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The only activity that should preface keyword research is the brainstorming you do to come up with list of potential themes for your web site. Think about things that you find interesting, are passionate about or that leverage your skills. Once this is done you are ready to find out which topic on your list will be the most profitable to pursue.

Keyword Research

Keyword Research will reveal answers to 3 critical questions:

1. Is there a demand for what your site offers? If not, you need to keep moving down your list until you find something that people are already looking for.

2. How are people searching for your topic? For example, if your theme is “Japanese food” how are people searching for information? Are they typing in “Japanese recipes”, “low sodium miso soup”, “history of Japanese food”, “Japanese food in NYC”, etc. This part of the search will allow you to build up good topics for your site pages and provide keywords that you will use to optimize your pages to become a search engine magnet.

3. How many sites will you be competing with – does demand outstrip supply or vice versa? Right now your job is to build huge lists of high-demand, low-competition keywords. Be thorough and exhaustive in looking for phrases that people might use to find your site.

You cannot cut corners at this stage of the process or your business will suffer. This can be slow, tedious work but fortunately there are some good tools to help you automate your keyword research and help find the most profitable keywords to build your content around. There are some good free tools to help you make light work of this including Search It! and Overture. More comprehensive tools that provide demand, supply and profitability data that help you find profitable niches include Brainstorm It! from Site Build It! and Wordtracker.

Keyword Optimization

You may have heard the terms “search engine optimization (SEO)”, “keyword optimization”, “page optimization”, etc. Basically, they all refer to the same thing – making sure your pages have the right amount of keywords, placed correctly, to effectively get your site “spidered” or found by the search engines, such as Google.

Repeating keywords throughout a site is just as important as choosing the right keywords. If you use the keywords too often the search engines will ignore them; if you don’t use them enough the search engines will not find and index them properly.

The main keyword, in our example “Japanese food”, should be used as part of the domain name and in the title tag of the HTML code for the page. It should also be used in the heading of the page where you tell visitors what the page is about. Also, most SEO experts agree that it is best to put your keyword in the first and last sentences of your page.

As for the body copy, there are some good rules-of-thumb that help you achieve the correct “keyword density” or keyword repetition. Many experts say you should use the 4% - 7% rule (approx. 25 words in a 500 word document). However, don’t use a single keyword over and over or your copy will seem forced. Instead, weave in some variations of the keyword (e.g. plural forms, synonyms) to ensure your content flows well and makes sense! Simply filling up a site with your keywords will not fool the search engines; rather, it may be considered spamming and your site can get banned!

Many people say that content is king, but in fact, it’s content that is keyword rich that is king. It is absolutely critical to find your best keywords and use them in the right way to attract targeted traffic. It takes some time and practice but if you persevere your web site will be built on a strong foundation.

If someone doesn’t know you personally, will they trust you enough to do business with you just by visiting your web site?

Most people view organizations - and web sites - they don’t know with great skepticism. Given all the identity theft and viruses running around, people are understandably cautious and somewhat skeptical when they go to a new web site.

What can you do?

Here are four tips on how to create a web site that builds trust:

1. Provide your contact information

You visitor wants to know that there is a real person somewhere behind your web site. Ideally, put a real person’s name, full postal address, e-mail, and telephone number. Some of your visitors will want to communicate with you. Make it easy for them to do so.

2. Post testimonials

You say: “Our web site is the greatest”.

Your customer says: “Yea, right.”

Every business toots its own horn, and most people don’t believe a word of it. But, when your customers sing your praises, it has much more credibility. Make sure that you ask your customers for short, specific testimonials. You can even ask a specific customer to speak of a particular experience with your company with which they were pleased. The more guidance you give folks in writing these the more helpful they will be to your viewers since they are looking for others who have had dealing with you like they may have.

Put these testimonials throughout your web site and include as much contact information about that customer as they will allow. Ideally you will want to put their picture, full name, and phone number or e-mail address; however clearing it with them first is always a must. And as mentioned in number 1 above, the more details you provide to show there is a real person behind that testimonial, the credibility to will have to your viewer.

3. Provide a guarantee

Who wants to get stuck making a bad purchase? Providing a guarantee helps put your potential customers at ease and makes buying from you that much more inviting. The longer and more iron-clad guarantees can’t be beat. If your competitors offer a 30 day guarantee with a restocking fee, why not offer a 60 day guarantee with no fees?

4. Be nice

For goodness sake, be nice to people! Your potential customers don’t know as much about your product or service as you do. They may ask what seem like dumb questions — many times. It’s ok. Answer them courtesly, honestly, and promptly – even if you are having one of those weeks! Let’s face it, you are desiring that they be willing to fork over some of their hard earned money to you so it is always to your advantage to entertain what may seem like the most outrageous inquiries.

When you create a web site, make sure that you follow these four tips to build trust. Building a genuine website is only half of the battle. Your website will attract folks to your business. But, building trust, confidence in your products and services, and, if you are lucky, a business relationship with a person will keep them coming back. And that is the whole idea!

Many of site owners still don’t realize all advantages of database driven web sites and don’t use all abilities they give. So when do you need a database driven web site and how it will make your web-life better?

What is a database driven web site?

Database driven web site is one that uses database for collecting and storing information. What information it can be? Various. Email addresses, contact info, clients list, products list, listings of real estate property, trade offers, images, and links, etc.

How does it work?

For example, you have a static HTML web site for your business with posted information about the company, products or services, clients, and there is contact form.

If you have strong HTML skills you update your site without problems each time you need it. Otherwise you hire a webmaster or use maintenance services of a web design company. You write info in text document, send it to your webmaster, he manually inserts it to the site.

You store your products, clients, and contacts info in Word or Excel files.

Probably you store emails that you receive from contact form in Word or Excel files. Is it handful and easy? Is there an alternative?

In the database driven web site all information is stored in table format of databases on the server, script generates pages that are showed on the site as usual HTML ones.

Usually database driven web sites have admin panel with user-friendly interface where you can manage the site content, i.e. add, edit, or delete info by yourself, create new pages or delete old ones. You can update your site easily each time you need it.

Requests sent form contact form can be saved in database for further use, you can edit them, group, and sort.

You can create pictures gallery on your site and update it easily.

You can have news box at your site and update it easily each time you need it.

Is it expensive?

No, if you order the site from a web design/development company that has good experience in database driven web sites design that means elaborated and tested development process, time and cost saving methods which give high-quality work within short timeline and at affordable price.

Ask your web design company do they make database driven web sites, if yes, look at the examples of such previous works, ask references of the customers – are they satisfied with their web sites? – and if the price is acceptable move forward to your new web site. Or search for another web development company using the same criteria for choice.

What else you should know?

Probably, you will need to change hosting plan or even hosting provider to host your new database driven web site. Usually there are such requirements for hosing:

· Must support PHP/MySQL or ASP/MSSQL
· At least 75-100 Mb of disk space
· Must have Database Client
· Must have Mail server

If you have some experience in web site design and want to make good money you can try acting as IT-outsourcing partner. Learn more what you should know and how to start.

Why offshore web design and development

Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 3-5 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $35-75; in UK - $25-50, in Ukraine - $5-20.

How it works?

Typical plan:

• You find a client who needs a web site, ask his/her requirements for the project and send to your offshore partner company.
• The partner makes a proposal and gives you the project estimation basing on his hourly rate, for example, $10.
• You mark up the rate $10/hour as high as you wish (and can - taking into consideration competition in your region, level of demand for web design services, and other marketing factors), for example to $30/hour, and sends the proposal to the client. So if the web design project is estimated on 50 man-hours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.
• The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work.
• You deliver the site to the customer.

Result - you have a satisfied client and good profit from the marked up price.

How to start?

The first and most important step is to analyze market in your region and decide if it’s worth to start this business.

If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc.

But don’t be afraid if you are new to web design business. Believe in yourself and work hard and finally you will be rewarded for all your efforts.

As in any type of business, starting the one in web design area, you must ask yourself general marketing questions:

1. Who will be your customers?
2. Why they will order the web design services exactly form you?
3. Where and how they will get to know about you?

Without having clear answers to these questions you shouldn’t try to start anything.

The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner – offshore web design company – that will work as “development center” for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. There are many resources in the Internet where you can find necessary information – search engines, web design directories, outsourcing portals.

For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases “offshore web design”, “offshore web site design”, “offshore web development” and analyze sites of your potential partners.

Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.

http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/

http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/

How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?

There are 2 main factors that determine your choice – cost and quality of web design work.

Cost

Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on man-hour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.

Then you decide which profit you want to have and narrow down your search choosing companies with appropriate price range.

Quality

Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication. Pay attention to payment policy and method, conditions of ready projects delivery, warranties, post-development support and maintenance.

If all details are agreed you may start partnership. Sometimes the first project is quite simple to test abilities of both parties and if everything is going well the partnership will bring mutual benefits.

When you start building your online business and search for a web design company that will implement all your needs for the web site you must understand that it is very serious step because you are entrusting your business along with its reputation and future.

That’s why it’s very important to make the right choice.

There are several factors that must define your choice, and one of them is portfolio of previous web design works the company has done. It can tell you more than all words and promises, just be attentive and try to analyze. I will tell you what you must pay attention to.

1) Presence of portfolio

Yes, it seems to be obvious that web design company must have own web site with portfolio of previous works. But don’t be astonished too much when you see one without it. There can be various reasons for this but I wouldn’t recommend you to tempt fate. Portfolio is like a “face” and it’s pride of web design company, it must be full, substantial, and routinely updated…and IT MUST BE!

2) Total number of works

This can tell you much however there is no standard number that will guarantee you are going to deal with web design guru. Yes, 50 successfully finished projects is better than 5, but their quality is also important. Compare the number with period of time during which the company operates in the market and calculate average number of projects per year, month, or week. Remember that average web site design takes 2-4 weeks to be finished.

What this information can give you? Firstly, you can see that the company has got enough expertise. Then this shows that it has stable flow of works, adjusted schedule of development process, and enough staff to perform it, so if you commit your web site design to the company you can be sure that the work won’t be for them like a bolt from the blue or well-paid but not feasible overloading.

3) Type of works

Look attentively at each work in the portfolio. How many projects are similar to the one you need by type of site, technology used, industry, and look and feel? At least 2-3? Good! More than 5? Excellent!! None? There can be a reason for this – owner didn’t want to make it published, or web site is no more live – so if all other works show professionalism and expertise, you should ask the company if they have ever done the task you need.

If you need any particular technology to be used for your web site implementation it’s more than necessary to see examples how the web design company worked with it.

However sometimes it happens if the technology is not common used and not very popular that the web design company hasn’t had chance to work with it for commercial purpose but it might be used for internal projects development, so you will loose nothing if ask the company to show you some examples if they exist.

If you need a web site for exact business, for example dating site or real estate site, it’s also better to view such previous works in the portfolio because there are can be specific features and it’s better to make sure that the web design company is experienced with them. Also some web design companies make demo packages that also can show you the abilities and experience.

4) Quality of works

Learn carefully each live site (or the ones which are similar to the site you need). How long does it take to load the site home page? A few seconds? Great, the web designer knows how to optimize images. A few minutes? It’s normal if this is a Flash site because usually the whole site is loaded at one time, not only the home page; or it’s a Flash intro which goes ahead entering the site and also can load longer because of movie and sound. But if a simple HTML web site loads more than 2-3 minutes and you can’t see all images or they are shown partially, you must be watchful. Check another HTML sites from the portfolio – if they are also loading for ages, it’s better to search for another web design company because this one is not professional.

All of the aforesaid is correct only if bandwidth of your Internet connection is normal and usually you don’t have problems with loading web sites.

Test the site for user-friendly navigation, pay attention to colors combination, and estimate general impression from the site - all this must reflect professional work. But sometimes a web design company is forced to design a site strictly according to the customer’s wishes, so if the customer lacks for good taste the site also looks tasteless. There can be one or two such sites in the portfolio, but not all!

5) Happy owners

Web design business is a highly competitive area and as in any business there are honest and dishonest players. Sometimes it happens that you see the same site in portfolio of two different web design companies and it’s difficult to find the truth to which of them the work really belongs. Some quirky companies place cheap templates in their portfolio with fake owners’ contact info.

That’s why it’s very important to know real references of real owners of the web sites the web design company has made. Ideally this info must be accessible on the web design company site under Portfolio, Testimonials, or Clients sections. Try to contact ALL of the persons listed there and compare their opinions. You may get to know some interesting facts.

6) Own site of web design company

And finally compare the own site of the web design company to web sites presented in its portfolio. Are they similar by quality, technology used, and overall feeling? If the works from the portfolio look much poorer than the own site this can mean that the own site was ordered from another web design company, more professional. Yes, it happens sometimes in web design business that start-up amateur company commits its web site design to “older” professionals. In such case you better to continue searching for another web design company.

So these 6 rules can help you to make the right choice. Don’t be afraid to spend longer time for search and analysis, finally you will only benefit by it getting perfect web site that will give new prospects to your business and make it more successful.

Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I’ve noticed some interesting things:

• My search engine rankings have dramatically improved
• My bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75%
• I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet.

Let’s look at why my search engine rankings improved. Now that I have less un-indexable code on my pages, the search engines can now spider my site quicker. Less code, more content, therefore a better ranking. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Bandwidth costs money, and unless you have a really good hosting plan with lots of bandwidth, then your larger files will take up more room on your server, and take a lot longer to load. Tableless designs use up considerably less bandwidth and are more accessible.

Every once in a while I may want to alter the look of my site. I like to change font colors, link colors, menu items, etc…Before I started using tableless designs, these changes took me hours to do. Now I just open up my stylesheet, make the changes I want, and in a few minutes I have my site updated with the new look and feel. It’s so easy!

For a client who wants to make their own changes, tableless designs could literally save them thousands on tech costs.

Most of my clients still want sites with tables. I now give them the choice of either style. After all, the customer needs to be happy, right?

Some people have the misconception that utilizing tableless designs means having a boring and less graphical site. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Take a look at one of my favorite websites: http://www.csszengarden.com/. At that site you can really appreciate what can be accomplished through css-based tableless designs. Beautiful!

So make the switch to a more profitable, usable, and accessible website!

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

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

Because Keywords and keyword phrases do a couple of things for you:

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

- You will rank higher in the search engines for your chosen keywords, saving you thousands of dollars in advertising.

It all starts, however, with the best keywords that pertain to your product or services.

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Along this same line, you can also use your website server logs to gather information on the keywords used to find your site.

Once you’ve made a list of the best keywords and keyword phrases, you will need to determine which ones are the best.

Your challenge is to find keywords that have a high usage count but appear on the least amount of competing web pages.

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

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

Do you make your website just to entertain yourself or do you want it to be a great web store? The fact is more than 80% of websites are trying to sell you something. There is nothing wrong if you want to get some money from the website you made, but remember to put some REALLY interesting information on your pages. This information must be free, unique and necessary to as many people as possible.

Remember, Internet was built as a research network among universities in early 80’s and only after the introduction of first graphic compatible browsers it exploded with the commercial websites. Search engine will definitely rank you higher for that free content and other webmasters will definitely create links to your website if it has useful and interesting information. The ratio should be 90% of free information and 10% of commercial content. You can only increase the percentage of free information.

There are also other reasons why to provide people with free information in the field you are making money: they will study, they will see that you know what you are talking about, and they will trust you! Excellent reputation is the main thing (the key to success) in doing Internet business. It must be built by years of hard work and could be destroyed in minutes.

What are the secrets of some commercial websites?

1) Content. As I have already said: free, unique and interesting.

2) Good design (website design must be clean and user-friendly, unprofessional design speaks for itself)

3) Search engine-friendly (Search engine optimization is complex set of knowledge on how to be number one in search engine listings)

4) Link building strategies ( for more information read this article: “The art of link exchange” http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/the_art_of_link_exchange.shtml)

5) Company branding. (for more information read this article: “Make your own brand!” http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/make_your_own_brand.shtml)

6) Excellent customer care and support (remember those notes 24 hours 7 days a week? This must be really true for a good commercial website)

7) Wise goods selection (You may think that people selling everything on the Internet but that is not quite true. There are some things that stores do not offer via the Internet and you need to find those things and offer them. Be a pioneer!)

These are the major factors that play role in building successful commercial websites. However, you need to search, study and select your own ways to online success. Remember, Internet is a very flexible and constantly changing environment; things that worked well several months ago may be completely useless in the present. Search and try! That is my main advice to succeed in online business.

Thanks for reading.

Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/commercial_sites.shtml

There are millions and millions of websites on the Internet. You NEED to be different in some way from all of them! If you could get a visitor to your website, that means nothing. Only returning visitors must be counted. When they return the second time, “branding” starts to occur. Huge companies advertise not because they want to provide you with information about their product. They do that because they’re trying to “brand” its name and image. Actually, it is the brand you are paying the money for when you buy something from “Adidas”, “Nike” or “Coca-cola”. People will actually be willing to pay for the brand they know, so make it as bright and memorable as possible. However, it is useful to remember that too complex logo will definitely slip out of peoples’ minds.

Have you seen small companies with the better products then the leaders in their industry and with the lower prices? When you actually pay the money to a big company for some service or product, be sure that 30% or even more from the price of the product will be the “branding” expenses. But why would you waste 30% on company branding? The thing is that branded companies make people feel safer, especially when they purchase through internet. Think for yourself - when you would feel safer if you give your credit card number to an unknown company but with the attractive prices or to a company everyone knows and trusts, even if their price is a bit more expensive? The answer is simple, right? If you want to be a recognizable company, be ready to spend even more than 30% when you start your website.

“Branding” plays the same role in online business as in the regular one. If people see your banners, links, adds, etc. all over the related websites, they begin to recognize your company. First, they do that unconsciously, than after running into your website several times they will recognize your logo, website, etc.

Let’s think how we can brand our website online.

1) Before you start branding I would recommend studying the methods your competitors used. That may be very useful as you may borrow some of their techniques.

2) Think of a good company name, logo, website domain name and company slogan (e.g. company name: Metamorphosis Design, domain: http://www.metamorphozis.com)

3) Advertisement is the key to success in online branding. Links, text ads, graphic banners and any other means you can think of. Your logo, company name or business slogan should be everywhere on the business related websites.

4) Web design companies very often offer free redesign services and discounts on web design for the companies that provide a link back to their website on their pages. That is another way of branding.

5) Offer affiliate percentage from sales if they agree to place a banner or a link to your website. (You should have affiliate program up and running in this case)

There are many other ways to brand your company. Different companies use different methods and techniques. When you start your own business you will have to study them and select which one is better for your needs and your pocket. If you would be able to brand your company, it may bring you millions and millions of dollars.

This article may be reprinted and distributed with no charge until the credit line (links) below remains without changes.

Thanks for reading.

Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/make_your_own_brand.shtml

Before you start reading this article I must warn you - everything that was written here is my own experience in link exchange. This article should not be referred to as official advice or proven techniques. I only want to share the experience of the helpful methods I used.

When you started your website you probably knew that two major factors play the biggest role in search engine placement: links and content.

1. The first recommended way to get links is to develop useful, unique and original content. Webmasters who visit your website will see that content is good and will link to your website to provide their visitors with some useful websites(info maybe?). If you searched Internet for some information, then you know how hard it can be to find a useful website.

2. Link exchange with other websites. There are two ways you can exchange links:

a) One page links – you place a link on one page and the other website places a link to your website

b) Site wide links – you place a link on all pages of your website

Both variants have pluses and minuses. For example, I believe that a link on all pages counts by Google as a link from one website; but if a website has thousands and thousands pages, the repeated link title on each page may effect you position in search engine results for that specific keyword.

If you are doing one page link exchange, I would recommend you to create special pages where links to other sites will be stored.

Thousands webmasters every day search for other websites to exchange links. When selecting a link partner, pay attention to the number of links on the page where he offers to place your link. The more links on that page, the lower benefit you will get exchanging links with this website. Also, try to keep numbers of links lower then 40 in all your link pages.

If you want to exchange site wide links, try to exchange non-direct links. Non-direct means that you must follow the pattern:

Website “A” gives a link to website “B”, “B” website gives a link to website “C”. This way the benefit from site wide link exchange may be increased significantly.

3. Write articles or tutorials. Make them free of change to republish if a link back to your website is provided with the article.

4. If your website is close to web development area you may want to create online software (such as guestbook, online calendar, etc.) with the open source and permission to use if a link back is included on pages. As an example of popularity gained that way you may see website of phpbb – free online message board.

Now you know where to start and the direction to go. If you found this article useful, please include the link to http://www.metamorphozis.com on one of your website pages;-)

This article may be reprinted and distributed with no charge until the credit line (links) below remains without changes.

Thanks for reading.

Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/the_art_of_link_exchange.shtml