How to Design a Website

As the economy gets worst and it becomes harder to make money, more people will be turning towards the internet in hopes of finding a way to make an extra buck.

I’d like to point out a couple things that can make the difference between a website that makes money and one that does not.

1. You need to understand the audience you’ll be marketing to. The design, colors, pictures and text will differ from one sex to the next, as well as from one age group to the next.

2. Take some time and look at other websites and make a list of what you like and don’t like about each site. Everyone doesn’t have the same taste, by giving your designer an idea of your taste he/she will be able to build a website that will be closer to what it is you’re looking for with less wasted attempts.

3. Once you agree on a design you need to carry that look and feel throughout the site. You don’t want a site visitor thinking they’ve left your site because they’ve clicked a link and the design has totally changed. You also what to brand the look of your site into the mind of your visitor, the second time they land on the site they are more likely to buy.

4. The site needs to be organized by what’s most important while at the same time guiding your visitor towards the goal of the site, rather it be subscribing to a news letter, buying a product or making a phone call.

5. Keep it simple. Don’t use language that will cause your site visitor to have to think. Write so a third grader can understand the site.

6. Break up text and use sub headers to make it easier to read. Reading off a computer monitor is a lot harder than reading off a piece of paper.

7. Setting up a website is a lot like trying to pick a woman up, if all you do is talk about what you want you’ll be leaving alone. Let her know what’s in it for her.

8. The website should be like a pretty picture frame adding to but not taking away from the information you want to express to your site visitor. Flash animation, bright colors, and over-powering graphics can put-off a site visitor. Like with the text keep it simple and most of all don’t use tags, features, and plug-ins that are only available to one brand or version of a browser.

9. Make sure your website is accessible to the blind and hearing impaired. Not only is it the right thing to do but it’s the law in some countries. And who knows, they could become your biggest client.

10. If you’re trying to sale something then put your phone number in the header of every page. Don’t make your site visitor have to go and look for your phone number.

11. Put an email address at the bottom of every page. Don’t make your site visitors have to figure out how to send you an email.

Tips:

If your website is a business website then don’t use animated graphics and flash unless it is used in a modest form. People don’t like flashy sites and it makes it difficult to read and follow a site when everything is moving all around the test.

It’s important that your website loads quickly and for this reason don’t add large graphics or other things that will slow down you load time.

It is essentially important to know how many people are visiting ones site and where these visitors’ starts from, If he/she owns one or more websites. For every webmaster who wishes to improve their website traffic over time, analyzing website statistics should become a regular practice one can see how visitors find their site in the search engines and even are able to test and track the popularity of their updated site content.

Did anyone know that some of the best website statistic programs are already coming free with most web hosting plans? Although there are many web statistics programs on the market, each one unique in price and features.

Today Cpanel is the most popular control panel for web hosting accounts. One probably have a whole bunch of web statistic programs built in, If he/she have a hosting account for ones website that includes cpanel. For regular website administration, it is extremely easy to learn and use.

Analog, Webalizer and Awstats are generally 3 different types of statistics one will find inside cpanel.

Webalizer is a statistic program showing one in a graph, how many visitors have visited his/her site month by month. This is the basic type of statistics, which only takes a quick glance to receive ones web site information. One will probably need to check out the other two statistic programs if he/she wants more information that is detailed.

Different presentation styles are being offered by both Analog and Awstats. Most people have difficulty finding Analog as it is mainly text based and requires close attention. However, all the essential visitor information one probably wishes to see, is listed on Analog only.

Awstats is the favorite web site statistic program on cpanel. Apart from giving plenty of visitor information, from number of hits per day and month, it also tells one where they originate from, how long visitors stayed at their site, the country from which they are viewing their site, what browser they are using and much more. It is quick and easy task to find, the information that one is looking for, because of colored graphs and simple to read layout.

Look into one’s cPanel statistic programs, inside his/her website hosting account, if he/she has a website, and would like to know more about his/her visitors. In analyzing ones site and drawing more traffic, cpanel can be extremely helpful.

Author:Hostgator

Frankly speaking, no one can deliver an actual answer to this question. It genuinely rely on the concept of design and purpose of one’s website. It can be anything from the range of a mere window to a sophisticated and complex system that forms the lifeline of a business. However, a straightaway decision can be lethal and one should go step by step keeping all the probabilities in mind. There are several people who are unaware of the actual benefit with a website. For such people this article can be a jackpot!

If one talks about a simpler version of a company website then it would consists of a bunch of institutional pages, which comprises of a home page where one can welcome his/her visitors and tell something about them. Other related pages comprise of company history, contact information etc. If the site is meant for selling products, then it should include pages displaying them, it is better to display with pictures. Such website does not demand much maintenance, and also lead several new clients to doorsteps.

Moving little bit ahead, one can take his/her institutional site and adjoin a newsletter service. So that clients and visitors coming to the site can sign up to get a periodic email regarding details and news about the concern company. By this way one can easily understand that who is actually interested in dealing with the company about solutions and products. Another benefit is that it will produce an aspect of loyalty. With this one will remain in regular touch of prospective clients.

One more step which one can include in his/her procedure is to offer support to the clients on the website. It can be everything ranging from email support, a tickets system to live chat. One can go for anything according to his/her requirements. Executing a forum for the purpose of providing answers to questions and for creating a community of users can also be effective. If user is selling products possessing print manuals, he/she can produce PDF versions of these manuals and can make them available on website for downloading purpose.

After accomplishing the above-mentioned step one needs to take a very crucial step. One can move a branch of his/her business to the web. For instance, one can allow a form where customers can submit their quote requests. Rather one can comprise of a shopping cart for the purpose of selling all the products straightaway. One should understand that the above-mentioned steps are mere possibilities actual procedure is everlasting. While thinking one should give priority to his/her company, and also the things of which one can make use. If user’s job comprises of much traveling then a password-protected tool for visualizing necessary information anywhere can be very helpful.

After reaching to the conclusion that one requires a website for his/her company, he/she should necessitate the following:

1. A person for the purpose of making the web site i.e. a web designer, other than that it is better to have a web programmer if user’s strategy comprises of a site with the features beyond a mere small institutional site. If one can do the above-mentioned tasks without outside help then it is well and good. Or it is also better to get a person specialized in both designing and programming tasks.

2. After the registration of a domain name like www.one’s-company.com, one can use it until it crosses the period of expiration. One can register it for any time period like for instance one, two, or ten years. One can decrease the cost of annual fee with the registration of several years at the same period of time.

3. One can host his/her website at the place called hosting company, where it is easy for the site to reach to numerous amount of visitors. One should select a hosting plan after doing proper analyzation of his/her requirements. In web hosting market one can find several companies with variety of packages and prices. If user possesses a small scale website, then a very expensive package with numerous features is not the right choice. It is quite important that the hosting company is serious and reliable. In case one is creating a business website, then it is not at all advisable to host it in a free server as it will create bad effect on one’s image and goodwill.

Thus the above were some of the things what a website can do for one’s business. In case one is not having all this, then he should seriously try to get them all. So do changes if desired to improve yourself and achieve your goal. Cheers!

Author:Webhosting

Since the Internet has millions of surfers, a few people mistakenly believe that, business will increase radically if they put up a website. Since there are many web developer and administrator, people regularly have this question in their mind, if they should get a website. Moreover, they wrongly believe that, if they put up a website, business will increase significantly, since there are millions of surfers on the Internet.

This is as if, if someone opens a store in a city, which has millions of people, his/her sales should increase uncontrollably but this is not exactly how it works.

How does a person know where to find one? This is the big question on the Internet as in any conventional business.

Sarcastically, it’s probably easier with a conventional business to open a store on a busy main road and do well from day one. On the other hand, it’s not that simple on the Internet as any “busy thoroughfare,” is already someone else’s website. For a new website, only with a vigorous promotional campaign, heavy traffic, and subsequent sales comes.

There was in fact a way to get inexpensive Internet traffic with little or no promotion in the past. Eight or nine years back (the Internet, as we know it, is little more than a decade or so old) i.e. is during the “gold rush” days of the Internet, if one had a generic name like cars.com, stocks.com, books.com, or store.com, he/she could expect instant success. Such names were so generic in nature, that they invariably generated huge traffic.

One cannot get such names for the going away prices of between $10 and $35 but he/she will get such names for several hundred thousand dollars, or, in some case, millions of dollars.

There are also the old standbys (search engines) to generate traffic; some of the top search engines and their addresses are as under: -

AltaVista – altavista.com

AskJeeves – askjeeves.com

AOL – aol.com

Google – google.com

Yahoo! – Yahoo.com

Hotbot – hotbot.lycos.com

WiseNut – wisenut.com

inktomi – inktomi.com

LycosFast – lycos.com

MSN Search – search.msn.com

Open Directory Project (ODP) – dmoz.org

Teoma – teoma.com

With the help of software programs and web applications, ones site will be submitted to hundreds or even thousands of search engines. However, when it comes to the top search engines, it’s suggested to actually visit each one of their sites and submit ones website manually.

Why should one submit site manually?

Few search engines don’t allow automatic program submissions. 90% of search-engine generated traffic is accounted by major search engines; as they are very important, they cannot be left to an automated procedure.

Getting, “targeted traffic” is a very important aspect of doing business on the web. Getting people whom in some way or the other are associated with or have already shown interest in ones product or service is targeted traffic.

Practically every search engine asks for a “category.” One will be maximizing on “quality” traffic by choosing a category that properly describes, or at least comes as close as possible to describing, ones website.

One will be wasting time, money and efforts by specifying the “wrong” category or neglecting it overall. For example, if one is running a sweets shop, and he/she chooses category like “astrology,” getting tons of people who are looking for horoscopes won’t add much to his/her pocket — unless he/she happens have a page telling about peoples horoscopes in the website.

To conclude if one is going to spend time and money on a website, he/she should do it in a right procedure, and for the right reasons. And should not ask himself the same old dreamy question, to be or not to be (a webmaster), instead one should ask himself the other philosophical question with which philosophers are still struggling with like: If their website fades in the jungle of websites, and his/her website is not been noticed, did it make a sound in his/her pocket?

Author:Webhosting

Business hosting is alike other types of web hosting, though there are some very important things to be considered when selecting a host for one’s business website.

Few new internet entrepreneurs usually makes an important error of taking advantage of free website hosting offers or web hosting options, which are being offered by their internet service provider as a value- added service.

Free web hosting is best for personal websites that use this service just for sharing memento, photos and family news. On the other hand, for website that is intended to be professional and generating leads and income, vital aspects of business hosting are- speed, reliability, space, and enhanced and up-gradable features.

One’s website is much more than a place on the web, when he/she has an internet-based business.

As it is one’s livelihood, in reality, it is a fact that business hosting is different from other website hosting.

All web hosting, packages are not alike, and when it comes to web hosting, one gets what one pays for. So, there is much more to consider than cost, while choosing a web hosting package for one’s business website.

As free web hosting is not that reliable, it should be avoided completely, it usually uses the web host’s domain name instead of one’s own apart from having limited options.

When one host his/her site with an internet service provider instead of a professional web hosting company, he/she generally has to share bandwidth with many subscribers so his/her website may not be accessible all the time, so web hosting options offered as part of service by one’s internet service provider should be used for personal websites, not business websites as they generally are limited in regard to capabilities and options.

A professional web hosting service, who will host one’s website under his/her own registered domain name should go for business hosting,

Web hosting package provided by web hosts, should have fast servers, secure server capabilities, and adequate web space for one’s current and future needs.

As part of the package, one should also have: -

• Full email services (preferably with IMAP technology),

• Access to reports and raw server logs that will enable one to monitor his/her website’s performance and the results of his/her marketing efforts,

• Access to, an administrative control panel, and

• The ability to transfer files using FTP access.

Business hosting offered by a professional hosting company should be able to offer guaranty, at a minimum, 99% uptime for the greatest reliability.

When one’s web hosting provider’s server is down, his/her website and email will be down and downtime will result in lost of customers, lost sales and hindered revenues, if their web hosting provider’s don’t have alternative servers.

To ensure that one’s website and databases are safe and secure and that data retrieval will not be a problem, if it becomes necessary due to technical failure, Web hosting providers should make available top-quality technical support that is handy when needed and also they should make regular backups of their servers.

Assessing alternatives for hosting one’s business website is not very easy. It takes time, thought and consideration. Though, if one takes the time to evaluate their options and think things throughout before selecting a web hosting plan for his/her business website, he/she will be at an advantage over the long run.

Decideing a web hosting plan for one’s business website is not a decision to be taken without due consideration. In reality, it provides the base upon which one will build both his/her business website and business.

One’s Internet business experience will be much more enjoyable and profitable if he/she makes sure of his/her foundation to be strong and unshakable.

Author:web hosting for arachnophilia 5.2