Five Crucial Components of Web Design

Professional website developers know the importance of web design and the role it plays in making a website successful.

Designing a successful website is no easy task, especially for someone who is new to the world of web development. With the help of web development applications many people can and do create decent websites. But decent in most cases is not good enough to make a site successful from a traffic or financial standpoint.

There are five crucial components of web design that you must focus on in order to make a site valuable to its visitors and successful for you.

- SEO -
Getting free traffic to your site.

- Usability -
Ease of navigating around the site and finding desired information quickly.

- Aesthetics -
Visual appeal.

- Content -
Valid, up to date, relevant information.

- Graphics -
Eye candy that relays relevant visual information to the visitor.

SEO

Before you ever lay down a byte of HTML code for a site you have to know and understand at least the basics of SEO and how it fits into the design. SEO is the art of designing a site in a fashion that gives the site an advantage for obtaining free and abundant traffic.

The number one aspect of SEO is selecting keywords relevant to your site. The keywords you select should be based on high usage, low competition and relevancy to your topic. Once you select keywords you can then begin the development of your site. Keep in mind keywords are a critical aspect of the design. The keywords you choose will be applied within the design in strategic fashion to benefit the flow of traffic to your site. To understand more on how to implement SEO you should read and learn more about this important subject. If you don't, your website success will be difficult to achieve.

Usability

Your website must be easy to navigate and designed in a way that makes it easy to find information. Visitors will not stay long if it takes more than one or two clicks to get the information they want or if it takes brain power to figure out how to get the information they want. One of the goals of your site design is to keep usability easy, and simple. To do this, apply the following three fundamentals of usability.

* Provide a site search tool.

A visitor in a hurry can quickly find the info they desire then move on to the action they desire.

* Provide simple, intuitive and consistent site navigation.

This provides visitors the tool they need to leisurely explore their way through your site.

* Provide logical and simple to follow content.

The message of a site should start off in a simple and basic fashion with well defined links pointing the way to more detailed information or explanation as needed.

In the cases above the goal is to make it easy for your visitor to find the information they want without frustration or difficulty. Doing this well will have a positive effect on increasing the return of your visitors.

Aesthetics

A website has to look clean, uncomplicated and strike a balance in layout that is pleasant to the visitor. Pleasing aesthetics come about when the colors of a site complement each other, the graphics blend and lend continuation of the theme and the layout brings unity and openness to the page.

Often overlooked by novice designers is the color palette of the site. While you can select color in a willy-nilly fashion and still provide a visually appealing site, a better idea for color selection should be based on an understanding of the color wheel and proven color strategies.

Many web designers often view a web page as an opportunity to blast a visitor with lots of information in hopes this will convince the visitor to take action. Usually this results in a quick exit due to the overwhelming visual effect and complicated look. A better approach is to provide less content and open space (referred to as white space) to allow visitors eyes to scan and explore with ease.

Content

An important feature of any website is the quality of the text content. Visitors come to a site expecting to find answers to their questions, solutions to their problems or for entertainment value. The content offered at your site must be well-written, without grammatical or spelling errors. It also has to be relevant to the theme of your site, with valid, up to date information for your visitors. Content is King!

Graphics

You can have a functional and usable website without graphic elements. However, if there are similar sites to yours that employ graphics, guess which site will get the most traffic. The necessary companions to any well-designed site are the images and illustrations that grace its pages. The images can't be any willy-nilly graphic that you might think is cool. Graphic imagery has to support your branding, and communicate the message you are trying to convey. Before you incorporate graphic elements into your site, take some time to look around the web. Notice what looks good and how elements are laid out. These same layouts techniques can be used as models for your site.

The Internet is a highly competitive business arena. To be successful with a commercial website, you have to keep these five crucial web design elements in mind. Contrary to what many will tell you, it is rarely possible to have commercial success without the benefit of a professional website. This is not to say that you must hire a professional, however you must implement professional design elements to improve your chances for success.

About the Author: Woody Longacre, Internet Web Design. We invite you to visit the Web Hosting Goods Store for Web Design Services, Web Hosting, and Domain Registration.

SEO: How to Cheat Google AdSense??

This is an interesting article by by Fernando Hal, read more about How you can cheat Google Adsense (and get your AdSense account disabled).

Face it. You come to this article probably thinking to find some ways to cheat Google, or to confirm whether some method you have on mind will work. Well, if you want to know how to cheat AdSense, here are the ways, focusing on the AdSense click-frauds. These covers from basic AdSense cheating techniques to the advanced class.

Continue to read more ..

How to Cheat Google AdSense??

Using Offline Advertising in Internet Marketing

Knowing how to use offline advertising in internet marketing can give you a significant advantage over your competitors, since many do not use offline methods to advertise their products. Offline advertising is particularly relevant if you are selling a product, or offering a service, that attract customers locally. For example, you could offer a fitness aid at your local leisure center. Many leisure or fitness centers will allow you to put a free poster offering your product, but even if they charge you for it the price is usually small. Perhaps you have a golf training aid that you can advertise at your local golf club.

Local classified ads are also a good means of getting your product some local publicity. The classified ads pages or even adverts placed on selected pages of your local press, frequently provide you with local orders. The beauty of these is that they are very easy to follow up, either with back-end products or new ones. You need not even restrict yourself to the local press. How often have you seen an internet marketing advert on the national press? They are not uncommon, and although expensive, they must produce a good return.

If you have a niche website, it could be worth your while browsing round your local newsagent and checking out the magazines on display. You know the kind - all these racks upon racks of magazines on every topic you can think of. Have a word with the newsvendor and find out some of the more popular magazines that cover your niche. These could be good publications for placing your adverts, especially if they are not too expensive and they have a good circulation.

Poster campaigns can also work well. You can advertise with posters in many shopping malls, and some stores also offer you the opportunity place an A5 poster for only pennies a week. Have your own business cards printed with your internet business contact details, such as website address and email address in addition to your phone number. Put your website address on everything, and have a signature that use on all correspondence. Not just emails and forum postings, but also offline correspondence such as letters, invoices, receipts and anything else you send to other people.

Another form of offline marketing that most people have never heard of, let alone use, is buzz advertising. This type of advertising has been growing in popularity recently, especially by offline businesses. It is used extensively by some auto companies and by cosmetics companies. Buzz advertising involves getting a verbal buzz going about your website or product. Some companies pay people specifically to verbally promote their products by approaching strangers, striking up conversations and bringing up the product in the conversation.

“Say, have you heard about the latest perfume from —-!” While not yet common it is getting more popular. Of course, the buzz need not be started off by someone you have employed to do it, but you can do it yourself. You can get your family and relatives involved as well. Before you know it, everybody might be talking about your product or your great new website. That’s how YouTube and MySpace got so popular.

If you have a van or pick-up get your business name and website address painted on the site. It’s easier to get a buzz going if people see your website in their face all the time, on vehicles, on posters, in newspapers and magazines, and even chalked on walls! Well, perhaps not the last one, but that would sure get people noticing your website! Do you get the idea? Get your website name known in every way that you can.

How about a local radio slot, with you explaining the virtues and benefits of your product, service or website? Stress the benefits, and you need not restrict it to local radio. Try for a national radio slot or even TV if your business is sizeable enough. There are no restrictions to the advertising methods you can use. Hire a loudspeaker and shout it from the rooftops!

Online advertising methods are very effective in internet marketing, since they can be visible to people all round the world, but if you know how to use offline advertising it can also work very nicely for you, and bring you a lot of business you would not otherwise have.

About the Author: Andre Sanchez - How to Use Offline Advertising in Internet Marketing was originally published at http://www.affiliatemarketinglife.com.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Web Traffic, Earn Money Online, Adsense, Adwords, Money, Offline Advertising, How To, Andre Sanhez

Web Traffic : 20 Simple Ways To Get Massive Traffic To Your Web Site

Starting on an Internet Marketing campaign doesn’t have to be hard, tricky, or complicated. Learn these few simple ways how you can easily implement to get tons of traffic to your site right now!

1) Write articles: believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic. Well-written, relevant articles can net quite a bit of activity to your web site. Don’t forget to add your URL in your byline. Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length. You can send articles to sites like: Article City, GoArticles, Submit Your Articles and Ezine Articles.

2) Social bookmark *everything* - and I do mean everything - you can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem tedious, it’s worth it. You’ll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries.

3) List yourself in the best directories – you’ll have to pay for this but since most people don’t do this (since everyone’s looking for a freebie) you could really enhance your traffic by getting a listing: dir dot yahoo dot com, business dot org, botw dot org.

4) Get yourself listed at: DMOZ dot org – it’s not easy to get listed there, but worth the effort.

5) Review: if you can review hot new products or books within your market, head on over to Amazon and start positioning yourself as an expert. In order to do this effectively you’ll want to create an Amazon profile and make sure and sign each review with a reference to your URL (your web site). You can also go to Epinions and Revoo to review products as well.

6) Offer a freebie on Craig’s List: you’ll be amazed at how much traffic you get from a single Craig’s List ad. The key here is to send people to a page on your site and make sure they have to sign up for something (like your email newsletter) before they can grab their freebie. That way you’re not just getting traffic, you’re also building your list.

7) Create a “recommended by” list on your Delicious page – you can do this by logging on and creating an account and there and then tagging articles, blogs and other content you think is important to your readership. Then offer this page as a resource site. You can add a link to this page in your email signature line or on your web site.

Continue to read more..

20 Simple Ways To Get Massive Traffic To Your Web Site

Tags: SEO, Massive Traffic, Internet Marketing, Web Traffic, Web Site, Adsense, Adwords, Google, Marketing, Ezine, Article

Latest Updates from Google AdSense - Mobile AdSense now Available!

If you currently run a website designed for mobile phones, or are planning to set one up, you can now monetize your site with Google AdSense for mobile. Similar to AdSense for content, AdSense for mobile automatically serves targeted ads to your mobile webpages, enabling you to earn money while providing useful information to your users.

If you’d like to learn more about the specifics of the program, check out the policies and requirements. Or to get started right away, simply sign in to your AdSense account, visit the AdSense Setup tab, and select AdSense for mobile as the product.

AdSense: Latest Updates from Google AdSense - Mobile AdSense now Available!

SEO:Why Keywords Are Vital To An Seo Campaign?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the optimization of a web page in order that it ranks higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for specific keywords or keyword phrases. The pages that rank higher typically gain the greater amount of search engine traffic compared to pages ranked lower for the same keyword.

Targeting Keywords

However, a top position for any keyword won’t suffice. In order to increase your ROI, it is vital to ensure that you target the most appropriate keywords for your pages, and for your business. While generic, or very general topic keywords, may have the highest number of searches conducted in a month they are also the most competitive and typically least productive.

Competitive Keywords

The more competitive a keyword the more pages that you need to compete with in order to benefit from an SEO campaign. Many of the pages that appear at the top of the list will also be well optimized and have a powerful link profile, making it difficult to rank highly.

Improved Conversions With Targeted Keywords

General topic based keywords have also proven to have lower conversion rates compared to more specific keywords. Targeted keywords generate targeted visitors, and targeted visitors are much more likely to be active while on the pages of your website.

Continue to read more... SEO:Why Keywords Are Vital To An Seo Campaign?

Tags: Seo Campaign, Keywords, Adsense, Google, AdWords, Internet Marketing, Web Traffic, Make Money Online

5 Ways To Increase Website Traffic To Your Website

Millions of websites online can be placed in their own special
category of "Deserted Town". The only life you can find there
are those of the webmasters who created them. This is because
they get very few, if any, targeted visitors. For these website
owners, there are simple techniques they can use to increase
website traffic.

Read on and I will give you five ways to increase website
traffic to your website. These aren't hidden secrets and they
won't give you millions of hits per month for just $ 9.99. (I'm
sure you know what I mean). However they are effective and using
them will increase website traffic to your website. And the
visitors that you get will be more profitable because they will
be targeted.

Increase Website Traffic

You can pay to increase website traffic. (I've decided to get
the money spending out of the way first). There are many ways
you can pay to increase website traffic; here are three (3)
popular ones.

· pay-per-click
· ezine ads
· website ads

Before you use any of these paying methods to increase website
traffic to your website, I want you to first examine your website
with your ideal customer in mind. What keywords will they use to
find your website in the search engines? Write them down.

Increase Website Traffic - Technique 1

Pay-Per-Click
Now you're ready to increase website traffic with pay-per-click
search engines. Start by using the keywords you have written
down, go to the free keyword suggestion tool at digitalpoint.com
and type in the search box one keyword at a time and press the
'suggest' button.

The results will show you how many people search for your
keyword each day and also suggest other keywords you can use
and the number of visits they get each day. Write down this
information or create a spreadsheet with the headings 'keyword',
'visits per day', and 'pay-per-click cost'. Your pay per click
cost depends on which pay-per-click search engine you use, the
competition for your keywords and on how much you're willing to
pay for a click.

Once you've finished the spreadsheet, sign up for an account
with the pay-per-click-search engine of your choice and bid on
your keywords.

You will notice that the keywords with the most visits per day
cost more per click than those with less. To get more clicks for
your money the trick is to bid on those keywords which have a
few visitors a day. There is less competition for these keywords
so your bid price should be low.

Increase Website Traffic - Technique 2

Ezine Ads
When using ezine ads place them in ezines which are related to
your market, which have subscribers who would be interested in
your product or service. You can find ezines in ezine directories
and you should be subscribed to a few of them already - start
with these.

Increase Website Traffic - Technique 3

Website Ads
For website ads, use the keyword list you made for your
pay-per-click marketing. Starting with the keyword that gets the
most visits per day, do a search at a search engine. Research
the first ten (10) to twenty (20) websites looking for any
information which indicates that they sell advertising space
on their website, like 'Advertise With Us'. If you don't see
any advertising information look for a 'Contact' page or email
address and send a message asking if advertising is sold on
their website and if so then what's the cost. Once you've
finished this research, choose where to place your ads.

Increase Website Traffic - Technique 4

Search Engine Optimization
To find information online most people go to the search engines
first. If you're not listed in at least the first two pages of
search engine results for your keywords, then you're missing out
on a lot of free targeted website traffic.

To increase website traffic for your website using this technique
here is a free resource for you to help optimize your website so
that you can access this free website traffic source.
Click=> http://aff-masters.sitesell.com/home21.html

Increase Website Traffic - Technique 5

Article Writing
Another way to increase website traffic is by writing articles
for your niche market and submitting them to article directories
and ezine editors. Your increased website traffic will come from
the resource box at the end of your articles. The resource box is
like a 4 to 6 line ad telling your readers who you are and to
encourage them to seek more information on your website by
clicking on your website link, which you will provide.

One advantage of article writing, beside the free increased
website traffic, is that it will make you an expert in the eyes
of your readers. This will increase your credibility and your
readers trust in you causing them to open their minds and wallets
to your recommendations.

Like I said earlier the five (5) techniques I've written about
here to increase website traffic to your website are not hidden
secrets, they're nothing new. They are used everyday by website
owners whose websites are far from deserted. So start using one
of the techniques today and see how it goes, then try another.

================================================================
Fayola Peters is a member of the International Association of
Home Business Entrepreneurs.
(http://www.ezinfocenter.com/7301292.363/iahbe)

Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn
Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for using FREE articles
to drive Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate
links... without spending a dime on advertising!
Click=> http://hop.clickbank.net/?petes2/ezarticles
================================================================

Copyright © 2004 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.

10 Steps To Top 10 Rankings In Google By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007

Most webmasters go totally “gaga” for top 10 rankings in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most dominant search engine on the net and will deliver the largest amount of traffíc.
More importantly, those same webmasters will also inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because obtaining targeted traffíc is usually your first obstacle in creating a viable online business. In other words, if you get top ten listings in Google for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible not to earn money.

How To Proceed?
First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the exact words someone types into a search engine to find what they’re looking for online. If you have a site on “dog training” then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking for the keywords “dog training”.
Now if no one searches for “dog training” it would be a useless keyword, you would get no traffíc no matter how perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.

How Do You Know If A Keyword Is Good?
To find out, you have to do some keyword research on your particular keywords. Many professional online marketers use keyword research software like Brad Callen’s Keyword Elite. However, you can also use the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google Adwords or Overture. Try here: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Now if you chëck “dog training”, you will find it receives around 4,469 searches each day. That’s a lot of traffíc but you must realize that it may be too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes, especially if you have a new site.

Biggest Mistake When Choosing Keywords
The most common mistake most novice webmasters make is targeting keywords which are too competitive. You simply will not be able to compete or place for extremely competitive keywords. Well established sites and businesses with very deep pockets have the resources to completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive keywords, you will have better success if you target low to medium competitive keywords.

Long Tail Keyword Marketing
Besides online marketers have discovered that longer keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These phrases deliver traffíc which is better targeted and more likely to convert into a sale. “Dog hunting training” which gets around 100 searches a day will be more targeted than the general term “dog training” and if you have a site devoted to training hunting dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for you.
Always keep this “Long Tail” keyword strategy in the back of your mind as you implement the following steps to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.

1. Make A Master Keyword Líst
Your first step is to make a master líst of the keywords you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely related to the theme of your site. Chëck the keyword competition by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that keyword. Webmasters should also chëck the Google PageRank of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked high for your keywords.

2. Choose Related Keywords
Once you have your master líst of keywords, find long tail related keywords to target. Again, chëck out the competition and daily searches made for each chosen keyword.

3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read your content. First and foremost you must have good useful content that your visitors will use themselves and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one keyword phrase per page.

4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score big points from search engines. Plus, each page of content should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your keywords. Although the author has gotten good results by using an underscore and htm in URLs.
Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm

5. Do On Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1 or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword and variations of it throughout your page. Don’t over do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure they include their main keyword in the first and last 25 words on their pages.

6. Use Traffíc Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is clustering a closely related topic or subject into a distinct separate section on your site. For example, if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole section on article marketing where you would have 50 to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject. Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting articles, article software… place a keyword linked menu on each page to connect all your pages together.
Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality information to your visitors. One reason Google may favor this type of structure is because they want quality content returned in their SERPs.

7. Try Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories on the web. When your articles are picked up by related sites, you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the quality of your article, the more links you will receive.
Another ranking tactic to use: If you’re just starting out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords. That’s why it’s useful to take advantage of the higher PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the displayed URL will be the article directory site but the links in the resource box will be pointing back to your site. Over time this article marketing technique will raise your own site’s rankings for those keywords. Simple but effective.

8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is very important. Anchor Text simply refers to “the underlined clicked on words” in your links. Most webmasters include their keywords in their anchor text as this tells the search engines exactly what the links are about.

9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg. Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system. At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS feed attached to it as this is an effective way of boosting your keyword rankings.
Tags have become very important for getting higher rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software such as WordPress, categories will automatically be seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each post you make.

10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with the organic link results. In Pay Per Clíck advertising you bid or pay so much per clíck for your keywords and you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart marketers also know since you’re getting millíons of impressions advertising your products, acquiring name recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be a major side-benefit.

However, most webmasters would say that organic links (SERPS) will return better traffíc than paid links or advertising. In most cases, this may be true because Google’s organic rankings are becoming more respected and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weíght with surfers.

This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10 rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the first page listing or even the favored number one spot is well within any webmaster’s reach. Just go for it. The rewards are well worth your efforts.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who contributes his high rankings in Google as the major source of his online income. For the latest web marketing tools try: MarketingToolGuide.com . For the latest Internet Marketing Strategies go to: BizwareMagic.com . Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Tags: SEO, Internet Marketing, 10 Rankings, Google, Adsense