Web Designs and Template Resources Blog

How to remove noreply@blogger.com in recent comments feeds

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:07:00 +0000

This noreply@blogger.com will show up under recent comments feeds.

To fix this change:

http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

to

http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
or
http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=atom

How Show/Remove Subscribe Post, Home, Older,Newer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:28:00 +0000

Go to Layout>Edit HTML

Look For Below code and just add "display:none;" to hide or remove the "display:none;" to show.

Refer Code:

#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: $startSide;
display: none;
}

#blog-pager-older-link {
float: $endSide;
display: none;
}

#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
display: none;
}

.feed-links {
clear: both;
line-height: 2.5em;
display: none;
}

How to Remove Showing Post With Labels?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:02:00 +0000

When selecting post by labels and it show up at the top of blog post "Showing Post with Labels xxxx" like below:

Showing Post with Labels Books

How to get rid of it, just follow this simple steps:

1. Go to Layout>Template>HTML
2. Select Expand Widget Template
3. Look for below code:

<div class='blog-posts hfeed'> <b:include data='top' name='status-message'/><-- Remove This Line

Save your template and Done!

Minisite Design Mistakes That Is Hurting Your Website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:15:00 +0000

Before proceeding create your own minisite, first you must understand what is the Design Mistake that you should avoid.

I suddenly found this article that is so useful and hope it can be useful to you as well.

How To Avoid 10 Minisite Design Mistakes That Is Hurting Your Website

Here are 10 common minisite design mistakes most web owners or webmasters make and how to fix them. Web design factors overlap with design elements and principles in general.

1. Not sitting down to plan your overall minisite structure and site layout including linking and navigation. This is also the best time to start thinking about your search engine marking.

2. Not doing your keyword research from the get go. Don't assume anything; get it right from the right start. Keyword is your rootword or the foundation of your minisite structure. If you miss this crucial step, every other part of your building structure falls apart including search engine optimization. Don't spend time, money and energy on a keyword nobody is searching for. That's a sure way to have a failed web business. Or, some people don't even have a specific keyword or phrase that will attract prospects to their site. Use keyword tools like wordtracker, goodkeyword, overture or google keyword suggestion tool.

3. Don't clutter your minisite with too many distractions like graphics, flash animations, bells, and whistle. All these are good if you want to impress a kindergarten child but bad for your traffic flow and cashflow. Minimize the use of Java scripts, flash animations and graphics. Search engines don't index them well. Just know that search engines love words and keywords or key phrases is what counts and thats what sells. Words are what your visitors use to querry the search engines.

4. Your minisite should load in 8 seconds or less. Beyond this time frame, most visitors lose patience. Sorry, we are in an instant, microwave society and nobody wants to wait. Besides, there is over information and too much to see and navigate, so your visitors are happy to hit the back button.

5. Don't go beyond 750 pixels in your minisite width if you don't want your visitors to scroll from side to side. It is annoying and jars your readers. To solve this problem, use percentage of the screen instead of pixels. Don't make the width too narrow by going less than 650 pixels, either.

6. Don't rely too heavily on WYSIWYG HTML editors like frontpage or mozilla firefox. They tend to draw you web pages to one side of the screen instead of being positioned at the center. It is still necessary to know basic HTML tags or at least what is it that you don't know. One way to correct this error is: div align="center" enlosed in angle brackets as other HTML tags. Or, you can use percentage instead of pixels to center the abnormal shift. More professional coders use cascading style sheet. However, Dreamweaver doesn't normally give this problem.

7. Not knowing and applying "the rule of 3" in minisite design. This rule is like a guide that should be at the back of your mind while doing any design work in a given space. The more you apply this rule, the more dynamic, lifelike and professional your design becomes. Three is the number of trinity. It states that it is safe to use 3 colors, 3 fonts, 3 tables rows, and three design elements in any given space. This rule also applies to your graphic panel design, banner ads and ecovers.

8. Not knowing color contrast and harmony. In other words, your design did not consider color theory and emotion of colors. Never use a dark color on a dark background. Even a light color on a dark background is suspect. It does not print well if you decide to download it. The best contrast is dark on a white background like black or blue on white background. This offers great visual appeal, and readability.(Details about colors are treated in my other articles).
Also red is a warm or shouting color--use with caution and use sparingly because it call for attention that why red healines tend to convert better than other colors. Yellow is best suited for highlights. Avoid the use of blacks or gray if your are not advanced in minisite design. Use a lot of white space (negative space) for blending, color contrast and harmony.

9. Don't use welcome in your minisite design. Not only is it overdone and meaningless in your search engine rankings. Go strait to your offer or what your website is about. The visitor has 3 seconds to figure out your site (from your headlines), otherwise they are gone. So, don't confuse them with unnecessary platitudes and pleasantries.

10. Not inserting an opt-in box or lead capture pop-ups in your minisite could make you lose potential customers and money. Even people don't buy, capture their names and email address for follow-up, and relationship building. This is a powerful marketing strategy and lead generation that could be of mutual benefit down the road.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Uzo_Onukwugha

What is Mini Site?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:03:00 +0000

Lets read this article to understand better what is mini site all about.

What is the difference between a mini site and a regular website?

Mini sites as they are called are just mini websites consisting of usually three to five pages long. Most mini websites focus on a specific product or service.

These websites can be ideal for the already established break and mortar business. The small site can promote your products and services and have a contact page for additional information. This is a great way to get exposure for your brick and mortar business especially if you do not have a physical product that the customer can purchase from a website.

Mini websites are also a great way to test a product or service to your target market prior to releasing the product. This eliminates the error of creating an entire site around a product or service just to have no buying market for that product or service.

Are these sites difficult to create? These are some of the easiest sites to build and can be very profitable. Can you build these sites yourself or do you need a web developer?

These minisites can be very basic or very in depth depending on the information on the website. This popular term "mini site" is used to label various websites that feature one product or service. This could be a membership with a one time payment to access certain products or services or these sites focus in on a specific product such as eBooks, special reports, video courses, and more.

Some sites focus on capturing the internet visitors attention about a product or service that has a perceived value to the target market and sell the product or service from the first page of the website. Some sites test the market and request feedback from internet visitors for their product or service. These sites are a great marketing tool.

There are numerous internet marketers with numerous successful mini sites that sell one product or recommend a product or service that are very profitable. There is an eBook called "Niche Business Secrets Revealed" that takes the new internet business owner from start to finish in creating an online business that is geared toward mini website businesses.

Most mini sites will not have a navigation bar to let you search around the site to find additional information. The content on this site will give you all the information needed to make an educated determination to use the services or purchase the product.

Mini Sites are also great for the novice to get their feet wet in building an internet business. The easiest and best way for a new internet business owner to build a mini site is to use website templates. Templates are easy to edit and fast to create a mini site featuring your product or an affiliates product. Templates are a great way to get your business online and to your market quickly, inexpensively, and fast.

What is great about mini site templates are you do not have to reinvent the wheel. The templates are already coded for you and if you can type a word document you can edit a mini site template to fit your internet business' look and feel.

Small websites are a great way to start an internet business and by using templates you can save time, money, and get your new business online fast. I am not a web designer and I like using already website templates to create my online businesses. I can change the look and feel and give each business a unique appearance. I may use as some may call mini site templates "cookie cutter" templates but after I change some attributes it is definitely different from the rest.

Pat Turman is a successful mid-level manager and internet entrepreneur. She co-owned and operated a quarter million dollar e-retail store selling golf equipment for women, runs numerous online businesses, and manages a company with revenues of over a million dollars. She holds a BBA from an accredited University and numerous awards and certificates. Find out more about mini sites and creating a internet business using templates at http://www.imminisitetemplates.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pat_Turman

Sample of Minisite for placing affiliate link or business website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:39:00 +0000

If you look for a sample of minisite graphic, header or a full package of minisite check out the following link. I just found it when i need to create my friends minisite and need some idea on how to create a better design for his Minisite.

1. btemplate contains a number of blogger template.

Wait for my next post, i will teach you how to modify a blog to become a minisite (targeted website).

How to Show Related Articles to your Post?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:23:00 +0000

Before you proceed to follow this code, first you must save your original
template. Unless you confident and familiar with CSS coding in blog.

This code i get it from Hoctro. Thanks to him i can easily show the related
article as per post and categories.

Please go to your blog HTML code and click the Expand Widget Templates so that you can paste this code.

Usually i will put this code at the bottom of the Body Post. Please look for this widget "Blog1".

The open code will look like below:

<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='false'
title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>

Scroll down and look up the ending code of the upper widget as below:

<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Now add this code at the bottom of above widget.

<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog
Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='nextprev'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='status-message'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='comment-form' var='post'>
<div class='comment-form'>
<a name='comment-form'/>
<h4 id='comment-post-message'><data:postCommentMsg/></h4>
<p><data:blogCommentMessage/></p>
<data:blogTeamBlogMessage/>
<a expr:href='data:post.commentFormIframeSrc' id='comment-editor-src'/>
<iframe allowtransparency='true' class='blogger-iframe-colorize'
frameborder='0' height='275' id='comment-editor' scrolling='no' src=''
width='100%'/>
<data:post.iframeColorizer/>
</div>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='main'>



<div class='widget-content'>
<h2>Related Articles by Labels:</h2>
<div id='data2007'/><br/><br/>
<div id='hoctro'>Widget by <u><a href='http://hoctro.blogspot.com'>Hoctro</a>

</u></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>

var homeUrl3 = "YourBlogURL.blogspot.com";
var maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel = 100;
var maxNumberOfLabels = 100;

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel = 100;
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
maxNumberOfLabels = 100;
</b:if>

function listEntries10(json) {
var ul = document.createElement('ul');
var maxPosts = (json.feed.entry.length <= maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel) ?
json.feed.entry.length : maxNumberOfPostsPerLabel;
for (var i = 0; i < maxPosts; i++) {
var entry = json.feed.entry[i];
var alturl;

for (var k = 0; k < entry.link.length; k++) {
if (entry.link[k].rel == 'alternate') {
alturl = entry.link[k].href;
break;
}
}
var li = document.createElement('li');
var a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = alturl;

var txt = document.createTextNode(entry.title.$t);
a.appendChild(txt);
li.appendChild(a);
ul.appendChild(li);
}

for (var l = 0; l < json.feed.link.length; l++) {
if (json.feed.link[l].rel == 'alternate') {
var raw = json.feed.link[l].href;
var label = decodeURIComponent(raw.substr(homeUrl3.length+21));

var txt = document.createTextNode(label);
var h = document.createElement('h4');
h.appendChild(txt);
var div1 = document.createElement('div');
div1.appendChild(h);
div1.appendChild(ul);
document.getElementById('data2007').appendChild(div1);
}
}
}

function search10(query, label) {

var script = document.createElement('script');
script.setAttribute('src', 'http://' + query +
'/feeds/posts/default/-/'
+ encodeURIComponent(label) +
'?alt=json-in-script&callback=listEntries10');
script.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript');
document.documentElement.firstChild.appendChild(script);
}

var labelArray = new Array();
var numLabel = 0;

<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
textLabel = "<data:label.name/>";

var test = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < labelArray.length; i++)
if (labelArray[i] == textLabel) test = 1;
if (test == 0) {
labelArray.push(textLabel);
var maxLabels = (labelArray.length <= maxNumberOfLabels) ?
labelArray.length : maxNumberOfLabels;

if (numLabel < maxLabels) {
search10(homeUrl3, textLabel);
numLabel++;
}
}
</b:loop>
</b:loop>
</script>
</div>

</b:includable>
</b:widget>

Then last step is to replace this code :

var homeUrl3 = "YourBlogURL.blogspot.com";

to your own blog address.

The rest let it remain such as Hoctro.blogspot.com. Give credit to original coder ok.

How to customize Yahoo Messanger (YM) online status picture

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:07:00 +0000

Copy paste the Html code below to your website:

Change target=Yahoo_id to your yahoo messanger id and for t=0 you can change the value according to below picture.

t=0

t=1

t=2

t=3

t=4

t=5

t=6

t=7

t=8

t=9

t=10

t=11

t=12

t=13

t=14

t=15

t=16

t=17

t=18

t=19

t=20

t=21

t=22

t=23

t=24

Change Post Title for Blogger SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:12:00 +0000

This trick will indeed drive more traffic to your blog. Follow this simple steps. You may need to go to blogger HTML code.

Find this code:


<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

Replace it with below code:


<!-- http://web-designs-blog.blogspot.com: Title Post SEO-->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> ~ <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>
<!-- http://web-designs-blog.blogspot.com: Title Post SEO-->

Save your template and that's it your done.

SEO to 3 Giant Search Engine in the Net

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:44:00 +0000

I just want to write this post short and simple. My old previous post already mention what is SEO all about and now i want to share with you the 3 link that assist my blog to be indexed in the Search engine not more than a week.

1. Yahoo - Submit your site for Free!

2. Google Webmaster Tools - Submit site and rss for Free!

3. MSN - Live Search URL Submission.

Bonus:
1. Mike Marketing Tools - To check your website ranking in the net.

My next post will continue explain to you all the script to optimize your blog.

My Checklist to design Fresh Blog in Blogspot

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:09:00 +0000

Hi again, its been a while i have not posted anything in this blog. As at today i would like to share with you my experience when i creating my fresh blog. It happen to me this couple of days when i start to create another new blog using my existing template. Seems that my previous template does not work at all.

Tried many times to upload the template and when system prompt me a message to delete few of module, another error message come out and it did not resolve anything.

So i have to start of again with a new fresh template using minima and customize my self using few varies code in the internet. Before i go into detail, below is my check list to start designing my blog.

1. Color blend - This website will assist me to select what color that suit to my new blog.

2. Tweak my blog to have Three Column Blog - I always use this website 'Old Wisdom New Lesson' whenever i have problem to set three column, put up recent post and recent comments.

3. Change Post title for Blogger SEO - i will explain to you in detail on this part since i tweak many times using the old codes and it did not work. Luckily i find another new code so simple and short. Thanks to uncle google.. hehehe

4. Readmore codes - to hide the full post in main webpage and will show the full blog post when visitor click in the post title.

5. Show related article to your post - will explain to you in detail.

6. Visitor Info - Such as from feedjit.com, mybloglog.com, a counter from statcounter.com and other blog directories. This probably the last option after blog fully optimize.

7. Setting up Feeds - I usually select feedburner.com to link my rss feed from blogspot. Feedburner has this option to allow visitor subscribe to our post via email and it is very simple to setup in blogspot.

8. Publish to blogger directories - when i make few post such as 3 or 5 post in new blog then i will publish my blog to blogger directories.

9. Index to search engine for SEO - for a start i focus only to three Giant SEO that is Google, Yahoo and MSN. Will explain to you further in my next post.

10. Make money with Ads - usually i will wait for about a week to put up ads in my blog. I will check my visitor via statcounter and see what keywords that usually visitor coming from. From the niche then i will put up more required keywords in my new blog.

11. Optional - Shoutbox for visitor, a smiley icon in post comment, customize smiley in my shoutbox, and a very minimize picture size to put up as a header or background for my blog.

Thats it. 11 checklist so far that i can share with you here.

Link Exchange - 7 Do's & Don'ts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Your website's rank in the search engines will mainly depend on which websites are linking to you and how they are doing it. Here are 7 do's and don'ts about link exchange.

Do's:

1) Do include a link to your website in your forum posts, signature of your E-Mails, in your comments on blogs etc. but make sure your forum posts and comments are useful and relevant thus not considered as spam.

2) Do keep monitoring on a regular basis who's linking to your website. Make sure bad websites are not linking to you, otherwise it may drop your search engine ranking significantly. Some webmasters remove your links from their page after some time. Check your back links timely.

3) Do make sure you have a related links page where you can put links to related sites ( sites you're linking to). Also, link to most of your pages from your home page and make sure there is a sitemap of your website.

4) Do exchange links with sites which offer similar content as yours is. But make sure they are not your competitor.

5) Do add a link / submit your website to the largest general purpose directory on the internet : open directory project :DMOZ ( www.dmoz.org ), which feeds many other smaller directories.

6) Do link to the website first with whom you are asking for link exchange. Send your request in a brief, specific way. Tell them where you want them to put your link. Do not send follow up requests, one is enough.

7) Do make sure your link is published on a page whose PR (Page Rank) is 3 or higher, and the total number of links on that page must not exceed 40. Your best links will be from sites which have lots of incoming quality links and small number of outgoing links.

Don'ts:

1) Do not submit your website to Free-For-All directories (FFA directories). Such directories are easily ignored by search engines and are considered as spam.

2) Do not rely on / ever use automatic submissions. Submit your website manually, it is more efficient and more result oriented.

3) Do not use the term "Click Here" for your Links / Link Exchange. Use a text that describes the content of your webpage in as descriptive way as possible. One good example is using "SEO Services, Tutorials, Tips and Tricks" instead of using "Click Here" if your website's content is about SEO.

4) Do not exchange links with un-related websites. It can boost the number of links / clicks, but your customers will not come from these websites.

5) Do not put a link to your competitor on your website, it could cost you potential buyers buying from their site instead of yours if you're selling similar products.

6) Do not Join programs like Paid-to-surf-, Paid-to-click, or any traffic/link exchange programs to promote your website. Search Engines have very sophisticated detection system to detect these programs.

7) Do not be accidentally involved in back link spamming, by putting links to your website everywhere on the internet forums/newsgroups. It can ultimately lead to getting your website banned / deleted from the listings. 100 quality links are far better than 1000 links coming from non-quality pages.

Author: Amit Panishap, Web Designer / Developer

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amit_Panishap

lin: i like this article. He honastly give you his opinion about what to decide when put up Exchange link with other website. Regret that i did not have his website links so that i can learn more from this author.

Free Blogger Template from Finalsense

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:25:00 +0000

Accidentally drop by to one of the blogger in this Virtual world then i saw the designer of her template...

Yahooooo another free blogger template and it really pleasant to see.. nice template.

Check this out!!! Finalsense Free Blogger Template

Hmmm why this few days i always got a nice link offering free blogger template.. may be its a sign says that i must change my template as well.. emmm later ok...some other time i will change according to my own style...

Of course it will takes me some time to understand the workaround of Blogspot coding...i did tried one but it did not work..i will try more next time...;)

Blogspot did not Offer 3 Columns Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:19:00 +0000

When i start using this blogspot last year, i comparing my blog with the rest pioneer user. They have such a lovely and professional layout design and when i look at free template that google offer, there is none 3 columns that i able to customize it.

For a start i learn to customize my blog using tips that i have learnt from this Guy, Thanking him so much for the knowledge 'Old Wisdom New Knowledge'.

Then, just recently discover another link there a few actually, offering a free template to download. Here is a few sites that have excellent templates:

I tried one design, but gush it is not as easy as you think. I feel like i am totaly a NEWBIE in this world. ARghhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Better stick with this old template for a while until im totally comfy and understand with the codes ...urgh..

Surfing to Look For Photoshop Brush

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:06:00 +0000

Its been a while i've never ever touch Photoshop since i start working in I.T Company. Trying to find what is the best and fancy looking brush, then i Stumbled Upon to this website giving a Free Download Hi-Res Photoshop Flower Brush.

I am so amaze. The Flower brush looks so detail. Can't wait to try it. Click this link and judge your self.

Google Webmaster Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Below is my reference for adding either my blog or website to tools and index it to High Traffic.

1. Index your Website/blog to google

Submit your Website/blog to google index so that whenever people searching for info/keywords your website will be listed in the Google search engine Result. Please custom your website properly especially in Meta Tag, Description and title of your website. This will help your SEO ranking in google index.
Click this link >> Submit your URL to Google

2. Instant adds in your google and increase fast Traffic

Create your own targeted ads or website using Adwords. With Credit Card Payment, you can see your ads/website HIGHLIGHTED on Google Today. Successfull affiliate will use this option to publish their website. I also have earn few by joining a number of affiliate in the internet. This is a fast move and be aware that you must be really expert to put up a less modal but earn a lot from it.
Click this link >> Google Adwords

3. Google Keywords Tools

This will give you an ideas what website you need to create and keywords to put in your website. This also help you to put in your Meta Tag and list down your website contents. This tools. will list down all the keywords that being search in google search engine.
Click this link >> Google Adwords Keyword Tools

4. Google Traffic Estimator
Get quick traffic estimates for new keywords without adding them to an account or using the AdWords sign-up wizard. This is a more precise Google Adwords tools to help to estimate the traffic and the pricing. This tools is design to help you to better budget your pay ads per day.

This also can assist you to identify keywords pricing. Will give you the ideas if you are aiming high payment from your Google Adsense.
Click this link >> Traffic Estimator

5. Google Trends Labs
Google Trends helps to analyzes a ratio of Google web search and to compute how many searches have been done. It also show what hot Keywords being search in the Google Search engine.
Click this link >> Google Trends

6. Google Adsense
Google Adsense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money from it. Free Membership.
Click this link >> Google Adsense

7. Search Count for Keywords

Overture tools will assist you to count how many the require keyword being search in the internet. This will give you some ideas on identifying your PPC ads, or SEO your website. This is not a form of Google Tools. I just list it down here for my own reference as a webmaster. (Note: Sometime link will be down on and off. Just try your luck if it available.

Click this link >> Overture Tools

8. SEO Tools

This is my favorite SEO Tools Website. I will use this tools whenever i want to check Others High Ranking Website in Google. To learn and compare how they put up their Description, Meta Tag and contents. Please also read the article inside the website. I almost have all the article downloaded to my pc.
Click this link >> PageRank Search - SEO Tools, Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization

Author:
Lynxee - Ebook Review and Free Useful Article

The 5 Biggest Mistakes of Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:53:00 +0000

Your business needs a website. Here's a quick primer on how not to screw it up.

Anyone who faces the challenge of having a website built faces a very daunting task, indeed. You know your business needs a web site, or perhaps you need to rebuild what you've already got. Getting is right is a delicate balance of business objectives, usability for the web, and search engine promotion. Getting it wrong is what this article is designed to help you avoid.

Here are the five biggest mistakes you must avoid.

1. Not establishing objectives

Without a thorough plan to kick things off, what are you building? It's kind of like showing up at the airport one day and saying, "I'm going on a vacation." Where are you going? Where will you stay when you get there? How long will you go for? Can you afford it? Did you ask your boss for the time off? Did you shut off the oven?

To start, figure out what you want the benefits of your website to be. Forget about the bells and whistles required to make it happen; that's the job of your web designer. Establish what you want your website do for your business. Some examples: generate leads, sell your products/services right on the website, reduce administrative tasks, brand your company, pre-qualify prospects, recruit employees - the things a website can do for your company are virtually limitless. Establish your objectives and ensure that you and your web designer understand them fully.

2. Ignoring your customers

We're talking about your messaging here. It's so easy to write your content from an internal perspective. What you want to say, what you think is compelling, what you think matters. What about your customers? Don't forget that you need to convince them to do business with you. The key to writing good, customer-centric content is to understand the "why". Why should your customers buy from you? You might think you know, but a good dose of objective research will uncover the truth. Capitalize on your unique selling proposition from the perspective of how it benefits your customers.

You will also need to use proper web style in your writing. Your content should be well organized, highly scannable, easy to digest, and to the point. If you can organize it in a "pyramid" style, even better. This is where the most important, compelling information is presented first, and deeper information follows (such as technical specifications). Depending on your strengths this may be difficult for you to produce, so you may consider hiring a professional writer or copywriter.

3. Forgetting the marketing

There is an old Kevin Costner baseball movie that has an analogy that is so clichéd I simply cannot bring myself to repeat it. In the realm of baseball and the afterlife it may be true, but in the world of the web, it sure ain't. When your website is built, it is an island; and a deserted one at that. Your customers don't know about it and neither do the search engines. You need to tell them. You need to market your website.

Getting your website noticed by the right people is key. You're not actually marketing to search engines here. Search engines are simply a means to an end. You need to market to your customers. You must understand that your customers use different online methods to find what you sell; and this most likely includes search engines.

You may also consider newsletter advertising, email advertising, PR campaigns, social networking, etc. The exact approach you need to take depends on your objectives, how your target audience looks for what you sell, your budget, your industry, etc.

4. Not measuring the results

So, how did you do? You built a great web site and marketed the heck out of it. How many people came to your site? How many became leads? How many leads did you turn into customers? How much were they worth? What content did your visitors like and not like? {Insert your own redundant questions here}

Just like any marketing venture, you must measure the results in order to find out if it was successful. I'm talking about things like:

A tracking plan. Your leads might call you instead of buying online or using your contact form. You need a plan to track them, and how they found you. If you're running offline marketing campaigns, setup a separate domain name, create a unique web page, or use a separate 800 number. Online forms specific to a marketing campaign can be really useful as well.

Statistics and reporting. Good statistics can tell you a lot about how people use your website. Google Analytics is a wonderful package, easy to install, and totally free. More than this, you need to understand the numbers, and draw conclusions. This takes quite a lot of practice and understanding. A professional web design or marketing company can help you with this.

Adapt. Use your results, don't just read them. This will invariably require consulting with an expert again, but you need to act on your results to improve them. This is an on-going process. Forever.

5. Getting Paralyzed

A lot of web design projects never see the light of day because they get mired down in perpetual planning. There comes a time when you need to act. You won't get it perfect the first time out (or ever), but you've got to move. If you aim, re-aim and re-aim forever, you'll never actually get off a shot. Aim - shoot - repeat.

A quick caveat: I'm not telling you to put up a poorly written and poorly constructed web site just to have something; that can be very dangerous. A bad website can turn customers away and, even worse, have them poison your business through negative word of mouth. What I am telling you to do is to not get paralyzed trying to perfect your plan. Hiring the right team of experts can get you on track, and get things moving.

Hopefully this article helps steer you away from the most common (and dangerous) pitfalls of web design. Whether you hire a professional, create your site internally, or do it on your own from start to finish, keep these tips in mind.

In Summary

By avoiding these five common mistakes you can ensure that your website has a fighting chance. Let this article serve as a map so you can avoid, at a minimum, some of the bigger and more costly detours.

About the Author

Robin Eldred is the president of Apis Design, a Calgary Web Design company. Apis specializes in strategically building and marketing eye-catching, user-focused websites that make clients money. They build websites that work.

Resources taken from : http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=877841

The Psychological Effects of Colors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:02:00 +0000

The choice of colors on your website is vital to making your visitors feel welcome and increasing conversion rates. As Dr. Morton indicates in The Power of Color, people base 60% of their decision regarding whether they will accept or reject a particular object on its color alone. Different colors have different implications for different markets. It's important to remember that simply because you perceive a color to mean something, people on the other side of the world will not necessarily interpret the same color in the same way. Understanding your website's market is the key to choosing the right colors.

For example, red and yellow both act in similar ways on most Western visitors. Red speeds up the pulse and can give an impression that time is running out. This can make your buyers feel pressured which may lead to "shopping cart abandonment". Yellow tends to speed up metabolism and can make people feel frustrated and uneasy. Of all the colors, yellow is also the most fatiguing to the eye. Consequently, it should be used very sparingly in your website or promotional materials. If you are encouraging a consumer to purchase your product or sign up for one of your services, the last thing you want to do is make them feel rushed.

Colors also have unique social and spiritual connotations for different regions. However, not all members of a particular region are susceptible to color stimulation. For example, a Hindu is likely to associate red with purity and weddings. Unfortunately, you don't have the luxury of knowing the religious or cultural background of each person who visits your website. Similarly, some individuals will view the color blue very positively, and others may associate green with Islam or Islamic products. Japanese or Chinese visitors will often associate white with death and mourning.

One of the first things you should do when determining colors for your website is to decide what colors go best with your particular product. Start with a large selection of colors, and then narrow it down by factoring in your market age, gender (men generally prefer cool colors, whereas women prefer hot colors) and geographical location. This may prove to be a difficult task.

However, you can use the following general guideline when choosing the most important colors:

· Black & Deep Red - sophistication & class

· White - purity (death for Eastern visitors - offset with reds or hot colors)

· Red - strength or power (can anger visitors or appear unsophisticated, offset with a neutral)

· Blue, Green, Turquoise - calm, nature, peace (Green connotes Islam for Hindus)

· Yellow - attracts attention & focuses the eye (too much can be devastating so use very sparingly)

· Pink - love, romance, passion

· Purple - dignity, nobility (accepted by Catholics, but many cultures find this color offensive)

· Brown - confidence and comfort

· Orange - food images, promotes hunger

· Gray - neutral color acceptable for almost any market

Studies have shown that the manner in which certain colors are combined often has the greatest effect on an individual. For example, although Chinese and Japanese visitors associate white with the concept of death, the color gains positive connotations when paired with red. Remember to fine-tune your color selection after careful consideration of your market. Also keep in mind that too many colors or conflicting colors can make your web page very visually distracting. This means visitors may take longer to read your page. You run the risk of convincing them to click on to another more visually appealing site.

Colors play a very significant role in affecting the mood of your website's visitors. Therefore, you need to pay careful attention to the colors you choose when designing your online pages. In general, blue, white, gray and yellow used in moderation are effective colors for attracting a Western audience. If your goal is to attract many non-Western individuals, choose pinks, yellows and hot colors which tend to convey prosperity and passion. Avoid purple, as most international visitors will not only find this color discomforting, but also threatening. Make sure you paint the intended picture for your audience by choosing a palette of suitable colors!

Michael Ehlert, Creator of the Rev Up Your Web Business system, is an industry leader in showing you how to generate more profits from your website. Get 50+ Ways to Promote Your Business and Generate Quality Traffic here: http://www.RevUpYourWebBusiness.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Ehlert

Top Tips for Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:16:00 +0000

Design is never straight forward and web design has the additional unpredictable complication of technology thrown in. This means that you need to consider the consequences of your design decisions and how it will effect the most important people who see your site, the users themselves. The following tips should help you consider this and have a positive effect on your site and its users.

1. Navigation & Functionality

You should never sacrifice overall functionality for artistic extravagance. It is highly unlikely your site will ever achieve its purpose if the people who visit it cannot clearly and easily navigate around it.

Your site should look good but first and foremost consider how someone who knows nothing about the site would think when they landed there.

Something occurring in website frequently these days is Mystery Meat Navigation. This is a term coined by Vincent Flanders and it is used to describe site where navigation structures are so obscure and difficult to process that users cannot identify them at all and end up running there mouse across whole sections of a screen just to identify hyperlinks.

2. Images

People say images are worth a 1000 words and in web design that's true in 2 ways. Firstly an image can do a lot more than text in some situation but secondly they are much, much bigger files with a higher download time.

It is widely accepted users will click away from a page that takes longer than 5-10 seconds to load and every time you put an image in a page you are increasing the likelihood of this happening. Additionally each image you imbed into a page design activates an additional HTTP request to your server so dividing an image into smaller ones or using lots of small images across a page does not solve the problem.

ALT tags should also be factored into the code of a website. They are a huge help to people who have either images turned off in a browse, mobile broswers that can't read the images or a random error preventing the image from showing. They also hold a small SEO benefit.

3. Tables

It is advised that you use CSS and not tables to format a document but in some cases tables can be necessary. Remember one thing however, a table cannot be displayed until it has fully loaded. This can potentially cause a huge problem for users as they wait for the page to load, nothing appears then out of nowhere the whole page is done. Someone is much more likely to click away when nothing is loading than when they can see progress. 4. Fonts

Don't design sites to use fonts only you have, chances are they will be converted into some dull font and ruin the effect you were trying to achieve. Save special fonts for specific headers and convert them to images. Make the rest of your site in standard fonts so that as many browsers as possible will see it in the way you meant it to be. Recommended fonts for high scale compatibility are Arial, Verdana, Courier, Tahoma and Helvetica.

5. Plug-Ins

Plug-ins hold a lot of potential for both users and designers but it can easily be misused and misguided.

Plug-ins have a many forms and uses, the most popular being Java and Flash Player. I have heard a lot of people say that these plug-ins are "safe" and that everyone has them but this is simply not true. Every plug-in has a stack of different versions and connects differently depending on the browser the user is surfing with.

Think if your users will really want to browse to other sites to download a plug-in, restart the browser then navigate back. If the answer is no use other tricks at your disposal to make your page unique and save the big guns that are Flash and Java for times where it is essential.

6. Tags

The "tags" I am referring to hear are meta keywords and description, title, alt and h1 tags. Together these tags help manage your sites search engine optimisation (SEO) potential and this is defiantly something not to overlook. Helping people find your site will bring more traffic in and more conversion if you are a retail site.

The higher search engines rank you the more traffic will filter down and the more successful your site will be. Try to keep a constant theme running through all your tags but do so in a subtle way. Splashing the same word 1000 times on your page will only have negative effects so make sure you strike the correct balance between informative and spammy.

7. Browsers

In a perfect world everyone would use the same browser and your website would look the same on everyone's screen but unfortunately this is not the case. Every browser has its own specific functions and styles and learning to make you code cooperate with both can present some serious problems.

The three you really need to concern yourself with are Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. These make up a good 95% of the browser market at the very least and while there are some additional popular browser I would not recommend you spend time optimising code for the rest.

The only thing you can do is do your best and stay away from browser specific functions, you'll never make someone get a new browser.

8. Pop Ups

Something that is very important to remember is that the user should be in control of their browser and desktop. Do not place unnecessary pop ups and window opening links everywhere and the user will feel they have lost control of the site, become annoyed and close the windows.

There are some exceptions to using the (_blank) attribute but I would steer clear whenever possible.

9. Text Layout

Text is part of your design to and positioning it correctly on the page is very important. Try to get all the copy you need as early in the design process as possible. This means you will be able to design around the copy instead of trying to cram it into smaller spaces because someone wrote twice as much copy as they said they were going to. Use the right alignment for the right situation, remember 99% of people will prefer left align and while justified look aesthetically better it can be very difficult to read in longer bouts.

10. Site Search

In this day and age finding what you want on a website in paramount. After you have followed the first tip on navigation you should also provide a search bar on your site so that a visitor who cannot immediately see what they are looking for can search. Many internet studies have seen the success of these smaller additions to your site and free ones are available from Google and many other SE operators.

Conclusion

Taking these 10 tips into account will help you design a more user-friendly and successful website, sometime it may seem like they are hindering your grand design but failing to take notice may result in your site being a very pretty stop sign for browsers. Just because you can find your way around your Flash menu system that takes 6 minutes to load doesn't mean Mrs Smith who needs the product can.

Frank Woodford is a professional copywriter who has a vast experience at producing design based articles. He has worked closely with many businesses over the years including Soula Web Design Nottingham, who keep a web design blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Frank_Woodford

Web Design Tips for Gift Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Gift websites can do very well during the holidays and even during the rest of the year if they simply follow the following tips on how to design their website. It really is quite intuitive because people who visit your site want to be able to find what they are looking for easily and buy it with no problems. If your site makes it difficult to do either of these two things then you will lose customers. So, when you are focusing on web design your concern should be how easy it is for customers and then everything else secondary.

Easy Interface
First of all, you want to make sure the interface is easy to interact with. Don’t use any fonts or colors that are difficult to read and make sure everything is spelled out in a very clear way. Use a traditional design so customers will arrive at your website and know what to do. Don’t get creative and place icons in places where customers won’t anticipate them. It’s ok to use a traditional interface your customers will be familiar and comfortable with because that means they will be able to make purchases easier. Going for creative interfaces will in many cases lose you customers. Keep that in mind.

Gift Groupings
Now, when people are searching for Christmas gifts or even Christmas gift ideas they want to be able to differentiate between the people they are buying gifts for. So, have an icon that is specifically for Christmas gifts for boys, another that is specifically for Christmas gifts for girls, and so on and so forth. This will make it easy for anyone looking for specific Christmas gifts and they will love that your website makes it so easy. Christmas is a stressful time for many and if your website reduces the stress then all the better.

Fast and Secure Checkout
If you finalize your website with a fast and secure checkout that does not ask for any unnecessary information or make customers go through unnecessary steps then you will have some lifelong customers as a result. People love shopping online because it is easy and fast, in most cases, and if your website design makes it even easier and faster then you are guaranteed to get a lot of sales this season. Keep in mind as well that if you offer free shipping or reduced rate shipping on the gifts you sell that customers will love your site even more and be more willing to shop with you!

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. when people are searching for Christmas gifts or even Christmas gift ideas they want to be able to differentiate between the people they are buying gifts for. So, have an icon that is specifically for Christmas gifts for boys, another that is specifically for Christmas gifts for girls, and so on and so forth.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Natalie_Aranda

9 Free Webmaster Tools You Can Fall In Love With

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:23:00 +0000

Webmasters and developers don't need a whole lot of money to spend on tools in order to work efficiently and be productive. Here is a list of free tools that help me run my everyday webmaster chores.

Notepad++

Dreamweaver and such designing tools might have become very advanced in the recent years but I am still far from satisfied with them. I prefer to do the coding with a simple text editor and be in total control of the code and not end up with unnecessarily long code. Recently I discovered Notepad++ which has the few bells and whistles that are desired by hard core programmers such as code highlighting, Regular Expression Search/Replace support, capability to extend functionality with plugins and nice depository of contributed ones. Worth your attention.

Filezilla

If you are like me and don't use WYSIWYG editors to do your HTML/CSS designs then you are probably need or are already using a standalone FTP client to upload/download files to and from your server. Filezilla is a free tool that I have been using for some time and has not failed me. New version 3 has lots of new features, if you are FTPing stuff often maybe you should check it out.

Xampp

XAMPP is an apache server distribution that integrates php, mysql, phpmyadmin and a bunch of other great open source projects into an easy installation. It can be used on production servers to host one's sites but I mostly use it locally to code and test my html/css/php projects. Its easier to develop locally because there is no need to upload files on servers everytime, and only upload when your project is complete. It can be installed on Windows/Linux and lots of other platforms and if you are serious about developing you should get it installed in your computer and start playing with it.

Google Analytics

Google analytics is a free website statistics package that anyone can easily integrate into their website in a few minutes. Analytics once installed on your website it gathers data and presents you with reports about which sites your visitors come from, what country they live in, how long they stayed on your site, which pages were more popular and a whole lot of reports that you will likely not need another statistics package for you site. Those statistics are vital to the progress of any site in order to understand a site's audience and find things that might need to be improved. You can create as many analytics accounts as you like (unlimited number of sites) as long as your total pageviews don't exceed the monthly allowance of 5 million.

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is not only a great browser to surf with. Firefox was build with extensibility in mind and has given developers a way to extent its functionality with add-ons. Add-ons can enhance the capabilities of Firefox and enhance the browsing experience. There is a whole lot of add-ons in the Mozilla repository that can help you with task such as bookmarking, searching, social interaction, developing, news reading, downloading to name just a few categories. Some of the following favorite tools of mine are actually Mozilla Add-ons. Its definitely worth your attention.

SeoQuake

Seoquake is a Mozilla add-on that was created with the SEO professionals in mind. It will help you gather important statistics about a website or web page with the touch of a button. Such statistics include PageRank, indexed pages, Google backlinks, Cached date etc. One can also extend it/configure it to gather other important statistics from online services not already included in it.

Firebug

Firebug is yet another Mozilla Add-on; a webmaster tool that can help you understand and debug your javascripts. It has so many bells and whistles that I am thinking of devoting a whole article on it. I will just mention the features that I use myself; Inspecting and editing HTML and CSS on the fly, debugging and running javascript on the fly, monitor network activity but there are many others. Here is a video tutorial I recently found that will help you get started with firebug debugging

Gimp

Gimp is an open source image manipulation package that can help you with photo retouching, image composition, format conversion and animations among other things. Its not likely to replace adobe photoshop any time soon but its a free alternative that has found many followers and through its plugin architecture promises to built the only image manipulation tool you will ever need. Some of its features are presented in a way of a presentation but nothing can convince you better than to actually install it and try it on your own.

Drupal

Drupal is a content management system much like wordpress but a lot more extensible. Wordpress is a good CMS (content management system) for simple sites and even though it has many plugins to extend its capabilities I would not recommend building anything other than a blog with it. Drupal on the other hand was built in such a way to be extensible. A programmer digging in its code will appreciate its flexibility, code quality, and modular design and simplicity for writing a new module. Drupal is was build from the ground up a tool for building community sites, and as a result it has many features to support such sites but it is also capable for supporting standard websites. Its learning curve is quite steep but it pays off in the end. Worth more than a look from you.

Giorgos Kontopoulos is a web consultant from Greece. He is one of the authors of GeoLand.org where he can often be found blogging about issues related to web development and search engine optimization. This article on free webmaster tools was originally posted on GeoLand.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Giorgos_Kontopoulos

Free Blogger Templates

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:55:00 +0000

Here it is, i hardly can't wait to share it with you guys. Most Probably some of you already knew this website.. but i just recently discover this site while checking high paying keywords in google web search.

Ok no need to bla bla bla a lot.. hehe ...proceed click this link >> Eblog Templates

Darn Fonts – How Arial can Mess You Up

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:40:00 +0000

By Louis Crowe

Those darn fonts can be hard to get right!

We spend more time reading at work than almost anything else… so you’d imagine we’d have got it right by now. Unfortunately not, the fonts and font sizes we use often conspire against us. They slow our reading and occasionally make us seem like fools.

“Darn”. That is very different to “dam”. Yet in Times New Roman, a default font, the r and the n actually touch creating what looks like an m. A yarn can become a yam, etc. A diplomatic incident was averted when someone pointed out that “the stupid dutch” was in fact written as “the stupid clutch”… but in Tahoma, font size 12, c l looks very like a d. There are lots of examples… would you prefer to be “torn in two ways” or “tom in two ways”? to have a clue or a due?

Font choice is critical for ease of reading. With the right font choice you will read faster, with less eye strain and greater concentration. Studies at ReadPal show that optimal formatting can double people’s reading speed. Yet people still write digital articles in Times New Roman. Presumably, this is because Microsoft has (criminally!) used this as a default font in their templates. Times New Roman reads very well when printed but on-screen the little tails it adds to letters, (known as serifs), are clunky and indistinct on-screen. No wonder we print out documents just to read them. So, if you are sending an article please use Tahoma, Verdana or even Arial, they are far superior on-screen and perform just as well when printed. With the proper font choices we could save many a forest from being made into paper. A serif font can look classier when printed – but use Garamond instead.

Font choice is especially important at small sizes. If you wish to condense a document you can diminish the font size or choose a font which takes up less space. E.g. You are printing out a book and you want a serif font, as they look more intellectual. However, you want to conserve the number of pages. Instead of reducing the font size of Times New Roman or Garamond making them illegible choose Perpetua instead. Some fonts come in ‘condensed’ forms, e.g. Arial, these have a similar height and overall shape but are thinner, (this is a free font). In some circumstances they can work well.

Anti-aliasing is a smoothing technique that makes characters look crisper on-screen. It is very helpful but doesn’t always work well, or sometimes at all, when the letter is just one pixel thick on your screen. So knowing the transition size from one to two pixels is important. In Tahoma this typically happens at font size 12, (with a normal screen). Below this the on-screen reading experience will be poor. Century Gothic and Courier are worse again. They are to be avoided unless you are making a B science-fiction film.

There are a lot of playful things you can do with fonts, (even free fonts). It amazes me how the spammers have not coped onto this. Instead of sending words filled with *s, with a little ingenuity, they could send properly written words that would just be read the ‘wrong’ way. For instance, sex is flagged by most anti-spamming software. Instead of se!*!! they could just write se><>

So to setup your life and for fast, efficient reading choose your font carefully.

Louis Crowe is a doctor, inventor and co-founder of ReadPal. ReadPal was started because of the frustration of reading on-screen. People would insist on writing in small, ugly fonts that slow down your reading speed and irritate your eyes. People would print documents just to read them!

ReadPal takes the web page, email or Word document you are reading and with a single click it re-presents the text in the best font, size and color for you. The full screen mode eliminates glare. You'll no longer print things out just to read them.

It includes AutoSkim for free. This removes unimportant words so you can skim faster. "The cat sat on the mat" becomes "cat sat mat"! Your brain can easily fill in the gaps. It can remove up to 50% of a document for you.

Make your life a little easier and download the FREE trial today. ReadPal.com

Teach Yourself CSS The Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:24:00 +0000

By Erich Bihlman

I taught myself HTML back in the mid-nineties and was proud of the fact that I was able to accomplish the design of fairly complex web pages with nothing more than a starter HTML book, an HTML reference book, and the knowledge I had stored in my head. But back in those days, we web designers had what looking back was a fairly limited amount of tools with which to work, and the quality (or lack thereof) of sites on the web was lackluster at best.

Fast-forward to today: The hand-coder has more powerful and intuitive software packages available that will still allow us "to get our hands dirty", which brings us to the purpose of this article. With the standardization of the much anticipated Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the late-nineties, the web design community has become familiar with a much more powerful and precise method of web page layout.

"But how is an old-time web coder supposed to learn CSS the easy way?!" Well, I say you should learn it the way I, and countless others, have:

1. Download the Firefox browser.

2. Install the Web Developer extension

3. Open one of your "old" HTML files

4. View the source, click the "Cleanup the page" button

5. Check the "replace FONT.....tags by CSS" box, then Refresh

Now you have a very neat and tidy piece of code, with all the CSS dirty work done for you! At this point you can copy & paste the resulting code and use it in your project and start figuring out what it's doing. I was amazed at how easily I was able to pick it up and start making changes on my own. When I wanted more information on a certain style it was a just a Google search away to many excellent CSS resources on the web. I find it much easier to learn CSS if I get to apply the modifications to the existing code that I've been working on, and I think you will too.

I hope you find this article helpful and if you follow these steps you should be able to add CSS to your web site design toolbox in no time!

About Author:

Erich Bihlman, of Bihlman Consulting - PC and Internet Tutoring and Website Design in Prescott, Arizona. http://www.bihlman.com For additional helpful articles visit http://www.bihlman.com/iqzone

How To Build a Popular Website According to Google

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 06:28:00 +0000

By Eric Mitchell

If you want to build a successful website, do the following things. According to an ex-employee of Google, this will work good. Always!

1. Add content
Add content, add content, add content. Before you even register your domain, you should have enough ideas to build 100 pages on your site. Start brainstorming and see what you can come up with in 10 minutes. If that's not enough to fill 50 pages, consider not building the site at all. Having lots of content is important.

2. A simple design is better
The text content should outweigh the html content. Stay away from heavy flash, java, javascript, etc. Don't add to much stuff like 'best viewed with'... Your website should be viewable with any browser. Keep it clean and professional.

3. Keep the pages small
Smaller is better. Keep it under 15k if you can. Your site should be fast loading, or people will leave. Speed is everything. Next to content, that is. Keeping it under 10k or 5k if you can. Difficult, but people love fast sites. Throw away all the trash on your pages.

4. Content length
Put a new page online every day of about 200 to 500 words. Go to the overture keyword suggester to find ideas of what to write about. Spell check your content. Search engines can do it, and so should you. If you have a blog, go for article-like posts as opposed to the personal diary kinds of posts.

5. Use keywords
Use your keywords in the following places: title, description tag, heading, url, once bold, once italic and once high on the page.

6. Link to other sites
Put 2 links to other, high ranking pages on your site. They should be relevant to the content of that page and use keywords as your link. Don't add every link that's requested. Check their relevance first.

7. Link to your own site
Put links from one page to other relevant pages on your own site. Again: use keywords as your link.

8. Submit your site
Submit your site to Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, Msn, Hotbot, etc. Then forget about that for 6 months. Also submit it to every single directory you can find. Do a check after 6 months and resubmit if you're not listed.

9. Log and track
Most hosts provide these. Don't use a lame graphic counter. Check where your visitors are coming from to find out what traffic methods work best for your site.

10. Write for people
People are not coming to your site for your content. They are coming for their content. Try to write as if you are writing to one specific person, such as a friend of yours who's interested in the same topic. Don't try to write for 'all of your visitors'.

11. Stay ahead
If you know that something big will come out in a few months, build a page about it now. It gives search engines time to index that page so they can feed it to the growing anticipating crowd.

12. Add more content
This is so important: keep adding content. Do this for a year and your site will be a top ranking website within one year. You could've been there now, if you started last year. So start now, so you'll be there next year. You'll thank yourself (and me) later.

About Author:
Eric Mitchell is an expert in building websites, search engine optimzation and making money online. He recently developed a free eCourse that will teach people on how to attract more traffic and how to make money from their websites. If you're interested in making your site more popular, go to Site-tips.com and sign up for the free eCourse.