Web Business Articles

Search Engine Optimization

Chris — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:18:30 -0600

The goal of this article is to bring together the best Search Engine Optimization techniques available, and also to consolidate some of the SEO resources available on this site.

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

Currently this article is a placeholder for the upcoming Search Engine Optimization (SEO) article.

Starting an Online Business Directory - A Great Way to Get Links

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:21:55 -0500

Lots of businesses are looking for a good online business directory

If you've ever tried to promote a business online, finding a good, targeted business directory is a challenge. But the demand for good business directories is high, creating an imballance between supply and demand that you can take advantage of.

Most businesses with web sites seek online business directories to get some good targeted traffic back to their web site. The more specific a business directory is, the more potential there is for targetted traffic.

So, now that you know that there's a good niche to fill by creating a targetted business directory, let's look at what kind of incentive there might be for you.

Getting backlinks to your site is critical for search engine optimization

The most important method of increasing your rank in search engines is getting links back to your site from other web sites. The greater the rank, the greater your traffic, and the greater the traffic the more opportunities you have to generate income from the traffic.

Here's the idea: Make your business directory free, but require a backlink

Most site owners are more than happy to provide a link to a site in return for targeted, quality traffic. It's free and easy to add to their site. You benefit by getting some moderate traffic from those links through interested parties, and you also get a boost in search engine ranking for not just your business directory, but also the web site that includes the business directory.

Starting an online business directory can be pretty dang easy

Even if you don't have much in the way of programming skills, you can start an online business directory with some simple HTML. A database solution would be ideal, but if you don't have the technical knowledge to create the database design for the business directory yourself, or the monetary resources to hire out for it, you can start with some simple, static web pages. Just use Google to let your visitors search the business direcory, and you've pretty much got what you need to get started.

A business directory can eventually become an income-producer

As your business directory becomes more popular and gets more visitors, you can eventually start charging for positions in the directory. For instance, you can charge a sliding scale for the top 3 positions on the pages of the business directory, and have the rest be free.

The Advantages of Internet Advertising vs. Traditional Advertising

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:21:02 -0500

Internet advertising is huge

With the growth of information on the internet has growth the amount of time people spend on it, which has in turn generated a new market for internet advertising. Some of the wealthiest companies in the world have made sure that they get a piece of the internet marketing pie, and for a good reason.

Internet advertising is targeted

As a company looking for advertising opportunities to a specific market, internet advertising offers some targeting methods that insure that those who see your ads are the ones most likely to buy. Programs like Google's AdWords and AdSense match up advertisers with content that their target market peruses regularly. Forget the costly machine-gun strategy of newspaper advertisements, internet advertising is targeted!

Internet adverting enables good conversion tracking

It's impossible to get a good idea of how many people see advertising through traditional means. Tracking the reach of newspaper and television advertisments is difficult. However, internet advertising allows the advertiser to track the number of impressions an ad gets (how many people see it), and how many visits their business web site gets from particular ads, making it easy to see what kind of conversion rates internet advertisements are getting.

Internet advertising has a lower entry-level fees

If you have a limited budget, internet advertising can be much more in reach than traditional methods. A small yellow-page ad can cost several hundred dollars. However, you can bid for advertisements on Google and Overture on a performance basis. That means that you only get charged when visitors click on the advertisement, and bidding starts at a nickle or dime a pop.

Internet advertising can be much cheper

Because of the targeted nature of internet advertising and the ability to track the effectiveness of ads, conversion rates from internet advertising is typically much better than traditional mediums.

Internet advertising has greater range

One more benefit is that, since the internet spans the globe, pockets of your target market scattered around the world can all be targetted at once, rather than trying to find different publications, radio stations and television stations that cater to a particular geographical area.

On the whole, internet advertising can be a great way to get the word out there about your service or product in a cost-effective, efficient way.

Need Help Grokking the Myspace Layout Structure? No Problem!

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:20:05 -0500

The Myspace profile layout is made of tables

The first thing to understand about the Myspace layout structure is that is is made of tables. Tables are a way to use HTML to display content in a columns and rows. I personally think the layout of the Myspace profile page could use some improvement, but in this case you have to work with what you've got.

So, first thing's first: the Myspace profile page layout uses tables. These tables form blocks around different parts of the content. For instance, there's a big table around all of the content that holds the whole Myspace profile layout. Then there are smaller tables inside of that table; one around the photo / headline / bio, one around the "Contacting Bob" section, and so on.

How many tables are there in the Myspace layout structure?

There is one area of the Myspace layout code that involves six nested tables, but you can manipulate most of the layout display of the Myspace profile display in the second and third tables. The reason this information is important is that when you start to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to alter the display of the Myspace layout, you'll need to know which table to apply the styles to. Below is a quick little stylesheet that will help you experiment with the layout structure of the Myspace profile page. Just add this style in the "About Me" area of the profile editing page:

<style>

table {

border:0px;

}

table td {

border:0px;

}

table table {

border:0px;

}

table table td {

border:0px;

}

table table table {

border:0px;

}

table table table td {

border:0px;

}

table table table table {

border:0px;

}

table table table table td {

border:0px;

}

table table table table table {

border:0px;

}

table table table table table td {

border:0px;

}

table table table table table table {

border:0px;

}

table table table table table table td {

border:0px;

}

</style>

Add borders to the styles above to show thier position in the Myspace layout

To get a better idea of how adding styles to each table will affect the layout display of the Myspace profile page, add the following code at the bottom of each style (right below the "border:0px;"):

border:1px solid red;

Adding that style will show you where the element is, so you know that if you add additional styles to it, what areas of the page it will affect. Note that as you add styles to tables in the Myspace layout that include other tables that those included tables will also use those styles.

After a little experiementation, you should get a good feel for how to edit your Myspace profile page to make it more attractive.

Adding Stickability to your Business Web Site

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:11:45 -0500

The longer visitors are on your business web site, the greater the opportunity for branding

Some visitors who come to your business web site will know what they're looking for, but many others need guidance. Some of them are considering the competition, and if they are shopping online, your business web site has to out-shine the others to get the business.

It's important to try to keep your visitors on your site until they become a conversion, or to at least build a relationship with the customer through the web site until they feel comfortable enough with your business to come back later and complete the sale.

Below are some ways to use your business web site to increase potential branding, and branding means more opportunity for conversion.

Add some free information to your business web site

The more information you have on your business web site, the longer a visitor can browse the site without running into the same pages. If there's more to read, it's more likely that visitors will stick around to read it.

An added benefit of having more information on your business web site is that you will get more targeted traffic through search engines to the content pages of your site, where visitors can be introduced to your brand.

The free information on your business web site can come in the form of articles, reviews, statistics, and tutorials. You can also use this information to increase your range of customer services through your business web site.

Include interactivity on your business web site

People like business web sites that they can interact with. If you have a product or service that can be customized for a customer, consider creating an interactive media experience where the customer can generate price quotes based on certain information, or can see visually how a change of color or size will affect a product.

Keep your business web site live

One of the best ways to keep a business web site attractive and "stickable" is to make sure you have some current information. It has to look like your business web site is a live entity, with new information being added all the time.

These are just a few ways to add stikability to your web site. As long as you keep in mind that your goal is to keep customers on your web site until they become a business conversion, you can come up with some other creative ways to achieve

Adding a Myspace Background With CSS

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:11:01 -0500

Getting customized with a Myspace background

Customizing a Myspace background is incredibly easy. First, though, it's important to consider what kind of Myspace background you'd like: a large image or a repeating background.

Which is better, a large image background or a repeating background for a Myspace background?

For most people, a Myspace profile is a very casual way to learn about people, their backgrounds, their likes and dislikes. For some, however, it pays to have the their Myspace profile page be clean and professional. One of the main effects of a single large background for a Myspace layout is in increased download time. A large image is a large file that could add several seconds of download time for broadband users, and lots of seconds for dial-up users.

Using a small, repeating graphic, however for your Myspace background can give a nice effect to the page without increasing the download time of the page much at all.

The code for adding a single image to your Mysql background is easy. Just add the following code to the "About me" entry in your Myspace profile, just filling in the URL with the URL of the background image you want to use:

<style>

body {

background-image:url(http://www.somesite.com/images/image.jpg);

background-repeat:no-repeat;

}

</style>

To use a repeating image for your Myspace background, the code is even simpler:

<style>

body {

background-image:url(http://www.somesite.com/images/image.jpg);

}

</style>

Next question: A fixed Myspace background or not?

A normal Myspace page will have it's background scroll with the rest of the page. However, you can add some extra code in the CSS style to "fix" it so that it doesn't scroll at all. Here's an example of how to use a fixed Myspace background. Again, just put it in the "About me" section of your profile:

<style>

body {

background-image:url(http://www.somesite.com/images/image.jpg);

background-attachment:fixed;

}

</style>

The effect of using a fixed background for your Myspace profile is neat, but sometimes it makes it more difficult to read the rest of the page. It's a little more difficult to find your place on a web page if the background dosn't move with the rest of the text.

If you're using a small repeating background image for your Myspace background, it might not be as noticable, but with a large image of a rocking sports car, for instance, it might be best to leave the scrolling normal.

Beginning CSS Tutorial for Myspace Layouts

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:10:16 -0500

Designing a Myspace layout requires CSS

Myspace is one of the most popular mediums for people wanting to get the word out about themselves, and becauase a Myspace page is so personal, most folks want a little personalization of their Myspace layout. Myspace has some major constraints how much you can alter their layout, but there's one way you can leverage the tools you're given for some serious customization: CSS!

CSS can change the Myspace layout design, but not the structure

Before we get into the nitty gritty of getting some CSS in your Myspace layout, it's important to know the limits of CSS. Your Myspace profile page uses a table layout structure. A table is a series of columns and rows that form a grid. In the Myspace profile page, the layout consists of tables within tables. In some places on your Myspace profile page, there are 6 tables nested within each other. That's a table in a table in a table in a table times two.

As a Myspace memeber, there's nothing you can do to change this layout. However, the Myspace gurus gave you the opportunity to use CSS to change how the layout looks.

A quick CSS primer

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. A "style" consists of a statement like "make this text red" or "make this background blue". It's called "cascading" because you can use multiple styles at once. If these styles conflict with one another, then the last one that was added wins. So if I have a style that says "make it green" and another right after that says "make it purple", it will be purple because the styles "cascaded" down to the last style. Here's a simple example of using a style in the Myspace layout:

<style>

.nametext {

font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size:20px;

color:#999900;

}

</style>

This sets up a "class" called "nametext" that you can use throughout your Myspace layout. This particluar class says "use the font Arial, make the font 20 pixels tall and make it a yellowish color". This particular style is already used in the Myspace layout for your name at the top of the page.

How to add the CSS to your Myspace layout

To add the CSS to your Myspace layout, just add the code you see above to your "About Me" entry in your profile. That will change the color and size of your name at the top of your Myspace profile. Neat, huh? There's way more you can do with CSS, but this tutorial will give you a working example that you can build on.

Add Some Pizzazz to Your Myspace Layout by Formatting Text with CSS

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:09:13 -0500

Formatting the text in your Myspace layout is easy with CSS

For the most part, the Myspace layout structure allows you some decent freedom for making your text look exactly the way you want it to by using CSS. First, let's take a look at a few of the classes that the Myspace layout employs:

.nametext - The Myspace css class used for the name at the top of the page

.whitetext12 - The css class used for "Contacting Bob", "Bob's Interests" and "Bob's Details"

.orangetext15 - The Myspace css class used for "Bob's Blurbs", "About me:", "Who I'd like to meet:", "Bob's Friend Space" and "Bob's Friends Comments".

.btext - The Myspace css class used "Bob has" 55 "friends" and "Bob's Latest Blog Entry"

.redbtext - The Myspace css class used in: Bob has "55" friends

.lightbluetext8 - The Myspace css class used in "Books:", "Status:", "Zodiac Sign:" and "Smoke / Drink:"

These CSS classes cover most of the text used in the Myspace profile layout. Now let's see what we can do with them.

Changing the Myspace layout background image for text

This is probably one of the coolest ways to change how text looks visually. You do it by adding a background image to the text. You can use a single, larger image, or a smaller repeating one. Here's a couple of examples of how to change the Myspace layout background image for some text:

<style>

.nametext {

background-image:url(http://www.impliedbydesign.com/images/text-background.gif);

}

That adds a background image for the .nametext style, which cooresponds to your name at the layout in your Myspace profile page.

Adding a repeating background to your Myspace textual layout

Repeating background images can be applied to different areas of your Myspace layout design. You can use them for neat stuff like adding a fading background to your Myspace layout background. To do it for your name at the top of the page, you can use the following code:

<style>

.nametext {

background-image:url(http://www.impliedbydesign.com/images/text-background.gif);

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

Pretty simple, huh? And that's just the beginning. Here's some other styles you can add to add some more spice to your Myspace layout text:

Adding some color to your Myspace layout text

Here's the css style for adding some color to your text:

<style>

.nametext {

color:green;

background-color:yellow;

}

Adding some extra formatting to your Myspace layout text

<style>

.nametext {

font-size:25px;

font-weight:normal;

text-decoration:underline;

border:1px solid silver;

}

Now that you know how to apply some styles to one class, you can use them on any other classes that were mentioned at the beginning of this css tutorial.

Keeping the Internet Business Dream Alive

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:07:54 -0500

The days of easy internet business opportunities are, unfortunately, over

If you're just about to jump on the internet business bandwagon, welcome aboard! You're in for quite a ride. Running an internet business can mean shifting to a lifestyle you've been dreaming about for quite a while. Or, this could be your first venture into the workplace. Either way, it's important to get one thing straight:

Starting an internet business won't be easy.

The world of internet business reached it's breaking point in the early nineties, when the .com bubble burst. A lot of people saw the potential of the internet, and saw the growing number of business oportunites that would open up as the internet become more popular.

Unfortunately, internet business commerce reached a saturation point before all of the new internet businesses could make enought money to stay afloat. A lot of businesses went bankrupt and a lot of dreams were shattered, but some managed to keep it up and match their business growth with the growth of internet commerce.

That's where you come in, the new internet business entrepreneur

If you're entering the internet business marketplace now, you're doing so in the slow comeback after the .com burst. Unless you're extremely creative and very lucky, you're not going to make a quick buck doing business on the internet. The marketplace is nearly saturated with internet businesses that survived the burst and have grown stronger as a result.

You're facing a long, uphill struggle to establish your business. Once you recognize that fact, then it's time to re-hash your dreams and start pounding the pavement.

It's hard, but more than possible

Getting your internet business off the ground is going to be the hard part. Finding customers, affordable advertising, promotional strategies, and establishing your brand is going to be a big challenge.

As long as you're willing to ride through the difficulties, you should be able to glean just as much success as you would with an offline business.

PPC Search Engine Results May One Day Rule as King

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:06:51 -0500

How long until all search engines are PPC?

The world's major search engines have gradually been introducing different forms of advertisements into their result pages over the last several years, and sometimes I wonder how long it will be before they become entirely PPC search engines.

The trend is there. PPC (Pay Per Click) is the most common way for search engines to monitize their services. PPC advertisements are commonly found on the side and very top of search engine result pages. The PPC search engine industry is huge, and is continually growing as more and more businesses start to advertise through PPC search engines.

Eventually the PPC space on search engines will be saturated

As more and more businesses advertise on PPC search engine space, the prices for advertisements will be continually driven up, making it a more and more profitable business. Search engines like Google have found other ways to weild the power of PPC through their AdSense program, where advertisements are placed on other web sites.

Even though the web is continually growing, and so therefore is the potential advertising space, but there's still one way that search engines can ride the PPC train to even greater profits: by cutting out natural search results alltogether and having only paid-for search results.

That seems pretty unlikely, do you really think all search engines will become soley PPC?

I don't think we're going to see the PPC search engine progression and a huge shift. Rather, over time the amount of space on search engine result pages that is dedicated to PPC will steadily increase. Soon we'll be seeing ads on the bottom of the result pages. Then interspersed throughout.

Perhaps at some point the search engines will integrate natural results and PPC results so seamlessly that we won't be able to see the difference between them. At this point, we won't know which links are ads and which are natural. As the demand for PPC space grows, more and more of these links will become paid for until at some point natural results disappear altogether.

Don't Get Stuck With the Wrong Ecommerce Hosting

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:06:07 -0500

Ecommerce hosting needs are unique

If you are launching a new ecommerce web site, your ecommerce hosting needs are going to be unique. In addition to a basic web hosting plan, you will need support for your ecommerce platform.

Ecommerce hosting - The basic needs

As far as ecommerce hosting goes, your basic needs will be similar to most other web sites. You need enough bandwidth to support the number of visitors you're expecting to get, and you need enough hard drive space to store your data. For large ecommerce sites, your hosting account may need more space than is typically provided.

Over time, as your database of order and user activity expands, you will likely need to expand the space allowed on your ecommerce hosting account, so knowing that you have the option to expand your allotment later is important.

Ecommerce hosting upport for your payment processor

Once you have decided on a payment gateway processor for your ecommerce web site, you need to make sure that your web host supports them. Many processors requires that your ecommerce hosting providor has certain programs, or API (Advanced Programming Interface) installed on their server in order for you to use their service.

What happens if my ecommerce hosting provider doesn't support my payment processor?

If your ecommerce hosting provider doesn't support your online payment gateway, there are two things you can do:

1. Contact customer support and ask them if they would be willing to install the necessary program. It may take some work to get their attention, but be persistant.

2. If option number 1 doesn't work out, then you will either need to change your online payment gateway or your ecommerce hosting provider. Either way, make sure that the new ecommerce hosting provider supports your current online payment gateway, or that the gateway you switch to is supported by your current hosting provider.

Don't get stuck, do your research

Some payment gateways are more widely supported by hosting providers, like Authorize.NET, and some hosting providers have wider support for the less popular payment gateways. To insure that you don't get stuck with a hosting provider that doesn't meet your needs, do a bit of research before hand to make sure that the combination you choose will be supported.

Is Email Marketing Spam?

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:05:06 -0500

Is email marketing Spam? - A good question to ask your marketing exec

With the growth of the internet, email marketing has become an increasingly popular medium for getting the word out there about your businesses. But, as more and more businesses turn to email marketing, email recipients are getting more and more fed up with the relentless attacks on their inboxes.

Unwanted email from your business, falling into the right hands, can be a marketing nightmare. PR channels throughout the internet are becoming tighter and more interwoven, and a little bad press on your email marketing campaign can mean serious retaliation from a group of people who abhore spam.

So what do you do? Well, no point in thowing out the baby with the bathwater. Email marketing is still a viable marketing technique, but it just needs to be approached with caution. Below are some tips on how to get the most from your email marketing campaign, and avoid bad press:

1.Ask before sending email marketing material

How do you know if someone is willing to recieve your marketing email? You ask, plain and simple. This limits the number of individuals you can send marketing email to, but it also insures that the ones you do send something to are warm to the idea.

The best way to ask is via a checkbox on a web site form. You can include it in your shopping cart checkout form, in your online newsletter sign-up form, or your "contact us" form.

2. Allow potential email marketing recipients to opt-in

People, on the whole, don't like their hand forced when it comes to making choices online. To avoid this, make sure to leave the "Send me marketing emails" checkbox unchecked in forms. This means that in order for a potential reciepient to recieve emails, they need to distinctly choose to check the box.

3. Allow recipients to unsubscribe

It's important with any kind of mailing list you maintain, that you give recipients the option of unsubscribing from the list. This usually comes as a link towards the bottom of a marketing email that says something like "click here to unsubscribe".

In conclusion

Email marketing can still be a very useful marketing medium, but in today's world it must be approached with some caution. As a principle, make sure your reciepients really want to get the email you send, and your campaigns will be more effective.

I didn't go to business school, and neither did Bill Gates

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:03:40 -0500

You Don't Need to Go to Business School to Start a Business

The opportunities in America for continuing education after high school, especially schools specializing in business, are much greater than they are in most of the rest of the world. Taking advantage of this availability in business schooling is a great idea, if it fits in the scheme of your life.

However, for many attending college isn't possible. If so, this article is meant to be encouraging. If you've never has business schooling, you can still start a business.

Life is the great business school

Arguably, you can learn more about business outside of school than you can in your classes. In class, you learn theory and you hear about other people's experience. You can also pick up some pretty good skills in accounting. However, on the whole, you will re-learn everything when you actually start a business.

Real life is rarely like what you think it's going to be like. Starting a business means developing a range of experience to help you deal with unique situations, the likes of which you might never come close to in a business school setting.

Having a business schools you to reality

Every business starts with a dream, or a the least an idea. As you start working on and at your business, you will start to see that how you thought the process of building your business would go is going very differently than you had planned. I've come to the conclusion that in some ways, shooling after high school can perpetuate and deapen the concepts of how a business actually works, and may cause greater difficulty once the business is started.

School is good, but a combination of business experience and school is better

It's typically not until a student's junior or senior year of college that the school actually requires real-life business practicums. In my opinion, practical business experience should be part of every year of college, and perhaps even the last couple of years of high school.

Is Business VOIP a Good Alternative to a Traditional Phone Line?

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:02:40 -0500

The sometimes prohibitive cost of a communications network can make business VOIP a viable, less expensive option for small business. In this short article, I will be going over some of the pros and cons of using VOIP for your business communications.

First thing's first, what is business VOIP?

VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. Basically, it means communicating verbally with others through an internet or intranet connection. Many people have used VOIP, for business or personal use, but have just haven't used the term, VOIP, to describe it.

Why would a small business consider VOIP?

For small business, VOIP can come in handy in terms of cost vs. benefit. For the same cost as a typical land line without any features, you can get a VOIP line for your business that has all of the benefits, including voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, and VOIP services often have very good pricing on add-ons like an extra fax line.

Some VOIP companies boast an even better voice quality than a phone line, which can be a nice added bonus for your business. Because the bandwidth for a broadband internet connection is greater than the relative bandwidth of a phone line, more data can pass through the pipes at one time, allowing for high-quality audio.

The cons of using a VOIP for business

One of the major downsides of VOIP usage for business is the lack of reliability. Phone lines tend to have less of a chance of failing than an internet connection. Also, if you use you internet connection for high-bandwidth purposes, you may suffer from some break-up in the connection. For business, VOIP is a great complement to a traditional line, but typically can't replace it.

Another reason business VOIP may not be a viable alternative to a land line is the fact that many phone companies require you to have a land line installed in order to have a broadband connection, as with DSL.

Some companies that do VOIP for business and the home

Vonage is a home and business VOIP comany that has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years. They offer some great services at a really good price, and while they don't service the entire US, they're getting closer. Even if you're out of range, you can still get a Vonage line, but you might not be able to get the right area code.

Skype is a free VOIP with some pretty cheap paid services. Ebay recently bought Skype, so you will probably see it's use start to grow even more in the next few years.

A Business Card to Be Remembered

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:01:23 -0500

"You don't have a business card?"

In the first few months after starting my business, I didn't have any business cards. I don't know how much business I lost as a result, but I do now that you won't catch me without a wallet full of business cards again until I'm retired. People at every function I went to in order to promote my business asked me about business cards, and for every one that asked, there were at least two I should have given my card to anywa.

A business card is your ticket to a future

I don't mean that a business card is going to get you rich, but at the least a business card actas as your ticket to a future with potential clients. Even if they don't ask you for one, you still need to give it to them. In every area of business there are other business that do what yours does. If there wasn't, that means there's no market for what you do and you might be in for a struggle to get business. You will be competing with others for the same customers, and if that customer has someone else's phone number and not yours, you're not even competing, you've already resigned.

The trick is standing out from the crowd. The next best thing to laying on someone's desk until they agree to hire you is having your business card there instead. For professional reasons, you may want your business card to look like a typical corporate business card, but there are some other creative options that might tip the scales in your favor.

A diamond business card

One business card I recieved from another business owner was one with a small, real diamond taped to the back. Even though I wasn't really in the market for their goods, I kept that card around for a couple of months. The diamond wasn't worth much because it was so small, but hey, it was a real diamond!

A business card coin

This one was the same kind of concept. The business card information was embedded on a heavy golden coin, the kind you just like to have in your pocket because it's fun to flip. I kept this one for several months as well, even though I wasn't really a prospect.

A CD-rom business card

If you need to get across a lot of information in a small amount of space, nothing beats a mini-CD. It's the same size as a business card, and you can fit your portfolio, a video introduction to your business, whatever you need.

Going Ga-Ga for Search Engine Marketing

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:00:18 -0500

Search engine marketing, an expensive and popular endeavor

For the last five years or so, search engine marketing has become an increasingly popular promotional technique. As the popularity of the medium has increased, so have the costs of playing the game. Pay-per-click advertisements are being driven up in costs as the demand for online advertising space increases. Organic search engine marketing is a long-term, uncertain and often costly endeavor.

So here's the real question: is all the hype over search engine marketing is really worth your attention? Let's find out!

Paid vs. Organic Search Engine Marketing

Paid Search Engine Marketing

There are two basic methods of search engine marketing. The first is paid search engine marketing. Using this strategy, you pay for advertising on search engine result pages (commonly known as SERPs). With many companies dealing in paid search engine marketing, the advertisments are also shown on other web pages where the content of the page seems to match the topic of your ad.

Organic Search Engine Marketing

Organic search engine marketing consists of building up the reputation of your web site with quality content and incoming links in an effort to rise to the top of search engine result pages. In this marketplace, you are competing with hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of web pages all focusing on the same topic as your site.

Getting a significant enough of a reputation to beat out the competition takes a lot of time and effort. Search engines are also slow to reward sites for building reputation quickly, so the time you put in now might not pay off for months down the road.

So, is search engine marketing worth my time and money?

The fact that the search engine marketing marketplace is thriving means that a lot of individuals are throwing in their lot with at least with the paid method. On popular topics, companies will pay 2-20 dollars per click on their advertisments. Since the market determines the cost, these advertisers must be getting a bang for their buck, otherwise they would drop out.

While competing with advertisers for popular topics can be expensive, there are still some significant opportunities with less popular topics that can offer even a greater return on investment.

And what about organic search engine marketing

While it's difficult to track how much web site owners are making off of organic search engine marketing, many people make their living off of the business leads they get from organic search engine results.

In conclusion

Search engine marketing, in either its organic or paid form, is still a growing marketplace, and until it reaches its saturation point, there are still significant opportunities to be had.

Domain name registration is easier than throwing rocks!

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:59:22 -0500

Domain name registration is easier than throwing rocks

While there are few connections between stone tossing and domain name registration, one parallel is the shear ease of doing either one.

For an individual who is just starting to design their own web sites, the learning curve of understanding all of the technology, the lingo, and the concepts behind the web can be a big challenge. When it comes to the registration of your first domain name, most people don't know where to look outside of their favorite web browser's address bar.

Domain name registration starts with a search

A common method of checking for the availability of a domain name for registration is to type in the desired domain name in your web browser. However, there are a couple of potential problems with this method:

The domain name could have no hosting account associated with it

Even if it doesn't look like there is a web site behind a domain name, it still might not be available for registration. Sometimes people purchase domain names as investments, in the hope of selling them later at a profit, or starting a web site at a later date. In these cases, they may not have a hosting account associated with it, an the domain name will look like it's available for registration.

The domain name could be "parked"

A "parked" domain name is one that has already gone through the registration process, but is being hosted at a domain name registrar's web site.

How to search for a domain name

My favorite place to search for a domain name is over at www.networksolutions.com. You can easily check to see if multiple domain names are available for registration with a single input. They also store your previous domain name searches so that registration is easier later on. One more plus is that you can search for multiple domain name extensions like .net, .us, and .com before you decide on one for registration.

Next, it's time for real domain name registration

While I like Network Solutions for searching for a domain name, I like the prices of domain name registration at www.godaddy.com a whole lot better. They offer some nice domain name management tools as well.

To complete the domain name registration, you just add a domain name to your shopping cart and checkout, just as you would to purchase a season of Seinfeld. And that's it, badda bing, badda boom!

Make Some Money With Reseller Web Hosting

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:58:03 -0500

A little about reseller web hosting

Many web hosting providers offer particular web hosting plans call "reseller web hosting". These plans are offered to individuals who want to try to do just that, re-sell their company's web hosting services.

What do web hosting providers offer reseller hosting?

A reseller relationship between the web host and the re-seller works like this:

the re-seller saves a lot of time and energy by not having to run their own web hosting servers. They can draw on the technical expertise of those operating the hosting servers in keeping the servers up and running on the web, installing and upgrading software, and often times taking responsibility for making regular backups of data.

The web hosting provider benefits from this relationship by outsourcing their advertising, billing and customer support to the reseller. These items can be particularly costly, and distributing the costs among a network of re-sellers can be tremendously advantageous.

How is a reseller account different from normal web hosting accounts?

Reseller web hosting accounts typically come with some extra tools that typical hosting accounts don't have. With these tools, you can manage customer hosting accounts and allocate resources between your different customer accounts.

How does billing work for a reseller hosting account?

Typically, the web hosting provider sends a single bill to their re-seller. The re-seller then bills their customers and uses their own system to keep track of invoicing. Web hosting providers generally let their re-sellers determine how much they will charge for their accounts.

Let's say you get a reseller account with 10 gigabytes of bandwidth and 1 gigabyte of storage space for $30. You can then split this into 5 different accounts, each with 2 gigabytes of bandwidth and 200 megs of space. To break even, you would need to charge at least $6 for each customer account. A markup of 100% is typical for reselling, so you would then charge $12 per account, making an additional $6 per month, per customer, or $30 total a month.

But $30 doesn't seem like a lot of money!

True. If you're running an entire business re-selling web hosting, then you're going to need a significant number of customers to get a decent monthly income. Web hosting providers improve their margins by automating as much of the billing and customer support as they can. In order to become a competitive, affordable force in the marketplace, you will need to take a similar approach.

Consider also using reseller hosting as an add-on for your other business can be a great upsell, and you wouldn't have to focus too much energy on advertising and promotion.

The Best Web Hosting Experience I've Had

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:57:15 -0500

My web hosting provider retired!

I'm a web designer and developer, and I've had experience with several different web hosting companies. The first web hosting provider I worked with decided to retire and left their clients high and dry, with no way to access their files. I was lucky in that I only had my own web site to worry about and didn't have to answer to unhappy clients suffering the same fate.

I was driven to start doing some research to try to find another web hosting provider, one that was building a long-term investment in thier business.

Research begins with web hosting forums

There are a lot of resources on the web for folks trying to find web hosting. I perused several different mediums including web hosting award sites and just using Google to find the most popular hosts. Finally, though, I found much more honest reviews and answers to important questions on a couple of popular web hosting forums, one of which was www.webhostingtalk.com.

While the amount of useful information on web hosting forums is great, keep in mind that often unhappy people will contribute sometimes unfair reviews based on a web hosting provider not meeting their expectations. Sometimes these reactions are valid, but sometimes they're extreme, and you have to use your own judgement to wade through the reviews you read.

Which web hosting provider did I end up with?

Good question, I'm glad I asked! After a lot of research and several encounters with poor customer service, I signed up with www.rochen.com. I have now been with them for over 2 years and they've been great!

So, what about Rochen makes them so good?

First, I've worked with a lot of web hosting providers since many of my clients have their own hosts they like to work with. Of all of them, Rochen has supplied the best customer service of them all. They have staff throughout the world, so they're able to offer 24/7 support. They offer web hosting support through their forums and a trouble ticket system.

Secondly, the staff at Rochen keeps their customers well-informed when their are issues with their servers. Any web hosting provider runs into snags every once in a while, and needs to update some software or re-boot the system. During these times, they are clear about what they are doing to solve the problem. And while I've never spoken to any of the staff personally, they seem to have good attitudes about their business, and that's a good indicator that they're in it for the long run.

Shared or Dedicated Web Hosting, That's the Question

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:56:28 -0500

First, what's shared web hosting?

Shared web hosting is the most common form of hosting out there because it comes fairly cheap. The "shared" part means that your web site and online files share hard drive space with other customers on the same computer. Shared web hosting accounts usually come with a limited amount of space and a certain amount of bandwidth.

What about dedicated web hosting?

Dedicated web hosting means that an entire computer, commonly called a "server" in the hosting world, is dedicated to hosting your files on the web. You get all the hard drive space, you get to have whatever software you want on it, and you pretty much get to make the calls.

Dedicated web hosting servers are much more expensive than shared hosting because you are leasing an entire computer for a certain duration of time. You pay for the cost to upgrade the server, you pay for the software on it, and you pay for the cost of keeping the web hosting server in a secure facility with a rocking bandwidth connection.

A third option: using your own computer for web hosting

Your computer is hooked up to the internet, so why not do your own web hosting on your computer? You already have the hardware infrastructure in place, so why not?

There are a couple of good reasons to leave web hosting to the experts:

Your house or appartment is not a secure facility

Most web hosting providers have their servers in a co-located secure facility. This means that their servers are in a building that has a guard at the door, that has a backup generator, that requires a keycard or code to enter, and that has emergency systems in place in case of a disaster.

It's tough to configure a web hosting server

If you've never tried configuring a web server, you're probably a happier person. Getting the right programs in place, with the right configuration, for the right uses, can be a huge headache.

Dedicated, shared or home-grown hosting?

For most web sites, a basic shared web hosting account will be the easiest and least expensive route to take. A dedicated host should be considered when 1) your bandwidth and hard drive space needs exceed what is offered by a shared hosting account, or 2) you need to be able to configure your web server in a way not available with shared web hosting.

Running your own web server from home or your place should only be considered if you need special freedom with your server, or you have a lot of extra time on your hands.

You Don't Need to Pay an Arm and a Leg for Web Hosting

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:55:46 -0500

You Don't Need to Pay an Arm and a Leg for Web Hosting

If you're in the web hosting market for the first time, the options available to you can be daunting. You probably know that getting web hosting is a necessary part of getting a web site online, but if haven't shopped around and are vague on some of the technical aspects of web hosting, you have a little bit of a learning curve ahead of you.

First, web hosting is hard drive space and bandwidth

To keep it simple, web hosting is simply hosting your data (in this case, web site data) on someone else's computer that has a perminant connection to the internet. The owners of the computer monitor the amount of data you transfer through their internet connection, and that's called bandwidth.

Second, size does matter (with web hosting)

You get what you pay for with web hosting, but sometimes you end up paying for stuff you just don't need. Most web sites start out needing very low bandwidth since a new site only gets visitors after promoting it somehow. The upshot is that most of the time, it's best to start out with a smal web hosting plan, and then work your way up from there.

A rough plan for basic web hosting

To start out with, a gigabyte of bandwidth and 100 megs of space are typically 5-10 times what you actually need, but they tend to be the among the least expensive hosting plans available. Prices for these kinds of plans range from $7 - $20 a month. This is typically a low monthly bill, but price shopping can help you get the most bang for your buck.

Comparison Shopping

Contrary to the general principle of going for the chepest service provider, I would say that first on your comparison shopping checklist should be finding a web hosting provider with good customer reviews. It's relatively simple to set up a web hosting business. The challenge is providing good tools to your customers and good customer support.

Since the cost of web hosting is fairly low, trying to snip of a couple of bucks from your overhead every month by chosing a hosting company that doesn't put their customers first can turn into a huge problem later on.

Don't forget to look at uptime

One more thing, as you're shopping around for a web host: make sure they mention something about their uptime. Uptime is the percentage of time thier servers are up in any given month.

Your First Web Page Tutorial

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:52:44 -0500

A Quick Intro to HTML

Seeing as we're just starting to put some articles together for Web Design Factory, I thought maybe we should start from the ground up. If you've never built a web page before, this article is for you. If you're a step beyond being a newbie, you'll be able to quickly identify if you've surpassed this level of design.

Before you start, take a look at our online tool Learn HTML By Example. You can even download the HTML tool and use it on your local machine, or upload it to your web site. Using this tool while going through the tutorial will increase your retention.

All right, let's get started!

Step 1 - Create a Document

This part is easy. Just do the following:

Open a simple text editor like Notepad (on Windows machines this is found in Start > All Programs > Accessories).
On the blank file screen, type in "Hello, World".
Then go to File > Save As to save a new file. In the Save as Type box, select All Files. In the File Name box, type mytestsite.html.
Select a place to save the file and then click Save.

Viola! You have just created your first web page. To view it, just navigate to where you saved the file and double-click it to open it. It will open your new web page in your default browser. Didn't know it was that easy, did you?

If you do a little experimentation, you'll soon find out that no matter what you type into your HTML file, all the browser will show is the string of text you typed in. This can get old pretty fast. What about color? What about different fonts? What about FUN?

Formatting HTML

Step 2 - Formatting Your Document

In order for a browser to know how to display your web page, you have to tell it exactly what you want it to do. The simplist way to do this is by using Hypertext Markup Language, otherwise known as HTML.

Let's try something simple to begin with. Say you have a bunch of text, and you want to split it up into paragraphs. Your browser will ignore extra spaces and new lines in plain text, so you have to tell it what to do. Here's two ways to accomplish the same thing:

<p>This is one paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>

Or you can do this:

This is one paragraph
<br /><br />
This is another paragraph

Try copying this code into your new page, save it, then refresh the page on your browser. The two examples display slightly differently, but they accomplish the goal of separating text.

In the above examples, you can probably tell which part was HTML. That's right, it's the <p></p> and <br />. These elements are called tags. As you may have guessed, the <p> is short for paragraph, and the <br /> is short for break. HTML was designed with English speakers in mind, so it's fairly easy to remember which tags do what.

As you might have also noticed, the <p> tag has an ending tag, which is </p>. Most HTML has starting and ending tags, like <h1></h1> or <div></div>. There are also a few that don't, like <br />, <hr /> and <img> tags. For these, it's best to tell the browser that there is no ending tag by adding a backslash before the ending bracket. So for instance, instead of using <br>, use <br />.

More Formatting for Your Web Page

Now that you know how to split text up on your web page, let's make it even easier to read by using headings.

HTML has several heading sizes to choose from, all the way from <h1> to <h8> or so. Using headings to format your web page has the added benefit of telling the browser, and eventually search engines, that the particular text inside of the heading is more important than the other text.

Try adding the following code to your new web page:

<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<h5>Heading 5</h5>

As you can see, the font sizes for the headings get smaller as the numbers go up. This is because when you lay out your page, you will probably have an <h1> to describe the content of the entire page, and then you will split up the following content under smaller and smaller headings. I've rarely seen any headings past <h4> used.

Two other very useful tags are the <ol> and <ul> tags. These create ordered lists and unordered lists, respectively. In addition to telling the browser that you want to start and end a list, you also have to tell it to start and end list items, which are contained in <li></li> tags. Here's an example you can paste into your code

<ol>
<li>This is ordered list item one</li>
<li>This is ordered list item two</li>
<li>This is ordered list item three</li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>This is unordered list item one</li>
<li>This is unordered list item two</li>
<li>This is unordered list item three</li>
</ul>

A Complete Web Page in Code
Now you have a basic understanding about how a browser uses HTML to determine how to display text, images, and other elements. Let's add in one more example here of how a complete web page should look. You can use this code to start your own web pages:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>This is the title of the page</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is the heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph in the body.</p>
</body>
</html>

Some elements you see in this example that we haven't gone over before is the <!DOCTYPE> tag and the <meta> tag. We'll go over these in future tutorials, but for now, the basic purpose of the DOCTYPE is to give the browser more information about the web page code. Same with the <meta> tag you see there.
Now it's time to play around! Either download our free Learn HTML By Example tool or visit our online version.

Usability Tips for Ecommerce Web Design

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:22:46 -0500

Potential ecommerce customers will typically scan a number of web sites before deciding on one to buy from, so it is important that your web design be structured for usability.

A Definition of Usability in Ecommerce Web Design

Usability is a subjective rating of how easy a web site is to use, and in the case of ecommerce, how likely it is that a potential customer will be converted to a real one. A measurement of usability consists of several different factors, but boils down to how well a web site gives its visitors what they a really looking for.

Ecommerce Web Design Usability Tip 1: Avoid a Cluttered Layout

Web surfers won't take enough time to get used a web site unless they've decided that a web site is really where they want to be. So, your web design should make it clear to visitors what it is that they will find on your ecommerce web site. A design layout, cluttered with too many options, won't give the visitor a clear idea of what they can or should do on your site.

It could be that you have exactly what they are looking for on your web site, but if your layout design looks like a pizza with "the works", potential customers might get stuck in the cheese and never find their way to the product they want.

Ecommerce Web Design Usability Tip 2: Make it Easy For Customers to Find Products Different Ways

Add navigation to ecommerce category listings

This is especially true if you have a large number of products in your ecommerce site. Make make room in your web design layout for navigation in product categories that will allow a potential customer to browse products by price, by name and by the date added. Some customers will be looking for something inexpensive while others will want to browse your newest products. You want to give customers the shortest route from their entry point to what they're looking for, and this will help narrow down that distance.

Add search capability

If customers have something specific in mind, nothing beats being able to search for a product name or description. Keep the search simple and straightforward, so that customers don't inadvertently get lost in overly-helpful web design.

Ecommerce Web Design Usability Tip 3: Make the Checkout Process Very Simple

The one place you will lose ecommerce customers with bad web design is in the checkout process. Anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of customers abandon their shopping carts at the last moment due to usability problems. You can avoid this by keeping the checkout process simple, using only one or two pages and requesting the necessary information. Make sure to use clean web design layouts for the forms and the confirmation pages.

Conclusion

These are just a few things you can do with your web design to increase the usability of your ecommerce site. Keeping things as simple and as clear as possible is a good rule of thumb.

Ecommerce is More Than a Shopping Cart

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:21:50 -0500

Because of the complexity involved with developing an ecommerce web site, it is easy to get tied up with the technical intricacies of integrating or developing a shopping cart and put the customers's experience in second place.

The percentage of shopping carts that are abandoned on ecommerce web sites before a potential customers makes it to the home stretch range between 30 and 60%, depending on the research you read.

Why does this happen? Where does a customer lose trust, or decide that your product is not worthy of their finances? A shopping cart is created when an item is put into it, and by that time the customer knows that they want to buy something from your web site. So why does a shopper change their mind? This article covers a few of the most common mistakes people make with ecommerce usability.

The Shopping Cart Works - That Must Be Enough To Run My Ecommerce Site

Do you think an ecommerce shopping cart "works" when a customer can technically go through the checkout process and complete a purchase? You might be making a mistake here. Just because it is possible for a customer to go through a checkout process on a shopping cart, doesn't mean that they will. There are too many other elements that can get in the way of their shopping experience to believe that simply having a functional shopping cart is enough to run an ecommerce site.

The Little Lock Means A Lot - SSL and Shopping Carts in Ecommerce

As the public's awareness of the connection between identity theft and online shopping has grown, so has awareness of how to identify a secure shopping cart on an ecommerce web site.

Secure web sites use something called an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt information as it is passed back and forth from a web site to a customer's computer. Browsers will indicate if an SSL is being used on a web site by displaying a small lock on the bottom of the browser window. This lock means that it is very difficult (though not impossible) for computers relaying information between the customer and the ecommerce web site to siphon off meaningful data like credit card numbers supplied to the shopping cart.

An Easy Shopping Cart Checkout Process Means More Ecommerce

Too many shopping carts complicate the customers checkout process beyond what is absolutely necessary. Customers are using your ecommerce web site because it is more worthwhile for them to shop at your store rather than a competitor's, and one way you can stand out is to make your shopping cart as simple as possible.

Often, a shopping cart checkout process consists of several pages, each gathering a different bit of information such as a shipping address, a billing address, credit card information, a review of the order and finally confirmation of the order. This process can be confusing for some ecommerce shoppers and simply too cumbersome for others.

Try to Make the Shopping Cart Checkout Process a Single Page

That's right, make the checkout process a single page. Have the customer review the order, then below that ask them for their contact information. You will get more business from your ecommerce site and more customers happy with the shopping cart process.

What is a Content Management System?

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:20:23 -0500

A Content Management System Primer

"Content Management System" is a catchphrase that's still catching some serious wind out there on the web, but not everybody understands what it is or why someone would want one. This short article will help you wrap your mind around the concept of a content management system.

To Understand "Content Management System", You Should Understand Content

"Content", in terms of the internet, consists of information of some sort. This information can be visual, audible, or textual. News articles, photographs, movies, and radio shows are all forms of content.

Where Does the "Management System" Come In?

Content on the web can be "managed" by simply constructing web pages by hand or with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page editor and uploading it them to web sites. When a web page needs to be altered in some way, you just open up the web page file, add the changes, and upload the new file.

But, when you start trying to manage a lot of content that way, mistakes and inconsistencies between pages will start to creep in. Also, it takes a significant amount of open up your web page editor, find the file you're looking for, change it, save it and upload it. It may not seem like much effort when you're working with just a few pages, but imagine working with thousands of pages that way.

A Quick Definition of Content Management System

The Definition of a Content Management System

A content management system is a software tool used to manage content through an interface layer. In practical terms, this means that instead of going through the process above to manage web page content, instead you would visit your web site, click a link to the content you're looking for, edit the content via a simple form, and click another button to save the changes.

Following are some of the benefits of using a content management system:

Index creation is automated with a content management system

The meaning of an index here is a list of hyperlinks to pages with related content. For instance, you can have an index of news articles or blog entries. Such indexes are usually used to help visitors navigate or browse through a web site.

If you don't use a content management system, every time you add content, you also have to alter the index. If the index is created as a static page, then you also can't give visitors the option of searching the index or ordering it in different ways (like by date added or alphabetical order). With a content management system, an index can be created automatically, erasing the potential for mistakes and saving time.

You can use a content management system to populate templates

Sounds boring, but this is a really useful tool. Imagine you have 100 articles - a reasonable number - and each one is a separate web page file. You can use tools like "includes" to manage the layout of all the pages, but what if you need to make structural changes to the page. For instance, you need to add in a new meta tag to all of the articles for indexing purposes?

Without a content management system, you would have to open, edit and save every file, upload them, and hope you didn't make any mistakes. If you did use a content management system, you would only have to edit a single web page. Have over a 1000 articles? You'd still only have to alter that one page. Sweet, huh?

Conclusion

I discussed just a couple of good uses for content management systems in this article, but there are many, many more. I use them in nearly every web site I build, simply because they make content management much easier and cleaner. If you have more than a few of the same type of page on your web site (articles, news, jobs, etc.) then consider using a content management system in your site site.

Three Search Engine Optimization Tips for URL's the SEO Firms Won't Tell You

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:18:34 -0500

Quick Search Engine Optimization Primer

It's time to stop letting the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firms have the upper hand when it comes to secret knowledge about how search engines work! Even if you end up hiring an SEO firm to optimize your web site, you should have some knowledge about what they might suggest you do, and how to qualify the fees they charge.

The three SEO tips I offer below are straightforward, but they are also some of the most powerful techniques and insights into the way search engines work that you will find.

SEO URL Tip 1: Duplicate Content Kills

What is Duplicate Content in Terms of SEO?

Duplicate content, in terms of SEO, can mean a couple different things. For one, duplicate content can mean using the same textual content on multiple web pages. A common misconception about SEO is that the more pages you have the better, even if they contain the same content.

Duplicate content can also mean several different URL's for the same web page. This often happens on accident, but it can also be a purposeful technique to increase the number of web pages a search engine sees.

Simply put, this technique can cause you many serious problems down the road.

Duplicate Content Means Search Engines Only Index One Page

For one, search engines will consider duplicate content on the web a form of plagiarism, and so they will only display one page out of the duplicates to show on their SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages). This means that if you have 5 pages, only 1 will actually be added to a search engine's index. Since you don't know which one that will be, you put more power in the hands of the search engine than you really need to.

A Quick SEO Overview of PageRank

PageRank is the Google search engine's way of ranking web pages. Every web page gets a certain amount of PageRank for just existing. When a web page hyperlinks to another web page, they pass on some PageRank to the web page they link to. Therefore, the more inbound links (links coming to a web page from another web page), the higher the PageRank.

PageRank is used by Google as a major factor in determining where a web page lands on the SERP's, so getting and and conserving it is of utmost importance when it comes to SEO.

Why Duplicate Content is an SEO Nightmare in Terms of PageRank

The main reason duplicate content is a major SEO issue is due to problems with PageRank. If you have 5 web pages with the same content, each of these have an equal number of incoming links, and only one of them gets indexed, that means that the indexed web page only has 1/5 the amount of PageRank it could have if all of the inbound links were coming to it.

To put this another way, duplicate pages split up your PageRank, and since PageRank is going to pages that don't matter, it gets lost, never to be seen again.

One More Reason Duplicate Content Can Put a Stop to SEO

This one is the clincher: duplicate content is against most search engine's terms of service. This means that if Google finds out that you're using duplicate content they can penalize your site, rendering it virtually invisible on the SERP's.

Don't Ignore the Filename

SEO URL Tip 2: Getting Keywords in URL's is Critical

Getting keywords in your URL is one of the most overlooked techniques for SEO-ing a web site. Here's a quick overview of what you can do to work your URL into SEO shape!

What is a URL?

A URL (Universal Resource Locator) is the name of your web page which appears in a web browser's address bar. URL's are used by search engines as an identifier for your web page. They also store the URL in their index as one of the ways they determine the subject matter of a web site.

The first part of a URL consists of a domain name, like "www.impliedbydesign.com". The second part of the URL consists of the filename, or something like "/seo-optimization-article.html".

Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name for SEO

The first part of a URL is the domain name, which you can SEO by adding in some of the most important keywords regarding your web site. For instance, a web site selling blue widgets might choose a domain name like "www.blue-widgets.com" or "www.budget-blue-widgets.com". Even if you have to be creative because the domain name you wanted initially isn't available, you can still SEO the domain name by getting in the keywords.

You also might have noticed that I used a dash between the keywords. This gives the search engine an easy way to separate the keywords from one another, giving the domain more SEO power.

Use a Keyword Rich Filename for SEO

The second part of the URL - the filename - is fairly easy to get SEO-ed. Using the same method you used with the domain name, you can create a keyword rich filename. Just add in the keywords the web page is focused on, separate them with a dash, and you're good to go.

One important thing to note is that you can over-SEO a URL, either causing a search engine to put up a red flag in regards to your site, or diluting the power of your keywords. The trick is not to use too many words in the domain name or the file name. This will keep the importance of your keywords from diminishing since they won't have to share significance with other, less important keywords.

Query Strings in URLs are Bad News

SEO URL Tip 3: Query Strings are Bad News

For a long time, URL's with query strings were an SEO dead end, since search engines wouldn't index them at all. In recent years, search engines have started to index URL's with query strings, but at a price.

What is a Query String?

A query string is a string of characters at the end of a URL that pass important information to the URL. The query string starts with a question mark and uses an ampersand to separate values. For instance, the following example is a URL with a query string: http://www.impliedbydesign.com/articles.html?category=2&orderby=1.

What Makes a Query String Bad News for SEO?

Firstly, a query string makes a URL longer so when search engines index the page, the SEO-ed, keyword rich domain name and filename lose significance to the other characters added on by the query string.

Secondly, and more importantly, a query string indicates some other SEO problems with a web page. It indicates that the page is likely created "dynamically" or "on-the-fly", meaning that that page doesn't actually exist until someone visits the page with a web browser. These kinds of pages usually run off of a database and can have thousands of unique URL's with different content for a single web page.

The two problems with this is that 1) The query strings could inadvertently be creating duplicate content pages, diluting PageRank and 1) It is generally believed that search engines don't consider dynamic web pages as important as static web pages, simply because it is so easy to generate SEO spam dynamically.

Keeping the Query Strings Out / Conclusion

So How Do I Keep the Query String from Having Negative Effects on My SEO Efforts?

The best thing to do is to get rid of the string altogether, thus allowing your web site to use SEO URL's. This is easier said than done, but there are a couple of tricks you can use pass those variables in the query string to your pages in a more SEO manner.

First, try to use session variables where you can. Session variables are stored on the server, and keep track of a visitor's information. If you move most of the query string into session variables, they will be invisible in the URL's.

Secondly, you can use tools that cause a URL to look a certain way to a visitor, and another way to the server. The actual technology you use will be different depending on weather you're using a Windows or a Linux web server, but there is information across the web on how to implement it. Just look up "url rewrite IIS" for Windows servers or "url rewrite apache" for Linux servers.

Once you get the query string out of the picture, your URL's will be squeaky clean for SEO.

Conclusion

The three SEO tips for URL's we covered in this article will do wonders for your SEO efforts. Getting the query string out of the URL is a commonly-overlooked technique that you can use to give your web site an edge in the search engine optimization department.

Using all three of these in tandem will give you the added benefit of not having to implement the SEO techniques later after your web pages have been established. Doing so will inadvertently result in you starting all over in the search engine indexes.

If You're Not Getting Search Engine Traffic From Google, You Might Be Doing Something Wrong

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:16:49 -0500

How To Find the Sources of Your Web Traffic

There are three major search engines battling for 95% of search engine traffic out there: Google, Yahoo and MSN. Of these three, Google has the majority market share, with figures ranging from 50% all the way to 90% of all traffic received. This means that if you're receiving more traffic from MSN or Yahoo, that you might be using techniques on your site that make it difficult for Google to index your pages. Losing out on traffic from Google can translate to a loss in real sales and conversions.

In this article, I'm going to describe briefly how to monitor the traffic you are getting from search engine traffic - particularly Google, and what you can do to increase your chances of being indexed and indexed well.

How To Find Out How Much Search Engine Traffic is Coming From Google

There is software available - typically called "statistics packages", which grab information from your web logs and translate it into a readable, very usable format. Your web logs contain a lot of useful information like where people came from to get to your site, what pages they visited and for how long, what search engines they used to get there, and what search phrases they used.

The software reads this information and stores the key metrics in a database, so when you visit the statistics page, it will pull the aggregate information from the database and will display it on the page.

How to Improve Search Engine Traffic

Various statistics packages are usually included with a web hosting package.By using a statistics package for your web site (such as AWStats, which you can find at http://awstats.sourceforge.net/), you can determine just how much of your traffic is coming from which search engines. If you use AWStats, for instance, there is an area on the statistics page labeled "Links from an Internet Search Engine", which will list just how much traffic is coming from each search engine. It's very handy!

How To Improve Your Search Engine Traffic From Google

If you're not getting most of your search engine traffic from Google, then you might need to make some adjustments to your web pages in order to attract more of Google's attention. I've noticed from experience that Google works a little differently than MSN or Yahoo. For instance, Google seems to be more choosy about which sites it indexes. MSN and Yahoo are a little less scrupulous, so your web site might show up in their SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages) before Googlebot - Google's search engine spider - even visits your web site.

If Your Web Site Hasn't Been Indexed By Google

If your site isn't showing up at all in Google's search engine result pages, then the best thing you can do is find some inbound links to your web site. These links are considered an indicator to Google of your web site being worth indexing, so they will likely follow the link and land on your site.

If Your Web Site Has Been Indexed, But You Don't Get Much Search Engine Traffic From Google

You can check this by typing the following into Google's search form: "site:www.mydomain.com". This will show you what pages have been indexed by Google. If there's any, then Google has indexed at least a part of the site, meaning that you're on the map.

If not all of your pages show up as being indexed, then you need to make sure that you have an internal linking strategy in place. The only way Google can find pages on your web site is through hyperlinks. If there are no hyperlinks form one page to another within your site, then some of your pages will be hidden.

A good strategy here is to add several random links on each page to other pages in your site. This way, the search engine spiders will eventually find all the pages in your site. You can also add a web site map with hyperlinks to all of your pages on a single page. Add a link to the site map on every page and viola! Google's googlebot is only two links away from any page on your site to any other page on your site.

A Few SEO Tips From Experience

Okay, All My Pages Have Been Indexed, But Still no Search Engine Traffic From Google!

If you've gotten all your web pages indexed by Google, but aren't showing up in the SERP's, then it's time to do a little footwork and make sure your pages are search engine optimized. Here's a few simple things you can do to improve your chances with the Google search engine:

SEO Tip 1: Check Your Hyperlinks For Important Keywords

Search engines pay a lot of attention to the text in hyperlinks, especially Google. Make sure incoming links are using your target keywords in the text. Also make sure to include keywords in internal linking as well.

SEO Tip 2: Google Looks at Keywords in the Title, Headings and Paragraphs

Google actually suggests that you use keywords throughout your web pages in order to make it clear to search engines - and to visitors - what your page is about. Search engines pay attention the the "semantics" - the meaningful structure - of your web page in order to determine what the web page is about. They look in particular at the title, the headings and the content in paragraphs. Each of these elements should include the same keywords.

Be careful not to go overboard with the keywords, however, or your content could be considered spam.

SEO Tip 3: Reduce the Amount Of Code a Search Engine Would Have to Index

Search engine spiders have do go through the entire code on a web page to pull out the important parts. The more code there is, the more the search engine has to work, making it less likely that all of your content will be indexed. Make it easy on the search engine by using techniques such as external stylesheets and moving your javascript to external files.

Also try to put your important content towards the top of the page, so that if Google's search engine spider peters out partway though the indexing process, at least the important stuff has been indexed.

Conclusion

Google is particularly fickle when it comes to what web sites it sends it's search engine spiders to. The bad news is that if your web site is lacking in search engine friendliness, then your site might not show up in Google's SERP's. The good news is that by SEO-ing your web site for Google, you will also be improving your search engine indexability in MSN and Yahoo as well.

Five Reasons to Use a Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:14:51 -0500

Many of the most popular shopping carts have been around since before the era of search engine friendly-ness. Because of the age of the carts and their reliance on already-developed code, many of them have had difficulty shifting focus to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO shopping carts are especially important for ecommerce web sites because for many, the entire site consists of the shopping cart software. If search engines can't index the the site, it gets a huge penalty on search engine result pages.

Because of the incredible lack of search engine optimized shopping carts out there, I thought I would give shoppers in the market for a shopping cart some compelling reasons to look a little past the surface of a cart and see if the cart is actually that "friendly."

Reason 1: To Get More Traffic to Your Shopping Cart

Most people find ecommerce web sites through search engines. The more highly search engine optimized your shopping cart is, the more likely that it will show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). High rankings on search engines means that your site is in front of more eyes that are looking for what you sell. More eyes means more traffic to your shopping cart.

Traffic from search engines is particularly valuable because if a potential customer finds your site on a search engine, they have likely typed in keywords that match the subject matter of your ecommerce web site.

By using a SEO-ed shopping Cart, you can increase the search engine traffic to your shopping cart by incredible numbers.

Reason 2: Search Engine Optimization Means Quicker Indexing

When a search engine knows that it likes indexing your shopping cart, it will set up a schedule to come back and index and changes or new pages you have added to the web site. The easier you make it for the search engine spiders, the faster they will return, and the quicker they will do their work. Imagine adding a new product to your shopping cart and having it show up in the search engines the same day. It can happen!

Reason 3: Moving an SEO-ed Shopping Cart Later Means All New Pages

Each shopping cart using their own file naming scheme, meaning that the URL's of product pages will be different from one shopping cart to another. The search engines rely on these URL's to identify what pages are which. When a filename changes, the search engines interpret that as one file disappearing and another, unrelated page, being created.

Search engines take into account the age of a web page when it comes to ranking, so a newly named page won't get the same kind of rank as an older, more mature page. In addition, any incoming links that have developed over time to your shopping cart pages would be linking to a nonexistent page.

Keeping all that in mind, you can see how helpful it would be to get it right the first time. With a search engine optimized shopping cart, the URL's will be constructed especially for search engines, rich in keywords and without unnecessary characters. These provide a good foundation for the SEO of the rest of the web site, so you will see improved ranking as a result.

If you start out with a non-search engine optimized shopping cart, eventually you will want to move to one that is and when that happens, all of your pages will disappear.

Reason 4: An SEO-ed Shopping Cart Retains PageRank Better

Most shopping carts on the market were designed to be easily programmed and altered. This makes it easier for the shopping cart programmers to add new features or alter existing ones. Because of this focus, often times the same pages in a shopping cart will have several different URL's each. This means that when a search engine comes to index your site, they might see 500 pages where there are only 50.

Initially this might sound like a good thing, but ultimately it reduces the power of your web site. Google - the most widely used search engine in the world - uses something called PageRank to measure the value of a web site, and thus to determine what its rank will be in the search engine result pages. When one web page links to another web page, it takes some of its PageRank and passes it on to another page.

When there are 10 URL's for the same page, it means that PageRank is being split 10 ways, rather than being focused on a single page. This makes the pages far less powerful when it comes to showing up on the SERP's.

A search engine optimized shopping cart will take the PageRank into consideration, and will create a single URL for each web page, making each page on your shopping cart as powerful as possible.

Reason 5: An Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart Helps Usability

A search engine optimized shopping cart will use a little code as possible to display a page. This is because search engine spiders will only spend a certain amount of time on each website, and on each page on a site. The less code there is for a spider to wade through, the more chance a site has of getting all of their web pages indexed.

What this inadvertently causes are changes in the code that actually make the pages load more quickly than they would otherwise. Part of this is due to file size (which will save you bandwidth), but it also makes it easier for web browsers to display a page without thinking as hard.

Conclusion

While there aren't a lot of search engine friendly shopping carts on the market today, it pays in the long run to do a little research about which ones are out there and choose from those. There are numerous reasons to start off on the right foot with some good software so that you don't have to eventually lose all the positioning you've gained by moving to another shopping cart.

Keep in mind that just because a shopping cart says it's search engine optimized, it doesn't mean it is. Get familiar with search engine optimization techniques before starting your shopping cart research.

In Modern Ecommerce You Need an Edge

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:13:41 -0500

The online marketplace has changed dramatically in the last eight years, with ecommerce growing in popularity and competitiveness. Ecommerce on a broad range of products is being done so well by sites like Amazon.com and eBay.com that getting a piece of the e-business pie requires focusing in different areas than the big players do.

Find a Niche For Your Ecommerce Web Site

Search engines and online directories have been inundated with ecommerce web sites that sell everything under the sun. If you're going to be competitive online, then you need to find a niche. Because the big names in ecommerce are going for the whole enchilada, small businesses have the opportunity to duke it out for niche online markets.

The bad news? There's a ton of businesses out there, filling virtually every niche there is already. The good news? Very few of them are doing it well, giving new businesses the chance to do it better. Here's a few things you can to give your ecommerce web site an edge:

Invest in a Quality Ecommerce Web Site

A quality ecommerce web site uses a highly-usable shopping cart, is optimized for search engines, loads quickly and is pleasing to the eye. Strive to excel in all four of those categories, and you will see not only a high number of conversions, but you will also start to generate some good, qualified traffic from search engines.

Find Ecommerce Partners

When you have an ecommerce niche, there are likely a number of other companies offer complementary products or services that your customers will want to know about. Seek out potential partners online, and try to foster relationships where you encourage visitors to visit the partner's ecommerce site. These relationships can take the forms of links, advertisements, or even word of mouth.

As an added incentive, consider implementing an affiliate program where your partners earn a percentage off of each referral they send to your web site.

Get Creative Marketing Your Ecommerce Site

Marketing an ecommerce web site presents the biggest challenge to most emarketers. The good news is that there are many, many online channels you can use to increase the visibility of your site. Make sure to find every possible free online directory and submit your site to them. Not only will you get a valuable incoming link to your ecommerce web site, you will also get some traffic from the links. Start a small pay-per-click marketing campaign using the major pay-per-click engines like Google AdSense and Overture.

Also try to add content or services to your site that will attract incoming links. The more incoming links your web site has, the bigger the edge you will have over your competitors.

What is the Difference Between Web Design and Web Development?

Chris — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:11:55 -0500

Some of the time, the terms "web design" and "web development" are used interchangeably, but the two phrases actually mean two different things. So that you don't get stuck with a service you didn't sign up for, I will go through the two terms and describe them thoroughly.

The Definition of Web Design

Web design typically refers to the process of designing a web site or web page layout and often includes the graphical elements on a page. The design can be developed using a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop, and provides the framework for the look and feel of a web page.

The finished product of the design does not typically contain code. Rather, the graphical representation of the web page is used by another or the same party as the basis for the code. The representation is divided into areas that can be represented by web code, and other areas that are purely graphics.

Often, web design and development firms use the term "web design" to refer to the entire development of a web site because it is the most commonly recognized term in the marketplace. However, it is important to clarify what a firm means before signing up for their "web design" services.

The Definition of Web Development

Web development is typically used to described the programming required to construct the "back end" of a website. The back end is the area of the site that isn't seen by visitors, but which does the work required in order to present the right information in the correct format to the visitors.

Web development is used to describe any database-driven web designs using dynamic scripting languages like PHP, ASP, ASP.NET and Coldfusion. It also covers database design and development. The term can also be used for client-side scripting such as JavaScript and Java.