website design
There are several Important considerations in Website Design you might be surprised at how important these can be to your success.
When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose.
Here are some important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.
1) Do not use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.
2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements
Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, let your visitors feel like they want to buy instead of being pushed into buying.
3) Have a simple and easy to understand navigation system
You want to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus.
If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.
4) Have a clear indication of where the user is
When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!
5) Avoid using audio on your site
If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it — volume or muting controls would work fine.
6) update your website on a regular basis.
After a while the same old same old gets boring, so spice things up make a few changes, develop different types of content.
7) Keep your advertising down to a minimum.
I know it may be popular to advertise, advertise and advertise some more, but all in all the search engines dont really like to see a lot of advertising on a website simply because they know that a website visitor really wants to do one of a few things, they usually are after information.
Categories: blogging, developer, small business, templates, website content Tags: developing websites, html5, managing your content
Websites
Remember the old days when every PC was beige, or if you were rich or lucky you might have had a Apple ll, but just about every website had a little Netscape icon on the homepage, Geocities and Tripod hosted just almost every single personal homepage, and “Google” was just a funny-sounding word?
The mid-late 1990s were the playful childhood of the worldwide web
So what about the future when you know the past then you have to look at the future.
Things have changed and they have changed so rapidly that few people have figured out which end is up when it comes to developing websites.
back in the old days, they charged like 3000.00 for just a five page website and they charged a lot more for a full sized website.
Now, you can get a website up and running for $4.95 cents per month, but really what do you have?
A $4.95 cent website, do you think that you will make any money from a junk website like that?
Probably not, but it is interesting to see how many people sign up for these build a website services thinking they will get rich.
The truth is that it takes effort and it takes a little work to get the job done better than the thousands of others out there.
Why were websites so bad back then?
Knowledge. Few people knew how to build a good website back then, before authorities like Jakob Nielsen starting evangelizing their studies of web user behavior.
Difficulty.
In those days, there weren’t abundant software and templates that could produce a visually pleasing, easy-to-use website in 10 minutes. Instead, you either hand-coded your site in Notepad or used FrontPage.
Splash Pages
Sometime around 1998, websites all over the internet discovered Flash, the software that allowed for easy animation of images on a website. Suddenly you could no longer visit half the pages on the web without sitting through at least thirty seconds of a logo revolving, glinting, sliding, or bouncing across the screen.
Categories: developer, hosting, templates, website design Tags: developing content, website design, website developer, website information
Content Creation made easy
This is one of the most powerful software products I have seen in a long time.
Exactly what is AdSense
Revenue from advertising is big business.
AdSense is a Text and Image based Advertising System that is automatically displayed on thousands of affiliate websites across the world. Simply put advertisers bid on numeric placement of their ads in the network, the higher your ad appears on the network the more you are likely to pay for that AD.
It could be anywhere from .005 cents per click or several dollars per click. You decide what you want to pay for the advertising. It has been proven to increase sales and website visitors to millions of sites across the Internet, to the tune of several Billion dollars in revenue for google and its affiliates.
The simple recipe for success is to get an effective Ad Campaign running using Google AdSense and get ready to could your profits.Is it really that simple, Perhaps not. It sounds really easy, so why not, Well like any Business the AdSense program is de- signed for experienced business owners, who already have the advertising know how to interact with the Google Client.
Choosing the right sales copy and the right presentation, is only half the battle. You need effective copy and an impressive website, present your product using an out- dated website and you could be flushing your potential sales before you ever get into business. I have seen thousands of really great products suffer from a bad presentation, (website) You could have the best product in the world and present it in a bad way and you will not be successful in online marketing of your product.
You can DIYS Do It Your Self or you can hire someone to do it for you. Either way is effective, but if you don’t have the time to DIYS consider a competent consultant, who has the experience and knowhow to deliver what you want and need in Advertising. Advertising is like any other business you can spend too much on the wrong type of ad- vertising and end up upside down, in the market.
Ad tracking is also an important point to consider, AdSense can show you a lot of infor-mation but if you don’t realize where your most effective market is, you may not be able to profit from the information. Here is a good example, lets say you sell trampolines, and you want to reach people who want to buy parts and accessories, some of the keywords you might use would be trampoline, parts, repair, mats, ect, this way when someone searches for trampoline parts, your ad will show up, but lets say you only want to reach customers in a certain regional area, say Georgia and Florida, then you could change your advertising to re- flect this regional area and target those searches, this way you don’t pay for advertising that you don’t need.
Categories: developer, domain name, hosting, templates, website design Tags: developing content, website design, website developer, website information
developing websites
These days, just about everyone has a website, but how effective are those fly by night $4 buck websites anyway? I mean, if you do not really have a domain name and you just have this sort of odd subdomain for 4 bucks how much is that really worth anyway?
Creating a website is often more about what you want to do than what that website looks like.
You can own and operate an affordable website with just a few hours work.
When you first begin to consider creating a website, what is the first thing that you should consider?
Is it hosting, is it a domain name? or is it in what you choose to build your website with?
Using WordPress and Custom developed plugins you can create a website quickly we can show you how to do that.
The thing is the old saying that you get what you pay for is something that cannot be over looked.
Why pay for an overpriced service when you can have you own and operate your own website for less than you think, Save money by using the DIY approach.
At Albany Webs our business philosophy is to empower our clients with the knowledge they need to own and operate their own website at an affordable savings. We give you the information and show you how to DIY (do it yourself) “hey wait a minute I can get a website at one of those generic template sites” Yes that is true, you can, however it is important to realize that you get what you pay for, you can get a generic template website hosted on an anonymous domain like your website. some domain.com. The downside is that what you have, is just what you pay for, you can get it cheap but that is something that is not as desirable as you might imagine.
We can show you how to get the premium look of a much more expensive website at a price that will save you money and save you time. Saving money is a good thing, however you need to carefully consider what you get for your money, sometimes it may be better to pay a little more and get a lot more for your money, than to take what at first glance might seem to be the cheapest choice.
Here are some features you will want to make sure you have in your website.
• Your Own Domain name. (check out godaddy.com)
• Good Content. Original fresh content.
• Business information, directions to your location, who you are, what you do.
• The right Programming, the old adage is still applicable, Keep is Simple.
• Communication system, Email communications tools, help you stay in touch with your customers.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Learn how to DIY (do it yourself)
This is perhaps one of the most overlooked methods of saving money when considering a website presence on the Internet.
DIY is our approach to doing business online.
Some Design houses and in fact most of them practice the maintenance fee method of doing business online, this robs the customer of the vital aspects of doing business on- line, it keeps them from learning about the truly important methods of succeeding on- line, we feel that empowering the client with the knowledge to DIY creates the possibility of the long term success of a small business website.
Categories: developer, hosting, templates Tags: website development
Articles and Content
Is content really king of the internet, and is Google becoming an alleged monopoly…
There are very interesting questions and there may not be a 100 percent perfect answer, however it is something to carefully consider.
If you are considering developing a website, think about what you can do and how you will do it,
writing is all about creating the best method of communication, that will also attract
website visitors to your website.
Developing content in a modern world, writing has long been one of the most respected professions.
Content is all about putting together words into meaningful and valuable associations.
Writing used to be only for a few selective educated individuals however that has changed over the years, in fact you no longer really even need a publishing company to get published.
Content used to be known as king not its valuable content that is kind, but what is value and how is it determined. The most important part of the website is the content, and contrary to what even Google thinks, people do not want perfect content mostly because we just are not perfect, the last person I knew that was perfect also walked on the water so why are we now suddenly deciding that we need perfectly formatted content from from any imperfection? A man who thinks he is perfect is a fool and the same could be said for a search engine that thinks all content should be perfect. Great articles and content should anticipate questions and satisfy the customers quest for knowledge, the vast majority of Internet consumers visit a web page to learn more about products and services they are looking for before making a purchase.
A successful Web page. What goes into a successful website.
You need a create content rich web site.
The content should be relevant and up to date as well as written in such a way that you are talking to the cus- tomers like they were standing in your store, because some day they may be standing right in front of you. Such items as articles, tips, tutorials that will hold your visitors interest and get them to return to come back to your site again and again. keeping your content Up to date this keeps the site fresh and interesting.Search Engines are looking for websites that offer fresh and informative con- tent for their visitors. When writing content use easy to understand words and avoid using slang; which many visitors may not understand.
Designing Content Articles. One key way to design a successful web site is to create original compelling content, not just once but keep it fresh and up to date. Remember to design your content to attract both the visitors and Search Engines, find and use the most relevant keywords for your articles. This is a must if you want your site to be successful. Never copy text from other websites and paste it into your website. One reason you should never do this is called duplicate content.
Duplicate content You can be penalized in the search engines when you duplicate content or in other words by taking an article from another website, (with permission or without) you create duplicate content, Search engines and web site visitors want to see fresh content, not thousands of web pages that contain the same information, it is frustrating to be looking for relevant information and not be able to locate it because everyone is using the same articles for content. If you want your web page to be listed in the upper end of the search en- gines listings, then you want fresh and original content. Creating great content is not that difficult, but it can be time consuming. If you were to write a new short article every day you could quickly generate excellent content for your web site. Spend just 20 min a day writing content and at the end of a week you will have a great resource for your clients and web site visitors. Learn more about SEO and Web pages at our learning menu. Thank you for visiting Albany Webs
Categories: blogging, developer, website content Tags: Content, website articles, website content, website design, website development
website developement
Most businesses need a website.
Some already have one.
Others want one.
They don’t want to hire IT staff and probably can’t afford any. And in most cases, an in-house IT staff, especially for your typical small business, just isn’t necessary. But, that doesn’t mean that you have to go without or will be forced to use some cookie cutter website or a personal Frontpage experiment gone awry.
You can hire a web developer/designer to create a professional website for you, set it up, then hand it over to you for you to do what you want with it.
But, how should you go about finding someone to do this?
What should you look for?
There are literally thousands of companies/individuals out there offering to do your website.
How do you pick from this large group?
What Do You Want?
The first step is to decide exactly what you want on your website. This is very important as it will determine what the requirements are and, in turn, what skill set your web developer needs to fulfill your needs. Here are some questions to ask of yourself:
* What kinds of information do you want to have on your site? Approximately how large do you envision the site (# of pages)?
* Will your site require regular updates? Do you want to do these updates yourself?
* Will you be engaging in e-commerce on this website?
* Will you need a database?
* How fast do you need the job done?
* What is your budget?
Start Your Search
Doing a web search for someone that has the skills you will need for your website will still give you a humongous list of possible choices. Referrals are often the best method of weeding people out. IF someone recommends a developer, it is because they are happy with the service they were provided. So, if someone recommends a developer to you, you should check that developer out and see if they have the skills you will need from them.
Often, the web developers you are pondering are not located in your town. In today’s day and age, this is not usually a problem. Yes, there are instances where a face-to-face meeting is really beneficial, and if you are the kind of really considers this meeting important, you should limit your search to developers within driving distance of your location. Otherwise, the internet and phone system provide all the communication you will need, regardless of distance.
The first thing to do when considering a developer is to check out their website.
* IS the website well-designed and attractive?
* Is it easy to navigate?
* Are there any broken links?
* Is the information complete (introduction to staff, company location, contact methods, etc.)?
* Does the site load quickly?
* IS there a portfolio? (Very important. A developer without a portfolio to display is a total question mark. You simply don’t know if the people are good or are snacking on doritos trying to figure things out as they go).
* What skills does the developer have? Do they do design only, or can they do dynamic web development and database design? Also, ensure that they do not advertise themselves as a web designer but focus mainly on print media. Internet design and print design are different ballparks with different requirements. Also, keep in mind that good use of Dreamweaver or Frontpage does not in itself make a web designer. Check their portfolio and ensure the developer really knows his stuff. A person well-versed in internet development should know not only about creating the site, but also maintaining it, marketing it, and promoting it. Ideally, a web developer has successfully done all of the above on his own sites.
* Does the site offer customer testimonials? Read them. And, you might even contact those clients independently to ask them questions of the service you were provided.
Small Freelancers vs. Big Firms
You need to decide if you want to work with a large web design firm or a small freelance web company (or even single web developer). There is more security for the client when working with a larger firm. The skills they offer vary widely because their staff is so large, and they often have a very large portfolio. The caveat, though, is that large web companies often charge more money. The overhead costs for such companies is larger, so they will charge more. Additionally, larger web companies often come with more beauracracy. With so many developers, often communication is just not what it should be, leading to inconsistencies in the project due to miscommunication. Also, sometimes you will find that these companies pay a little too much attention to process rather than simply getting the job done.
Freelance web developers offer better value for the money, and because they are a single person, the communication flow between them and the client is usually much better (one-on-one). If there is a staff, usually the size is small, meaning communication will still be more tight-knit. This will lead to more consistent coding and coordination. Also, you know who is responsible for your project and there is more accountability. In larger firms, nobody is responsible in some cases. (or so they say). The downside of freelancing is that their skill set is their skill set, and if you need something that they don’t know how to do, they must research it. Also, freelancers are limited by their size. If they already have a high workload, then their throughout is limited and it may force you to wait. So, depending on the size of your project, a large firm might guarantee the job gets done quickly.
Rates and Guidelines
Check out the rates of the web developer. Often, you will not find the rates directly posted on their website. This is usually because they like to do things by estimate, so simply contact them, give them a few specs, and go back and forth until you get a ballpark figure. When getting an estimate, make sure it is detailed and exact. Ask any questions that you have. If you think the price is too high, ask them about it. Don’t be afraid to counter-offer. They can always refuse.
Check out the web developer‘s contract. Make sure the client is protected. PAy attention to guarantees of response time. You want to make sure your web developer is available for you. Also, look for their policy on project changes. Obviously, you cannot alter the specs of your project once an estimate is agreed upon without expecting additional fees. Ask them about this. Also, inspect the contract for warranty of work. Who will they handle bugs in the work they have done?
Talk With Them
Any web developer you consider should have a method of being reached by phone. Call them and gauge their personality. Make sure they are good people who you can talk with and bounce ideas off of. See if they treat you right or act like they barely have time for you. Good communication is very important to a successful project, and if you can’t properly communicate to your developer, you should not hire him/her.
Evaluate
Evaluate your potential developers using the advice above and you will be more likely to have successfully completed project with minimal frustration.
Categories: blogging, developer Tags: business websites, website content, website design, website development
What is required to get a website online?
A website is more than a collection of files and folders stored on the world wide web at a location online, like AlbanyAuction.com. The Internet is huge, in fact there are literally billions of websites online, the way your website is located is by giving your website a domain name or an Internet address. The place your website is located is much like owning or leasing a small piece of Internet real-estate.
To get your website online you need two basic items.
1. A domain name or an address where your website may be found. a small fee is paid to “reserve” your domain name each year, this fee varies from $35.00 yearly to less than $10.00 per year, there are a number of good alternative do- main name registrars that offer a reliable service for around $9.00. here are two that I use on a regular basis.
Godaddy.com NameCheap.com
2. A hosting account, (Internet real-estate ) An account you rent or lease by the month or quarter, this is the place where you put your website files and folders so that your website can be displayed on your visitors computer. A hosting account is an actual computer where your website will be stored. The locations or Hubs, are usually located in large cities, like New-York or Atlanta or Los Angeles, these locations have hundreds of computers all hooked up to the Internet. The monthly cost for a hosting account can vary from pennies a day to dollars a day. In the end you get what you pay for.There are some accounts that may be obtained for free, however the features and op- tions you get from these free accounts makes it almost impossible to effectively use the account for anything. There are also many low cost hosting accounts, you can find them on Ebay for next to nothing, consequently that is exactly what you get, almost nothing.
What makes for a good hosting account provider?
There are a number of service options available, one of the most important considerations is how long it takes to load your web page on your visitors browser. The longer amount of time this takes the less likely that your visitor will stay to see the next web-page, this is a problem many websites face. You could pay anywhere from hundreds of dollars a month for a hosting account to pennies, the problem comes in when a hosting provider over sells the space they have for hosting web sites, there are ways to test a hosting provider to see what level of service you can expect. One method is to PING the account, below is an example of pinging. this is from a host I recommend,
Frogee.com PING 216.67.225.254 (216.67.225.254): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.67.225.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=51.863 ms 64 bytes from 216.67.225.254: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=45.032 ms 64 bytes from 216.67.225.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=51.594 ms 64 bytes from 216.67.225.254: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=43.635 ms 3.99 monthly
below is another ping from another host,
the minimum cost for each host is included this is not an indication of the level of service you will receive from each host and you should consider your needs and budget before making any hosting decision. PING inetrage.com (68.178.213.48): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 68.178.213.48: icmp_seq=0 ttl=50 time=67.886 ms 64 bytes from 68.178.213.48: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=80.536 ms 64 bytes from 68.178.213.48: icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=90.899 ms 64 bytes from 68.178.213.48: icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=84.212 ms 64 bytes from 68.178.213.48: icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=70.801 ms 4.95 monthly — inetrage.com
Down Time, this is the amount of time the host is “off-line” or not available. Naturally you want your web page available all the time, however even with the most expensive hosts you will have some down time, there is nothing more frustrating for a website visitor than to go to a web page and find that it is not online. This is one reason you will want to have the best hosting account your budget can comfortably afford.
Features and options When choosing a quality hosting account there are a number of options that you will want to consider, so many in fact that it can be a real task to find the best options at a reasonable price.
Types of hosting servers There are many different types of hosting servers. Unix, Linux, Red Hat, as well as windows and many more. The control panel is perhaps one of the most important considerations, this is the area where the user interacts with the computer. I recommend C panel since this is the easiest method of accessing an online server, however it is important to consider the level of service you get with your account. All C panel are not created equally, C panel is a Platform that runs on a web server, this allows the average person to control and upload information to a web server, however each panel is set up by the hosting company and may not run the same way. Over the last 10 years I have owned and operated several websites on many different hosting accounts, some were better than others, and some were just a waste of time and money, some start out fine but later develop may technical problems. I have yet to find the perfect hosting account, however the most important part of choos- ing a good hosting account provider is to find an account provider that will allow you to grow as your website grows, this allows you to start out on the minimum account and move up to a better more functional account as your need for resources increases.
This is sometimes easier said than done, with C panel, it is much easier, but be sure to ask you provider how easy or hard it will be to upgrade your account and if there is a charge to upgrade, (some providers may charge a fee for this, most do not) You will want to find out if they charge a fee, if they do I recommend to choose someone that does not charge a fee for upgrading, as well anyone who charges a “set up” fee is also to be avoided. As well there are database issues to consider, if you plan on running a program that requires a MySQL data base, some providers charge a fee to have a MySQL database, available, if this is the case avoid that provider at all costs, why? the reason is simple, the cost associated with using MySQL is minimal, anyone that charges a fee to rent a MySQL data base, is not the kind of web host you want.
Consider your choice with care, as it is usually a pain to switch servers later, since many times you will have to change your website to reflect the way it functions on your new host, always do as much research as you can to determine the best choice. © 2006 AlbanyWebs.com
Categories: developer, domain name, hosting, templates Tags: developing content, website design, website developer, website information
Advertising
How can Advertising work for your and your website?
Advertising is simple really you just slap it up and it goes to work right?
Well, yes, you can do it that way, however you may not be all that impressed with the results that you achieve.
What you want and what you need, is for customers to come and to click on advertisments they are interested in clicking on.
What you do not want is customers coming and clicking on an advertisment if they are not interested…
Why does it make a difference, you may ask?
Simple, everything these days is tracked, from how many clicks to how often a click becomes a customer or a new sale.
If your website is only producing cliicks and no new sales, eventually your advertising revenue will drop just as it does on TV when they show a commercial, it will be played as long as it is effective the moment it begins to degrade and become less effective they are not going to keep advertising, that is just how it works because advertising is expensive right?
Well, that all depends on how you look at advertising.
The most important thing from an advertisers point of view is revenue, as long as they are making revenue and as long as what they are doing results in brand recognition along with some sales, then that advertiser will continue to do what they do and that is to advertise.
When it no longer is effective to advertise they will stop advertising.
It is important to othe website developer to find methods of advertising and product placement that works, when you can successfully and consistantly do that, then your in high cotton as the old saying goes.
Categories: developer, domain name, templates Tags: advertising methods, creating content to attract advertising
building website traffic
If you build it will they come?
perhaps, it might be better to say
if you build it well they will come….
If you want to start an online business you need to develop a set of skills based on common knowledge that many websites avoid talking about because they tend to think that everyone already knows the information. The one thing that gurus will not tell you is that every single product every single ebook every single concept has one thing in common.
Developing website traffic by creating value and by comparison.
They all need traffic in order to succeed. Even if you have the greatest website and a product that no one could resist, if you don?t have visitors to your site you will end up with a great looking site that just sits there doing nothing.
Traffic is the one thing that they all websites need in order to develop a stable income online.
There are a number of ways to build website traffic.
Back linking Social marketing Article marketing Forum marketing SEO marketing
The best method is to produce great content that brings you more visitors by giving your website visitors what they want you can bring in even more traffic. Creative marketing is a solid method of developing content in this new digital age.
Categories: developer, hosting, templates, website design Tags: developing content, website design, website developer, website information