When first starting out to create a website, especially if you are a beginner you can create your own web pages using an editor like Microsoft’s Front Page. With this software, you can write your web page like you would any document and then drag and drop images easily. Some practice may be needed, by buying some templates; you can create a professional website for free or by using some of the free templates found on the Internet. Mainly in order for you to successfully present your ideas you have to create an effective layout design in an interesting manner whatever your topic may be.

Layout
Content
Application of graphic designs
Easy and quick navigation
Logo
Choosing color

Layout format – this will serve as your guide for a good design. Primarily this context must encompass a clear and well organized content that will make everybody understand and appreciate. A simple design, layout makes it easier for you to build your website. The end result will be a website which your visitors will find easy to navigate and easy get whatever information they want.

Application of graphic designs – you must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects.

Easy and quick navigation -Always see to it that you are able to include a link that will bring them back to the main page. Create a navigation structure that is common for all the pages in your Web. Keep the use of hyperlinks inside your text paragraphs to a minimum. Don’t use hyperlinks inside text paragraphs to send your visitors to every random page of your Web. If you must use hyperlinks, add them to the bottom of a paragraph or to the navigation menus of your site. A key aspect to making your visitors happy is insuring they go where they need to go, quickly and efficiently. Good navigation design comes from experience, and should be one of the most important aspects of your website design project.

Logo – Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

Choosing color- Have a clear color scheme based on the theme of your website. Choose carefully a set of colors you use for your background, text, border, tables and cells etc. The color scheme expresses the characters of your website and makes it unique and attractive.

One of the most important aspects you need to keep in mind at all times when choosing a website design firm or designing the website yourself. It is very important to remember that most of your visitors haven’t spoken to you yet and your site will be the first impression they have of your company. If your website design lacks professionalism and/or does not reflect that of a well established company, your new prospect can easily lose confidence.

Try and avoid run of the mill things like page counters, java text scrolling, flashing images, GIF images, signs which say “we are not ready.” Or, too many illustrations or animations, black grounds or fade ins.

2. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to. Instead of using downloaded illustrations use original ones.

3. Avoid things like heavy files or graphics. These will slow down your pages. GIF is better than JPEG files.

4. Think of the target audience and subject being addressed when designing. The overall effect should be that of exclusivity.

A web site is a crucial ingredient of your marketing strategy because it can widen your target market to include anyone who has access to a computer and the internet. Almost 60% of Canadians had access to the internet at home in 2003, and around 8 million had regular access to the internet from somewhere, either at home, at work or at school.

And that’s just in Canada. Ecommerce sales from Canada were $7.2 billion, and we only captured 4% of the global ecommerce market! So, how can you reach some of those internet surfers, and how can you capture some of that $7.2 billion spent in ecommerce?

First, you build your website

The first step is designing your website. If your company already has business cards and letterhead, it’s best to design your website around them. A matching corporate identity and website helps with branding.

I like uncomplicated websites, with a simple layout and easy navigation. A nice, simple layout, with good graphics, balanced look and good color combinations is my #1 goal when designing a small business web site. Remember to use graphics sparingly and to optimize them for your website because internet surfers are impatient. If your page loads too slowly, they’ll leave.

Navigation should be easy to find and to use, and it should be consistent from page to page. I’ve left more than one site frustrated because I couldn’t easily find their navigation.

Small business web sites aren’t static. They evolve. You need to start somewhere, and starting with an introductory web site is probably easiest. All you really need to start is five pages. You can always add pages later. The important thing is to just do it—take the plunge and get it out there.

Your five pages could include an index, or home page, about us, services, contact and a sitemap. The index page is your landing page. Typically its design is a little more detailed than the others, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I like to use CSS (cascading style sheets) for designing because it’s simply easier to build a web site and to edit its layout with CSS rather than just HTML (hypertext markup language) alone. A change on a CSS sheet changes all the pages on your site at once.

Content is king

Once your site is designed, you’ll want to start thinking about content. Design is very important, but it does little good to have a beautiful site without high-quality content.

Your small business home page introduces you and your company—who you are and what you do. The about us page is usually used to give more detail than the home page about who you are, and your services page gives more detail about what you do. You might wonder why you’d “waste” a page on a sitemap since you only have 5 pages, but sitemaps help search engines find all the pages in your site.

As far as content goes, more is better, up to a point. Your pages should be content rich and informative, but they also need to be relevant to your small business. If your visitor can’t figure out what your web site is about in just a few seconds, they may leave.

The internet was at first strictly informational, and that’s how it remains today. Several times people have tried experiments using copywriting similar to direct mail sales letters, but they’ve all failed. It seems as if people surf the internet more for information than anything else. Knowing this will help you write pages people will want to read.

Attracting visitors

You could follow your instinct and just start writing, but wait. There’s research you must do first, or your web site simply won’t be high enough in searches to be found. Search engine optimization is far too big a subject to cover in this short article, but among other things, search engines find your pages based on keywords.

So, pretend for a moment that you’re on the other side of the desk. If you were a customer of your own business, what words or phrases would you use to search for your product or service? Ask friends and neighbors how they’d search for your product or services.

When you’ve come up with a few, check them out on a keyword suggestions tool. You can also use that tool to suggest similar words and phrases. Then find out how many results there would be if you searched for that term. What you want to do next is narrow down your choices to the words or phrases that are searched for the most, but have the fewest results.

Remember that people generally don’t look beyond the first three pages for any search term, so if you’re not in the top three pages, your business is not likely to be found at all. If there are millions of results for your phrase, you might simply need to make it more specific.

For example, let’s say you have a small business consulting company that specializes in communication for small business. Using “communication” as a search term is nearly pointless because there are almost 2 billion results for that word. But, there are only 974 results for “small business communication”.

Much better, but how often is that searched for? According to WordTracker, it’s searched for 10 times a day. Not bad, but I think we can do better. How about “small business consulting”? That’s searched for 261 times a day, and there are 373,000 results. That could be the best primary phrase for a small business communication consulting company.

What you want to do, is write your content around those words and phrases. You don’t want or need very many—three or four are plenty.

Getting them to come back again and again

Getting visitors to come back to your site again and again is relatively simple. Keep your content fresh and lively, make sure it’s informative, and add to it often.

I hope you decide your small business needs a web site. It’s the best way I know how to reach a wider target audience with a relatively small investment.

I’ve been building and designing websites professionally for the past 8 years and there is a lot that goes into a good website design.

A professionally presented business website is a powerful and essential marketing tool: it’s the first thing prospective customers will look at before they decide to contact you. If the copy on your website is not written to an acceptable standard, it may be losing you customers. It’s not enough just to have amazing graphics and imagery: you need the words to make it complete. Is the spelling correct? Are punctuation marks in place? Does the copy make sense? These are questions that website designers should be asking themselves before they upload a new site.

One of the biggest flaws with website copy is inconsistency: for example the word ‘website’. Some sites spell it as one word, some as two words; as far as I am aware both are acceptable, but not both versions on the same site! In my opinion, a lack of consistency will deter a significant amount of would-be customers from using the services of a company that has not taken the trouble to proofread their website.

Poor spelling on a website is another costly but avoidable mistake.
The majority of visitors will leave the site very quickly if they find too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don’t really care; and they would be right! I am also convinced that copy that has been ‘padded out’ with insignificant trivia is also a big turn-off for visitors – clear, concise and informative is the order of the day.

Anything containing textual content should as a matter of course be proofread: it’s important that not only are mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar found and corrected, but that the text flows smoothly for the reader. The copy on a website should not be treated as the ‘poor relation’ of the project. You can have the most up-to-date, eye-catching graphics available but you will still need well-written copy to compliment them.

There are the odd few web design companies around that will happily inform visitors how they can supply them with a state-of-the-art website but then insert second-rate copy, which totally negates any good work they have achieved. This will reduce the initial impact of the site, and more often than not will have an adverse effect on business.

It pays to have the copy checked professionally, whether the design company has written it themselves or had it supplied by the client; it may cost a lot less than you think to have a website proofread – it could cost you considerably more if you don’t!

Remember: if visitors to your site cannot find the information they are looking for because of badly written copy they will simply leave the site. The only people to benefit will be your competitors.

“How to Outmaneuver, Outwit, Out Market and Outsmart the Competition”

Every person who owns an online business is in pursuit of a “main keyword.”

A keyword that anyone looking for their business would know and understand.

Most business owners correctly believe that ranking for this phrase will put him on the path to riches.

Think about it.

If you had a webpage ranked in Google for a search phrase that could bring in 750,000 people each and every month, and if you sold just 1% of that 750,000 each month, you would be making 7,500 sales every month.

However, ranking your website at the top of Google for a competitive keyword phrase has tough competition and unforeseen difficulties waiting for anyone who dares to try.

But the real problem is that while trying to rank your website at the top of the Google search engine for a difficult keyword, you will not be making money off the work being done.

Here’s what I mean.

To get a webpage ranked at the top of the Google search engine can take months or even years, you will be paying someone to do work that will not benefit you until the moment your website starts ranking for that keyword.

In most cases the website owner will give up before ever seeing the benefits of ranking for a competitive keyword.

However, unlike most SEO’s I make my total living online. I put my websites to the test each and every day. My only source of contact is by way of the internet and my website. I know it’s no fun waiting for a website to start producing an income and it’s for this reason that I don’t go the path of the normal SEO’s.

The way I do it allows you to start making money immediately, while working towards the end goal of ranking for a competitive keyword.
In other words, my SEO pays for itself.

Basically we are doing two things

1. Working hard to get your website ranked in the search engines for your main keyword.

2. Bringing traffic to the website so while we are working on ranking your website for your main keyword, you will be making money.

In addition to getting your website ranked high for your main keyword, we are driving traffic and sales to your website almost immediately.
Instead of going after a keyword phrase, I am talking about totally dominating the market.

• Houston Alabama Advertising Designers Directory of Ad Designers
Houston Alabama Advertising Designers Ad Designers Listings on Freelance Designers. Marketing on the Web – Alabama Huntsville AL, SEO.

• Houston Alabama Web Design Directory of Web Designers
Houston Alabama Web Design Web Designers Listings on Freelance Designers. … We lease a customized website that includes a domain name, hosting, SEO.

• Houston Search Engine Optimization, Placement & Website Promotion Houston company offering search engine optimization, website promotion, search engine placement, web design, and internet marketing services by Directory.

• Pickens Alabama Search Engine Optimization | Ranked1.net
Search… Houston Alabama Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization That Will Dramatically Increase Your Sales. Search. …
www.ranked1.net.

• SEO Houston, Houston search engine optimization, Houston SEO
A Houston search engine optimization company providing SEO Services in Houston and Dallas.

• Search Engine Optimization Henry Alabama | geeksonsteroids.com
SEO company in Alabama. We website promotion to top 10 for $199 guaranteed by . Fayette Franklin Geneva Greene Hale Henry Houston Jackson.
www.geeksonsteroids.com.

• Affordable Search Engine Marketing in Houston TX – Schipul, SEM
Schipul – Affordable Search Engine Marketing for Online Lead Generation and Conversion – If I build it will they come? Will they buy?

• The Best! Texas SEO, Houston Search Engine Optimization, Internet
Hire expert Houston Texas Internet Marketing Experts! Texas SEO Company, Texas Search Engine Optimization Services, Online Marketing Firm, Web Promotion and.

• Alabama State Seal Printed for Houston Country Sheriff Department
The Alabama State Seal vinyl stickers rolled off of 509 Media’s printer a while back for the Houston County Sheriff Department. The stickers were printed on.

• Mesothelioma, Mesothelioma Lawyer, Mesothelioma Attorney, Asbestos. 8441 Gulf Freeway, Suite 600, Houston, TX 77017-5051 — 800-781-3955. Website Design and SEO provided by the Search Engine Optimization firm The Search

Since I started making my living online 8 years ago there have been a lot of up’s and downs. Unlike a lot of web design companies I’ve had to make my total living online and trying to market a website, sale jobs, design websites, program websites and deal with clients, I’ve had my hands full.

I started the business by myself and have built it into a nice little business but finding designers and programmers have taken its toll on me as well as limited my ability to market the site.

I had someone tell me the other day that we were ranked 8th in the world for our website designs and today I decided to go in search for that article.

I’ve not yet found that article but I did find one that shows us in the top 10 for best ranking web design firms in the search engines. It’s an honor I never expected or looked for. I only worked to survive and was blessed by God with the desire to work hard and smart enough to survive day by day.

Finding out that we were ranked in the top ten for search engine optimized web design sites made me feel sad as well as good. Don’t get me wrong being in the top 10 out of millions isn’t bad but I’d much rather be #1.

The reason we are unable to get to #1 is due to the amount of time we spend designing and building websites as well as dealing with clients and making new clients. But that is all about to change.

I’ve been talking with a company that specializes in finding the right web design company for each client. One of the biggest problems we’ve faced is that not only is it not a one size fits all with a website design but it also is not a one size fits all with the website design company. In the past we’ve tried to take on every job that has come our way and it has been a measurable experience for both us and our clients.

Geeks on Steroids will now move into a consulting role and begin passing clients on to other design companies that are able to better handle the specific needs of each client. We want to look out for the clients and make sure they have a website that will help them turn a profit and it’s difficult to do when you are the ones designing the site because each change you make is costing you money.