Creating a user friendly website might not be an easy task but it can be difference between having a successful business and barely being able to pay the bills. The benefits are countless and usually the more user friendly your platform is, the more successful you will be. Look at Apple, for example, who aim at simplicity and elegance instead of trying to make their OS more intricate and complex. Their take on the matter seems to be quite profitable taking into account that it's currently the most expensive company on the market. All of this is to say that simplicity is important. Why is that? Stay tuned to find out...
Why simplicity is an extremely powerful tool?
There are two answers – a short one and a long one. The short one is that people are busy. The long one is that people are busy and don't want to be bothered with wasting their time running around a website (or anything else, really) looking for something. That's why sites with the simplest design and the most well-organized catalogs are the most successful. Another example is Amazon – look at how simplistic the whole concept is and yet who hasn't heard of Amazon? Most business owners (especially new business owners) underestimate this fact and tend to think that the more complex you make your site, the better. But think about it, for a second. You have to visit lots of sites today. You don't have much time to waste. Maybe you're on your lunch break and looking for a new book or a movie, or maybe you want to purchase a new vacuum cleaner for your anniversary (if that's the case, don't!). Whatever the case, you have only a few precious minutes before you have get back to your daily routine. Now, visualize that and tell me what would you prefer – a simple, well-organized website that immediately gives you what you need, or a fancy-looking, bloated and flashy site that you need to take at least ten minutes of your time to even begin to understand. Most people will always go for simplistic when given the choice, and so should you.
Are there any other benefits?
Of course there are. I've already said the benefits were numerous (or did I? I don't remember... If I haven't, I'm saying it now). For one, the simpler the design of your site is, the less components it will have to load which translates into faster loading sites. Even with the fastest Internet connection today, there are still sites you have to wait for a few seconds to load. That's a few seconds every time you have to do something, which in the end amounts to a lot. People are impatient and if they can find a site that works faster than yours and provides the same services, they will go with it.
A simpler site would also be much cheaper because it will be easier and faster to build. You will be operational much quicker and will have the added benefit of keeping one of the bags with the dollar signs on them, instead of giving them all to the developer. This way, even if there is something wrong with your site (like a bug or something) it will be easier to fix. The site will be cheaper to maintain.
Getting back to people, the simpler your designs are, the easier people will be able to see what they're looking for. Add that to the easier navigation, less money for building and maintaining your site, and I don't think I need to convince you any longer.
About the Author:
Rose Finchley is passionate freelancer blogger and geek. She currently works for the support team of http://www.cleantoperfection.co.uk/end-of-tenancy-cleaning-south-east-london/ and she is really happy with that. In her spare time she loves to take long walks.
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8/29/2013 | Continue Reading...
Becoming a giant in the blogging world is easy, but staying there is like trying to freeze water in an oven. You are not only up against an unforgiving set of search engines that will drop your rank for accidentally linking from a grey-SEO site; you are also up against a world full of bloggers who are trying to beat you. The only people who have ever had a top blog and kept it for more than a week are the ones who work on it ceaselessly. They are the ones who are coming up with material that should (by all accounts) be published instead of blogged.
Keep up the good work
As it suggests in the introduction, the biggest trick is keeping up the effort. Most blogs peter out after around six months when the blogger has run out of ideas, and very few last past two years. The ones that do are often simply maintained and are not actively promoted or have effort put into them.
Forget about the money
This is the biggest trick, and it is a trick because so many people are not willing to do it. Most of the blogs that go past the six month mark will have affiliate advertising placed onto them. After that point, the blogger starts to maintain the blog in order to gain traffic. They are not actively working on their blog to make it a big success; they are doing it for the few dollars that they can make from affiliate money. This is the reason why these bloggers never make it big.
If you do not want to fall into this trap, then do what no other bloggers are doing, and do not add affiliate advertising to your blog. Do nothing on your blog for the sake of making money. Your every action with regards to your blog needs to be to make it successful, popular and loyally attended. This is something that few people are willing to do because there is no financial gain involved, and that is why so few people ever keep their top blog.
Come up with your ideas in advance
There are a few elements to blogging, and one of them is ideas. A lack of ideas is a hindrance but is not a problem. However, if you want a successful and top blog then you cannot simply stop at ideas; you need inspired ideas. You need ideas that other people have not even thought of yet.
You have seen it a hundred times where you type in one blog topic and the search engine gives you a list of results on the topic. That is because the blog topics are fuelled by uninspired ideas. They are manufactured from the ideas of others, which is why there is so much repetition. In essence, you need to go out of your way to be the first link in the chain. You need to be the first one to come up with these ideas to the point where people are copying your ideas instead of you copying theirs.
So why come up with your ideas in advance?
Well, the answer to that should be obvious: inspired ideas take inspiration. Furthermore, good and inspired ideas take time to come to you and to mature into something that you can actually blog about. You also have the challenge of relating your blog topic to the target audience of your choice. Writing an inspired blog post about “end game” post nuclear survival is all well and good, but it is not going to go down very well on your research blog about the body language of kitties.
Make a plan for the next six months
If you make a plan for the next six months then you can be sure that you are not going to run out of ideas over the next few months. You are planning ahead for your own success, and that is the only way that you are going to be able to keep up the momentum to make your blog a top class blog. You also need to make a six month plan for your blog marketing, as this is just as important if you want to make it big.
About the Author: Korah Morrison, working for CrazyEssayWriter.com as a freelance essay writer.
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8/15/2013 | Continue Reading...
If your business is looking for continual growth and expansion, one of the best ways to make that happen is through devising an online marketing campaign. One of the primary things you'll need for the campaign is a highly functional and aesthetically appealing website. While creating a website like this may seem difficult, it's not. Here are 5 tips that can help make building your website easier:
Take A Tutorial
If you don't have experience building websites, you can learn a great deal of information by taking free online tutorials regarding how to do so. In addition to attaining step by step instructions from a plethora of informational websites, you can also attend webinars where trained professionals offer you simple, clear instructions regarding how to build a website.
Hire A Professional Website Company
Hiring a professional website company to build your site is a great way to be sure that it is done with excellence and expedience. In short, website companies generally have the knowledge and/or experience necessary to provide you with quality advice that contributes to the construction of a great site. For example, OrangeSoda online marketing solutions will equip you with strategies to market your business through social media, mobile devices, and search engines.
Use A Template
Oftentimes, individuals who don't have experience in website building are intimidated by the idea of creating the site from scratch. Luckily, you don't have to. Instead, you can build a website by using a template containing great background colors and other meaningful images that will give your pages the professional yet engaging look you want.
Create An Outline
The concept of putting together a great website can be intimidating. This is the case for several reasons, including the fact that the good ones tend to have a lot of different components-a home page, FAQ, Share Buttons, opportunities to join e-newsletters, and more. Despite the fact that the multi-faceted nature of websites means that putting one together can take a great deal of effort, building your site will be much easier when you create a detailed outline of everything it will include. Doing so gives you a very clear understanding of the individual components that will contribute to the whole.
Surf The Internet
One of the greatest things you can do if you want to make your building your website easier is to go online and see the different website styles that are already out there. Once you do this, you're no longer building "from scratch" because you'll see a variety of different types which you can use as a model for your website. When you see the unique formats and backgrounds that are out there, you'll more likely be able to visualize and communicate what you want to include and omit from your own website.
About the Author:
Casey Haslem – a 25 year old writer. Her hobbies are reading, painting and pretending she knows how to write a book. She uses OrangeSoda online marketing solutions to help grow her business. She loves meeting people and making new friends. Writing opens up a whole world of new ideas and possibilities for her.
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8/13/2013 | Continue Reading...
You can increase your Alexa ranking by attracting more traffic, and especially by attracting webmaster traffic. Webmasters are more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. The Alexa rank counts how many people with their toolbar visit websites. The more people with the toolbar that visit, then the higher your Alexa rank rises. This means that ideally you are looking for tools and methods that will increase the amount of visits by web masters. If you want to increase your Alexa rank quickly then you are going to need to use more than one of the tools and methods on this article. Using just one of them is not likely to rank you up very quickly.
Start with an Alexa Site Audit
This is a tool that will scan up to ten thousand pages on your website and then give you tips on how to improve them to increase your Alexa Rank. It gives you tips on how to improve your website performance, your SEO and other factors that influence your Alexa rank. The tool has different levels of subscription so that you can increase your efforts over time. It focuses mostly on getting more traffic, which will invariably increase your Alexa rank.
The Alexa widget
This widget is a nice little tool to insert into your website, and will also help increase your Alexa rank. It will also show you how many backlinks your website has and you can click the widget to get detailed information about your Alexa ranking. The widget will show you your current Alexa rank. You could also try writing a few articles about Alexa that you post on your website. This will invariably attract people who have the Alexa toolbar, thereby increasing your Alexa Rank.
Install the Alexa Toolbar
The Alexa rank judges your website popularity by watching what people with the Alexa toolbar look at. Since you are going to visit your own website on a frequent occasion then it cannot hurt to have the Alexa toolbar in order to make it appear as if you have more traffic. If you can convince your friends and family to install the Alexa toolbar too and have them visit your website, then that will increase your Alexa rank pretty quickly.
Google webmaster tools
They are not directly linked to Alexa in any way, but they are very useful for increasing your website traffic, thereby increasing your Alexa rank. There are a lot of tools and lots of advice within the Google webmaster tools that you can use to increase your traffic numbers. If you use it correctly then you can also improve your PageRank, which will help you to rise up through the Google search engine results pages. This (again) will result in more traffic and a higher Alexa rank.
Add tools to your website
Instead of using tools to directly manipulate your Alexa rank, you can add tools to your website for other people to use. Try to add tools that web masters are going to want to use. So, consider adding a tool that checks for plagiarism or one that checks for backlinks on Google. Some web master tools are pretty easy to design and there are lots of programmers that are willing to create online tools for a reasonable price.
You do not have to turn your website into a tools website, you can just create a web masters tools section. Make sure that your tools are free so that webmasters keep coming back, and soon your Alexa Rank will shoot up. There are even tools that attract non-webmasters that still attract people with the Alexa toolbar, such as a tool that allows people to turn raw information into a correctly written Harvard reference.
Consider using Stumbled or Dugg
For some reason these networks will generate traffic with a higher than normal percentage of Alexa toolbar users. You can use social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter to attract traffic, but for some reason you will get more Alexa toolbar traffic with sites such as Stumbled and Dugg.
Affiliate advertising and related tools
Use affiliate advertising and their free tools to bring more people to your website. This will increase your traffic numbers and so increase your Alexa rank. You can also post affiliate adverts that appeal to webmasters. For example, you could write a great post about SEO and then affiliate advertise it to webmasters who are likely to have the Alexa toolbar. This is going to cost you money, but is a faster way of ranking up your Alexa rank.
About the Author:
This post is written by Kate Funk. She is a professional blogger and writer at Tutorsclass. She specializes in topics of interest to techno geeks and networking enthusiasts.
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8/09/2013 | Continue Reading...
Many people are drawn into the world of WordPress by one word: free. It's true to some extent too. Everything you need to install files on the server and run a basic WordPress site is no charge to you. However, anyone who is doing something more than throwing up some casual information just for friends or family to see or just for the fun of it, will need to pay money. A basic WordPress page is going to do nothing for your business or profitable blog.
As a real business that is very serious about using the Internet as a powerful tool, you know that using WordPress is going to cost money, but have you truly considered how much the price tag will be? Have you allocated enough of your funding to cover this cost? It's actually very important, but you do need to face reality that you are going to put some money into your WordPress endeavors.
The best way to determine your actual expense is to do something called the Total Cost of Ownership Analysis or TCO. This is a tool used over and over again in brick and mortar business, and it can be helpful for your WordPress expenses as well.
Start with something called "real costs" or the expenses that you may easily overlook because they come out of your decisions as you build your page. Some of these expenses come from:
1. Registering your domain
2. Buying premium WordPress premium themes
3. Paying developers or designers
4. Fees for security services
5. The hosting cost
6. Storage costs
7. Fees for backup software
You also have to consider your personal time. Any time that you invest in building your site is worth money as well, but most people overlook this and don't factor it in.
If you feel that you are paying more than you can afford for your pages, then the best thing to do is carefully analyze the real costs and then determine if there are any you can minimize or pair down. Some things shouldn't be touched, however. You do need a premium theme for an attractive and user friendly site. There are things you can pare down, though. For example, you could maintain your site hosted by WordPress.com instead of self-hosting or choosing managed hosting companies.
Keep in mind that every decision you make could potentially cost money. That means to keep a good idea of all your expenses, record your decisions and real costs before determining if that is the right choice.
About the Author:
Anny Solway is a dedicated writer at ThemeFuse – a leader in the premium WordPress themes area. She likes to discover new ideas about internet marketing, social media and blogging.
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8/01/2013 | Continue Reading...
Web design is one of the most important elements of your website and ties together aesthetics, navigation, and content to create an effective experience that encourages greater conversions. There are plenty of web design guidelines to keep you on your toes and create something that maximizes usability and aesthetic appeal, but one of the growing online trends is responsive web design. What is responsive web design, and what can you do to make it work on your site?
What is Responsive Design?
Responsive design is all about flexibility, adapting to changes in the environment, and predicting how a user may use a particular page. It came as a response to the growth of hardware as people were browsing less and less on desktops and laptops and more on smart phones, tablets, and other devices.
In the beginning, sites only had one design over all devices. You can imagine the difficulty that comes with navigating a full desktop site on a much smaller mobile device. Over time, developers and web designers realized that mobile versions of their websites were a necessity. It wasn’t exactly forward thinking, but it was an effective solution at the time.
So developers had two versions of the site, one for the desktop, one for mobile, but what about touch screen tablets? What about large, hi-res displays larger than normal desktop screens? Developers had to address the changing scope of web browsers and how they were used in a more concrete way. After all, they couldn’t create seven different versions of the same site. Hence responsive design.
Fluid Grids and Media Queries
“Fluid” really is one of the best words to describe responsive design. Traditionally, sites had fixed-width layouts. Page designs have a specific number of pixels across with the content centered on the page, which becomes a problem when you consider the different screen sizes and resolutions out there.
Fluid grids do away with the concept of rigid pixels and percentage values. In a fluid grid, all of the elements in the layout resize themselves in relation to one another, resulting in a site that looks fine on a big screen or a tiny mobile phone.
However, a site’s design can look horrendous if you narrow down your browser size enough. The solution: media queries. Media queries allow you to gather data about a visitor to your site and apply specific CSS styles. If, for instance, a visitor is browsing on a mobile phone, the site can automatically move navigation bars, remove unnecessary elements, or shrink down the three column layout into just two.
Switching Mindsets
To implement responsive design, you have to change your mode of thinking. While there’s nothing wrong with having a dedicated mobile site based on your business model, responsive design is less about isolated, device-specific sites and more about considering the viewing and browsing context. It’s about considering different user experiences and adapting accordingly.
If you’re considering implementing responsive design into your website, this responsive web design article is a great place to start. Good luck, and remember the advice of Bruce Lee when it comes to design. Be water, my friend—let your design flow with the many technological changes we’re bound to experience in the future.
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7/11/2013 | Continue Reading...
Every web designer whether he knows SEO or not, should know how to design a website that is completely SEO friendly. This article shares the design tips that should be implemented throughout the web design process.
For any web designer it is very easy to code the most complex of designs and forms but when it comes to SEO friendly designs these brainy people just seem to get confused but no need to worry anymore because this article will help you clear any confusion. Some of the tricks and tips shared below are ones which a designer is always told to take care of but some designers may not know anything about. So continue reading further to know what needs to be done while designing a perfect SEO friendly website.
Coding Errors
This is an expect of web design that all designers should know but it’s often seen that the designer skips aspects to fulfil the clients design needs. Web design is not easy and it can take a long time if the expected results are complex and complicated. To make things easier its important to keep the whole design divided into sections. Also, these sections are sometimes allotted to various designers in a team which leads to a variety of coding. All designers do not design the same way so it could happen that while one designer is neat in coding the other might be more focused on getting the results instead of keeping the code clean. So whether you are designing with a team or operating solo, make sure that no extra open brackets or commas are left without reason in the website code. Also this helps to get fewer errors during a W3C Validation Check.
Managing Files is The Key To Design Success
The number of files is directly proportional to the number of pages to be designed for the website. For every webpage designed there are at least 3-4 more pages containing important details and codes that help the final webpage run successfully in a browser. Such files are also called as the supporting files. Thus, it is highly important to manage all the related files properly and correctly. Also, you must make sure that each of these files are named correctly. Having a well managed site is helpful to any SEO professional looking to optimise your website. It is very difficult for non designers to search for files that need to be edited for proper on-page SEO. Search optimisation specialists rely on the file names to be well organised, but if this is not the case then it will simply increases work load for your SEO specialist. Another important thing is to delete all files that are of no use this will increase the loading time of your web pages.
Creation of Robots.txt
Robots.txt file is a very important file that a web designer should create along with the other files. This is the first file that a search engine’s crawler looks for in any site. This file tells the crawler about the pages and files it should crawl and the ones it shouldn’t. Also, it is best if the designer creates this file because who else would know better about which files need to be hidden from crawling. Also, recently a trend has emerged of placing the link of the XML sitemap in this file.
Create Sitemaps
Any site must have two kinds of Sitemaps, one which is meant for the search engine and one which is meant for the audience. The normal extensions of these files are .xml and .html respectively. Both of these files contain the same data, only the representation and the usage vary in both.
Hence these are the ideas that you should either implement or create for making a website completely SEO friendly.
About the Author:
Danny Nevill is the owner of Universal Web Design which is an affordable small business website design service provider. The team at Universal Web Design are a blend of efficient web designers and internet marketers. No wonder that their clients are always pleased. Always choose an internet marketing agency over a general web design company.
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7/10/2013 | Continue Reading...
Most of the website owners prefer using the Drupal hosting platform as it is based on an open source technology that enables better efficiency. Drupal is mainly used for creating new websites and distribution of the content over the internet. Drupal is known for its speed, diversity, and dependability. In order to get the complete advantage of Drupal, it is also necessary to select a good Drupal hosting plan.
Here's what to look for in an efficient Drupal hosting plan:
Cost
It is crucial to consider what kind of resources are being provided in a particular cost. Before you sign up for a Drupal hosting plan, it is very important to perform a cost versus benefits comparison of the web hosting companies that you have shortlisted. While comparing the costs it is also important to consider the resources and technical assistance provided. The Drupal hosting plan should be considered as an investment rather than an expense. It's also important to find out the server specification details on which Drupal sites are hosted by the hosting provider. A low specification server may degrade the performance of your website.
Security
It is crucial to have a secure website. The hackers and identity thieves don’t really limit themselves to one individual. Make sure that the web hosting company that you select provides you with complete security and backup features so that your website is always safe. You must ensure that proper protection is provided, otherwise this may affect your online business.
Compatibility
The web hosting company that you select must be able to accommodate the diversity of your website. Make sure that the web hosting company has the expertise to manage the current framework of your website. Make sure that the web hosting company you select enables you to host on Linux/Windows operating system. Easy upgrade options should be available.
24/7 Support
The Drupal hosting company you choose should provide 24/7 expert support through live chat, email and phone. The hosting company should not charge additional fees for troubleshooting any kind of support and server related issues. You may skip the hosting providers who are available only during business hours and week days. In the event of migration to other hosting provider the current hosting provider should assist you with the migration process.
Money Back Gurantee
Consider the web hosting provider who is offering minimum 30 days money back guarantee. Utilize this period to test the support, service and performance of your website. The hosting company should offer full refund if the support and service offered does not meet the expectations. Some web hosting companies also offer upto 45 days to 60 days money back guarantee.
Downtime
Nothing kills a website faster than a chronic downtime. The website users have short attention spans. If you have a slow website, the users will immediately switch to some other website. Before you sign up for Drupal hosting plan, make sure that the web hosting company offers a good uptime for your website.
Make sure to consider the factors mentioned above before you select the Drupal Hosting plan. There are various other factors you have to consider before getting into any web hosting plan, however even if you consider the ones mentioned above you will surely make a good investment.
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7/09/2013 | Continue Reading...
