Wrfwebdesign Provides MRF Web Technologies

2011-01-17T03:10:00.001-08:00

Three Things You Should Expect in a Low Cost Website Package

2010-11-16T15:59:00.003-08:00

Low cost websites are one of the best things to have come out of the recession. Web design companies are aware that businesses need an online presence but in some cases they simply do not have the capital to invest in a unique and bespoke website. Although a low cost package website is a good idea, just because it is low cost doesn't mean it should leave out some very important features.

When looking for a website package, make sure at least these three benefits are included in the price:

Up to 5 Pages Included

You may want five pages. You may only want two. But don't settle for two if you want five! The option to have up to five pages should be a minimum offering in a website package from a reputable website design company. If only two or three pages are offered it is likely you'll be charged for any more and it might not turn out to be as low cost as you had envisaged.

Perfect Coding

Just because you may not know anything about coding doesn't mean you should ignore it. Poorly coded websites are penalised by the search engines and this will affect the overall success of your website. Remember some designers are more into how things look than whether they work properly so do your homework on this point!

Email Addresses Included

If you employ a fair few staff then with your website you need ample e-mail addresses that include your domain name. Not only does this look professional but it also saves you buying them separately at an inflated price. Usually a low cost website package will include a certain number of e-mail addresses: just make sure you have enough!

When opting for a low cost website design package, make sure what is on offer is a very high quality, professionally produced product that has these and plenty of other features included. Just because it is relatively cheap doesn't mean you should lose out on the basics!
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Use Color And Layout As Sales Tools!

2010-11-16T15:59:00.001-08:00

Did you know that the color and layout of a web site could have a huge impact on selling your product or service? One of the key factors in establishing a friendly and attractive web site is color and layout. And that’s where a lot of beginning webmasters go awry.

If you look at any of the available professional web site templates you’ll see that the colors and the layout blend with the content. Web site templates can be a great guide to showing the inexperienced how to combine color and elements. This is especially important for the color challenged.

I have to admit I am partial to both red and blue. But that doesn’t always work well for a web site. So it’s important to step outside your own preferences when designing a web site. Many tests have been done on colors and impact for web site design.

Colors can often complement the product or service, or the company’s logo design. Some companies even use a color to brand their service or product, like UPS does with brown. Not my first choice in colors but it appears to be working well for them.

Colors can have an impact on mood and cultural significance. Red is a universal color for attention, yellow for caution, and green for approval. But there are exceptions, green hats in China indicate infidelity for a woman. Red implies danger in many cultures. So colors can affect the mood and emotional response of the viewer.

Men and women definitely view colors differently. Women prefer red, black, and bright colors. Men prefer blue, orange, and darker colors. Although most of the impact is psychological or emotional, it can have a positive or negative effect on buying products or services.

Dark and foreboding colors may deliver a message not intended. Bright and colorful designs on a web site selling a serious product or service (like medical products to treat a terminally ill patient) can definitely show a lack of sympathy and put off potential buyers.

Some colors may actually render the words unreadable to some people. Using light yellow or blue type on a white background is hard for many to see, not too mention not very attractive. Black backgrounds with white type certainly have enough contrast, but may miss the boat on creating the appropriate mood or emotion.

Most experts agree that neutral backgrounds and dark blue or black type are the most legible and readable for most viewers. Using other colors for emphasis is fine, as long as you don’t over do it. Having more than 3-4 colors on any page can diminish the impact of any one of the colors.

Too many colors, just like too many fonts (type styles) can agitate the reader and create a negative experience. And when you are trying to convince someone to buy something, that’s not a very effective presentation. Too little contrast makes viewing difficult, too much contrast irritates the reader.

Another problem faced by any web site designer is how the color will appear on different monitor and computers. Some colors have a tendency to not produce the same look on any monitor or video card. Each computer may have a different rendering technology and therefore produce a different hue or color.

Some video cards and monitors can only display 256 colors (it used to be about 16). There are also other factors such as the type of monitor (LCD display much differently than tube type) and available ram on the video card (more ram usually means more colors). But there is a way to help control this chaos.

There is a “standard” of sorts that is called Browser Friendly or Browser Safe colors. Netscape originally established this standard years ago and many still rely on it today. All of the major browsers have adopted this color set to help web site designers with choosing colors that display the same across all video devices.

Without getting too technical, these colors are limited to the basic 256 available on any computer equipment including our friends with Macs. These browser safe colors will display the same across all makes and models of equipment. You can see the colors and Hex values here:

[http://www.fptemplate.net/safecolors.htm]

The major concern is not to distract from the message of your web site, whether it be informational or selling a product or service. Don’t go for the big fancy design and forget the purpose of the web site. That’s especially important for web sites designed to sell a product or service.

Web Design The Easy Way - Some Quick Tips To Get Started

2010-11-16T15:58:00.002-08:00

Web design can be quite a daunting prospect if you are new to the Internet. You would like to create your own site but have no idea where to start. Html? Photoshop? Fireworks? FrontPage? Dreamweaver?

This article will give you some tips and hints on how to get started with web design - and which shortcuts to take!

Tip 1: Learn HTML

I can hear you groan. I said I was going to give you some shortcuts, now I suggest you learn HTML! Unfortunately there is no way around it. Even if you make use to the shortcuts to web design that I am going to suggest, learning HTML will still be the best investment that you can make. It is really not that difficult and it will greatly aid in your understanding of web design.

A really good place for online tutorials on HTML can be found here: http://www.w3schools.com/html/

Depending on your enthusiasm and level of technical skill I would also suggest that you learn a bit about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Cascading style sheets can assist you tremendously with controlling the layout, colors and images on your web page. You can also find good CSS tutorials on the w3schools website.

Tip 2: Use a web template for web design

Now this is really a shortcut to web design! I suggest that you create your first website by making use of a web template. There are lots of commercial templates available, and frankly, they are beautiful, but I am going to give you some hints on where to find free web templates. Most people would think that searching for 'free web templates' in Google would be the most obvious way of doing it - but I suggest that you rather search for 'open source web templates'.

Here are some sources with open source (basically - free to use) web templates. The advantage of these templates is that they are normally well designed and will also teach you good web design principles (as opposed to most of the commercial templates which, while they are undeniably beautiful to look at, they are normally not built making use of good web design principles).

My favorite Open Source web design site is http://www.oswd.org
This site has over a 1600 free designs to choose from. Download any design and build your site! Most of these designs make use of CSS as well which is why it is a good idea to learn CSS.

Another site with lots of free template designs is http://www.daydreamgraphics.com
I suggest that if you are just starting out you stick with the designs made with tables. These are the easiest to manipulate and use. The templates on Daydreamgraphics are not for everyone - they are mostly geared towards a young funky look, so if you are looking for a design that you can use for your business or company, you might do better to rather select a design from OSWD, but if you are looking at setting up a personal website, a hobby site or a site related to music or entertainment, these designs will work very well.

Tip 3: Use Wordpress or Joomla to create your site

This option is really by far the best way to create your website in the long term. Theoretically you do not need to know HTML and CSS to create and modify your site but in practice it pays off to learn these skills since it will help you master these tools just so much faster.

The steps to creating your website using these tools are as follows:

1. Log into your CPanel control panel (if you are not using a host that provides you with a CPanel control panel and Fantastico scripts - frankly, my only advice is to change to one that does!)

2. Select Fantastico from the control panel

3. Select either Wordpress or Joomla from the menu on the left.

4. Install Wordpress or Joomla in the root folder. You will have to select an administrator username and password to access the admin side of your site.

Log into the admin backend (normally /wp-admin for Wordpress and /administrator for Joomla). There are lots of free Wordpress tutorials available - just do a Google search for 'free Wordpress tutorials' and to get started in Joomla, do a search for 'how to use Joomla'.

Graphic Design Tools That Every Designer Should Know

2010-11-16T15:58:00.001-08:00

Who designed the graphics on your favorite web page?

It was most likely done by a graphic designer.

Graphic designers, or graphic artists, create visual graphics that are intended to communicate a message to audiences. Designers create graphics for websites and games as well as film media. Graphic designers also use illustrations and photography to create layouts for print media. Marketing companies often call on graphic designers to help create promotional displays and brochures for products. Graphic artists can be trained at schools with graphic design programs and degrees can also be earned online. As with many fields, designers cannot complete their work without the proper tools. Below is a list of what is necessary for a designer to be successful.

COMPUTER

Most of today's graphics are computer-based so this component is absolutely critical in graphic design. The computer is not only essential for designing graphics but it is also necessary for business purposes and is needed for email and communication. Computers are used to create illustrations, write copy for websites and publications, editing photos and designing layouts. Deciding which computer to purchase can be challenging but Apple's "Mac" is preferred by many designers because of their graphic capabilities.

SOFTWARE

Your computer can't design anything until it is told to, and this is where the software comes in. Software programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator help create and edit photos and images. Designers who specialize in website creation may use editors such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage to create sophisticated web pages with rich color and content. Time management and project tracking software is also essential for the business end of design.

BOOKS

Graphic designers are constantly learning and refining their craft. It is helpful for designers to build their own library of graphic design books. These publications can be used for technical assistance, business tips, or for inspiration when needed. You may also consider attending a graphic design school for specialized training.

OTHER CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS

One of the most important resources that a graphic designer can have is other peers in the field. Professionals can critique the work of others while receiving information and tips on their own projects. Complex assignments may require collaborating with other designers, and having someone to brainstorm with can create the best ideas.

Link-Building Policy for Bing

2009-12-22T22:02:00.001-08:00

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It’s easy for everyone to get caught up in obsessing about how to optimise your site & build links for Google, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google totally dominates the search market. But, there are still other search engines that some people are using, so it is wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too!

Obviously the other two engines are Yahoo and Bing and whilst Yahoo is seemingly declining fast, Bing is actually gaining a market share. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway. With the muscle of Microsoft behind Bing, you can be sure the search engine won’t be prepared to play second fiddle to Google for long!

However, unlike Google, we don’t hear much about what Bing wants out of a site for decent rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for complying with Bing’s policies, does not differ too much from the advice that Google would give you. It is however, still always nice to hear what they think, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”

What You Should Do!

DeJarnette shared some tips for getting more quality links. The following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):
1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
3. Publish concise, informative press releases online
4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
8. Launch a blog/forum on your site
9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

What You Should Not Do!

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:
1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
3. Using hidden links in your pages
4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
5. Linking out to known web spam sites

“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalised with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any experienced search marketer is not already aware of, but it can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and not to do, to help webmasters get better rankings.

in reference to:

"Link-Building Policy for Bing"
- http://www.freshwebz.co.uk/blog/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Google Sidewiki entry by SEO Expert

2009-12-22T02:58:00.001-08:00

Banners have been a major part of the World Wide Web world since its early days. Copywriters burn the midnight oil looking for new designs that will grab the visitor’s attention and compel him to click on their banner. This article discusses some of the most successful banner designs.

Teasing your curiosity

“Do Not Click Here”. How many of you have seen this slogan in a banner? What did you do when you first saw it? If you are like most people, when you first saw it, you clicked on it. What makes this simple sentence so powerful that it compels the visitor to click on it? The answer is curiosity !!!

Copywriters and web designers are always looking for ways to arouse the website visitor’s curiosity. As banner designers their goal is to attract the visitor to the banner, usually completely ignoring the other elements on the web page that are more important to the website owner. However, because the “Do Not Click Here” slogan tells us nothing about what is on the next page, it arouses the visitor’s curiosity and makes it almost impossible not to click on this banner to see what’s behind it.

Simple integrated design

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin first introduced their product, “Google”, to potential investors, they mentioned Adwords as a backup option in case they didn’t make any money. We all know how lucky they were that they eventually needed to use that backup plan. What made these “boring” ads such a great success?

Unlike other ads, Adwords neither arouse the visitor’s curiosity nor disturb the main flow of the web page. In fact, the opposite is true. Adwords are meant to look like part of the search results giving the user the feeling that those ads are there because he asked for them. No one has any doubt that this simple design helps Google to promote both their search engine and the Adwords advertising program.

Take part in the action

Banner designers wisely used interactive technologies like Flash to develop type of banners that invite the user to take part in the action. Drawing the user into the action can be accomplished in many creative ways. Some web designers use popular old games elements as part of the scene. You all know the famous game pacman. One of the banners that I like the most is the one where the user is allowed to let pacman “eat” few dollar signs. At the successful completion of this mission, a nice slogan is revealed asking him to open a saving account that will earn money with a fixed interest rate. The idea behind those interactive banners is simple: Let the user take part in the action and then at the right moment when his mind is less resistant, show him the sales message. Those interactive banners proved to be very efficient. Their biggest disadvantage is that most webmasters will not allow that kind of banner because it distracts too much from the web page content.

Back to Black and White

Website designers are always seeking to be different with their design ideas. One banner fashion trend that can be found lately is Black and White banners. Although research shows that blue and yellow are the most efficient color to use in a banner, Black and White banners have been seen a lot lately. It’s probably something that will eventually vanish, but the idea behind it is to be different and to make the user wonder what’s up and hopefully click on the banner to find out.

Get Out of the box

Have you heard about the mrfdesign.we.bs If not, check out this website before continuing to read this article. This website has proven that creative thinking not only can bring you money but also create a whole new trend. Right after the milliondollarhomepage.com got the internet community’s attention, many designers used this idea to deign a banner on which they sell a 10x10 pixel area. Like the original concept, this banner design had its impact. Advertisers are investing money on these ad spaces while at the same time visitors are curious enough time after time looking at those unorganized pixel banners to click on them.

What about the next trends

What the

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

eCommerce Website Design

2009-12-22T02:57:00.001-08:00

250 Free Business Cards

eCommerce websites have their own unique character that is designed to lead the visitor to one simple task – make an online purchase. A web designer needs to consider a variety of online selling principles while designing an eCommerce website. In this article we will try to take a look at some of the major design aspects that you must have in an eCommerce website.

Many of you are probably already asking why eCommerce website design is different from any other website design. They all need to be attractive, well organized and use the right colors that fits the website spirit and so on. Your instincts are good. However a close look at some successful eCommerce websites will reveal the conceptual differences that are typical in a successful eCommerce website.

An eCommerce website needs to follow certain selling principles:

1. Give the user a pleasant experience during his online shopping.
2. Make certain you provide sufficient information on who owns the website and why they should be trusted.
3. The website must be easy to use. If it isn’t, the visitor will go to your competitor.

Those principles are not new. We all know those basics from our day to day experiences in the mall, shopping center and every other market place that is waiting for us to open up our wallets. The big challenge for a web designer is how to translate those conventional marketing techniques to the virtual world of the internet. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that in most supermarkets the bread stand is placed at the far end of the building, yet you can smell the fresh bread at the entrance (sometimes they even use a special air duct to carry the smells). That has been done deliberately. Marketers use our sense of smell to draw us through the store where we are exposed to all sorts of tempting goodies as we go to get our loaf of bread.

How do you draw an imaginarily path in a web page? A path designed to lead the visitor to do what you want him to do…make an online purchase. Unlike the supermarket our website has no smell. In a website the distance from one point to the other is pretty much the same, so the exit is always right there. In a website you can try to order the “shelf” in the way you think will best expose the visitor to many of your products, but there is always a chance that he will find a short cut to another page that can also be the way off your site.

As can be see, although putting your products on the web is much easier then renting space and opening a supermarket. However, selling your products on the web can be difficult.

A good eCommerce website design will lead the visitor to the right page in one click or two at the most. Sometime web designers will use techniques that would never be considered for non-eCommerce websites. Everyone has seen at least one sales letter website. On these web pages the only link is to the order form. Sales letters are not the most typical eCommerce website because they usually sell only one product. That allows the web designer the ability to exaggerate the one click principle and make it an advantage. All the facts about the product have been presented to the user is a smart way while every few lines he has the option to click on the order form. If he is not yet convinced he will have the option to continue to read more facts and testimonials about the products. Believe it or not, those sales letter websites are actually selling.

“What about online shops?” Online shops have to deal with more then one product. Of course, the greater number of products increases the complexity of the website. Sophisticated eCommerce websites use a variety of personalization technologies in an effort to determine the best selection of products to offer to the visitor. Personalization technologies are a major part of advanced eCommerce websites. However this topic is beyond the scope of this article. The cleverness of an eCommerce website’s personalization technology has a major influence on its design. The first to use such technology was Amazon.com who decided

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design

2009-12-22T02:56:00.003-08:00

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com

I was recently asked by a visitor to thesitewizard.com to take a look at her company's website, designed by a university student. I will not give the URL for that site, partly to protect the innocent, and partly because by the time you read this, it'll probably have been modified.

The site was heavy in its use of graphics with images adorning most parts of the page layout, to provide curved borders (to replace the sharp corners in enclosing boxes), different background images for different parts of the page, etc. It had a top navigation bar, driven entirely using JavaScript. The navigation bar mimicked the sort of menu bar you find in computer programs - there is a horizontal menu bar with different items listed. When you move your mouse over one of those items, the menu will automatically expand vertically. As you move the mouse cursor down the pop-up menu, the item beneath the pointer is highlighted. Click it, and you will be delivered to another page on the site.

In general, that site is typical of the kind of sites produced by newcomers to web design. It scores well in terms of prettiness and gadgetry (although only under one browser, it doesn't work well under other browsers), but fares dismally in terms of usability and search engine readiness. In fact, the reason my visitor wrote to me was because the website suffered a significant drop in the number of visitors after it was redesigned in its current form.

This article uses that site as a starting point for discussing some of the issues that a web designer needs to consider when creating a website that must exist and compete in the real world (as opposed to a site that is created merely to fulfill the course requirements of a school or university).
1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue

Over the years that I have dealt with newcomers to web design, it is my observation that they tend to focus excessively (and sometimes almost exclusively) on the appearance of a website. The site I mentioned earlier is a case in point: the designer tried hard to make the site look beautiful (and, if I may add, succeeded too - the site does indeed look pretty). However, as hard as it may be to believe (if you are a newcomer), appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when you are planning and creating your site.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that appearance is of no importance. Far from it. However, in this article, my intention is to address the excessive importance newcomers place on beauty. In fact, if you belong to the other extreme, discounting the value of the appearance of a website altogether, you might want to read my discussion of Two Common Web Design Myths at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/myths.shtml

Having said that, your site can still survive (or even thrive) if it is a plain-looking site like Google. This is not necessarily the case if you overlook the other important issues in web design.
2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose

All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios).

The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.

1.
Information Availability

Is the information that your visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can p

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design

2009-12-22T02:56:00.001-08:00

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Is Your Website Design Driving Away Your Customers? Some Basic Usability Tips for Commercial Websites

2009-12-22T02:55:00.001-08:00

Following my article on Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Friendliness in Web Design where I discussed the importance of looking at the usability and search engine visibility of a website, I have received countless messages from visitors to thesitewizard.com asking me to review their website. While I do not have time to answer such requests individually, I decided that an article outlining some glaring usability flaws that I have found in a number of websites in general would be helpful. This article thus deals with the myths and fallacies commonly believed when designing a website to sell a product or a service.
Make It Easy for Visitor to Check Your Price List

Some websites try to hide the price list for their products. Some of these sites only display the price of the item after you hit the "Buy" or "Order" button, or worse, only after you have created an account on their site. Others have a price list, but bury the link to the price list somewhere deep in their site in a place not easily accessible from the main page or the products page.

I'm not exactly sure what the reason behind this is. Possibly, they think that if the customer does not see the price until they click the "Buy" or "Order" button, they will be more likely to buy the item. This reasoning is fallacious.

There are many types of visitors arriving at your site. Let's take the case of the window shopper. If they see something noteworthy on your site, they may make a note of the price so that they can return later if they want the item at some point in the future. If the price of the item cannot be easily found on your site, do you seriously think that they will thoroughly search the site just to find that elusive price tag? Or do you suppose that such a visitor will click the "Buy" button, just so that they can find the price tag at the end of the process somewhere? Or will they go through the bother of creating an account, revealing their personal particulars, just to find the price of an item?

Like the serious shopper, if they cannot find the price, they will simply go to another site. Remember: this is not a brick and mortar store we're talking about, where you need to take time and put in effort to travel to another store. On the Internet, your competitor is only a click away. And the search engines are more than happy to yield thousands of other sites selling the same type of goods or services as you. I realise that there are some brick and mortar stores (usually small concerns) who think that if they don't put a price tag, the customer has to find out the price from a sales person, who will then have the opportunity to persuade him/her to buy that item. Whether or not that is a good idea for a brick and mortar store (and I can think offhand of some types of customers that you will lose even there), it is a bad idea for a web store.

No matter how you look at it, every customer and potential customer will need to know the price of a product. Even the corporate customer buying for his/her company works to a budget. Making it difficult for your visitor to find the price list is a quick way to drive a potential customer away. As has been observed by many usability experts - the average Internet user has the attention span of a flea. If they can't find what they want within the first few seconds of glancing at your page, they will leave. And your competitors will be more than happy to attend to them in your place.
Provide Descriptions and Pictures for Your Products

I realise that the new web designer is beset with contradictory advice about how best to design their site. One set of such conflicting advice is the requirement to be brief and to-the-point so that you can catch that Internet visitor who will only give your web page a few seconds glance before deciding whether to stay or go elsewhere. Contradicting that is the requirement that you describe your products in depth and place pictures of your product, or screenshots if yours is a software product.

The best way to resolve this, I think, is to take a leaf from Amazon.com's book. For ev

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Seven Easy Ways to Annoy Visitors to Your Website: A Satire

2009-12-22T02:53:00.001-08:00

1.

Place some (or all of) your content in a small frame and force your visitors to read the content through that window. Don't worry about what constitutes "small" here, since most of the time, even if you create a big frame, it'll be considered too small by most visitors. This trick has a high annoyance value since your visitors have to view the information through that small little box and scroll continuously to see the text while the rest of the browser window is filled with information they don't really want to read at the moment. With this strategy, visitors cannot resize or maximize the window to make their reading more efficient or pleasurable. This method will allow you to frustrate those hapless souls and, as a bonus, make them leave your site.
2.

Disable the right click menu of the browser. Nevermind that people need the right click menu for many purposes, and that they can access the same functions through the main menu bar even after you've disabled it. After all, if your aim is to annoy, you might as well make their visit to your site as unpleasant as possible.
3.

Play background music when they arrive at your page. If that's not enough of an annoyance, make sure you loop the music so that the visitors are plagued by it continuously while they are on your page. If you're feeling particularly sadistic, place automatically-playing music on many (or even all) pages of your site. You don't have to worry about choosing a horrible tune - choose your favourite piece if you like. Since one man's meat is another man's poison, any sort of music tends to annoy most visitors.
4.

Make every link on your site opens in a new window when your visitor clicks on it. That is, put a target="_blank" to every link. This will annoy visitors since every time they click on a link in your site, a new window or tab will open. Another benefit of this technique is that it makes your site look amateurish.
5.

Force your visitors to navigate your website using Flash. That is, place all your content in a Flash file - text, pictures, links, etc - even if Flash is not ideal for such content (a straight HTML page is best for those types of content). Make sure that visitors who don't have the Flash plugin enabled or installed cannot see anything or do much on your website. This effectively drives away all mobile users, a group of users that is growing in size, as well as cripple your visitors who have come to expect certain facilities to always be available in their browsers (such as the BACK key and the ability to bookmark specific pages) when they visit websites. Now they will be forced to work through the more limited Flash plugin of their browser with whatever subset of features you deign to provide. In fact, exclusively using Flash for your site content might even help you to drop to the bottom of search engine listings too, thereby reducing the number of visitors to your site. After all, if you don't have visitors, you don't have to think of new ways to annoy them.
6.

Load your site with pop-up windows that open when your visitor reaches your page as well as when they leave the page. In fact, if you want to annoy them even further, open a pop-up window when they click on links on your site.
7.

Reduce the navigational usability of your website. Don't put site maps or navigation bars with shortcut links to pages that your visitors will usually want to go such as the "Download" page if you're a software author. If you can annoy your visitors by forcing them to read whole pages of your text before they can find a link to move on to do what they really want to do, so much the better.

in reference to: The White House (view on Google Sidewiki)

Why Should You Avail Professional Search Engine Optimization Services

2009-11-23T09:54:00.001-08:00

Why Should You Avail Professional Search Engine Optimization Services

If you need to increase the volume or quality of traffic to your website, search engine optimization becomes essential. The alternative to organic SEO is the pay per click system. Search engine optimization involves a few techniques that place your websites and blogs on top positions when search for particular terms related to your niche. Natural or organic search engine optimization is considered to be the best way to stay ahead of competitors and do good business online. SEO is in fact easy to learn and practice if you have time and a desire to do it yourself.

Basically the two processes involved in SEO are onpage and offpage optimization.

Typical usage of keywords and phrases in the allowed density to promote the site is known as onpage optimization. Obtaining links from various other related websites to point toward you website is known as offpage SEO. Both have to be done carefully since overdoing of things will also result in bad SEO. For example in onpage optimization over using the keyword is called keyword stuffing that could result in penalizing of your website or obtaining links from non-related websites or penalized ones could be of no use in improving your rank in search engines.

However, SEO specialists have some professional secrets when it comes to optimizing your websites for search engines. This is why always SEO services offered by professionals have an edge over the self SEO.

There are no written set of rules to optimize your websites for search engines and all of the tutorials in the internet that explain SEO are obtained from the experiences of search engine optimizers that have a success in do the job.

Although there are no limitations to optimize your websites for search engines, there are some restrictions dictated by major search engines. These were once allowed by now categorized as black hat SEO. Even today quite a few service providers follow black hat techniques to impress their clients with quick results. You should be informed that adhering to black hat techniques can be highly risky as they are viewed seriously by search engines. It can even cause your site to be penalized or banned permanently.

Whenever you need an SEO service from a service provider or link building company, it is wise to have a background check of the company. You can do this by checking the customer reviews and looking at the results for websites they have already optimized. Hiring reputed concerns offering the service will be the safest way to obtain good SEO for your websites.
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Parent Teacher Conference: Online Appointment scheduling

2009-11-23T05:56:00.001-08:00

Parent Teacher Conference: Online Appointment scheduling

I heard of the best idea the other day while I was at play-group. One of the other moms sends her kids to a charter school and told us about how the school does their parent teacher conference scheduling online. It sounded awesome! How easy if you have multiple children at the school because coordinating the meetings was a pain for me this year. First come first serve online appointment scheduling is my idea of service. The mom also mentioned that the turn out was better than ever for their school. It’s hard to say that was a cause and effect relationship but I’m sure it helped.

Recreation Equipment: Online Appointment

I started new business renting recreational equipment and decided to use online appointment software for scheduling the equipment. It has been awesome! I had to tweak it a little bit at the start but now it is smooth as long as the equipment stays together then I am good to go. I do block out a morning as necessary on the equipment so that I can have my mechanic keep them going. I would recommend online appointment setting to any and every one that does scheduling. Why not give the freedom to your customers or users to set their own schedules? With a few good rules and penalties for late cancellations my customers have learned quick and even comment on how much they love the service.

How to Use Different CSS Style Sheets For Different Browsers (and How to Hide CSS Code from Older Browsers)

2009-11-18T06:24:00.001-08:00

In an ideal world, you only need one set of CSS style sheets for your website, and those styles will work with every browser currently being used. This, as every webmaster soon finds out when he/she uses CSS, is a pipe dream. The modern browsers all have uneven levels of implementation of the CSS standards. As though this isn't bad enough, their implementations are often buggy - and they don't share the same bugs! And when you have solved that tricky bit, you find that your site has certain visitors (often your best customers) who, for various reasons, are using older browsers that have only rudimentary support for CSS.

What most (if not all) CSS-using webmasters want is a way to specify that a certain style sheet is to be used by such and such a browser and not others, as well as to hide other style sheets from older browsers.

The Good and Bad News
The bad news is that there is no standard documented method to include or exclude style sheets from being used by every browser still being used on the Internet.

All is not lost however. The good news is that there are a number of tricks, workarounds and even non-standard but documented methods available that you can use to have your style sheet included by some browsers and not others. The workarounds often rely on known bugs in certain versions of specific browsers.

On the other hand, even with these workarounds and tricks, you will probably find that there are certain browsers that you want to code for but do not have any reliable means to detect and work around. However, at least with the help of the tips listed here, you should be able to design a CSS-based website that works with the most commonly used browsers

Preliminary Tips for Coding
Before you start coding your site using CSS for specific browsers, here are some tips that hopefully will make your life easier.

Design From Scratch
Most webmasters who have had to convert their existing website to CSS say that they find it easier to design their site from scratch in CSS than to try to find a way to reproduce their old layout in CSS.

Another reason for designing from scratch is that CSS allows you to do many things not possible using the old tables paradigm. Rethinking your entire design allows you to take advantage of the new possibilities.

Code to Follow the CSS Standards First
Many of the web designers hanging out in webmaster forums have found that it is far easier to develop their CSS code for a highly standards-compliant browser like Firefox first, and then only later add the workarounds to make their code work on IE, than to code for IE and then try to make it work for Opera, Konqueror, Safari and Firefox.

It is also logical to write for a more standards-compliant browser first: sooner or later, Microsoft is bound to issue a newer version of IE that will have the existing CSS bugs fixed. When they do so, all you have to do is to remove the workarounds which you created and you're done. If you write your main style sheet with styles that are coded in a non-standard way to deal with IE bugs first, you will wind up having to rewrite everything when Microsoft fixes the bugs.

This is not to say that Firefox does not have its own share of CSS bugs. As such, my personal recommendation is to code with the two (supposedly) most standards-compliant browsers first, ie, Firefox and Opera, while at the same time periodically making sure that your CSS code validates with the W3 Consortium's free style sheet validator. You can add the workarounds for IE later.

(If you are not sure what validation means, or how you can get it done, check out my article on HTML and CSS Validation: Should You Validate Your Web Page? at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/htmlvalidation.shtml

Use External Style Sheets and Take Advantage of the "Cascading" Aspect of Cascading Style Sheets
One way to handle the bugs and omissions existing in different browsers is to put all your standards-compliant CSS code in a separate (external) style sheet file that is loaded by every browser.

Then, when you find th

in reference to: Google (view on Google Sidewiki)

10 Strategies To Make Your E-Commerce Website A Success

2009-11-18T06:22:00.001-08:00

E commerce websites have come of age. As customers realize the ease and benefits of online shopping, the popularity of e-commerce websites have soared like anything else. However, with the increase in the number of Ecommerce websites vying for attention, it has become important for them to devise strategies to be better than the competition and attract more traffic. Here are some new trends and techniques that can help your Ecommerce processes.

Focus on User Experiences

Often we concentrate so much on improving the usability of the website that we completely forget about the user experience. The way users feel on the website goes a long way in influencing their purchase options as well as their general perception of the website. Therefore, try to connect with the visitors on intimate level and then build up your branding through strategic marketing techniques.

Provide Customized Messages to Specific Audience Segments

The chances of sales increases when the audience is more targeted. When you segment your audiences, you know about their general common preferences and likes. This will also give you an idea about what segments are useful and most profitable. In turn, you can customize your sales message and make sure they receive more relevant and personalized information and offers.

Create Compelling Content

Content is the only source of direct communication with your website audiences. Therefore, make it as compelling as you can . The main objective of your product page should be sales conversions. Include product images and videos along with content that convinces them to hit the 'Buy' button.

Eliminate Unnecessary Page Elements

A majority of Ecommerce websites carry a bulk of undue weight because of unnecessary page elements like blinking banners, rotating graphics and annoying flash-animations. Attention grabbing works best on subtle levels. Also make sure the information you provide on the website is short and crisp.

Include Videos on the Website

Videos are an emerging source of product promotion with more and more website embedding videos on their websites to promote their businesses. You can upload videos that provide demonstrations of your products and show how they work, exhibit their different features and show how users can benefit from their use. Moreover, video inclusion has certain search engine benefits as well.

Involve your Website Audiences

The three main elements of a successful website are - Content, Communication and Commerce. You need to involve your audiences and make them feel that they are a part of the website. Include a form on audience interaction on your website. Provide them with an option to review the products and participate in forum discussions etc.

Provide Free Shipping Options

A little known secret of the e commerce industry is that shoppers often shy away from buying a product because of the additional shipping costs that are involved. Thus if you decide to waive of the shipping costs, you'll have more sales. If its not a profitable option individually, provide free shipping options for bulk orders.

Optimize Products for Local Searches

While it is great to business on a global scale and cater to international customers, you can get huge visitor traffic with localized search engine marketing. Promote the products on your website on domestic search engines. You can also customize your product descriptions, tutorials, public relations and ad campaigns to suit the tastes of the local markets.

in reference to: Google (view on Google Sidewiki)

How To Enhance The Usability Of Your Homepage Design

2009-11-18T06:20:00.001-08:00

The homepage of your website is the face of your online presence. It is what makes the first impression on online audiences about your company and business. When people type in the URL of your website, they reach your homepage. The homepage, should therefore present a brief introduction about the website and lure visitors to browse further within. The homepage is perhaps the most important page of the website and thus you need to take adequate measures to enhance its usability. Here are some tips to ensure the same.

Include a Crisp and Catchy Tagline

Draft a tagline for your website homepage that informs about the company and business in a simple sentence. When visitors enter the homepage, they should know what the website and the company is all about just by reading the tagline. In fact, by drafting a catchy tagline you can catch the attention of your visitors and make sure they don't forget you.

Draft a Meaningful Title Tag

The title tag of your homepage should have your company name followed by a very brief description of the website. Avoid using words like 'Welcome' or 'The' that just populate the space and do no value addition. Instead, try to include your relevant keywords and phrases in the title tags.

Cluster All Corporate Information

Website visitors generally don't bother reading about the company. However, there are times when they decide to do business with you only after they are convinced about the company. In such scenarios it is important to have good corporate information on the website. Create an About Us page on your website that is dedicated towards informing visitors all about your company and business and provide a link to it from the homepage.

Focus on Key Tasks of the Website

The homepage of your website should act as a guide for visitors and help them find a browsing route. It should provide a clear starting point to do what they want to do i.e. there should be clear links to the main areas of the website where visitors might be interested in going.

Include a Search Box

The search box is indispensable for any website. Internet users are an impatient lot and they love anything that cuts short the action steps. Search boxes enable visitors to search for the exact information that they need by just entering a query instead of browsing through categories to fins what they need. Make sure your search box is at least 25 characters wide so that it accommodates multiple queries.

Offer Snapshots of Inlying Content

The homepage of the website is where you can showcase things and lure visitors to further explore the website. A good idea is to place snapshots or post the topics of important content within your website. Whether it is a recent article or a report that you have on a certain web page, offer a preview on the homepage.

Use Meaningful Design Elements

The homepage of a website is important and should welcome visitors. However, that doesn't mean you can load the page with useless design elements and flash animations that offer no value but only increase the file sizes.

Kabir Bedi is the senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a reputed offshore web development company that provides an extensive range of web design services and web Development services. He has completed several international web design projects for international clients.

in reference to: Google (view on Google Sidewiki)

Here's a different way to generate forms using PHP, and to take care of all the required field validation too. It might help someone:

2009-11-17T03:37:00.001-08:00

array(
"type"=>"select",
// attributes are an associative array
"attributes"=>array(
"mr"=>"Mr.",
"ms"=>"Ms.",
"miss"=>"Miss.",
"mrs"=>"Mrs.",
),
),
"first_name"=>array(
"type"=>"text",
"size"=>40,
"required"=>true,
"onclick"=>"alert('test');",
"style"=>"border:2px solid #CCCCCC; padding:4px; font-size:15px;",
),
"last_name"=>array(
"type"=>"text",
"size"=>70,
"required"=>true,
),
);

$errors=array();

if($_REQUEST['save']){
// do sql here...
$sql = "INSERT INTO foo SET insert_date=NOW()";
foreach($elements as $element_name => $el){
if($el['required']&&!$_REQUEST[$element_name]){
$errors[]="Required field missing: $element_name";
}else{
$sql .= ", `$element_name` = '".addslashes($_REQUEST[$element_name])."'";
}
}
if(!$errors){
// call sql:
// $res = query($sql,$db);
// $member_id= mysql_insert_id($db);
// redirect after post back
header("Location: example.php?member_id=$member_id");
exit;
}
}

global $elements;
function fb($elem){
global $elements;
$el = $elements[$elem];
if(!$el['name'])$el['name']=$elem;
if(!$el['value']&&$_REQUEST[$el['name']])$el['value']=$_REQUEST[$el['name']];
switch($el['type']){
case "textarea":
?>
$val){ if($key=="value")continue; ?> ="" >

$val){ ?> ="" >

$val){ if($key=="attributes")continue; ?> ="" >
- select -
$val) {
?>
selected >

Salutation:

First Name:

Last Name:

First name and last name are required fields. Try clicking save without filling them in.

View cod

in reference to: required field validator in php - Google Search (view on Google Sidewiki)

2009-01-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

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2009-01-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

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