Improving Your Sites Look and Feel

Improving Your Sites Look and Feel

Word Count:

464

Summary:

Although driving traffic to your website is very important it is likewise essential to ensure that your web design makes your visitors stay.

Keywords:

internet, marketing, web, design

Article Body:

Driving traffic to your website is important. But it is likewise important to ensure that your web design makes your visitors stay. After all, what is the use of spending thousands of dollars and wasting lots of effort and time in creating a unique product, securing top rankings on search engines and creating a hundred page site if your visitors don’t stay once they found your page?

There are a lot of factors to consider in creating a successful site. First of all, your site should be easy to navigate. Don’t make your visitors click on ten links and scroll down each page just to find what they are looking for. All pages on the site must not be five clicks away from the homepage. Visitors will enjoy surfing your site if it is easy for them to find the information that they want.

Second of all, your site must load fast. This is often one of the biggest problems on the Internet. Some sites take more than twenty minutes to load and some visitors don’t have the time and patience to wait for a long time. As a result they click away from your site. One of the best ways to make your site load fast is to use more text and fewer graphics. Keep in mind that not all visitors have fast connection so you have to design your site the way everyone can view it quickly.

Third of all, always remember your purpose in designing your website. Ask yourself, do visitors say wow when they see your site and then click away? Or do they stay and surf your site for a while? Does your site sell or just impress people?

It does not really matter is your visitors are impressed by your graphics and animations. What you have to keep in mind is your purpose. If you want your site to sell you have to design it in such a way that your visitors get interested in your offer and are encouraged to buy.

Fourth of all, use the right colors. Color is a very important to your website. When they are used correctly they can highlight important points and add clarity and impact to your message. But when they are used incorrectly, it can confuse your visitors and compromise your message.

Keep in mind that current trends play a big role in color schemes. A good strategy is to design your site in such a way that if a color change has to be made, it can be done so easily.

If you are able to follow this tips you will not only attract many visitors but you will also encourage them to stay for a while and maybe you can turn them into paying customers.

Web sites are for Your Audience, Not for You

Web sites are for Your Audience, Not for You

Word Count:

416

Summary:

Remember when designing or revamping a web site, stay focused on what your audience is after. Don't stray into making a site that touts yourself and what you are about. Focus on your audience.

Keywords:

web design, HTML, audience

Article Body:

It is easy to forget that building a web site is a process of bringing about solutions to your end-user's problems (as in, how can I help my customers find my store? By adding a map to the web site). Many people create their web site with only their own goals in mind. This is a big mistake. People don't care about how neat your site is, or how much Flash you have developed, or the intricate JavaScript that you hand-coded. They are interested in getting their problems solved, and solved quickly.

So here are some tips on how you can make sure your site is based on your user's goals. First, find out what your users goals are. Find a sampling of people who are typical end users and email or call them. Politely ask them the kind of questions that will elicit useful feedback on their goals when they come to your site (for example, what are the three things you want above all when you visit our site?). If you already have a site, ask them what things do they find challenging about the site. This is an ideal chance to identify and fix things as well.

As you actually create (or update) your web site, again keep the end user's goals in mind and make sure that they can get to the information quickly and easily. Nothing is more annoying than finding a site that has exactly what you are after and then be unable to purchase the item! The process of designing a site so it is easy to use is far harder than it looks at first. Usability, as it is called, is an entire realm of study when it comes to web sites. But in general, make sure users can navigate (that is, click around) to the most important features of your site easily. Do you offer a free tutorial on how to use your shareware software? Make sure you have a link to it on your navigation bar or at least prominently displayed on the home page. A pleasing design can go hand in hand with usability. However, it you are not a whiz at web design, then don't fret. A simple design that lets users navigate to their intended goal is far more preferable to a gorgeous site that people can't navigate. So make it look as attractive as possible but usability should always come first.

And remember, the site is for your audience... not for you.

For Automated Sites - PHP and MySQL Are A Perfect Match

You’ve decided to automate your web site. Now what? Here are some ideas to help you choose how to automate your site.

A bit of programming is going to be necessary if you want to automate a site. There are many types of programs that can be used to automate a web site including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Java and more. So, which do you use? For many, it is a personal choice.

I prefer PHP for programming. PHP is a particularly useful programming language because it allows for advanced programming and is easy to integrate with web pages. Another plus of PHP is that the language interfaces very well with MySQL, a popular type of online database.

Yet another plus of PHP is that it is Open Source Code. The actual code that is PHP is available to the public for free, while the source code for products such as ASP are not. Because PHP is open source, there is a large community of PHP programmers that help each other with code. This means PHP programmers can rely on each other by using reusable pieces of code called functions and classes rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. This can dramatically cut down on production time.

Overall, PHP is flexible, cheaper than many alternatives, and built around a community. PHP and MySQL are excellent choice for webmasters looking to automate their web sites.

What Can PHP and MySQL do for me? Just about anything you can think of. That is the beauty of custom programming. A few ideas of what you can do with a PHP and MySQL driven site include:

1. E-commerce

2. User Polls

3. Keyword Tracking

4. Set User Preferences

5. Manage Password Protected Member's Areas

6. Lead Follow Up

7. Customer Relations

8. Content Management

9. Email Newsletters

10. Accounting

11. Invoicing

12. Scheduled Updates

The list is limited only by your imagination. Once you have decided to go with a PHP and MySQL site, you can either get a custom program created, use a prepackaged version or a combination of both. Many PHP and MySQL programs that come prepackaged are easy to customize and can save you a lot of time and money over starting from the ground up.

Using XSAS to develop multiple XOOPS sites locally

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for how to develop multiple XOOPS websites locally using XSAS (XOOPS Stand Alone Server). I use this information pretty much on a daily basis, and I hope you find it helpful, too. As always, I welcome any feedback or suggestions you may have.

(It is assumed that the reader has a basic knowledge of folder structures, permission settings, how to perform basic operations in phpMyAdmin, and of course, how to install XOOPS.)

1. Create a folder on your hard drive called Localhost

2. Run the XSAS Setup program in that folder

3. Create your folders in the www root of XSAS to represent the different sites you will be developing (i.e.: Clients, Personal, etc.)

4. Extract a fresh distro of Xoops in a temp folder

5. Copy the html folder from your Xoops package into the various folders you created in step 3.

6. Rename the html folder to represent the particular site to be developed (i.e.: Client1, Site2, etc.)

7. Start the XSAS server on your local machine

8. Open PHPMyAdmin from the advanced tab of the XSAS GUI

9. Create a database that has the same name as the database used for your published website (the site on the Internet)

10. Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost and select the folder of the site you want to install (ex: http://localhost/clients/somecoweb/). This will begin the installation of Xoops as usual.

11. Setup Xoops as you normally would

12. Put the database name of the site you want to develop in the appropriate field, but put root as the database username with no password

13. Make sure you change the prefix for the tables to match the database you will import later (if applicable)

14. Complete your installation as usual

15. Export the database from your site that is on the Internet into a text file. (Be sure you export it with complete inserts and add 'drop table'. This will insure a proper import later.)

16. Open the text file in a text editor and do a find and replace for the url

(i.e.: Find the Internet url that the site would use online and replace it with the local url.
ex: Find: http://yourdomain.com/
Replace with: http://localhost/the_directory_where_you_installed_xoops/) Save your file.

**The copy and paste method works best for the aformentioned step.**

17. Open PHPMyAdmin in XSAS and import the database you just edited.

18. Now test your site out.

**If you will be developing multiple sites, I've found it quite convenient to keep a bookmark of http://localhost and I add a bookmark for each additional site when I begin development (i.e.: http://localhost/clients/client1, http://localhost/clients/client2, etc.)**

Now, after you've made all the changes you want to your site locally, you only have a few steps to follow to publish your work online.

19. You essentially repeat steps 15-18, but instead, you export from localhost's database, edit the sql file to change the url to the Internet url, and you import the database into the online SQL server.

**It's also important to note that, if you have added any additional files to your website while developing it locally (i.e.: themes, modules, hacks, etc.), you'll want to upload those files to your web server prior to updating your database.**

On another note. If you want to work on your website away from home, if you've setup your local server as I've outlined, you can just copy the entire Localhost folder onto a USB Pen Drive and take it with you. Then all you have to do is just execute XSAS directly from the pen drive on any Windows 98 and above system. Since XSAS always creates a virtual w: drive, this method works quite well for portable development and demonstration.

This article mainly focuses on XSAS and XOOPS, however, similar steps can be used for virtaully any standalone server software and content management system. These two were used because it is a combination I know to be relatively bug-free and easy to use.

Designing Sites for Search Engines and Directories

In terms of layout, many web sites are not designed for optimum search engine and directory visibility. People or companies seem so centred on their corporate or personal images, products, and services that they neglect to design their web sites with search engines and directories in mind. Search engines and directories vary in the way they rank your web site in a search query. Some search engines place primary emphasis on the text within your title tags. Some search engines place emphasis on the main ideas presented in all of your text on a single web page. Some directories emphasize the text you submitted in their "Description" field. How and where you place your text, both in the copy your visitors see and within the HTML tags your visitors do not see, will affect your ranking

1. Keyword selection 
2. Keyword placement 
3. Keyword frequency 
4. Links & architecture
5. Site statistics 

Keyword Selection

Of primary importance is selecting the best keywords for your industry and the keywords you believe your potential customers will use to find you. Selecting the right keywords requires research.

Look at your company's printed materials. What words do you use over and over? When you speak to new and current customers on the phone, what questions do they frequently ask and what words do they use? Ask your current customers how they would find you on the Internet. Then go to the major search engines and directories. Type in the keywords you want to use. Study the source code of the web sites that appeared in the top 20. Look at how your competitors ranked in a search query. Adjust your keyword selection accordingly.

Keyword placement

Of equal importance is keyword placement on individual pages. The text in your title tag is one the most important elements for ranking well in search engines. The text in your titles should be descriptive, using the words and lingo in your industry, and should accurately reflect the contents of each web page.

For optimum search engine positions, your keywords need to appear at the top of your web pages. Thus, before you design your web page, ask yourself if you (or your web designer) have strategically placed your keywords within your title tags, meta-tags, headings, graphic images, and the first paragraph within your body tag. If not, you might need to rethink your site design.

Keyword Frequency

What is important to both the search engines and your target audience is keyword frequency and keyword prominence. Designing and coding your site with keywords in the right locations and the right frequency is an art form. Keywords need to appear frequently on your web pages, but if they appear too frequently, your site will be penalized for word stacking (also known as "spamming the index") or could be removed permanently from the index.

Also, some search engines ignore meta-tags. Thus, if you have included your keywords in your meta-tags but have not placed them elsewhere, you have missed a huge target audience, namely AOL users. Sites with frames have problems being indexed well because there is little opportunity otherwise to include additional text with keywords.

Very, very few web sites can get in the Top 10 of all the major search engines (AltaVista, FAST Search, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Teoma) without spamming. We cannot emphasize this enough: if you hire anyone (a submission service, an individual, an online promotion service, etc.) to do the services we just described, they need to have HTML and design experience, online marketing, and excellent copy writing skills. You do not want your web site to be permanently banned from a search engine or directory due to ignorance or lack of experience. Furthermore, submission services usually do just that: submit. Many do not perform keyword research, the HTML coding, and copy writing necessary to get a site optimally placed within the search engines. Ask a lot of questions before handing over any money.

Links & site architecture

Placing keywords throughout your web pages is useless as a search engine marketing strategy if the search engine spiders are unable to record the text on your web pages. Therefore, always have a link architecture (also known as a site map) on your site that the search engine spiders can follow. Oftentimes, this means having two forms of navigation on your site: one that your target audience prefers, and one for the search engines.

Site Statistics

For the first few months after you have your web site submitted to the major search engines and directories, you should see a jump in traffic. If you look at your site reports with your visitor statistics, which should do frequently, you will see when the search engines spider and index your site.

Hopefully, because you have been thoughtful enough to give potential customers a reason to return to your site again and again, people will bookmark your site, and your web statistics will show an increase in a "No Referrer" category under referral URL's. Your site reports should show you where your potential customers are coming from (i.e. which search engine or directory they used to find you) and which keywords they used to find you.

After your site has listed in the search engines and directories for a few months, review your site statistics and determine where the majority of your traffic comes from. Then focus your advertising efforts on those directories and search engines. You get better sales from targeted marketing than from spreading your net too wide.

One client did exactly what we recommended, from keyword selection to monitoring site statistics. They found most of their sites referral traffic came from Yahoo queries. They bought banner space from Yahoo for two months. Whenever two of their keywords were typed in a search query, their banner would appear. Their traffic increased over 500%, and their sales reached five figures per month.

Lastly, the saying "Content is King" still rings true. You can increase traffic to your web site, but if (1) people do not like what they see, (2) you do not offer potential customers what they want to buy, or (3) you do not give customers incentive to stay and/or bookmark your site, they will click off of your web site as quickly as they clicked on to it.