WebMastersLoom

You must have heard the stories how people became rich and famous with their websites. How could they achieve this? Their websites took a first position in search engine listings targeting popular keywords. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! To be honest, chances for a regular small business website to get to the top of the search engine listings are close to zero and each day they become smaller and smaller as a number of new and old websites grows.

Let’s examine the situation from the beginning. Search engines just need your content to deliver it to searchers. If a searcher is happy with the search result from the particular search engine, he will come back and use this search engine again. Do not think that search engines serve to send customers to your website. They DO NOT CARE about your website or your business. All they need is content.

When the search engines first appear in the Internet they needed help to determine what your site is about and how relevant is your website to search queries. People used “Keywords” meta-tag in those days. Keywords gave too many opportunities to cheat with search engines results so searchers were not happy with their search queries results. Same thing was with the search engines. Manipulation with a website position in the search engines listings became known as Search Engine Optimization. That was the time when you could actually wake up a rich man after the search engine came to your website, included it into its database and started sending you thousands of customers.

Then came the time of big G (Google) with its concept of website popularity based on two factors: content and links. They introduced the new factor which was called Google PageRank. Now it becomes more and more complicated to get to the top of Google results. You need to bother about your website content, incoming links and outgoing links, IP of your website, number of visitors coming to your website and many other things that are being counted to determine your page position in the Google index. Linking fever came to the webmasters community. New websites (no matter how original their content is) have to wait before they will get enough links to be displayed in search engine results. The more complicated the search engines have become, the more ways of cheating people could think of: invisible text and links, doorway pages, cloaking pages etc.

Surely, you can try one of these methods called “Black SEO” (search engine optimization) and you may even succeed for a month or two. When a Search Engine catches you, the punishment will be immediate: your website will be banned and no visitors will ever be sent to your website again.

Let’s be honest - for small websites and home based businesses starting from scratch chances to get to the top position in search engine are minimal. The WWW is so rich that you probably will not find any competitive areas in search engine listings. Let me give you several suggestions, however, on how you can get started. I would recommend concentrating on one or two main keywords and trying to get the highest position in search engine and not waste efforts trying to cover the whole market. The right keyword can bring you several thousands visitors/customers in a day. Webmasters should concentrate their efforts on developing unique and original content. Search engines like new content and analyze if it is unique. Write articles, reviews, online publications etc. As an example, I can say that as soon as search engines index my recently written article for http://www.metamorphozis.com we get several hundreds visitors to that article from different engines. Exchange links with other websites related to your website. Put your keyword in the link title when you exchanging links.

Example: <a href=http://www.metamorphozis.com title=”Website Templates”>Website Templates</a>

We use this link to get the better listings for “website templates” keyword. Just copy it and replace your website domain name with your own and link title to the keyword you would like. Exchange this link with related, popular websites. I would recommend you to create a special page for link exchanges and place links to other websites there.

I hope some my pieces of advice will be helpful to internet business starters.

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

Thanks for reading.

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

Think up a name and check if yourname.com is available. Personally, I like to use http://www.whois.com to check if a domain name is available. You may also check the registrant contact information using “whois” service if you want to negotiate about purchasing the domain you like from people who registered it first.

To register domain name for our customers we use:

http://www.godaddy.com

We are not affiliates with Godaddy in any way, but I think this is the best online company which provides this service. Their rates are low and you will have 24 hours access to your control panel to change the domain name information in case your office moves or phone number changes. This is very convenient.

If you can’t get that exact name as a dot-com, choose another name. Your site title MUST be the same as your domain name. People won’t remember your domain name, but they will remember your site title if they choose to add your website to their favorites. It will also help to provide better place in Google listings. There are several rules to follow when you choose the domain name:

1. It must be as short as possible but don’t make it something like abc.com only because this domain is available. Be reasonable.

2. Make it memorable. It must represent your company and it is not a bad idea to make your company name as a domain name.

3. Make it include your keywords, something like allwebdesign.com if your website is about web design. This advice is related to search engine optimization issue. Most of search engines like to get “main” keywords in the domain name, title and website description.

4. The domain name must be first level domain, not the sub domain of a bigger website. For example, it is not a good idea to use http://mydomain.somebigsite.com as your website name. The first level domain costs about $ 9 dollars and it not an excuse to have business website on a free sub domain. Search engines also do not like such domains and you automatically will be placed lower then your competitors in the search engine listings.

5. It is better to buy a domain name separately from the hosting plan. A domain name is much more important then a hosting provider. As I noticed, the average duration of a web hosting company life is one or two years. If your hosting provider disappears from the web, it may be a problem to get your domain name transferred to your new hosting provider.

It is not difficult to buy and register a domain name at all. You will be given a number of questions related to your location, position and contact information. All this information will be used during the domain name registration and any person who uses “whois” service will have access to that information, so it will be wise to enter only your business information and not to use personal data. When you buy a hosting plan, your hosting provider will send you the letter with the name server ips. You will need to send those numbers to your domain name registrant.

Now you are ready to select a web hosting provider and buy a hosting plan.

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

Thanks for reading.

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

A Search Engine Optimization firm can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to highten your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for unwanted results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of effort, time, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s index.

No matter what kind of website you run it is vital that you are not of the opinion that only certain topics would benefit from paid optimization. A website about Tea might benefit just as much as one about marketing or even loans.Why would tea being the subject matter? Well quite simply paid optimization could benefit any subject.

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Also, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes” will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Well now you are armed with the relevant facts take the bull by the horns and your website about Tea, marketing or absolutely any kind of subject could end up with a totally new lease of life and your stats counter could start to rise like a thermometer in a heatwave.

Has monthly hosting fees got you down? Well cheer up! There are a few simple additions you can make to your site that can help you make your money back and then some.

The easiest thing is to add ads to your site. Google’s Adsense program offers site owners a way to display both text and image ads on their sites which make money when someone clicks on them. What’s unique about these ads is that they are contextual meaning they automatically figure out what your site is about by certain elements on your site such as page text, title and then display ads that are relevant. This increases the chances that a visitor will be interested in them. Text ads usually work better because they do not look like ads, they look like content. You can also customize the look of the ads you display to match your sites color scheme.

Google’s Adsense program can be hard to get approved for. They don’t allow anyone with a site to start displaying ads. Your site should have useful pertinent information first off. It should also have a contact page. You can find out more by visiting their site at http://www.google.com/adsense/

If for some reason you don’t get approved for Adsense there are other programs out there that are similar. Bidclix is one of them located at http://www.bidclix.com. They allow you to display text ads as well that you can customize to the look of your site. The one big difference is that they are not contextual, you have to choose what advertisers you want to display. You can also sell advertising directly to advertisers and choose how much you want to charge.

Another way to help pay for those hosting fees is through affiliate marketing. There are tons of affiliate programs out there and unless your site is about some obscure subject you should be able to find one or more that are related to your site. Once you sign up and are approved for an affiliate program you can log into their affiliate center which should be filled with information and media to promote their products. Here you can start grabbing html code to paste onto your site that will display text or banner ads with your affiliate link embedded. Then when someone clicks on your ad and makes a purchase you will receive a percentage of the sale.

A good way to promote affiliate products and to increase sales is through unbiased reviews. If you are a photographer you could start writing camera reviews and build a separate section to your site for just that. The top affiliates or “super affiliates” buy the product they are promoting which allows them to write educated reviews on the product and the company that they are an affiliate of. And yes, they buy the product through their own affiliate links which makes them some money back.

Your hosting provider might offer an affiliate program you can promote. To promote them include a link at the bottom of every page of your site that says Hosted by “company name” where company name is linked to their site with your affiliate link. Good hosting affiliate programs offer between $50 - $90 dollars for every sale you refer to them so they can be quite lucrative.

If you are continually updating your site and writing quality content then it is a good idea to offer a newsletter to keep your visitors up-to-date. You should send out a newsletter at least once a month with information your members would be interested in. In it you can include article or review blurbs that link back to your site or smaller articles with your affiliate links in them.

These methods can help your site pay for itself and within a little time you will be earning more then you spend.

One of the most commonly overlooked elements of an effective E-Business is the very thing that is essential to your success. Something as simple as the design of your website can make or break your business. Each consumer has their own set preferences of what they find appealing, and it’s impossible to please everyone. However, there are some simple rules to follow to ensure that your website will appeal to the vast majority of Internet surfers.

1. Toss Out The Clutter

Does your website bear an even passing resemblance to the junk drawer in your kitchen? In an effort to make a site as pretty as possible, many people make the mistake of having too many images, too much clutter and not enough information. If you are in the business of selling information, you will need to make sure that your site is as informative as possible.

The first paragraph on your website is the most important of all the information on your site. You will need to “grab” your viewer right then and there or, unfortunately, your website can become a statistic quickly. In fact, the majority of web surfers spend 10 seconds on a site before deciding whether to stay or go. If they’re stuck waiting for images to load and having to page down to get to any text, you have all ready lost them.

2. Punch Up Your Sales Copy

Many people view a website as an impersonal tool, a way to reach many people quickly. They tend to loose focus on the personal aspect of doing business and creating strong customer relationships.

For example, if you walked into a brick and mortar store and an employee approached you waving banners, and saying “LOOK AT THIS!” you would most likely run the other way. On the other hand, if a knowledgeable sales person approached you and said, “We have some wonderful specials that we have hand picked just for you,” you would be much more likely to stay. Just as in the real world, you only have a few seconds to make a good impression.

As we mentioned above, the first paragraph is the cornerstone of your entire website. It needs to be informative, to the point and most importantly; it has to leave them wanting more.

3. Test Your Website

Another common mishap in website design is overlooking different monitor sizes, browser types and font preferences set by Internet users.

Your site may look just fine to you, but to someone on a 13 inch monitor with their default text size set to “Largest” it may look just plain awful. Most browsers allow you to view a website using four or five different font sizes. It is a good idea to view your site using all of them to make sure your design remains intact and that the formatting of your text is how you want it to look.

If you’re having a great deal of trouble making your site look right during font changes, you may want to include CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. CSS ensures that the font size stays the same on your site no matter what preferences a user might have their browser set to recognize.

It is a good idea to have your friends preview your site using AOL browsers, and different settings to make sure that your site will look the same to everyone.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Be an Individual

Many E-Businesses come with their own “cookie cutter” websites that make it easy for everyone to get their Internet presence up and running. While this does make it easier, it does make it harder to stand out in the crowd. How many websites have you seen lately that look identical? Today’s Internet users are savvy, and getting more savvy every day. They can smell a “clone” miles away and may decide to bypass your business all together.

While it does take time and some skill, learning how to use HTML, and design programs for websites can be time well spent. If you don’t have the time or the drive to learn to do your own site, you can usually find a webmaster for a reasonable amount of money who can handle the design for you. It may mean the difference of making the sale, or being passed over.

In closing, the most important element of effective web design is making sure that your website reflects who you are. Never forget that running an E-Business isn’t that different from running a brick and mortar store. Appearances do matter and they do make a difference.

Sooner or later every small or medium business owner realizes that he needs a web site for his business. And almost everybody wants to have great web site for affordable price because usually web site design budget is quite limited.

There are few ways to find the best solution.

• Somebody prefers to design the site by himself – but it takes much time and labor, distracts from the general business, and let be frank – you have seen many of such “DIY” – web sites – they lack professional touch and look unfinished or overworked.

• Somebody decides to hire a professional web design company but in case of limited budget he has to say “good-buy” to many features he wants to see on the web site, because web design companies are also businesses and they can’t work for “thank you very much” only.

So what to do when you want to have great web site but your web design budget is limited?

Think about IT-outsourcing and offshore web design!

There are many web design companies in other countries, mostly of Eastern Europe and East-Southern Asia that operate with small budgets and offer great web design works.

How it is possible?

There are different economical factors which condition on low internal expenses of the companies in these countries so they can do the same volume of work but for lower price than it costs in USA, Canada, UK, Western Europe or Australia. So offshore web site design and development helps to keep prices at least 3-5 times less.

You can say “Yes, this is cool that I can save my money but how they will do the work if I am here in USA but they are in Ukraine, for example?”

Easily! In our age of Internet this is not a problem at all! Practice proves that for web site design project it’s enough to have communication through email, instant messenger (ICQ, AOL, MSN) or IP-phone.

You can say “How can I trust somebody whom I have never seen before and most likely will not ever see?”

Actually this question must the web design companies ask, not you, because there are many of IT-outsourcing companies and competition is quite strong in this area, so to get a customer many companies allow the first payment after 30-50% of the project completion, i.e. you pay after you have seen good results and satisfied with the work.

And as in onshore web design you need to pay much attention while choosing web design company: look at their previous works in portfolio, and ask about previous customers’ references. Ideally all this information must be accessible on the company’s web site.

As for the rest there is not much difference between offshore and onshore web site design process. You see the results of work in the progress, make your comments, see changes, agree them. When the project is complete and the site is ready to be uploaded to your server, you make final payment. It’s also not a problem – you can make payment by credit card, PayPal, wire transfer, Western Union, etc.

So let’s resume what you must know when dealing with offshore web site design:

• If you are on “tight budget” and can’t afford spending thousands of $$$ for your web site design you should think about trying offshore web site design opportunities.

• There are many countries, which take part in offshore web site design; the most well known are India, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Philippines.

• To make right choice of offshore web design company for your web site design take into consideration the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, previous customers’ references, quick and competent feedback to your initial request.

• To avoid problems you must be attentive and ask exact questions about payment policy and method, timescale and milestones of the project, conditions of the ready site delivery, warranties, post-development support and maintenance.

Your first experience with offshore web design can seem to be too risky and complicated, but this feeling will be replaced with real satisfaction when you will see your new great web site live in the Internet and you realize how much you have saved on its design.

Search engines are very difficult to completely understand. There are no complete explanations of how their ranking algorithms work. But the very fact that the average person does not intuitively know how to crack the search engine algorithms leads to all sorts of questions; Usually variations of:

“How do I get my website to the top of the search engine results pile?”

Now if you have been following my newsletter, you will know that search engine optimization is not magic or something equally difficult to understand. Instead, I learnt it as a step-by-step process and that is how I have always considered it. Nothing too fancy; in fact, I could probably summarize it all in the following points:

• An understanding of how search engines “think” .
• Knowing what search engines “want” .
• Learning proven optimization techniques .
• Applying your knowledge time and time again (experience).

Of course, SEO is not explained by those four sentences, but what they do is that they give you a structure within which you can learn and carry out SEO on your business with exceptional results. In short:

Get it right, and do it better than your competition.

But what does this have to do with today’s discussion?

Basically, when you have “followed” the SEO strategies to the letter, and are still not seeing your website rank anywhere near where it “should” be on a particular keyword, then you have one of the following problems:

• Your website may have been sandboxed (specific only to Google).
• Your website might be penalized or even removed from the index by a search engine for going against a stated guideline.
• A search engine might “think” that you are spamming them.

In the first case, you will have to “wait it out” with Google, while consolidating on your positions in the other search engines by continuously building links and adding content. The second case will never happen if you follow the advice given in my lessons; if your website is penalized, compare what you have done with what I have told you, and you will probably find out that something has gone wrong.

However, like I said in the beginning, search engines are notoriously difficult to understand – and sometimes you can do everything right and still not be ranked correctly. Conspiracy theories apart, this is the part of the equation that search engines do not always get right. SEO experts usually term this as over-optimization , and like many SEO issues this one has a lot of debate on it in SEO forums about whether websites are actually penalized for over-optimization or simply banned for spam.

What exactly is over-optimization?

Over-optimization happens when your website is considered “too good” by Google – either in terms of a sudden volume of backlinks, or because of heavy on-page optimization. In other words, if Google considers that your website optimization is beyond acceptable limits , your website will be red-flagged and automatically restricted or penalized.

There is a fine line between over-optimization and spamming, and it is on this line that Google can appear to err. However, this is not a mistake by the search engine – in fact, Google calculates rankings by considering thousands and thousands of different factors – and a lot of importance is attached to average “trends” within the niche / keyword range that a website is optimizing for.

The bottom line is that over-optimization is non-spamming search engine optimization that is misread by Google as being beyond acceptable limits, thus leading to a penalty in search engine rankings.

What criteria does Google use?

To understand why Google can consider certain websites over-optimized, it is important to factor in the criteria that Google uses to rank websites.

When fully indexing a website, Google does not just look at the optimization of the target website; it also compares the website with all the other websites that belong to the same niche / category / keyword range. Through this comparison, Google can then figure out the following:

• Is this website “way more” optimized than the current top ranking websites?
• In the past, have over-optimized websites been discovered as spam websites?
• What are the trends / acceptable limits for well-optimized websites in this niche/keyword range?

Since Google is automated, it cannot do what we do – look at the webpage and determine if the purpose is spam or delivering truly useful information. Instead, the search engine uses historical trends to predict what the acceptable limits of over-optimization are, and how likely over-optimized websites are to be found out as spam.

In other words, your website may be red flagged as being a potential spamming website even though your only fault might be that you were “perfect” in optimizing your website while your competition was left far behind.

Google takes both on-page and off-page optimization into account when checking for over-optimization / spam, and as such it watches out for over-optimization in all ranking factors – your backlinks and your tag optimization (meta tags, title tags, header tags) being most important.

A lot of what I am talking about becomes invalid if one tries any overt search engine spamming technique , such as stuffing your pages with keywords, white on white text (something I talked about in the first few lessons) or backlink spamming (building too many backlinks with the same anchor text in a short period of time.

But it is also possible that you have followed advice and still have your website penalized for over-optimization. The real question then is:

How can you avoid such penalties ?

Avoiding the trap of over-optimization

As I mentioned at the start of this lesson, search engine optimization can be boiled down to two simple steps:

• Getting it right and…
• Doing it better than everyone else.

In the context of over-optimization and avoiding unnecessary penalties, this rings especially true. If you optimize your website within search engine guidelines and according to proven optimization practices, you have it right. While putting too little time on SEO is a serious mistake, the search for perfection within SEO is a time-wasting and fruitless effort. Too much focus on getting the page structure “just right” can divert attention away from the more mundane but equally more important tasks – such as adding more content or monetizing the website.

The next step is to eschew perfection and find out what your competition has done. Suppose that you are optimizing your website for the term “landscaping”. Which of the following approaches would you realistically choose?

• Go full-throttle on your search engine optimization, spending as much time as necessary to get maximum value out of each word, link and page in your website, so that you can get the highest ranking possible.
• Analyze the top 10 webpages for the term “landscaping” and understand what optimization has been performed on them (natural or artificial). Calculate the number of backlinks, check for authority inbound links – and once you have figured out what your competition is doing, and do exactly the same – only a bit more .

The first approach might mean that you are guaranteed a top position on the search engines, but has two problems – you will waste a lot of time and resources in this search for perfection and more importantly, your website may be flagged for over-optimization. On the other hand, the second approach does just enough to beat the competition – without pushing you or your budget to the limit.

Over-optimization is a phenomenon that is particularly difficult to figure out – how does a SEO expert really determine whether his new website is in the sandbox, penalized for over-optimization or just doing badly in the search engines? While trying to find out the real cause for your poor rankings may satisfy curiosity, you would be better served by following the “second approach” above.

Search engine optimization is a long-term, low-intensity process. You keep building links and adding content, so that eventually your website not only escapes the infamous sandbox but it also starts to rank really well on the search engines. And as for over-optimization – as long you follow search engine guidelines and don’t go too far above your competition, you will be fine.

To create your own great banner, you only need five (5) simple things:

1. Size according to standards. Always keep to the standards. Having a bold, huge banner would look good and attract more attention than any graphic design ever would. Nevertheless, if everybody is doing it, what would be different about you then? As one designer have said: “I know that if your ad is slightly larger it may get more attention but if we all start doing this where will it stop.” Sticking to the standards is quite the norm. Some sites would even require you to create your banner according to the regular standards of. So it is still better to design your banner this way than to revise it later on.

2. Great content equals great banner. Aside from a great graphic design, your banner should also have content that equals your banner. This must be short, simple, and very direct- something that captures your objective and purpose. Most of all, it should be able to catch attention.

Banner ad contents are made to be direct and short because there is simply not much room for a lengthy discussion of the information you want to get across. In addition, not everyone would want to read or try to read what you have written in there. So keep it at a minimum. Don’t over-indulge. Get the help of your friends and family to come up with what it is you want to say, but in a few words. You might even create a special saying that you could use to identify you from the others in your field.

3. Color and animation that match. Your website should have color and animation that match in all the pages. The colors should be eye catching and easy to look at, while graphic design animation should be made simple and short for easy download. No matter how animated and catchy your banner, it would be lost to someone who has already clicked off the page before it could even be started. Just make sure that your ad downloads quickly on an accelerated connection. And always assume that different people have different connections. Some may have DSL; others may have a slower provider. Whatever it is, make sure that your download time is reasonable.

4. A call that produces action. Contrary to popular belief, people are still highly susceptible to suggestions, and that according to studies, call to action words still work. So try to integrate call-to-action-words like “call now”, “click here”, or even “buy now”. This would help you convert your site to income and fast return of investments.

5. Critique from family and friends. A web designer once said that the best place to sample your web site would be your family and friends. They would be able to give you a positive or negative feedback just because they are the ones who would want you to succeed. Also, they wouldn’t be shy to tell you outright if you’re banner stinks. So go ahead and employ your lovedones to critique your design. It’s free anyway.

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Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now, is currently spreading like wildfire across the Internet.

A cross between an online journal and a bulletin board, everyone from rock starts, politicians, business leaders and your average “Joe” or “Jane” can instantly become a center of influence online using blogs.

But, as with any social interaction, certain rules apply (my grandma calls them manners) in order to be viewed as behaving “properly.”

One of the things that gives blogging such strong appeal as an online publishing method revolves around “comments.”

Blogs that allow “comments” enable readers to respond and elaborate on the information posted by the blog owner.

These comments and the free exchange of information, opinions, links, and new ideas creates the dynamic and growing content that makes blogging such a popular online activity for both publishers and readers.

However, rules and unwritten customs about the proper use of “comments” on a specific blog are also where most of the problems and controversy will arise.

Since a successful blog eventually becomes a community of people (albeit in cyberspace), proper social behavior is critical to be an effective and accepted member of the community.

Keep these basic rules in mind when approaching a new blog that allows commenting by readers so you won’t find yourself on the wrong end of a scolding by people who operate with a different set of rules than you.

As with any social circle, violating the group’s rules and customs will instantly cause a negative backlash.

** Keep It Relevant **

Stay on topic with the post you’re commenting about in a blog.

Nothing will earn you the wrath and disdain of your fellow posters and the blog owner faster than posting an off-topic comment.

** Watch What Others Do **

Different blogs operate under different rules. What rates acceptable in one blog would earn you a verbal thrashing in another.

Before posting (especially if you have not posted to a specific blog before), look to see the types and quality of posts others make regularly.

• Are they long or short?
• Do they contain a link to the person’s website?
• Is there a “signature” under their name?

** Be Polite **

It’s fine to disagree with people when making a comment, whether it’s the blog’s author or a comment made by another reader.

It is not, however, acceptable to launch a personal attack on anyone or make nasty comments in someone else’s blog.

If you feel the need to do so, do it in your own blog.

It’s the same principle of you can say whatever you want in your own house, but when you’re in someone else’s house, you act right (and better than you do at home).

** You Can’t Respond To Everyone **

If you operate a blog and someone asks a question, try to respond, but both sides should understand that you can’t respond 100% of the time.

We all get busy and a blog, unless it maintains a paid membership, is often supported as a labor of love.

© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com