Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Website Design

When designing or redesigning a website the most important part of the project happens before any graphics or code are created.

Start by determining the primary goals of your website. Are you using it to sell your products or services? Maybe it’s intended simply to advertise your offline business, provide support to your existing customers or build your company brand. Whatever the goals are, clearly defining them ahead of time will better guide you in the actual creation process.

Next, remember that first impressions mean everything. Your website design must be professional and portray the right image for your business. Most web surfers decide within seconds of reaching your main page if they will browse deeper into your site or click away to another. Studies have shown that this decision is usually made based on the appeal of the design rather than the text copy. This means that your site design has to grab their attention and convince them that you’re offering something of value fast.

Chances are you’re not a graphic designer or web coding guru, so how can you develop a professional design? We get asked this question a lot by potential clients at BanPro NET, especially from owners of home-based or new small businesses.

You basically have two options, hire a professional designer or firm to create your website or purchase a website template. Templates are pre-made designs that allow you to just add your text and product graphics. Templates have the advantage of being able to go live with your website quickly and usually for a very low cost, however they also have the disadvantage of being seen on numerous websites, so you won’t stand out from the crowd as well.

Either way, keep in mind that your website design is what most online visitors to your site are going to judge your company on, regardless of your industry, so it must be as professional as possible.

Web Design and Content

Web design comes in many shapes, forms and contents. It is the gift wrapping of your site, or your publishing package to share with viewers various products, services, or information.

Many aspects contribute to a great design. I like to compare a great design to a Porsche, or Lamborghini. For example, a great design, looks pleasing to the eyes, is nicely formatted, and just simply makes the reader want to dive right in, and drive it?

Although what would a Porsche be without an engine? Basically a pretty picture but quite incomplete. This is why Web Design Building is so multi-level.

The more overlooked aspect to a great design is the content it holds. Just like the Lamborghini looks great, the most important aspect is of course its engine. This engine is your content. Your content drives the reader, and most importantly the search engines too. Keywords and placement, is "key" when driving your site to the top, in the great world of Search Engine Optimization.

So what would great content be without a hot design? Pretty much, just a shell less little engine. This is why it is so important to fuse both nice design and relevant content with great keywords into your entire web site.

Simple Tools To Design Your Website

Why do some websites sell better than others? Do you need a marketing degree to create a website? Does design have much impact on sales?

You may not realize this but many of the successful internet marketing businesses realize that design, or layout of the website should be as much of a marketing decision as the ad copy. Why is that?

Web designers can do some amazing things with graphics and colors. You will also have a much more professional looking site when an expert applies his handiwork. However, it is very important to understand some of the key elements that smart marketers will make certain to appear (or NOT appear) on their highly profitable sites. If you are aware of these you may be able to select a designer who is knowledgeable in marketing as well as design.

COLOR:

Designs with a dramatic color can make compelling choices for setting a mood. But reading on a computer screen demands as much contrast as possible, otherwise the reader will develop vision fatigue. You do not want to irritate or tire your visitors in any way or they may leave, so be certain that the main body of your website copy is black writing on a white background - or as close to that ideal as possible.

Colors also change appearance on different monitors, so what looks cool and calm on one monitor may be bright and glaring on another. Simple works.

GRAPHICS:

Striking, bold graphics can be a real eye-catcher for visitors. Still, successful internet marketers are pretty much unanimous in stating that you should avoid flash graphics as much as possible. Again, they tend to tire visitors eyes or create a distraction from the written copy. Even if they are initially impressed by the work it may subconsciously annoy them. Simplicity is again the best way to go.

LAYOUT:

The first 'fold' of your site is similar to opening a tractional paper letter. If you remove a letter from an envelope that is folded in three, you will obviously view the top 'fold' first.

This fold is what individuals will see without scrolling down the page. It is CRUCIAL that important elements like descriptive headlines, your contact number, newsletter subscription form etc. all show in the first fold. Do NOT place banners here unless they are the main element of your business as you will be giving prime space to other websites and your customer (which you fought hard to get in the first place) will be gone just as quickly.

These are just some of the important elements you should be aware of when designing your site.

Web Site Design User Focus

It's important to understand what catches a user's eye first on a page, then second, etc. If you know this you can order your page elements accordingly.

There are several factors in what captures a users attention. These are size, contrast, movement and position.

This is obvious but a user will see a larger headline before a smaller one. This is why we use larger font sizes for higher impact. Making text bold or not has the same effect. Similarly, a large image will be seen before a headline so decide what you want to be seen first. If it's a headline before an image fade the image in after a few seconds.

Contrast is also a factor. If you have text on a white background and some is pale blue, some is black, the black text is read first. Order the sections on your page by setting the text colour for the desired level of contrast.

Movement grabs attention. If you want someone to notice something animation is a strong way to grab the user's focus. Add movement to text or images if you want themn to catch the eye. This can also work against you. Do not have animated ads on a page where you want the user to read your copy - they will get distracted.

Finally, positioning is important. The eye naturally focuses on the middle of the screen, not the top left. If you want something to be seen first, place it in the middle of the screen. Combine this with size and contrast to focus the user's attention where you want it.

Website Design Info Part 2

This is the second of eight articles about website design. Our discussion will deal with some of the issues which need to be considered when developing a new online presence. You may have already thought of some of these, but perhaps there are probably things which you haven't even considered.

In the last article, we gave some thought as to what the company wants to do with its online presence. This article discusses what kind of name the online business will have, or "What kind of 'dot' do I need."

The Company The Great American Widget Company is a manufacturer of widgets, that common household item that many find indespensible. Until now, however, Great American has been a 'brick and mortar' business. With the founder's son just out of college, he is looking forward to expanding the company's business on the Internet.

.com
.net
.org
.biz
.us
.tv

What's with all the dots! What kind of a 'dot' do I need?

Good question! First, let me say that if you're in business and wish to advertise your products or services on the Net, you must have your own domain name and a good hosting provider. Keep your domain name as simple and focused as possible.

A marketing maxim that if you're advertising to the general public, is that it is vitally important to present a simple, memorable message. Web addresses are no exception to this. A well-chosen domain name can be absolutely essential to your enterprise on the Internet. Some of the words used here may be new to you and sound "technical", but don't worry about it - just think of it as background material. And, as you get more familiar with the web, it all comes together.

Okay, that said, let's talk about the different types of domain names, and "Just what is a domain name?"

In simple terms, a domain name is a human-language equivalent of an address on the Internet. The text for the name is called the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. The URL for the ABC news organization is abc.com.

The name actually represents a number, or more correctly a series of numbers, roughly comparable to a telephone number. Like a telephone number, an Internet address is unique and no two are the same. And, like a telephone number, it serves to connect "callers" to one specific place on the Net.

There are advantages to using names instead of just the numbers alone. The most obvious is that people can more easily recognize and remember a meaningful word than a long string of numerals. The website abc.com is located at 199.181.132.250, which is the IP address for the site. That number is called an IP Address, meaning Internet Protocol address. Internet Protocol is a standard for network communications, which is used throughout Net.

Another, major advantage is that a domain can be moved to a new machine, where it will have a new number, but the name will remain the same. The DNS (Domain Name System) records are simply altered to reflect the change, and access to the domain continues unchanged.

An Internet domain may be the "home" for any number of things: web sites, mailboxes, files for downloading, even entire computer networks. You see domain names as part of practically every Internet address. In the e-mail address info @ US-Email-Service.com (a mailbox), the domain name is US-Email-Service.com. In the Web address http://www.yahoo.com (a web page), the domain name is Yahoo.com.

Occasionally, you will see the numeric address instead of the domain name. http://209.59.173.179/ is a perfectly serviceable address and it has the same function as http://US-Email-Service.com.

It is sometimes useful to match up a domain name with its IP Address, or vice-versa. This is commonly done with a utility called "dnslookup". There are many dnslookup "gateways" scattered around the Web.

Now we'll examine the name itself. Domain names have at least two parts, separated by a dot or period.

The part after the dot is called the Top Level Domain (TLD). The Top Level Domain serves to broadly categorize the name as to its type or purpose. Common TLDs include .com (commercial), .org (organization), .edu (educational institutions), .net (networks), .gov (U.S. government) and .mil (U.S. military).

Today, however, you can be a .net even if you are not a network. (MyCompany.net Sounds big and important, doesn't it?)

There are also hundreds of country TLDs, such as .us (USA), .fr (France), .de (Germany), etc. These are in more general use outside the US.

Additional "generic" TLDs (gTLDs) have been proposed and will probably come into general use by sometime in 1988. Domain names ending in .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom and possibly many others will become widespread on the Net. All this is due to the exponential growth of the Internet and the continued quest for meaningful names.

Addresses ending in .com are by far the most common at present; they're generally intended to be commercial in nature, although at present the .com TLD actually serves as a catch-all for virtually all domain names that don't fit the other, more specific TLDs.

The part of the domain name before the dot is the Second Level Domain (SLD). If you're registering a name, you have considerable freedom of choice in what this will be. So long as the name you choose does not already exist under the same TLD, and is not obviously a famous trademark owned by someone else, its registration is generally allowed. An SLD can contain up to 24 characters: letters, numbers and dashes are allowed.

Databases of domain records are maintained by InterNIC, the primary name registry on the Internet in the US, and by a variety of similar agencies throughout the world. Accessed through a utility program called WHOIS, these databases are easily accessed from throughout the Net. There are a number of sites that permit you to look up DNS information, the most common of which is www.whois.net.

Incidentally, you may do well to remember that your own domain registration will become a publicly-available WHOIS record. For instance, perhaps you have a phone number or e-mail address you'd rather not share with literally the entire world... The company that registers your domain name will usually offer a means to keep your information private.

If you are thinking about getting a domain name of your own, use the link below and see if it is available for you. Or you can try different combinations. And when you find the right one, you can register it right away so your neighbor doesn't get "your" name! You can check out names you like here.

Web Site Design Focus Focus Focus

When creating a web site design, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to be all things to all people. In reality, the key to a good web site design is focus, focus, focus.

We Don’t Need No Stink’n Distractions

It happens ever few weeks or so. I am sitting in front of the computer contemplating the meaning of life, i.e., why my numbers aren’t being picked in the California lottery. A frustrated person calls and wants to know why their site isn’t converting. Shaking myself from my revelry, I valiantly pull up their site and here is what I find.

A mess.

The front page is a mass of blinking this and floating that. In really nasty situations, there will be something like a banner telling me the weather conditions in some city.

As if I cared.

I don’t even look at the weather in San Diego. Okay, we don’t really have any, but that isn’t the point.

The point is a site must have focus to covert traffic into revenue. This is known as the rule of one. Every page of a site should focus on one subject, product, thing, picture or whatever is relevant to your site.

If you have a page devoted to disco shirts with huge lapels, then everything on the page should focus on disco shirts with huge lapels. Typically, such a page would consists of brief text describing the disco shirts, thumbnails of the shirts and prices. The page should not include disco cds for sale. The cds should get their own page.

Don’t believe me? Then let us kneel at the alter of Google. The Google Adsense program is designed to let you put Google advertisements on your site. To put the ads up, you simply copy and paste a script provided by Google. Once the site is republished, each page with script will show Google ads. If you look at each page, you will note the script produces different ads for different pages. Further, the ads on each page correspond to the subject matter on the page.

Why does Google do this? Because ads that are relevant to the focus of the page will be clicked more than ads that are not. Put another way, the Adsense program is designed to focus on a single subject matter. The rule of one rears its head again.

Are you seeing a trend here?

If your site isn’t converting well, analyze the pages to see if you are focusing on one topic. If you have a weather banner on your site, there better be a very, very good reason.

The Three S s of Website Design

Your audience is the main reason for building a website. Without someone to view the pictures, graphics, words and hundreds of pages of information, you might as well spend your time playing golf. With this in mind, your audience, customer base, targetted traffic, whatever you want to acknowledge them as, request you follow three simple rules when they visit your site. The designers three responsibilities are simplicity, speed and security.

Simplicity

In terms of navigation and style of the site, simplicity is the best way to go. If the information a visitor needs can only be found by clicking on three seperate links, then 9 out of 10 times they will go to a site that they can get the information by just one click. Navigation is extremely important because 1) everyone is not an expert internet user, 2) people want what they are looking for, five minutes ago and 3) everyone is not using DSL or cable.

In regards to simplicity, keep these tips in mind:

1. Make sure there is a link back to the homepage on virtually every page of the site.
2. Menus are highly useful in navigating a site with different sections. You will find menus to the top and bottom of most pages of a website.
3. When dealing with forms, it is best to have all the fields on one page, but in some cases, this is not possible. Viewers don't want to have to fill in three fields on three different pages.
4. A link to your most visited pages should be found on the index page. Trust me, your visitors will thank you for it.
5. Remember, not everyone is a genius so make sure links and buttons are not misleading and pretty much self explanatory.

Speed

Now, I love flash intros just as much as the next guy, but most internet users are still using a 56k modem so this means higher load times. Your index page should be designed with the idea of making a great first impression, but not so impressive that it takes three minutes to load over the phone line. Keep only the pictures and graphics that are most important to allow users to get there foot in the door. Remember this holds for all of the pages found on the site as well.

Security

Most of the internet websites designed today are built with the idea of selling a product or service. A customer will shop online with someone they feel safe with. This is how Amazon.com and the like have lasted so long. Their customers are confident that when they make a purchase, that there credit card information is safe. Therefore, they keep going back for more purchases.

If the url for the webpage where purchases are made does not contain "https:" or the link to verfiy that they are a secure site, then the customers who do the most online shopping will recognize the fact that the webpage is not secure and move on to a website that gives them the security they need. My advice is if you wish to sell products but don't want to spend a lot of money to set up a merchant account, then try vendors like Paypal or BidPay. If you do not wish to deal with a third party, then contact Verisign or Authorize.net.

Website Design Info Part 1

What Will My Site Do?

This is the first of eight articles about website design. Our discussion will deal with some of the issues which need to be considered when developing a new online presence. You may have already thought of some of these, but perhaps there are may be things which you haven't yet considered.

The Company

The Great American Widget Company is a manufacturer of widgets, that common household item that many find indispensable. Until now, however, Great American has been a 'brick and mortar' business. With the founder's son just out of college, he is looking forward to expanding the company's business on the Internet.

What is the new website expected to do?

Before doing anything else, before you even consider finding a hosting company, or a designer, or even before you register a domain name, or before putting pen to paper to begin writing content, take time to consider what the site will be about. Is your new site to be an eCommerce site, or will it be an online 'image' site that displays the image of your business?

Will you want to show an online catalog and take orders over the Internet, or just have prospective customers call you for more information? Will your customers be able to contact you only by email? (Not a good idea!) Will you accept credit cards online?

Will you have an online search for products or services? What keywords apply to your business and the way you wish to present it? Why are you better than the competition. What are your strongest virtues in your existing brick and mortar business?

How much money are you willing to spend on your Internet presence? Most assuredly, it will be more than you initially estimate.

Also, now is a good time to consider a budget - even a ballpark figure which you think you can afford on registering a domain, design and hosting. This budget can greatly affect what your site will be. For example, if you want an e-commerce enabled website, the costs will be much greater to develop and maintain than a straight HTML site.

Why a Website Design Speaks Volumes About Your Company

Whether a business has just got off the ground or has been established for years, start-up and long running companies are looking to the internet to expand their sales as well as service to customers. Many new websites are going up and with so many people opting to go with the cheapest route or the quickest design process, sometimes the quality of a website gets left behind. Lets face it, you wouldn't want a possible client coming into your office, looking around at a mess, so why would you send them to your virtual office looking like one?

People very often go to a companies website to get more information, it is allot easier and more convenient then calling them or writing them a letter. The first thing they see when they go to their site(that is, the first thing that pops into their heads) is either "wow, these guys are professional, I want to deal with them" or "there site is awful, how can they act professional if they do not look professional"(well that may not be everyone’s exact words, but you see what I am getting at). We all think this when we visit a website, haven't you ever felt a little bit easier or more relaxed when purchasing something off a site with a professional look? I bet you that if a site doesn't look professional then you won't even consider purchasing an item or using their service!

Another important aspect of a website is how long it takes to download. Allot of people say if it takes longer then 30 seconds to download then people will leave, this is true. I know that even on a DSL connection if a site is taking too long to download I will jump to another site. If your site doesn't download in at least 30-60 seconds for all users(dial up taking a little longer), then you need to re-design your site.

Your site must not only look good and download quick, it must work good. There is nothing worse then visiting a website with pages that haven't been created yet, script errors popping up and only half of the information seems to be there. This will definitely annoy anyone who is visiting your website, they probably won't come back for a while, if at all.

Another important aspect of a good website is allowing visitors to contact you in one way or another. A simple email address or contact form on a contact us page will do wonders. People like to know they can get in touch with you with just a simple click of the mouse. Make sure that there is a link to your contact us page on every page, including in your main navigation. This will give users a feeling of being close to you, as they can contact you at any time.

Use these tips as well as your own common sense and you will be well on your way to having a great Looking, Working & Downloading Website!

How to Design Website Which Google Likes

Are you going to design or redesign new website or thinking for it, then first read below given points, which google likes in a website, Google Information for Webmasters.

There are more than 80 factors of your website that are taken into consideration when determining the ranking of your website, Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site.

Basic principles:

1) Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."

2) Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

3) Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

4) Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Design and Content Guidelines

1) Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

2) Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

3) Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

4) Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

5) Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.

6) Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.

7) Check for broken links and correct HTML.

8) If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

9) Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Specific recommendations

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.

Don't send automated queries to Google.

Don't load pages with irrelevant words.

Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

For more details please visit below given links:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/index.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/bot.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html

Effective Website Design

In this era of ultra-sophisticated internet marketing and web design, there is no excuse for an e-business to suffer with an ineffective website. Whether your goal is to present a basic business website that briefly introduces and describes your company and product, or you endeavor to develop a fully-functioning cash-cow storefront, there is a wide array of design choices to cater to all of your needs. Your website should fit your business like a well-tailored Armani suit. It should reflect exactly who you are and at the same time, instill confidence in the potential buyer that your business is solid, stable and reliable.

Your website is only effective if it also quickly moves the user from visiting to inquiring to buying your product or service. It is possible to create your website in-house. But in order to achieve the crucial balance between the eye-catching graphics and copywriting needed to best represent your company, and the super-efficient communication and purchase processing needed to catch every sale possibility, a web-design professional is your most time efficient option.

A good webdevelopment firm can construct your entire website for you. Once you provide them with details about your business needs and website desires, they do the work in a much shorter time because they have already acquired an arsenal of expertise in the internet marketing field. Since time is always of the essence in business, a fast turn-around time is a major advantage.

If your website is already up and running, but not bringing the increased customers or profits hoped for, Internet Marketing professionals can update and streamline your site. In the quickly evolving world of internet marketing, new website products and services are appearing all of the time. A good internet marketing firm prides itself in knowing the most up-to-date and state-of-the-art products and processes. When a good internet marketing expert works their magic, you will see an almost immediate boost in the efficiency of your site to attract customers and keep them.

Ted Prodromou spent over 20 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular One. Today he's the owner of Valiss IT, an internet marketing firm that provides small business coaching and marketing help. He’s also a certified personal and professional coach.

Web Design Advice And Information

Most of us at times need advice on different aspects of life and the thought of obtaining a website can be quite a daunting task for many people. There are so many people offering cheap web design services, therefore how do you know who to choose and what to look for.

In reality you should be able to find some great deals out there due to the competitive nature of website design. You should be able to get a good looking, search engine friendly website built for between £50 and £100. The websites mentioned at the bottom of this article were designed and uploaded for under £50!

Where do you find these web designers, willing to build a website for this affordable price?

These are the places I would be looking:

internet search engines

yellow pages

asking family and friends

newspaper advertisements

shop window advertisements

internet auction websites such as ebay

When you have found a designer who is going to build your website, you need to find the content for your website, choose colours and graphics and think of the page titles for each page. The page titles could be the key phrases people are likely to search for in your product area or even better the niche phrases.

Once the website is built you then have to think about promoting your website. Building up your backward links is becoming increasingly important and will eventually lead to higher search engine positions and therefore more traffic to your website.

Writing articles like the one you are reading is also of value as people are able to use them for free on their website, thus creating you an additional backward link.

If you would like to earn a little extra money from the website you could try google adsense. These are ads that the search engine google will place on your website. When a visitor clicks on the ad you earn money.

Website Design Choosing Your Colors Wisely

Colors convey emotions and emotions heavily influence the decision-making process. Your choice of colors for your website should mirror the message and feeling you to hope to communicate to the viewer. Let's take a look at some colors and what they mean to you and your website.

Blue - the color of stability

Blue is a color of peace, harmony, tranquility, health, coolness, confidence, loyalty, conservatism, dependability and technology. Blue is a safe choice for most uses. It causes the brain to send off 11 chemical tranquilizers and is a wonderful calming color. It is a preferred color for corporate America, but avoid using blue when promoting food and cooking because blue suppresses appetite.


Negatives: Depression, coldness, obscenity, conservatism and winter

Red - the color of passion
Red is the color of passion, strength, energy, fire, love, excitement, speed, leadership and power. When using red in your website design it is best to us it as an accent color. This color does not usually work well with greens or purples of the same intensity, causing a vibrating effect on the eyes. It is a perfect color for 'Buy Now' or 'Click Here' buttons on Internet banners and websites as it attracts the eye.

Negatives: Danger, fire, blood, war, anger, stop, revolution, radicalism and aggression

Yellow - the color of ideas
Yellow can convey sunlight, joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, wealth (gold), summer and hope. It is the brightest color and intellectuals love yellow. It takes more chemicals in the eye to see the color yellow. Websites targeting older people should look at other colors as yellow can make them feel anxious or angry.

Negatives: Cowardice, illness, hazards, dishonesty and avarice

Green - the color of nature
A Big Oak favorite, as you can tell, green implies movement, nature, spring, fertility, youth, environment, money (US), good luck, safety and generosity. It is the most restful color for the human eye and it can improve vision. Green works well as an accent or secondary color. Use green to indicate safety when advertising products that may be considered dangerous, such as medicines. Olive green, one of the greens on our site, is the traditional color of peace.

Negatives: Inexperience, envy, misfortune, jealousy, illness and greed

Orange - the color of energy
As you can tell from our site, this is another of our favorite colors. Orange conveys creativity, confidence, balance, heat, enthusiasm, flamboyance and playfulness. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain, producing an invigorating effect, and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people. Orange is very effective for promoting food products and children's products such as toys.

Negatives: Warning, danger and cheapness

Purple - the color of nobility
Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Purple is associated with royalty. It symbolizes wisdom, dignity, independence, power, nobility, luxury and ambition. According to surveys, almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children prefer purple. Purple is a very rare color in nature leading people to consider it to be artificial.

Negatives: Cruelty, arrogance, mourning, profanity, exaggeration and confusion

Beige and Gray - the color of neutrality
As neutrals, they can be used in combination with almost all colors and still work well visually. Lighter hues of each make for good readability and backgrounds, but you must use hints of bright color or else you website can lose any visual pop or visual interest. Gray works well in office environments and promotes productivity and stimulates creativity.

Negatives: Apathy, dull, drab, monotonous, somber and smoky

Brown - the color of reliability
Solid, reliable brown is the color of earth and is abundant in nature. It implies simplicity, reliability, earthiness, comfort and durability. Be careful as brown can be perceived in much the same way as beige: dull and drab. Men are more apt to say brown is one of their favorite colors. Maroons go well with this color and speak to professionalism, like rich dark leather.

Negatives: dirty, drab, sad, boring and unwanted

Black - the color of sophistication
Black speaks to power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery and style. Black can make color burst from the web page, especiall if it is a bright color. It is a natural classic color and never goes out of style. Too much black can darken a mood and affect emotions very easily. When designing for a gallery of art or photography, a black or gray background can be used to make the other colors stand out.

Negatives: Death, unknown, fear, dark, sad, threatening, wicked, morbid and dangerous

The color of success
We take every part of our design process seriously and few things are as important as your choice of colors for your website. Colors have a larger impact on your viewers than any other part of the design and can affect your site's success. Color is immediate, emotional and memorable. If you have a website, try this simple test. Look at it for a few moments and write down the feelings and words that come to mind. If your colors aren't telling you the same story as your content it may be time to look at changing your color scheme.

Why Choose A Professional Web Designer

It seems that almost every Tom Dick and Harry do web design in one form or another. Everyone seems to know a friends' brother's son who can build websites for real cheap. Why choose to pay the sometimes high fees that web designers charge?

There's a right way to build websites and there's a wrong way to build them.

There are a number of considerations when building a website. The first is that the website being created is search engine friendly. I've seen some websites built in such a way that search engines couldn't see more than the home page. This results in a fraction of the traffic potential that would otherwise result for the website.

Professional or Mickey Mouse?

A poorly designed website reflects on the business that it is attached to. When your prospects visit a website that is poorly created, they will tend to project that first impression onto the rest of the services that your company has to offer. This can affect everything from how often you close sales to how much you can charge a client. In other words, it hurts your bottom line.

Anyone can create a simple web page. How many people can create a professional image?

What kind of recourse do you have?

If a high school kid is creating your website and something goes wrong or you spend months waiting for it only to find out you wouldn't want to use it anyway what can you do about it? When you choose a professional web design firm that can provide you with a list of satisfied customers, you can at least look to a track record you can count on.

You get what you pay for

If you pay someone to build a simple website for you that ends up turning customers off, how much has that website really cost you? Getting a professional looking website may be more costly up front but it will pay for itself many times over in the long run.

Communicate a consistent Business Image

By having your website created by a professional and having the content of that website written by a good business writer, you can have a powerful ally towards increase business sales and customer satisfaction. Choosing the right professional website designer can go a long way towards helping you achieve your business goals.

What to Ask Your Web Designer

If you need a web designer, but have no clue about the typical web design process, I am quite certain that you must be feeling a bit overwhelmed about what to expect. As web designers, we oftentimes have a myriad of roles to fill when working with their clients, but as the client, you always have a right to know the complete design process up front. Let’s talk a bit about what questions you may want to ask a potential design firm before they get started on your website.

1.) “How much is this going to cost?” Of course you want to know that! Be sure the designer gives you a consultation, which allows you a sneak preview on what they will be able to do for YOU. You want your designer to be personal with you, not general.

2.) Your designer needs to know the general PURPOSE of your site. What is your main goal? Who is your audience? Will there be interactivity, collaboration, or e-commerce on your website? You should ask the designer if he or she has the capabilities of designing a site that would suit your purpose and mission.

3.) Ask for a contract to review. Take a few days to look over the contract before signing.

4.) Does the designer ask you what YOU like? Your designer should ask you about your favorite colors on the web, what websites you do or don’t like, and why. Also they should make sure they discuss with you any features that you find unappealing and take note of your opinions.

5.) Who will own the copyrights to the finished product? Make sure you find out whether or not your designer takes full copyrights of the website. Many times designers will also want to use your website designs as part of their portfolio. They should let you know this in advance.

6.) Will your designer also host your site? Make sure you find out how your site will be published and which company will provide your hosting services. How often will you need to make hosting payments and when? Who will secure your domain name, and does this come with hosting?

These are all questions to consider when working with a web designer. As you become familiar with the person you are working with, it will become easier to detect his or her style, and be able to communicate effectively with them. As a designer, I can tell you that we wear many different hats and work with many different people on a daily basis…but as the client you will ALWAYS have a right to ask questions and expect reasonable answers. In your search for a trustworthy web designer, be sure to ask the questions above, and I’m certain you’ll locate the designer with the right answers for you.

Why You Should Use CSS

It seems more and more webmasters are using CSS for the design and layout of their sites rather than depending on tables and HTML mark up. As well as being more efficient in terms of page size and reusing CSS templates many webmasters believe that it also contributes towards search engine friendliness.

Jacob over at Blogging Pro has written an article based on his personal experiences and points out what he believes to make a better more search engine friendly site.

For a long time I have always loved using tables for site layout, but the general consensus is now that tables are bad for layout. I agree once you start nesting tables things start to get complicated and messy. All of this extra HTML in your page gets in the way of the real content that the search engines are after. If you separate design from content the search engines can just crawl the content and ignore the design.

Separating content from design also means that pages are much easier to update, rather than having to rewrite every page all you need do is alter the stylesheet. This saves you no end of time and saves you no end of bandwidth, the browser only has to pull down the stylesheet once if you use it for all of your pages. Not only have you saved on bandwidth costs but you have speeded up page loading, this is good for both your visitors and the many bots that crawl your site.

I have started to use CSS in more of my sites and I am going to use CSS solely on my next site which means learning about how CSS is used for layout. One of the sites that I have found useful is the Web Design Group where they have a guide to cascading style sheets. The site also includes lots of links to other CSS resources.

If you are not using CSS it would be well worth your time learning the CSS tags and their properties. Think of it as a future investment, the time you spend now will pay for itself in better search engine ranking, saved bandwidth and you will cut down on your maintenance and development time for your new sites.

Website Design Firm

Website design firms come in all shapes and sizes.

When choosing which firm you would like to build your website, there are many factors which you need to take into consideration.

There is no point having really nice looking website if no one can see it because it has poor optimisation.

Most web desgn firms will offer additional services such as optimisation, website promotion and may also submit your website to the search engines.

For me the website they have created for you should be fully optimised anyway and I would also expect the web design firm should submit the site to the search engines as a matter of course. It is always worth asking to make sure.

Once they have produced what hopefully is an outstanding website you then need to ask them if they would include a link to your homepage from their own website, preferably their homepage. Search engines these days take these backward links into consideration when they decide where to position your site in their results. As a general rule of thumb the more backward links you have the more visitors to your site you atre likely to have.

If you want to promote the website even further, google adwords is a favourite of mine. This is where you pay to be seen on the right hand side of the results in Google, in the sponsored search section.

Color and Web Design

Color is one of the most important but least understood elements of web design today. Whether they know it or not, visitors to a site respond to colors and other visual elements on the site on a psychological level. Color affects the emotion of the audience, and emotion drives decision-making. An intrigued visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site -- whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell products or services. If the colors are unsuitable, the eye will reject the site and your product may be rejected too, no matter how good it is. A well-considered color scheme is frequently the difference between an okay web site and a great web site. It can also make a site unusable if the scheme used is too outrageous and hard on the eye.

Keep it Simple. A color palette that uses three or fewer overall colors contributes to the clarity of a web page. The reader will be able to find information quicker on a simple site versus a complex site that may make them feel frustrated and lost.

Use White Space! This relates to the previous point of keeping it simple. There are a lot of sites with too much information cluttering up the screen. Your audience will have trouble searching for navigation and the information they need amongst a bunch of clutter. White space balances colors, lets the design breathe and can make a large site feel less complex. If a customer is not overwhelmed, they will stay at your site longer.

Be consistent. Color each element (i.e. links, menu items, instructions etc.) the same on each page so that your audience will instinctively know where to look for information.

Know Your Audience Designers need to know who the target audience before choosing a color scheme. Before you begin your design, you should ask yourself what colors the audience would find compelling and right for your product.

Different colors evoke different emotions in different cultures. This is important to keep in mind on the web if your site has an international audience. For example, in China red symbolizes happiness and good luck, in India it symbolizes purity and in South Africa it symbolizes mourning.

To complicate matters further, many colors have both positive and negative associations in the same culture. In North America, for example, black can symbolize death in some instances and formality in others.

Web Designers should also use different colors if their target audience is a specific gender or age. For example, bright, primary colors like red yellow and blue are great for kid’s sites, but if you are designing a site for an audience over fifty you may want to use desaturated, softer colors. Younger audiences also tolerate a black or dark background with lighter text better than an older audience.

In general terms, here are the meanings of a few basic colors: Red Energy, strength, passion, risk, fame, love, -top, take notice Blue Wisdom, protection, spiritual inspiration, calm, reassurance, gentleness, water, creativity,-Depth quality; large companies often use it for their logos. Yellow Sun, intelligence, logical imagination, social energy, cooperation, sunshine, joy, happiness, intellect, energy, cheerfulness Green Healing, monetary success, fertility, growth, personal goals, resurrection, renewal, youth, stability, freshness, nature-Plants and environmental awareness Grey Security, reliability, intelligence, dignity, maturity, conservative, practical

Temperatures of Colors Yes, colors have perceived temperatures! The perception of your site will be affected by your choice of warm or cool colors. Cool colors are water and sky colors like blue and purple; warm colors are on the opposite end of the color wheel: red, orange and yellow. The temperature of a color can affect how your message is perceived. Red text for the word SALE will be perceived as more vibrant and urgent than soft purple text.

If you have a calm and reassuring message you want to get across, (i.e. for a spa) color can affect the tone and mood. For this message, soft browns or deep green would be more calming than an orange or red.

The Importance of Contrast Contrast between colors on a web page can help draw attention to certain elements. Contrast between text and its background is a necessity for legibility. Dark text on a white background is more igible than orange text on a red background.

Different elements on your web page (i.e. the menu and body of the page) should also contrast or they will start to blend together. Contrast helps your audience distinguish between the different points on your site and therefore helps them feel less frustrated and gives them a more enjoyable experience when they visit your site.

Color Design Links

· Here is a link to a great primer on the color wheel and how colors combine http://www.colormatters.com

· Colorscemer at http://www.colorschemer.com is a great color tool. It helps you create color schemes, match colors and determine the color used in graphics.

· Colorimpact (http://www.colorimpact.com) a similar tool to colorschemer. Very useful!

Color is a powerful design tool. Strong reactions to color from the audience of a site can assist in such things as brand confidence, sales growth, and readership. The web designer must match the colors they choose to the message and image they want to get across to the web site's customer.

Website Design Color Me Blue

Chris, a new consulting client, asked me to help him increase sales on his affiliate marketing site.

As he was describing his site and the problem, I thought, "This is going to be a quick fix."

How wrong I was!

His site was excellent. Other than a few minor points, it followed all my basic rules for a successful affiliate marketing site.

The site was focused around a single theme in a profitable niche, with an excellent selection of high-priced, high-commission products.

Chris had gone the extra mile to have his site professionally designed, and it was simple, elegant and user-friendly, employing consistent navigation and a nifty database-driven search results system.

He was working directly with his merchant partners to create ad copy that offered his visitors the best possible deals.

And he was advertising in the pay-per-click search engines to drive tons of targeted traffic, and using hundreds of keyword listings with brilliantly worded titles and descriptions.

So, why on earth were his sales so low?

I knew I was picking at straws, but during our first session, I made a host of recommendations for improvement, which included:

- a domain name change
- a background color change
- reformatting the page table size
- rephrasing offers more positively
- adding relevant graphics and photos
- dropping poor performing merchants
- adding a newsletter
- adding new products
- redirecting non-buyers to additional offers

Chris implemented all my suggestions as well as a few of his own. After giving the new version a few weeks to prove itself, we scheduled our second teleconsulting session. I was anxious to hear how well the site was now performing.

You can appreciate my dismay when Chris told me that his sales had actually dropped!

Aargh!

I reviewed his site again, and it suddenly struck me... he should try blue links!

Why?

Because web design convention suggests that links should be blue, visited links purple and active links red. Although nothing written in stone about link color, I believe that those conventional colors should used whenever they compliment site design.

I'd changed my own site links, Sage-Hearts.com, from maroon to blue sometime before and noticed a nice conversion rate increase.

Sure enough, that WAS the answer to Chris' site problems...

His conversions increased 1100% almost overnight JUST by changing his link color to blue.

In addition to being underlined, people expect links to be blue, and in some cases visitors may have problems with sites that don't conform to their expectations.

With the average site visit lasting only about 8 seconds, we don't have time to waste confusing our visitors with basic site navigation. Use blue links if possible to keep your navigation instantly recognizable, unambiguous and consistent.

Becoming A Website Designer

The ability to create simple, attractive and functional web pages is a highly marketable skill. There is a huge and growing demand for websites and web content, especially for smaller organizations who often can’t afford to hire a full-service web design firm.

Readers often ask me whether it’s necessary to take expensive web design courses or to learn HTML right away to get started in this niche. Is there a cheaper way of learning these skills?

If I were in your shoes, my best investment would be to learn how to use a popular and well-supported website creation software package.

Notice that I said “popular and well-supported.” There are plenty of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) web page creators out there that allow you to cut-and-paste and drag-and-drop your way to create simple, effective websites.

For instance, you could check out programs such as the 123 WysiWyg HTML Editor at http://www.123wysiwyg.com

Mozilla Composer is an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) editor that allows you to create and edit web pages. Check it out at http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/

Easy Web Editor (http://www.easywebeditor.com/ ) is another low-cost option under $100.

Several Internet “gurus” have created their own software packages. Jim Edwards, for instance, is promoting his “mini site creator” (http://www.minisitecreator.com ) program right now on the web and through affiliates.

Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as ww.godaddy.com offer their own easy website creation tools. These are fine if you if are a hobbyist or small business owner, and only want to create simple websites for your own use. But if you want to become a professional website designer, and eventually offer your skills and services to other small business owners, you will have to be able to create more sophisticated sites, with more flexible designs and features.

So the key questions you have to ask are, “Am I using a program a professional would use? Will it be around five years from now?”

Years ago I chose Microsoft’s FrontPage WYSISYG website editor. I knew that I would not be able to learn all the features the program had right away, but could create simple web sites for my business using the basics, then learn more, a little bit at a time.

I also figured that Microsoft was going to be around for a while, and that webpage creation was an area of business they would want to compete in. So FrontPage would be well-supported for years with new versions, technical support, user forums, etc.

That has all been true. However, FrontPage reportedly has its quirks in the way it generates HTML code. Today, the best software package that I keep hearing about in the WYSIWYG category – and one used by professional website designers as well -- is a program called Dreamweaver, by Macromedia.

There are Dreamweaver versions available for both the Mac and the PC, which is important. If you learn the program on a PC, you’ll still be familiar with the same tools used by the Mac world, which is the dominant platform for the graphic arts community.

You can learn about Dreamweaver at: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/ There is even a free trial option, so you can sample the software. And no, I’m not earning any affiliate commissions by recommending this to you.

Dreamweaver will have far more features than you can possibly wrap your mind around at first. The trick is to use any tutorials included with the software, plus any free online tutorials (do a google search) and teach yourself how to create simple, clean web pages at first. Then you can gradually learn about other features, such as using tables, more complex formatting, etc.

From now on, as you surf the web, bookmark sites you like or designs you like, and keep them in a special folder as examples you’d like to model. There’s no faster or better way to learn than by modeling success.

Launch your freelance web design practice by building your own website with Dreamweaver. If you have Internet access, your Internet provider already gives you from 5-10 MB of web space as part of your subscription. So you can practice on your first website there, at no additional cost.

For an initial investment of $399, you can become an expert using a professional tool. Once you're confident enough, build your own business site, with your own domain name, and promote your services as a web designer. I recommend using www.godaddy.com to register your new company’s domain name and host your site. It can cost you less than $50 a year to do both.

You can get a professional-looking logo for your business for $25 from www.gotlogos.com What other business can you launch for under $500 that has the potential to earn tens of thousands of dollars per year?

And finally, purists and experts still suggest that you eventually become somewhat familiar with HTML, even if you use a WYSIWYG editor that hides all that HMTL code. Many professionals go in and "tweak" their web pages by hand, using HTML, to get exactly the look they want.

There are some free tutorials available to learn about HTML. Check out: A beginner's guide to HTML: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerP1.html And http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

The ability to create attractive, simple and functional web pages is a highly sought-after skill. Once you have created your own site showcasing a few examples of your work, your first prospects will probably be small businesses, consultants, and retail establishments in your area. Then, with experience, you can start doing work for larger companies. There’s another benefit, too. You can work for anyone, anywhere, anytime, around the world, from your comfort of your home office.

Why Content is King of Website Design

If there’s one thing that most web site developers can agree on, it’s this: content is king.

That’s not, of course, to say that good design doesn’t matter. It does. A good, clean design, which is easy to navigate and optimised for search engines is absolutely essential if you want your online business to be a success. When you get right down to it, though, visitors don’t come to your website to admire it. It’s content that brings them there, and it’s content that keeps them coming back for more. Or not, as the case may be.

Why website content matters

The content of your website is important for lots of different reasons. Here are just two of them:

1. It’s your content which persuades a visitor to become a customer. If your text content is persuasive entertaining and informative, you’ll find it that much easer to make a sale. If your content is poorly spelled, dull as ditchwater and reads like it was written by a four-year-old, your visitors won’t be able to leave fast enough. It’s that simple.

2. Search engines love fresh content. A site which has regular updates will rank higher than a website which is completely static (all other things being equal), which is a persuasive reason for keeping your content fresh.

So how do you get good content? Well, you have three basic choices:

Write your website content yourself

In an ideal world, everyone would do this. Let’s face it: there’s no one in the world who knows as much about your business as you do, and there’s no one more passionate about making it succeed as you are. Unfortunately, though, it’s not an ideal world. When your site is new, adding content is easy: you’re full of new ideas and new things to say, and you’ll have no problem dreaming up new content to add. It’s only after a few weeks, months or even years that it gets difficult: you don’t have the time, you don’t have the ideas, and, let’s be honest, you quite often won’t have the skill to write good content.

This point is crucial. It’s not just any old content that’s king: it has to be good content. Content that really draws the reader in, sells the benefits of your business, and makes the reader want to come back for more. Professional copywriters spend years learning how to do this: are you sure you can do it just as well?

Get your content from a free article bank

There are free article banks all over the web, and they’re all stocked full of free content which you can use on your website for free. This is a great idea, and many people use article banks to great effect. There are just two slight drawbacks, however. The first is that your content isn’t original. Anyone can use the same articles you’re using, and the really good articles will often appear on many websites at any one time. The second drawback is that in order to find content which is relevant to your site, you’ll often find yourself using articles written by your competitors – and being forced to put their URL and bio at the end of them.

Web Design for Ecommerce

Your website is your tool for showing the online community an image of your Drop Ship retail business. Whether or not your business succeeds depends heavily on your website. If your website design is user-friendly, more visitors will purchase your products or subscribe to your newsletter. This will ensure that you are not wasting the time and money you spent attracting visitors to your website. It does not pay to drive large amounts of traffic to your website and have 99% of them leave due to poor content and navigation.

When designing your website, it is important that you switch from your own profit-oriented perspective to the prospective customers’ perspective. First place yourself in your customers’ shoes. After which, you should take some time to sit down and plan how your website should look like.

Below I will describe the factors that contribute to a successful sales-optimized website for a Drop Ship business.

1) The critical components of your homepage.

- Your title tag. It should describe your website effectively and concisely. For search engine optimization purposes, it is necessary to include your main keywords in your title, without it being unnecessarily long. For example, a good title would be ‘Renaissance Oil Paintings ½ Abstract Oil Paintings’.

- Your headline. Being one of the first few elements of your homepage that captures the attention of the visitor, it should clearly and concisely state what benefit your website can offer to the visitor. For example, your headline can tell your visitors how to earn extra income, how to lead a healthier lifestyle or how to save them time or money. In short, it should offer a solution to their problems, or address their needs. The headline should be placed strategically right at the top center of the page. You can also use the italics or bold functions to draw attention to your headline.

Internet surfers are not known for their patience. That is why it is crucial to capture their attention during the first few seconds of their stay at your website. Your headline plays the most important role, as it is usually the first thing that visitors see. Research has shown that you have about ten seconds to fully capture the attention of the visitors and compel them to read on, before they leave your site.

- Your content body. In your main body of your homepage, you have to describe in further detail the benefits your website or your products can offer to your visitors. Note that you provide the benefits, and not the features of the products you are selling. This is the basis of effective marketing: you tell the customers what is in it for them. You must also give strong directions to action in your content body and tell them the steps they need to take in order to benefit most from your website. For example, you can include links like ‘Click here now to discover why our oil paintings are among the best in Europe’, or ‘Sign up for our free newsletter now to get the latest tips and guides on good gardening practices.’ Note that you have to be concise in your content body so that you can include the most attractive benefits near the top of the homepage, without the visitor having to scroll down.

- Your opt-in offer. Ask for your visitors’ names and email addresses in your opt-in offer box. Email marketing is central to the success of your Drop Ship business. First-time visitors who leave your website without buying anything have a chance of signing up for your free newsletter. This allows you to keep in contact with them and send them promotions in future, and your effort and money in attracting them to your website would not be wasted. This feature should be placed somewhere near the top left or top right of your homepage because of its importance.

2) Professional look/atmosphere. Your website must not be full of graphics, banners or flashing advertisements. These only serve to distract your visitors from your main product offers. You should avoid flash animation as well. When formatting your text, use only a single type of font like Times New Roman, and two different colors at most. Page backgrounds should preferably be white or plain, and not be patterned or fanciful.

Another important factor to keep in mind is to minimize the time that your webpage takes to load. Since visitors are normally very impatient, they are likely to leave if a page is slow to load, hence the need to exclude large graphics or animation which slow down your loading speed.

3) Good content. Most online retailers sell products in a niche they have expertise in or which they are passionate about. For visitors to be convinced of your authority in the niche, you need to establish yourself as an expert in that area by providing useful, reliable content. Customers tend to trust retailers with strong background knowledge as they can recommend the best products for the customers’ needs, or answer any queries well. Fly-by-night businesses, on the other hand, are just out to make money, and normally do not have the necessary expertise to earn the trust of customers. It is thus critical that you make a consistent effort to update your website regularly with the latest tips, resources or articles to serve your visitors well. At least even if visitors do not buy from your website on their first visit, they would continuously return to your website for useful information. After a period of time, when you have earned their trust, they would feel more compelled to buy your products. This form of marketing, which develops an online community, is a very cost-effective method as it costs next to nothing to supply the necessary information.

You can find free articles for reprint at: http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.ideamarketers.com, http://www.goarticles.com, http://www.freesticky.com, http://www.amazines.com.

If you would like to create a forum on your website, you can use this free forum software at http://www.phpbb.com. It is very easy to set up and only requires you to create a database with your web host, with some customization.

Of course, you can also go for the option of writing your own content on your website. When writing your content, remember to include your keywords evenly throughout the content for search engine optimization purposes.

4) Good navigation. This is another strong determinant of the success of your website. For a website to look ‘professional’, it has to be well organized into categories, and the pages must be linked to each other and to the homepage. Your navigation bars must be placed consistently at the same area on every page of your website. Navigation bars are most commonly placed on the left hand side of the page or at the top of the page. If you have numerous different categories on your navigation, it makes sense to place them on the left of the page. However, if you have only about five to seven options, you can place your navigation bars at the top of the page.

Use text links for your webpages on your navigation bars instead of graphic links. One factor that search engines like Google use to determine the relevance of your webpages is by the inclusion of keywords in the text links to that page.

It is also crucial that you name your navigation accurately and descriptively. Visitors would instantly know which link to click on to find what they want. If your website is cluttered with many obscure links, visitors would feel lost and leave your site immediately.

Organize your content well so that your visitors can navigate your site easily. They should be able to find what they want with the least number of clicks possible. Research has shown that for any extra click that visitors have to take to reach their goal, the number of visitors leaving your site can reach as high as 50%!

When deciding what to include in your navigation bar, first place yourself in your customers’ shoes. Think about what they would be most interested in when they visit your site, and place these links near the top of the page. Other links, which are secondary in importance for the visitor should be placed nearer the bottom of the page.

5) The standard pages. Like every other online business, your Drop Ship business website should also include some important pages that serve the customer.

- Testimonials. This page is considered as a ‘must-have’ for many online businesses. When you display the testimonials of other customers on your website, your credibility is established. Testimonials are like votes or ratings for your business that shows the real value of what you offer. The better the comments from customers, the better your website would appear to prospective customers. You can choose to place a separate testimonials page, or you can select a few of the best testimonials and place them on your homepage.

- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). After you have described your benefits in detail, visitors would still have several queries about your products. It is thus useful to create an FAQ page to write down the answers to what your customers are most likely to ask. When visitors have questions, they can simply visit your FAQ page, instead of sending you their queries by email. This saves you a lot of trouble for answering individual emails. Remember that most customers are not willing to make purchases when their doubts are still unanswered.

- Contact Us. Having this page boosts your reliability as a business. Remember to include your email address, mailing address and telephone numbers on this page.

- About Us. Describe what your team and your business aims to do.

- Privacy Policy. Customers value their privacy highly on the internet. When they submit their personal information like email address or mailing address on your website, fears about privacy may arise. You thus need to include a privacy policy to reassure your customers that their personal information will not be abused or given to any other third party. Remember to place links to your privacy policy on your order pages and also your opt-in offers.

HTML editors like Macromedia Dreamweaver are useful for those unfamiliar with HTML. Dreamweaver can be found at: http://www.macromedia.com/dreamweaver.

In conclusion, whether or not your website generates sales determines heavily on the design and navigation ease. You should definitely spend more time planning on your web design and navigation well before plunging into constructing it.

*You are welcome to reprint this article as long as you include the Author’s resource box with the article.

Do You Want To Save Time With Your Web Design

It starts off simply; a few HTML pages, a few hyperlinks, some affiliate links. Your mother is proud of her clever son. Then you install a forum, some more content, maybe consider using a Content Management System (CMS).

Before you know it, you have a monster on your hands. This monster is eating up your time and energy and money.

Here are a few tricks I've learned to save you time and money with your web design.

1. Avoid Windows servers, if you can.

I'll admit I've never used one. I've had too much trouble with Windows on the PC, to risk it on my web site. Most geeks favour Unix. It's been around longer, and is more stable. Web hosts offering Unix variants like Linux have always been cheaper. They also seem to offer a wider range of toys. I need SSI (Server Side Includes), SSH (secure Telnet), 10 MySQL databases, Cpanel, PHPMyAdmin and a UK IP number. And you can get this for $15 a month.

If you're in business for yourself, consider Unix/Linux. If you want to be a full-time employee, consider Windows/Microsoft. Many businesses use it, as it's compatible with their office software, they like that a major company supports it, and they distrust something that's free.

2. Server Side Includes are the poor man's CMS.

Each web page can be 'stitched' together using Server Side Includes (SSI). You can 'call' a header and footer HTML file, using SSI, in each web page. That way, you can make site-wide changes in an instant. For example, you can add Google Adsense to the top or bottom of your site immediately.

Dreamweaver (http://www.macromedia.com) can display SSI pages correctly. This is another reason, one of many, for its popularity as a HTML editor.

3. Which CMS to use?

A Content Management System is very handy if you have a community-based website, or want to let others add content to your site. It must have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) add-on. This means a novice can type in formatted HTML the same way he could a formatted Word document. He presses on-screen buttons to bold or underline words, and make hyperlinks.

Another keyword to look out for is HTMLArea. This means someone has made an addon to cause all 'textarea' form boxes to have word-processor-style buttons above them. This allows someone who doesn't know HTML to add it to your CMS. Saves YOU having to do it, and that is good [grin].

Many are free. I can't really recommend one at the moment, except perhaps Mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com). I've tried quite a few others, especially PHPNuke.

A CMS allows you to set up a website with professional features in a day. The downside is you can spend weeks customising it. You may find, as I did with PHPNuke, that it's unsecure, that it can behave eccentrically, and that essential third-party addons may not work properly.

A CMS is for geeks with time on their hands. I would dearly love to be able to point to one and say to the small businessman "Put your trust in this". I can't yet.

4. Put keywords in the HTML.

Fairly obvious, but webmasters don't go far enough. *Any* image name, ALT tag, form field, bolded word or hyperlink can have a keyword in it. So why not do it?

This is where someone who tweaks his HTML code by hand gains a great advantage. Newlines and double blank spaces are redundant in HTML. A large document can have thousands of these. They obfuscate your Search Engine Optimsation (SEO) efforts.

Use a text editor that can strip them out, like Editpad (http://www.editpadpro.com), or a HTML optimiser. Broken lines are not ideal either. Dreamweaver can 'break' a tag or keyword at an inappropriate place. Why make it hard for a search engine to promote your page? Strip out the junk, and put in the keywords.

5. Put at least 500 words of paragraphed text in.

If your web pages have the same header, footer, left side-bar, right side-bar, and only a small bit of text in the middle, you may suffer a duplicate content penalty. This means a search engine deems your site has duplicate pages. It considers it an attempt to spam its database, and so shoves it way down its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

If you can't write your own articles, get someone to do it for you at a freelance site like ScriptLance (http://www.scriptlance.com). You can get free articles at sites like EzineArticles (http://www.ezinearticles.com).

6. Offer people what THEY want, not what YOU think they should have.

This is most important. Before making a site, go for a walk in town. Sit down on a park bench, and try to figure out what people really want; not need, WANT. Then figure out how you can get in on that business with your site.

People want sex, drugs, gambling, money, a house, a car, good food, nice clothes, self esteem. The first three are disreputable. Promote them, and get cut off from sections of society.

It makes me laugh when I see pornographers saying 'it's just a business, I'm not doing any harm'. They're making money *because* their subject matter is taboo. Most people don't want to be associated with pornography or pornographers. Likewise, a bar owner isn't welcome everywhere, and casino bosses rub shoulders with the underworld.

If you ever want to be on the school board, or run for local office, keep away from dubious content.

Look at what people really want, AND which will make your family proud, and then proceed with gusto.

Good Web Design What Is It

There is unlimited possibilities when it comes to designing a website. Flash, Database, content management, Client Login, etc,etc. A question to ask yourself when deciding how to do your website is:

How can I most effectively present my information to my visitors

Of course there are several things to consider like budget but I feel that when talking strictly design it is important to put your visitors as first priority as they are the reason you are building the website.

# Flash - Flash I find is normally over done. It can do wonders to a site if used right, but it can also make a site look awful if not used correctly. To simply put it: If you have multimedia content on your website consider flash, if you don’t: stay away from it altogether. Flash is more time consuming to develop, and it can take away a lot of important aspects from your sites like Search Engine Optimization.

# Database - Adding a database back end to your site can be very useful if you are going to be storing a lot of data, or if you are going to be changing information often. If you are just simply putting a page with your contacts online, I wouldn’t recommend using a database backend, again for the time that it costs to develop and especially for the minor benefit that you will see. On the other hand if you are storing all of your products online and you need the ability to update/add/delete products often I wouldn’t recommend not using a database and some type of content management.

# Content Management - Content management is most likely used with a database back end in which you will have a control panel that you can use to “Manage Content”. Content that can be managed is anything and everything. Sample uses for Content Management are:

# Managing Products – Add new and delete/edit existing
# News/Journals – If you want the ability to constantly update your site with current news items or journals
# Page Layout - Some more advanced Content Management systems will all you to manage all aspects of your site from the layout to the colors!

Again I stress the importance of putting your visitors first. Although you might think it would be cool to have a flashy intro and design, your visitors might find it annoying and distracting.

Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep the following caption and author biography in tact with all hyperlinks.

How to Choose Web Design Company

Before deciding on which web design company to choose, you should first determine the main aim and purpose for your upcoming website. Once the aim and purpose have been identified, then only move on to choose a reliable web design company to develop your website.

The first step in your searching for a reliable web design company is to check the company's reputation. Simply make a survey or ask around in your local community as well as perform an online research to check if there's any negative comments about the web design company shall be fruitful. In addition, how long the web design company has been in business shall be taken into consideration.

Next, it is important to see the web design company's portfolio, view some samples of websites that the web design company has done. Viewing some of the company's previous work will be able to show you the quality of the end product that the company is able to produce.

Evaluate the web design company to see whether they have any experience in developing the type of web site that you want. The web design company should be able to understand the aim of your website and be able to provide a design that is able to suit your needs.

Optimized Web Page Template

I want to give you a free web page template that will be search engine friendly. Why?

Well, I assume you want your web page to come up as high as possible in search engines because that generates free traffic.

On the other hand, your page has to deliver value to your visitors. Most people on the web are not searching to buy something. They're surfing the web to find information to solve a problem or fill their needs. If your page delivers that, they'll be back.

Fortunately that is exactly what search engines want you to do. Their job is to present the best web pages possible to any search action. How do they do that?

Well, to be honest: I don't know! The only people who do know are the developers of search engine software. And there are a lot of experts on the web who try to find out how they do it. But that's a full time job and I don't have time for that.

The only thing I know is that search enines can't see what we see on a web page. Just go to any page and click 'View Source' in the menu of your browser. That's how they see a page. They spider it, analyze it and perform some arithmetics with it, way beyond my comprehension. But they can't read images or graphics or flash and they (still) have a lot of troubles with Javascript, dynamic generated pages, fancy menus and frames. Their software only does exactly what it is programmed to do. With millions and millions of pages on the web, they can't solve every possible situation. It's just a general approach.

So, if you make it easy for the engine software to spider and interpret your web pages, there's a big chance you come up high in their rankings. At least you have a big advantage. That's why I always use a simple HTML-editor. It does exactly what I put into my pages and it doesn't include extra coding. Right now I'm using AceHTML Freeware, but I also like Arachnophilia a lot.

If the above is true, and I think it is, then your pages have to be as simple as possible. It should be a clean mixture between text and HTML tags, with lots of text and as few tags as possible.

Still, you have to include some techniques to satisfy the search engine software. There are a few point you have to keep in mind:

1. the name of a web page should alwasy be the main keyword of that page; don't mix keywords; instead write seperate pages for each keyword and link them;
2. always include the main keyword in the Title-tag; keep the Title limited to 7 or 8 words;
3. always include the Description and Keyword tags and use your main keyword here; although these tags are less and less important at the time of writing this article, you'll never know if that's going to change in future;
4. always use one H tag and include your main keyword in it;
5. always use one IMG tag and include your keyword in the ALT variable;
6. put your navigation and menu on the right side, so your text is investigated first;
7. try to use your main keyword in an anchor (A) text; I use a link at the bottom of every page to the top;
8. use your main keyword at the very beginning and at the end of your text; include some variatons like plurals; don't overdue this!

An excellent way to test if your web page is well designed is to use a free software program that analyzes your page. You can find this little gem at http://www.analog.com/

These are the main elements to create a good web page. If you click the link below you will see a page that contains this article and some extra comments. You can save that page (in the menu of your browser click 'Save As' and save it on your hard disk. Use the page as a template. Of course you have to include your own graphics, but don't overdo that.

Designing Beautiful Artist Websites 12 Tips To Showcase Your Art

1. Who needs an artists website?

Not everyone! If you are currently exhibiting in multiple high-end galleries and making a handsome income, a website may not be for you. In fact, it might actually work against you – some galleries may not like the perceived threat of you showing your work independently on the internet. Better to make use of your gallery’s websites.

On the other hand, any artist who can classify themselves as either “emerging” or “mid-career” will probably benefit from having their own website to promote their work. At this stage of your career it is important to be able to have a place where anyone in the world can easily access and view your work. It is also important that your work looks as wonderful as you know it is!

2. Who are you trying to impress?

Are you trying to engage a Soho gallery to sell your $20,000 paintings or sell $5 prints to children in Korea? “Art” encompasses a huge variety of media, audiences, and budgets, and you need to be very clear about who you are targeting with your site. That Soho gallery might not be impressed when they see your online-store selling prints and art cards – but on the other hand, you could make a very handsome living if you really knew how to market those art cards. If you want to have multiple marketing strategies, you might even need to think about more than one website and maybe using a non-de-plume.

3. How should your website fit in with your overall art marketing strategy?

This is maybe the most important question you will need to consider in developing a website presence. A website is not an end in itself – it is only really effective when it is part of a larger overall marketing strategy for your art. This would include old- style hard-copy portfolios, lots of in-person gallery visits and presentations, regular (physical) showings of your work, and developing relationships with the art world. An effectively planned website can greatly compliment and simplify your other marketing efforts.

4. Is there a real market for art on the internet?

There is art business transacting on the internet, although we have not been able to find reliable statistics on the level of sales or the segmentation of the market into sales of originals and reproductions. It is probably fair to say that well-known work from established artists will sell because this art has a known market-value. For emerging artists, the picture is more complex – there is something to the experience of an original work of art that can never be seen or felt on a computer screen.

The sale of reproductions is another issue – their lower cost makes them a less risky gamble for the customer especially if your website provides a satisfactory return policy.

One thing is for sure – it will be increasingly important to have a website presence as an artist as more buyers become comfortable with the internet.

5. Should I have my own website or should I simply use one of the many artist website portfolio services?

This is an excellent question. There are many great artists website portfolio services available online today. As an example, check out Absolute Arts (www.absolutearts.com) and Artspan (www.artspan.com). These services are really online galleries where for a variable fee you can upload images of your work together with bios, artist statements, resumes, etc. The advantage of this type of approach is that it is a “connector” site – meaning that a lot of people visit there including dealers, galleries, etc. That doesn’t mean that they will actually see your work as there are thousands of artists represented by these services – but there is a chance.

A great example of the value of this type of website was the jurying process for the 2005 Florence Biennale. Hundred of artists were selected simply because their work looked great and they had it available to see on these large connector sites. We think that this type of jury process will become more prevalent in the future as galleries and show curators become moresavvy with the internet.

The down side to these gallery-sites is that there is no flexibility to show your work they way you would like to and their selling fees are normally very high.

Remember the times you’ve been taken into the dimmer room in a commercial gallery? How that art which looked fairly good on the main gallery wall suddenly became something you had to take home under your arm? That is how a good website should showcase your work too. Choices of background color, layout, image size and quality, fonts, logos and text all combine to represent your work in the most beautiful way. That is what you can have with your own website – as well as complete control. Another advantage is that if you want to sell your work online it is much less expensive to do it from your own site.

For our art we use both website options and we find they compliment each other very nicely!

6. What do galleries and art dealers like to see when they look at an artist website?

Galleries have about as many views of how work should be showcased as there are stars in the sky. But the wonderful thing is that these skills and preferences have been developed through the process of really selling art. Don’t ever under-estimate the experience and skill required to do this consistently – at Beautiful Websites For Artists we take out hats off to good art salespeople.

There are, however, some common elements which most dealers and galleries would agree on which could be summarized as follows:

• Keep it simple and elegant • Keep the focus on the art itself • Don’t overpower the look of the art with a site that looks too busy • Be VERY careful of “Designerish” effects like flash movies. In the time it takes to play your exotic flash-based entry page, the gallery will have already moved on to look at the next artists website. • Everything you would have in a hard-copy portfolio should be there – bios, artist statements, resumes, etc as well as clear information on how to contact you by phone, email, fax, and snail-mail. • Be aware of the potential positive or negative reaction you might experience from selling reproductions of your work online. Some galleries will be impressed that you are obviously business-savvy enough to be able to sell your work in this way. Others might consider it a threat to any potential sales relationship they might have with you.

7. How can I showcase my work in the most beautiful way?

There is really no getting away from the fact that you need to have visual design skills to create a beautiful artist website. One of the main reasons we started Beautiful Websites For Artists was because we were tired of seeing so much beautiful art showcased so poorly on some of the ugliest websites you could hope to find!

That said, here are some basic thoughts:

• Keep the website simple and elegant • Keep the focus on the art itself • Structure the site into different galleries and sections to compliment the work – don’t put everything on a few pages. Think of a gallery with different exhibition and information spaces. • Choose a background color that compliments and does not overpower the work. Think of the colors you would use in a physical gallery to showcase your work – neutral colors like crèmes, whites and grays are normally safe. Black can also look surprisingly good – it has the effect of totally focusing the attention on the art itself • Lean towards a minimalist layout – a “busy” site design will normally detract from the work. • Choose fonts, logos to harmonize with the work • Copy should create the underlying feeling or environment for the site – it can create a sense of mystery or openness to compliment the feeling of the art. • Use high quality images from professionally photographed work – the “Garbage in – garbage out” principle applies here too!

8. How will customers and galleries find my website?

There are really three primary ways that someone would find your website. They could find you through a search engine like Google. Typically after your site has been up for a couple of months, search engines will find you easily if someone was to perform a search on your name.

Lets say however that your work is classified as “Southwestern Art” and someone did a search on that term. It is very unlikely that your site would be listed in the first few results pages because there are so many other sites in competition. Getting your work to show up in the top results of such a search will require optimization of the website for search engines during the design process AND a lot of work from you afterwards to link your site to as many possible relevant sites on the internet. This is a lot of effort – no matter what anyone tells you!

The next way that people will find your site is very simple – you will tell them! Example Phone Conversation with Gallery dealer:

Dealer (Bob): That sounds nice Michelle but I’m a very busy person. I’d prefer to take a look at your work before we arrange a meeting. Do you have a website I could look at?

Michelle: Well of course Bob, please check out my work at www.michelleartist.com.

Dealer (Bob): OK Michelle – let me just take a look. …….. Oh My gosh, what awesome work! I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m sending out a truck right away to come and pick up your work. Do you accept credit cards – I’d like to pay you $100,000 right away so that I don’t miss this chance. And would Tuesday at 12 noon be convenient for an interview with Art in America?

Well – we can dream! But you get the idea. This is actually the most powerful way we have found to make use of a website. If you think of your audience you are probably going to require a highly focused marketing campaign to a relatively small number of potential clients and partners.

Of course you might build your art career around selling thousands of reproductions – in which case understanding how to rank highly with search engines is important.

Another way to tell people website is to participate in online forums. There are a number of these – some specializing in art subjects. If you become visible in some of these forums people will check your website.

Email marketing is yet another way to tell people about your site. You can use mailing lists you have developed yourself, or you can purchase email mailing lists. In addition, Rich-Text emails allow you to showcase your work as beautifully designed images – just like a web-page.

The third primary way in which people will find your website is through on-line advertising. For example, if your art is minimalist and modern in style, a banner add on an interior design website focused on the same minimalist ethic could draw a lot of traffic to your site. Some artists have experienced considerable success in this way!

9. Do I need to be able to sell my work on the internet?

Another important question. It really depends on what you are selling. If you want to sell originals for thousands of dollars, our experience suggests that a buyer will probably want to see your work in-person, or have an existing relationship with you. In which case you could easily transact the sale over the phone.

On the other hand, if part of your business model is to sell inexpensive reproductions, you probably would want to have at least basic e-commerce capability on your site. That way, business can be transacted on the site regularly without you having to personally supervise each sale – you still need time to be an artist remember J

To some customers, the fact that you have an e-commerce capable website also signals that you are “real” and “a serious business”.

Some people still have issues with purchasing over the internet, but it is becoming a trusted buying environment.

10. Should I develop my own website or pay a designer?

It really depends. Some things to bear in mind:

• Do you have visual design skills/training? Be honest - Many great artists don’t J • When do you want the site ready (Next month or next year?) • How much of your artist-time can you afford to give up to develop the site and what is the $ value of that time? • Will you need to invest in new software or even a new computer to do the work? • Will you need to invest time and/or money in software training?

11. What should I look for in choosing a website-designer?

The most important thing here is to remember what you are trying to create – most likely you want a beautiful online gallery space to elegantly show your beautiful work – this is very different from building a high-volume website selling printer ink cartridges and paper rolls!

So, simply put, you should not be interested in technical jargon as much as the ability to design a space to present your work. You might also want to consider a designer proficient in both web and print-based design. That way, should you choose to, you can coordinate the look and feel of all your marketing materials – website, letterhead, brochures, etc.

Also be careful of some “high-end” designers. If you take a look at some websites from design firms, you will notice a lot of visual complexity and sometimes high- tech effects that can be cumbersome and slow. This will not showcase your art well as it draws attention to the design rather than the art!

There is no getting around it - you have to do your homework!

12. How much does a website cost to develop??

An art website could cost you anything from a few hundred dollars to many tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, the bigger design firms have larger overheads and will be significantly more expensive. On the other hand, Joe down the street can probably build you a website for $200 – but you probably don’t want that website J

At Beautiful Websites For Artists we have packages ranging from $500 to $2000 for simple elegant artists websites with different levels of functionality. We can also develop fully customized sites to your specifications with prices based on requirements.

In addition to development costs, you will need to pay monthly web-hosting and ecommerce fees that could range from less that $5/month for a simple sight to $100/month for a site with complex ecommerce functionality. Typically, the hosting cost for a typical site is between $5 and $25/month