Everyone talks online about how easy it is to build a website and make money online. Is is really that easy or pure hype to get you to purchase the next great thing to hit the online market.

All I have to say is that it is not that easy building highly profitable websites online. But, you can learn how to build a website, that will be fully optimized for the search engines and highly profitable in a couple of weeks, using the same simple tricks I use daily. It doesn’t matter if you want to build a website for free or for profit.

To win online, you have to build a website that gets free traffic from the search engines, and implement all other simple traffic methods like: posting to forums, using ads in ezines, submitting your site to link directories, writing reviews for other peoples products, reciprocal linking and pay per click.

First you have to learn how to do your own website optimization, and for that you will have to:

1) Insert your keyword into the title of your page

It amazes me how many sites online don’t have their main keyword in the title page. Just make sure to always include your main keyword in the tile page of your site.

2) Add Meta Tags

Not as important as it used o be, but I like to include it in every site I build. Add Description meta tags and your keywords meta tags. Use one or two keywords per page only. Add your main keyword into your page description.

3) H1 Header Tags

Use your H1 header tag on each page, I always like to use a smaller font size, like 14pt.

4) H2/H3 Header Tags

Try and use at least one H2 or H3 Tags within the first three or four paragraphs

5) Last and First Paragraph

Make sure to start your first paragraph with your main keyword and to end your last paragraph with your keyword

6) Bold, Italicize ad Underline your keyword

You must Italicize and bold your main keyword just once, and you must use your main keyword to link out of your site to another website (use that link to create an underline keyword) , at least once.

7) The Alt Image Tag

Well, this is very useful if you have pictures that you will be including on your site. Try to use the Alt Image Tag for your pages, I use the alt image tag on my website header.

Those are the only website optimization tips that you should use on each and every site you build. Try to not make it look too obvious, and over do your web site optimization. Learn to build a website the easy way by just following the simple tips I have outline here.

For more optimization tips, try to get your hands on VEO Report by Colin Mc. Dougal. This is the best and most understandable guide to building fully optimized websites online.

I will leave you with one tip I learnt from The VEO report; Before you add any affiliate links to your website, you must first build a website that focus on pure content and include an about you page, and then submit that site to the open directories, like DMOZ.org, etc. After your website has been added to those free directories then you can add your affiliate links and start building reciprocal links and the above mentioned traffic methods will deliver even more traffic.

http://www.veoreport.com/

Now that you know how to build a website for fun and profit, it is time to learn by actually doing something with the information you just read. Go build your first website, the second will be better and your third will be a master piece.

We live in a world so jam-packed with excitement and new technology that at times it seems hard to believe. But this technology is designed in such a way that even the newest online business owners can make use of user-friendly web tools that make functions only a web programmer could have dreamed of doing just a few years ago into simple tasks.

And that is fantastic, right? Well actually it’s not. Quite the reverse is true.

You see, the accessibility and ease of use of such web tools has resulted in hundreds of “junk” websites being produced that are so poorly planned that the web surfer is totally confused.

Some of these web pages have as many as 7 or 8 individual things going on at the same time -flashing header graphics, an opt in form, Google Adsense ads, numerous paragraphs of content, affiliate links, audio buttons and more!

Don’t be attracted to make such glaring mistakes. It is doubtful if many web visitors will be able to successfully find their way through such a site. There are far too many choices to make. And the content is totally lost among all the technology and advertising.

So, what is the answer?

Most successful webmasters today will tell you that the answer is a clean, simple, easy to understand website. It needs to be designed with the best interests of the end- user in mind, not yours. You need to make it a pleasant experience.

Successful websites focus on 3 basic features: simplicity, clarity and speed. In other words, you need a site that is visually appealing, but at the same time downloads promptly and is simple to navigate.

To design a site that has visual appeal, you can make use of simple graphics, color and text. At all costs, keep away from flashing computer graphics and fussy backgrounds.

In fact, if you want the bulk of your visitors to be able to read your text easily a white background with black text is definitely best.

It isn’t crucial to be an accomplished graphic artist to design a visually pleasing content site. Get a couple of photos from a free stock photo site such as www.sxc.hu, add some colored text and a tag line using a graphics program like Windows Paint or Paint Shop Pro.

That’s all that is required for a header. And that’s presuming you want a header in the first place as some studies have shown that some niche markets achieve better results without any headers or images at all.

Navigation should be simple text links or buttons, either across the top, straight under the header, or down the left or right side of the screen. Make sure the text labels plainly show what the user will find when he or she clicks on them.

An opt in form and one or two simple ads can also be placed in the left or right columns, with your content in the center of your site so that it attracts the reader’s focus.

Clean and simple web design applies to the layout of your content too. Text is most legible when it is in “chunks.” This means brief sentences and paragraphs of no more than 2 to 4 sentences each.

Make generous use of colored subheadings and bullets. Sprinkle a graphic or two per page to break up the text and add visual curiosity.

Also use borders (padding) around your text, so that it doesn’t end up against the edges of your navigation or ad panels. Plenty of white space is essential.

In summary, many brand new webmasters (and even some more experienced ones) think that cramming as much as they can possibly fit into every page is the right method. It’s not.

What will keep folks on your site and keep them coming back is a clean, simple, easy to navigate design that doesn’t give them a headache each time they visit your page.

There are over 4.5 billion mobile phones in usage today and it’s estimated that by the end of this year, over 1 billion users will be accessing the web via a mobile device.
While these numbers are overwhelming, the mobile web experience is yet to live up to its full potential as compared to the traditional web experience. Web developers and designers need to understand practical techniques that will enhance the mobile web browsing experience.

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Your website is broken.

How you ask?

Well, it’s pretty simple really –

Your not helping people solve their problems.

That’s what’s broken. You may have spent hours and hours or money to build your website but that doesn’t matter. People only want their problems solved and if you can’t solve it another site is just a click away. If you’ve solved their problems before they might be back but don’t count on it.

What do visitors want from your site?

Ultimately their goal is to solve a problem.

Could be:

1. They require some information.

2. Want to make a purchase.

3. Want to be amused, entertained inspired, etc.

4. Want to be part a group or community.

They will fit somewhere into one of those sections and it’s your primary job to help them very quickly.

Does your website do that?

More often than not, NO.

It’s harsh, but true. Your site may look great but you need more.

If your website does not solve a problem? You can do something about it.

What you think, are there bigger mistakes. Leave a comment

Then read this article about a company helping people. Demand Media

Small business owners satisfied with the look of their commercial website are in for a surprise.

Some designers have ignored advice from the Worldwide Web Consortium.

The W3C, is the international authority establishing standards for code to create websites.

There are new reasons to reconsider the W3C recommendations.

Browser companies choose what they will support within the W3C standards, and most try to fully comply. Your pages may continue looking okay for years to come because most browsers will support your code no matter what W3C recommends. The impact on search engines may be the real issue, and very serious now.

What’s expected to happen? The search engine wars are a constant battle of changing the math algorithms to list search results. Too often the results are loaded up front with nonsensical or unrelated sites because of creative designers who get high ranking with remotely related sites, plus a ton of phone directory lists, or other paid listings near the top. The value to the person using the search engine is diminished, and this trend has not been overlooked by the major search engines. They each want to be the best.

Top search engine optimization experts are predicting that the methods used for listings must and will become friendlier to the real customer, the person searching. Some are suggesting that part of this improvement includes placing higher value for ranking on sites with valid code. Site owners enjoying Google page 1 listing, may very soon find their home page back 100 pages or worse if they do not have zero or near zero code errors. This is especially important for commercial sites designed more than 5 years ago.

When you consider most web designs may never become obsolete because browser companies have too much to lose not supporting older code, why the big fuss?

W3C has other recommendations some designers choose to ignore including XHTML which is a code standard designed for the future, so issues other than favorable placement in search engines need to be considered. There are advantages in XHTML that will sound like a foreign language to the average small business entrepreneur at first. An overview follows.

Having a design for the future means that not only will your pages display properly on devices in use today, each will still look great 10 years from now on new computing devices yet to be invented. Most sites that use HTML and tables for the layout include code errors as a result of changes in code standards over the last few years.

Tables vs CSS

Tables are still a valid technique for true tables of information, however, the code may continue to deteriorate as more tags become obsolete thus increasing the number of errors on a site. Like many websites done in HTML, redesign may be necessary sooner than expected. Will your website still look okay 10 years from now? Probably, however, the importance of designing without tables for layout plus zero or near zero code errors is gaining in significance for reasons beyond favorable search engine ranking.

Browsing with Disabilities

Next, there is an emerging issue that is being ignored by the majority of website designers, and that is accessibility. In short, equipment exists today that allow people with disabilities to browse the internet with devices specially designed to improve their experience. Voice synthesizers now read content in a choice of voices, and XHTML design techniques allow for this easily. These special devices depend on reading the hidden code used to create each page, and using tables or obsolete tags will mean defects or garbled output as the special reader sorts through the various extra code from the tables. Blind people have devices that print Braille dots on an output device so they can read page content, also. These accessibility issues are solved with a forward looking design using XHTML, yet there’s more.

Mobile Browsing

Mobile devices like iPhone and other cell phones are another aspect of accessibility that may cause problems for some website owners. As these methods of surfing the internet gain in popularity, proper display of websites on these devices may be an issue. The forward looking design assures that pages will display well on the widest range of devices, current and future, thus giving the site owner a broader audience rather than lost opportunity because their pages were not accessible.

Benefits of CSS

There are more benefits to XHTML with CSS, including fewer lines of code to create the same effect as done in HTML with tables. This means pages will load faster, and the real page content is easier to index by search engines because it’s not surrounded by excess code using tables. By comparison on a recent project, the old home page used over 500 lines of code. The revised version utilizes just 170 lines to display nearly identical content.

W3C, the Worldwide Web Consortium, the international body for establishing code standards for web design, strongly recommends that designers adopt XHTML with CSS and avoid tables for layout entirely. It takes less than a minute to check the code on your website. Search in Google using the quotation marks for “The W3C Markup Validation Service“, and then follow the link to W3C to check your web site for free with instant results.

In conclusion, the future is now when it comes to new computing devices used to browse the internet. Shifts in search engine strategy could be equally important. Plan now and avoid losing sleep worrying about your web site becoming obsolete. As a final tip, it makes sense to have a site review every 2 years with your web site designer to discuss advantages of emerging strategies.

I ask myself that question about once a month.

My website looks fine to me, but what are other people seeing?

And what are the Search Engines seeing?

Here’s a checklist of 10 ways to optimize your website for peak performance:

1. Browser Compatibility

The first thing is to look at your website through other people’s browsers. I do this regularly and I’ve sometimes been shocked at what I saw!

ANYBROWSER http://www.anybrowser.com

2. Broken Links

About 5% of all links on the Internet are broken. A site that contains broken links gives a bad impression to visitors and is a frequent cause of lost sales. Also, the major Search Engines and Directories will not list your page if it contains any broken links or missing images.

Here are some free link validators:

LINK SCAN http://www.elsop.com/linkscan/quickcheck.html

NET MECHANIC http://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm

WEBSITE GARAGE DEADLINK CHECK http://websitegarage.netscape.com/O=wsg/tuneup_plus/index.html

3. Web Safe Colors

Are the colors on your website displaying properly on other people’s browsers? You may have a beautiful shade of lilac on your index page but it could look very strange on someone else’s computer.

There are only 216 colors that you can safely use on the Web. These colors display solid and consistent on any computer monitor or web browser that is able to display at least 8-bit hex color.

The Web Safe Palette contains six groups of colors with 36 colors per group. These 216 web safe colors can have any combination of the following RGB (Red Green Blue) values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255 (each RGB value must be divisible by 51).

Here’s a good palette of web safe colors:

WEB-SOURCE SAFE COLORS http://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm

4. ALT Tags

ALT Tags allow you to give an alternative to people who have the ‘view images’ function turned off in their browser. Let’s say the navigation system on your website is a series of buttons that link to other pages on your site. If you don’t have ALT Tags, people who have the ‘view images’ function turned off will be unable to navigate through your site – in place of your button they will just see an empty space.

But an ALT Tag allows you to tell those people what that button does. For example, if the button is a link to your ‘Site Map’ you could insert the following ALT Tag: Click here to view Site Map

ALT Tags also allow you to raise your keyword density. For every image that is not hyperlinked you could insert your main keywords. For example: airfares cheap discount flights

5. Meta Tags

Meta Tags are so important they deserve a whole article on their own. The most important Meta Tags are the Title Tag, the Keywords Tag and the Description Tag.

The Title Tag should be no more than 64 characters (longer than that and it will be cut off in some Search Engines).

The Keyword Tag should contain about 5 to 10 keywords that appear on your page. Never include words that do not appear on that page – in some Search Engines your website will be penalized for this. Do not repeat the same keyword – this is called ‘keyword stuffing’ and is also frowned upon by the Search Engines.

Separate your keywords with spaces (not commas). This allows the Search Engines to combine your keywords into phrases, for people who do ‘phrase searching’.

The Description Tag should be no more than 200 characters. Include as many of your keywords as you can. Remember also that your Description Tag must be enticing – it must make people want to visit your site.

Here are some programs that will generate your Meta Tags for you:

WEBSITE GARAGE http://websitegarage.netscape.com/turbocharge/metatag/

META MEDIC http://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html

MULTI-META-MAKER http://www.multimeta.com/tools/multimetamaker.html

6. Load Time

A slow-loading index page is one of the main reasons for lost sales. The generally accepted maximum time for a page to load is around 15 seconds. Here is a free service that tells you how long your web page takes to load:

NETMECHANIC http://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/FutureQuest/load_check.htm

Your pages should be no more than about 30Kb in size. To calculate the size of your web page, highlight the HTML document and then click on ‘File’ and ‘Properties’ and note down the file size. Then do the same for any graphics you have on that page. Then add those figures together to get your page size.

If your page is less than 30Kb and takes more than 15 seconds to load, the problem is most likely with your web host. The solution is to change web host. Here are 2 services that will check the speed of your web host’s server and compare it with other web hosts:

HOST COMPARE http://www.hostcompare.com/testtools.htm

CNET WEBSERVICES http://webservices.cnet.com/ping/

7. GIF (or JPEG) Cruncher

Shrinking the size of your images is one of the best ways to get a faster-loading web page. You can usually reduce a GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% without losing any significant definition or sharpness.

SPINWAVE http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html

8. HTML Optimizer

Another way to make your page load faster is to compress (or optimize) your HTML code. An HTML Optimizer removes all blank spaces in your HTML code and also removes certain unnecessary tags.

On average, an HTML optimizer will reduce the size of your page by 15% to 20%. That percentage may not seem much, but the saving in load time is much higher, as your visitor’s browser will parse your page much more efficiently.

A word of caution: in most HTML Optimizers you will find an ‘Options’ menu that tells the program to ignore certain parts of your code. Make sure your Optimizer does not compress embedded script tags – if they get compressed, the script will usually not work.

ADVANCED HTML OPTIMIZER http://www.pcbit.com/htmlopt/

9. WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER Tags

The WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER attributes are essential for each image that you have on your website. When you hyperlink an image, always make sure that the BORDER attribute is set to zero (BORDER=0). If you don’t do this, your hyperlinked image will have an ugly blue border around it.

The WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes allow your page to load faster, as the browser knows in advance how much space the image requires. To find out the width and height of any image, just double click on the image file. This will automatically open ‘Microsoft Photo Editor’ – your image will appear, with the width and height of your image (in pixels) displayed on the tool bar.

10. HTML Validator

Always check the validity of your HTML. Some Search Engines give lower rankings to pages that have poor quality HTML (such as incorrect nesting of elements).

Here are some free online validators:

HTML HELP http://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/

BOBBY http://www.cast.org/bobby/

WATSON http://watson.addy.com/

How to analyze a website is the first, and most important step, in the website design process.

It requires answering several questions about this website you’re going to create.

Now’s the time to start a journal. Write down the following questions and give some serious thought to your answers.

Why are you creating this website?

Your answer is important. It will determine the content, design and development of your pages. Do you have some interesting information you’d like to share? Do you have a product or service to sell? Do you want to display your artistic/creative talent? Do you have some terrific website links you want to let the world know about? Really think about this and then write down your thoughts.

Another way to think about this question is what is the goal of this website? Is it to entertain, instruct, inform, persuade, share, sell or display? The answer will provide you with direction and focus as you design your site and help you to develop your theme.

Who is my target audience?

What type of visitors do I want my site to attract? What are the demographics of your audience. What will be their age, sex and education? Will they search out my site because we share a special interest, do the same kind of things or are they looking for specific information? Is my target audience the business community, stay-at-home moms, artists, or sports enthusiasts? Or is it a combination of several groups?

Be as specific as you can about this. Try to pinpoint a certain type of individual then learn as much about them as you can so you can tailor your website to suit them. The key to website success lies in your ability to express your message in such a way as to create interest for your visitors. You can’t do this unless you know who they are.

How can I communicate effectively?

Once you know who the audience for your website will be, what is the best way to communicate with them? Are they looking for a fancy website with lots of interactivity? Do they want all the information on the first page? Would they prefer the content be categorized so that they can access only the section they want? Do I need to include an order form? Would a message board be a good way to communicate?

The way your visitors perceive your message will determine how they react to it. If you are seeking to sell something to your visitors make that clear from the start. People don’t like to be fooled into taking action. Be clear and forthright in your method of communication and your website will stand with the best of them.

What information do I need?

If you are designing a site for a client, you will need to know the answers to the preceding questions as well as what their vision is for their site. Do they have a logo they want you to use, do they have specific colors in mind, do they want to include phone and fax numbers on their pages? If this is your own business site, these are questions you should answer also.

When creating a personal website, such as one providing links to other sites, it is considered good netiquette to contact the site owners and let them know you are linking to their pages. An advantage to this is that often they will provide a reciprocal link to your site!

If you are using someone’s graphics and/or pictures, you should request their permission and plan on providing a credit link somewhere on the page where they are displayed. Are you going to have a message forum on your site? Are you going to have an e-mail list for informing visitors of updates or new content? These are all things you need to consider…and make note of in your journal.

What content (data, graphics, photos, etc.) will be included?

This is the big job…gathering all the content that you want to include on your website. Are you going to use photos? What kind of graphics do you want? And what information or data are you putting online! Are you going to provide tutorials? Right now, just make a list of the items you think you will want to have on your website…you don’t need to gather it all together yet.

Make notes about what you need to do such as scan photos or documents, locate or create graphics, write tutorials, sort and organize data. This is a good time to create folders or binders for your website project so that you can keep the content organized. You might need one folder for Graphics, one for Photos, one for Data, one for Tutorials and one for Miscellaneous information. Your content will determine the folder titles you need. Don’t let all this overwhelm you…it will all fall into place.

Planning your website

Time spent on this most important phase of website design will pay dividends in the long run. The planning that you do now will make things much easier once your website is online. There are a multitude of details that go into the design of a professional site and solid planning in the early stages of design will help eliminate problems down the road. Remember to spend as much time as necessary planning your website.

Planning and organizing are the most crucial steps in designing a website. Once you have a clear picture of what you are trying to say it will be easier to devise a plan to present this information to your visitors. Planning your website is the key to creating a website that is robust, effective and easy to maintain.

Projecting a professional image is paramount to your website’s success. It can make or break your online business. Use this handy article and to improve the professional look and feel of your website.

First, take a general overview of your site. What is subject matter of your site? Define it down to a particular topic — your website niche.

For instance, you can have a website on Sports. You may have narrowed it down to a particular sport; say baseball. You may have narrowed it down even further, a particular baseball team.

Whatever the subject matter of your website, keep the content within your site on topic. Obvious, but important. Someone coming to your site to check out the Yankees — don’t want to find material on ‘how to hook a rug’!

Make sure that you ‘keep your site on topic’. This one thing alone will improve the professional image your website projects.

Next, consider your audience, who is it aimed at? Who are you targeting? For instance, if it’s a general news site, it may be the whole world. Everyone is interested in the news.

If it a website on breeding dogs — your audience is probably other dog breeders or those interested in dog breeding. Someone visiting your site will expect to see content/information on dog breeding.

Keep your site’s audience in mind at all times.

Now consider the layout and design of your website. Is it appropriate for your topic and for your audience. Does the color scheme and design suit your subject matter? Does the design and layout suit your audience?

A website catering to young visitors, offering online role-playing games is not going to have the same layout or color scheme as a conservative business site. Appeal to your audience and subject matter; again, keep them in mind at all times.

In your site design, go for simplicity. Don’t complicate them with too much flash and dazzle. Provide your visitors with what they’re looking for — and make it quick. Don’t have your visitors jump through hoops to get what they’re searching for. Have an ‘easy to navigate’ linking structure.

Keep the overall design within two or three colors. You can even try an old artist’s trick, make it almost monochromatic with a complimentary color split to bring focus to your points of interests. Make sure your fonts are consistent and easy to read in all the different browsers. Keep the same logo or brand name on all your pages — don’t confuse your visitors.

Now, lets get down to some specific changes or additions that can ‘tune-up’ your website. These should improve the professional look and feel of your site.

Give Them Something to Remember You By!

1. Make a ‘favicon.ico’ file if you don’t have one. Look down at your computer’s task bar, you should see a version of a favicon of the programs on your computer. These are small ‘16×16′ icons or symbols for your site or product. All major sites have them. Here’s how you can make them:

Use a photo or paint shop program like Adobe or Paint Shop Pro. Just take your logo or part of it and reduce it down to a 16 x 16 image. Adjust the resolution and play around with it. You can just use a single letter from your site’s name and jazz it up a bit. You need to upload this image to your website’s directory in an ico file named ‘favicon.ico’ — very logical Mr. Spock!

Extra help here: http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/favicon.shtml

Give Them Eye Candy!

2. Make a logo. Or have someone design it for you. Nothing says professional than a cool looking logo! A really good one will brand your site in the minds of your visitors. Have this logo on all your web pages.

Logo building help here: http://web-bureau.com/modules/logo.php

Put Them on the Map!

3. Make a Sitemap for your site. Extremely important, make sure you have a sitemap for your website. Place all the links (if possible) to your site on here. It will unify your site and be of tremendous benefit to your visitors. It’s a common courtesy you cannot, must not ignore. Ideally, you should have a link to your sitemap on all your web pages.

Redirect Them!

4. Redirect Page. Create a redirect or error page if your web host doesn’t provide one. This is a catch-all page for the ‘404 Not Found File’ that pops up. It will make your site more professional; plus, you won’t lose all those hard fought for visitors. Make sure your Redirect Page has a link to your Sitemap.

Try this link for help: http://www.clockwatchers.com/htaccess_redirect.html

Blog Them!

5. Start a Blog and RSS Feed for your site. If you haven’t placed a blog on your site — do it now! This is one addition to your site you should have. Start a blog on the subject of your site or something complimentary to it. It will allow for visitor interaction and will give your site a boost in the ratings. (Use the link at the end of this article if you need help with setting up a blog.)

It will also give you a RSS Feed which will allow you to syndicate your site’s information or content. Place an orange RSS or XML button on your site. Since RSS is somewhat new – you might want to place a little note explaining xml or the rss feed. Always place your visitor’s comfort in the forefront.

Send Them to the Doctor

6. Doctor HTML. Check the html code and spelling of your site. Sites like this one are great. They will give you a tune-up for free! I have used this one and it’s excellent. What you’re really checking for is browser compatibility and broken links. It will also squish your html to save on your load time. It will check the coding and any spelling mistakes on your site.

Correct any blatant ‘faux pas’ in your site’s coding.

You can find the html doctor here: http://www.doctor-html.com/

You can also go to NetMechanic to reduce the graphics on your site. As the net goes broadband, this is becoming less and less a problem but it’s always better to have a fast loading site.

GifBot by NetMechanic http://www.netmechanic.com/accelerate.htm

Keep Them Browsing

7. Next check your site in all the browsers. You might be surprised how your site looks in a different browser. Firefox is increasing it’s users, check your logs, see which browsers your visitors are using. Make sure your site looks and operates perfectly in these systems.

If you have a lot of friends with computers, check your site on their operating systems and see how it looks. Make any necessary changes. You can also try AnyBrowser.com Screen Size Tester below.

http://anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html

Give Them Spider Food!

8. Spend a day or so, checking all your keywords. List down your site’s major keywords. The ones you’re targeting. Optimize for the search engines. Most of the traffic on the web come from search engines, so make sure your site is optimized for them. Make sure you have submitted your site to all of these engines.

Double check your ‘title’ and ‘description’ meta tags for any obvious mistakes. These get indexed and are often the first line of contact with any potential visitors to your site. Professionism here could have a significant influence on the amount of traffic your site receives!

Find some great Search Engine Optimization Tools here:

http://www.webconfs.com

Give Them A Gentle Reminder!

9. Make sure you have a Bookmark link. Simple, but many websites don’t actively encourage visitors to bookmark their site. Have a bookmark logo or link on all the pages of your site. Remind your visitors to bookmark. It’s a great source of free traffic.

You can get a free script from Michael Bloch: http://www.tamingthebeast.net

Give Them Some Jazz!

10. Jazz up your site! Try to find things that will make your site more interesting. Give your visitors a reason to visit your site other than the great content. Offer a free service, like the one the doctor uses above! Run a contest! Give away free stuff or extra bonuses if they visit your site. In whatever way you can, make your visitor feel special.

Maybe try a headliner from Feedburner.com for your rss feed. This will display all your headlines. Add audio and video “testimonials”. Add other graphics like the ones mentioned here: favicon, bookmark, sitemap, etc.

But don’t overdo it with the graphics, but add a few to make your site visually interesting. Even a visually bare-bones site like Google does this with their logo on special occasions. It adds a touch of style.

It is estimated that over fifty percent of net users now have broadband so the use of a lot of graphics is not as detrimental as it once was. But again, don’t over do it, a little spice goes a long way.

But don’t put style over substance. It all boils down to content. Give your visitors good valuable content or information and your site will improve faster than with all the points mentioned above. Don’t forget that basic ingredient while you’re fine tuning your site.

And don’t forget your site’s visitors. Make their visit to your site as pleasant and comfortable as you possibly can.

Always keep your visitor in mind.

Each one is a special guest. Each one deserves the best site you can produce. Each one is …

A VIP with a cursor! Give them the Royal Treatment!

Your site will reap the benefits and look good while doing it!

Business website design is an important consideration when you are starting your business. There are many options and styles and it can be confusing. What you need to remember though is, regardless of the style you choose, your business website design must promote your brand.

Business Web Page Design Dos and Don’ts

To be effective your business website does not need to be any more than a simple five-page Website.

Design your business website as an online brochure.

Use very simple, inexpensive shared hosting.

Use things like Flash and graphics sparingly, only to support the content in your business website. These things slow down the loading time and they are not picked up by search engines.

Make sure you have an email address that matches your company Website domain. In other words, www.companyname.com, emailaddress@companyname.com.

Branding is the key so all elements of your website design should match. You must be able to access Web Mail or work with an email program that will allow you to send mail as another account. Gmail allows this for free. When considering who will host your business website, make sure you can get access to the associated email account via the web. This way you can check your email from any computer just as if you were sitting in your office.

The Bottom Line on Business Website Design

A business website is an extension of your brand. Do not clutter your website with unnecessary graphics, fancy videos, Flash or anything else that will slow down the web experience. You should use multimedia to support your message. Make sure that all aspects of your business website design are coordinated including a matching email address that is accessible by Web Mail or Gmail. Less is more with business website design – keep it simple and professional.

Everyone wants to get the most out of their website(s). Today I would like to cover keyword optimization. There are many of programs and services that you can pay for, but with some work you can accomplish the same thing without spending any money. But that’s only if you know what to do and have the skills to make some changes to your website.

Now, there are 3 tasks that need to be completed before starting:

1. Go to www.goodkeywords.com – download and install the free keyword tool.

2. Go to toolbar.google.com – download and install the Google Toolbar.

3. Go to Google webmaster guidelines www.Google.com/webmaster-guidelines

google-toolbar keyword optimization in 3 steps

Have all your supplies ready? GOOD! Then lets begin.

Pick 3 main keywords that describe your site and list them on the left side of the template.

Open up your keyword tool and click on KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS. Make sure you are searching for Overture US results.

Enter your first keyword and click GO!

After a few seconds you should get a list of relevant keywords that were search for the last month starting with the highest count to the lowest count. From this list choose 10 keywords and write them in the middle column of your template for your first keyword. I generally use the ones from the middle, as the higher count terms will have an enormous amount of competition.

Repeat this for your other 2 main keywords.

OK… you should now have a total of 30 keywords for your site.

Now we will go over to Google.com to find out how much competition we have for each keyword. This is where the Google toolbar comes in. We can check the PR rank of each of the top 5 sites that listed for each keyword and get a count of the number of sites listed for that keyword.

Do a search for each of the 30 keywords that you chose earlier. In the upper right hand corner they will say “Results 1 – 10 of (number)”. The number is number of total results found for that keyword. Write that number in the right column of your template.

Now check the page rank for each of the top 5 results. Click on the link and on the Google Toolbar is will tell you the rank for that web site.

Make a note of it and continue through the top 5 results.

Do this for all 30 keywords you have chosen. I know it is a lot of work, but it will all pay off in the end. I promise.

Now that you have all your results together, you can figure out which relevant keywords with a lower number of competition you should target your website for. I use a maximum of 10 keywords per page on my sites, but you can utilize any number you want.

Now that you have your keywords you can optimize your website for the search engines. Some key tricks are

1. Be sure you have a header tags containing one of your keywords.

2. Have your keywords included in your title tag.

3. Bold or italicized each of your keywords at least once.

4. Include a text alternate containing your keywords on your graphics.

5. Place your keyword once at the top and again at the bottom of your page.

6. Get links to your page from relevant sites with a PR of 5 or greater to increase your PR rank.

Combining this techniques on each of the pages for your site will help you work towards that number one spot. Once you have completed these please give it 2 weeks to fully take effect and you can then make adjustments from there.