Tag Archives: Know

How Do You Know if Your Web Site is Good for Your Company?

Posted on October 9, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

How do you know if your web site is good for your company?
By first answering the question: “Why do you have a web site?”

If you are in business today you do need a web site. It may be only to provide a “lookup” presence – equivalent to a (nearly obsolete) phone book listing. But there is no longer any doubt that without a web site you have no credibility as a current, active, enterprise. At a minimum, you need a one page web site that provides contact information and a summary of what you do or sell.

Where you go from there, in terms of web site development, depends on the rest of your answer to the question: “Why do you have a web site?”.

A few of the most common reasons are:

To generate leads.
To get sales.
To save on printing costs.
To provide customer support.
To reduce nuisance phone calls.
To qualify leads.
To provide/establish credentials.
To educate.
To satisfy your ego.

Leads
If generating leads is the top priority for your web site then Search Engine Optimization has to be your #1 overriding factor when designing the web site and creating the content. You cannot get leads from a web site that gets no traffic, no matter how beautiful the design or how perfect your grammar.

Sales
Contrary to first impressions this is not the same as, or even a necessary follow on, to leads. Many companies will never be able to make a sale directly from their web site. Some products or services just do not lend themselves to a “self service” model. By the same token, you may not need to generate leads with this web site – even though you are making sales. You may be generating your leads in another way and just handling the sales transactions online.

If you are selling on your web site, then you must concentrate on making that experience the best it can be for your visitor. Every page, the design, the function, and all of the content is there solely to assist in the sale.

Saving on Printing
Catalogues, brochures, portfolios, instruction sheets, etc., can be very costly to print and to distribute. They also have the annoying habit of being out of date the instant they are printed. Your main reason for a web site may be to save time and money by providing materials (that would have otherwise been printed) to your visitors. If this is your priority then the organization of your web site and the ease of finding and printing off the materials will be most important.

Customer Support
This can be as simple as providing driving instructions and business hours to your place of business, and as complicated as a fully automated help desk. Providing (at least some) service to your clients 24/7, is a task that your web site can do at very little cost when compared to hiring people to be available around the clock. To be effective you need to put yourself in your client’s shoes and ask yourself what are they going to want – that you can provide easily – on your web site? Better yet – ask your clients!

Reducing Nuisances
Providing customer support on-line (as above) can help reduce the number of calls your staff many need to field. But it may be that your company is strictly wholesale – and you currently get a lot of unwanted phone calls or emails from the public. If done correctly your web site could identify you more strongly as wholesales only – or better yet direct your nuisance leads to a company that wants them! You may even be able to work out a referral deal for the leads you send their way.

Qualify Leads
Perhaps your challenge is not too few leads but too many leads that go nowhere. Your web site could be put to work qualifying your leads for you. A questionnaire, a test, or a “referred by” form could be used to your advantage. Or some well written text that describes what you do not do – or who you do not serve will satisfy this requirement.

Provide/Establish Credentials
Many service oriented companies and professionals live or die based on their credentials. Often these credentials are complicated and lengthy and need to be added to, or updated frequently. A web site is the ideal place to expound (ad nauseaum if need be) on your experience, training, affiliations, certifications, memberships, published work, samples, past projects, research, etc.

Educate
It may be that providing information is your best bet to business success (at Back2Front we sure think so). Or maybe you are an educator by trade and providing some for free is your best way to sell more for a fee. Either way, a web site based on education will likely grow over time, and could end up being a very large web site – so plan for this in advance. Consistency in style, naming, and presentation, as well as a good navigation system will be necessary for success in this type of web site.

Satisfy Your Ego
I put ego on the list because its better to acknowledge and prioritize it than to pretend it doesn’t exist. Let’s face it, if you are the owner of the company, it is your baby and you are justifiably proud of it! Your company is a reflection of you, and your web site is a reflection of your company. So of course you want it to be impressive, beautiful, unique… as awesome as you are! OK, feel better now? Just prioritize the needs of your ego appropriately with your other goals and make sure your ego does not get in the way of the success of your web site. For example: if lead generation was your highest priority – then you would decide not to include that impressive, animated, flash, intro-page that prevents the search engines from indexing your site properly, no matter how much your ego wanted it.

There is usually more than one reason for having a web site, and therefore the web site may have to satisfy more than one set of requirements. Identifying your reasons and then placing them in order of importance will help you prioritize when resolving conflicts between requirements.

Knowing why you have a web site in the first place will go a long way to helping you decide what kind of web site you need, or whether or not the web site you already have is good for your business.

For more information visit: www.back2front.ca

By Candace Carter, Back2Front – The Web Site People, 2009

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All You Need To Know About Submission To Web Directories

Posted on October 4, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

If you are a web site owner and do its SEO and promotion by yourself, you know that search engines bring huge traffic, and you do your best to climb the top of the search results. You know that quality text content and proper meta tags are very important, and you know how important are links which lead to your web site from other sites. There are several ways of getting links for your web site and submission to web directories is one of them.

1. Why submission to web directories is a powerful tool for your web site promotion?

Web directory is a web site that accepts web sites listings categorized into categories and sub-categories. When you submit your site to a web directory, a link to your web site is added. As you know, link popularity is an important factor for high rankings. When your link is placed on a page with good PR this is a plus to your web site link popularity, because your web site gets ‘piece’ of the page’s PR. The more links your web site has the higher your rankings in search engines but the links must be natural – i.e. relevant and one-way.

Yes, few years ago for high rankings in search engines it was enough just to exchange links with other web sites. Nowadays Google recognizes such schemes and considers these links not natural, and discounts their value in web site popularity and PR calculation. Reciprocal link exchange can still be used as way to get visitors to your web site if you exchange links with good high traffic web sites, but for building ranking one-way natural links are needed.

The links must be SEO-friendly: static, direct, and without ‘nofollow’ attribute; they must be on a page that has some PR, surrounded by text content related to your web site theme and not more than 30 other web sites links. More links on a page will devaluate “piece” of PR your web site gets from the page.

Web directory that offers such links is called SEO friendly web directory and is really worth even paying some small amount for submission because your link will be found and indexed by search engines in just a couple of days and it will be a “plus” to your web site link popularity.

2. What listing to select?

Usually web directory listing consists of linked title, URL, and description, and also can display web site home page thumbnail, Page Rank, detailed description, reviews by visitors, and other. Listings can be free, free with reciprocal, regular paid, and paid premium.

Free listing is a regular listing, its plus that you pay nothing for inclusion, but this type of listings doesn’t guarantee permanent place for your link because newly submitted links will move it to the further pages with lower PR.

Option of free with reciprocal link listing you can select in a paid directory if you don’t want to pay but want to add your web site. Some web directories consider this type of listings as a kind of premium, and give benefits of placement to your link until you keep their reciprocal link alive.

Regular paid listing you may pay for inclusion to a really good web directory, which is SEO friendly and will really give positive results to your web site promotion.

Premium paid listing is always placed above regular listings and can be added to top categories pages with good PR. Such type of listing guarantees permanent top place until payment expiration, which can be monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Often premium listing allows deep links submission, i.e. link to internal pages or sub-directories of your web site, that is good for your web site promotion.

3. How to find good web directories?

Of course you can use search engines but better is to use categorized list of reviewed and rated web directories at special web sites like http://www.criticdirectory.com, http://www.directorycritic.com, http://www.addurl.nu/, http://info.vilesilencer.com/ where the directories are reviewed by hundreds of webmasters so you don’t waste your time on submission to useless directories.
As you will see from the lists, there are general and niche web directories. Always start submission from niche web directories related to your web site theme, because links from relevant resources will be more useful for your web site, and then go to general web directories.

4. How to submit your web site correctly?

There are some tips and secrets and you really need to know them to get high ROI for your money and time spend on submission. Follow these 5 tips to make web directories work for your web site:

4.1. Make sure that it is a SEO friendly web directory

Links must be direct, static, and SEO-friendly, i.e. search engine robots will easily find and index your link. View the web page source code by right clicking on the page and selecting ‘View Source’ from the drop-down menu. Look at the page meta tags, namely ‘ROBOTS’ and make sure it doesn’t contain ‘NOFOLLOW’ or ‘NOINDEX’ attributes.

Look at the links codes – they must be placed within tag ‘A’, ‘URL’ in ‘HREF’ attribute must be pointed directly to a linked web site, not redirect from the web directory domain link. Links must not contain ‘NOFOLLOW’ attribute.

4.2. Find the best place for your web site link

The best place is page with good Page Rank, easily and shortly reached from index page of the web directory, that contain relevant text and links.

Browse a web directory categories and/or subcategories to find the best placement for your link. It’s very important because link, placed on a page with text content relevant by theme to the web site’s theme has more value in eyes of search engines. If your web site fits more than one categories or subcategories, select the one which is reached by less clicks from the home page, and/or has less other web sites links on the pages, this will give your link larger ‘piece’ of Page Rank.

4.3.Follow the web directory submission guidelines

If the online web directory meets all these requirements you can start composing your link. Always before starting submission you should read the submission rules or guidelines, because if your submission is failed to meet them, your web site will be denied.

Usually typical submission guidelines are quite simple and within the common sense rules – your web site must be legal, developed (no landing page or under construction), must not be related to racism, hate, illegal activities, etc.

If you try to submit such web site regardless of the guidelines, most likely your submission will be denied because most of web directories are human edited.

Another reason for your web site to be denied is that you selected wrong category for your listing – some web directory editor may fix it, but another one will just delete the listing.

Let’s also talk about deep linking – this is when you submit internal page of your web site like www.yoursitename.com/pagename.html instead of top level domain www.yoursitename.com
Deep linking is a SEO tactics for getting links, which look more natural in eyes of search engines, and it helps promoting certain web site pages or sections as well. Not all web directories accept deep links for regular listings – most of them offer this for premium paid submission only. If you want to submit internal page link to a web directory, read before starting what the directory submission guidelines tell about this to avoid deletion of your listing.

4.4.Write proper title and description for your link

Title of your link is very important because usually it will be linked to your web site as anchor text that has great impact on your web site search engine rankings, so do your best writing title for each link you submit, however do not stuff the title with keywords only because this may cause rejection of your submission by the directory editor. Write normal informative phrases describing your web site topics, services, products, ideas.

If the web directory submission rules allow using 2-3 keywords or key phrases in the title and description, do not miss that chance; however try to ‘mix’ the keywords with other normal words.

Do not exceed the allowed limit of characters otherwise your title will be truncated or the whole listing rejected.

Vary the link title and description at least slightly for each submission to make the links look natural in eyes or search engines. When search engines find hundreds or thousands of links to your web site with the same anchor text (title) and description, they just discount the links value and your money and time were wasted to no result in rankings. It’s enough just to change one word in title and phrases order in the description from directory to directory, and use different keywords for every 10th web directory to get natural links for your web site and improve its rankings for all the keywords.

Remember that human users are also interested in your web site listing and if will follow the link if they find its interesting and useful. That’s why to use normal language for the title and description, that takes attention of the users and prompt them to click the link.

4.5. Write down all web directories you have submitted your web site to

The first reason for this is to avoid repeated submission to the same web directory because this may cause the first submission rejection or deletion. Also it’s just helpful and handy to have summary list of where and when you submitted your web site, so in few weeks you can return and check if your web site has been added, because some web directories send notification about web site inclusion but some do not and you have to check it manually.

5.How often to submit?

When you start submission you may have list of up to 500 web directories. Process of reviewing and approval by editors usually takes up to several weeks, so even if you submit your web site to all of the 500 web directories at once, the links will not come up same day and your web site will not be penalized for too rapid links getting. However it’s better to keep submission limit reasonable, remembering that the links must look natural in eyes of search engines. So just submit about 100-200 links weekly and after 2 months you will see complete results.

New web directories appear every day and almost all of them are free at the beginning of their life, so you must be hurry to reserve a good place for your web site link because after several months the most of web directories will become paid, and their popularity and Page Rank will grow due to promotion efforts of the owners.

Where to find new web directories? Visit http://www.smackdebt.com/submit-directory.htm for daily report based on webmaster’s and SEO’s forums announcements.

6.Automated submission vs Manual

Submitting your web site to web directories you will notice that some web sites offer automated or bulk submission to 500+ or even 5000+ web directories. Are the services worth trying them? Yes, if a submitter allows using different titles and descriptions for different directories, because if he submits 500 or 5000 links with the same title and description for your web site there is a risk of penalizing by search engines, or just they will discount these links considering them not natural, so you will waste your money.

Bulk submission is great when dozens of hundreds of web directories are owned or managed by one person or company and they can add your web site to all of the directories, however again, ask them if there is a possibility of using different titles and descriptions for different directories, at least for each 5th or 10th.

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5 Things Every Web designer Should Know

Posted on August 25, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

So, you are planning to become a serious web designer? Or you think you already are? Check out on these 5 things and see if you confirm to all of these!

1. There is more than one browser

Internet Explorer for windows is by far not the only browser around. You should test your website on both the Macintosh and on the PC. You can use Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox and Opera on the PC and Safari and Firefox on the Macintosh. Internet Explorer for the mac is no longer supported by Microsoft so don’t bother testing, things will hardly work anyway with today’s CSS coding.

2. CSS is the way to go

There is no doubt about it. If you are serious about developing websites you should use Cascading Style Sheets for both your layout and your design. This way you have total control over how your page behaves in all browsers.


It also adds great flexibility to your website for later on, when you are planning to do a redesign for example.

3. Create all your code yourself

Don’t even try to use the Design view from Dreamweaver or Frontpage.


The code it generates is by far not what you want if you need to have full control of your page. For maximum control you should always work in the code view and create things yourself.

4. Use Mozilla Firefox for JavaScript debugging

The error messages Internet Explorer generates are quite irritating to say the least. It doesn’t even tell you what is actually missing and on what place things go wrong.


If there’s one browsers that can help you with your JavaScript development then Firefox is the one. The JavaScript console is by far the most detailed one and will help you very much when you are testing your scripts.

5. Use the Web development Toolbar for both Internet Explorer and Firefox

These toolbars will help you a lot because there are filled with debugging tools and handy shortlinks to useful tools.


The one for Firefox can be found at: http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/


And the one for Internet Explorer can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en


You really need to have at least these toolbars!

So now you know what you need to have to be a successful web designer. Don’t forget to download at least the toolbars. They will help you a lot and will save you a lot of time.

Hilco van der Meer is known as the author of the Cascading Stylesheet course How To Master CSS. He’s a professional web designer for over 5 years. More information about the course can be found at: http://www.HowToMasterCSS.com

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A Few Things Freelance Web Designers Should Know

Posted on August 23, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

Web design changes with lightening speed.  You want to stay on top of the new technology if you expect to get new clients.  Creating your website in Dreamweaver is a good idea but you want to know how to do all of the things in Dreamweaver without the program.  The reason why you want to be able to hand code is because there are things that are much easier to do by hand than by using Dreamweaver.


As a freelance web designer you should be well versed in Dreamweaver and Photoshop and all of the other programs that can be used to make websites beautiful.  However, you also need to know CSS and XHTML.  The notion that knowing the front end of Dreamweaver and other software without knowing the back end is not necessarily true.  You want to be able to offer clients a number of different options when it comes to your creative skills.


Finding work as a freelance web designer can be tough.  However there are a few places that you should get your website posted and advertise for work.  If you are looking for any type of freelance work there are a number of sites, such as Sologig.com that you can register with.  You will be able to post some clips and other information about what type of services you are offering.  Jobs postings from around the country can be found there.


Web designers typically get work online but you might be surprised at how much work you can get form word of mouth.  There is always someone that needs a website for something.  Some people have a product that they would like to sell online but have no idea how to put a website together.  Some schools would like to have a website for one of their sports teams but there is no one the staff that can do it.  These are great opportunities that you can get from just talking to people that you know.  Make sure that you tell everyone that you are a freelance web designer.  You will be surprised at how many people are interested in your services.            


It is important to have a rate chart established before you start looking for work.  There are plenty of people online that will try to get you to work for much less than what your skills are worth.  Check around and see what the standard rates are for whatever applications you are doing.  You do not want to spend item doing work for less than what you should be making.  Have a rate chart and stick to it.  O not let people talk you down on your rates.  Offer a money back guarantee if you do not deliver the work when you are supposed to with all of the attributes that are supposed to be there.


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A Few Basic Facts on Web Design That You Should Know

Posted on August 21, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

So, the sagging economy has left you with more time off work and at home in recent months. There you were, watching the TV and on came a story about young business people half your age that were making good money off of websites online. The news story went on to further explain that the sagging economy was not having the same negative effects on these online businesses as it was on standard “parking lot” businesses like the one that you “used to” work at.

Get Your Web Site Up Sooner Rather than Later

So where do you begin? Obviously you need at least one website to get started, but can it be just that easy? The truth of the matter, is that some things that you will have to do are easy and other tasks will be somewhat more difficult. The first easy decision that you will have to make, is whether or not to throw your hat into the ring.

Dare to Dream Big

Remember the guys that decided to invest their meager savings into a crackpot plan to manufacture personal computers in their garage? No doubt, all of their neighbors had a good laugh out of that stupid plan. They all must have really fell out of their chairs laughing when they came up with the name “Apple” to put on every computer that no one was going to buy.

Basic Web Design Concepts

Your web site is going to represent you and your business interests online, so you are going to want to come up with some basic design features before you hand the concept over to a web designer to get started. A good reputable web design company will work with you on  design decisions and wouldn’t have laughed at the computer geeks that named their compute company Apple.

Think Long Term

You must bear in mind, that your web site is going to have to be periodically upgraded and maintained to remain competitive. This means that you may be better served by doing business with a web design company that has a long standing, well established track record, rather than a “rip and run” freelancer that is here today and gone tomorrow.

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5 Excellent Tips to Know When You Get Blogging Advice

Posted on August 8, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

When you start blogging there may be lots of things that you want to know and lots of things that you need to figure out. This can be for any number of reasons – to get more people to read what you have to say, to make more money, to share your passion with other like minded people. Now, instead of taking years to find out all the secrets to these things there is a simple way to get all the best blogging advice you can. You got to get a guide which provides blogging advice that discusses all the details around blogging and how you can turn your passion and interest into a full time business.

Here are 5 excellent tips you need to know before getting any blogging advice.

1. Specific info – Your guide got to have every detail about blogging that you can think off including the discoveries and information shared by the author. The guide got to be very specific and offers a lot of useful information that really helps. From experience, I do get many ebooks and guides that you will find will give you a lot of meaningless stuff and not very specific info, perhaps for fear of giving too much away or something.

2. Author’s philosophy – If I were you, I do look for author who has the philosophy of giving more, by telling everyone the secrets to successful and profitable blogging. He does this as he knows it is not going to harm his business in any way. It is a win win situation and you will be spending good money for all this information.

3. Step by step instructions – Blogging guide which you buy got to have step by step instructions. With these, it makes it easier for any blogger to understand and to set everything up Preferably, the guide includes step by step screen shots of all the details and during your blogging process, this will be a perfect handbook to refer to at any time to help you along.

4. Resources – Your blogging guide must offer you other websites that you need to join, where to find links that will pay you, and how you can get the best keywords to use to optimize your blog site in the correct way. All the details that you need to know about the setting up, the maintaining, the planning and the profit making are all listed in this not too long, very comprehensive eBook.

5. Setting the stage right – The last important factor is that the author does share with you the right mindset of setting up a blogging business. The blogger, who is successful, knows what you got to take to be as successful as him. He knows that for you to know the technical stuff is not enough. He educates you to learn and digest about the type of mindset a successful blogger needs to have.

It is with these details that you can thrive and is great for those that don’t really have a lot of spare time to learn the ropes of the internet and blogging world. You just need to follow a blogging guide book and take all the blogging advice that you can get from it. When you get the right guide book, it will become a one stop shop with helpful hints, great resources, links to websites and tools that you will need to use, things to avoid and not only this, but it will basically tell you in order just what to do and how to do it. With the right book, you will not need to use another eBook or blog guide ever again if you get the right one and you will soon be making a great amount of money from this venture.

John Yeo is the author of Blogger’s Paycheck. He is a pro-wedding blogger and social worker who generates $2000 each month of passive income just from his one wedding blog.

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Blog Marketing Online: What you Should Know

Posted on August 6, 2010 by arra| Leave a comment

Marketing your blog online can get complicated and confusing if you are working on your first one. However, for a blog marketing guru, it really is not that complicated. Anyone that is familiar with blog marketing online knows that it takes dedication, hard work and consistency. For someone just starting out with their marketing campaign, it may seem like a lot of work with little or no pay off to be seen right afterwards. However, just know that marketing is something that you have to build. You have to work on it and continue to market your blog.

There are many things that you can do to market your blog and get it out there to be seen by the world. One of the most important things is to visit other blogs that are relevant to yours and leave comments. Doing so gets your blog out there to readers of other’s blogs. And in return can get you some new visitors as well as readers. While all of this might seem confusing at first, after a while you will get the hang of it and it will make sense and fall in place.

Posting on your blog on a regular basis is another way to get new readers. Who wants to read a blog that is never even updated? Would you? Of course not! So give your readers what they want with new content and give it to them often. Post daily, weekly or bi weekly and be consistent about it. This way your readers and visitors will know how often to check your blog for a new post.

Know where your traffic is coming from. Know which search engines are directing people to your blog and which are not. Find out what keywords are bringing people to your blog as well. If you know all of this all ready, use it to your advantage. Write more content on the keywords that are working for you and monitor where you fall on the search engine pages that are sending visitors.

If someone leaves a comment on your blog, be sure to acknowledge it. No one wants to have a conversation with themselves, and it will only take a brief moment to reply and let them know you appreciate them. Otherwise if you have a section full of comments and you have not replied, chances are that you will not be getting many more. The readers may even drop you off of their list of blogs to visit frequently as well. Using your head and treating others as you would want to be treated is a big part of marketing.

Make friends with other bloggers. Network with them and find out how they get so many visitors to their blog and what they do to keep them interested. Exchanging ideas with other bloggers that are successful is a great idea and a good way to make friends. If you want, you can even become friends with other bloggers offline as well. Use this to your advantage and do not just take from the conversation though, be sure that you share all of your blog marketing techniques as well with your new found blogging friends.

If you happen to be quoting an article from another source or blog, always be sure to provide a link back to the original. Other wise this is known as plagiarism and something that is looked down on in the world of marketing. Stealing someone else’s content is not a good idea and not something that you will get away with. You will get caught if you try to say someone else’s work is your own of it is not. This is not a good way to start off in the blog marketing world as well.

Blog marketing is a great way to make extra income and get your blog out there and known. Use these techniques above to get your blog more traffic and readers and you will eventually reap the rewards.

If you want to start blogging for cash, check out Atomic Blogging.

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