Web Design and SEO: Why Pretty Isn\’t Enough

By Randy Zlobec

You have it all figured out: the flash on the front page is beautiful and pertinent to the site, your images are lovely and fit well, your articles are well-written and SEO”d, and you even have your SEO marketing plan set up. Everyone who sees it agrees that your site is professional and slick, well-written and informative.

So why isn”t anyone coming and why aren”t they returning when they do come?

Web site design is deceptively easy to learn, but difficult to master. Professional librarians with PhDs are often hired for the very large sites, just to keep them organized and searchable. Even smaller sites often are harder to navigate than they should be. And hardly anyone does their internal SEO structuring properly.

To tell you everything you need to know would take a couple of books, but some simple things will make your designing life easier and help you create pages that are both beautiful and friendly.

Internal Site Structure: Usability and Navigability

The way your site is linked together, page to page and level to level, is incredibly important to how the search engines look at it and how your human users get along. If you have beautiful Flash navigation bars and a search box, it may look elegant to you but it is NOT searchable, and search engines will not give you proper credit for the site. It is also not friendly for visually-impaired users. At the very least, include a text-link menu at the bottom to take users to all the sister pages to the one they are on.

By the way, a good rule of thumb is to think about how a blind text-dependent viewer would see your site and design for that person. In essence, web spiders, the little programs that document your site and help search engines rank it, “see” your site just like a person who is visually impaired. Makes you think a whole different way about that pretty Flash, doesn”t it?

On with internal links. Bread crumb links became a standard of Yahoo! in 1997, and are still very useful today. These links are found at the top of a page and work as a map for the viewer back out to where they were originally. The deeper your site, the more useful bread crumbs are. They look like this:

home : category level 1 : category level 3 : this page

with each level but the last linked back to the main page for that category. You see them used frequently on catalog sites:

home: clothing : girl’’s : pantsuits : pink lamb pantsuit

By using these subtle links, you make it easy for your visitors to move back out to any level they want. And if you have these links at the top, with linking at the bottom to sibling pages, you ensure your user can get anywhere they need to go with about two clicks. In large sites, this isn”t practical, but in medium sites it can be a godsend.

Also make sure you use a robots.txt file to protect your private stuff: raw images, CGI-bin, and anything you just don”t want out on a Google search. This tiny text file goes into your site’’s root directory and only takes a minute to set up. If you have a large and complex site and you want to ensure that it’’s thoroughly searched, you can use a sitemap file, an XML file (you can use it even if the rest of your site doesn”t use XML) that ensures web spiders map every part of your site you want them to.

Lastly in site usability, make sure that on every single page your user has a simple means to contact you, preferably a link to a Contact Me! page. This is often included at the bottom of the page, but some webmasters find it works better somewhere else. Just be sure it stands out in the page.

SEO: Your Site and Your Campaign

Search engine optimization is the life’’s blood of web business. If your site is not optimized, it is not visible. While Google has done a number of things to keep you from cheating by keyword stuffing, using gateway pages, and using invisible text, there are many, many things you can do to make your site SEO friendly and ensure that your ranking is as high as is possible.

Start with the rule of thumb from the last section: the blind man, Every single important element on your page should use alt-text to label it, and each one can use a little SEO. That butterfly jumper on your girl’’s clothing page? Label it in alt-text girl’’s clothing butterfly jumper.It’’s that simple. If you have a database-driven site, you can simply ensure you include an alt-text column for each item’’s description and include the right HTML in your page templates; if your site is smaller, you”ll need to label each image by hand. You don”t have to label every image, mind, but each label is going to give you a little boost.

Use pertinent anchor text for each link. If you”re linking to girl’’s dresses, that phrase should be used as the link to the other page. This is a way of getting a keyword bump for free the search engines assume that this page will be about girl’’s dresses. The worst link: the lazy man’’s “you can find it HERE”, linking the word here.

Avoid overusing Flash. This is one of the most common errors made by people who are excited about beautiful web pages. Get this one thing straight: a site entirely designed as Flash may look impressive, but it is harder to navigate and will not be picked up well by the search engines, no matter what trick or workaround you use. It fails the blind man’’s rule. Use Flash sparingly, and as a way to enhance your site, not to impress visitors. One of the few places that uses it well: the Ikea website, where great Flash is used to demonstrate things like putting furniture together. Another good one: Discover.com, where components are often designed in Flash and embedded in HTML pages.

Try not to use duplicate text. The search engines see this as spam, and it can end with your site being penalized. Instead, use unique text on each page.

Finally, optimize your entire site, not just the home page or the articles section. Your site, if it’’s like most sites, can be entered at any level. Assume that your reader may come in anywhere, and design accordingly.

About The Author

Randy Zlobec, Search Engine Marketing Expert and owner of a Myrtle Beach Web Design company specializing in search engine optimization and web site design services.

How To Find Inexpensive Quality Website Hosting?

By Koz Huseyin

There are many inexpensive quality website hosting packages available. Finding them is not always so easy. Luckily there are some ways to find inexpensive quality website hosting without paying extortionate fees or getting ripped off.

In this article, you will discover the best methods for finding website hosting packages that are inexpensive, and offer a quality behind them. Here are the keys you will discover:
* Research Is The Key To Finding Inexpensive Quality Web Hosting
* Service Is The Key To Good Inexpensive Quality Website Hosting
* Support Is The Key To Good Inexpensive Quality Web Hosting

* Research Is The Key To Finding Inexpensive Quality Web Hosting
Without effective research, it will be hard to find the inexpensive part. Everyday it seems looking at a computer magazine, looking on TV, newspapers, and even radio, you will hear about hosting packages.

Though these packages sound good, and because they are advertising to the whole country, you can also likely rest assured that the company will be around years later, it may not be the best option. You see, those companies often invest millions into there marketing, and it doesn”t mean you will get a good website hosting package to host your website on.

Research can be done online as well as offline. More research you do, the more you will find hosting packages that meet your needs, while being inexpensive. An advertisement on the TV will not tell you how well they are serving people.

Let’’s say you check online, do a bit of research. You now have 5, 6 or more ideas of hosting packages that meets your web hosting needs. Now you can search online, and find out if those companies have good reviews from customers. Now, you have the power, because you have been able to do effective research, and find those hosting companies that actually give good service.

* Service Is The Key To Good Inexpensive Quality Website Hosting
A website hosting package may offer a good price, but is it quality? Some hosting packages are cheaper then cheap, but what are customers saying? If the host goes down even for an hour, this can be bad news for your website.

* Support Is The Key To Good Inexpensive Quality Web Hosting
With technology, you will have times when things go wrong. Most web hosting companies run good packages, and servers. However, there are some that have one of two problems. Either with a slow server, which will mean a lot of people leave your site, and the second is with uptime.

When things go wrong, you will want to be with a host that gives you answers, and quick. If you have a business website, and support takes 72 hours to respond, is that a web host you want to be with?

You can always find out this information before choosing a host. In most cases inexpensive quality website hosting can be found. As long as you follow through the research process before choosing, and treat it like finding a new place of residence, you should find inexpensive quality web hosting that meets your needs, both today, and in the future.

About The Author

A great way to find inexpensive quality website hosting is by visiting this inexpensive quality website hosting link or for inexpensive quality website hosting for business www.ezyseo.info

How to Choose a Web Host

By Daniel Millions

Choosing a web host is an important decision that all businesses need to consider. For one, it is integral in today’’s world for a company to have a website. A business simply cannot become a major competitor in an industry without an online presence. Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet for information and products, and as a profit seeking company, you want them to see you. To have a website, you need more than just a domain. In addition to that, you also need a web host. Hosts provide servers for you to store your data on; without a server, there is no place to store data, and thus your website cannot exist on the Internet.

There are literally thousands of hosting businesses online, meaning that there is a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to deciding what host to go with. Some hosting companies are huge conglomerates, while others are small start-ups that have only a few clients. It is important that you take the time to find a host that can fit your needs, as partnering with the wrong host can be disastrous in the long run.

What kind of things does one need to look at when deciding on a web host? The two primary factors are storage space and bandwidth. Storage space is how much data you can store on the server, so if your website is going to have a lot of pages, you will need more storage space. Even cheap hosting plans come with a fair amount of storage space, and start-up companies probably do not need to worry about this factor.

The other main criteria, bandwidth, is how much traffic your site can accept. Once again, unless you are a large site, any standard package on a hosting business should be able to accommodate you. For example, inexpensive packages under ten dollars often provide all the space and bandwidth you will ever need. In fact, eight dollars a month can get you over five hundred gigabytes of space and five thousand gigabytes of bandwidth, and it takes a lot of data to overwhelm those numbers.

Being that most small businesses do not need to worry about space and bandwidth, it is the other features that are deciding factors in hosting choices. If you are inexperienced with using FTP, you probably want a host that can provide cPanel. If you need to use MySQL databases, make sure those are provided for. Make sure to check if any free software is included in a hosting package, such as blog or forum resources. There are hundreds of features that a host can opt to include, so try to find one that offers the most features, or at least has the ones that you need.

Who said you need to pay for hosting? If your needs are low and you are on a tight budget, free hosting might be the answer. Some websites do not even require that you purchase a domain; instead, you can get a subdomain of the main page (although it is recommended that you at least buy your own custom name).

The downside to free hosting is that you waive a lot of helpful features available from paid hosting. Also, free hosts often put ads on your website that they draw revenue from, not you. Those who are running a serious business should immediately dismiss the possibility of a free host, as utilizing one is somewhat unprofessional.

About The Author

Now offering high quality VPS Hosting and FFMpeg Hosting. The last thing you need is “down time” for your website!

Marketing and Coding Decisions About Your Website

By Daniel Millions

Whether you like it or not, you need a website in today’’s computer-oriented world. Ten years ago, the transition to the Internet was a lot more difficult and many saw it as unnecessary. Now, the majority of businesses start out online, and few do not even find it necessary to establish a traditional brick-and-mortar store. When designing a website, there are a plethora of decisions one has to make, and each one has a direct effect on how successful you will be.

Webmasters often wonder if their site should be fully Flash animated or simply HTML/CSS. Both design schemes have their advantages and disadvantages. Flash animated websites are very appealing to the eye, can be navigated in unique and interesting ways, and present information dynamically and interactively. With a Flash site, users can examine products in depth, view them from any angle, and experience stimulation that cannot be provided with HTML.

Stunning animations naturally compel visitors to look deeper in to a site, and just getting a customer to acknowledge your product is half the battle. New technologies have allowed Flash files to become more compressed, meaning that it does not take as long to load Flash pages as it once did.

However, for some slower connections, it can take awhile for each page to load. The main disadvantage of Flash is that pages of this nature cannot be interpreted by search engine robots. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to optimize them. Since search engine optimization should be a key focus for all websites, total Flash integration should not be considered. Most websites which utilize Flash have a combination of Flash elements and HTML components, such as a Flash introduction page which leads to the primary HTML pages.

When it comes to design, more needs to be done than just deciding where to put Flash and HTML. With just HTML alone, hundreds of design choices can be made. Tables, navigation panels, and main content blocks need to be combined perfectly so that readers can easily find and ingest what they are looking for. Frames should be avoided altogether, as they unnecessarily segment a website and negatively affect search engine optimization.

The color scheme of a website must be carefully considered. The colors you choose and the way they are arranged strongly impact a person’’s emotions and psychological assessment of your business. Most web designers place a high emphasis on color and understand the vast importance of it, so if you are making a website yourself, you should at least consult a designer and ask for their opinions on the matter.

If you are hiring a web designer to create your website, there is still a lot of work you need to do so the final piece is as effective as possible. Write down everything you want your website to be able to do, and what you hope to gain from the website, such as sales, leads, or opt-ins. Make sure to identify the keywords and key phrases you want to target for search engines, as designers can incorporate those in to the website for you. Take a few hours to brainstorm about every aspect of the website, and develop a detailed blueprint for the web designer to follow. Do this, and it will be as if you built the website yourself.

About The Author

Now offering high quality VPS Hosting and FFMpeg Hosting. The last thing you need is “down time” for your website!

A Website Builder for Beginners

By Art Gib

People on a tight budget usually learn that you save a lot of money by putting in extra hours of work yourself on the projects that need to get done. For example, it is possible to save money by doing your own house work, repairing your own car and growing your own food. If your business needs a website, shouldn”t it be possible to build your own website too? Well, you can. And, you can probably accomplish the task with less know-how than it takes to build a house, a car or a garden. All you need are the right tools to make the process simple and quick.

What are the tools?
The main tool you need to create your own website is a website builder. A website builder is a tool that does all the coding and programming for you. It usually come with templates, models, graphics and functions that you can combine according to your own preferences so that your website has a unique and attractive appearance. Not all website builders are created equal though.

Criteria
The following criteria are a few things you should look for in a website builder.

Simple
A lot of people who try building their own website have limited or zero experience with programming and designing. That’’s why a website builder needs to be incredibly simple and easy to use. If a novice can”t learn the program, it will probably create more headaches than it’’s worth.

Online Accessible
Online accessibility is another great factor to look for. With the tools available online, you can work on your website and make updates from any computer in the world. That means you won”t have to cart around a desktop or laptop computer to use the website builder you”ve found.

Compatible
Compatibility means that the website builder uses programming language that every browser can read. This ensures that customers will be able to view and read your website weather they use Firefox, Internet Explorer or another browser.

Functional
You also need the website builder to accommodate all the functions you need on the website. For example, you could need anything from multi-language labels and PayPal shopping carts to photo albums and blogs on your website. If you need your website to facilitate certain functions, you”d better make sure the website builder can help you create those functions.

What is the Price?
Rather than paying thousands of dollars to have an outside company build a website that you might not even like, you can build a website absolutely free of charge if you use an online website builder. Of course, the people who created that useful tool need some way to feed their families too, so the fancier templates and programming functions will probably require a reasonable fee. Even the most advanced tools shouldn”t cost most than fifty dollars a month though.

About The Author

Doodlekit (http://doodlekit.com/home/website_builder) is one of the most popular website builder tools on the market. It is easy to use and it is free if you are only building simple websites. Even the fancy packages are very affordable though. The author, Art Gib, is a freelance writer.

How To Get Free Home Business Web Site Hosting

By David Ogden

You can easily overspend your budget on Internet marketing if you are not careful. However there are a couple of things that are worth spending a little bit extra to get quality on. One of those is web site hosting and in this article we”re going to talk about how to get it for free.

Are you familiar with affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is where you get paid to sell other people’’s products. This is a great way to make money because you do not have to come up with the product yourself.

It’’s also a great way to save money because you can join an affiliate program and earn commissions selling the very products that you yourself may be using. One of the best ways to do that is to sell web site hosting to home business owners.

You may not get rich doing this, but it is a very profitable long term income because it can be residual in nature. That just means that you are going to get paid every month that that person is renewing their hosting account.

There are people who will set up a website and then cancel it eventually. However there are also people who have been hosting their websites on the Internet now for years.

Think about the prospects this creates for you as an affiliate marketer. The more home business website hosting accounts you can set up, the more potential long term income that can mean to you.

Website hosting makes the perfect affiliate marketing business if you are selling hosting with companies that you personally use. This makes it easy for you to tell all the great things about them to your prospects.

This has always been the best way to do affiliate marketing, because you are a product of the product and can get across all the positives about it. Plus you are going to be using hosting anyway, so you might as well do it with a company that has an affiliate program.

Not only can you get free home business website hosting this way, you can also earn more money than your monthly hosting fees cost. As a matter of fact, you can literally earn thousands of dollars every month as you build up your customer base.

There are all kinds of opportunities on the Internet to make money as a home business owner. This just happens to be a great one, because it’’s very hands off and you get paid over and over for making one sale to a home business website hosting owner.

About The Author

David Ogden is an established online marketer who specializes in practical website resources and advice that have helped many people like you start their very own home based business. He can help you launch your very own money making website today, ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now, guaranteed!

Want to make money online now?
Internet Business Training Program
Copyright - David Ogden

Which Web Site Hosting Company Should You Use for Your Website?

By Chris Crowe

Finding web hosting for your website. There are so many companies out there that provide web host services that the process of finding the right company can be quite daunting.

In this article I will write about certain things you should look for as you think about signing up with a web provided.

In a way, the things you want out of a web site hosting provider are similar to the things you want out of any company that provides you a service.

One of the main things people think about whether you are looking for Michigan web site hosting, California web hosting, or even in, say, Brazil, is price.

The point I”m trying to make here is that there are many companies out there competing for you business in this marketplace.

It is very easy for a small company to set up a tiny web hosting service and start looking for clients.

This can be a problem for a new website owner. What you want to make sure you do is find a respectable company who has a good track record of customer service and price.

Some of the most popular web hosts are Midphase, AN Hosting, and BlueHost.

It is possible to get very good pricing from a web site hosting company because of the healthy competition in that market and because space on servers for a typical average-size website is cheap.

You can always find promotions and good deals, often during holidays. At the end of December or near other holidays like Halloween you can typically find some promotion that will save you money or give you a few months or a domain name for free.

Just keep your eyes open. But I will warn you that you can get too involved with looking for the best host on the planet, but in the end, it usually is only a few dollars difference.

It is quite difficult to find one provider that stands out from the rest. Even if you read reviews, you will tend to hear about people having very different experiences.

It really depends on what kind of website you will be running. If it is a simple blog you want to host, then you will not run into as many problems as you would with a very large social network website.

For this kind of site, you may want to go with a dedicated server. But for those of you starting out, go ahead and go with a basic service like the ones hosted by Midphase and AN Hosting.

They are services made with ease of use as a focal point. Good luck and I can”t wait to see your website up on the web!

About The Author

If you are looking for Michigan web site hosting, then you should check out this article: Where to find Affordable Michigan web hosting.

Low Cost With Free Web Hosting

By rodrigo rehn

Are you planning to put up a website? Yes, for nowadays online communication and business has become very popular. How will your own website help you? Through the website it will be easy to reach out to people in a wider area. Have you decided what kind of a website you want to put up?

No, not yet, but what is the reason for asking this question? This question is important because this is the first criterion that has to be decided before putting up a website. Why is it the first criterion? It is the first criterion because your decision will help you to decide what kind of web hosting company you will choose to host your website.

Need of a web hosting company

What do you mean, Web Hosting Company but why are the services of a web hosting company required? The services of a web hosting company are required because if you want to operate a website you have to launch it through the server which has to be bought. Really!

This is news, so what is the problem in buying the server? No, there is no problem if you want to buy a server but remember it is costly and then you have to continuously check the performance and bear the maintenance cost of server which will be a burden on your pocket and wastage of time. So what is the solution? The best solution is to take the help of the web hosting service provider companies.

Type of web hosting company to be chosen

How to decide which company to choose? It is very simple; if you are putting up a website for personal use then you can choose the free web hosting companies but if you have decided to run your website for business purpose then you will have to take the support of paid web hosting companies as the free web hosting companies block many facilities for the websites which are launched for business purpose.

As you are a new businessman it will be better if you choose a cheap web hosting company. Why will a cheap web hosting company be better? Will they provide all the necessary facilities that are required for an ideal website?

Reason for choosing cheap web hosting company

The reason for considering cheap web hosting is basically the money that you have to pay to buy the services of the web hosting company. Why should you pay more when you can get the same facilities at low price? What are the facilities that should be given by the company?

The facilities that you should get are the registration of the domain name without paying extra charges, easy accessibility by the visitors and the search engine spider, the required design tools are available, enough storage space of nearly five GB and the required band width.

Bandwidth is very important as it is the facility which keeps your website alive. What does keeping alive mean? It means that your website is always open to the visitors when they access it. What are the other facilities available? The other facilities are proper security system and provision for email aliases.

About The Author

Rodrigo Rehn is a Linux Systems Administrator, Web Programmer, PHP Developer and CEO of Hospedagemlocal hospedagem de site brazilian web hosting services.

Web Video Hosting Service Technical Features to Consider

By rodrigo rehn

Science and technology is developing at rapid speed and this can be observed through the fast development that is taking place on the internet. Just few years back the concept of sharing information on the net was through the written material that was made available on the net with the help of articles and features.

But researchers were not satisfied so they went on with their research to find ways and means where they could develop techniques of sharing the information with the help of real pictures and dialogues and the result is the method of uploading the video on the internet.

But they did not stop at this point as this video could be seen only by the person who prepared the video so the research went on and the result is the development of the video hosting system.

What is the video hosting system?

It is the method by which you can upload the video on your website and it can be viewed by the visitors to your site. How is that useful? It is very useful as it can be more informative than written matter on your site especially if you want to inform the customers about some product that you have launched on your e-commerce site or if you want to pass on some special information with the help of picture combined with dialogue and real demonstration.

What is the method of obtaining the video hosting facility? It is as simple as obtaining the web hosting for your website. You have to purchase the video hosting site from the company which has the facility of video hosting in its server.

Of course there are companies which allow free video hosting but again there are restrictions for the people who want to launch their videos for commercial purpose so if you want to upload your video for business purpose it is better to spend some money and buy your space on the hosting site. Are there any factors that have to be considered while availing the video hosting option?

Factors to be considered at the time of Video Hosting

Yes, you have to consider some factors during video hosting just as you considered while launching your website with the web hosting companies. While choosing the video hosting company the first point you have to consider is the technical features which are being offered by the companies.

This will help you to choose the hosting company which can provide you the exact facility that you need. Then verify the size of the video that the company allows to upload.

What does that mean? Actually every video hosting company has a particular size for uploading the video content so you have to compress your video before uploading it. If the size is too small your video data will not be as effective as you want it to be when it will be played on the web.

So verify the size of uploading the video and then choose that video hosting space which fits your need. It is also necessary to know what kind of audience your hosting company has. If you want your video to be seen only by a selected few then choose that type of hosting company. Also ensure about the security system and the check the quality of the video player. Consider the other factors as per your need and choose the company which caters to all your needs.

About The Author

Rodrigo Rehn is a Linux Systems Administrator, Web Programmer, PHP Developer and CEO of Hospedagemlocal hospedagem de site brazilian web hosting services.

What Is Web Hosting And Why Do I Need It?

By Kristi Ambrose

Many people now a days own a computer, have online access and have a website. More than likely its either a blog of some sort for personal or business reasons or it’’s a business website. Websites, templates, and hosting packages can be very cheap as long as you research some sites and see what each one offers. Web hosting is by definition a person or company that hosts your website online. You can”t have a website unless you either A) are with a website company that hosts the sites for you or B) you buy your own hosting or C) you have your own servers. For the most part I believe the population is split down the middle when it comes to reason A and B.

Web hosting isn”t necessarily a hard thing to get yourself into, but people often think its harder than it really is for some strange reason. So, instead they opt in for the websites with the free web hosting but usually you still pay out of your own pocket for this service because the company your hosting it on has to then pay hosting fees! So hey, why not just do it yourself? It’’s a good idea to search on Google for things like “Webhosting”, Web Hosting directory”, “Free Webhosting Directory”, or “PHP Hosting.”

This would also be a good time to put your searching skills into over drive. Do yourself a favor, before joining up with any site go to a few forums and do a search for the web hosting site in mind. Once you find the threads about these web hosting sites you will see what other members say about the service and options of the site. Try forums such as NamePros dot com and DigitalProForums dot com. Another great thing for you to do would be to visit a site called HostingReview dot com. This site offers the top 10 hosting sites at any given time and is constantly updated. See if you can find a few more sites like this as well, and compare which sites are on the list and which aren”t on the list.

You”re absolutely going to need web hosting (as said above) if you plan on having your own website online. It’’s an absolute necessity and it really comes affordable, especially if you”re able to find a discount code online for the site. These are offered all over the Internet and are usable at most any web hosting web site!

About The Author

This author is a huge fan of the Hosting Packages website where you can find yourself an affordable webhosting package for your website