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January 23, 2011 Choosing Your LookThere are, literally, millions upon millions of possibilities for how to make your website look so that it not only reflects you or your company, but offers the best experience to your visitors. This results in more visitors and more revenue for you. If you choose a look that is really neat but hard to read, you will alienate visitors and lose revenue. Here are some tips on what to do and not to do when it comes to website design. Background If this is a business blog or website, you want to go with a light background such as white. This always makes it easier to read black lettering. If you choose a dark background you run the risk of it being too dark for the reader to stick with for any length of time, as it's harder on the eyes to read white lettering than it is black. Also, choose background images carefully because they can slow down the site and make the text hard to read in some areas. Text Make sure your text is easy to read and does not conflict with the background of the site at all. Also, when creating text links, make those in colors that will stand out to a small degree, don't use a color that is too close to the text color because people will not be able to see the link very well. Lastly, keep the font to a size that is easy to read but not so big that it looks odd, 10pt or 12pt is about the size you want. Layout The first thing you need to remember about web design is that people are coming to your site for information and they do not want to spend time trying to figure out where the important stuff is located. Make the layout easy to use and follow. The more, shall we say, interesting, the layout of the site the harder it can be to figure where stuff is. Graphics Keep graphics to a minimum if you can. This, of course, does not apply to product images, as people will want to see those. You don't want a lot of unnecessary graphics clogging up the pages and you really want to stay far away from animated gif files. These are normally very poorly done and convey a sense that the site is run by an amateur.
December 12, 2010 Internet MarketingIf you are running a website and you are trying to make money at it, you may have done your fair share of Internet marketing. If you don't know what this means and you have a website up, you probably aren't making much money at it so, here is some basic information on Internet marketing as well as some different approaches you can use. Internet marketing is the same as normal marketing, it's just done on the web and not outside. You make use of well placed ads using programs such as Google Adsense to spread the word around about your website and what you have to offer. You can also design specific banners to place on different website to attract more attention. Social networking is the biggest craze, and a good one as well. This is a great way to spread your information out there and get others to do it as well. But, what if you have tried and are still using all of these methods but you still need to get the word out? Here are three out of the box ideas to market your website. 1) Cars - You can advertise your website on cars with decals, stickers and the like. You may have seen some normal cars driving around with these on them and they are a great way to spread the word around as you move around. 2) Library - You can place information up about your site on public notice boards in public libraries in your area as well as other areas if you know someone else who can do that for you. 3) Newspapers, both local and national - You can place ads in the announcement sections of many papers for very little money and there are people who scour these for information, which can generate a whole new group of people who may come to your site. While Internet marketing is a great way to get information about your website and what you are doing you can't just stop after a week or two. If you are running a site you need to make sure you are constantly updating the content on the site as well as promoting it all over the place. The more you tell people about the site, the more traffic you will get.
November 16, 2010 The Importance of AdsEvery time you go to a website these days you see a lot of ads all over the place and, while this may not have been part of the original intent of those who created the network for the net, it's here to stay. Making the most use of current technology without seeming overbearing is a key to successful Internet Marketing. Marketing is the art of targeting specific audiences with your product or service ads in a manner that will garnish you the best possible response for your efforts. Whatever you are selling you want to make sure it's targeted to the right people and that it is an ad which will catch their attention and spark their interest in your company. The firs thing you need to do is make sure your ad makes sense and is catchy either visually or based on its content. If you are going for a graphic ad, you want something that will stand out without being too gaudy and that actually makes sense to the reader. If you ad has nothing to do with your product at all, you may have wasted a lot of money and time. If you are going for a text ad you have a slight balancing act to perform. You want to get the most information across is a short amount of space so spend some time on exactly how you are wording the ad. Choose your words carefully to make sure you get the biggest impact you can in a small space. Most successful text based ads have a small graphic on them to get the readers attention. As for the frequency of the ads this is also rather tricky. If you ad appears too often on too many places you may begin to alienate potential customers. There's always that one ad you see everywhere you go and you just become so sick of seeing it that you hope you never hear of this company again. Target your ads to sites that actually have something to do with your company and your Internet marketing will be successful.
October 6, 2010 Got Blog?A blog, which is short for Web Log, is the hottest and most commonly used way to tell other people about yourself, something you are passionate about or a way to make some money online. Using various online, and free, systems, you can generate a pretty decent income using advertising, marketing and pay-per-click programs. Times are hard all over the place and it doesn't look like the economy is going to be recovering any time soon. Using a blog to make a little extra money on the side is a good idea but, what do you blog about and how do you get people to go to your site? Here are a few things you can do to get your blog noticed. • Advertise - this may actually cost a little money if you want to get your ads placed in programs like Google's Adsense. These types of ads generally only charge on a per-click basis so every time someone clicks on your ad, they go to your site. • Social Networking - using websites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg, you can join groups and make your own group and make posts telling people about your site with a link to the site. These are free and can reach out to hundreds of thousands of people each and every day. • Banner Exchange - you can contact other people with similar blogs to yours and exchange banner links or buttons. This way you are helping each other because every time someone goes to the other person's blog, they see your site banner. Regardless of what method you choose to use, and you should use all the free types you can, this will take some work. You may spend a few hours a day promoting your site to generate visitors. The more people you can get to your site, the better the potential you have for making money. Don't forget the most important thing about blogging, content! You have to constantly update your blog with new information otherwise people won't want to come to your site any more and you will stop making money off your blogging experience.
September 2, 2010 Corporate Identity Logo DesignWhat is Corporate Identity Logo Design?
August 17, 2010 What is ethical search engine optimization?Ethical search engine optimization refers to getting noticed by search engines 'without trickery'. The need to beat the competition has resulted in many webmasters finding ways to get to the top by whatever means possible. Whether these means can be called ethical search engine optimization is being hotly debated. Some in the industry question whether ethical search engine optimization is even possible. Some SEO service providers market themselves as offering ethical search engine optimization. These providers claim to use tried and proven ethical search engine optimization techniques and as such do not cross the line. Some major search engines such as Google and Yahoo will not index some web pages if they do not employ acceptable ethical search engine optimization practices. Websites that are found to not be using ethical search engine optimization are sometimes blacklisted. Those who employ ethical search engine optimization do not indulge in some of the following practices: keyword stuffing, writing articles that are irrelevant to the site, and using hidden text. The differentiation of ethical search engine optimization providers has given rise to new terms in the SEO industry. The most commonly used terms to identify ethical search engine optimization from their "unethical counterparts" are "white hat", and "black hat".
August 1, 2010 Why you should ask to see a website design portfolioA website design portfolio is package of completed websites done by and kept by a web designer. Today a website design portfolio can be kept electronically either on a website or can be obtained by requesting it from the web designer. A website design portfolio is important for many reasons and any good, experienced website designer will have one. Website designers keep their website design portfolio updated because this is the proof of their abilities in web design. If you ask a prospective designer to let you see their website design portfolio and they cannot produce one, ask yourself why not? Even a new designer should be able to produce a website design portfolio of sample sites completed. For a serious website designer, a website design portfolio is the selling point to new customers. If you are planning on getting a website or improving the one you have, ask the graphic/website designer to show you a website design portfolio of previous work. Not only will the contents of the website design portfolio highlight the person's skills, it may also give you ideas for your own site. It is your money and you have the right to see the website design portfolio before committing to employing someone to design your website.
July 20, 2010 The value of web design articlesIt may seem unimportant to the average web user, but web design articles have great value. Web design articles are important to web designers and webmasters. They need to read web design articles to keep ahead of the competition and know about new developments in the area of website design. Web design articles are important to business owners who want to go online as well. By reading web design articles they will learn what to look for when looking for a website designer. In addition, reading web design articles exposes business owners to information on what works and what does not work in web design. The knowledge gleamed from web design articles will stop business owners from making the mistakes of paying for bells and whistles that they do not need. Some web design articles highlight the main points to look for in a website. Some of these points include:
• how to make your site interactive with the use of forums, surveys • how to market your products or services
July 7, 2010 Pros and Cons - Google's AdsenseIf you are running a website for the purpose of making money, then you have definitely heard of Google Adsense. It's a program you join that allows you to place targeted ads on your website allowing you to get paid each time someone clicks on one of the ads from your website. It's a great set it and forget it moneymaking system but it's not all wine and roses. Normally, the set up for the system is really easy; you choose the size and shape of your ad block and then you place the code on your site. After a day or so the ads will begin to be based on the content of your site and you start making some money. That's really all the set up you ever need to do to get Adsense on your site. However, despite being really easy to set up and use, there are some drawbacks to the Google Adsense system. The first is the pay schedule. Sometimes, your first payment from the site can take up to two months to get to you. There are a lot of checks and balances Google runs on the Adsense program to ensure there is no cheating happening by the site owners. Another problem is that if you don't have a ton of traffic, you won't see a lot of money from this program, so don't think it's a get rich quick program. If anything, Google Adsense is a way to make enough to maybe make a car payment or something along those lines. While it is a passive income generator, meaning that you don't need to do much with it to make money, if you don't keep your site active and full of fresh information, your return will continually diminish. The last con to the Google Adsense program would be they way they track clicks. If someone who visits your site clicks on too many ads all the time, Google may think someone is trying to cheat the system and they may invalidate clicks from that IP which means you don't get the money for those clicks. This happens from time to time so, be prepared for it.
June 27, 2010 Blog this, blog thatBlogging - What It Is, What to Use, Why It's So Awesome Blogging is the current, and probably will be for a long time, "in" thing to do when making a website about, well, anything at all. Without further ado, let's talk about blogging. What It Is A Blog, which is a short way to way weblog, is a type of website, most likely run by a single person, in which they post about things going on in their life or on issues going on in society. Originally started as a way to express personal opinions, these have grown into powerful tools that can be used for almost any application at all. Many people use these as business platforms to sell items or promote things. If you have something to talk about, you can use a blog to spread it to the entire world. What to Use There are a few blog programs out there, well, program is not the right term, a blog is a website that consists on a lot of different files as well as a database to store all the information it uses. The most used right now is a blog called Word Press and it is pretty much the standard used by personal blogs, business blogs and just about anything else you can think of. Word Press is free to download and use and you can customize it just about any way you can imagine. Why It's So Awesome Blogs are awesome for a few reasons, the first being they are so incredibly easy to use. The setup for Word Press is 98% automatic and the 2% you have to do, are explained for you step by step and will take about 5 minutes. You can customize the blog any way you want from free themes to themes you pay for, which are much more professional and cooler looking and you can even design your own if you want. No matter what you want to say to the world, using a blog is one of the most effective, if not the most effective, and easy way to get it done.
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