simply by giving them a dead end.

One of my favorite bugbears is the site search engine that allows me to enter my query, and then tells me “No results found. Please try again with different search terms”.

How is that supposed to make me feel? What was wrong with my keywords or my parameters if the search page allowed me to select them? Am I being stupid? Or do you really not want to help me?

Your visitor is clearly looking for something, and has taken a step towards connecting with you. So how about a results page that lets them know that you can’t immediately answer their question, but offers a link to your contact form so that they can send a question, or some tips or suggestions on how to find more information.

The ultimate customer service feature is an opportunity to interact with a live assistant – if your site offers this utility, the search results page is a perfect place to maximize its visibility.

So how “Emotionally Connected” is your Website?

I hope that I’ve sparked your curiosity enough to take a fresh look at your Website. Think about specifically why visitors are coming to your site, what might be on their minds, and review your copy and navigation accordingly. Think about new customers and existing ones, employees, media – everyone who might have a reason to visit. Are you doing everything that you can to create an “emotionally connected” experience for everyone?

The right mix will gain you significantly higher time spent on your site, more calls from pre-qualified leads, more signed contracts, happier repeat customers, attention from new markets, offers of strategic alliances and collaborations, and insights into creating successful new products and services.

(c) Philippa Gamse, 2005. All rights reserved.

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy consultant and professional speaker. How does your site rate against Philippa’s twenty “emotionally connected” criteria? Visit http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/ to find out. Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Why Should You Create a website?

A. What do you want when you create a website?

B. What to do to get what you want.

A. What do you want?

1. You may be in a non-profit organisation and want to post forthcoming events on the web. You don’t want to have thousands of visitors to the site. But wait – do you want to create a website for new members from the web? I found a new barbershop singer through my website.

2. You may have a small business selling locally. You’re happy with yellow pages. But wait – how many thousand words can you put in your yellow page advert?

There is no limit if you create a website.

Have you ever had someone keep you on the phone for half an hour of your valuable time with their questions? Wouldn’t it be nice to direct them to your website for answers and sales messages? Create a website!

Once you’ve written all those answers, wouldn’t it be profitable to have potential customers reading your answers? Create a website. A dentist has clients from a hundred miles away, from his website.

3. Perhaps you sell items weighing a hundred tons costing a million dollars. When you create a website you can still write as much information about your product as you like – not like the yellow pages. Then you can direct prospects to phone to make an appointment with your best sales staff.

4. You want to sell a product on the web. First create a website then get lots of traffic.

5. You want to make money on the web?!! without a product?!! No…I’m not laughing. Create a website. If you have lots of traffic you don’t even have to be good at selling to make some money with Google Adsense.

If you’re good at pre-selling then you can try affiliate marketing, or selling advertising on your site, or several other channels of income. Just create a website and get the traffic first.

B. What to do about it

To get high traffic you must give visitors what they want. Tricking Google will only get your domain banned from their listing.

Here are some things not to do when you create a website. If your visitors hit the back button their numbers don’t count.

a) Don’t use frames when you create a website – the search engines can’t find you, and the inventors of frames don’t use them on their own website.

b) It may be artistic to disguise your links, but you will lose customers. I visited a site that displayed just one big picture. I happened to pass my mouse over the picture on the way to the back button, and discovered links flashing on the screen. Apparently I had to click on bits of the picture to see any more!

c) Don’t use Flash when you create a website. If people are using ADSL they are unlikely to wait longer than three seconds before hitting the back button. If they’re on a 56K modem they might be prepared to wait ten seconds. You’ve just lost another client.

d) Don’t use big pictures when you create a website. If you have a photography site, use postage stamp sized pictures with the size stated in your coding, and ask the visitor to click for a larger picture. Telling the browser how high and wide your picture is will allow it to load after the text, so your visitor has something to look at meantime.

e) Don’t use irrelevant pictures when you create a website. One picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture is saying what you want it to say.

Why do people visit websites? It is NOT for entertainment. Their TV gives them all the moving pictures that they need. Even if it is an adult site, the visitor is really wanting to download digital information for later entertainment.

Information is what your visitor wants – When you create a website don’t waste your time and money on anything else.

A paid designer will use all sorts of clever artistic tricks – you now know that you will lose clients that way. More than 99% of new websites soon have to close because they have no traffic, which means no profit.

That is your biggest mistake. Instead, find what people want to know first, then give it to them.

So why create a website? Simple, you know more about your own subject than any show-off website designer. You don’t even need to understand HTML coding if you use SBI. You still should learn a little about HTML coding, but there are free lessons on my website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Webmasters also have things they should be monitoring on their websites. Most of these can be classified as traffic related or server performance related. Here is my top ten list.

Monitoring website traffic

Traffic totals. You want to know how much traffic you are generating. If the line on the graph is heading down, you know you have to find out why.

Referrers. It’s not enough just to know how many visitors you are getting. You need to know where they are coming from. I discovered I was getting a lot of visitors from a Thanksgiving site. They were all being funneled into my Thanksgiving Happiness article. Suddenly I knew I should get more links from other Thanksgiving sites. Valuable information.

Searches. Much to my surprise, my happiness site started getting a ridiculous number of hits from the search for “hairdressers”. It just so happens I wrote a humor column on a hairdresser experience. I was surprised to see it getting so much traffic for such a generic, competitive search term. If that had been a term of a little more relevance for me, this information would have lead me to properly optimize the page and get even more traffic.

Pages viewed per visit. If people visit only one page per visit, you have some work to convince them to visit more pages, like those that make you money.

Pages visited. So you threw up on your site something cool as an add-on. How were you to know that other webmasters would link to it and send a whole bunch of traffic your way? Well, now you know, so add some copy to the page to pull visitors into the rest of your site.

Monitoring website performance

Forms. Are they all functioning? A good website monitoring service can keep tabs on them for you. The last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning

Shopping carts. Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Make sure yours is functioning properly. A good website monitoring service can watch this for you, too.

Download speed. Clear your cache and test your pages. Hmm. Maybe those images are a bit large. Time to compress them, or even remove some. Remember that some people are on a much slower connection than you are. I use a satellite connection sometimes, but when I don’t, my connection speed is 28K.

Server speed. re there problems with server speed? Maybe not where you are, but on the other side of the world. Global website monitoring can alert you to a transatlantic connection problem, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.

Server accessibility. All the web hosts promise 99% accessibility. But is that for real? Who monitors them? By one estimate, 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet’s backbone network and in global routing. A global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting company to resolve it before too many sales are lost.

Fun. If you are not having fun, audition for that drummer position in the local band. There is no point spending your life doing something that bores you. Webmastering should be fun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Leonhardt is a freelance writer and website marketing consultant.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

The “musts” of good government Web site design

There are five major “musts” to any government Website. The site must be:

• User-friendly
• Direct
• Section 508 Compliant
• Searchable
• Branded

Web sites must be designed with the user experience in mind. Every aspect of the site should make sense and follow expected patterns. For people to use it, it must be easier than picking up the phone. Options must be clearly defined and information as accessible as possible.

Running in Circles

Don’t send your users on a wild goose chase. The path to find information must be direct. In standard Web site design, users should be able to access the key function of a site within three clicks. And watch for those nasty circles. Site maps and testing are vital to keeping a site free from loops.

Every User, Everytime

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act demands that Web sites must be accessible to all users, regardless of impairment. Make this a chance to ensure your site resonates with everyone equally. By including such things as verbal tags and graphics identification, designers can make a site available to all the constituents.

Seek and You Will Find

Searches on government pages seem to search every government page. Instead, searches should be limited to the site from which it is made. And the search terms must be natural language. Include common words by thinking about what the audience would. Getting into the users head is key to any design endeavor.

Image is Everything

Branding gives a fresh look and feel to an otherwise boring site. In the same way commercial businesses use it, branding breeds loyalty. By presenting a consistent image, backed by a consistent experience, constituents know that a logo is more than just a picture. It’s a promise of excellence.

What now?

It’s easy to create a Web site, but making it great takes creativity and forethought. Imagine the user and what they expect and build from there. Dot gov and can be dot amazing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR