In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
The video game industry hit a four-year low in May, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Video game sales apparently hit its lowest monthly U.S. profit since October 2006, totalling $743.1 million. That number may seem high, but it’s nothing compared to the $866.8 million of last year.
“A light slate of new releases is at the heart of this month’s performance,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “As a result of a lighter release slate, promotional activity at retail and in circulars was reduced as well, which undoubtedly affected not only planned but impulse purchases.”
Frazier says it is unfair to base all results on figures, though, as an increasing amount of video game sales derive from online or downloadable exclusive content purchases.
This year’s top selling game was ‘L.A. Noire,’ a murder-mystery action game set in old L.A.
I agree with the analyst. Much of today’s market comes from the online world, so we have to factor in the sales from that. I don’t think video games are going anywhere anytime soon.
Sony has introduced the new ‘PlayStation Vita’ handheld, reports CTV.
The company’s newest portable gaming machine, the ‘PlayStation Vita,’ is a touch-screen and motion-sensitive handheld that allows gamers to connect with one another over cellphone networks and Wi-Fi hotspots. The device can also use GPS location-tracking technology.
Much like the iPad, the device is available as a Wi-Fi-only version for $249, or a cellphone version which will retail for $299 and buyers will have to subscribe to a cellular data plan.
The Vita also has front and back cameras, a touchscreen in front, a touch pad on the back and two joysticks. Gamers can play against each other all around the world.
“PlayStation Vita will revolutionize the portable entertainment experience,” Kazuo Hirai, group chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., told a crowd at the unveiling. “The whole world is really in play.”
The device will go on sale before the winter holidays. This sounds cool, I probably won’t buy it just because I have enough technology devices as is, but I can appreciate its idea.
Google is unveiling a digital music service without any licensing deals after proving unable to come to an agreement with major labels, reports Billboard.
The service, which was introduced during a keynote today at a conference in San Francisco, will allow users to upload their music library to a personal online storage locker, where they can stream and download files from Internet connected devices.
This is pretty much the same as Amazon’s Cloud Drive, but with a few differences. Google’s service is available on a limited, invite-only basis limited to U.S. users and those wanting to use the service will have to request an invite at music.google.com, with priority given to those with the Motorola Xoom tablet and to attendees of the conference.
Additionally, Google is also limiting the number of songs that can be uploaded to the music locker to 20,000. The service is free while in beta, and the company would not comment on what future pricing options it may have planned.
“We’ve been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results,” Google director of content partnerships Zahavah Levine says. ”[But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms.”
Seems like a cool idea. People definitely like fast technology, so this whole streaming and downloading thing sounds promising. But the idea also has some flaws. It’s limited availability is definitely not going to help them – people want things while its hot, and if they wait too long, nobody will want it in a couple months when it’s widely available.
Google has been really pushing forward these days, though. First the Android getting really great reviews and now this. Does Apple have some competition?
When I began my career in the graphics industry, almost 17 years ago, I would approach the design of any new logo by first taking out a pad of paper and a pencil and sketching out basic ideas before diving into any real concept creation. As computers and design software became more and more a part of the design process I tended to find myself heading to the computer immediately to put together my ideas. This only tended to result in a lot of time spent staring at a blank computer screen. As my business expanded and time became a more precious commodity I began to head back to my early days and approached my designs again with a pencil and paper before sitting down at the computer. This not only gave me more free time but helped me to increase the profitability of my business. The following is an outline of the design process I now take whenever I am creating a logo for a client. I hope it will inspire some of you to take pencil in hand prior to sitting down in front of the computer.
Core Practice Partners is a leading international expert in Labor Management for companies that don’t work a traditional “9 to 5″ schedule. Their clients have included such industry leaders as Kraft, BMW, and General Electric. Their approach to creating solutions for their clients is unique and their desire was to have a logo that was both professional and creative.
They approached my company with a few ideas of their own, but were very uncertain whether the look they truly wanted could be achieved. I first set up a phone conference with their president, John Frehse, to discuss the goals he had for the logo and how he wanted to be perceived by the clients he serviced. After our initial discussion I sat down at the drawing board to rough out some ideas for the logo. This is the normal approach that I take in the designing of any logo. It allows for the creation of many concepts within a short period of time and dramatically decreases the amount of time spent producing the initial concepts to be presented to the client.
Once I had 6-8 rough ideas conceived I then scanned in the designs and used them as templates for the creation of computer generated concepts. I typically place them in the background and insert text and graphics over the top. Once the groundwork has been laid in I then remove the sketch from the background and add the finishing touches.
The initial presentation to the client contained anywhere 4 concepts that I felt worked best with the impression they were looking to achieve. These first ideas were presented in black
About The Author
Sitecritic.net Website Reviews, Design Ideas is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.
admin@sitecritic.net
Everyone has heard that content is king when it comes to search engine optimization and just good old plain web site marketing smarts. But how you present that content on your site can also make a world of difference.
PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language that lets you create dynamic web pages. PHP-enabled web pages are treated just like regular HTML pages and you can create and edit them the same way you normally create regular HTML pages.
Now here is were it gets interesting. Search engines like Google Yahoo and MSN love fresh new content that is changing on a daily basis. But if you are using a java script snippet the search engines will not be able to read the content. If however you are using a PHP type script the content will automatically be transformed into HTML and the search engines will be able to pick it up and read it.
The first thing you will need to do before you jump onto the PHP bandwagon is to make sure your web host provider has PHP support. Most do but if you are only paying for basic services or using a free host you may have to pay for an upgrade. It?s well worth it trust me.
One of the best PHP based scripts you can add to any web site is the forum or bulletin board. Forums will take on a life of their own after several 100 members have joined and are posting threads on a daily basis. If 100 members seems like a lot think again. I have one work from home internet business forum and after just 2 month I already have over 70 members. Each time someone posts to the forum the HTML changes and the search engines treat it as new content.
Another great PHP script you can add is the link directory. You can actually set up a categorized reciprocal link directory with 20 links on each page and the process is completely automated. I have mine set up so that I have to approve each link first but if you want you could by pass this so that once your script is set up the directory will just start to grow all on its own with no additional work on your part. Again each time someone adds a new link you HTML page is changing. Make sure you add categories that are relative to your main theme. My directory for example has categories for work from home , internet business and business opportunities because that?s what my web site is all about. Also make sure you have added instructions on how they can link back to you. This is the reason why I like to approve all my liks first. No reciprocal link back to my site NO directory listing.
PHP can also be used for blogging. WordPress is one of the most popular PHP script based blogging tools. I have not used WordPress but I do use blogger for all my blogging. A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. With a blog or web log you can make daily posts on almost any subject matter creating new content for the search engines to crawl. To date Yahoo seems to be giving a bit of an edge to all my blogs incuding my work form home internet business news site. Ironically most of the post on that blog come from yahoo and or Google news. This is a great way to get free content on a daily basis for your blog. Just go to Google news or yahoo news and type in the keywords you are using for your blog. Each day there will be a new news article that you can legally use on your blog.
There are many more PHP scripts that you can use on your website to automatically create fresh new content with. The ones listed above are the ones I have downloaded for free and installed to my web host. If you are not using PHP now is a good time to get started.
About The Author
Tom Worsley is a successful work from home Internet marketer and independent representative for Strong Future International (SFI) http://freemoneymlm.com/make-money-from-home.html , Owner and Webmaster for http://kawarthapublishing.com & http://www.bigmoolla.com.
RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is the new technology on the block and is taking the Internet by storm as Internet marketers are hurrying to incorporate this new form of communication and technology into there existing online businesses to Maximize there exposure online with NEW and/or Existing customers.
I recently received a post on my Blog from a fellow that inspired me to write this article since I found the nature of the topic important to ALL who are serious about getting the most out of there RSS feed and this new technology.
I’m pretty sure you can guess what he asked from reading the headline of this article.
Well… I did some research on what he had asked of me and came up with…
“8 TOP Ways To Promote Your RSS/XML Feed For MAXIMUM Exposure”
So, with that said, let’s dive into the first and MOST important step to Maximizing your RSS feed for the exposure it deserves.
Step #1. Build a dedicated webpage for your RSS feed.
This is probably the most important part of getting the most out of your RSS feed: building your own dedicated webpage for your RSS feed subscription.
The KEY here is to give your potential readers many options to adding your RSS feed.
The best way for me to illustrate this to you is by clicking on the link below that leads to my dedicated RSS feed subscription page so you can see first hand what you need to do to get yours started.
Click here: http://www.internetwondersezine.com/rss_feed.html
Did you notice all the different options I give?
That’s what you need to do.
Now, for those of you who aren’t so web savvy, don’t worry, I have something for you that will auto-generate a RSS feed webpage for you within minutes if you already have a Blog or RSS feed.
The service I’m talking about is called FeedBurner.com — http://www.feedburner.com — and is a free service for you to sign up for.
Here’s what my webpage through FeedBurner.com looks like so you’ll have an idea of what yours will look like. http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInternetWondersBlog
Do you see all the options they give your potential readers to add your RSS feed to there RSS readers?
Once you’ve accomplished one of the two options above your all set to start promoting your RSS feed for MAXIMUM exposure.
Step #2. Add links to your RSS feed webpage on your website.
This is yet just another way to pull your visitors towards your RSS feed webpage by simply adding Text or Graphic links to your existing webpages.
Make sure you put them in Highly visible area’s where your visitors will see your links.
I would would put one at the top, middle and bottom of your website.
This really depends on what kind of website you have so you’ll have to use your own dicression.
Here’s what I have done on my website to give you an example. Click here: http://www.internetwondersezine.com
Step #3. Add this HTML tag to your RSS feed webpage.
Here’s something you can add to all your websites webpages that will get the attention of Search Engines spiders to come on over and check out your RSS feed further.
Simple add the following HTML tag to the of your document:
link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”YOUR SITE TITLE RSS Feed” href=”URL TO RSS FILE”/
(note: add this to the end after the forward slash /)
Step #4. Some idea’s if you have your own newsletter.
If you have your own newsletter like I do, here’s a couple ways to get your visitors to visit your RSS feed webpage.
Add a link on your “Thank You” page that leads to your RSS feed webpage. Whether its a Text or Graphic link.
The key here is to get your RSS feed link in front of your readers as much as possible to get them to add your RSS feed to there readers.
The next one is, add a link inside your “Welcome” email that’s sent out to your New newsletter subscriber after they’ve subscribed.
This again, will give you another chance of getting them to add your RSS feed to there readers.
Step #5. Put together a “Signature File”.
Here’s another couple great ways to get your RSS feed webpage more exposure every time you send out an email or post to any online forums is by simply putting together a “Signature File”.
Now, every time you sent out an email to your list and/or business contact you can attached your “Signature File” at the end of every email you send.
The same goes for online forums, every time you make a post or answer someone else’s, your “Signature File” will be automatically attached.
Your “Signature File” doesn’t have to be a huge, a few enticing lines will do fine with your RSS feed URL.
Step #6. Submit your RSS feed to RSS Directories and SE’s.
Another great way to give your RSS feed more exposure is by submitting it or them to RSS Directories and Search Engines.
I’ve listed a few resources for you below to get you started with.
- Feed Shark http://feedshark.brainbliss.com
- Ping-O-Matic http://pingomatic.com
- RSS Top 55 http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55
Step #7. Write an article, if you write articles.
This is a great way to get your RSS feed webpage in front of thousands of targeted readers absolutely FREE!
Simply write an article on a HOT topic within your niche, and at the end of your article add an enticing, attention grabbing “Resource Box” that points to your RSS feed webpage URL.
Step #8. Set-Up a PPC(Pay-Per-Click) campaign.
For the last step to getting your RSS feed webpage Maximum exposure is to set-up a PPC campaign.
By doing this you will be able to send HIGHLY targeted traffic to your RSS feed webpage that are hungry for the information you have to offer.
The only downside to doing the PPC tactic is that it will cost you.
And, this tactic solely depends on whether or not you chose to set-up an RSS feed webpage of your own.
Now, I’m sure there are many others ways out there that could draw in more visitors to your RSS feed, but, these ones I just outlined in this article are the Best ones in my mind and are the ones I use.
Well, this concludes the, “8 TOP Ways To Promote Your RSS/XML Feed For MAXIMUM Exposure”, so, the only thing I have left to say to you is… Get Started!
About The Author
Cory Threlfall
Looking for an Easy-To-Use ‘RSS Reader Script’ for your website that will deliver endless FRESH content 24/7 to your website and keep the Search Engine spiders coming back for more… Daily? Go shop Cory Threlfall’s popular CBmall at http://www.corys-cbmall.com OR… go review his recommended. Go to: http://rss-equalizer.corys-cbmall.com.
When you launch a site, you face three major problems: The search engines don’t know you, the users don’t know you and you might not have any meaningful amount of content. These problems can cost you time, before your site starts to pay off.
Three solutions to hit the ground running on launch day.
Waiting for the search engines
Telling ?Google? your new web-address is only getting you a spot in its sandbox. The sandbox is like a queue. You line up until your have gotten to the front-gate. Only if you are passed it, will your site be spidered. Word on the web is that this takes 6 months – regardless of how fancy your submission technique is. There are of course other search-engines who process you faster. But can you afford not to be found in ?Google??
Once your domain is listed, they need to be found by their spiders and ultimately by the user. Although your DNS entry should cascade very fast around the globe, there are bottlenecks. It can happen that you wait for the update a couple of weeks – regardless of your TTL-definition. Nearly unbelievable, but it happens. You should get a very wide dissemination within a few days, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Getting the users to the launch
Every web page is made for its visitors. If you don’t get them, all your efforts and money spent have been in vain. Unless you have a substantial marketing-budget for your launch, it takes time for users to reach your site, to tell other people, to list it or to write about it in blogs. The shorter the time you need to reach that critical mass of users, the sooner your site pays off. Also you will quicker get to the point when it is really fun to look at your web-stats.
Welcome to our empty pages
Users will not repeatedly visit your site just because it is nicely designed and structured. You need enough content already on launch-day to have something interesting for most of your visitors. Any ?coming soon? on a fully operational site is very likely to be a frustration to the user. A database of 2 articles does not inspire confidence. It is like peeking into an empty restaurant on a Saturday night – you might think twice about even looking at the menu.
Waiting for the search engines, having very few users visiting your site and not offering any content will unlikely result in a good start.
?Under Construction? revisited
What was considered very bad form some years ago, might just be one way of solving the problems. When development work begins, you need to set up a page or a mini-site. When search engines are visiting they have a place to go. At the same time it solves the DNS update delay you might encounter from some backbones.
Unlike the classic ?shovel and hard-hat? logo, even this simple page or site needs an identity and content. It will be visited and looked at by your potential costumers. Have you noticed how real-world construction-sites start to be tidy and nicely wrapped up – sometimes even following corporate design guidelines. Many people are walking past construction-sites – and they just might link the image of the company to the piles of bricks carelessly lying about. Sometimes you even find a little description what the new store will look like, offer and when it will be opened – a smart move.
The visual design can be much reduced, but still should convey the appropriate message. Have your designer create a layout, using your corporate identity or claims. The visitor, even the search-engine, should know on an emotional as well as a factual level what will be up and coming.
The best thing would be to have some content available. Put up an article every week for example, a review, a recipe or whatever content is related to your site. This shows search-engines that something is happening; boosts your placement and the visitor sees some activity. And you will already have some content ready for the day your site goes really life.
Getting the users to the launch
There is no other way but to directly address them. Most effective is some meaningful content, not simply a note that your site will start in three weeks time.
The indirect approach might work best. If you receive an email by someone you know or someone who has a positive reputation, it is likely to be read. Find some opinion-leaders related to your products or services. Maybe you can get this person to write content and distribute it to the community while linking to your site? You could organize an event together or simply ask for input – they might just have this great idea that you can use to make your site known before it is even fully life. Blogs are often published by ?opinion leader? and you can find them as strong voices in forums.
The goal is to increase you link-popularity, get email-addresses and get access to a network of people who can avalanche information from your site to their communities.
Having Content
It is not likely to have on launch-day the same amount of content like a site that is already up for five years. But usually you only have one chance to interest and satisfy a fist-time user. One key element here is having content available. Empty article-listing or three reviews are simply not enough to interest me to delve into the site. If you would launch a print-magazine, you would also have every page filled with the best content available – the same applies to the new site.
Another advantage is that search engines love content – especially if it changes. If you have a reasonable turnover, your chances for a good ranking are high.
If you can’t create content in-house, articles and reviews are relatively easy to get. You can either peruse article directories or collaborate with blogs. The quality of the content reflects on your site. Editorial-work and selection is essential.
A word of caution; It is easy to republish what is already out on the web. But original content is still best. Since you cater to the interests of your prospective visitors, the article you re-use was likely to have appeared on a site similar in target to your own. Quality over quantity is still what counts.
Launching a site starts well before you put it online. A well prepared launch will let you hit the ground running and might save months in getting the visitors you need.
About The Author
Raoul Dobal focuses on usablilty and is partner of ADWIRED, a Swiss company specialised in webbased communication. Visit http://www.adwired.ch for information about services or http://www.iquse.ch to read further articles on usability.
Another year has passed and a new one has dawned. It’s an exciting time to have an online business. More consumers have computers and Internet connections than ever before, and people are more comfortable buying things online than in years past.
As an administrator and consultant on over 100 domain names and web sites, I get to hear all the stories of what works and what doesn’t from individuals and small business promoting their online businesses.
Based on my own experiences and those of my clients, I wanted to share with you a list of 6 essential steps any webmaster can take to make their website more successful in 2006.
A full copy of this Article, as well as links to all the tools mentioned in it is available at:
http://www.binarypros.com/ Press/2006-01-05.asp
1. Ensure you have a reliable web host
Nothing loses a sale faster or creates a worse impression than your web site being unavailable. It’s especially costly when a potential customer is looking to spend money right away. Unless you’re fortunate enough to be in a business with no competition (if so let me know what business that is) website downtime could cost you sales!
So many times I hear people bragging about their $2.99/month web host and how much money they’re saving on hosting. What they don’t realize, until they test their uptime, is that the potential sales they lose when their web site is unavailable are far more costly than paying a little more for a reputable web host.
Several services are available to test your website’s uptime. Anything less than 99.9% is unacceptable for a business site. Check out http://www.infinityws.com/ and test your site for a month. For $13.00 you can find out for sure where your site stands.
2. Get a fresh modern look for your web site
First impressions are important to potential customers. On the Internet your web site is all you get to make a first impression. If you haven’t updated the look and feel of your website in a year or two it may be time to consider updating your site.
Make sure your copyright dates are current, but also leave your initial copyright dates on to show the customers that you are an established business. For instance, on my site my copyright reads 1999-2006. People will be more comfortable buying from you if they know your site has been around for a few years.
Check out http://www.templatesresource.com/ for a selection of over 2000 web templates (all under $19.95.) Use a template to get a jump start on your new site design. Depending on your level of expertise in web design you may still need to hire someone to help customize the template you choose to your business. Even so, having a template start with will drastically reduce development costs.
3. Check your site’s compatibility with all browsers and operating systems
Everyone knows the bulk of internet traffic is going to be Windows users with Internet Explorer 6 but that doesn’t mean you should ignore everyone else.
I tallied up a summary of over 2,000,000 hits from the latter portion of 2005 to find that IE6 users make up about 75% of the web traffic to the average site that I administer. If your site only displays properly for IE6 users you could be losing up to 25% of your sales due to browser incompatibility.
Unless you have several computers and a lot of spare time you won’t be able to test all the combinations yourself to know how your site looks on other systems. Fortunately NetMechanic has a service that solves this problem for $15. Check out: http://www.netmechanic.com/browser-index.htm for details on the service. Chances are you’ll be shocked by how your site looks in different browsers!
4. Add fresh and relevant content to your site
Search engines love it, and your site visitors love it, it’s a win-win scenario. Many people say they can’t write or don’t know what content to add to their site, but neither is an excuse anymore.
RSS feeds are a great way to keep automatically updating content on your site with no day-to-day work for you or your web designer. You simply plug a feed of your choice into your website and when the writer updates their feed your site automatically updates with the new content.
Another great way to add content is using royalty free articles. Writers and site owners write them specifically for you to use on your site. The only condition is that you keep a link to their site and their name on the article. It’s a small price to pay for adding relevant content and keywords to your site.
RSS Equalizer is a program that helps you find and manage RSS Content for your site.
Article Equalizer is a great program that helps you find and manage Articles for your site.
5. Make it easy for customers to contact you, and be sure to respond quickly
Putting your email address on your page with a mailto:// link is only going to ensure that you get more spam than you can imagine. It not only takes up your time to delete the spam but it also increases the likelihood that you will miss real messages in the process.
The best solution to this is using a contact us web form. This type of form never reveals your email address for spam crawlers to spam but ensures that customers can get a message to you easily. Contact forms are available for all web server types either via CGI, or ASP, or PHP. Most hosting providers have sample forms that are compatible with their hosting packages available to their clients. If your hosting provider won’t work with you to set up a contact us form it’s time to find a new host.
Once your contact form is functioning and you get a contact from a customer, don’t delay in responding! Be sure to respond professionally and in a friendly manner. When someone is looking to buy, getting a quick and polite answer can be a big factor in deciding to continue the purchase.
6. Advertise professionally and affordably
Once you’ve followed the steps above and your website is in good order and ready for whoever visits it, consider doing some advertising. Google AdWords are a great way to get some low cost, highly targeted traffic to your site.
AdWord Generator is a great program that helps you brainstorm and create profitable Ads.
AdWord Analyzer helps you find the most profitable and low cost keywords to run your PPC ads on.
May 2006 bring great success to you and your web site!
Chuck Hall
Binary Pros
http://www.binarypros.com/
About The Author
Chuck Hall is the owner of Binary Pros, a custom software development and consulting firm specializing in Internet marketing products and tools for webmasters.
http://www.binarypros.com
The past, present, and future of cell phones
Just in the last few years cell phones (usually called mobile phones outside the US) have become de facto standards for most of the population. What once used to be a luxury item for a select few that was carried around in a large leather bag and was the size of the brick, is no longer.
Technology has advanced the mobile phone industry to the point where the phone is a mere commodity for vendors, meaning that’s not where they make the real money. It’s in the service plans, which require 2 year commitments usually, where companies like Sprint, Nextel (now Sprint Nextel), AT&T (now Cingular), Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile make the revenues that enable the cycle of technology innovation and marketing to continue.
While the downsides of cell phones have focused primarily on the annoyance of public conversations and the small possibility of brain damage due to cellular coverage near the ear, these pale in comparison to the benefits derived from cellular technology. For those who have had cell phones most of their lives (think anyone under 25), it’s hard to imagine life before cell phones. Writing down numbers in a paper directory, having change on hand (first a nickel, then a dime, then two dimes), knowing how to make collect calls, and finding pay phones in new cities were frequent logistic challenges. Not to mention the inconvenience of not being able to get access to those you need at any time.
At this point, corporate employees, sales professionals, parents, young adults, and anyone in industries where communication among many is critical could hardly imagine life without the benefits of mobile phones.
As technology matures, ringtones, cameras, GPS features, music, and multiple other features will be added to the hardware. And the software on phones will progress to include easier web access, advertisements, news downloads, and easier chat and email features – becoming the only piece of technology most use. In fact, in many countries in South Asia (where the industrial revolution never occurred) they have gone from agricultural industries right to technology, bypassing an entire type of economy. It is in these countries where the cell phone is an essential tool, enabling communication among millions who don’t own a computer.
As technology advances, and people respond positively to resulting changes, we will all benefit.
About The Author
Dave Lloyd has created an online guide to cell phones and mobile phones at http://www.mobilephonedata.com.
You thought it all over a hundred times before and you have finally decided to put your business on the Web (or to replace that embarrassment of a website that was actually turning heads when it was first made during the nineties). Now you probably think it will be enough to find the right web design company and they will take care of everything. It should be easy for you… Well, think twice!
There are thousands of web design companies in the world and choosing the right one isn’t easy especially when you don’t know where to look and how to determine what is the right choice for your needs. In this article I will help you do your homework before you end up being disappointed either with a lousy website you’ll get or with spending way more than you initially expected.
First of all, you have to do some research (Google, Yahoo, MSN…) typing keywords that you would use if you wanted to find services or information related to your own business. This way you will be one step closer to getting to know your competition.
Since many of the results will be useless and not necessarily related to your business, the next step is filtering the results in order to make a selection of websites that are similar to your own website needs. When you’ve made your final selection sort the remaining websites by: a) great visual appearance and b) good functionality (these two characteristics are the two most important defining factors of any web site).
Go through these two categories and make notes about what you liked at every site regarding design: logo design, nice images, flash animation, useful navigation, attractive color scheme, etc. and also find out and note what your competition put on their website: what kind of information they have included, how do they make their visitors stay and research further, what is the structure of the sites and how the content is organized. Finally, make an exhaustive list of things you want to put on your future web site.
Now that you have collected all the information you needed you will see that you are much more certain about what you want and how do you want it to be done. Now you should collect all the material that you need for your website: articles, images, legal stuff, related texts, reviews, technical information… It is important that you collect as much material as you can because that process will get you a much clearer picture of requirements of your business than you had in the very start and in the end you will know exactly what you need and what you don’t need on your website.
Next step is narrowing down your list of web sites with good design (three to four examples) and finding out which web design firms created those websites. If you can find out who did it, take a tour through their site: look at their portfolio, learn about their pricing and collect their contact information. Almost every decent web design firm will have an RFQ form where they will ask you questions about your web site needs, your budget, colors you would like to use, links of a few web sites that are similar to what you need and details for each site (e.g. “has the features I need but design is lousy”) and if you remember what I said earlier in this article you see that these are all questions you already know the answers for. 
This way, not only that you will speed up your designing process by telling your web designer exactly what you want and having all the material ready, but you will also know exactly what is good and what you want to be changed when you see first design mockup from a designer. Finally, what is most important, you will avoid hiring a firm that’s not fit to do it right or within your budget.
About The Author
Darko Krsmanovic
Website Acquired: www.pear-logo-design.com
© 2006 Pear Logo Design
Are you looking into the best ways to increase your Google page rank? If you are, this article will give you some free tips on how to achieve this. I hope you enjoy the read.
There are many webmasters who are looking into ways to increase traffic and on how to obtain a higher page rank for their websites. I myself have many websites which I am always looking to promote.
PPC
Pay per click is where you agree to pay a certain amount of money when people click on an advert that you have created. Programs such as adwords from the search engine Google allow you to place an advert on the right hand side of their search results. Which position you are placed in depends on how much you are willing to spend per click, it is like a kind of auction. Be careful not to spend more on the adverts than you are likely to receive in income. This can be very popular especially if your website is fairly new and is low down in the natural search results.
Paid text adverts
Paid text adverts is another way of attracting additional visitors to your website and it also has the potential of increasing your Google page rank. If the advert is on a high ranking page, this may well on its own lead you to moving up a level in your page rank. If the page is a high traffic page, part of this traffic could well be redirected to your website. I personally would only ever consider paying for a text advert on a website which was related to my own and which had a page rank of five or six.
Writing articles
I believe that the best way of promoting your website is by writing articles like the one you are reading. People reading the articles are potential visitors to your website, as you are able to include a link to your website in the article. Other webmasters are able to use the articles on their websites which creates you a one way backward link. Google are more likely to increase your page rank if you have a large number of backward links, especially one way links.
Link exchange program
As I have just stated, it is vitally important to spend time building up the number of backward links your website has. Joining a link exchange program can seriously reduce your workload, and people have told me that linkmetro is quite good.
About The Author
Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:
http://www.lasik-laser-treatment.com
http://www.hair-loss-remedy-treatment.co.uk
http://www.herbal-health.co.uk
Do you have to sacrifice all of the creative and artistic elements of your web site to rank in the search engines? Later in this article I?ll show you a real case scenario and the design and SEO approach used.
Thanks to the birth of professional search engine marketers the top ranks are saturated with the pages of companies that can pay for such insight. That said, it?s certainly possible to employ high ranking tactics in your own website. Actually, the most basic tactics can move you up from an 800 position to a 300. However, it?s the top of the scale where efforts seem almost inversely exponential or logarithmic, you put a ton in to see a tiny change in rank.
How do you meld the ambitious overhauls required to attain significant ranking and NOT compromise the design of your site?
Design Can?t Be Ignored
If you have an existing site, you?ve probably tied it into your existing promotional content. Even if you?ve allowed your website to cater to the more free form of the net, it should still be designed as a recognizable extension of your business.
The reasons for doing so are valid, and can?t simply be ignored for the sake of achieving a first age position, can they? If your research into search optimization leaves you shuffling around thoughts of content, keyword saturated copy and varying link text, you are correctly understanding some of the basic pillars of search engine optimization.
And, you aren?t alone if you have this disheartening thought?If I do all this SEO stuff and reach number one across the board, who would stay at my site because it?s so stale and boring I?m even embarrassed to send people there!
There are two ways to successfully combine design and SEO. The first is to be a blue chip and/or Fortune 500 company with multi million dollar advertising and branding budgets to deliver your website address via television, radio, billboards, PR parties and giveaways with your logo.
Since chances are that?s not you, and certainly not me, lets look at the second option. It begins with some research into your market, some thoughtful and creative planning, and a designer who is a search engine optimizer, and understands at least basic CSS and HTML programming techniques. Or a combination of people with these skills that can work very well together.
Design is for brochures, instant results are for the web
That?s not the whole truth, but it will help compare and contrast design and SEO. In reality, SEO needs the quantity and detail of supporting text that a brochure has, but good web design has to catch a viewer?s attention in 5 seconds. It?s pretty difficult to read and absorb the content of an entire brochure in less than 5 seconds.
Search engines need rich, related, appropriate, changing and poignant content. And for them to rank you, all of that must be on your pages. But if it?s not well organized and broken down into bite size chunks, no one is going to bother learning about what you?re offering.
Construction 101- Attractive Design and SEO
Sadly, it?s very difficult to optimize a site without completely overhauling it. You?ll soon understand why. Design and SEO must be strongly rooted into every aspect of each other, possessing a true, symbiotic relationship. Lets look at a simplified example of this. Lets say you are optimizing a page for the keyword phrase, ?pumpkin bread recipe.?
>From a design standpoint ?Pumpkin Bread Recipe? would be the heading for the page, in a nice, readable font with the words perhaps an orange-brown color. And lets add a fine, green rule around it.
There are many ways to create that simple, colored heading. However, there is only one way that is best for both design and SEO. That is to use Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS. In addition, that line of code containing ?Pumpkin Bread Recipe? needs to be as close to the top of the page as possible (which CSS also allows).
To a viewer, the recipe text might be read more if it were located to the right of a photo of a buttered piece of pumpkin bread on a small plate next to a lightly steaming cup of coffee.
SEO needs to read that ingredient list and baking instructions. Search engines now understand on a rudimentary level that the ingredients are indeed related to the optimized words- pumpkin bread recipe.
Additionally, it would take many extra lines of code to make a table in this example if you didn?t use CSS. Search engines don?t like extra code. In fact, given enough times, that ?extra? code will make the keyword phrases seem less important and hurt rank.
Note: In the page code, a few thousand characters more than you need to get all of that content organized would normally just add to your page load time, and might be acceptable. But to a search engine, that time can really add up. It wont read through page after page, site after site, billionth after billionth character of unimportant code to find the relevant text. Therefore, the less code, the better your chances. Moral- Less code, more content.
SEO usually means REDO
In the previous pumpkin example, CSS will eliminate the need for almost any extra code at all, and provide the means to place the text to the right of the photo.
Now, imagine that someone had already created this page, but done so using other programming methods. The page could very well be W3C compliant, well programmed and got the job done. However, without designing and programming for optimization as in the above illustration, the end result would have no significant rank compared to others that do.
You can be sure that there exist at least 30 web sites built to rank for the keywords ?pumpkin bread recipe?. Note- why did I use the number 30? It?s safe to assume if you?re not on the first three results pages of a search, you?re not being seen.
While this is a simple example, hopefully you understand that it would be impossible to optimize this simple page without redoing it. This isn?t always the case, but extrapolate this into detailed, multiple pages in an entire website and the issue is greatly magnified.
Aesthetic Importance vs. Traffic
Everyone has an idea of what they want their site to look like. The pretty factor- splash pages, cool flash and graphics must now be justified as to their importance to the bottom line. If you want/need to establish an online presence, you will have to make some compromises in these areas.
Understand exactly the role your site should play in your company marketing.
Ask- What is the goal of your website and who is its audience? Is it for existing clients to see? Is it to reach new clients? To venture into yet untapped market segments?
Ask- How strongly do your other marketing efforts promote your site?
Ask- Is your website an extension of your existing collateral that must reflect the same graphical look?
Ask- Is your website meant to assist to your sales force or is it your sales force?
Chances are you wont have any single answers. That?s ok. It will give you some meat for your designer/SEO to digest and develop a solution for you.
Real case of Design balanced with SEO and salability
If you sell jewelry solely online, you must have a catalog of exceptional photography and detailed, high-resolution close up images. But, you must be optimized and rank well if you want to sell any of that jewelry.
If such a company approached me with this project, my recommendation would be this: If you sell a product, people have to see that product. Lots of good images. The site should be slick and sheik and easy to navigate. The home page has to capture the buyer?s attention. If it?s very expensive jewelry, the site should have a lot of class and elegance. If it?s home made jewelry, the site shouldn?t look home made.
However, as you have no store front, if the online community can?t find you, you?re business will fail. So I?d have a very optimized home page with some discussion of the quality of your product, the history of your company, etc. This is also great sales copy. Ad a few special catalog pieces with descriptions below some smartly placed gifs, jpegs and readable type graphics built out of CSS and you?ve got a cool to look at, content rich, well optimized layout.
I?d make the link to your catalog very obvious and prominent. Note the catalog is not the homepage. I?d also include subsequent well written, in depth pages about the history of some specific pieces. Load them with targeted keywords and a few images. Again, make your catalog link very prominent. In doing so you?re creating relevant content for search engines AND providing additional pages that can rank.
The catalog can be database driven, simple and changeable, and you have the foundation to build your search rank.
Planning Your Site
If your designer is not a search engine optimizer, hire one to work with your designer from the initial development stage of your site. If you would like a visible presence that is not dependant on traditional marketing efforts to get your name around, then you will have to optimize.
However, with advances in html and css, text itself can be a very flexible and attractive design element with endless possibilities. Site optimization consists of some rigid, unbendable rules. It can be intertwined successfully with very creative and attractive design. If your Designer and SEO aren?t the same person or company, make sure they have the same, close working relationship.
About The Author
John Krycek is a creative director at theMouseworks.ca Toronto website design. Learn more about search engine optimization, internet marketing, web development and graphic design in easy, non-technical, up front English at http://www.themouseworks.ca.
Have you ever wondered why it is that some web sites enjoy super success while many others fail miserably? Below are seven secrets to help you make YOUR site one of the winners!
1. SPEED
Several studies indicate, that you have only 10 to 30 seconds to capture visitor’s attention. If your site is slow to open, your customer will likely lose patience and close the window. And that means bye.. bye..to your site! Worse..no sale.
Solution: Avoid having too much animation in your site. Compress the image files and host your site with a good hosting company.
2. Website Design
Remember you have only 10 to 30 seconds to capture visitor’s attention. So website design is very important. Most people judge something on their first look! When visitors come to your site, they will see the reflection of YOU. Be certain they will like what they see.
Make your site comfortable to look at. Be consistent with the feel and design. Don’t use bright colors that jolt the eye and senses. Use a text that is easy to read. Better yet, put a really great picture of yourself on your site. Let your visitors know who they are dealing with, and show them that there is a real human behind the website!
Did my picture capture your attention the first time you visited my website? I hope so. I hope you could see that I was a real, geniune, caring person that you would feel comfortable doing business with.
3. Focus Your Site
Make sure to focus your website on the intended goal. This will help you to target your market easily. For example, if you are interested in a car selling business, most of the contents of your site will naturally be about cars. For instance, your topics could be; My Car Collection, Tips for Buying A Good Car, Millenium Cars, The Secrets of Washing a Car, etc..!
Car Lovers will enjoy visiting your site, because you give them exciting information about a topic they are personally interested in.
When you have laser focus, and great contents, this will create happy customers coming back to your site again and again. This makes it possible for you to repeatedly offer them new sales items to purchase from your site!
Don’t clutter your site with too many unrelated products. When you have more than one or two unrelated products, make a unique page for each instead of putting them all on the same page. And do it with some style and thought. Your customers will not appreciate feeling that they have been tricked with an unworthy product.
4. Keywords Density
Many site owners ignore or are ignorant about the importance of Keywords. I have found sites which don’t have any keywords at all. This is death for a website! A Good keyword density will help your site listing in search engines!
Remember, 90% of web surfers find what they want by typing in the search engines. So design your site to maximize the placement. Focus on your keywords. Utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title.
If you have no idea what I am talking about or if you don’t know how to use HTML code, please, find someone who does or purchase a few good books (I can suggest one or two). I know this may sound terribly confusing but it is one of the most crucial things needed to build a better more successful website.
5. Simple Navigation
Make your site navigation easy. If the customers find it hard navigating your site to find what they want, they will go elsewhere. So, limit the choices, and make the sales process uncomplicated.
6. Make Payment Easy
If you sell a product, offer your customer a variety of payment methods. If your site does not offer a credit card, you are hurting your business…get one right now. You can set up a merchant account such as ClickBank, or use one of the many credit card clearing companies. Take checks online. Provide an address for those who prefer to pay by cash, check, or money order. and provide them with a guarantee.
Make the payment process obvious, easy to access and intuitive to use.
7. Credibility Is Vital
Your professional website design will not sell, if the customers don’t trust you! So, provide legitimate contact information online. Your email address, mailing address, phone number and a fax number, if applicable. If you are reluctant to give this information to your customers, why should they trust, or buy from you?
Having your own domain name is also very vital for your credibilty. It will make you look more professional. Choose a domain name that easy to remember and suitable for your business.
Putting testimonials from happy customers is one of the best way to improve your credibilty. When the customer can read what other people say about your service, they will be more inclined to trust you!
Applying the seven secrets above probably will not make your site become as famous as Amazon or Yahoo overnight! But..If they are applied correctly and included into an overall website design and marketing campaign, you will see great improvement to your site’s traffic and sales!
About The Author
Anne Ahira
Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter
http://www.thebestaffiliate.com
I believe some people create and publish websites for the sole purpose of tormenting their visitors. Browsing various websites and navigating the Web can often be like trying to read on an airplane while a kid kicks the back of your seat and the baby next to you alternates between screaming, crying and drooling on you. There are some excellent websites out there to be sure, but there are also a lot of dreadful ones too. The latter are the bane of so many people?s existence, especially those who use the Web regularly.
The Net continues to grow in popularity and importance for consumers and businesses alike. Therefore, the quality of sites needs to keep pace. Creating and maintaining high-quality websites is more important now than ever. Higher quality equals more revenue.
The following lists the top ten ways that a website misses the boat and contributes to hair loss and nervous breakdowns. Notice the common thread that runs throughout each of these. Namely, a bad website neglects to consider the site visitor?s experience in some fundamental ways.
1. Animation
Seven year-olds like watching animated cartoons on Saturday morning, business people, professionals and most other adults don?t. Sites that include showy Flash animations as an ?Intro?, animated gifs on every page, or flying words are really annoying. They take away from the content and distract the visitor from achieving their goals. Unless your site is an entertainment site, try to avoid maddening motion. However, if your product or service can be better demonstrated using Flash, Quick Time, or other multimedia, which is common, offer your visitors the chance to click a link to view it. But don?t force them.
2. Too much scrolling
Once I scroll down a full screen?s worth, my eyes start to blur, I feel slightly lost, my head spins and my interest wanes. Computer monitors really aren?t the best medium for reading. The Net and many sites are so big that it?s important to always provide a clear frame of reference for your visitors at all times while they?re on your site. If a page requires two full screens of scrolling or more, simply split it up into multiple pages.
3. Long, text-heavy and blocky paragraphs of unbroken text
I really have to be into a topic or desperately need to glean the information to trudge through big chunks of unbroken text online. If I?m just shopping around for a product or service, you?ve lost me if I have to endure this kind of torture. Again, it is harder to read text on the Web than in other mediums such as books. Additionally, Web users are notoriously impatient, so make your content easy to read and non-intimidating. Use titles, sub-titles, small paragraphs, bullets and numbering.
4. No obvious ways to contact the company
If all you supply is an email on your website, your legitimacy may be questioned. Why can?t you answer the phone? Why hide behind an anonymous and cold email address? Make it easy for your existing and potential customers to talk with you.
5. Unchanging or out-date content
If I start reading content on a site and soon discover that the content was written three years ago, I split. Since there?s so much information out there, my reasoning is there?s got to be comparable information online that?s more current. If you keep your content fresh your site will attract repeat visitors. And repeat visitors are more likely to turn into customers.
6. Long page downloads
It?s amazing that this is still a problem. When I click on to a site and have to sit there waiting for it to appear in my browser, I start sweating, picking my teeth, tapping my toes, rolling my eyes and soon want to throw my computer through my office window. I?m obviously a little impatient, but again, I know there are other sites out there with the same information that will download more quickly, so why wait? I?m gone.
7. ?Me, me, me!? instead of ?You, you, you?
Generally speaking, no one cares about you, your company or your thoughts. What they do care about is what you can do for them. So sites that show pictures of the company building or tout their deep philosophy on the way business should be conducted really don?t bode well for keeping the interest of site visitors. On the other hand, sites that speak directly to potential customers about how they can solve their problems, make their lives easier, safer, richer or more comfortable have a much better chance of keeping the eyeballs glued.
8. Non-explanatory buttons or links
Here are some examples of buttons that leave me dazed and confused: A wedding site with a button called ?Blanks?, a boating site with a button named ?The Lighthouse?, a book site with a button called ?The Inside Story?, or a Web design site with a button called ?Tea Time?. They sound like Jeopardy categories. Imagine trying to find your way on a highway where its various signs read ?Over Here?, ?Moon Beams?, and ?Lollypops?. Good luck navigating your way through. It?s the same with navigating websites. Button and link names need to tell the visitor where the link leads to. Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to know where they?re going before they click. However, there are times when naming a link an ambiguous name may pique the curiosity of a user and get them to click on it. But as a general rule, keep your links and buttons as descriptive as possible.
9. Inconsistent navigation
Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and the waiter comes over to you and hands you five different menus, one for the appetizers, one for the soups and salads, one for the entrees, one for the desserts, and one for the drinks. Annoying. Now imagine if each menu had a different format, layout and method for listing the items. Brutal. I really don?t want to work that hard at picking out my dinner, I?m hungry and I just want a meal. Don?t make your visitors work hard either by expecting them to re-learn your navigation system each time they enter another section of your site. They too are hungry; for useful information and they?re even more impatient.
10. Inconsistent look & feel
When the look & feel completely changes from one page to another in a website, I think I am visiting another site, another company, a partner or subsidiary. I get very confused. This screams poor planning and often results from tacking on new sections later after the original site was built. This can lead to design-drift. It may be tempting to stray from the original design; you may have a better design now. But wait till you do a complete next-generation re-design of the entire site before introducing a new look & feel. If not, lots of visitors will be scratching their heads with one hand and possibly clicking away with the other.
Finally, any site that employs a number of these notorious features is particularly painful to experience. When I click to a website that has five different fonts and colors, scrolls down to the core of the Earth, incorporates zinging words and big fat blocks of text, lists no phone number and has content written and dated in 1996, I scream and know deep down inside that pulling my fingernails out wouldn?t be as torturous as having to remain there a minute longer.
About The Author
Jason OConnor is President of Oak Web Works – The synthesis of Web marketing, design, and technology. Jason is an expert at Web design, programming, e-strategy, and e-marketing. Call or email today for a free site consultation.
http://www.oakwebworks.com/
http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com
mailto: jason@oakwebworks.com
Are you going to design or redesign a new website or thinking about it? Then first read the points below, which Google likes in a website, Google Information for Webmasters. There are more than 80 factors of your website that are taken into consideration when determining the ranking of your website, Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Basic principles:
1) Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
2) Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” 3) Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
4) Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold? that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. Design and Content Guidelines 1) Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
2) Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
3) Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
4) Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
5) Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
6) Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
7) Check for broken links and correct HTML. 
If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
9) Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). Specific recommendations Avoid hidden text or hidden links. Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects. Don’t send automated queries to Google. Don’t load pages with irrelevant words. Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. for more details Please visit below given links.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/index.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/bot.html
http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html
About The Author
Ramdayal Yadav, is Chief SEO in http://www.maharashtradirectory.com/ This is unique Industrial online Business Directoy. For more articles on search engine positioning visit my site http://www.3seo.com/
If there is one thing we have all suffered through is waiting for a site to download online. It seems like it is the worse thing in the world and will never end. We actually either click off of the site or after the initial download of the frontpage completes, we then click off of the site because the subpages take too long to load. We have all been here and this article is to help make sure your visitors don’t go through it as well.
The reason why a websites speed of download is important is actually very simple and we have broken it down into two parts:
-The first part is that people want to get to where they are going quickly. This is pretty straight forward and now a days no one seems to have the time to wait for a site to download(no matter how important it is).
-The second part is to deliver the content to the user as quick as possible so that we can keep them interested and entertained. The quicker they can get to the information the more they will click around your site and the more they will interact with your website. This is extremely important if your website has it’s own estore, as the more products your visitors are able to view then the more time they spend in your store and the better the chance you have of them purchasing something off of you. Pretty simple and straight forward.
Now you may be wondering how you can take your current design or your re-design and improve the performance of your website so it doesn’t take forever for it to download. The truth is that it isn’t too complex and actually anyone can follow these steps. Here are some tips on how to get your website to load faster and why these factors may cause long load times:
1. Tip one is to use regular html text instead of graphic text(such as exporting text from a program like fireworks or photoshop). The reason for this is that html text carries alot smaller kbs size when added to website design. So anywhere that you use regular text instead of “graphical text” will really help decrease your page size making the download time quicker for each user.
2. Tip two is to limit other graphics uses on your website where you can. Some things such as using a graphic for your logo can not be avoided but try to make an effort to limit the amount of graphics on each page. The more graphics you use the higher your page size will be and the more time it takes to download it. Really graphic intensive websites can have users waiting a while for everything to download. Some occasions where it might be ok to use graphics is if they will also be used on subpages. These graphics will already be cached on your visitors computers and will not have to be downloaded again when a person visits your subpages.
3. Tip three is to limit the use of flash. It can make your page take even longer to load as the kbs size of each file are usually quite larger then any graphics on your website. This can really increase download times and in alot of cases is not necessary.
4. The final tip is to try not to nest tables inside of each other. Try to break down your design and use multiple tables. This way each table will load separately giving your visitors something to view while the rest of your site loads. If you load everything into one table then they will have to wait for the whole main table to load.
Remember the key is to get your users to the information as fast as possible. If you follow this advice and apply these rules to your site, then there is nothing saying you can’t have a quick loading and great looking website as well.
About The Author
Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business and join in conversation at http://www.logo2d.com & http://www.logo2d.com/forum
?Copyright 2005 Logo2D.com
By: Mike Waters
Last weekend I was in Atlanta with my wife promoting her latest fitness book. It was a fantastic event. We made some really great connections and my wife sold a lot of books. People flocked in from all over the region with their accolades, questions, and concerns. My wife was there in person to answer them all.
Although she loved the exposure, more people actually came out to support my wife than either of us had anticipated. As a result, during her first full session of promotion she completely ran out of business cards. But being the technically savvy guy that I am, I immediately pulled out my laptop and burned off several more CD-R business cards to get us through the rest of the event.
CD-R duplication is priceless. Writers, self-employed entrepreneurs, musicians, small businesses, hobbyists, and even Fortune 500 companies all benefit from the brilliance of CD-R technology. Not only are they a convenient time saver, but CD-Rs are remarkably affordable while providing many services.
CD-Rs are used to store files and important security documentation. They are used in the computer field to conveniently backup software and pertinent data on disc. Musicians use CD-R duplication as an affordable marketing and promotion tool to get their music out to the masses. The corporate world uses CD-Rs as a cost-effective way of mass producing training videos and as an aide in converting to the ideal paperless office. Of course, my wife uses CD-Rs smaller than a credit card as a remarkably memorable business card.
Can?t you see the benefit of CD-R duplication? It is affordable, convenient, easy to use, and beneficial to all no matter what type of business or hobby you are in. CD-Rs work perfectly while remaining inexpensive. At the end of the day, isn?t that what we really want? Purchase your CD-Rs today!
About The Author
Mike Waters is owner of Waters Rock music studio and the senior technology columnist for Media-Tech Entertainment and You. Be sure to check out more about his music cd duplication services and data cd duplication at http://www.data-cd-duplication.com.
Apple today held a large press event in San Francisco to update their music offerings for consumers.
The biggest announcement was that of a cell phone by Motorola featuring the iTunes software. The deal between Apple and Motorola was announced last summer, but there were delays in the announcement from earlier this summer that pushed it back to today.
The new phone, called the Motorola ROKR(pronounced “Rocker”), comes with a card that holds 512 MB of music, or about 100 songs.
“The way we think of this phone is, it’s really an iPod shuffle on your phone,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at the announcement.
It is a regular cell phone, but at the push of a single button, the iTunes software comes up. The phone is bundled with stereo headphones, and can be used as a regular MP3 player.
When a call comes in, the music stops where it is, and you are able to take the call. The music resumes in the same place when the call ends. Music can be loaded on the phone using iTunes and the included USB cable.
ROKR features many of the same features that typical cell phones carry today including a camera with zoom and flash as well as video record, Bluetooth (though not for loading music), and talk time of up to 6.5 hours and standby time of 260 hours.
At the announcement, Apple revealed that Cingular will be the exclusive provider of the phone in the U.S., selling it for $249.99 with 2 year contract.
Motorola announced that Rogers Wireless is tabbed to sell the phone in Canada later this month. Pricing and terms were not available at press time.
Apple also announced the iPod Nano will be a replacement to the number one selling MP3 player in the world, the iPod Mini.
The Nano is much smaller than the Mini, though big enough that it still has room for a screen. The Nano improves on the Mini in that its screen is in colour. Whereas the Mini used a regular hard drive, the Nano uses a flash drive like the iPod Shuffle, meaning there are no moving parts in the player’s interior. This means there is no worry of skipping when a person is jogging, and the battery lasts much longer.
Even more remarkable is that the length is about the same as an iPod Shuffle, and it’s even flatter than the Shuffle. However it still uses Apple’s regular dock connector, and has room for Apple’s signature click wheel.
The Nano itself comes in and two colours, Apple’s signature white colour, and a new black colour. It is available immediately in Canada for $249 for the 2 GB model, and $299 for the 4 GB model.
Madonna’s 15 albums are now part of the iTunes Music Store, the same day Apple showed her in a new commercial for the Motorola ROKR.
Apple also added all 6 Harry Potter audiobooks to iTunes, and released a special 20GB iPod with the Hogwarts school crest engraved on the back. They teamed up with car manufacturers Audi, Honda, Volkswagen and Acura to include iPod connectivity options to new cars. And they released iTunes 5, which includes customization for the Shuffle feature, a cleaner interface, parental controls on the Music Store as well as album reviews, and a more powerful search feature. For Windows users, it now allows the ability to synchronize contacts and calendars from Outlook onto their iPods. iTunes 5 is now available for download at www.itunes.com.
