There are so many websites on the internet nowadays, so if you want a great website that stands out from the crowd, you are going to have to have brilliant web design incorporated into it.
A website that is badly designed will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. If you want a website that is remembered for the right reasons, you are going to have to have a design that makes your website unique.

Your web design is the first thing that people notice when they arrive at your website. If you have an untidy website with bad graphics and terrible navigation, you are going to lose your readers and viewers right from the start. That is why web design is important in the process of creating a successful website. Whether it is a personal website or one that you intend to use for business purposes, it needs to be well designed and well maintained.

If you can grab the reader’s attention by graphics that are relevant and useful, text that is of a very high quality, colors and layouts that are easy on the eye, then you are half way there! Research has shown that more people buy from websites that are designed professionally and look trustworthy, rather than quickly made and with badly thought out designs.

So, you can see how important your web design really is now. There are many ways to improve your web design, both for free and by hiring someone else to do it for you. Which you choose will depend on your budget and your time frame. A busy web designer may not be able to fit you in for months.

How you layout your website is also very important. You may have lots of great content on your website that people would love to read, but what if they can’t find it? If you haven’t clearly and easily laid out your website in the web design process, your readers won’t be able to find any other pages. This could be disastrous if you are selling some kind of service or product.

All in all the web design aspect is only a small part of getting your website up and running, however, it is very important. When you are designing your website, remember to make it easy to navigate, concise and clear.

If you are not familiar with web design and all the aspects that go into creating a website, it may be worth your while looking for a professional web designer or a pre made template. Web designers come with different price tags all depending on where you get them from and what you need doing.

If you want a relatively simple design you will be looking at a fairly cheap price. If you are looking for a complex website with many features you can expect to pay a fair amount of money for it. A good designer will include you all throughout the process. You will be able to approve the website as many times as required.

Ready-made templates are great if you don’t have the budget for a professional designer and don’t have the time to learn how to create one from scratch. There are many free ones that you find on the Internet or ones that you can buy for a small amount of money.

source by: Daniel Millions-entireweb.com

I know that may come off as a bit over reaching - but its true. From email to news, search, video or anything else on the Internet - you have to know where you’re going which is only achieved by a domain name.

The ABC’s of domain names, which as a title may come off as a little corny to you, is an exercise that makes you think about your industry or business, what you’re doing in it, and how you go about doing what you do as it relates to domain names. The use of the ABC’s format is to provide a simple, back to basics approach to deliver fundamental concepts that provoke thoughts, ideas and questions on domain names and how they are a part of your world.

So, whatever all of that means - lets dive into the ABC’s of domain names and find their relevance in your line or work, personal life, hobbies, educational background, experience or special areas of interest to see what jumps out and comes naturally to you:

A: Advertising - domain names offer the perfect venue to advertise your product or services or to provide potential revenue by domain parking and/or affiliate programs.

B: Branding - the brand is in the name. Having a great targeted domain name can really build a brand, or can actually be the brand (eg: Google.com)

C: Community - the Internet is all about an interconnected community. Through domain names, you create a real destination and an identity for what can become a community.

D: Direct Search - having a generic word based domain name is your best path to direct search traffic. Direct Search is here to stay and will likely take an increasing share of the overall search marketplace. Direct search bypasses the likes of yahoo.com and google.com as the user types in the destination site directly into their browser (ie: www.computers.com).

E: Ecommerce - want to conduct business online - you need to start with one primary thing - a domain name. Ecommerce is one of the leading uses of the Internet.

F: Friends & Family - connect with your friends and family with domain names - either by email, your favorite websites, or photo sharing sites and videos, etc.

G: Global - synonymous with the Internet - domain names (particularly .com) have mass broad appeal on a global basis, with global potential.

H: High Returns - where else can you buy a piece of virtual real-estate for $8.00 and sell it within a matter of weeks or months for over $1000? Fund.com just sold for $9.99 Million in March of 2008.

I: Investment - domain names are appreciating more than any investment for the price. Similar to investing in stocks, bonds, real estate or insurance - domain names offer what I believe to be stable long lasting appreciation with the potential to create astonishing returns. Want to learn more about domain investing - you can always check out www.domainprofitsbook.com.

J: Justify - Justify your web presence and online business with a great domain name that demonstrates who you are and what you do.

K: Keywords - domain names can be based upon major key words for your industry or target market. Just the same, the key words you use in your Internet marketing can be generated from the domain name you choose and how it relates to your target industry/product/service/noun/verb.

L: Localization & Location - targeting niche audiences by location and a specific geography has proved to be a very strong, identifiable marketing opportunity for anybody online. Embracing localization for your domain investment objectives is a great path to consider.

M: Monetization - making money and creating multiple sources and streams of income are the cornerstones to the potential and reason why people buy savvy domain names.

N: New Markets to seize - new products and services are always being launched, just as new companies and markets are being formed. Finding with a good strong domain name to capture the essence of your business or target market for your online presence is always a great starting point.

O: Organization - a domain name is the perfect way to identify with your organization. Whether it’s a product, service, or brand - your domain name is your face on the Internet.

P: Profits - Domain are a great way to make money and profits. Invest wisely and you can find yourself with a great windfall.

Q: Quest - Like any business venture, you are on a quest to explore, learn and make money.

R: Revenue - domain names offer a myriad of ways to generate revenues. There are numerous ways and avenues to generate revenues with domain names, however, in some cases are closely held ideas and resources. Becoming educated about domain names and being focused on creating a long lasting business is a great path towards generating revenue.

S: Search Engines - Search engines are the gateway to choices on the Internet and essentially, a directory of domains classified by the type of information, product or service they offer. Search engines are a powerful marketing tool and a source of traffic for the domain name owner.

T: Technology - simply, without technology, there are no domains, websites, search engines, email or the like. The beauty of domain names is that you really don’t have to understand or learn too much technology to get started, or to make money.

U: Unique Users - people coming to your website/domains generate traffic. The more unique users that visit your website - the more traffic they create. The more traffic - the greater the value. The best way to create long lasting value with domain names is creating a venue where a consistent and growing base of unique users visit your domain name/website.

V: Virtual - Domain names are virtual real estate. Some represent ocean-front property while others can represent sky scrapers, apartments or vacant land in the middle of a barren desert. Build your portfolio of virtual real estate for the longer term or flip your domain name for a quick sale and profits.

W: World Wide Web - The world wide web and its beginning started with domain names and/or their underlying numerical identities. With the advent of the world wide web, email, search engines and the increasing convergence of communications and media - business and industry has created high demand and appreciating values for good domain names.

X: The X Factor - there is a mystique and certain unknowns regarding the true value of domain names, how to create revenue and profits, and what strategies are best to create traffic to your domain name or website. The more knowledgeable and prepared you are to dive into the domain name world - the better off you are in managing the X Factor when it rears its head.

Y: You - buying, selling, and owning domain names is a reflection upon you, what your goals are, where your interests lie, and how you want to make money with this virtual real estate. You need to decide what your objectives are and how you are most comfortable in approaching your investment and dedication towards making money with domain names.

Z: Zeal - approach your domain activities with passion and enthusiasm. The more positive your thinking and focus is with domain names - the better you will be able to manage it, be prepared, and have an open mind to seize new opportunities and make money with your domains.

We hope you enjoyed this article and find that each time you read it you take away something new and different that can add value to your world of domain names.

source: Entireweb

My nephew can build me a web site can’t he?

Yes, I won’t deny it your nephew or distant relative can likely create a "functional" web site but let me ask you, will it be positioned for success? Will it be bloated with useless markup or worse yet lack the essentials for organic search results? I don’t know about you but having a web site should be considered with marketing in mind before you just say, "…heck with it let’s just throw something online and see what happens". I can almost hear the crickets chirping from lack of activity and visibility online.

What you see is what you get!

Are you looking for your next web site builder tool to do-it-yourself a real all-in-one service that will meet and exceed your every need? Sadly to say most web site builders out there leave little to be desired in the way of features, flexibility let alone search engine readiness. Most tools like that of WYSIWYG editors are quite similar as you will be able to add content but have little control of the overall display or general structure which can be challenging for global changes.

All we need is some relevance and a little patience.

So you want to embark on a new web site venture and want to know which avenues are the best online to sell your product or service yet in the most cost effective manner? Let me indulge you a bit on a few things that will save you a lot of money and hassle trying to get free organic rankings on Google and other top tier engines.

1. Know your competition - Research your target market, analyze your competition and see what they are doing for search engine rankings.
2. Refine the focus - Define avenues to reach your customers through marketing and demographics but also see what it is they are searching for online to find you. Consider all the variations and misspellings or keyword combinations that will help make your web site more relevant.
3. Deploy the terms - Now it’s time to deploy these new keyword sets and phrases throughout the web site from our findings and research. Be sure to keep in mind the top ranking terms as you will want to spread them throughout your Meta tags, headlines, anchors and more.
4. Patience is a virtue - I never said this was going to be instantaneous did I? Ok this is the hardest fact to swallow but when all this effort is said and done and the web site is launched in all it’s search engine optimized glory now begins the submission process! Submissions can take weeks to show up depending on the engine or directory you are submitting to, it is common to see web sites being indexed on Google within 4-6 weeks but can be longer.

Now it’s time to Pull some Rank!

One thing you must do continually is put yourself out there just like in the business realm how important networking is to thriving startups is how important continual online marketing is to a successful dot com based business. A few was to achieve higher rankings and link back to your site would be to trade links with other sites or list your site for free on a high ranking directories. You will see how amazing traffic will continue to flow through these outlets and how a few hours a week can really help maximize these efforts into profitable results.

Monitor and Adjust

The key thing to knowing what your customers want is to constantly ask them and monitor their activities online. One sure way to do this is using Google Analytics and by signing up with a Google Account you can be on your way to getting the code snippet you will need to inject to your web site ( preferably before the </body> tag). Now you can begin to track your visitors behaviors online and which pages they are entering and leaving from and how long they are staying on your web site. There is a TON more of valuable data you will gain from this and the best way to filter it all is to set recurring reports to be emailed directly to you based on the data you are looking to review. PDF reports are a fantastic way to review quickly the data and see how the web site is progressing.

Helpful Links:

• Axandra
• Overture- Keyword Selector Tool
• Meta Tag Analyzer
• ODP - Open Directory Project

Let’s just start out by saying a phrase I heard a while back, "Everything Google touches turns to gold". I find myself using Google services quite frequently and figured what a good blog post to describe all the great tools I have found and use. This is by no means a complete list but rather the ones that stood out to me and could help you become more popular, well I can’t promise that.

Analytics

Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

Docs

Create and share your work online

• Create, edit and upload quickly
• Access and edit from anywhere
• Share changes in real time

Gmail

Gmail is a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful.

Base

Simply describe your items on Base to make them as easy as possible for people to find when they search. You don’t even need a website to put your stuff online.

Adwords

Google’s advertising platform offering both cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing for advertisements served on Google.com and partner sites. Something I found recently was Audio Ads which seems like a great way to get radio exposure.

Orkut

Social networking and discussion site operated by Google.

Adsense

Google AdSense matches ads to your site’s content, and you earn money whenever your visitors click on them.

Calendar

Shared calendars, quickly add events and see your friends’ and family’s schedules right next to your own.

Video Upload Program

This new upcoming service seems intriguing, "Your work deserves to be seen. You’ve made a great video. Now who will watch it?". Just make sure you own the rights to it and pending their approval you could have your video on Google. If you are a big shot producer with 1,000 + hours of vide you can sign up for their "Premium Program".

OpenSocial

"OpenSocial defines a common API for social applications across multiple websites. Built from standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps with OpenSocial that access a social network’s friends and update feeds. By using a common API, developers can extend the reach of their applications more quickly, yielding more functionality for users."

Relating News :: OpenSocial Foundation launches with Google, Yahoo, MySpace

"According to Google’s statistics, OpenSocial applications are already used by over 200 million users across participating social networks like Engage.com, Friendster, LinkedIn, Six Apart, and more. Next Tuesday, hi5 will be joining the fold, and the OpenSocial Foundation itself should be up and running within the next 90 days."

An informal poll by Enid Burns at ClickZ News finds that many agencies that advertise on Google’s content network have seen improved results over the past six months.

Some credit the changes Google has made to improve the network, such as placement targeting, performance reports, and new ad units on Google’s search, content, and mobile networks. Google also shrank the clickable area of AdSense ads to to limit accidental clicks.

Incidentally, that shrinkage is attributed by some as the cause for ComScore’s report of flat click growth for Google, among other declining click volume theories.

This fits with the trend of decreasing AdSense income being reported by publishers.

Provided by: Searchenginewatch.com Posted by Kevin Newcomb

Yahoo this week changed the way it will set minimum bids on some keywords in Sponsored Search ads in the U.S., bringing it closer in line with Google’s policy. Instead of setting all minimum bids at $0.10, Yahoo will now allow the market to set a variable minimum bid. That means that in some cases, the minimum will be above $0.10, and in other cases it could be lower.

The minimum bids will be set based on the relevance of ads to a keyword, the number of bidders and their bid amounts. It will not be based on advertiser conversions. These kinds of factors are already used by Yahoo to rank ads based on a quality score, but the difference now applies to the minimum bid, or reserve price.

Google changed its minimum bid structure in July 2005. Many advertisers were not happy with the move at the time, but so far there does not seem to be much outcry in blogs or search marketing forums.

A key difference between Yahoo’s new method and Google’s is the institution of alerts and a grace period when the bid on a given keyword is about to fall below the minimum. Yahoo will notify advertisers in their Account Dashboard if a bid is about to drop below the minimum, and will offer a grace period of up to a few days to allow the advertiser to raise their bid to keep the keyword active.

The first batch of keywords goes live in the U.S. with the new reserve pricing model over the next few weeks, with more keywords to be added internationally in the future. Searchenginewatch.com, Kevin Newcomb

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