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Tips For An Effective WebsiteSteve Lillo A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the new arena of Internet marketing and communications wants to have. Your website will often be a potential client’s first impression of you and your business. That being said, it is vitally important that your website represent you in a favorable manner. Your website is a component of your overall marketing strategy and should be reflective of your business and current marketing presentation. Just as your brochures and other print materials represent a level of quality and professionalism, your website should also represent that same level of quality and professionalism. As a point of comparison, you most likely wouldn’t have just anyone design your company’s marketing materials or for that matter, prepare your tax statements. Similarly, it is important that the person creating your website know how to effectively communicate both your message and style, and be able to create an effective experience for those visiting your site. What does it really take to have your website be successful, and what are some of the most important steps you can take to make that happen 1. If you intend to have a unique domain name for your website, you must first check to see if it is available. You can check to see if a domain name is currently registered at http://www.internic.net. 2. Set a budget for your website. It is important to know how much you can spend on your project. In considering costs, remember that a website is a complex matrix of text and images and a professional execution is very important. As a generalization, the larger your investment, the greater your return. In order to spread your investment over time, you can also grow and expand your website gradually. Don’t forget to include costs for promotion and advertising. 3. Determine the purpose for your website and the intended results. Does this purpose support the mission and vision for your company The number of options and variables that are possible in the design of a website are virtually endless. Without a clear idea of the purpose for your website, you may end up putting time, energy, and money into a project which doesn’t meet your needs. If you know in advance the results you intend to achieve, you will be better equipped to create a website which will achieve those results. 4. Consider the design and layout of your website. Is it easy to use Does it take too long to download Is it easy for Internet visitors to find information Does it meet the needs and expectations of your visitors Several smaller pages eliminating the need for scrolling are often more effective than one long page. If an Internet visitor doesn’t have a positive experience of your website, she/he probably won’t return, or won’t tell someone else about it. An effective website often creates a reason for the visitor to return. This reason can take the form of unique information that changes on a regular basis, interesting and useful resources, or a way for visitors to communicate with you or with each other. Use your website to build a relationship with your Internet audience. 5. Promote, promote, promote. No one will find your site if you don’t let them know about it. Your site must be posted to search engines such as Lycos, Yahoo, and Excite. There are approximately 20 to 30 main search engines and several hundred that are smaller or specialized. You can find an extensive list of website submission sites, services, and resources at http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Site_Announcement_and_Promotion/. Include your website address on all your marketing materials; business cards, and advertising; you can even paint your address on the side of a company vehicle. The idea is to have as many people see your site address, and thus your website. You may also consider hiring a publicist to help you get the word out. 6. If at all possible, begin your website now. The companies which have been on the Internet the longest are those which achieve results sooner. If you are in an industry which isn’t widely represented on the Internet yet, so much the better - you’ll be able to start off with a larger market share. Its estimated that there are about 200 million people using the internet with 75% of them in North America. Start your Internet presence today!
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Company When choosing a web hosting company there are a whole lot of different factors that should go into your decision making process. One of the biggest factors should be: Making The Business Case For Web Standards Through the explosive growth of the Web, companies have realized the benefit of building a strong online presence. By publishing a website to the Internet, companies are able to build their brand, market their products, support existing customers, release publicity pieces, and even take orders. Lost in the feverish pace of growth however, has been an eye on the effect that their current web-building practices have on the bottom line and the future of their online presence. Not only does the website content itself have an impact on the companys income but so does the way the site itself is created. TEN Tips For Your Web Site Home Page 1. Loading time:try to be below 20kbless number of imagesspecify height and width of imagesHtml with out errosWYSIWYG editors load up your html code. so try using text editor part of your html editors instead of visual editor Tips For An Effective Website A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the new arena of Internet marketing and communications wants to have. Your website will often be a potential client’s first impression of you and your business. That being said, it is vitally important that your website represent you in a favorable manner. Your website is a component of your overall marketing strategy and should be reflective of your business and current marketing presentation. Just as your brochures and other print materials represent a level of quality and professionalism, your website should also represent that same level of quality and professionalism. As a point of comparison, you most likely wouldn’t have just anyone design your company’s marketing materials or for that matter, prepare your tax statements. Similarly, it is important that the person creating your website know how to effectively communicate both your message and style, and be able to create an effective experience for those visiting your site. Are You A Bill Clinton Webmaster One of the most frequent questions I get asked about my ebook, Dont Get Banned BY The Search Engines, is whether I amended it to include post-Florida Google."Florida" is the code name that search engine optimizer wizards gave to a November, 2003, shakeup at Google that left many webmasters covering themselves up with makeshift fig leaves while dangling upside down above the proverbial crocodile moat. The Contrast And Similarities Between A Web Designer And Web Programmer The concept of web designing based on the nature and rapid growth of the Internet is nothing to boast of any more. This is because of the large number of web sites published to the Internet everyday, so as to showcase one’s presence and dominance on the World Wide Web. You may ask why this is so, well, the so simple answer is the rate at which technology is evolving. Determine Your Popularity On The Web "Mirror mirror on the wall, whos the fairest of them all" Im going to bet that its not you, um I mean, not your website. With all of the new websites popping up all over the place how do you know where you rank How popular is your site compared to the next one Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy – 4 Steps to More Sales Youve identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers The Secret Benefit Of Search Engine Optimisation: Increased Usability A higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they dont realise is that by optimising their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimise it for their site visitors. The Topic Of Your Website The first thing you will have to deal building your website has nothing to do with the web design itself, its me related to content writing but it must be defined and will effect the rest of your actions. So first of all you need to decide what the topic of your future website is. Topic is very closely connected to another web design issue: keywords. The keywords you select will depend upon the topic you have chosen. When thinking about website topic ask yourself a few questions: What is the goal of the site you are making What are you trying to achieve with your site. Specify a goal, preferably in one short sentence. Web Site Content Ideas for Webmasters Many years ago I began creating web sites that began as photo albums for friends and family and then turned into travel guides for trips I took to Jamaica , Napa Valley and the Black Hills of South Dakota.Soon I created web sites related to cars, dogs, and motorcycles.Later I was turned on to Googles Adsense program which allowed me to generate enough income from my hobby web sites that I could pay for the overhead costs.I found it challenging to come up with additional content and perform search engine optimization on my existing pages.Occasionally I would hit mental blocks and would have no new content I could add.Whenever this happens I try for the following to help me generate new and useful web site content and hopefully drive my Google Adsense revenue. How To Get A Site Online And Have It Making Money When building and getting a site online you have to think of a number of things. Some of these include the following: web page building for beginners 3 An inexperienced website builder must understand that free web hosting is a great way to get more than one site up and running quickly, and that www.articlecity.com is the fastest and easiest way to fill those sites with relevant material. For instance, my site at www.saquoyah.com has one hundred and sixty pages that were written by various authors and posted at ArticleCity by the writers. This arrangement fulfills five purposes to the satisfaction of everyone involved. First the writers of the articles get to help the readers and themselves by having links back to their websites. Second, ArticleCity gets many links to their index page and that in turn keeps their site in a top placement with search engines. Third, the little website owner saves an enormous amount of writing, yet gets his or her website full of pages that link back to their index page, so the search engines will place their site a little higher in placement. Fourth, the person doing a search gets to find a lot of points of view by various writers on the one subject they are poring over. Fifth, the search engines have more pages in their database for the searchers to look through. How To Choose A Website Designer Now that you have decided that it is time to create a website for your business there are many questions you must answer. One of the most important questions is "Who should create my website" Building Web Sites Using Web Templates Gone are the days when you had to rely on a web-designer to design your websites. New technologies with innovative ideas have brought out a new variant to this trend in the form of ready to use website templates. Why Arent You Using CGI The very name CGI used to send chills up my spine. For years I put it in the too-hard-basket. But like most things in life, CGI is not as scary as it seems. If you have a cgi directory on your website and you know how to FTP files, chances are you can have a CGI script up and running in less than 20 minutes. The Benefits Of Outsourcing The year 2005 is expected to be the year of "outsourcing". Tips to Maintain your Website to Keep Visitors Coming Back When you design a website you should create it so that your visitors are constantly coming back for more. In order for you to keep your visitors coming back you need to keep upwith maintaining your website, and offering things thatwill keep your visitors busy. Up the Sandbox! Go to any internet marketing forum you want these days and one of the topics is sure to be whether or not there is a "sandbox" at Google where new sites are forced to come and play for 3-6 months before joining the ranks of ranked and searched results. On the surface it would appear that this is so. New sites are typically taking a long time to get indexed and even longer to show up in the search results. So hence, the sandbox theory. Lets examine some possible reasons and more importantly, our reaction to it. Why Stock Photography is a Great Resource for Web Business A picture is worth a thousand words. |
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