47 Simple Ways to Build

By Miles Galliford (c) 2007

If your website does not create a sense of trust in your visitors, all your efforts will be in vain. Your online business will never succeed. That's the bad news. The good news is that it is very easy to create and build trust in your online visitors. Below, I have listed all the techniques used by the hundreds of websites I have helped launch. If you have additional techniques, please add them to the list.

As the old saying goes, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Building trust cannot be achieved by one single action. Trust is achieved by hundreds of little things you do throughout your website that, when taken together, give readers a sense of honesty, legitimacy and stability.

The other bit of good news is that few website owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. If you do it well, it can become a real and sustainable competitive advantage.

Here are 47 simple actions you can take to get started.

1. Trust is built by lots of small actions on every page of your website.

2. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.

3. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can't find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.

4. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.

5. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. (Reminder: HEART stands for Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely.)

6. Use language that is appropriate to the audience. It will build empathy.

7. Regularly add new content to your site. It shows that the business is alive and kicking.

8. Check all links. Doubts will quickly form in your visitors' minds if links don't work or, worse still, take them to error pages.

9. Good grammar and spelling matter. Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.

10. Never make outrageous and unbelievable claims, like "Read this blog and you'll be a millionaire by the end of the week." People are used to scams, get-rich-quick schemes and rip-offs.

11. Publish REAL testimonials and third-party endorsements. Try to always use real names and link to websites where possible. Some sites show images of letters sent by happy customers.

12. Publish case studies about customers you have helped, who use your product, etc.

13. Don't put down, curse or insult competitors. It's unprofessional. It is better to offer an objective comparison of competitive services or products.

14. Focus on building your long-term reputation, not on making quick sales.

15. Write articles for humans, not search engines.

16. Make your 'About Us' page personal and comprehensive. It plays an important part in making visitors feel comfortable that real people are behind the site.

17. Publish your photo or the photos of the key people involved with the site. Again, this reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the screenshots.

18. Clearly identify who is behind the site. Nothing creates more suspicion than a site that tries to hide the identity of its publishers.

19. On the 'Contact Us' page, provide an email form, telephone number, fax and address of the company. In Europe, it is a legal requirement for sites taking money, but even sites driven by advertising will benefit from openness.

20. Provide a telephone number that people can call and talk to a person.

21. Provide Web addresses linked to the website domain, not addresses from free webmail services such as Hotmail and Gmail.

22. Never lie to make money. The most common way is to write a glowing report about a product or service to earn affiliate revenues. It is very short-sighted to lie to visitors to sell them rubbish. They'll never come back or, worse still, they'll actively condemn your site on forums and blogs.

23. Think carefully about reciprocal links. If your site is about organic food and you have links to Party Poker, people are going to question your integrity.

24. Think carefully about the adverts you display on your site. Ensure that they are relevant to your subject and audience.

25. Be explicit when you are being paid to endorse a product or service. An advertorial is fine as long as it is transparent. Paid-to-post is corrupting the Web and will experience a user backlash. I never read websites that accept payment for posting.

26. Write and publish your privacy policy. Be clear about what you will and will not do with any personal data you collect. State that you adhere to all data protection laws. Make it easy to read and don't use legal gobbledygook.

27. Write and publish a security policy. State what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure.

28. Ensure that you have a security and privacy policy which is linked from the footer on every page. Make the link more prominent on all the order pages.

29. Clearly publish your guarantee. I would recommend making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.

30. Clearly state your refund and returns policy.

31. Piggyback off reputable brands. If you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site. If you have a merchant services account with a major bank like Citibank or HSBC, put its logo on your site.

32. Use Google search on your site for two reasons. First, it is a great search solution which will help your visitors find what they are looking for. Second, having the Google name on your site instills trust.

33. If there are well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site.

34. Have a forum on your site and respond quickly to questions. Have the attitude that you are happy to help others without receiving immediate reward. As the old saying goes, 'Givers always gain.'

35. Allow people to comment on articles. Interactivity and an exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.

36. If people provide constructive criticism or comments in the forum, don't delete them, but respond with your point of view.

37. Put photos on the website of the owners, publishers and/or team. Let visitors know there are real people behind the business.

38. Put images of the credit cards you accept on every page of the order process.

39. Use the words 'secure website' whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.

40. On every page, state, "We take your privacy and security very seriously." Link the statement to the security and privacy policy.

41. Remember, reputations take years to build and seconds to destroy.

42. If you are selling a subscription, offer a low-cost, entry-level option. This could be a one-day taster, 'a week before billing starts' or a monthly trial.

43. Use a high level of security when processing credit cards. Make sure you make your clients aware of all the steps you are taking.

44. Never send credit card information or personal details over the Internet unencrypted. Tell your customers that their data will be encrypted.

45. Only ask for information from customers that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, the only information you REALLY need is an email address, so that is all you should ask for.

46. If you have pricing on your website, make it transparent. I recently went to buy a book which was advertised for $10. When I checked out, they added tax, post and packaging, and the final bill was $19.50. I didn't buy it as I felt they had deliberately tried to mislead me.

47. Keep your SSL certificate up to date. Let people know you are using SSL encryption and who the provider is.

You can never do too much to build trust. Most of it comes down to common sense and good business practice. To ensure that you are continually improving your trustworthiness, every time you go to a website, ask yourself whether you trust it or not. Then ask yourself why you have formed the opinion you have. Continually try to learn what makes a site trustworthy or untrustworthy and implement the relevant changes to your site.

If people trust you, the money will follow!

About The Author
SubHub provides an all-in-one solution to enable you to rapidly design, build and run your own content website. Publish for profit on the web. Website: SubHub.com

How to Optimize for Yahoo!

With a reported 22.1% of search traffíc Yahoo is second only to Google's 64.4% (src: Hitwise ) for search user volume so it is extremely important not to forget that attaining a top ranking in Yahoo can be a big boon to the bottom line. As a result, I decided to write this update on how to attain superior rankings in Yahoo using today's useful tools and tactics.

Overview: Optimizing for Yahoo!
Algorithmically Yahoo is Google's much younger sibling. I say this because many of the requirements for a successful ranking mirror Google's requirement about 4 years ago and they sum up to one distinct fact; optimize your content boldly on Yahoo and you will be rewarded. When I say "boldly" I do not mean use sp@m; by nature sp@m and optimization do not mix... they are two entirely separate concepts (black and white in fact).

The following are the current generalized specifications for achieving solid rankings in Yahoo.

Web Site Optimization
SEO tactics have not changed a great deal over the past 10 years I have been an SEO. In general terms the only effect time has had on SEO is to vary the intensity of the optimization for particular page elements. That is the rub of course; some search engines appreciate the optimization of particular page elements over others. In the case of Yahoo, this old property with a relatively young algorithm tends to favour the following elements:

Title Tag: Keep your title tag as short as 5 small-medium sized words and include one complete incidence of your keyphrase. Yahoo! blatantly favours sites that include the keyphrase in the title tag. For an example search "car sales" or for that matter any phrase. Within the top 10 results you will notice that the majority of sites listed will include at least one incidence of the keyphrase or a crucial portion of it (i.e. "cars"). The ones that do not include the keyphrase tend to be sites that are extremely popular so even basic title tag optimization is not required to attain a top ranking.

Meta Description Tag: Start this tag with an incidence of your keyphrase and then produce a short 15 – 18 small-medium sized word sentence clearly describing your site. Include one more incidence of your keyphrase in the sentence. Keep in mind that the description tag is often utilized as the description for any rankings you achieve so it is best to make it alluring.

Meta Keyword Tag: Keyword tags have long been considered ineffective and no longer have any importance on Google; however Yahoo does still consider the keyword tag so it cannot hurt to include it. The keyword tag should start with the keyphrase and then all following words or phrases should be ordered according to their relevance to your website; place the most important ones up front. The max size of a keyword tag should be 250 characters – comma-delimited. Do not over repeat words; no more than 3 repetitions of a single word within the tag.

Keywords in URL: Create keyword-based filenames that closely represent the content within the file. Yahoo rewards keyword-based filenames a small amount – perhaps enough to push past your competition.

Headings: Heading 1 and 2 tags should be applied on every page where appropriate to embolden the relevance of the page. In other words, use the page's keyphrase within a Heading 1 tag to further enhance the visibility of the keyphrase on the page.

Alt text for images: Don't forget to provide appropriate ALT text for each image on your website. The ALT text must not provide information that is already written on the website. ALT text is supposed to provide a clear and concise description of what the image is. Fortunately this means that adding an incidence of the keyphrase or a portion of the keyphrase is totally appropriate which can add slightly more credibility to your page score when Yahoo's crawler (Slurp) indexes the page.

Inline Links: In the midst of your page it is beneficial to include links to related pages from related content. These links will apply relevance to the linked page; which is optimized for the same keyphrase you linked from.

Site Structure: Site structure is a vital component to ranking success on Yahoo; especially in competitive marketplaces where every advantage is required to reach the top. One method that would be successful at Yahoo (and happens to work as well on the other major search engines) is a tried and true technique that revolves around the linear progression of related content throughout the website; it is commonly known as Themeing. The following example should shed some light on this subject:

Your site is a car sales site focused on Audi. In order to create a linear site structure you would focus each section of the site on an individual relevancy. Say you pick "Audi A5" as the relevant topic (see Figure 1.0). As you move deeper into the Audi A5 section you only see A5 relevant content. The search engine spider and your users will not be distracted by links to other vehicles – only information on the A5. This progresses as you proceed deeper into this arm of the website and because this section of the site is utterly focused on the subject "Audi A5" the odds of achieving a ranking for that term improve considerably.

Links
When building links for Yahoo concentrate on quality not quantity. Quality links would be one way links from sites that specialize in content directly relevant to the content on your own website. Building these links can be done by creating content and syndicating it to your own industry for link love and to build credibility. In addition, if your website is a worthwhile resource it is entirely reasonable to tell the world about your site in order to build links; hopefully they will link to you because they like your site so much.

Finally, there is another tactic that has mixed results; send out press releases once a month using PRWeb or an associated press release agency. A good press release can easily build the links you need in no time at all. Unfortunately the mixed results I noted occur when press releases inevitably become archived, at which point the link relevance will fade. As a result, link building with press releases is only useful as an ongoing practice and should be considered a small facet of a robust link building campaign.

Site Explorer Settings
Yahoo's Site Explorer is a fantastic tool for monitoring your website(s) and running basic link reports. If you have not already done so you should create an account at Site Explorer and then validate your website (prove you own it) so that you can manage the information Yahoo has for your website. Once you have validated your website I have noted some Site Explorer functionality that may help your website perform on Yahoo:

* Make certain to create a sitemap and submit it to Yahoo: If you haven't already done so use a XML sitemap generator to create a sitemap for your website and then submit it to Yahoo using the "Add Feed" form within your website's Site Explorer profile.

* Removing unnecessary dynamic content from your URLs with new add-on within Site Explorer: Do your URLs contain session ID's or other dynamic content that is unnecessary within the URL? If so, this information can be indexed by the search engines and ultimately can cause havoc with your rankings. Thankfully Yahoo has implemented a new tool within the Site Explorer domain management section called "Dynamic URLs Beta". Here are the instructions to use the Dynamic URLs tool.

Other Considerations
After reviewing our notes from current and previous Yahoo promotions and taking a look at a variety of top 10 results the following points appeared noteworthy:

* Ensure open indexing by using Robots.txt wisely

* A lot of our client's older content appears to be sticking to top rankings with little or no monthly tweaking. As a result, I think it is fair to assume that fresh content is not currently gaining much weíght in the Yahoo algorithm.

* In many cases top ranking sites have pushed the envelope and their sites border on sp@m. Considering the top ranking these sites have it appears Yahoo's sp@m filters are far less sensitive than Google's. I expect Yahoo will change this in the near future, but then again I have been surprised how long this has been the status quo.

* One common claim throughout forums is that achieving a placement in the Yahoo Directory provides an immediate boost to Yahoo rankings. Unfortunately we have not seen conclusive evidence that the annual $299 fee will improve rankings dramatically in the short term. That said, I strongly believe that a Yahoo Directory placement is a very reputable incoming link that does pay dividends in the long run at any search engine that weighs incoming links (the ones that count).

* Yahoo Search Submit was re-introduced back in February 2007 to significant criticism due to the potential favouritism to those who pay to get into the Yahoo index. Despite the negative feedback there appears to be some potential benefits to paying for submission. For one, in July I noted an interesting story where a website was banned from Yahoo and the webmaster got the site back into Yahoo's index by paying for inclusion ("Banned from Yahoo?" ). A second reason Search Submit may be worthwhile is the guarantëe that your site will be indexed. Furthermore, the Yahoo's Search Submit Pro service allows you to recommend your own title and description tags for each page submitted and to submit pages that may not normally be indexed by Slurp.

About The Author
Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Web Marketing Inc.. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. Ross is a search engine optimization and placement expert with over 9 years of marketing experience and is a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS). Blending his experience in the art of web design and search engine optimization, Ross offers a unique and informed perspective on obtaining top search engine placements. Ross can be reached at ross@stepforth.com

How Important is Alexa Ranking?

Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy?

All businesses that employ online marketing, strive to improve their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of attracting targeted traffíc. Some try to achieve a good ranking in the SERPs, while others are satisfied with heavier traffic. Either way, everybody has the goal of achieving financial success.

But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business people the only way to make themselves known and thus reach their goal, there are others that think that a good position in the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well.

What is Alexa Ranking?

This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits to various Web sites. The algorithm by which Alexa traffíc ranking is calculated, is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded over a period of three months from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed.

This traffíc is based on such parameters as reach and page views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view, as the name indicates, is the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all those visits will be counted as one.

The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily basis. Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period of time (three months).

How Alexa Ranking Works

It's quite easy to get started. All you have to do is visit the alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar. This toolbar offers a search function, but it mainly displays the rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in some way to the site being visited.

The Alexa toolbar not only displays information, but it also sends data to the central server. Thus, each time you visit a Web page via a Web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has the toolbar installed, information is sent to the server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such data is gathered from all the Web users who have the Alexa toolbar.

With Alexa, the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most people say that if you manage to make it in the top 100,000, it is a sign that your site enjoys quite heavy traffíc.

Is Alexa Ranking Worth Anything?

Benefits

• Alexa Traffic can be used as a competitive intelligence tool, but you should take into consideration the fact that the audience sample size is fairly small. Just enter your competitor's site in the "Compare Sites" section and measure the results of your web marketing efforts in comparison with your competitors'.

• As opposed to Google's PageRank, the lower your ranking number, the better.

• It helps Webmasters and advertisers see the real marketing potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the higher they may be willing to bid to buy advertising space on your Web site.

• Personal pages or blogs are also ranked in the same way as ordinary Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)

• Because Alexa ranking helps you with information about your Web site, it is a good instrument for search engine optimization.

Disadvantages

• Not everybody has the Alexa toolbar installed, so there might be millíons of Web sites that, even if they have a lot of traffíc, will not be ranked (or not high enough) by Alexa. It is rather relative.

• Many people say that it is inaccurate and that Alexa traffíc can be greatly influenced (or "gamed", as some prefer to call it).

• Subdomains are not ranked separately, and neither are subpages within a domain. The overall traffic is calculated for the top-level domain only.

Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

If you want to boost your Alexa traffíc ranking, you just have to follow some quite simple rules, such as:

• Download and install the Alexa toolbar and then surf your own site.

• Place the Alexa widget on your Web site. It will entice visitors to use it and, you know, each click counts.

• Write useful, quality content, mostly webmaster-related. Promote it on webmaster forums and on social networking sites. The idea is to get as many computer and Internet savvy people as possible to visit your site, since the probability that they will have the Alexa toolbar installed is high.

• Write blogs and articles about Alexa. You will get links to your pages that will help improve your ranking.

• Try to get your articles on such blog sites as digg.com, del.icio.us, or www.stumbleupon.com

• Optimize your site (or relevant pages of it) for Alexa related keywords.

• Tell your friends about the Alexa toolbar, have them download and install it on their computers, and then tell them to visit your site.

• Use an Alexa redirect. This means placing http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect? in front of your Web site's URL. Alexa will then take into consideration clicks on redirected links even if the visitor does not have the Alexa toolbar.

• Apparently, Asian people are huge fans of Alexa. Therefore, many people suggest posting in Asian social networking forums.
• Whenever you post on webmaster forums, include your site's URL in your signature. It is very likely that most webmasters have the toolbar installed, and there's a great probability that they'll visit your site.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there are pros and cons to Alexa ranking. The bottom line is that most people consider it valuable only for direct advertising. Given the fact that Alexa ranking for a site is calculated on the basis of how many visitors with the Alexa toolbar installed have visited that particular site, the results can be inaccurate.

Nevertheless, it may prove useful for sites with very good traffíc that attract highly targetëd leads, since Alexa focuses more on the traffic that Web sites receive rather than on links to it. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution.

About The Author
Adriana Iordan is a Web Marketing Specialist at Avangate B.V.. She has in depth knowledge of internet marketing services and website analysis applied to the software industry and e-commerce development. Avangate is an eCommerce platform for electronic software distribution incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional marketing and sales tools.

10 reasons to hire a professional designer.

A Web Site is Your Online Representative

Would you build your brick and mortar shop and do all of the signs and interior decorating yourself? Most of us would not; we would hire professionals to give us the best image possible. Your web site acts as your business card and/or online shop. It acts as a direct representative of you and your business. If your web site doesn’t have the professional image you need, you are losing customers. If first impressions are so important, why would you want to scare your potential customers away in the first second?

Professionalism

When you hire a professional designer, not only do they know how to give you a beautiful image, but also how to give you the image that’s right for your business and industry. A skilled designer should know the ins and outs of marketing as well as creativity. An effective web site should be unique, be pleasant on the eye, have clear and easy navigation, load efficiently, and work properly in all the major browsers.

Saving Time

Hiring a professional web designer instead of making the web site yourself will save you a lot of time, energy, and frustration. There is a large learning curve in order to make effective web sites and there are many aspects to web development much beyond learning HTML which makes it a full time job. A professional web developers is skilled and up-to-date in several areas including Marketing, SEO, Communication, HTML, CSS, Photo Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Java Script, and possibly several other languages like Flash, PHP and others.

Getting Ahead of the Competition

As you may well know, competition is as fierce in the internet as it is in the physical world. If your competitors have a web presence before you do, they are already a step ahead of you. But, if you launch a new web site that is more effective than theirs, you will have the extra edge. Not only does a well-built web site give a good first impression, it also will give your customers a reason to trust your business over that of your competitors.

Uniqueness and Customization

There are about 56,000,000 web sites on the internet as of November 2004 according to netscape.com. How are you going to make yours stand out? Buying a nice template can be a quick and cheap solution, but you may risk having your web site look like several others. Furthermore, many features that you may require for your web site including contact forms, galleries, forums, and other special scripts are simply not available with pre-made templates. If you have a web site built with a pre-made template and in the future you want to expand it, you may have to rebuild the whole site again to include the added features that you need.

Communicating Your Message

A professional web designer is experienced in knowing how to properly communicate your message. They are skilled at marketing and are concerned, above all, with how to effectively communicate your message by organizing your information in a digestible manner as well as communicating your message through the use of colors, fonts, shapes, layouts, and more to convey the message you want to represent for your business.

Attention

A nice web site designed by a professional designer will bring attention to your business. Not only does a nice web site attract new customers, it will also bring professional attention from your peers or potential advertisers that you may be in search of. Word-of-mouth and good referrals are some of the most powerful marketing tools there are.

Search Engine Optimization

One of the most important factors about a web site is its presence in the search engines. It is useless to have the nicest web site in the world if it doesn’t have a good presence in the search engine listings. Good search engine ranking are important because they are usually the number one way potential customers will find you on the internet. They also act as a free and effective advertising tool. A professional web designer will know how to develop your web site to make it fair decently in search engine listings by building it search engine-friendly from the bottom up. This is the most effective and ethical way to insure top rankings for your web site.

Browser Compatibility

Browser incompatibility occurs when a web site doesn’t show the same way or appears “broken” to site visitors on different browsers. The reason for this is that different browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Safari, etc.) have different standards for displaying web pages. What looks perfectly fine in one browser may show up as a jumbled mess in another. Professional web designers are skilled at knowing how to make web sites display properly on a variety of browsers. A good web designer will test and construct your web site across browsers, insuring that the majority of people on different browsers can see your web site the way it should be.

Making the Difference between Personal and Commercial Web Sites

There is a huge difference between a home page and a professional web site. It can take years of experience to learn how to build an effective commercial web site and it is something that is best left to an expert. Having a professional web site will provide you with a sense security in your business that no home-made web site can do. Your web site will be something that thousands of people around the world may view every day. Make sure your web site shows what you want the world to see; a high-quality, clean, accessible, professional, and top ranking business.

Source
http://www.intuitivedesigns.net/reasons

Website Design - If You're Going to Optimize, Optimize!

The keyword was affordable custom website design. I was researching some of the competition on it, and really, the results make a strong point about search engine optimization. You will always get advice that you should design your sites for users rather than the search engines, and it's good advice, it really is. After all, at the end of the day, a thousand clicks that don't result in any sales are no more useful to you than a day without any clicks at all.

But my recent experience led me to another theory; if you're going to optimize for a keyword, your site should be a viable result for that keyword.

When I went through the top results for the above keyword, I was amazed to discover that of the highest ten sites, only one actually clearly listed a price. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the basic marketing theory. Website design is a rather expensive service, you certainly don't want that fact to scare your customers away. Likewise, it is a service that can involve quite a degree of variation between jobs. You don't want to risk listing flat prices only to wind up spending more time than you're getting paid for doing updates, revisions, and the like. You do need to get a read on the site before you give a solid quote.

With that all in mind, though, the majority of those sites I looked at gave nothing more than a request a quote option that I could see. Granted, I did not look deeply into the sites, but I do not feel I should have had to. The premise behind my theory is simply this: if the term "affordable" is part of the keyword--indeed, the first word of the key phrase--it suggests that the visitor is rather concerned with pricing. With that in mind, should there not be a clear indication of at least the range of pricing and what will be available at a given rate?

Now, I'm not going to assume that this lack is costing these sites vast amounts of business on that keyword (though I would not be surprised if it was). However, it does provide a useful example for the rest of us. If you are going to optimize for a keyword, consider more than just the monthly searches and competition--consider what the visitor is looking for. This is especially important when you're running a pay per click campaign, where a visitor who doesn't like what it sees just wasted some of your advertising money.

Even in a standard SEO campaign, though, it is hard to get a lot of quality keywords in the title tags, external links, and so on without making your site look silly. It may very well be that you can only reach the top for a few keywords. Shouldn't your site be built around selling to the audience that is searching on those keywords? It's the classic question of the target market. Your market consists of the people searching for those keywords that you are at the top for.

Remember, people on the Internet are notoriously impatient. Some might be willing to look over your site, read what you have to say, and in doing so, may indeed come to realize that your company is exactly what they are looking for. Most won't. And they won't want to contact you or fill out a form to learn about it either. In short--don't expect the visitors to do any work to sell themselves. If all the information that will convince them to buy is not both readily available and designed in such a way to make them want to read it, chances are, they're gone.

Maybe this isn't one of the main points of SEO. No doubt there are a variety of other factors that contribute far more heavily to a marketing executive's calculations. Regardless, it is something worth bringing to and keeping in mind. If you're going to optimize your site for a keyword, optimize your site for a keyword. By providing a visitor exactly what it is looking for as soon as it arrives, you've increased your chance of making a sale by that much. By not providing those things that are clearly of importance to the visitor in an easily accessible format, you've reduced your chance by that much.

I wonder how many template design sites would come up if I typed in "custom website design"...

Copyright © 2007 Dustin Schwerman.

Dustin Schwerman is the primary web designer at Truly Unique--Affordable Custom Website Design. Truly Unique specializes in impressive, custom sites designed to capture the essence of the businesses they represent, as well as creating useful web-based programs to improve and simplify some of the tasks of running a business. Their goal is to provide these services at affordable, pragmatic rates based on effort involved, rather than arbitrary costs based on number of pages or hours.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dustin_Schwerman

Integrate Ecommerce Shopping Cart Systems Into Your Online Business for Better Results

Introducing Web Design

To define the same in technical terms, it is the process of forming concepts, making plans, presenting models. Also executing the media that is electronic over the Internet using “markup language” that can be interpreted with the help of the web browsing tool and displayed as the GUI or the Graphical User Interface.

Web Design Purpose

The purpose behind web designs is the creation of websites which are in actuality the collecting of files electronically that remain on the web servers and that which makes presentations of contents and other interacting features to the user on the net through web pages that is retrieved upon request. Texts, GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs and other technical formats can be used on the page through the application of HTML, XHTML and XML. Plug-ins is used for more complex animations, videos and graphics such as Quick Time, Flash and Java among others. The CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is used along with XHTML and XML for positioning and manipulating the elements on the web pages.

Web Design Classification

Web design pages are under the classification of (1) Static and (2) Dynamic. Static web design pages are where the contents and layouts are not changeable unless the programmer or web master manually gets the pages updated. Dynamic web pages can change their contents and appearances and this depends on the input or interaction of the user or other changes in the environment of the computer.

Particulars of a web design

As this is a collection of web pages with respect to a certain subject, web designs arrange and create web pages to make a website. Basic designs of such web sites are:

• Content is that which is the information on that particular sites that bears relevancy to the site itself and looks at targeting the public who has the interest that the web site carries.
• Usable factor consists of the web design to be user-friendly to the end user in navigating and interfacing actions which are simple and bear the stamp of reliability.
• Appearance is that in which the graphics and the texts include a singular style that is continuous in order to be consistent. This style requires professionalism, appeal and relevancy.
• Visibility factor is where the web design site should be easy to locate through most of the noted search engines on the internet and through the electronic media of advertisements.
• Multidiscipline requirements such as information systems, information technology and communication designs are part of the web site designs as is page layouts, user interfacing, graphic material, texts and audios.
• Accessibility of web design which is the art in the creation of web pages that have accessibility to everyone who uses this tool including the ones.

Content Management Systems India and Shopping Cart Systems are become more popular when we are targeting the websites for online business.

The author Rishi Kapoor is Web developer and Content Writer for Web Developers India

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rishi_Kapoor

How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about setting-up your website so that it can be more searchable, and more visited, on search sites. Not all websites are done equally, as some are more visited by others. And the reason why your site is not much visited is probably because the problem is within your website. Here are several no-nos when it comes to optimizing your site and how to fix them.

Frames – The search engines do not index your site’s framed content very well because frames “hide” the site’s content and instead display a series of HTML codes. It is very much recommend that you redesign your site without the frames. However, if you insist on having frames, the best thing you can do to improve your results is the use the

Dynamic URL – Most search engines cannot or will not list any dynamic URLs, which are commonly used on database-driven sites, or sites that are running scripts. A dynamic URL contains any of the following elements:

?, &, %, +, =, $, cgi-bin, .cgi (commas above are just used as a separator)

An example of which is this:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=dynamic+url&fr=FP-tab-web-t500&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

If you URL contains any of the mentioned elements it is very unlikely that it will get listed at any of the major search engines. We recommend that you submit a different URL that is not dynamic.

Flash – Flash itself is not the problem, but on how it is used. The largest problems with how Flash used are: it is often used on home pages as a splash page, which the search engines can’t index, and can be remedied by adding as much page copy to the that and making sure that you have good meta tags and title tags; and hyperlinks made with Flash that can’t be spidered by the search engines, which can be fixed by creating a site map page using standard HTML links connecting to every page on your site, then add a standard HTML on each page of your site that links to the site map.

Image maps for navigation – Due to the code that makes up an image map, search engines often get trapped in them and can’t spider your site. You should consider switching to standard HTML hyperlink or your site will most likely not get spidered. You still can keep the image maps, but you should add another navigation scheme to your site that uses only standard HTML hyperlinks. Do this by creating a site map page using stand HTML links that links to every page on your site, and then adding a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links back to the site map.

JavaScript for navigation – Search engines cannot follow links that are within JavaScript. You should add some form of standard HTML hyperlinks to all of your pages on each of your pages so that your site will be spidered properly. Follow the “site map” suggestion stated in the above problem.

You can read more about this topic
http://www.guideto.com/seo-/how-web-design-can-affect-search-engine-rankings

Guideto.com provides online visitors with a convenient means of getting access to a broad collection of articles that can aid in building up a knowledge base covering a wide variety of subjects.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nellie_Graham

Finding the Perfect Web Design Agency For You

Have you been looking up information on finding the perfect web design agency for you? When it comes to looking for the perfect web design agency for yourself you will be searching through a lot of information because there are a lot of web design agencies that are out there on the World Wide Web today. With technology on the rise today web design agencies are not hard to find by any means. HTML script is so easy to learn which makes it easy to start a web design business.

Maybe you are looking for your own perfect web design agency because you have a lot of picture you would like posted on a web page along with some information on them, you could find the perfect web design agency by going to some type of search engine on the internet and typing in “Web Design Agency” after you do this you will see that there really are tons of web design agencies out there to choose from.

When you are looking for the perfect web design agency for you, you may want to see some examples of what they can created, you can do this by asking the web design agency if you can see some examples of their previous work. You will not only be looking for price but you will be looking at the quality as well. You will want to know if you have to pay before the job is done or if you can pay after the job is done. When you are looking for the perfect web design agency you may want to choose one that will show you the work then you pay the web design agency, this may save you from choosing the wrong web design agency and getting scammed.

Whatever your needs for finding the perfect web design agency for you, you are sure to find one. Rather it is a business you have been had, or a new business, or perhaps you are looking for the perfect web design agency just for your own personal web page.

Written by Ross Jonson. Find the latest information on SEO as well as Web Design Agency.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ross_Jonson

Common Web Design Misconceptions to Avoid

New to Web Design, or wondering why your site is not generating more interest? Here are 10 misconceptions to avoid.

1. I need to put everything I can think of on my homepage because I’m so excited to share all my information and knowledge …and I‘m afraid you won‘t click on any other pages!
Too much content leaves the homepage cluttered, unfocused and can cause frustration. Readers want quick, concise information so use the homepage as an introduction to your product or services Summarize what can be found on the rest of the site and use it to “tease” the reader about “new” products/services or special offers. Your homepage should never look like a bulging, over-stuffed closet!

2. I’m sure I spelled it rite the first thyme…
Typos leave a really bad first impression. Proofread your text carefully. Even our friend, Spell Check, can let us down by not seeing typos such as “there” for “their“, “here” for “hear“, etc.

3. People will understand that I’m an amateur photographer…
Bad photos placed on a website will kill first impressions and sales. Do you have an extraordinary product, amazing vacation destination or cute, cuddly puppies? Blurry, dark, poorly staged photos will hurt sales and your business image. A bad photo is worse than no photo. Technology has enabled the average consumer to purchase reasonably priced digital cameras that produce beautiful photos. Take your time, stage it properly and your efforts will pay off. If a professional photographer is needed, rest assured the cost will often be easily recouped through a professional business image and improved sales.

4. I need a really complex, cool navigation bar to make my site stand out…
Having to “figure out” or learn how to move around your site is cause for quick exits. Titles on the primary navigation bar should be short and descriptive. Highlight with color or graphics for interest. Keep in mind that visitors like familiarity and navigation should be instinctual. Allow visitors to know what page they are on at all times. Make the trip around your site enjoyable through sensible navigation.

5. Once a link, always a link….
Links to quality outside sites are a great way to offer more relevant information. However, links on the internet come and go and should be checked on a regular basis. Broken links lead visitors to believe your site is not current.

6. Since I took the time to put up a website, you trust me right?
Well not exactly. Take the time to explain who you are, list your credentials and why you are an authority in your area. List your contact information in an area that is easy to find. Add testimonials from satisfied clients. Stand by your product or service with guarantees.

7. What‘s the hurry?
Unless you’re a teenager, people have limited time and want information quickly. Organize your website so that information is easy to locate. Use bold text, underlines and different colors to help direct visitors to key locations. Make sure your site loads quickly. Slow sites are painful and a recipe for failure! You have between 4 and 9 seconds to make a positive first impression. Use your time wisely.

8. I feel the need to impress you with all my industry specific terminology…
That might make you feel smart and sound educated, but can anyone really understand you? Speak in terms that the average consumer can understand. Remember, the website was built to educate and please others, not yourself.

9. I didn’t want to spend the time or the money so I found “stuff” on the net to use…
Internet users and consumers are savvy, so that brings us right back to first impressions. If you and many related websites are using the same graphics, what makes you stand out from the rest? Custom logos and graphics can be made using a simple graphics program or by a professional.

10. My website is finished, it feels so good to be done!
Um.. Hardly! You’ve had your site built, you’ve had it submitted to the search engines but there is still much work to be done. With millions of sites on the internet, just being listed in the search engines is not enough to bring your site satisfactory traffic. Help people find your website by using traditional methods of advertising such as handing out business cards, newspaper ads, TV ads, donations of product or services to local non-profit organizations, business/holiday fairs, etc. Spend time placing your website in online directories suited to your products or services. Advertise on websites that have like content and high traffic. Having a website is only one part of a “marketing plan”.

Websites should be constantly evolving. Fresh content is the only way to keep visitors coming back on a regular basis. Frequent visits build consumer confidence and trust which in turn will benefit your bottom line!

About the Author

Linda Chadbourne, an experienced web designer since 1998 with a specialty creating websites that are functional works of art and working with novice web design clientele.

http://www.maine-lyweb.com
copyright 2006. This article may be reprinted freely as long as all links remain active.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Chadbourne

Do you have a product to sell? Get listed in Froogle

As online retailers, we are often looking for new ways of promoting products. Check out Froogle. Froogle’s website says “Froogle, Google’s shopping search engine, applies the power of Google’s search technology to one very specific task: locating sellers that offer the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can buy it.”

As a shopper, you can go to Froogle’s homepage and enter a product you want to shop for into the search field. By putting in your zip code, you can even narrow your search results to local retailers. Maps are included to help you find the retailer!
So as an online retailer, it would make perfect sense to get your products listed even if you do not have a brick and mortar store. If you’ve got something to sell, become a Froogle Merchant!

Learn to Draw With Vectors

If you ever wondered how those perfectly polished computer illustrations get that way without any wobbly lines, spills and the utter mess of not being able to produce even the simplest curves that would look smooth and half decent, after trying on your own, you must’ve decided all of THEM surely have a special drawing pad and are never using something as clumsy and impossible to control as computer mouse for any of their drawing.

Free-hand drawing pad aside, illustrators who are utilizing the blessings of the technological advancement are using vectors, mainly the Bézier curves for their work.

It was a French automobile engineer, Pierre Bézier, who introduced the use of these curves in computer graphics. The Bézier curve is the mathematical equation that represents lines in computer graphics and if you have ever used the ‘pen tool’ in Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Fontographer, or any number of spline-based 3D programs, you have already used the Bézier curves.

So, vector graphics consist of points, lines, curves, and polygons all based on mathematical equations that we, thankfully, don’t need to worry about, because their use and application in computer graphics is entirely intuitive: you simply trace your own lines after scanning your drawing and fill the fields you’ve created by linking different curves with color afterwards. And you trace your drawing not by repeating entire lines and every bit of it, like you would do with the pencil, but by clicking (with the active pen tool) on parts of your lines — between the two click-points the Bézier curve will appear and you can adjust it to follow your line perfectly by manipulating the end points, or anchors. Once you get the hang of this, it becomes very easy and fast, and you end up with perfectly smooth curves and fields to fill up with color, gradient, pattern or texture you like.

Unlike raster graphics (the representation of images as a collection of pixels — dots), vector art can be resized into really large or very small images without any loss of quality (dreaded blurring or “pixelation”) and successfully used for print. A good quality logo, for example, that you can use on the web and print on everything from business cards and letterheads to posters and t-shirts, while keeping the same crisp quality, is nowadays unthinkable without vectors.

Although there are many demonstrations of Bézier curves available on the web, if you wish to really try producing your own vector art you should download Adobe Illustrator and utilize the one-month free trial (under “Downloads” > “Tryout”) of the best computer graphics program in the world.

And if it turns out you are not quite the Digital Picasso just like yours truly isn’t either, despite the high hopes and unyielding self-confidence, at least you will learn one more creative, beautiful thing — drawing with vectors.

My vector illustration shown here is created in Adobe Illustrator.

Posted by Svetlana at 07:33 AM | http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/art_design/

Some ‘Golden Rules’ of logo design

By Steven Douglas

While the variables are infinite (that’s a good thing - it means that every logo can be unique) there are certain benchmarks (I hesitate to call them rules) that if you follow, will pretty well insure that you’ll end up with a decent and workable logo. While whether or not a logo is ‘good’ remains completely subjective, following these pointers will give you a logo that’s usable, practical and promising a long shelf life.

1) Uniqueness
Your logo should be able to stand out as completely ‘yours’. It’s surprising how many times we get asked to ‘copy’ logos - we’ve even had clients request a ‘version’ of my brand. Not a good idea. On top of the potential legal complications nothing screams ‘unprofessional’ like a logo that’s looks even remotely like someone else’s. Do not copy. I’ll say it again. Do. Not. Copy.

2) Timeless
Every few years there’s a trend, or fad, that new logos seems to embrace. A few years ago it was the ’swoosh’ - made logos all hi-tech and ‘internety’. Trouble is, everybody jumped on that bandwagon and the treatment rapidly became hackneyed and trite. Few years hence, and we’ve got lots of people stuck with out of date designs. The latest design logo trend is so-called 2.0, a technique that (like a lot of design trends) can be traced back to Apple Computers. Take your logo, add a ‘gel’ treatment, give it glassy reflection at the bottom and you’re all set. (hey - the 3D version of our house could qualify). Web 2.0 is still going strong, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it will be yesterday’s news by end of summer.

3) Gimmick Free
Special FX and filters are usually applied, by inexperienced designers, to logos that are ‘missing something’. Trouble is, what the logo is generally missing is any design integrity, and adding bevels, lens flares and drop shadows is the logo design version of ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. While it certainly shows how cool the latest design software is, it doesn’t do much for the professionalism of your mark. Such treatments are fine for glamour shots (used as display pieces on brochures and the like) but are only going to cause grief down the road, especially when it comes to application of your new logo on standard business material. Your logo should be as technically simple as possible for adaptability, which just happened to be number 4 on our list…

4) Adaptability
Over the life of your company, you’ll want to plaster your logo over everything you send out. That’s the point of having a logo in the first place. In order to do this, you’ll need a logo that’s adaptable to every occasion and while they may look ‘pretty’ , the design gimmicks we just talked about render your logo impractical for many of these uses. Some of these uses - checks, FAXes, embroidery, newspaper ads, invoices, letterheads, etc. Your new logo has to work on all of them. You’ll also need a quality black and white version that can reproduce as a halftone grayscale, or in the cases of low-resolution BW reproduction, a linear version.

5) Scalability
When using your logo, you’ll need to be able to use it small. Real small. Postage stamp size. Classic example of this - over the years, I’ve designed a load of sports event posters that feature logos from dozens of event sponsors. Space only permits the logos to be featured as very small images and it’s always the simpler logos that stand out when viewed from a distance. The cluttered logos aren’t recognizable to any great degree and the sponsors are probably wasting their money, especially if inclusion on the poster is the only benefit of their sponsorship. When it comes to scalability, the text portion of the logo is the most important, as that’s the piece you want people to remember. Scrawny, sickly text doesn’t read very well at half an inch high.

6) Color is Secondary
Colors are extremely important. Using consistent corporate colors will become part of your brand - that’s understood. However, when it comes to the design of your logo, color must always be secondary. A logo that requires color to ‘hold’ the design together is fine when reproduction is optimal - websites, 4 color process printing and what have you - but even then only if the size is appropriate as well. Logos that rely too much on color tend to blend together when used small (see above) and unless the contrast between the two colors is pronounced, will be a grey mess if used in black and white. As for low-resolution reproduction (FAXES, checks, etc) you can forget about readability completely - logos that use color as a design cornerstone usually come out as black blotches on a FAX transmission and with all their money, banks still haven’t figured out how to print a decent check.

7) Appropriate Aspect Ratio & Footprint
The aspect ratio of a logo is the relationship between a logo’s height and it’s width. Bottom line, you don’t want a logo that’s too tall, or too wide. Square’ish’ is always best as this allows the maximum adaptability of a logo, especially when it’s being used in conjunction with other artwork. The ‘footprint’ of a logo refers to the amount of physical space that’s required to place a logo on any page. If the footprint is ‘wonky’ - trailing design elements ‘poke’ outside the footprint - it can greatly affect the size that the design can be used at, as well as the visual impact of same.

Like most ‘rules’ of design, not all of these will apply in every situation, and in many cases, we’ll toss them out completely. However, they should give you a road map that will help you navigate the sometimes frustrating creative process to design your new logo.

About the Author: Steve Douglas is the CEO, founder and Creative Director of Thelogofactory.com an internet based logo design studio specializing in logos and corporate identity for small to mid-sized companies. With a history in the graphic design industry spanning 25 years, Douglas has had extensive experience as an agency and magazine art director before founding TLF in 1996.

http://www.maine-lyweb.com/wordpress/?p=56

10 Golden Rules of Good Web Design

Good web design basically means three things: functional, practical and accessible. It doesn't simply mean “pretty”, but it does end up being pleasing to the eye, like everything that is orderly, clean, well organized and neat. In other words, think of visual appeal as a consequence of solid structure and order, rather than as a result of chaotic and unrestrained imagination. These are some of the basic rules of good web design that apply to large corporate web sites as well as to personal pages -- regardless how big or small, these ten simple principles will assure your site is useful, efficient and visually appealing.

1. Four Colors
   Black and white, as every artist will tell you, are not colors. Well, they are in web design. And they are your most important, basic colors, used primarily for background (white) and text (black). You have two more colors to add for just about everything you would like to highlight on your site: logo, links, headings... Rule number one is the bullet-proof insurance you will never go overboard and create a migraine-inducing mess of a page.
2. Center Nothing
   We have all tried it at some point - struggling to make the collection of various elements on the page ‘come together’ by centering them. We thought it looks nice and orderly if it's neatly grouped in the middle. Well, it doesn't work. It makes the site look amateurish, it is difficult to follow through and very difficult to read. Left to right and top to bottom is how we read, it is how we scan the page and it is the way it should be, if you want people to stay and get interested in the content of your site that you worked so hard to make available.
3. White Space
   Leaving enough room for each element on your page to breathe is essential. You must have seen the sites where images and text are crammed in like potatoes in a sack, struggling for space and attention. Images that are too big, heavy blocks of text without breaks, links bunched up so close it takes a sharp-shooter to click on the right one... Finding the back-button after landing on such site becomes a matter of urgency. White space is web designer's prime assistant: it helps her organize the content and make it visually appealing and pleasant.
4. Subtlety
   Once we get our hands on any better graphic program, we tend to go crazy over effects we can now, finally, create. So we start adding shadows on just about everything and buttonizing even the pictures of our pets. At some point, the fact I couldn't make a big round button (with shadow!) for every page that would be a link to my homepage was absolutely killing me. I think I spent a week on that "project" and discarded it about a month later when I learned it might not be as cool as I thought it was. Subtlety is a hard thing to achieve, but it is the main reason why well designed web sites are beautiful. It doesn't mean nothing should be bold and bright, it just means that if some part of the web page is bold and bright everything else has to be subtle.
5. Separate Apples and Oranges
   Text should always be text, never an image. Logo is the only exception, since it is usually graphic that includes textual part. Transforming blocks of text into images and pasting them on web pages makes search engines think you have no content - there is nothing to index except images. And images cannot give you any decent placement in search engines, because none of your keywords are legible to search engine spiders. Worse, though, is the fact that people with visual disabilities who rely on screen readers (software that reads text on the screen and outputs the information to a speech) to use Internet, are virtually barred from sites where text is converted to images. Such sites are violating the most basic principles of web usability and, apart from being a sure sign of poor design, are discriminatory.
6. Group
   Think of all the things you want to put on web site in groups. This is like cleaning up: plates should go in the kitchen, towels belong in the bathroom, jeans, socks and t-shirts in the closet or, more likely, in the washer, and so on. You have to have a separate place for each group of items you would like to publish. These transform to sections or pages of your site. Each separate page then needs to be further organized to allow for easy access to the main content and to other pages and sections. On a single page, you need to have a place for logo, a place for links, a place for the main content and a place for your copyright and personal information. Keep these sections in the same location throughout the site and your visitors will enjoy a pleasant and easy stroll through your portion of the cyberspace.
7. Prioritize
   Is the picture of your pet really the most important message of your entire web site? If not, then it shouldn't be the largest image you have and at the very top of your home page. Think of your home page as of your window display: the most important things to be found on your site should be there. That doesn't mean that EVERYTHING you have on your site should be crammed in your window display, just the most important parts. When a visitor gets in he’ll find more good stuff, but don't chase him away with the entrance that looks like a marketplace after the flood, because most surfers won't waste their time digging through the pile in order to find something interesting. Invite your visitors with few well chosen, nicely displayed items, and let them find the rest.
8. Mind Your Fonts
   Two fonts are all you need for the entire site. Actually, one is more then enough, but some people like to use a different font for their links or headings and that cannot hurt. More then that, though, is too much. There is a flood of painfully designed web sites with itsy-bitsy tiny fonts most people can hardly read. The idea that small is beautiful is fine, only beauty isn't the sole purpose of web sites - they usually have some information to convey. And if the information is barely legible, regardless how beautiful, the site fails. So, keep your fonts to a healthy, medium size, allow some space between text lines and choose one easy-to-read font for all your text. For web sites these are usually sans-serif fonts, like Georgia, Verdana or the most popular, Arial font.
9. Be Square
   Making people scroll horizontally rather then vertically, leading them through a labyrinth of "rooms" instead of pages, unusually shaped weird objects in place of list of links and, generally, trying to re-invent the wheel doesn't add anything but frustration to surfer's experience. In this sense, web site is very much like a book or magazine and it should comply with certain rules in order to be fully accessible and re-visited. Granted, there are some books in rather weird formats that were published, but how many of those do you keep on your shelves? At some point, we all thought white background is boring and black text is dull as dull can be, but when you visit the web sites featured on Best of the Web, CSS Zen Garden etc, guess what -- over ninety percent of those amazing, gorgeous sites have the boring white background and super-dull black text! So, don't boldly go into the unknown with your site, or most people will never find it.
10. Simplify
    Learning to discard the non-essentials is probably the hardest rule of all. Over time we tend to create collections of cute little icons, buttons, arrows, borders, animated gifs that are just perfect for our stuff and hundreds of megabytes of images - flowers, kittens, pink bunnies, white puppies, purple hearts - you name it! None of it is necessary, none of it serves to promote our message, most of it has nothing to do with our message to begin with, but IT'S SO CUTE and irresistible that we have to paste it somewhere. Don't. And if you did, start removing all the non-essentials, today. Essential to your web site are only those things that work hand-in-hand with your content, where connection is obvious and doesn't need to be explained to anyone. Ask yourself if it's absolutely necessary to have certain parts of text blue, or purple or yellow. Would it be just fine if it was simply black? Will your page lose the clarity and importance if the bear-smelling-flower animated gif wasn't there? Would we know what your site is about if you didn't have those 45 smileys there? Would we, perchance, enjoy visiting your site more often if you didn't stop to greet us on five welcome-enter-hello-thanks-for-visiting-pages before we finally hit the home page? So, get rid of the clutter, dust your site off and make it useful.

Finally, some people might be less then thrilled to discover the 11th rule added to the ‘Ten Golden Rules’ but this one is the most important and above all:

Learn (X)HTML and CSS
There is a flood of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software that allows everyone to create web pages in an instant, but most of the pages produced this way are loaded with excess, junk code, impossible to validate and therefore practically inaccessible. The blog service providers also enable creating entries through WYSIWYG text formatting, but nothing gives you as much freedom and flexibility as the basic knowledge of XHTML/CSS. It takes less then an afternoon to learn the essential HTML markup and, combined with the endless possibilities style sheets offer, those few hours will be the best investment you could have made.

Posted by Svetlana on June 15, 2006 08:43 AM | http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/2006/06/good-web-design.html