Building A Solid Foundation for Your Website

One of the best steps any Internet Marketer can take is implementing a free program that is easy to use, drives results, and is not laborious.

Keywords:

internet, marketing, advertising, free, traffic, ebook, advice

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Developing a “Master List” of what your daily chores for your website can be daunting and time consuming. You then are faced with budgeting questions such as, “How much can I afford?” and “Will this really work, or am I wasting my time?”

One of the best steps any Internet Marketer can take is implementing a free program (or at the least very low cost) that is easy to use, drives results, and is not laborious. There are fantastic ways to do all of this; it’s just a matter of rolling up the sleeves and implementing it.

Some of the best ways to do this are article submissions, blogging/forums, ezines, and press releases. These are all free, or at the very least, low cost solutions to begin building the foundation of your website.

Internet Marketers need to be leery of traffic generation websites and SEO’s. Traffic generation sites often promise the world to you (of course), but rarely can effectively drive quality traffic to your site. If you are selling sporting equipment, why would you want to pay for a visitor who is in the market for vitamins? Perhaps a bad analogy, but you get the point.

SEO’s are fantastic, if you can budget thousands of dollars a month. Most Internet Marketers are small businesses looking to create a supplemental income monthly, not change the world.

Start small and have patience. Focus on boosting your backlinks and page ranks. Put in that elbow grease and blog about what you have. Don’t oversell yourself; you don’t want to get booted out of a good forum, but educate people.

Most importantly, have fun. Internet Marketing in one of the few ways a person can invest little money and time, and create a nice little income at the end of the day.

Do We Really Need A Website?

Is it that important to own a website to be able to market online? No really but the chances for your success are much greater as the options that you have to build and promote your business are much more than promoting an affiliate duplicate web page.

Keywords:

Home Business, Home Based Business, Online Business, Home Business ideas, Home business tips, Online business tips, online business ideas

Article Body:

To have a website or not to have a website; that is an occurring online question.

When we set out to search for online business, we receive so many messages telling us that not having a website is not a problem as the opportunity itself will give you a duplicate page of your own that you can promote.

This is great news if you want to market only one business on the internet. But look at all the people who are marketing successfully on the net. There isn't a single person who is actually marketing one single product or service. You would find them Partnering in this or that venture, selling three or four e-books, being affiliates of numerous opportunities…etc.

Now let us say that you have opted to work with one single online business affiliate program that offers you a web page that you can promote. How will you promote it?

Let us look at the things you will not be able to do:

1- Exchange Links: Since you do not own the site, therefore, you cannot make any changes on it; accordingly you will not be able to add links to your site. If you cannot put links on your site then you cannot exchange links.

2- Forums: One of the Forums that I am involved in, and believe me it is one of the best forums around, recently announced that you can add to your signature either a product or a website that you yourself own and nothing duplicate or you do not own.

3- Adding your link to directories: I guess I will be safe to say that at least 90% of directories do not accept links with an extension. Meaning, your duplicate site would be something like that http://www.website.com/affliate . The directories would only accept http://www.website.com. Although I must say that some companies are overcoming this issue by adding your affiliate username at the beginning rather than as an extension. It would look like this http://username.website.com . In this case your chances to be accepted are better, still not very good though. As directory owners usually do not accept duplicate sites when they review it for approval.

What you will be able to do is the following:

1- Writing Articles: In your author resource box you will be able to put a link to an affiliate page.

2- Traffic Exchange sites: These also accept affiliates

3- Paid advertising whether online or offline.

You will realize from the above that out of the five free options listed above you will only be able to do two of them. While if you have your own website you will be able to build a full marketing effort without having to pay for any kind of advertising.

Remember this is with the limitation of having only one stream of income coming in. If you decided to get involved in more than one business then you will have to duplicate your work for each affiliate program when you are dealing with paid advertising.

The advantages of having your own website are numerous, but we will list a few here:

1- The flexibility of having all your online business opportunities in one place.

2- The flexibility of changing your content for search engine optimization and enhancing visitors' experience.

3- The flexibility of automating your link exchange activity.

4- The Flexibility of automating your content management so as to have always new content on your website.

5- Of course we should not forget that all the things that we listed above that you cannot do with an online business affiliate duplicate page, now you can do them with your own home based business website.

6- Adding a newsletter subscription which will build you a list that no home business/online marketer can do without.

Does this mean that each person who wants to venture into online business must go into the trouble of building a website, designing it, and setting it up? Not really, there are opportunities out there which have the option of building your own website as part of the package. Yet you must make sure that you own the domain name.

Ecommerce Website Design’s 6 Common Mistakes

E-Commerce websites present small businesses with an ideal cost effective method to expand their business and cut operating costs. Recent trends indicate that changes in consumer behaviour patterns have led to a wide spread increase in the number of E-commerce websites for small business. Ecommerce is a highly competitive field and small businesses need to utilise professional ecommerce websites in order to stay ahead of their competitors. This article discusses the common web design mistakes made by Ecommerce websites and how small businesses can avoid them.

Keywords:

Online marketing, Search engine optimisation, Pay per click, website marketing, Web design company

Article Body:

Small business Ecommerce is highly competitive field and small businesses need to develop a professional E-Commerce website in order o gain competitive advantage over others.

1. Poor or outdated design

Many E-commerce websites of small businesses reflect a poor outdated website design. It is important for your website to reflect a modern clean cut look and feel. If your E-commerce website design is not professional and the website looks like it was designed in the nineties then it is important to consider re-designing your e-Commerce website. A professional design for your E-commerce website is crucial and the website design task is best left to experts.

2. Not having detailed information on products

Many E-Commerce websites make a common mistake of not presenting detailed information on their product range. A common problem with ecommerce websites, especially small business E-commerce websites , is the lack of detailed information on products being sold on the website. Even if an Ecommerce website has a large product list it is important nevertheless to have an independent product detail page for each and every product. Avoid only one line descriptions for your products. Information on products can easily be found on manufacturer’s website and in most cases they are happy for you to use it on your website.

3. Don’t hide contact details.

Another common mistake with many ecommerce websites is the lack of visibility of the company’s contact details i.e. telephone number and address on the website. Customers often look for this information as it helps build trust knowing that someone will be there to answer questions should a problem arise with the purchase or the product.

It is a often a good idea to include telephone and address on all pages either ion the header or footer. An easily accessible email inquiry form or request call back forms on the website also help build customer confidence.

4. The benefits of buying from your company not clearly evident to the customer.

Another common mistake businesses make is failing to convey clearly via the website the advantages or benefits of purchasing form them. Customers usually research competitors before making a decision.

5. Not having an ongoing search engine optimisation strategy.

Many ecommerce businesses make the mistake of thinking that if their website is there it will automatically attract new customers. No matter how professionally designed your website is or if you website has been created with search engine optimisation in mind; appearing on the first page of Google is not something that will be achieved on its own.

Thousands of businesses compete for first page ranking for any given keyword however only 10 can appear o the first page. In order receive targeted traffic to your website and generate increasing leads and sales you will need to have an ongoing search engine strategy and commission an ongoing search optimisation campaign. Although it is not something that will be achieved overnight, the benefits far outweigh the costs involved.

Please visit http://www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog for the full article and for more articles on web design, e-commerce and search engine optimisation.

Facelift Your Website

An up-to-date website will generate custom. But failing to keep it current will leave your customers unimpressed.

Keywords:

Small Business Startup, Small Business Ideas, Small Business Specialists

Article Body:

How many times have you refreshed the graphics or content of your website? Twice? Once? Not at all?

Many businesses are still hosting first-generation sites that went up at the turn of the millennium. Likewise, the majority of these sites are passé by today's "make-it-useful" standards. Sometimes embarrassingly so.

Internet-savvy businesses will refresh the content on their websites regularly. Think about the impression a site that's a year out of date will have on visitors.

It takes a little dated information for visitors to conclude they've hit a dead end . Plus, when a big-deal client clicks on your "urgent" invitation to attend an upcoming seminar, only to find that the event came and went a year ago he will feel annoyed and foolish. And you'll be toast.

So consider this a noisy wakeup call. It's the 21st century. Is your website still looking like it's 1999?

Site Specific Suggestions

Business sites obviously run a gamut. But for the purposes of site facelifts, differences boil down to how frequently you must make changes. Consulting services may update sites only quarterly or even annually. Ecommerce sites or research companies may require updates by the hour.

Whatever your needs, you can now find appropriate and affordable off-the-shelf software and third-party service providers to do the job. You can, for instance, put a fresh "skin" on your old site without disrupting any functionality.

Here are 11 ideas culled from web marketers and developers that can modernise your site without excessive costs.

1. Reduce the Number of Site Pages

Focus on redesigning only the core 10 to 15 pages, suggests Matt Greer, chief executive at Zeeo Interactive, a Web design services company. You can then archive any remaining popular or highly trafficked pages into Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word documents that are suitable for download.

2. Make the Site a Marketing Tool

If you're not yet capturing data basics, such as which sites and search engines visitors are clicking from or which pages get most visitors, get started now.

Use pre-packaged software or a web services provider to capture detailed information about site visitors. "The first question to ask is: 'When visitors come to your site, what do you want them to do?' " says Erin Duckhorn, spokesperson for Crucial Technology, an online memory upgrade provider. Once you have answers, you can define the tracking metrics and develop the content, navigation and structure that will quickly satisfy your targeted visitors.

3. Set up an E-mail Program

Create an incentive for visitors to register or give you their email addresses.. Once you have addresses, send out useful emailings. But make sure who have explicit permission to do so - and don't cause more harm than good by bombarding them.

4. Create an Online Reward for Prized Customers

Treat your best customers with perks or discounts. "You can give them their own area of the site without any special technology," says Wally Bock, a web consultant. You can also, of course, email special offers.

5. Speed Loading Time

Fancy graphics and animations are obstacles in the path of getting to information. Make sure your visitors can easily find what they're after.

6. Give Visitors Greater, Self-directed Control

In the past two years, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has reworked fairmonthotels.com [link] to expand online booking capabilities. Now, guests who make online room reservations can book dinner or spa services at the same time. The site has also added a "Fairmont Planner" that matches individual resort properties to guest profiles or needs, as well as a "virtual concierge" that offers more details about services.

7. Invest in a Content Management System

Stop relying on static HTML. Instead, invest in a reliable CMS (Content Management System) which lets you update your own website content without getting a developer involved. If you update content a lot, this will pay for itself quickly.

8. Ensure Visibility on Search Engines

The old home page of BreastCancer.org [link], a non-profit informational group based in Pennsylvania was dominated by a giant image of the organisation's logo, an illustrated character called Polly, which prevented search engines from finding the site. "The makeover moved a smaller Polly to the upper right corner of the home page and used text and text links to guide the not particularly Web-savvy users of this site toward the essential information they came looking for," says Ilise Benun.

9. Align the Site to the Organisation

You mighty've reinvented your business a half-dozen times over the past few years. How appropriate is your site now? What about secondary channels or pages? "Many businesses grow their sites in piecemeal fashion," notes Kevin McLaughlin at Public/i, a public relations firm. "As new sections are added over time, the same messages or positioning is not always reflected in the copy throughout the company's entire website." Make sure your site's messaging is always in tune with offline marketing.

11. Add Testimonials or Success Stories

"Very few sites do this and there's no question that they add major credibility for buyers," says Philippa Gamse, a web strategy consultant. Ask long-time customers for quotes or permission to post their case histories and their satisfaction with your services.

Any of these ideas will help update your online presence. But the real advice is simply not to get lazy. Pay attention to your website whenever you shift direction or significantly grow the business. All marketing and messaging must be seamless — consistent, uniform, multimedia and multi-channel.

Does Your Website Lack Luster? Get Advice To Make It Shine!

Here are some simple tips and tricks to turn your website into a profit making machine.

Keywords:

web design website webpage marketing seo sem ppc advertising promotion internet search engine

Article Body:

Does your website not live up to its fullest potential? Does it not deliver the leads or sales that you originally hoped for? Does it give an inaccurate representation of poor professionalism? Is it such a pain to update that you have almost given up on it?

As a web design and internet marketing firm we come across complaints like these every day, and with good reason. Gone are the days when having a successful web presence simply meant throwing up a simple page with your name, address, and phone number. The internet is becoming more competitive every day and it is important to triumph over your competitors in the online realm of cut throat marketing. Here are a few key tips to get you headed in the right direction to have a profitable website:

Would you buy a pair of shoes in a run-down, dirt floor, straw hut?
Although this is an extreme example hopefully you got the idea. If your website does not convey that your company is professional, respected, trusting, and better than your competition then most likely your website visitors will not want to purchase your products/services or give you their contact information. Yes, this does cost some time and money, but it is well worth the investment. Too many websites give the impression that the real business behind the website is smaller and inadequate compared to reality. How many employees do you think MWI has? 1? 20? 50? If you thought of a higher number then our website has done its job. Get your website up to date and professional. You can do this yourself, have internal employees work on it, or higher a web design firm to take the load off your shoulders; just make sure you make a goal to get it finished.

Make your website a marketing machine!
Having a website that markets your website 24/7 is one of the great benefits of the internet. People are searching for products and services at all times on the internet. Setup your website so it is constantly seeking out new potential clients for you. There are many ways to start online marketing campaigns. You can invest in SEO (search engine optimization, services); this is the process of getting your website to come up in natural search result pages of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You can start a SEM (search engine marketing) campaign, sometimes called PPC (pay-per-click). SEM is when you pay search engines like Google or Yahoo to display advertisements in search results in designated “sponsor” areas. With SEM you pay-per-click; i.e. every website visitor you receive from the service you pay the search engine, usually ranging from $.50-$2.50 per visitor. You can start a company blog, write about current hot topics in your industry. You could try website banner advertising; displaying banner ads on other websites. For some having a newsletter is an effective marketing tool. There are many other options out there for marketing your website on the internet, you can find a more comprehensive list on our website.

Don’t let your current website visitors run away!
Your website probably already gets some traffic from different sources. They could come from search engine optimization, links from other sites, offline advertising methods, or many other sources. However in the end it does not matter where they come from or how many website visitors you have every day, if they all leave what is the point? Is it better to have a website that has 30,000 visitors a day with 10 buying a product or 100 visitors a day with 50 who buy your product? Website conversion is a key element to a successful and profitable website. You need to start by analyzing where website visitors are going on your website, what they are doing, what page they are leaving from, and why they are leaving. Installing web analytical software can jumpstart you in the right direction to improve your ROI for your website. There are many free web analytical programs you can install on your website; if you want to know a few resources let us know. After you have analyzed the activities of your website visitors then start making some changes by providing the information they are looking for, making it easy to find what they are looking for, and having an option to take an action (buy product, give you their contact information, etc.) on every page of your website.

We hope this information has helped you realize your goals and the actions you need to take to make your website shine! If you need any suggestions, advice, or guidance on how to make your website turn into your best and most profitable employee we are here to help. We offer free analysis and advice if you simply let us know what your goals are.

Converting Your Website Leads to Sales

Learn the proven way to gather, organize, and convert your website leads into paying customers.

Keywords:

crm, customer relationship management, crm system, crm software, email marketing, contact manager

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Your website exists either to sell products or generate leads that can be later converted into paying customers. In the former case, unless you sell inexpensive commoditized widgets, it takes several interactions with a prospective customer before you can close the sale. Therefore, a top priority of almost every online business is to gather, organize, and convert website leads to sales.

1. Gather leads

Most of website visitors who are interested in your products or services aren't ready to buy just yet, but they sure have some questions and would like additional information (if it's not too hard to obtain). Don't make them search for it -- put your contact information right in front of them. Every page of your website must have call for action and contact options that are impossible to miss. Some examples include:

- Ask a question via email
- Call your sales phone number
- Request an instant call-back
- Sign up for special offers
- Contact for a price quote
- Download product brochure
- Submit an inquiry form
- Chat live with a sales representative
- Subscribe for a newsletter

When gathering leads, stick to the KISS principle. Don't ask for more information than absolutely necessary. For example, if you only need to know your potential customer's state of residence, don't ask for a full mailing address. If you do all your sales via email, don't require a phone number, or at least make it optional.

Be sure to provide a clear, concise statement about how the information you collect will be used. Assure your prospects that their contact data will not be shared with other parties and they can stop receiving communications from you at any time.

2. Organize leads and prospects

Leads are useless unless they are properly organized. First, you must establish the systems and processes for recording all pertinent information for leads collected via different channels, such as website, incoming phone calls, trade shows and so on. Aside from the contact information, each prospective customer record should date and source, products and services of interest, subscription and contact preferences, and any other relevant data.

Your lead management system must also be able to record the history of all communications with a lead, such as incoming and outgoing emails, phone calls, voice mails, faxes, and items sent via postal mail. Each lead must be assigned to a sales representative, and categorized by the level of interest, size of opportunity, and sales pipeline status (more on that later). Sales reps should also be able to enter internal notes and comments about the prospect, and set reminders for the future follow ups.

Last, but not least, your lead system must be centralized. Every person involved in a sales process should have the ability to instantly access and update the information, without the need to upload, download, and synchronize the data. This is especially critical if members of your team are geographically dispersed or telecommuting.

3. Convert leads to prospects to customers

This is where the rubber hits the road. There is a number of distinct steps in any sales process. Below is a typical example of a sales process. You can easily adopt its stages and definitions to your situation:

Lead - a contact that has expressed an interest in your product or fits the target profile of a potential customer.

Prospect - a lead that continues to express interest in your product or service after a two-way information exchange.

Qualified prospect - a prospect that has participated in a discussion with a sales representative and confirmed their need.

Confirmed prospect - a qualified prospect who has the info they need to make a decision and budget to go with it.

Committed prospect - a qualified prospect who has reviewed your price quote or proposal and has indicated that she is ready to move forward with you – but haven't yet.

Customer - ka-ching!

You can use your sales pipeline status report to not only organize and monitor the effectiveness of your overall sales process and individual sales representatives, but to forecast sales as well. To estimate the dollar value of your entire prospect base, multiple the average probability of closing the sale at every stage of the pipeline by the number of prospects currently assigned to that stage.

Establishing and managing your lead conversion process is all but impossible without proper customer relationship management (CRM) tools. You will need a system that captures lead information from your website and other channels, and integrates it with email, contact manager, calendar, and sales force automation software.

The companies that have established the systems and processes for converting leads to sales are already reaping the rewards.

Drive Massive Targeted Traffic to your website

Learn the seven steps you need to no for driving massive traffic to your website.

Keywords:

Article advertising,targeted traffic,website,affiliate marketing,articles,free articles,advertising,marketing,private label

Article Body:

A internet marketer may have all the things needed for him to be able to be successful in a online business. He may have the drive, and perseverance to be able to no how the system works. He may also have all the tools necessary in maintaining the business, including a really unique and interesting website which could earn him a ton if only the people could see it. But, all these is useless if he does not know how to get targeted traffic to his site. His business would fall into oblivion together with all the sales, fortune and dreams that he might have realized if he only knew how to drive traffic to his website.

The scale of the internet as well as the size of affiliate marketing world has given birth to the tuff competition between affiliate marketers, each of them has his own great product to offer. With all the websites piling on top of each other, how would one be able to get noticed? The seven best ways to drive massive-targeted traffic to your own website would help those who are bent on sticking it out with this business wherever it is bound to take them.

To start driving traffic to one’s site you must be relying on search engines and what they can do for the affiliate marketer concerned. Because they are popular for driving free targeted traffic, they should not be ignored by all means. Having top search engine rankings is vital in building popularity links, and the use of the right keywords is important in attaining this goal. Once a website is on top of the list, it is easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it for himself.

The second step in driving traffic to one’s website is by contacting other sites for a possible link exchange. Locating websites that are related to one’s own website is the primary task. Once there, he should be able to establish communication by personalizing everything as much as possible. It is then possible to make reciprocal link exchanges between webmasters whichever way the affiliate marketer prefers.

The third step is through writing your own articles. This is an effective way in promoting a website, because good content that is liked by readers will lead them to visit the writer’s very own website over and over again in some cases.

The fourth step is through joint venture. This is one of the most effective ways of promoting a product or a service. Having a partner through ad swap or link exchange is great for both parties as it allows them to reach a wide customer range in a short amount of time.

The fifth step is joining affiliate programs. Having affiliates to do the work means allowing them to bring tons of traffic to a website. Huge sales would be realized as a result, and both the affiliate and the website owner will benefit from this.

The sixth step is getting a list subscribers that one can refer to every so often, because they are those which would prove to be valuable assets for the marketer concerned. The use of autoresponders and personalized newsletters is one way of keeping track of them all, and holding on to them by letting them know about new products is an essential task.

The seventh step is by knowing your market very well. It is very important for traffic to be targeted to those who have a interest in the topic of your website. This way, a good customer base is going to be created. Once a potential customer shows an interest in your website by paying it a visit, you must not waste time in trying to show him that his effort is worth it.

Massive Traffic generating strategies are important in trying to make one’s affiliate marketing career inch forward. It is always smart to plan your moves in any business that you might undertake. This is very much so in affiliate marketing. If one knows how to get traffic to see what he has to offer, then you are on your road to success.

Article advertising is one of the best free was to drive traffic to your, but if you dont like righting you a look at this site, were you can download private label articles, that me you can do what ever you would like to them. Even claim your the author if you would like

You can download these all for free at

http://www.freearticalepro.com

Grab Your Own Cool Little Website!

Famous Computer Geek Proves It To Be True:

You Really Can Make Money With eBay, Adsense, and Clickbank

All From One Very Cool Little Website

Keywords:

Internet Busimess

Article Body:

From: Business Plan

Everybody would love to make lots of money quickly, working from home, and only doing a few hours of work per week. I've spent the past two years trying to find a great way of doing this. Only over the course of the past few months have I found any "get rich quick" programs worth buying. I've been trying to make money online for a long time. I had a few small websites, but they never made much more than a few hundred per month. It was easy money and didn't require much work on my part, but I knew there were people out there doing better than I was and I knew I could do as well as them.

Now, I've seen a lot of "get rich quick" programs. Most of these people make claims about earning $2000/day with Google or something similarly insane. Almost all of these people are complete liars. Even if they were making $2000/day with Google AdSense, it'd be because they had high- traffic websites with a lot of quality content. I'd know, because in one whole month, I never even made half of what they promised I'd make daily with their programs. Maybe you've already been scammed by one of these fraudsters. Anyway, I finally got sick of what was being offered.

I decided I'd look through the all of the "get rich quick" programs I could find and see if there were any that were actually legitimate. I found that there were owners selling their programs for well over $100, but the information in them could be found almost anywhere online for free. Additionally, they all contained out-of-date information, had no e-mail support, no money back guarantees, and broken links in the downloads section.

In conclusion, almost all of the programs I found were completely useless. The owners knew it, but they couldn't care less about their customers since they didn't offer refund policies! Amazingly, while looking through all of the programs, I actually did find a few legitimate programs. They were run by ordinary people like you and me, and they had found some great methods of making money from their home by doing very little work.

I spent some time working with those programs, and my income is now ten times what it used to be. These programs provided a large amount of great information on how to make extra money on your computer doing very little work. Numerous customers had provided great feedback and reviews for their products. Many of them have started to make money just days after buying!

Their programs have excellent prices, and the authors have a group of paid staff who are dedicating to helping you or providing assistance if you need any. I must say I was amazed! If you do decide to purchase any of the programs listed below, I recommend you join quickly. Most of the owners tell me they are getting an overwhelming number of sales and plan on raising prices in the near future, so order while prices are still low!

To Your Online Success,

Have you got the online X factor? Does your website have buzz?

I’m not talking about the bees here; I’m talking about excitement, magnetism and energy.

With zillions of websites out there all competing for attention, if your website doesn’t have buzz your visitors will drop in and, within seconds, drop out again and surf off elsewhere. Visitors only stop to read when the page really connects with them, makes them feel energised as well as informed.

Keywords:

marketing, promoting your business, online marketing, website seo,

Article Body:

What makes a site buzzworthy? It’s hard to quantify, but it’s safe to say that a combination of: -

eye catching design

dynamic page layout

clear navigation

audio clips

news boxes

free give-aways or bonuses

regularly updated pages

quotes and recommendations

as well as great copy, all go together to create a site with the X factor. If your site has buzz, not only will your visitors stay around long enough to find out what you’re offering them, but they will tell others about you too, and this builds your traffic, so you get noticed and it puts you in a great position to get ahead, as well as bringing you an important return on your investment.

Websites that have the greatest marketing successes are buzzworthy, they have that almost indefinable X factor. How do you get the X factor?

Well, buzzworthiness is a bit intangible, but you recognise it sure enough when you see it. A website with the buzz stands out, it makes you feel that the content is written with you in mind and most important of all; it makes you stay and browse the site, not just the first page!

If you website content is not oriented towards your site visitor then they will leave, and fast check your page bounce rates if you are not convinced.

You need to focus your page content not only on the product or service you are offering but also promote the benefits of what you offer.

Here are some tips for a website with buzz:

And remember to choose an eye catching design, mediocre isn’t buzzworthy

Make the copy (the words on the page) exciting as well as interesting

Be newsworthy, be doing or offering something different.

Be seen as notable, influential and knowledgeable.

Offer something useful and free.

Look outstanding

Be dynamic

Just be exceptional

Remember to be yourself, your ‘voice’ needs to shine out of your website giving it your own special personality.

Remember to speak to your visitor not at them. They don’t want to be sold something on the first page, they want information. Tell them about how your service or product benefits them, what you can offer them, and how much you can help them achieve their goals.

If you focus on what your site visitor wants then they will stay to find out more, and you may just have found a new customer.

If you focus on ‘selling’ yourself or your products without showing that they are of value to your website visitor, then you will lose your visitors interest and a potential client.

Four Tips For Choosing A Website Marketing Company

If you have decided to look for a marketing company for your website, you will need to know a few things on how to go about choosing one. I hope that you will not just wildly look around and decide to go with the first one you find. It isn’t the best approach for you or your website. Here are some suggestions on find a good marketing firm that might help you market your site successfully in the end.

First, you must decide how much you want to spend on the site. Be realisti...

Keywords:

traffic,internet marketing,website marketing company,ecommerce,ebusiness,internet business

Article Body:

If you have decided to look for a marketing company for your website, you will need to know a few things on how to go about choosing one. I hope that you will not just wildly look around and decide to go with the first one you find. It isn’t the best approach for you or your website. Here are some suggestions on find a good marketing firm that might help you market your site successfully in the end.

First, you must decide how much you want to spend on the site. Be realistic in your approach. Know that you can always go back, and spend a little more for upgrades and maintenance. Overloading yourself financially would not be wise. An online business involves more than just online cost. Other necessities include printer cartridges, paper, mailing envelopes, stamps etc. The sooner you realize this, the better off emotionally and financially you will be.

The characteristics of a good marketing firm are as varied and unique as your site and needs. Here are a few factors that you will need to look at when spending your hard-earned money and time.

Experience - You will want to pick a firm that has extensive knowledge in the area of service that you need. For example, if you want a designer for your pool table site, do not go pick one that only has experience in perfumes. It is like a sub specialty in medicine – go with the one that knows your particular area. Do not be fooled by any marketing company that lets you think or implies that a search company is a search company. There is not any one formula for all websites. It is just not so. Specialized experience matters a lot.

Testimonials - Take this one serious. People have gotten numb to the value of a good testimony. Thousands of testimonies are on the Internet endorsing everything from cooking oil to airplane parts, so it is understandable that some testimonies are lost because of the numbers. The important part is if you request it, can you speak with someone or email him or her about his or her experience with the company? In addition, can you view several websites that the company has done and marketed? Look for a pattern in success and the design aspect of the site. This can include how popular the site is including the cohesiveness of success.

Integrity and Personality - Any reputable marketing web firm will not endorse Black Hat tricks such as fake doorways, portals or any other host of magic tricks to make you instantly happy. In fact, if any firm, without seeing your site, says they can get your website into the top two pages of certain search engines, do not believe it. It does not happen overnight. Tweaking and refining a website is a detailed process. They need to be willing to work with you and use the latest marketing techniques on the market to get you there. Putting just a few Meta tags in your site and telling you that is all it needs is not good business service. There is so much more to marketing. You may in danger of falling for a scam. A good personality and communication skills is a necessary skill in marketing and it should shine through with you – their customer.

Price - This category could also fall under integrity. Finding a company that will let you know up front, especially if you have extensive SEO, search engine optimization work, what it will cost in a quote to redesign or design a site for you is important. Ask for a quote, but only after you have worked together to find exactly what you need. If their price seems a little over the top, you can always go to another company. Remember though; do not judge to harshly at first. Check around and talk with others their approximate price for work they have had done. That is the importance of having a base of testimonies to rely on.

When choosing a marketing company to work with, consider other options such as how long it will take them to schedule you in. Larger design firms have more people, so consider your needs. Understand that they just cannot drop a project and work on yours. This is also true for the smaller firms on the market. Other considerations are what kind of services do they offer? Do they have exactly what you need? Do they package their work at a set price? In the end, you will be the one to make the final decision and how you carefully you choose a marketing firm will affect your website and profits – so choose wisely.

Free Tools For Your Website

It does not have to be expensive to get started with Internet marketing. There are so many free tools available, including HTML editors, graphics programs, and competition analysis.

Keywords:

web tools, free web tools, website building, blog building

Article Body:

It does not have to be expensive to get started with Internet marketing. There are so many free tools available, including HTML editors, graphics programs, and competition analysis.

Free Blogging Program

Blogs have become very popular, and the most popular blogging platform is Wordpress. Wordpress is a powerful blogging program that is also a content management system (CMS).

A content management system manages the content on your site. Why is this important? It makes it simple for anyone to set up a site, add content to it, and not worry about it any further. The program manages the content for you, setting it up in archives, categories, and so forth.

There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of free plugins available to make Wordpress incredibly powerful and easy to use. One of the best places to find free Wordpress plugins is at wp-plugins.net.

There are also thousands of free Wordpress templates available. Many of them can be found at the Wordpress.org site under Themes. There are themes that are 2 columns, 3 columns, that accept widgets (which make it very easy to modify the sidebars), and themes of every color and design.

Free HTML Editors

The two most popular free HTML editors are NVUdev.com and Notetab Lite (available at Notetab.com). NVU is comparable to Dreamweaver. It might not be as powerful as Dreamweaver, but provides enough power for most of us who just want to create some basic Web sites.

Whether you use NVU, Dreamweaver, or Frontpage, having Notetab Lite on your computer is highly recommended. Many people use it for editing existing HTML files. It is quick and easy, and it is freeware.

Free Graphics Program

Probably the most powerful free graphics program is GIMP. With GIMP you can edit photos and other graphics. Most people will find that GIMP has all the tools they need.

GIMP supports the most popular file formats: GIF, TIFF, PNG, PSD, and JPEG. It works with Windows XP and Vista, Mac, Linus, and Sun. You can check it out at GIMP.org.

Tutorials for HTML, Wordpress, NVU, and GIMP

All of these programs have tutorials available. There is also a Dummies book for Wordpress if you find it easier to gather information in book format.

Some tutorials can be found at the sites listed above, or you can do a search for "nvu tutorial," "gimp tutorial," or "wordpress tutorial." A popular HTML tutorial can be found at BoogieJack.com. One of the great things about the Web is all of the free tutorials available.

Get Started Today

With these powerful free tools available there is no reason not to get started online today creating Web sites. If you are completely new, try setting up a Wordpress blog first. It is easy, it is free, and it is a great way to get started.

The only expense you should have is getting a hosting account and getting a domain name. Both are fairly simple and inexpensive to do. Domain names usually can be had for around $10 and hosting can be bought at places like Go Daddy or Host Gator for about $15 per month or cheaper.

Great Hotel Marketing Starts with Hotel Website Design

In this day and age, the most critical component of hotel marketing is great hotel website design.

Keywords:

hotel marketing, internet, website design, search engine optimization, hotel website design, hotel web site design

Article Body:

You may have the most wonderful hotel in the world, with gorgeous landscaping, comfortable rooms, and impeccable service, but if guests don't know about it, your occupancy rates will be a continual disappointment. In this day and age, the most critical component of hotel marketing is great hotel website design.

Why Hotel Website Design?

The numbers say it all. During 2007, almost a third of all hotel revenues will be generated by online channels. Moreover, over half of your target audience's decision-making is influenced by the Internet. Over a third of hotel guests choose their hotel based on online research, but book through another channel. The remainder researched their choices through an Internet portal, but then tried to book directly with the travel provider.

Without great hotel web site design, it's as if you printed 1,000 beautiful, four-color, ten-page brochures that stunningly captured the unique nature of your hotel at ten dollars apiece, and then locked them away in a cupboard. How effective would they be? The "look and feel" is vitally important in motivating visitors to explore your hotel product, and in guiding them to buy, but without the right technology, site structure, and navigation methods, you will only have marginal online revenues.

Hotel Search Engine Optimization

Even if you have a wonderful hotel web site design, if no one can find your website when they are searching online for that "luxury San Diego hotel," that "romantic B&B outside Paris," or that "adventure scuba holiday in the Maldives," it's as though you didn't have a website at all.

The way that potential guests will find your hotel web site is through search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is both an art and a science - and shouldn't be left to amateurs. Search engine optimization techniques will enable your hotel website to be returned high in the rankings of search engine results - a critical element of effective online hotel marketing.

Factors to Consider

When choosing a marketing company for your hotel website design, make sure that they understand and meet these goals:

* Generating qualified, quality visitor traffic

* Motivating visitors to delve deeper into your hotel website

* Converting visitors into online hotel revenues

Too often, hotel websites are developed in reverse, placing the emphasis on design rather than on generating website traffic. The key is to balance traffic generation effectiveness, the site's "look and feel," and conversion techniques to produce a hotel web site that looks great, gets plenty of traffic that converts into bookings.

Find a Hotel Website Design Company

Today, Internet design and marketing companies have specializations. In order to get the best return on investment, it's best to choose a website design company that specializes in hotel website design. Make sure that their approach adheres to the following guidelines - otherwise, keep shopping. The company should:

* Identify your visitors' expectations and intentions

* Work with you to clarify your own objectives

* Develop a hotel website revenue conversion strategy

* Determine site components that satisfy both design and search engine optimization goals

* Map our "click paths" that will lead to conversion

Your hotel website design and search engine optimization are the two keys to generating the kind of traffic that will keep your occupancy rates in the stratosphere!

Free Advertising for Your Website With Traffic Exchanges

Introduction to traffic exchanges. How to use them to get free advertising for a website, especially in business startup and build a downline.

Keywords:

Free advertising, advertise free, traffic exchanges, autosurf, surf sites, surfing, surf credits, downline, promote website, make money online, business startup, promote business, ebook,

Article Body:

Your website needs lots of visitors (traffic) if you are going to make money from it. If you do not have a large advertising budget, an effective way to advertise your site for free is to use traffic exchanges, sometimes known as surf sites. These can bring a steady stream of visitors to your website, for no outlay - very important for a business startup if you want to make money online from home.

There are two main types of traffic exchanges - manual exchanges and autosurf. A manual exchange requires you click a link after viewing every page, but you can log in to an auto exchange and leave you computer running. It is best to checking every few minutes that all is well, to ensure you get your credits.

When you join a traffic exchange (usually free) you view other members' web pages in return for your own web page being displayed to other members in rotation. You log in to the exchange and surf, and you are credited for viewing other members' web pages. You allocate these surfing credits to your web pages so they will be displayed to other members.

There are some important elements in surfing for traffic, which may be new to you.

-- Paid/Pro Memberships - most traffic exchanges offer free membership with the optional paid upgrades. If you upgrade, there are extra benefits such as an allocation of credits per month and a higher credit ratio for pages surfed. You can also buy extra credits. You can decide whether a paid membership will help you after you have tried out the traffic exchange for free first - I have usually found that free membership gives enough credits.

-- Credit Surfing - all traffic exchanges allow you to earn credits in return for viewing other members' websites. Also look out for bonus credits: many exchanges will give you bonus credits for signing up, for surfing a certain number of pages, or they pop up as you surf, to see if you are paying attention.

-- Minimum Time Limit - you need to leave a site onscreen for a minimum length of time before you earn a credit. This is normally between 10 and 30 seconds.

-- Anti Cheat Mechanisms - to ensure that a real person is viewing your web site most traffic exchanges employ anti-cheating mechanisms. This usually means that instead of clicking a "Next Site" button you have to click on a specific icon such as a number, letter or picture from a selection, before you move on to the next site. If you fail this test repeatedly, your account will be terminated automatically, so pay attention!

-- Referrals - this is the fastest way to build up your credits. Most traffic exchanges provide you with referral pages and banners. You can use these to recruit yourself a downline. When someone signs up from your promotional web page or banner they are placed in your downline. This can earn you an immediate bonus plus a percentage of your downline credits, for example you get one credit for every 10 sites they surf.

There are hundreds of different traffic exchange websites. You can sign up for an account instantly, submit your website's URL and start surfing for credits. Some sites allow you to advertise up to five web pages. I usually include my homepage, plus pages promoting ebooks and free courses.

But the big question is - which traffic exchanges will give you results? Will you be promoting your website in the right places?

Traffic Hoopla produces regular reports to show the most productive and successful traffic exchanges to use. This report is updated weekly with the top 50 traffic exchanges and the top 10 new traffic exchanges. You can find out from this report who delivers the highest unique percentage of visitors and who will deliver quality traffic to your website. This will help you to decide, then you can sign up at the best traffic exchanges to get the biggest return for your efforts.

In the beginning you may want to set aside time to surf for credits - in fact some traffic exchanges require you to surf a certain number of sites to activate your account. Most people find they can complete their surfing in less than an hour a day

In the longer term the best way to make traffic exchanges work for your benefit is to build your own downline. Then the credits flow in as others do the clicking for you. You can recruit members by using the referral web pages of each of the traffic exchanges that you have signed up with or you can sign up with Traffic Hoopla and advertise the 10 best traffic exchanges in one go. This is what I did, and more than 50 people signed up under me in the first week. I now have a comfortable credit balance without needing to surf frequently, and l use my credits to promote my online businesses

Eight easy steps to managing your website development

Managing your website development need not cause you sleepless nights providing you learn the secrets of successful project management. Perform the best practices in project management and give your project the best chance of success.

Keywords:

web site development, project management, web development

Article Body:

Define objectives

Objectives guide everyone on the project to your final goals. Are your objectives to sell your product online, to provide customer support, to promote investor relations? Carefully decide and clearly document your objectives.

Decide the critical success factors – the things at the end of the project which tell you if you’ve been successful. Make them measurable so you know if you’ve achieved them. For example, the website development should result in an increase in online sales of 25% by year end.

Stakeholder analysis

A stakeholder is someone with an interest in your project’s success (or failure). Decide who they are and whether they support your project. Perform stakeholder analysis by classifying them (high or low) according to how motivated they are in helping (or blocking) your project and how influential (high or low) they are.

Highly influential and supportive people are your allies. Gain their support whenever you can. Aim to reduce the influence of people who are both highly influential and against your project as these people could act to damage your project.

During your stakeholder analysis, draw up strategies for dealing with each group of stakeholders.

Define deliverables

Deliverables are tangible things produced during the project. Talk with key stakeholders to help define deliverables. Will your website design include web page layouts and sitemap for use by the programming team? What is the content for each page? Write all this down.

Key stakeholders must review and agree the deliverables accurately reflect what they expect to be delivered.

Project planning

Define how you will arrive at your objectives. This involves planning how many people, resources and budget are required. If delivering this in house, decide what activities are required to produce each deliverable.

For example, you might decide a web designer will develop page layouts and navigation diagrams. You might decide the marketing team will supply all product details and photographs. You might decide the finance manager will set up merchant and payment gateway accounts to enable e-commerce transactions via your website. If outsourcing work, specify exactly what the sub-contractor should deliver.

Estimate the time and effort required for each activity and decide realistic schedules and budget. Ensure key stakeholders review and agree the plan and budget.

Communication planning

Hold a kick off meeting with the team and explain the plan. Ensure everyone knows exactly what the schedule is, and what is expected of them.

For example, the web designer needs to know that he is to produce page layouts and navigation diagrams based upon the marketing manager’s requirements. He needs to know his expected start and end times.

Share your project communication plan with the team. This should include details of report templates, frequency of reporting and meetings, and details of how conflicts between teams and their members will be resolved.

Project tracking

Constant monitoring of variations between actual and planned cost, schedule and scope is required. Report variations to key stakeholders and take corrective actions if variations occur. To get a project back on track you will need to juggle cost, scope and schedule.

Suppose your programmer hits technical problems which threaten to delay the project. You might recover time by re-organising or shortening remaining tasks. If that’s not possible, you might consider increasing the budget to employ an additional programmer, or consider reducing the scope in other areas.

Be aware that any adjustments you make to the plan might affect the quality of deliverables. If you need to increase the budget, seek approval from the project sponsor.

Change management

Once started, all projects change. Decide a simple change strategy with key stakeholders. This could be a committee which decides to accept or reject changes which comprises of you and one or more key stakeholders.

Assess the impact of each change on scope, cost and schedule. Decide to accept or reject the change. Be aware that the more changes you accept the less chance you have of completing the project on time and within budget unless you reduce scope in other areas.

Suppose the marketing manager wants to add a popup window to display full size photographs of products. Assess the impact of this change. You might need to remove some remaining tasks to include this change and stay within budget. Or, it might be impossible to include the change without increasing the budget or schedule.

Don’t blindly accept changes without assessing the impact or your project will overrun.

Risk management

Risks are events which can adversely affect the success of the project. Identify risks to a project early. Decide if each risk is likely or unlikely to occur. Decide if its impact on the project is high or low.

Risks that are likely to occur and have high impact are the severest risks. High impact but unlikely risks, or low impact but likely risks pose a medium threat. Unlikely and low impact risks pose the least threat.

Create a mitigation plan of the actions necessary to reduce the impact if the risk occurs. Start with the severest risks first, then deal with the medium risks. Regularly review risks. Add new ones if they occur.

Suppose the marketing manager cannot decide what he wants from the website. Without knowing what the marketing manager wants, the team cannot deliver a website to meet his expectations. You assess this risk as highly likely to occur and having high impact. Your mitigation plan might be that the web designer develops page layouts to be reviewed by the manager early in the project.

Summary

Performing best practices in project management will give your website development project the best chance of success.