Editor’s Note — The easiest way to think of a business website is to think of it as a virtual salesperson. And to be considered successful, it has to convert traffic into paying customers. This article will tell you how to increase your conversion rates.

One of the biggest myths online is that it’s acceptable to have a conversion rate of 1% or 2%. Although this is the average, it IS possible to far exceed this. So if you’re sitting comfortably thinking you’re doing as well as you can. Think again!

Many sites have double-digit conversion rates. Although it takes work to initially get to that point, you’ll reap the rewards for a long time to come.

These great tips will help you get started:

- Use audio on your website to sell. If your site’s purpose is to sell a product or service, EVERYTHING on your site should be used for selling – including audio. Instead of an audio introduction from you like many sites have added recently, create a powerful 30 second commercial that tells people what you offer, the major benefits of purchasing from you and/or why you’re better than your competitors. You don’t have to use a hard sell approach. Keep it conversational and show your enthusiasm – but make sure they’re given information that takes them one step closer to buying!

- Make it a goal to create a “sales system” that works. Your ultimate goal should be to create a system that you know (with complete certainty) will make a sale to a certain percentage of people you put into it. This system should be mapped out from start to finish – that is, from the time a prospect first arrives at your site until they are a lifelong customer. Get started creating your system by planning out the steps you’d like customers take (or if you already have customers ask them what steps they took). Once your website, marketing materials and advertising plan are set up to work with your system, track every step and make improvements as necessary to make it as efficient and profitable as possible.

- Make your site navigation simple and straightforward. Studies show that when a customer cannot find what they’re looking for in less than 2 minutes, they leave and usually never come back. Make sure you don’t lose their attention by providing a consistent navigation system on every page. Also, remember that a link to your home page from every other page on the site is essential. That way, if the search engines bring a potential customer to a page other than your home page, they’ll be able to easily find their way around.

- Make it a habit to ask customers how they found your site. Although you should be tracking all of your site traffic it’s also a good idea to add a field to your order form asking people how they found your site. You may be surprised by the answers! This is another way to get a detailed picture of the best places to get targeted traffic from.

- Get their contact information so you can follow up with them again. A potential customer has to hear your message an average of 9 times before they purchase something. If you consider that only 1 in 3 messages actually gets read, you have to contact people an average of 27 times before they’ll be ready to buy! Therefore having a strong follow up system in place is key. If possible automate this with an autoresponder series using a service such as AWeber. This will allow you to set the messages and forget them!

- Make testimonials and endorsements credible. The best way to do this is to include lots of information on the person who submitted it. Some information to consider using is their full name, city and state, URL, photo, signature or an audio testimonial/endorsement. If the person is willing to take phone calls from potential customers then also include their phone number.

Website conversion rates of 1% may work for other site owners; however when you want to maximize your returns, 1% is just not enough. You must increase your conversion rate to increase earnings, and using the tips above is the perfect place to start.

Ben Euporian of Omsho.com makes it easy to learn from Website Sales Conversion Experts. For details, visit this site now: Increase Website Conversion

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Web sites are all the rage today, it seems more companies and professionals have decided they need them and have put plans in place to build a site for their business. Unfortunately outside of the basic notion that a site is needed most businesses don’t plan out what a web site will do for their business. It becomes a situation where you want one because “they” have one, but unfortunately without purpose and planning neither your site nor theirs will be successful.

A statistic regarding web sites is that over 1,500 new web sites are launched every day somewhere. With that many new sites being created every day to make yours stand out, much less provide value it has to have purpose. Here are four steps to creating a stronger web site for your business.

Know your Purpose

Is your web site designed to sell products online, build your prospect list or serve as a vehicle for information fulfillment? It could be one of these things it could be a combination of them. However even if it has more then one purpose then answer the question what is the primary purpose of the site? Rank your priorities in order of importance from first to last. Once you know the purpose you can focus the site on achieving this goal.

Build Your Site Around the Primary Purpose

Build your web site around your purpose. For example, if you goal is to build a site that grows your prospect list then you need to focus on creating ways to get visitors to give you their contact information. You could do this through an online newsletter, free reports, giving away products or consultations and other methods of giving value to a user that will trade that value for their contact information. Your site navigation, color, overall design, copy and organization needs to be built around achieving this goal.

Offer value

If your web site is a basic brochure about you or your company that ranks very low in terms of providing true value to a visitor. If you can offer articles, free reports, fresh updated content, checklists, links to other sources, a current blog on your expertise, etc. you give people a reason to explore the site and share it with others. You also create a reason for the visitor to come back to your site and expose them to your message and marketing again. If you don’t offer value and instead just have a site all about you and your company you may get visitors once, but soon your traffic will start declining. You want to create a site that is vibrant, alive and a destination for visitors, one that they will willingly come back to. The key to getting this interaction with your visitors is value, offer it and they will come.

Measure progress

Once you have something of value to offer now you need to measure how successful it is. However measurement of useless information isn’t going to help. Figure out what really constitutes a useful measurement. Is it sales, visitors or names for your list? Whatever “it” is be sure you not only know and measure it, but have the goal in mind of what this measurement needs to be to constitute success. There are several great management tools that can give you web statistics on your site, but without the right stats and goals that information is about as useful as ice in Antarctica.

It is too easy to build a web site today, so easy that most become a failure. Don’t let your site become a failure because of lack of purpose and planning. Know why you need it and what the goals and plans are to achieve the “why” then like any good plan execute it and measure your progress. If you apply this strategy your site and business will be much more successful.

For most small businesses, the goal of having a web site is to attract customers, gather leads, and convert sales. But is that what YOUR web site is doing? When you get it right, web visitors have a valuable experience and clearly understand how your product or service fulfills their needs. Get it wrong and you could be sending web traffic and potential business right to your competitor’s door! Here are some common web site mistakes that can scare away visitors and hurt your bottom line:

- Too many choices – When you give your visitors too many options, it can become overwhelming, making them less likely to make any decision at all. All options are not equally important, so be careful to present your information in an organized, logical way that is easy to understand.

Editor’s Note – Please read this article I had written on another website.

- Non-relevant web site content – Be sure that the content on your site is focused on delivering your main marketing message. You are the expert on your business, so you already know what information customers need in order to make a decision. Extra information that doesn’t promote or support your message doesn’t belong on your web site.

- Unprofessional web design – The way your web site looks and functions speaks volumes about your business, even if it is unintentional. If your web site has poor layout, broken or missing links, outdated information, or looks unprofessional, your visitors will have a negative impression of your company, regardless of how great your business may be.

- Red flags – Most web users today have a healthy skepticism when they visit web sites, so make sure you show them immediately that your company is legitimate. Provide detailed contact information that includes your physical mailing address, phone number, contact names, and email addresses so visitors know your business can be trusted.

- Asking for too much information – When visitors want to make a purchase, sign up for your mailing list, or request information from your web site, what kind of a form will they be faced with? Make sure you ask only for the information that you absolutely need, and don’t try to gather too much information at once. Instead, keep the form short and simple, and then follow up later to gather any additional customer information that you may need.

I have seen and heard crazy things…ah! But how to build a website! In my endeavor and quest for success I have heard people ask weird questions and I have seen those professing to be internet gurus give astounding answers.

I know of a fellow who posted a question on yahoo answers. This particular question kept me staring at my monitor screen lost of words. This fellow had bought a domain name and registered it with one of the leading domain name registrar. His question was simple yet to those familiar with the art of online business, the question leaves a lot to be desired.

My friend was seeking advice on what to do with his domain name. He had no plans or ideas on what to do with it! Think of lack of planning and we don’ t need to go further than this example.

To avoid being on the same predicament, here are 5 factors to consider as you ponder on your next move. Before you build a website, think about the following:

Identify the type of web site you will be building. Are you going to build a website whose primary purpose is to sell hard good or e-goods? Would your site be composed of affiliate links or are you going to sell your own service or product? Is your web site going to be primarily informative in nature with google ad sense and other form of advertisement or is it going to be purely visual with little or no content.

Identifying the type of web site you are going to create will make the next step easy to identify.

Gone are the days when all a web master needed to do was to stuff their web site with links leading to all type of product and services. In the current internet world you can not succeed in building a web site designed in the form of a shopping mall with all kinds of goods and services.

The internet is increasingly and exponentially becoming a specialized super highway. Only those web sites that are able to distinguish them selves as authorities in a given area are poised to reap the benefits of online business.

Start out by identifying a profitable niche that you will enjoy writing about, identify an area that you already have experience on, have passion or will be comfortable learning about.

Only build a website in an area or niche that you believe in.

It’s not just enough to develop and build a website based on your strength and weakness. Care should be taken to do a little bit more research about the potential and profitability of that given field.

There are great tools out there on the net that would enable you to come up with a profitable niche, those tools will also enhance your research by shading light as to the exact phrases that your potential visitors would under normal circumstances type into the search engines in their quest for information.

Care should be taken while choosing the domain name and hosting company for your online business. A search in any of the leading search engines for the phrase “how to choose a domain name” or “web hosting” would return tones of articles that have been written advising us on the do and don’ t do as far as choosing a domain name or host provider is concerned.

Editor’s Note — We recommend HostGator. Click Here and use the coupon Jury to get your FIRST MONTH for just 1 cent!

Have you ever typed the exact phrase of a given keyword while searching for information on any of the leading search engines only to end up frustrated with the displayed results after trying several times? Search engines and human traffic thirst for information, great quality information.

One sure ways to win the search engines wars and in the process please your targeted customers is to create quality content. A site owner who remains focused and persistent in doing just start will in the long run reap the benefit of having their pages rank up high if not at the top of the search query results.

And there are many more things to consider, but why not start with this 5 first!

1. Adobe Photoshop - The ability to use and understand the basics of pixel based photo manipulation. The best Photoshop experts are constantly learning and experimenting through online tutorials, books and seminars. This is the grand daddy of them all. Make it a goal to spend X amount of time each week learning a new technique.

Test: Can you do complex selections via the selection tool? Are you accomplished with layers? Do you understand how to use adjustment layers, masks and channels? Can you remove blemishes, “scratches” and color correct

2. Adobe Illustrator - The ability to use and understand vector based graphics. This program is essential to creating crisp, clean artwork. You will need this program for logo/identity creation, poster work and even some print work. The program can be a bit tricky to learn but worth all and any aggravation to learn it.

Test: Do you understand the concept of bezier curves? Can you convert a bitmap image to a vector graphic? Have you mastered multi-step gradients? Do you know how to create graphic images with text?

3. Adobe InDesign or Quark Express - The ability to use a page layout program. This program is fundamental to any print work. Whether you are creating books, magazines, brochures, sell sheets or advertisements you will need to possess the skills of a high-end layout program.

Test: Do you understand the concept of Master Pages? Would you be able to set up a 32 page catalog? Do you have an understanding of how to control text with images? i.e.; how to flow text in and around images. Do you have basic knowledge of offset printing and pre-press processes? Hint: if not, schedule a visit to a fairly large local printer and ask if you can be shown their process AND bring a list of a questions.

4. Flash - The ability to use and understand this motion-based juggernaut. Flash is now the most widely deployed video platform on the Internet. Flash Player is installed on nearly twice as many desktops and devices as any other video player. As the web becomes more and more video-based having a solid knowledge of Flash, In my opinion, is one of the most important programs to learn.

Test: Can you create a simple animation? Do you understand the concept of keyframes? Do you know how to incorporate a Flash movie into a web page? Do you understand the power of interactivity and user interface design?

5. Understand Typography One of the most “overlooked” design skills today is knowledge of Typographic design. It is one of the tell-tale signs between a good and excellent designer. Our business is all about communication and if type is not clear, appropriate or well designed the design is seriously compromised.

Test: Do you have a font management system installed on your computer? Have you recently read (or revisited) some of the classic type books? Are you up-to-speed on typographic standards? Do you know the difference between True Type, PostScript and OpenType fonts? Do you have a font reference guide resource book in your studio?

6. Idea Generation In the design business it is critical to have a method of idea generation. Why? Some of the best designers in the world are paid the most money not because they know Photoshop of Flash better than you do but because they have the ability to consistently come up with new and innovative ideas that make their clients serious money.

Test: What methods do you use to generate ideas? Do you know how other innovative thinkers come up with their brilliant ideas? How often to you read (in general) so as to have myriad references and viewpoints to call upon? What do you do when your idea well has gone dry?

7. Building a Network To be successful in area of life you need the help and support of others. This is especially important for designers who need to spend much of their time in their studios/offices. Building a network of trusted confidants and friends will pay off in more ways than you know.

Test: How often do you attend networking events or seminars? Have you made a list of 5 influential people that could help your career? Do you have some sort of system for capturing and entering your new contacts information? What can you do this week to open and expand your network? Have you sought out a successful mentor?

BONUS SKILL #8. General Business Skills You do not have to be a genius at business but you DO need to know basic business skills, like; sales, marketing, accounting, tax strategies, database management, etc. This tends to be one myth that designers rather not deal with. If you are marketing your own design firm or you are a freelancer the sooner you learn your business is NOT graphic design but the advertising and marketing business you will be light years ahead of your competition.

Test: Do you know the basic outline of a sales call? What new marketing strategies have you learned/implemented? When was the last time you wrote a hand-written thank you note or sent a surprise gift to a client?

Those who tap into their raw talents and passion get ahead further and faster in the ever-expanding Web world. It seems obvious, but most web types get drawn toward immediate, short-term opportunities and wander far from their true calling.

Enter specialization

Renew your drive by specializing in an area where you naturally thrive.

When you focus on one particular area or niche, your knowledge and experience increase rapidly. Within a short timeframe, you get in tune with leading technologies and trends, become established in your industry and market, start to earn top dollar and ultimately gain full control of a satisfying career.

Conversely, if you attempt to be all things to all people, you’ll produce mediocre work and attract comparable clients.

Such was the case with a web-savvy individual who recently completed a series of projects for my business. During the 1990s, he had his hands in programming, design, online marketing and copywriting. “I was attracting the worst customers,” he said. When he wasn’t haggling over price, he was dealing with unhappy clients demanding freebies. He finally decided to stick with what he knows best: programming. Now he works less, makes more and gets to pick his clients.

Not too long ago, another programmer who’s been developing websites for 10 years asked me: “Should I go to school so I can also provide clients designs?”

Rather than broaden his work scope, I suggested he narrow it. A great programmer can’t necessarily become a great designer and vice-verse. It comes down to recognizing what you’re good at and leveraging that talent. After all, it’s no coincidence the very best websites are collectively created by professional web copywriters, designers, programmers and other specialists.

On the design front, a Vancouver-based design team I’ve worked with began researching the food industry’s web needs, and decided to pursue that niche. It didn’t take long to land some notable restaurants and become the ‘go to’ web design firm in that industry. They discovered they have a knack for it, wholeheartedly threw themselves into it and clients now knock on their door.

Unleash your true passion and talent

How do you determine your niche? Consider what you love doing and what you do well. Hopefully the two overlap. Then determine your market; who could you best serve? Finally, fine-tune how you position yourself by listening closely to common customer complaints and problems. If there’s a pain your competition or the industry isn’t paying attention to, you’re sitting on a goldmine.

Some tips on determining your potential expertise and niche:

1) Write down what, how, when and where you are going to offer your service.

2) Describe your strengths (how and why you’re better than the competition).

3) Acknowledge your weaknesses (things you need to improve or delegate).

4) Develop a profile of your ideal client (age, sex, needs, spending habits, region and so on).

The sharper your focus in a particular segment of your industry, the quicker you can gain expertise or even authority status in your field. And that’s when the best clients come to you; the one’s who value your work and pay accordingly.

Checkout - Principles of Beautiful Webdesign.

These twenty mistakes are the difference between a very poor website and a very good website. You may know some of these mistakes already, but if you have avoided or corrected all of them you are almost certain to keep visitors coming in and coming back.

This list is especially important for new designers, amateurs or the experienced but sloppy who need a list to work from for a website spot check.

1. Bad Layout and Design - Yes, there are some ugly, unbalanced or overloaded webpages out there. Make your page a pleasant viewing experience. If you are not sure about the looks of you design, then let some people see a screenshot of your webpage.

2. Non-Standard Links - Why confuse your visitors with links that are different colors or fonts that vary from page to page. Don’t frustrate your visitors, it shouldn’t be a guessing game.

3. Iffy Navigation - Take it easy on the moving objects, trailing images and other stuff you see on kids websites. It’s just not that entertaining and it can get in the way and distract your visitors. Keep it stable easy to find and read.

4. Slow Pages - Who wants to watch your dumb load meter rack up the percents of loaded kilobytes or megabytes? Keep your pages lean and fast, under 50k if possible. Do not bore your visitors.

5. Wild and Crazy Color Schemes - Some pages look idiotic with overly bright colors, maybe even revolting. Your texts must be easy to read, not a sensational nightmare.

6. Spelling and Grammar - Errors in spelling and grammar make your page look amateurish or childish - always spell check.

7. Page Text - Keep your pages easy to read. Break texts into paragraphs or blocks. People scan pages more than they read them, make it easy on them.

8. Font Style and Size - Choose easy to read fonts and use the right size - not micro reading or headlines on every line.

9. Dumb, Out of Control Music - select background music that fits the subject matter and make sure it can be turned off easily.

10. Under Construction - Avoid having a visitor coming to you closed or not yet opened website. What’s the point? Give them a single page of content with a notice as to when the whole site will be available.

11. Untested Web Site - Always look at your website in multiple browsers and make changes accordingly before uploading your site to the web.

12. Sloppy Texts - Make sure all the right words are in all the right places - “Content is King” for readers and search engines.

13. Old Content - Updating your website is important, visitors need to see something new once in a while.

14. Too Many Clicks - Why should a visitor have to jump through page after page to find anything on your website. Make sure everything is only 3 clicks or less from the homepage.

15. No Contact Information - Keep your contact information easy to find and easy to read.

16. Free Hosting Service - When you see a webpage that has a name so long that it has at least one period in the middle of it you know it’s a free hosting situation. Everyone knows the limitations of free hosts and the limitations that they place on a webpage. Don’t use a free web host if you want to be taken seriously.

17. Advertising - Do not overload you page with ads, especially the big grotesque banners. Well placed, well designed ads are okay if you don’t overload the page.

18. Bad Images - Don’t make a visitor suffer missing graphics file or badly shaped or cropped images. Optimize your images and use the best heights and widths, and keep your files in the best formats - jpeg for Photographs and gif for artwork.

19. Website Best Viewed - Don’t say this on your website, it looks like a beginner’s website.

20. No Prices - If you sell something don’t waste your time hoping you will get email inquiries on your prices - just include a price with the item description.

That should do it. Follow these directions to correct the 20 most common mistakes in website design to make sure your webpage is in good shape.

Websites are intended to be seen and used by Internet surfers. Not many people realize the wideness of the range of the users of the Internet.

A website’s usability is one of the key determinants of its success in fulfilling its main goal, whether it is made for information dissemination, business or communication. Usability is all about the relationship between a website and its users. Websites should be seen as tools which will allow its users to do their tasks and help them achieve results.

The issue of usability is very pertinent and is treated with much attention today. There have been moves (including legal ones) that aim to push web development towards usability. There are many people who are affected with some kind of disability or impairment which hinders them from fully enjoying the different aspects of life including the use of the Internet. The Internet, with it’s continuous development towards the better, has been a great instrument in providing people, especially those with impairments to be able to have avenues for accessing information, communicating and transacting. This is why the issue of website usability is a much talked about issue.

Usability is important because it can be the difference between accurately performing a task or not, between enjoying the whole process or being very frustrated. Usability is also important for the developers since it can be one of the key factors in determining the success of a system. It is also important for businesses which thrive in the Internet because a low level of usability will definitely drive the customers away. Most importantly, it is important for people who have impairments because they are the most vulnerable group in terms of accessing the different avenues that the Internet provide.

A website’s usability is one of the key determinants of a website’s popularity. A recent survey revealed that the “ease of use” with regards to websites makes 74% of website visitors want to come back.

There are different components of usability. These are:

- Efficiency

This refers to how easily the users can perform their tasks after they have had a general feeling for the website.

- Learning curve

Can the structure of the website easily be learned by the users?

- Over-all perception

Is the website pleasant to the eyes and can easily be accessed by people viewing it?

A website that is usable will be able to deliver a lot of benefits not only to the viewers but also to the developers. Here are some of the most important benefits that can be achieved by improving the usability of a website.

-user satisfaction
-productivity and success
-avoidance of long-term costs of development
-improved competitiveness of the website

Now, we go to the ways on how to the basic concepts that should be kept in mind in developing websites to achieve usability.

1. Give information about the website

Many website developers forget the importance of putting some information about the website because they assume that people will be able to figure that themselves. Many people will be giving negative feedback if they don’t get what they want (or what they think they want) from the website. A portion of the homepage can be used to relay this information or a separate section “about the site” can be added.

2. Provision of a Sitemap

Many people are not very familiar on navigating through the different layers of a website and therefore they result to the sitemap to be able to find what they are looking for. Sitemaps provide a skeleton image of the whole site and cramp the pertinent sections into one single page.

3. Loading time

If people are to be asked to choose between a good-looking site which takes too much time to load and a basic site which loads quickly, most of the time, the second one will win. The use of large flash programs, graphics and the inappropriate placing of too much information should be avoided to improve the usability of a website.

4. Quality content and readability

People visit website to be able to gather information and they will leave immediately if the content are either: of poor quality or has poor readability. Make sure that the contents are written well and are structured to be easily read.

These are just some of the ways on how a developer can improve the usability of his website. The development of websites is pushing forward to usability and every single website should take this in mind.

In the last three months or so, I’ve learned quite a bit about blogging in general from a few different sources. Whenever I’m not reading one of the dozens of RSS feeds, I’m usually researching the industry, or closely related topics. Of course, there are a few blogs in the niche I’m interested in that I consider “authority” blogs. A few big name bloggers have really “made it”, and I can never figure out if that makes me envious or inspires me to ascend to their level.

For all of those that think the big guys have it easy, then I’m here to tell you right now that they don’t! Running and maintaining a blog with such a high public popularity has to be one hell of a job. I know they make money even when they’re sleeping, but if they slow down, so will the several thousand dollars a month they make. They always have to be ahead of the game, and better than the rest. That’s why they are what they are. Props to them for accomplishing such a feat. I dream of the day I pull in a few hundred bucks while I’m sleeping. If it ever gets to that point, you can be damned sure that I won’t be stuck in a cubicle all day!

So since I’ve started blogging, I’ve seen a few things happen without fail. It may seem like common sense, but sometimes we need a little reminder.

If you want traffic, then you have to write great and helpful content.

If you stop writing great and helpful content, you stop getting traffic.

Duh, right? Well, sometimes writing great content is easier said than done. We all start off with super ambitious intentions, but then we soon realize that real life still has to be attended to, and time is usually a factor that we don’t have enough of. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you expect big numbers, then you need to give them (readers) a reason to come to your blog on a consistent basis. As a matter of fact, I wrote two articles (about automobiles) in May that have accounted for almost 50% of my total traffic since blog inception. When the buzz from those articles died down, I kind of just sat there with a stupid stare wondering where everyone went! The worst part of it was that those two articles had absolutely nothing to do with “making money online”. So once the readers read the article (which offered valuable advice), there was really nothing left for them to look at. That’s okay though, I’ve definitely learned from that, so no harm no foul.

This is more of a ramble than anything, so I’ll leave you with a list of some simple rookie tips and advice that you should consider taking seriously. I’ve seen a whole new crop of rookie “make money onliners”, and I don’t think they realize what kind of road they have ahead of them! Best of luck to them though.

1. Don’t put your Feedburner subscriber count button on your blog until you have at the very least, 100 subscribers. When I come to your blog (or anyone for that matter) and I see that you have 4 readers, I’m probably not going to be inclined to subscribe. It’s human nature. Humans like big numbers. So hold off until you have a respectable number to show off. Trust me on this one.

2. Being a blogger (especially in the make money online niche), you’re going to encounter several opportunities from other bloggers, website owners, and whoever, that want you to help them with a project. While this can potentially lead to great things, most of the time it will fizzle out and leave you with a lot of lost time. Pick your side projects VERY carefully. Don’t feel like you need to say “yes” to everyone that invites you to work on a project. Don’t worry, if you turn one down, you’ll have plenty more in the future. Please trust me on this one, as it’s a weakness of mine, and it has cost me plenty of my extra time.

3. Easy on the advertising. The first thing any blogger in this niche wants to do is implement every type of advertising possible to try and earn the big money. Guess what? Even with 14 different types of revenue sources on the front page, chances are you’ll make less than what you would with just a couple of select ones. People in general hate advertising, so don’t fill up your page with affiliate ads and other types of clunky advertising. Stick with Adsense and one or two others at most. You won’t make any real money anyway until you have a decent amount of traffic, so all it’s doing is taking up space and looking bad. Again, you should be in this for the long haul, so time is your friend. You will not be John Chow in a week, I guarantee you that.

4. Promote the hell out of your blog. You’re going to need a jump start when you come out of the gate, and the best way to promote for free these days is to leverage the power of social bookmarking and networking sites (digg, mybloglog, blogcatalog, stumbleupon, technorati, etc…) Sign up for all of these, and make good use of them, it will definitely pay off, and it really is necessary if you want any kind of long term traffic stability. Also, start surfing every blog in your niche and related niches, and get to know them. Leave conversation sparking comments and be generous on the link love when you write. The good karma will follow you around for the rest of your blogging career. Make friends fast, as they’ll be the ones to help you along the way. Remember, without promoting your blog, your not going to get the traffic levels that you should be getting, so do this until you’re sick of it, and then do it some more.

5. Don’t give up! This sounds pretty cliche, but you will inevitably come to a point where you are sitting on your thumb wondering what you need to do to succeed. The answer is simple - keep writing! Any good writer can make it, but it takes time. Success isn’t overnight, it’s built up over time and if you provide great and valuable content, then the success and money will flow eventually. I promise you that. Give your readers something to think about, and they’ll keep coming back. That will be the key to your success. Remember, readers come first, then all the rest can follow.

I hope these tips help you in some way. I know they are pretty obvious, but again, they are easily forgotten and sometimes all it takes is someone to remind you. Good luck to all out there, and let’s make it a good month!

If you are building only a one or two or even three page (or personal) website, you do not really need to plan(though it would not harm to plan). But if your website contains ten plus pages, it would probably be to your advantage to plan.

What Your Visitors Want

When you visit a Web Site, you usually have a reason for going there. Even if you stumble upon that website accidentally, there is something there that grasps your attention and interests you.

Therefore, through out the whole planning process, you should consider what your visitors expect to see on your site. You should have a clear idea of which type your visitors are. For example, will they be old or young. If they are old, then you should make the design really simple and without the flashy flashy. If your target audience are kids, you could then include all the flashy flashy, without which they would not be attracted!.

So, you see, it is imperative that you have an idea of the type of your audience.

Site Organization

The most important thing in your website could be your site structure. May be, because of your clumsy structure, visitors leave your site. Therefore, it is necessary to have a structure that suits your site and is friendly for the visitors. Aww… why care about the visitors??? Because you have to! Otherwise you’ll be outta business!

There are two main types of organizational techniques, namely hierarchical and linear. Let us have a look at them now:

Hierarchical Organization

In this type of organization,all the pages (except for your home page), are grouped and are connected to the home page. The pages in the groups are connected to each other and they may be connected to the home page also, but the main page(or the home page) of that group should always be connected to the home page.

The home page is also connected to the main pages of each group and all the pages of each group are connected to the main page of that group This type of organization is suitable for websites which have a huge amount of content which can be divided into groups. The reader knows at every point his position on the website. However, it is not suitable to have too many groups as the reader may get confused.

Linear Organization

In this type of page organization, all the pages(including the homepage), are connected like the pages of a book - one page comes after another. This type of organization may be good for Do-It-Yourself type of websites, as steps often have to be followed in order. All the pages are connected in a “Back” and “Next” order. This type of page organization is good for several types of websites, but it limits the reader’s freedom of roaming around the site as he pleases. You could also add a “Home” link on every page to take the reader to the home page directly from each page.

A Mixture of Both

You could also use a mixture of both hierarchical and linear organization for your website.For example, the contents of your website could be divided into groups and the pages in each group could be connected to each other. This way, the reader would have more freedom to roam around your site.

Webbed Organization

This is another type of organization. In this type, several pages are connected to each other like a web. But too much use of this and your visitors could easily become disoriented and lost.

Navigation Tips

Navigation always will be a very important part of a website. Navigation can make or break the possibility of having more readers.

Unfortunately, navigation is the least of the worries of many webmasters. Bad navigation is also one of the main causes for declining or few visitors. Make sure you don’t fall in the trap! Do not confuse the reader with navigation

You cannot afford to lose your users in this way. You should, at every page of your website, let the user know where he or she is. One way of doing this is to use meaningful URLs. For example the URL to this tutorial is:

htmltheeasyway.com/basics/planning_and_design.shtml.

Anybody who sees this URL can tell that this page has to do something with planning and design of something. So it does not confuse the user. Now compare the above URL with this:

htmltheeasyway.com/b/122.aspx

Can you work out what the page is about?? Neither can I. Therefore, it pays to have meaningful URLs.

Another good way is to have a breadcrumb trail on the top of your pages.It is a textual representation of the site or directory structure, showing where the user currently is, so the user is not confused. We also have one on our site.

Keep it Simple

Yeah, you must keep it simple. Fancy JavaScript mouse-overs and mammoth size images only worsen the miseries of the reader! In addition, they also slow down the speed of loading, further disillusioning the user with your site.

Try to use text-links instead of images and use CSS mouseovers. CSS mouse-overs are a lot speedier than Javascript mouse-overs. Also, as much as possible, use simple text in place of images. For example, as I have done, you could use some clever bits of HTML and CSS to make simple text look like images. Look at the htmltheeasyway.com logo, for example, Using CSS, I have made it look like an image, but in reality, it is not!

Website Design

Believe me, website design can make or break a website. Too much of flash and mammoth sized images resulting in long load times and your users would rather sleep than wait for your site to load. Keep it simple and easy on the users. Here are some tips..

Page Design

When designing your pages, you should always try to make the user experience similar to the real world. For example, most languages like English are read in a left-to-right manner. So if your target audience is an English one, you should position your elements in such a way that your users do not feel much different. For example you could place the navigational menu to the top or the left of your page, etcetera.

Oh, yes, if your target audience’s language is one which is read right-to-left, such as Urdu, you could position your elements in a different manner, such as the navigation on the right, etcetera. So forget all those weird designs you have in mind and design for your target audience to make it easier for them.

One thing to remember, your visitors want to the see content that you have on offer, not to see how much you have decorated your website through flash and mouseovers and all that. Now by this I do not mean that you should not do any thing to make your site attractive, but you should try to remain in between the two extremes.

Now on to the actual design of your website’s pages. First make a vague(or as elaborate as you want) sketch on paper about what a page will basically look like. Then on a graphics program like Serif PhotoPlus, on a canvas of about 783 x 398 pixels(this is the minimum amount of free space on a 800 x 600 screen), draw the layout of your pages, with colour and all(What looks good on paper, will not necessarily look good on a computer screen, so it is best to design your site on the computer only). And then, through the help of this basic layout, begin to code your webpages.

Site Structure

The next important thing that you have to look into while designing your site is your site structure. You must decide which kind of organization to use on your site: hierarchical, linear or a mixture of both. I have explained all of these above. Before you begin on your site, you should have a clear idea on the type of structure to use. You can get a laydown on these three types above.

Muhammad Siyab has been present in the field of web design and web development for almost 3 years and thus has gained quite a lot of experience in this field.

Please visit his site at:

www.easyhtmltutorials.com/blog/