Before you embark upon the process involved when you design your own website, you must select and register a domain name. That is your site's brand name and contact name. In order to be given a domain name of your very own, you must make a yearly payment to the appropriate registering entity to obtain the exclusive right to it.
Obtaining a domain name doesn't mean you have a web site or anything close. All you have is a name. It is similar to getting yourself set up with a name for your business is the "real" world - just obtaining exclusive rights to a name doesn't mean you are totally in business. You just have a name.
A web host commonly implements numerous computers that are all linked to the Internet to allow a very large number of web pages to be broadcast all over the world. The first step in making your new web page visible is to use a reputable web host that will give your personalized website a virtual home.
Thinking of a domain name is very much like thinking of a name for your company in the physical world. Similarly, a web hosting account is the equivalent of renting an office for your company. After you have come up with a domain name and signed on with a web host, you will then need to design your own website (http://www.buildyoursite.com/) to attract visitors.
As a beginning web designer, you first need to design your own website in a attractive, and appealing manner. After you have got your basic web page posted you will be able to make any adjustments that you feel are needed. There are free web editors and commercial versions that are widely available.
When you choose to use free software, you can also learn more from a complete tutorial on the web. The step-by-step tutorial will guide you in the process of making your own web page, site map, and comment forms. It will also give you tips on the basic aspects of the software so you can continue to update and improve the site in the future.
A crucial aspect of web development is optimizing your site for search engines. This should be undertaken from the very start of the design process. In addition, there are a number of other concerns involved in developing web pages.
About The Author
Tem Balanco
The first thing you need to do to design your own website (http://www.buildyoursite.com/), before anything else is to get yourself a domain name. A domain name is the name you want to give to your website. Companies that provide web hosting are essentially outfits with banks of computers hooked up to the Internet. Once they put your web resources on their systems, the entire world will be able to connect and view your site. The Internet is a valuable resource for obtaining educational tutorials pertaining to the use of free software. There are many considerations that must be taken into account when you are planning and designing web pages.
http://www.articlecity.com
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Writing Articles With Style - Create Quality Articles With CSS
Writing your quality articles using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will insure that your articles will be both easy to read and aesthetically pleasing to the viewer.
A CSS style sheet allows the HTML code for your articles to be cleaner, table-less, easily customizable, and "liquid."
Removing the display attributes of your articles from the HTML code allows you to concentrate on using the HTML for organizing your document's content.
When you use CSS, a new approach is possible to writing your articles for the Web:
* First, you write your article in a very basic HTML document, using simple HTML code. At this stage, use only the most common HTML tags. Focus on organizing your article's content first.
* Next, you identify parts of your document for special display formatting.
* Finally, you define the formatting in the CSS file.
Once you work through this process, you can reuse both the HTML document and the CSS file as templates for your future, quality articles.
This article will provide the tips, tricks, and sample code to give you a head start in creating your own quality articles and templates using CSS. If this all seems complex and intimidating at first, don't despair--read on. I will explain the basic HTML and CSS terminology throughout the article.
THE BASIC HTML DOCUMENT
The basic HTML document is devided into several sections: html, head, and body.
Tags are used to demarcate document sections, or "elements." Content lies between the tags. For example, the article you are now reading lies between the body tags of an html document.
Tags usually exist in pairs, a start tag and and end tag. The start tag is surrounded by less-than and greater-than angle brackets. An end tag is bracketed with the same symbols but the first character of the tag is a forward slash (/). For example, HTML code for a paragraph element would include the start and end "p" tags with the content sandwiched between the two.
The basic tag pairs found in web pages are:
* html -- These tags tell a browser that this is an HTML document and define the start and end of the document.
* head -- The head element can contain information about the document. Although the browser does not present the information to a viewer, the information can be "seen" and used by search engines.
* title -- The title tags define the title element that will be used by a browser for the document's title.
* body -- The document's content is placed between the body tags.
In HTML 4.01, not all tags exist in pairs. The "!DOCTYPE" and "meta" tags do not use an end tag, for instance.
The first line of code in the basic document is the Document Type Definition (DTD). The !DOCTYPE tag tells the browser which HTML or XHTML specification the document uses. HTML 4.01 specifies three document types: Strict, Transitional, and Frameset.
The first meta tag in the basic HTML document provides information about how the page-content characters are encoded so that a browser can interpret them correctly.
If you want your articles to be widely seen on the Internet, you need to be particularly interested in the meta tags for keywords and description. These can be seen and used by search engines.
Use the "keyword name" and its related "content" in a meta tag to list your keywords or keyword phrases.
Keywords ought to be appropriate for the article content. They should also reflect what internet surfers actually type into a search engine's query box when hunting for the information you are offering.
Keyword research is a study in itself. Freeware is available on the Internet that can help you determine the best keywords to use in your article and keyword list. Keywords or keyword phrases within the meta tag need to be separated from each other with a comma.
Although not all search engines will utilize the description meta tag for their search results, you still need to include a good description for those that do.
If you had just a few characters to describe your article, or to entice a surfer to select yours from the results of a search, what would you write? What you would write is what should go into the description.
USING CASCADING STYLE SHEETS (CSS)
I have already suggested several reasons why today's preferred method of creating web pages is to separate a page's content from it's display properties. It's time for a demonstration of how this can be accomplished.
In the past, HTML tags included attributes to define how the content was to be displayed by a browser.
Today, CSS is used to concentrate these attributes in a single, separate file. Simple HTML code specifies "what" content is to be displayed; the CSS code defines "how" the content is to be displayed.
Before CSS can be used to format an HTML document, the name and location of the CSS file must be known to the browser. The browser gets this information through the HTML "link" tag that is coded between the head tags.
Once the CSS file is linked, the browser will check the CSS file for display attributes. For example, if the browser encounters an "h1" tag in the HTML code, it will check the CSS file for "h1" formatting. Here is the "h1" formatting information I included in the article.css file I use for my article titles:
h1
{
color:maroon;
text-align:center
}
When a browser encounters an "h1" tag in the HTML code, it would display the title centered and maroon.
SELECTING CONTENT FOR FORMATTING
Content formatting can be applied to an HTML document only after the content to be formatted has been identified to the browser. An easy way to do this is to place a "class" or "id" attribute within a start tag. The same class name can be used many times on a web page; each id name should be used just once per page.
Once content is identified, the class or id name can be referred to in the CSS file and the browser will apply any formatting attributes found there.
Selections Using Class Names
As an example of using the class name, I used the following CSS for in an article about writing ad headlines. In the HTML code, I used divisions tags with a class name of "headline" to demarcate the headline text. I added the following code to the CSS file:
.headline
{
font-size: 24px;
color: red;
font-weight:bold;
text-align:center
}
In the CSS file, I specified the font-size, color, font-weight, and text-align attributes. The class name was added to the CSS file by preceeding the name with a period. I used a semicolon to separate attributes in the list. The HTML and CSS code combine to produce a bold, 24px, red headline centered in the HTML page.
It should be noted that there are some basic HTML tags that are their own class names and do not require a preceding period in the CSS file. These include p, h, body, li, and others. That being said, these tags can be modified by appending an additional class name to them. For example, if I wanted to make the next paragraph blue, I could add a "blue" class attribute to the opening HTML "p" tag and then add this code to the CSS file:
p.blue
{
color:#0000FF
}
This would be a blue paragraph if this HTML were displayed in color.
Selections Using ID Names
The CSS syntax for an ID is a little different from that used for a class. In the CSS file, ID names are proceeded with a pound sign (#). The example below "floats" my 288px by 59px logo image to the left of the following paragraph: the text flows around the image. I added an ID attribute with a name of "logo" to the HTML "div" start tag I used to demarcate the image information. Here is the CSS code I used:
#logo
{
float:left
}
The HTML and CSS code would combine to produce the following results:
~~~LOGO WOULD FLOAT HERE~~ Text here would flow around the logo.
Selections Using Span Tags
If you want to format just a bit of content, you can use span tags
In the article.css file, I defined a background-color attribute for a "highlight" class that will put a yellow background behind selected text. For the next paragraph, I used span tags to bracket the text, "separate attributes." Here is the CSS code:
.highlight
{
background-color:yellow
}
As a result, and if this were in color, the phrase "separate attributes" would be highlighted with a yellow background.
LOOKS AND LAYOUT
A careful selection of the "global" characteristics used for the body element of your web page will insure that your articles will be both easy to read and aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. These characteristics include font, font color, page background color, and page margins.
I use the "body" code in the CSS file to define the default body display attributes. Here is the CSS body code from the article.css file:
body
{
background: #fffef2;
color: black;
line-height: normal;
margin: 3% 25% 3% 25%;
}
Fonts
In the CSS body code, I specify the font family I want to use. The first font listed, Verdana, will be used by a browser if it exists on a viewer's PC. If Verdana is not available, the other fonts will be checked, in order. If none of the specific fonts are available, the browser will default to any available sans-serif font.
If you use a commonly available font/font-family for your articles, the chances are good that a reader will see the article as expected. Otherwise, your article might not look the way it should.
Verdana was designed for easy readability on computer monitors and, for this reason, is my font of choice. Since Verdana is commonly available on PCs, using this as the default font will also increase the likelihood that my article text will be displayed as I intended.
Page Background
I set the background color to a light color, the font color to black, and the line height, or spacing between lines, to normal. The background color I like to use (#fffef2) shows colored text and graphics to good advantage.
Margins
I like to adjust the article on my page to show content in roughly the middle half of the page. I think it is easier for the eye to process than content that goes edge to edge. I use the CSS margin attribute to adjust this. The margin attribute defines the top, right, bottom, and left margins respectively (margin: top right bottom left).
In the CSS body code above, I set the left and right margins to 25% of the available display width. Using 25% places about 60 characters per line of text on my 1024x768 pixel full-screen display. I also set a small 3% margin above and below the content.
Lists
If you use a list in your article, you can use the CSS file to customize the way your list looks. Two important considerations of list design are the list bullet and the spacing between list elements. The example below shows how to change the bullet graphic and element spacing of an unordered list:
li
{
list-style-position: inside;
list-style-image: url
(http://www.elizabethadamsdirect.com/articles/images/small_blob.gif);
list-style-type: none;
margin-bottom: 1em
}
I added two list attributes to customize the list:
1. list-style-image - used to specify the URL to a bullet image (not shown below), and
2. margin-bottom - used to provide some extra space between list items.
For a complete description of possible list attributes--as well as great tutorials on using HTML and CSS--you can visit http://www.w3schools.com
Entity Names
Some characters have special meaning in HTML documents. When you want to use these characters in your text, you can use their "entity names" to prevent browsers from misinterpreting them for HTML code. I used entity names extensively for my web version of this article to display many symbols, particularly in the code samples.
Most commonly, I use entity names in my HTML code for quote marks. By doing this, I get the look and feel I want in my text when I use quotes. For example, when I want to use distinctly different left and right quote-marks in my web-based titles and headlines, I use specific entity names to do so.
Careful attention to the entity names you use can add "that extra touch of class" to your articles.
For HTML 4.01, there are entity names for both ASCII and extended characters and symbols. I use an entity name to insert a copyright symbol at the bottom of all of my web pages. You can find a complete list of entity names at w3schools.
I use Dreamweaver 8 for my HTML and CSS editing. With Dreamweaver, I can validate my code as I write it. I have optioned the validator to warn me when entity name substitution might be appropriate.
Validating Your HTML and CSS Code
I like to write valid HTML code for the "!DOCTYPE" version I use. If you click on the w3 validation icon at the bottom of my full-color, web-site version of this article, you will see that the HTML code for the article is valid and error free. You can use the validator accessible through w3schools to check your code, too.
CONCLUSIONS
When you separate your article's content from the code browsers use to display your article, you can focus on using simple, basic HTML code to organize your content. A Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) can accomplish the separation.
A CSS style sheet allows the HTML code for your articles to be cleaner, table-less, easily customizable, and "liquid."
You can look at one of my recently published articles to see the results of using the techniques outlined in this article. The article is "Profitable Ads: How to Write Ads that Pull."
Sincerely Yours,
Elizabeth Adams
About The Author
Elizabeth Adams has been writing direct sales copy since the early 1990's, when she employed several people to handle mailings and product fulfillment for her postcard marketing business. Elizabeth learned in direct mail how to tweak her sales copy on the run and improve her sales conversion by as much as 400% in only one mailing. She learned how to write a great headline and effective sales copy. Get "Great Headlines — Instantly" today to learn how to do for yourself what Elizabeth learned in the trenches: http://www.elizabethadamsdirect.com/greatheadlines/
http://www.articlecity.com
A CSS style sheet allows the HTML code for your articles to be cleaner, table-less, easily customizable, and "liquid."
Removing the display attributes of your articles from the HTML code allows you to concentrate on using the HTML for organizing your document's content.
When you use CSS, a new approach is possible to writing your articles for the Web:
* First, you write your article in a very basic HTML document, using simple HTML code. At this stage, use only the most common HTML tags. Focus on organizing your article's content first.
* Next, you identify parts of your document for special display formatting.
* Finally, you define the formatting in the CSS file.
Once you work through this process, you can reuse both the HTML document and the CSS file as templates for your future, quality articles.
This article will provide the tips, tricks, and sample code to give you a head start in creating your own quality articles and templates using CSS. If this all seems complex and intimidating at first, don't despair--read on. I will explain the basic HTML and CSS terminology throughout the article.
THE BASIC HTML DOCUMENT
The basic HTML document is devided into several sections: html, head, and body.
Tags are used to demarcate document sections, or "elements." Content lies between the tags. For example, the article you are now reading lies between the body tags of an html document.
Tags usually exist in pairs, a start tag and and end tag. The start tag is surrounded by less-than and greater-than angle brackets. An end tag is bracketed with the same symbols but the first character of the tag is a forward slash (/). For example, HTML code for a paragraph element would include the start and end "p" tags with the content sandwiched between the two.
The basic tag pairs found in web pages are:
* html -- These tags tell a browser that this is an HTML document and define the start and end of the document.
* head -- The head element can contain information about the document. Although the browser does not present the information to a viewer, the information can be "seen" and used by search engines.
* title -- The title tags define the title element that will be used by a browser for the document's title.
* body -- The document's content is placed between the body tags.
In HTML 4.01, not all tags exist in pairs. The "!DOCTYPE" and "meta" tags do not use an end tag, for instance.
The first line of code in the basic document is the Document Type Definition (DTD). The !DOCTYPE tag tells the browser which HTML or XHTML specification the document uses. HTML 4.01 specifies three document types: Strict, Transitional, and Frameset.
The first meta tag in the basic HTML document provides information about how the page-content characters are encoded so that a browser can interpret them correctly.
If you want your articles to be widely seen on the Internet, you need to be particularly interested in the meta tags for keywords and description. These can be seen and used by search engines.
Use the "keyword name" and its related "content" in a meta tag to list your keywords or keyword phrases.
Keywords ought to be appropriate for the article content. They should also reflect what internet surfers actually type into a search engine's query box when hunting for the information you are offering.
Keyword research is a study in itself. Freeware is available on the Internet that can help you determine the best keywords to use in your article and keyword list. Keywords or keyword phrases within the meta tag need to be separated from each other with a comma.
Although not all search engines will utilize the description meta tag for their search results, you still need to include a good description for those that do.
If you had just a few characters to describe your article, or to entice a surfer to select yours from the results of a search, what would you write? What you would write is what should go into the description.
USING CASCADING STYLE SHEETS (CSS)
I have already suggested several reasons why today's preferred method of creating web pages is to separate a page's content from it's display properties. It's time for a demonstration of how this can be accomplished.
In the past, HTML tags included attributes to define how the content was to be displayed by a browser.
Today, CSS is used to concentrate these attributes in a single, separate file. Simple HTML code specifies "what" content is to be displayed; the CSS code defines "how" the content is to be displayed.
Before CSS can be used to format an HTML document, the name and location of the CSS file must be known to the browser. The browser gets this information through the HTML "link" tag that is coded between the head tags.
Once the CSS file is linked, the browser will check the CSS file for display attributes. For example, if the browser encounters an "h1" tag in the HTML code, it will check the CSS file for "h1" formatting. Here is the "h1" formatting information I included in the article.css file I use for my article titles:
h1
{
color:maroon;
text-align:center
}
When a browser encounters an "h1" tag in the HTML code, it would display the title centered and maroon.
SELECTING CONTENT FOR FORMATTING
Content formatting can be applied to an HTML document only after the content to be formatted has been identified to the browser. An easy way to do this is to place a "class" or "id" attribute within a start tag. The same class name can be used many times on a web page; each id name should be used just once per page.
Once content is identified, the class or id name can be referred to in the CSS file and the browser will apply any formatting attributes found there.
Selections Using Class Names
As an example of using the class name, I used the following CSS for in an article about writing ad headlines. In the HTML code, I used divisions tags with a class name of "headline" to demarcate the headline text. I added the following code to the CSS file:
.headline
{
font-size: 24px;
color: red;
font-weight:bold;
text-align:center
}
In the CSS file, I specified the font-size, color, font-weight, and text-align attributes. The class name was added to the CSS file by preceeding the name with a period. I used a semicolon to separate attributes in the list. The HTML and CSS code combine to produce a bold, 24px, red headline centered in the HTML page.
It should be noted that there are some basic HTML tags that are their own class names and do not require a preceding period in the CSS file. These include p, h, body, li, and others. That being said, these tags can be modified by appending an additional class name to them. For example, if I wanted to make the next paragraph blue, I could add a "blue" class attribute to the opening HTML "p" tag and then add this code to the CSS file:
p.blue
{
color:#0000FF
}
This would be a blue paragraph if this HTML were displayed in color.
Selections Using ID Names
The CSS syntax for an ID is a little different from that used for a class. In the CSS file, ID names are proceeded with a pound sign (#). The example below "floats" my 288px by 59px logo image to the left of the following paragraph: the text flows around the image. I added an ID attribute with a name of "logo" to the HTML "div" start tag I used to demarcate the image information. Here is the CSS code I used:
#logo
{
float:left
}
The HTML and CSS code would combine to produce the following results:
~~~LOGO WOULD FLOAT HERE~~ Text here would flow around the logo.
Selections Using Span Tags
If you want to format just a bit of content, you can use span tags
In the article.css file, I defined a background-color attribute for a "highlight" class that will put a yellow background behind selected text. For the next paragraph, I used span tags to bracket the text, "separate attributes." Here is the CSS code:
.highlight
{
background-color:yellow
}
As a result, and if this were in color, the phrase "separate attributes" would be highlighted with a yellow background.
LOOKS AND LAYOUT
A careful selection of the "global" characteristics used for the body element of your web page will insure that your articles will be both easy to read and aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. These characteristics include font, font color, page background color, and page margins.
I use the "body" code in the CSS file to define the default body display attributes. Here is the CSS body code from the article.css file:
body
{
background: #fffef2;
color: black;
line-height: normal;
margin: 3% 25% 3% 25%;
}
Fonts
In the CSS body code, I specify the font family I want to use. The first font listed, Verdana, will be used by a browser if it exists on a viewer's PC. If Verdana is not available, the other fonts will be checked, in order. If none of the specific fonts are available, the browser will default to any available sans-serif font.
If you use a commonly available font/font-family for your articles, the chances are good that a reader will see the article as expected. Otherwise, your article might not look the way it should.
Verdana was designed for easy readability on computer monitors and, for this reason, is my font of choice. Since Verdana is commonly available on PCs, using this as the default font will also increase the likelihood that my article text will be displayed as I intended.
Page Background
I set the background color to a light color, the font color to black, and the line height, or spacing between lines, to normal. The background color I like to use (#fffef2) shows colored text and graphics to good advantage.
Margins
I like to adjust the article on my page to show content in roughly the middle half of the page. I think it is easier for the eye to process than content that goes edge to edge. I use the CSS margin attribute to adjust this. The margin attribute defines the top, right, bottom, and left margins respectively (margin: top right bottom left).
In the CSS body code above, I set the left and right margins to 25% of the available display width. Using 25% places about 60 characters per line of text on my 1024x768 pixel full-screen display. I also set a small 3% margin above and below the content.
Lists
If you use a list in your article, you can use the CSS file to customize the way your list looks. Two important considerations of list design are the list bullet and the spacing between list elements. The example below shows how to change the bullet graphic and element spacing of an unordered list:
li
{
list-style-position: inside;
list-style-image: url
(http://www.elizabethadamsdirect.com/articles/images/small_blob.gif);
list-style-type: none;
margin-bottom: 1em
}
I added two list attributes to customize the list:
1. list-style-image - used to specify the URL to a bullet image (not shown below), and
2. margin-bottom - used to provide some extra space between list items.
For a complete description of possible list attributes--as well as great tutorials on using HTML and CSS--you can visit http://www.w3schools.com
Entity Names
Some characters have special meaning in HTML documents. When you want to use these characters in your text, you can use their "entity names" to prevent browsers from misinterpreting them for HTML code. I used entity names extensively for my web version of this article to display many symbols, particularly in the code samples.
Most commonly, I use entity names in my HTML code for quote marks. By doing this, I get the look and feel I want in my text when I use quotes. For example, when I want to use distinctly different left and right quote-marks in my web-based titles and headlines, I use specific entity names to do so.
Careful attention to the entity names you use can add "that extra touch of class" to your articles.
For HTML 4.01, there are entity names for both ASCII and extended characters and symbols. I use an entity name to insert a copyright symbol at the bottom of all of my web pages. You can find a complete list of entity names at w3schools.
I use Dreamweaver 8 for my HTML and CSS editing. With Dreamweaver, I can validate my code as I write it. I have optioned the validator to warn me when entity name substitution might be appropriate.
Validating Your HTML and CSS Code
I like to write valid HTML code for the "!DOCTYPE" version I use. If you click on the w3 validation icon at the bottom of my full-color, web-site version of this article, you will see that the HTML code for the article is valid and error free. You can use the validator accessible through w3schools to check your code, too.
CONCLUSIONS
When you separate your article's content from the code browsers use to display your article, you can focus on using simple, basic HTML code to organize your content. A Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) can accomplish the separation.
A CSS style sheet allows the HTML code for your articles to be cleaner, table-less, easily customizable, and "liquid."
You can look at one of my recently published articles to see the results of using the techniques outlined in this article. The article is "Profitable Ads: How to Write Ads that Pull."
Sincerely Yours,
Elizabeth Adams
About The Author
Elizabeth Adams has been writing direct sales copy since the early 1990's, when she employed several people to handle mailings and product fulfillment for her postcard marketing business. Elizabeth learned in direct mail how to tweak her sales copy on the run and improve her sales conversion by as much as 400% in only one mailing. She learned how to write a great headline and effective sales copy. Get "Great Headlines — Instantly" today to learn how to do for yourself what Elizabeth learned in the trenches: http://www.elizabethadamsdirect.com/greatheadlines/
http://www.articlecity.com
What a Website Needs to Succeed!
A Proven Formula for All Websites
Every business needs a website. It is an absolute MUST! Nowadays, it’s like not being in the phone book. The Internet is a digitally-indexed database that is searchable. Whenever anyone wants to know more about anything, they look it up on the Internet, in their own time, 24/7, without the pressure of a sales person. With search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, the information they are looking for can be found in seconds.
If you aren’t where people are looking, you CAN’T get the sale.
Even if you aren’t planning on selling anything online, you still need to have an Internet presence, telling your story and being a 24/7 sales person for you. The Internet is information. So, even if you just have an informational website, people can find out more about you, your company, what you have to offer, and why they should choose you over your competition. A website gives you the opportunity to get all of that across to your potential customer.
Following, are proven components of a website and why you will need them in yours.
A Home Page is the window into your website and should be short, sweat, and to the point. Statistically, it has been proven that you get about 3 seconds, once a person arrives at your website, to get them interested enough to click for more information. If you can get them to click, then you have them! If you try to give them all of the information at once, then you will lose them.
Some websites try to give you their inventory on the home page, or write a story that scrolls forever. This is not good. A home page should not scroll. This is a big “No No”. When people get to a home page and see paragraphs, trust me, they go on to the next website. It needs graphics that represent the services, happy pictures, happy customers, and a quick sales pitch. Remember, people are lazy and won’t read large amounts of text, unless they have a need to. And included on the home page, needs to be quickly gotten across, why someone should use you over your competitor.
The About Us page sometimes gets left off, in favor of making the home page the About Us page. You will want to have an About Us page that explains in detail what you have to offer, your history, your mission statement, and a good reason that a potential customer should use buy from you over your competitor. This can be seen as the detailed version of the home page. However, it is a mistake to forgo the About Us page in exchange for a detailed home page. Again, this will just push people away who do not want to read all of the details to find out who you are and what you have to offer. This information should be available for those who wish to see more information after they are intrigued by the home page.
Design rules. For uniformity and good design, websites (any marketing piece) should have rules for graphic elements and text. For example, all headings should be the same size/style/color, etc. All subheads should have their own size/style/color, etc. This helps the eye make sense of what it is looking at. Guide your visitor with well-placed graphics and text.
Make sure that your website has good navigation, with buttons/links for all main sections of your website. And be sure to keep these navigation buttons/links visible on ANY page. There is nothing more frustrating than to not be able to find your way while browsing a website. People will leave before becoming too frustrated. Don’t let this happen on your website!
The constant, flashing email (or other) button/advertisement is a "No No" these days. In the old days, flashing and blinking graphics were used. As websites became more graphically sophisticated, these types of elements were not used any more. It can be annoying to see something flashing just off your vision, when you are trying to read the web page.
Text links at the bottom are rarely used any more. They were implemented back in the day of the text-based websites, when they were just starting out. This was for the dial-up users who had the option to turn off graphics for faster web page loading. When this happened, there were no links for navigation, unless a webmaster placed text links at the bottom. Nowadays, most people have broadband connections, and this just isn't necessary any more.
The biggest problem I see with websites these days is that a person has to read quite a bit to see what, exactly, a website is selling. When people show up at your website, you get about 3 seconds to peak their interest. Get it across very quickly, with icons/graphics/bullet points that are easy to understand. Tell them why they should choose you over your competition. And then tell them where to go to get started.
Another very important element is testimonials. More important than telling them why a potential customer should use your services over your competitions’, is a customer of yours saying the same thing. Not only is a testimonial someone who used your services, but they can say "how" you were able to help them. This gives new potential customers ideas on how your services will help “them”. Testimonials are also sales pitches from your happy customers, people just like them. They are people who were in the same position as they are right now and they got through it, so they can too. They also build credibility. When you are endorsed by other people, you have credibility and that you can do what you say you can do. And even though they may be saying the same thing that you are saying, it is coming from someone just like them, and not someone who is trying to sell them anything. They have nothing to gain by saying this. You do. So they need to hear from them. You absolutely MUST have endorsements for your business; otherwise, you are just blowing your own horn!
The next best thing to a testimonial page is an FAQ page. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page answers questions for your company 24/7, when you can't be at the phone to answer, and for people who would rather look over your information than speak to someone who might try to sell them something. FAQs also help to give scenarios of how they can be helped, by answering questions that other potential customers have asked, and they might not have thought of themselves. This gets them thinking and gives them answers in a risk-free environment. It is VERY important to have an FAQ working for you 24/7. It's like having a free sales person working for you around the clock, fielding all questions that might come up! It's a MUST-have for ANY website!
Your website should also have a clear "call to action". A lot of websites say that “we are here and we do this”, but they don't tell them how to get started, or tell them where to go to get started right now... no call to action. Now that they have the information, now what? People are like sheep. They must be led. You must lead them to the next level; otherwise, they probably won't get there. You should have calls to action by all services, and on your home page. You should sprinkle testimonials throughout, as well, leading them back to the full testimonials and then to the call to action, which should be placed on the testimonials page, as well. You could offer a FREE Consultation by calling right now… or click HERE now to email us 24/7 for a FREE Consultation… something that tells them where to go from here and a reason to get started right now and how.
There also needs to be graphics to help tell the story; high-end icons that help draw the eye to the item of interest, to get them to read it. Having a text-only page usually does not get read. People are lazy and will not usually read paragraphs of information in hopes of getting the information they are looking for. They would have to first be extremely interested before reading the “fine print”. And to get them interested, it should be broken up with graphics that represent each section. They will see the related graphic first, and then move to that area if interested. But to give them a page of information usually doesn't work.
You also need meta tags. This is very important to search engines. These are hidden key words and phrases that describe what you offer, but also your location, etc. Search engines rely heavily on key words and phrases in order to give your website as a result in a search done for your type of business. In fact, it is also good to have misspelled keywords that people might type in order to find you. Obviously, you won’t want to have misspelled words or phrases on your page, since this will give the wrong impression of who you are. With meta tags, misspelled words are hidden in the code of the website, but can be used to bring people to your website who may not be able to correctly spell some your services. Even putting your competitions’ names and products in your meta tags can help get traffic to your site, so that they can compare your products and services to your competitors’.
Another item that puts you high on the search engine results listing is having articles about your type of business, both on your website, and other websites that link back to yours for more information on the subject. Offering free information makes you an authority on the subject, not just someone trying to sell their wares. This plays heavily in search results, along with one-way links back to your website. When you get one-way links back to your site for more information, this gives you much credibility and definitely helps to make you an authority that other sites rely on. So when someone looks up your type of product or service for more information, obviously the search engine will give a site that has the most helpful and free information (and one that other sites rely on for more information on this subject) a higher rating and puts them higher on the search results list.
A FREE Tips & Tricks or Hints page is also a good way to get relevant traffic. People are always looking for How-To's and DIY information on all types of subjects. On my site I have FREE Tech Tips that get hits all the time, which pertain to my services. Again, a percentage of these hits click on my services. And the only way I got them there was because of the FREE How-To's that I offer. So, you have to entice people to your site, by offering more than your competitor's website. This is where these types of pages come in handy.
It is also good to have a Privacy Policy page. This shows integrity and also builds credibility and a higher ranking in the search engines. This is one item that search engines look for, in particular. Websites with a page dedicated to a Privacy Policy get a higher ranking and your site will show up higher in the search results.
A Guarantee page is also a good idea. Again, this gives credibility and will give you an edge over your competitor, who may not offer a guarantee. A website that has a guarantee, but is hard to find, makes a potential customer feel like they have something to hide and may not purchase from that website. However, if you have an easy-to-find Guarantee that you put right in their face (whether you dedicate a page to it, or you put it right on the Home page), it eases potential customers into a buying position.
You may want to have a form that allows a customer to request more information about your product or service, and which also lets the customer type in their personal information and what they are looking for. This not only helps you by getting their contact information, it also helps by prompting the potential customer into thinking about other aspects. By doing it this way, you will also get all of the information needed to correctly quote a product or service more effectively, without having to make additional phone calls to the customer. The more common way of requesting information is just by posting an INFO email address and hope that the person requesting the info knows enough about what he is looking for to provide all of the info to get a good quote. This is not usually the case. Most of the time they need a form to fill out. In most cases, there is info that is left out. A form ensures that you get everything needed to quote the product or service accurately. And, also, by offering a form to request more info, leads will be generating 24-7 for you. All you have to do is the quote and give them a call. This reduces the need for cold-calling, and gives you an excuse to call and close the deal.
If you incorporate all of the above pages, along with the “way” these pages should be shown, your website will have a higher ranking in the search engines, which puts your website higher in the search results, thus significantly increasing the traffic to your website!
The above categories aren't the only things you can do to increase traffic to your website. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should also be done, as well as swapping links with relevant websites, and posting articles and links back to your website from online article and content websites.
To have an award-winning and specially-formulated website designed for your company, contact Michigan Tech Group TODAY at (810) 496-4595 or email us at info@MichiganTechGroup.com Visit us online at http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com
Good luck. I hope this article has helped you. If you live in the Lapeer, Genesee, or Tuscola County, Michigan areas, and would like an IT Professional to do a professional to help you in your home or business,please contact Michigan Tech Group at (810) 496-4595, or visit our website at http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com. You can email us at info@MichiganTechGroup.com.
If you would like to use this article for any publication, you may do so if you do NOT change any of the content, and the tag line remains intact.
About The Author
Jim Shutes
I have worked in the IT field since 1989 and hold several Microsoft certifications. I am a network administrator and co-owner and co-operator of Michigan Tech Group, located in Flint, Michigan. During these years, I have supported both Macs and PCs, am an accomplished graphic and web designer, and have had the opportunity to support 2nd and 3rd level enterprise networks for GM, EDS, Delphi and Delco. If you would like to get in touch with me, you may do so at (810) 496-4595, or by email at jshutes@MichiganTechGroup.com. My website is http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com
http://www.articlecity.com
Every business needs a website. It is an absolute MUST! Nowadays, it’s like not being in the phone book. The Internet is a digitally-indexed database that is searchable. Whenever anyone wants to know more about anything, they look it up on the Internet, in their own time, 24/7, without the pressure of a sales person. With search engines, such as Google.com or Yahoo.com, the information they are looking for can be found in seconds.
If you aren’t where people are looking, you CAN’T get the sale.
Even if you aren’t planning on selling anything online, you still need to have an Internet presence, telling your story and being a 24/7 sales person for you. The Internet is information. So, even if you just have an informational website, people can find out more about you, your company, what you have to offer, and why they should choose you over your competition. A website gives you the opportunity to get all of that across to your potential customer.
Following, are proven components of a website and why you will need them in yours.
A Home Page is the window into your website and should be short, sweat, and to the point. Statistically, it has been proven that you get about 3 seconds, once a person arrives at your website, to get them interested enough to click for more information. If you can get them to click, then you have them! If you try to give them all of the information at once, then you will lose them.
Some websites try to give you their inventory on the home page, or write a story that scrolls forever. This is not good. A home page should not scroll. This is a big “No No”. When people get to a home page and see paragraphs, trust me, they go on to the next website. It needs graphics that represent the services, happy pictures, happy customers, and a quick sales pitch. Remember, people are lazy and won’t read large amounts of text, unless they have a need to. And included on the home page, needs to be quickly gotten across, why someone should use you over your competitor.
The About Us page sometimes gets left off, in favor of making the home page the About Us page. You will want to have an About Us page that explains in detail what you have to offer, your history, your mission statement, and a good reason that a potential customer should use buy from you over your competitor. This can be seen as the detailed version of the home page. However, it is a mistake to forgo the About Us page in exchange for a detailed home page. Again, this will just push people away who do not want to read all of the details to find out who you are and what you have to offer. This information should be available for those who wish to see more information after they are intrigued by the home page.
Design rules. For uniformity and good design, websites (any marketing piece) should have rules for graphic elements and text. For example, all headings should be the same size/style/color, etc. All subheads should have their own size/style/color, etc. This helps the eye make sense of what it is looking at. Guide your visitor with well-placed graphics and text.
Make sure that your website has good navigation, with buttons/links for all main sections of your website. And be sure to keep these navigation buttons/links visible on ANY page. There is nothing more frustrating than to not be able to find your way while browsing a website. People will leave before becoming too frustrated. Don’t let this happen on your website!
The constant, flashing email (or other) button/advertisement is a "No No" these days. In the old days, flashing and blinking graphics were used. As websites became more graphically sophisticated, these types of elements were not used any more. It can be annoying to see something flashing just off your vision, when you are trying to read the web page.
Text links at the bottom are rarely used any more. They were implemented back in the day of the text-based websites, when they were just starting out. This was for the dial-up users who had the option to turn off graphics for faster web page loading. When this happened, there were no links for navigation, unless a webmaster placed text links at the bottom. Nowadays, most people have broadband connections, and this just isn't necessary any more.
The biggest problem I see with websites these days is that a person has to read quite a bit to see what, exactly, a website is selling. When people show up at your website, you get about 3 seconds to peak their interest. Get it across very quickly, with icons/graphics/bullet points that are easy to understand. Tell them why they should choose you over your competition. And then tell them where to go to get started.
Another very important element is testimonials. More important than telling them why a potential customer should use your services over your competitions’, is a customer of yours saying the same thing. Not only is a testimonial someone who used your services, but they can say "how" you were able to help them. This gives new potential customers ideas on how your services will help “them”. Testimonials are also sales pitches from your happy customers, people just like them. They are people who were in the same position as they are right now and they got through it, so they can too. They also build credibility. When you are endorsed by other people, you have credibility and that you can do what you say you can do. And even though they may be saying the same thing that you are saying, it is coming from someone just like them, and not someone who is trying to sell them anything. They have nothing to gain by saying this. You do. So they need to hear from them. You absolutely MUST have endorsements for your business; otherwise, you are just blowing your own horn!
The next best thing to a testimonial page is an FAQ page. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page answers questions for your company 24/7, when you can't be at the phone to answer, and for people who would rather look over your information than speak to someone who might try to sell them something. FAQs also help to give scenarios of how they can be helped, by answering questions that other potential customers have asked, and they might not have thought of themselves. This gets them thinking and gives them answers in a risk-free environment. It is VERY important to have an FAQ working for you 24/7. It's like having a free sales person working for you around the clock, fielding all questions that might come up! It's a MUST-have for ANY website!
Your website should also have a clear "call to action". A lot of websites say that “we are here and we do this”, but they don't tell them how to get started, or tell them where to go to get started right now... no call to action. Now that they have the information, now what? People are like sheep. They must be led. You must lead them to the next level; otherwise, they probably won't get there. You should have calls to action by all services, and on your home page. You should sprinkle testimonials throughout, as well, leading them back to the full testimonials and then to the call to action, which should be placed on the testimonials page, as well. You could offer a FREE Consultation by calling right now… or click HERE now to email us 24/7 for a FREE Consultation… something that tells them where to go from here and a reason to get started right now and how.
There also needs to be graphics to help tell the story; high-end icons that help draw the eye to the item of interest, to get them to read it. Having a text-only page usually does not get read. People are lazy and will not usually read paragraphs of information in hopes of getting the information they are looking for. They would have to first be extremely interested before reading the “fine print”. And to get them interested, it should be broken up with graphics that represent each section. They will see the related graphic first, and then move to that area if interested. But to give them a page of information usually doesn't work.
You also need meta tags. This is very important to search engines. These are hidden key words and phrases that describe what you offer, but also your location, etc. Search engines rely heavily on key words and phrases in order to give your website as a result in a search done for your type of business. In fact, it is also good to have misspelled keywords that people might type in order to find you. Obviously, you won’t want to have misspelled words or phrases on your page, since this will give the wrong impression of who you are. With meta tags, misspelled words are hidden in the code of the website, but can be used to bring people to your website who may not be able to correctly spell some your services. Even putting your competitions’ names and products in your meta tags can help get traffic to your site, so that they can compare your products and services to your competitors’.
Another item that puts you high on the search engine results listing is having articles about your type of business, both on your website, and other websites that link back to yours for more information on the subject. Offering free information makes you an authority on the subject, not just someone trying to sell their wares. This plays heavily in search results, along with one-way links back to your website. When you get one-way links back to your site for more information, this gives you much credibility and definitely helps to make you an authority that other sites rely on. So when someone looks up your type of product or service for more information, obviously the search engine will give a site that has the most helpful and free information (and one that other sites rely on for more information on this subject) a higher rating and puts them higher on the search results list.
A FREE Tips & Tricks or Hints page is also a good way to get relevant traffic. People are always looking for How-To's and DIY information on all types of subjects. On my site I have FREE Tech Tips that get hits all the time, which pertain to my services. Again, a percentage of these hits click on my services. And the only way I got them there was because of the FREE How-To's that I offer. So, you have to entice people to your site, by offering more than your competitor's website. This is where these types of pages come in handy.
It is also good to have a Privacy Policy page. This shows integrity and also builds credibility and a higher ranking in the search engines. This is one item that search engines look for, in particular. Websites with a page dedicated to a Privacy Policy get a higher ranking and your site will show up higher in the search results.
A Guarantee page is also a good idea. Again, this gives credibility and will give you an edge over your competitor, who may not offer a guarantee. A website that has a guarantee, but is hard to find, makes a potential customer feel like they have something to hide and may not purchase from that website. However, if you have an easy-to-find Guarantee that you put right in their face (whether you dedicate a page to it, or you put it right on the Home page), it eases potential customers into a buying position.
You may want to have a form that allows a customer to request more information about your product or service, and which also lets the customer type in their personal information and what they are looking for. This not only helps you by getting their contact information, it also helps by prompting the potential customer into thinking about other aspects. By doing it this way, you will also get all of the information needed to correctly quote a product or service more effectively, without having to make additional phone calls to the customer. The more common way of requesting information is just by posting an INFO email address and hope that the person requesting the info knows enough about what he is looking for to provide all of the info to get a good quote. This is not usually the case. Most of the time they need a form to fill out. In most cases, there is info that is left out. A form ensures that you get everything needed to quote the product or service accurately. And, also, by offering a form to request more info, leads will be generating 24-7 for you. All you have to do is the quote and give them a call. This reduces the need for cold-calling, and gives you an excuse to call and close the deal.
If you incorporate all of the above pages, along with the “way” these pages should be shown, your website will have a higher ranking in the search engines, which puts your website higher in the search results, thus significantly increasing the traffic to your website!
The above categories aren't the only things you can do to increase traffic to your website. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should also be done, as well as swapping links with relevant websites, and posting articles and links back to your website from online article and content websites.
To have an award-winning and specially-formulated website designed for your company, contact Michigan Tech Group TODAY at (810) 496-4595 or email us at info@MichiganTechGroup.com Visit us online at http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com
Good luck. I hope this article has helped you. If you live in the Lapeer, Genesee, or Tuscola County, Michigan areas, and would like an IT Professional to do a professional to help you in your home or business,please contact Michigan Tech Group at (810) 496-4595, or visit our website at http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com. You can email us at info@MichiganTechGroup.com.
If you would like to use this article for any publication, you may do so if you do NOT change any of the content, and the tag line remains intact.
About The Author
Jim Shutes
I have worked in the IT field since 1989 and hold several Microsoft certifications. I am a network administrator and co-owner and co-operator of Michigan Tech Group, located in Flint, Michigan. During these years, I have supported both Macs and PCs, am an accomplished graphic and web designer, and have had the opportunity to support 2nd and 3rd level enterprise networks for GM, EDS, Delphi and Delco. If you would like to get in touch with me, you may do so at (810) 496-4595, or by email at jshutes@MichiganTechGroup.com. My website is http://www.MichiganTechGroup.com
http://www.articlecity.com
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