by: George Peirson
Just like spring cleaning a house, the html code of your web pages should get periodic cleaning as well. Over time, as changes and updates are made to a web page, the code can become littered with unnecessary clutter, slowing down page load times and hurting the efficiency of your web page. Cluttered html can also seriously impact your search engine ranking.
This is especially true if you are using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web design package such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. These programs will speed up your web site creation, but they are not that efficient at writing clean html code.
We will be focusing this discussion on the actual html coding, ignoring other programming languages that may be used in a page such as JavaScript. In the code examples I will be using ( and ) characters instead of correct html so that the code examples will display properly in this newsletter.
Up until recently when coding a page in HTML we would be using tags such as the (font) tag and (p) paragraph tags. Between these tags would be our page content, text, images and links. Each time a formatting change was made on the page new tags were needed with complete formatting for the new section. More recently we have gained the ability to use Cascading Style Sheets, allowing us to write the formatting once and then refer to that formatting several times within a web page.
In order to speed up page load times we need to have fewer characters on the page when viewed in an html editor. Since we really do not want to remove any of our visible content we need to look to the html code. By cleaning up this code we can remove characters, thereby creating a smaller web page that will load more quickly.
Over time HTML has changed and we now have many different ways to do the same thing. An example would be the code used to show a bold type face. In HTML we have two main choices, the (strong) tag and the (b) tag. As you can see the (strong) tag uses 5 more characters than the (b) tag, and if we consider the closing tags as well we see that using the (strong)(/strong) tag pair uses 10 more characters than the cleaner (b)(/b) tag pair.
This is our First Principle of clean HTML code: Use the simplest coding method available.
HTML has the ability of nesting code within other code. For instance we could have a line with three words where the middle word was in bold. This could be accomplished by changing the formatting completely each time the visible formatting changes. Consider this code:
(font face=”times”)This(/font)
(font face=”times”)(strong)BOLD(/strong)(/font)
(font face=”times”)Word(/font)
This takes up 90 characters.
This is very poorly written html and is what you occasionally will get when using a WYSIWYG editor. Since the (font) tags are repeating the same information we can simply nest the (strong) tags inside the (font) tags, and better yet use the (b) tag instead of the (strong) tag. This would give us this code (font face=”times)This (b)BOLD(/b) Word(/font), taking up only 46 characters.
This is our Second Principle of clean HTML code: Use nested tags when possible. Be aware that WYSIWYG editors will frequently update formatting by adding layer after layer of nested code. So while you are cleaning up the code look for redundant nested code placed there by your WYSIWYG editing program.
A big problem with using HTML tags is that we need to repeat the tag coding whenever we change the formatting. The advent of CSS allows us a great advantage in clean coding by allowing us to layout the formatting once in a document, then simply refer to it over and over again.
If we had six paragraphs in a page that switch between two different types of formatting, such as headings in Blue, Bold, Ariel, size 4 and paragraph text in Black, Times, size 2, using tags we would need to list that complete formatting each time we make a change.
(font face=”Ariel” color=”blue” size=”4”)(b)Our heading(/b)(/font)
(font face=”Times color=”black” size=”2”)Our paragraph(/font)
(font face=”Ariel” color=”blue” size=”4”)(b)Our next heading(/b)(/font)
(font face=”Times color=”black” size=”2”)Our next paragraph(/font)
We would then repeat this for each heading and paragraph, lots of html code.
With CSS we could create CSS Styles for each formatting type, list the Styles once in the Header of the page, and then simply refer to the Style each time we make a change.
(head)
(style type="text/css")
(!--
.style1 {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 24px;
}
.style2 {
font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size: 12px;
}
--)
(/style)
(/head)
(body)
(p class="style1")Heading(/p)
(p class="style2")Paragraph Text(/p)
(/body)
Notice that the Styles are created in the Head section of the page and then simply referenced in the Body section. As we add more formatting we would simply continue to refer to the previously created Styles.
This is our Third Principle of Clean HTML Code: Use CSS styles when ever possible. CSS has several other benefits, such as being able to place the CSS styles in an external file, thereby reducing the page size even more, and the ability to quickly update formatting site-wide by simply updating the external CSS Style file.
So with some simple cleaning of your HTML code you can easily reduce the file size and make a fast loading, lean and mean web page.
About the author:
George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur and Internet Trainer. He is the author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles covering such topics as Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver. To see his training sets visit www.howtogurus.com
Article copyright 2005 George Peirson
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
XHTML - Kicking And Screaming Into The Future
by: Eric Lester
XHTML, the standard, was first released back in 2000. Roughly five years later we begin to see major websites revised to use this standard. Even the favorite whipping boy of standards-compliance punditry, Microsoft, presents their primary homepages, msn.com and microsoft.com in XHTML. Standards compliant XHTML sites are still the minority. The reason is simple. When the W3C released the new standard, the rest of the web running on HTML did not cease to function. Nor will the rest of the web, written in various flavors of HTML, cease to function any time soon. Without any pressing need to conform to the new standard, designers continue to use old, familiar methods. These methods will perform in any modern browser, so why bother switching?
These sentiments are similar to ones I experienced. A kind of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality sets in. Whether HTML was "broken" or not is a different argument. To the casual Internet user, their standards are fairly direct. If a site displays without noticeable error and functions to their satisfaction, these standards are met. Whatever additional steps the browser took to make such display possible is irrelevant to most users. This kind of mentality is difficult to overcome in designers accustomed to their old methods.
Technical obstacles to adopting XHTML may be quite steep as well, especially as regards large, existing websites with complex scripting. Yet the time may eventually come where yesterday's "tried and true" HTML is little more than an ancient language, unable to be interpreted by modern electronic devices. Whether one agrees with the direction the W3C takes in the development of HTML is irrelevant, you are just along for the ride. With some perseverance, getting the hang of XHTML is possible. In form, it is not as different from HTML as Japanese is from English. Knowing HTML grants a basic knowledge of the language, it simply becomes a matter of learning a particular dialect. Even an original nay-sayer such as myself managed to do it.
Benefits of XHTML
There are 2 primary benefits to using XHTML. First is the strict nature of valid XHTML documents. "Valid" documents contain no errors. Documents with no errors can be parsed more easily by a browser. Though the time saved is, admittedly, negligible from the human user's point of view, there is a greater efficiency to the browser's performance. Most modern browsers will function well in what's usually referred to as "quirks" mode, where, in the absence of any on-page information about the kind of HTML they are reading, present a "best guess" rendering of a page. The quirks mode will also forgive many errors in the HTML. Modern browsers installed on your home computer have the luxury of size and power to deal with these errors. When browser technology makes the leap to other appliances it may not have the size and power to be so forgiving. This is where the strict, valid documents demanded by the XHTML standard become important.
The second benefit is in the code itself, which is cleaner and more compact than common, "table" based layout in HTML. Though XHTML retains table functionality, the standard makes clear tables are not to be used for page layout or anything other than displaying data in a tabular format. This is generally the primary obstacle most designers have with moving to XHTML. The manner in which many designers have come to rely on to layout and organize their pages is now taboo. Simple visual inspection of XHTML code reveals how light and efficient it is in comparison to a table based HTML layout. XTHML makes use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which, when called externally, remove virtually all styling information from the XHTML document itself. This creates a document focused solely on content.
XHTML makes use of "div" tags to define content areas. How these "divisions" are displayed is controlled by CSS. This is known as CSS-P, or CSS Positioning. Trading in "table" tags for "divs" can be tough. Learning a new way of accomplishing an already familiar task is generally difficult. Like learning to use a different design program or image editor, frustration can be constant. Looking at "divs" as a kind of table cell might be helpful, though they are not entirely equivalent. As required by the XHTML standard, always make sure there is a DOCTYPE definition at the top of the document. This is not only required by the standard, but it will force Internet Explorer 6, currently the most common browser, to enter its "standards compliance" mode. IE6 and Firefox, both operating in standards compliance mode will display XHTML in much the same way. Not identical, but far better than IE6 operating in quirks mode. Learning how to iron out the final differences between displays is the final obstacle and can require a bit of tweaking in the CSS.
Clean code has multiple benefits. It creates a smaller page size which, over time, can save costs associated with transfer usage. Though the size difference may appear small, for someone running a highly trafficked site, even saving a few kilobytes of size can make a big difference. Further, some believe search engines may look more kindly on standards complaint pages. This is only a theory, though. In a general sense, any page modification that makes the content easier to reach and higher in the code is considered wise. Search engines, so it is believed, prefer to reach content quickly, and give greater weight to the first content they encounter. Using XHTML and "div" layout allows designers to accomplish this task more easily.
Conclusions
XHTML is the current standard set by the W3C. The W3C continues development of XHTML, and XHTML 2.0 will replace the current standard in the future. Learning and using XHTML today will help designers prepare for tomorrow. Valid XTHML produces no errors that might slow down a browser, and the code produced is clean and efficient. This saves in file size and helps designers better accomplish their search engine optimization goals. Learning XHTML is primarily about learning a new way to lay out pages. Though frustrating at first, the long term benefits far outweigh any initial inconvenience.
About the author:
Eric Lester worked in the IT industry for 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, website design, before serving for 4 years as the webmaster for Apollo Hosting, http://www.apollohosting.comApollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
XHTML, the standard, was first released back in 2000. Roughly five years later we begin to see major websites revised to use this standard. Even the favorite whipping boy of standards-compliance punditry, Microsoft, presents their primary homepages, msn.com and microsoft.com in XHTML. Standards compliant XHTML sites are still the minority. The reason is simple. When the W3C released the new standard, the rest of the web running on HTML did not cease to function. Nor will the rest of the web, written in various flavors of HTML, cease to function any time soon. Without any pressing need to conform to the new standard, designers continue to use old, familiar methods. These methods will perform in any modern browser, so why bother switching?
These sentiments are similar to ones I experienced. A kind of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality sets in. Whether HTML was "broken" or not is a different argument. To the casual Internet user, their standards are fairly direct. If a site displays without noticeable error and functions to their satisfaction, these standards are met. Whatever additional steps the browser took to make such display possible is irrelevant to most users. This kind of mentality is difficult to overcome in designers accustomed to their old methods.
Technical obstacles to adopting XHTML may be quite steep as well, especially as regards large, existing websites with complex scripting. Yet the time may eventually come where yesterday's "tried and true" HTML is little more than an ancient language, unable to be interpreted by modern electronic devices. Whether one agrees with the direction the W3C takes in the development of HTML is irrelevant, you are just along for the ride. With some perseverance, getting the hang of XHTML is possible. In form, it is not as different from HTML as Japanese is from English. Knowing HTML grants a basic knowledge of the language, it simply becomes a matter of learning a particular dialect. Even an original nay-sayer such as myself managed to do it.
Benefits of XHTML
There are 2 primary benefits to using XHTML. First is the strict nature of valid XHTML documents. "Valid" documents contain no errors. Documents with no errors can be parsed more easily by a browser. Though the time saved is, admittedly, negligible from the human user's point of view, there is a greater efficiency to the browser's performance. Most modern browsers will function well in what's usually referred to as "quirks" mode, where, in the absence of any on-page information about the kind of HTML they are reading, present a "best guess" rendering of a page. The quirks mode will also forgive many errors in the HTML. Modern browsers installed on your home computer have the luxury of size and power to deal with these errors. When browser technology makes the leap to other appliances it may not have the size and power to be so forgiving. This is where the strict, valid documents demanded by the XHTML standard become important.
The second benefit is in the code itself, which is cleaner and more compact than common, "table" based layout in HTML. Though XHTML retains table functionality, the standard makes clear tables are not to be used for page layout or anything other than displaying data in a tabular format. This is generally the primary obstacle most designers have with moving to XHTML. The manner in which many designers have come to rely on to layout and organize their pages is now taboo. Simple visual inspection of XHTML code reveals how light and efficient it is in comparison to a table based HTML layout. XTHML makes use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which, when called externally, remove virtually all styling information from the XHTML document itself. This creates a document focused solely on content.
XHTML makes use of "div" tags to define content areas. How these "divisions" are displayed is controlled by CSS. This is known as CSS-P, or CSS Positioning. Trading in "table" tags for "divs" can be tough. Learning a new way of accomplishing an already familiar task is generally difficult. Like learning to use a different design program or image editor, frustration can be constant. Looking at "divs" as a kind of table cell might be helpful, though they are not entirely equivalent. As required by the XHTML standard, always make sure there is a DOCTYPE definition at the top of the document. This is not only required by the standard, but it will force Internet Explorer 6, currently the most common browser, to enter its "standards compliance" mode. IE6 and Firefox, both operating in standards compliance mode will display XHTML in much the same way. Not identical, but far better than IE6 operating in quirks mode. Learning how to iron out the final differences between displays is the final obstacle and can require a bit of tweaking in the CSS.
Clean code has multiple benefits. It creates a smaller page size which, over time, can save costs associated with transfer usage. Though the size difference may appear small, for someone running a highly trafficked site, even saving a few kilobytes of size can make a big difference. Further, some believe search engines may look more kindly on standards complaint pages. This is only a theory, though. In a general sense, any page modification that makes the content easier to reach and higher in the code is considered wise. Search engines, so it is believed, prefer to reach content quickly, and give greater weight to the first content they encounter. Using XHTML and "div" layout allows designers to accomplish this task more easily.
Conclusions
XHTML is the current standard set by the W3C. The W3C continues development of XHTML, and XHTML 2.0 will replace the current standard in the future. Learning and using XHTML today will help designers prepare for tomorrow. Valid XTHML produces no errors that might slow down a browser, and the code produced is clean and efficient. This saves in file size and helps designers better accomplish their search engine optimization goals. Learning XHTML is primarily about learning a new way to lay out pages. Though frustrating at first, the long term benefits far outweigh any initial inconvenience.
About the author:
Eric Lester worked in the IT industry for 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, website design, before serving for 4 years as the webmaster for Apollo Hosting, http://www.apollohosting.comApollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.
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Who should become a web host reseller?
by: S. Rosendahl
1. Individuals or businesses with more than one website
If you have more than one website and the total disk space you need is 500 MB or more, you can benefit from having a reseller account. The cost for web hosting is lower than if you have individual accounts for each site. Also, you can adjust the disk space and bandwidth allocations for each site.
2. Related service providers
A reseller account is also useful for people who provide related services. If you’re a web designer, for example, why stop at designing sites? Provide your clients with web hosting under your company name, and you continue to earn revenue from your web design clients.
Let’s say that you pay $40 a month for a 3-GB reseller account. If you offer 30 100-MB packages at $7 a month, you could earn up to $170 a month (after subtracting your cost) from that reseller account. Add on additional services such as search engine optimization and website maintenance, and your revenue increases again.
About the author:
About the author: Chris K. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. His established writing skills coupled with experience in the web hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.
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1. Individuals or businesses with more than one website
If you have more than one website and the total disk space you need is 500 MB or more, you can benefit from having a reseller account. The cost for web hosting is lower than if you have individual accounts for each site. Also, you can adjust the disk space and bandwidth allocations for each site.
2. Related service providers
A reseller account is also useful for people who provide related services. If you’re a web designer, for example, why stop at designing sites? Provide your clients with web hosting under your company name, and you continue to earn revenue from your web design clients.
Let’s say that you pay $40 a month for a 3-GB reseller account. If you offer 30 100-MB packages at $7 a month, you could earn up to $170 a month (after subtracting your cost) from that reseller account. Add on additional services such as search engine optimization and website maintenance, and your revenue increases again.
About the author:
About the author: Chris K. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. His established writing skills coupled with experience in the web hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.
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How To Use A WYSIWYG HTML Editor To Make Stunning Ebay Auction Listings.
by: Thomas Haselhorst
What kind of browser are you using for online surfing? Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera?? Sure, all are good programs but I want to talk about an excellent program called Netscape. If you use Netscape, do you know that you also get an amazing WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web design program called Netscape Composer for free? Basically you don’t need expensive HTML editors anymore. The list of commercially available HTML editors software is endless – and the price tags are enormous. Most people don’t want to spend a lot of money to get started with their eBay business. Fair enough, since the goal is to make money and not to spend money. So it makes perfect sense to use a program to design auction listings which is available for free. And such a program is Netscape Composer.
It has the same professional features like FrontPage or any other similar program. To design stunning and professional looking eBay auction sites with Netscape Composer you need to download Netscape first. If you start up the program, select File->New Composer Page and basically you can start immediately to design your auction listings. You can make you letters in any colour, bold, italics, use background colours (or even images) etc. The options are endless. You can save this file on your local hard drive as html file. I used to have one file for every listing I generate. The best thing is that once you have got a nice and professional looking eBay auction listing, you can use it for ever. Just open your last listing in Netscape Composer and edit according to your new item. Amazingly, this takes only a couple of minutes.
But how do you transfer your listing saved as a html file on your local hard drive to eBay? The answer is simple. Once you have logged in into your eBay account and selected your category and starting price you have to type in your “item description”. Did you see that eBay allows HTML format? Have a look when you launch your next listing. That’s the time where you go back to your new listing you just have created with Netscape Composer. Down the bottom of your Netscape Composer page you’ll see a button called: SOURCE - the source code of your listing. Click on that and highlight and copy the entire text. Select then the eBay site and paste this text into the “Item description box”. Make sure that all links are working and that all photos are uploaded to the internet.
When you have finalised your listing you will be surprised. A stunning and professional looking “DIY-listing”. You can always use “ready-to-go” auction templates and edit these according to your item. You’ll see that with an professional auction design you can easily attract more buyers and get higher bids. It’s worth the effort. Keep in mind that professional web design software is highly expensive and does the same job. Alternatively, you can choose from a huge variety of third party auction services doing the job for you. But hey, there are incredibly expensive too. Don’t you think that the eBay fees are high enough and you can easily do it yourself without spending any additional dollars. It’s really simple!
About the author:
Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free
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What kind of browser are you using for online surfing? Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera?? Sure, all are good programs but I want to talk about an excellent program called Netscape. If you use Netscape, do you know that you also get an amazing WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web design program called Netscape Composer for free? Basically you don’t need expensive HTML editors anymore. The list of commercially available HTML editors software is endless – and the price tags are enormous. Most people don’t want to spend a lot of money to get started with their eBay business. Fair enough, since the goal is to make money and not to spend money. So it makes perfect sense to use a program to design auction listings which is available for free. And such a program is Netscape Composer.
It has the same professional features like FrontPage or any other similar program. To design stunning and professional looking eBay auction sites with Netscape Composer you need to download Netscape first. If you start up the program, select File->New Composer Page and basically you can start immediately to design your auction listings. You can make you letters in any colour, bold, italics, use background colours (or even images) etc. The options are endless. You can save this file on your local hard drive as html file. I used to have one file for every listing I generate. The best thing is that once you have got a nice and professional looking eBay auction listing, you can use it for ever. Just open your last listing in Netscape Composer and edit according to your new item. Amazingly, this takes only a couple of minutes.
But how do you transfer your listing saved as a html file on your local hard drive to eBay? The answer is simple. Once you have logged in into your eBay account and selected your category and starting price you have to type in your “item description”. Did you see that eBay allows HTML format? Have a look when you launch your next listing. That’s the time where you go back to your new listing you just have created with Netscape Composer. Down the bottom of your Netscape Composer page you’ll see a button called: SOURCE - the source code of your listing. Click on that and highlight and copy the entire text. Select then the eBay site and paste this text into the “Item description box”. Make sure that all links are working and that all photos are uploaded to the internet.
When you have finalised your listing you will be surprised. A stunning and professional looking “DIY-listing”. You can always use “ready-to-go” auction templates and edit these according to your item. You’ll see that with an professional auction design you can easily attract more buyers and get higher bids. It’s worth the effort. Keep in mind that professional web design software is highly expensive and does the same job. Alternatively, you can choose from a huge variety of third party auction services doing the job for you. But hey, there are incredibly expensive too. Don’t you think that the eBay fees are high enough and you can easily do it yourself without spending any additional dollars. It’s really simple!
About the author:
Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free
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Streamline Your Website Pages
by: Eric Lester
Squeezing the most efficient performance from your web pages is important. The benefits are universal, whether the site is personal or large and professional. Reducing page weight can speed up the browsing experience, especially if your visitors are using dial-up internet access. Though broadband access is the future, the present still contains a great deal of dial-up users. Many sites, ecommerce sites especially, cannot afford to ignore this large section of the market. Sites with a large amount of unique traffic may also save on their total monthly traffic by slimming down their web pages. This article will cover the basics of on-page optimization in both text/code and graphics.
Graphics
Graphics are the usual suspect on heavy pages. Either as a result of a highly graphic design, or a few poorly optimized images, graphics can significantly extend the load-time of a web page. The first step in graphics optimization is very basic. Decide if the graphics are absolutely necessary and simply eliminate or move the ones that aren't. Removing large graphics from the homepage to a separate gallery will likely increase the number of visitors who "hang around" to let the homepage load. Separating larger photos or art to a gallery also provides the opportunity to provide fair warning to users clicking on the gallery that it may take longer to load. In the case of graphical buttons, consider the use of text based, CSS-styled buttons instead. Sites that use a highly graphic design, a common theme in website "templates", need to optimize their graphics as best as possible.
Graphics optimization first involves selecting the appropriate file type for your image. Though this topic alone is fodder for far more in depth analysis, I will touch on it briefly. Images come in 2 basic varieties, those that are photographic in nature, and those that are graphic in nature. Photographs have a large array of colors all jumbled together in what's referred to as continuous tone. Graphics, such as business logos, are generally smooth, crisp and have large areas of the same color. Photographs are best compressed into "JPEGs". The "Joint Photographic Expert Group" format can successfully compress large photos down to very manageable sizes. It is usually applied on a sliding "quality" scale between 1-100, 1 being the most compressed and lowest quality, 100 the least and highest quality. JPEG is a "lossy" compression algorithm, meaning it "destroys" image information when applied, so always keep a copy of the original file. Graphics and logos generally work best in the "GIF", or more recently, the "PNG" format. These formats are more efficient than JPEGs at reducing the size of images with large areas of similar color, such as logos or graphical text.
A few general notes on other media are appropriate. Other types of media such as Flash or sound files also slow down a page. The first rule is always the same, consider whether they are absolutely necessary. If you are choosing to build the site entirely in Flash, then make sure the individual sections and elements are as well compressed as possible. In the case of music, I will admit to personal bias here and paraphrase a brilliant old saying, "Websites should be seen and not heard." Simply, music playing in the background will not "enhance" any browsing experience.
Text and Code
The most weight to be trimmed on a page will come from graphical and media elements, but it is possible to shed a few extra bytes by looking at the text and code of a web page. In terms of actual text content, there may not be much to do here. A page's content is key not only to the user's understanding but also search engine ranking. Removing or better organizing content is only necessary in extreme situations, where more than page weight is an issue. An example might be a long, text heavy web page requiring a lengthy vertical scrolling to finish. Such a page is common on "infomercial" sites, and violates basic design tenants beyond those related to page weight.
Code is a different story. A website's code can be made more efficient in a variety of fashions. First, via the use of CSS, all style elements of a web page can now be called via an external file. This same file can be called on all a site's pages, providing for a uniform look and feel. Not only is this more efficient; it is also the official recommendation from the W3C. The same may be said of XHTML and the abandonment of "table" based layout. Tables, though effective for layout, produce more code than equivalent XHTML layouts using "div" tags. Where a minimum of 3 tags are required to create a "box" with content in a table, only 1 is needed using divisions. Using XHTML and CSS in combination can significantly reduce the amount of "on page" code required by a web page. A final, relatively insignificant trick is the removal of all "white space" from your code. Browsers don't require it; it is primarily so authors can readily read and interpret the code. The savings are minimal at best, but for sites that receive an extreme amount of traffic, even a few saved bytes will add up over time.
Conclusions
Target images and media files first when seeking to reduce the weight of a page. They are the largest components of overall page weight and simply removing them can significantly reduce total weight. The images that remain should be optimally compressed into a format appropriate for their type, photos or graphics. Avoid huge blocks of text that cause unnecessary vertical scrolling. Organize the site more efficiently to spread the information across multiple pages. Adopt XHTML and CSS to reduce the size of the on-page code, and call the CSS externally. These tips should help reduce the size of your pages and speed their delivery to your viewers.
About the author:
Mr. Lester worked in the IT industry for 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, website design, before serving for 4 years as the webmaster for Apollo Hosting, http://www.apollohosting.comApollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Squeezing the most efficient performance from your web pages is important. The benefits are universal, whether the site is personal or large and professional. Reducing page weight can speed up the browsing experience, especially if your visitors are using dial-up internet access. Though broadband access is the future, the present still contains a great deal of dial-up users. Many sites, ecommerce sites especially, cannot afford to ignore this large section of the market. Sites with a large amount of unique traffic may also save on their total monthly traffic by slimming down their web pages. This article will cover the basics of on-page optimization in both text/code and graphics.
Graphics
Graphics are the usual suspect on heavy pages. Either as a result of a highly graphic design, or a few poorly optimized images, graphics can significantly extend the load-time of a web page. The first step in graphics optimization is very basic. Decide if the graphics are absolutely necessary and simply eliminate or move the ones that aren't. Removing large graphics from the homepage to a separate gallery will likely increase the number of visitors who "hang around" to let the homepage load. Separating larger photos or art to a gallery also provides the opportunity to provide fair warning to users clicking on the gallery that it may take longer to load. In the case of graphical buttons, consider the use of text based, CSS-styled buttons instead. Sites that use a highly graphic design, a common theme in website "templates", need to optimize their graphics as best as possible.
Graphics optimization first involves selecting the appropriate file type for your image. Though this topic alone is fodder for far more in depth analysis, I will touch on it briefly. Images come in 2 basic varieties, those that are photographic in nature, and those that are graphic in nature. Photographs have a large array of colors all jumbled together in what's referred to as continuous tone. Graphics, such as business logos, are generally smooth, crisp and have large areas of the same color. Photographs are best compressed into "JPEGs". The "Joint Photographic Expert Group" format can successfully compress large photos down to very manageable sizes. It is usually applied on a sliding "quality" scale between 1-100, 1 being the most compressed and lowest quality, 100 the least and highest quality. JPEG is a "lossy" compression algorithm, meaning it "destroys" image information when applied, so always keep a copy of the original file. Graphics and logos generally work best in the "GIF", or more recently, the "PNG" format. These formats are more efficient than JPEGs at reducing the size of images with large areas of similar color, such as logos or graphical text.
A few general notes on other media are appropriate. Other types of media such as Flash or sound files also slow down a page. The first rule is always the same, consider whether they are absolutely necessary. If you are choosing to build the site entirely in Flash, then make sure the individual sections and elements are as well compressed as possible. In the case of music, I will admit to personal bias here and paraphrase a brilliant old saying, "Websites should be seen and not heard." Simply, music playing in the background will not "enhance" any browsing experience.
Text and Code
The most weight to be trimmed on a page will come from graphical and media elements, but it is possible to shed a few extra bytes by looking at the text and code of a web page. In terms of actual text content, there may not be much to do here. A page's content is key not only to the user's understanding but also search engine ranking. Removing or better organizing content is only necessary in extreme situations, where more than page weight is an issue. An example might be a long, text heavy web page requiring a lengthy vertical scrolling to finish. Such a page is common on "infomercial" sites, and violates basic design tenants beyond those related to page weight.
Code is a different story. A website's code can be made more efficient in a variety of fashions. First, via the use of CSS, all style elements of a web page can now be called via an external file. This same file can be called on all a site's pages, providing for a uniform look and feel. Not only is this more efficient; it is also the official recommendation from the W3C. The same may be said of XHTML and the abandonment of "table" based layout. Tables, though effective for layout, produce more code than equivalent XHTML layouts using "div" tags. Where a minimum of 3 tags are required to create a "box" with content in a table, only 1 is needed using divisions. Using XHTML and CSS in combination can significantly reduce the amount of "on page" code required by a web page. A final, relatively insignificant trick is the removal of all "white space" from your code. Browsers don't require it; it is primarily so authors can readily read and interpret the code. The savings are minimal at best, but for sites that receive an extreme amount of traffic, even a few saved bytes will add up over time.
Conclusions
Target images and media files first when seeking to reduce the weight of a page. They are the largest components of overall page weight and simply removing them can significantly reduce total weight. The images that remain should be optimally compressed into a format appropriate for their type, photos or graphics. Avoid huge blocks of text that cause unnecessary vertical scrolling. Organize the site more efficiently to spread the information across multiple pages. Adopt XHTML and CSS to reduce the size of the on-page code, and call the CSS externally. These tips should help reduce the size of your pages and speed their delivery to your viewers.
About the author:
Mr. Lester worked in the IT industry for 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, website design, before serving for 4 years as the webmaster for Apollo Hosting, http://www.apollohosting.comApollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.
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Review: Swish
by: Lala C. Ballatan
Are you in a busy office and need to get web design jobs with complex text effects done immediately? Want to speed up your productivity but avoid working until Saturday afternoons breaking up text and hand tweening? Then, SWiSH, the new standalone tool that creates great font effects and more by David Mitchie, presented during the Flash Forward 2000 conference, is for you!.
So what’s new with SWiSH? This tool enables you to create buttons and banners in the program itself. You can even create a .SWF for importing into Flash for fast font effects. The “more” emphasis earlier is what’s coming up in the future of this product. Mitchie is hoping to release an update of its first version in May that will allow the use of images. These plans for added functionality will give users more creativity in designing banners and navigation systems.
There are also future plans being expressed by Mitchie to support many of the features in Flash today – this includes scripting, movie clips, audio, vector images and rollover buttons. Right now, with the first version, you can use its maximum number of text effects to the hilt. It will also speed up work productivity. With SWiSH, you can say good bye to all afternoon of breaking text up, making key frames and hand tweening – plenty of hard work but is not anywhere near our idea of creativity.
Use it by controlling all the various attributes of each letter and click preview. After installing this software, in less than five minutes, you can produce real content for your sites. There may be arguments about how all the effects just look alike but remember that there are “industry standard” and “professional level” considerations on these things, just like in television and print. Using SWiSH allows you to produce your sites with that level of standard and expertise.
Currently, SWiSH doesn’t work in Mac but they are looking into creating a version suitable with the Mac. Right now, it works on Windows 95+/NT/2000 only. Still, you can create the files on a PC and use the .SWFs produced on the Mac, which means that you could create standard clips for your files and use them in your libraries. Other system requirements include Pentium 100 or better, 32Mb of RAM, 256 color display or better. It does not require Flash to be installed, too.
Acquiring and using SWiSH is easy enough. You just go to the site and download its trial version. Until you get a key, it will scramble text when you export to SWF. Currently, SWiSH has a US $30 price tag, with free minor updates. Major updates would be around US $10 – a big difference in the price of Flash at US $275. Need we say more? Try SWiSH and see for yourself! -30-
About the author:
Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a non-government organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.
Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.
Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns -- imagined and observed, to bear witness.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com
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Are you in a busy office and need to get web design jobs with complex text effects done immediately? Want to speed up your productivity but avoid working until Saturday afternoons breaking up text and hand tweening? Then, SWiSH, the new standalone tool that creates great font effects and more by David Mitchie, presented during the Flash Forward 2000 conference, is for you!.
So what’s new with SWiSH? This tool enables you to create buttons and banners in the program itself. You can even create a .SWF for importing into Flash for fast font effects. The “more” emphasis earlier is what’s coming up in the future of this product. Mitchie is hoping to release an update of its first version in May that will allow the use of images. These plans for added functionality will give users more creativity in designing banners and navigation systems.
There are also future plans being expressed by Mitchie to support many of the features in Flash today – this includes scripting, movie clips, audio, vector images and rollover buttons. Right now, with the first version, you can use its maximum number of text effects to the hilt. It will also speed up work productivity. With SWiSH, you can say good bye to all afternoon of breaking text up, making key frames and hand tweening – plenty of hard work but is not anywhere near our idea of creativity.
Use it by controlling all the various attributes of each letter and click preview. After installing this software, in less than five minutes, you can produce real content for your sites. There may be arguments about how all the effects just look alike but remember that there are “industry standard” and “professional level” considerations on these things, just like in television and print. Using SWiSH allows you to produce your sites with that level of standard and expertise.
Currently, SWiSH doesn’t work in Mac but they are looking into creating a version suitable with the Mac. Right now, it works on Windows 95+/NT/2000 only. Still, you can create the files on a PC and use the .SWFs produced on the Mac, which means that you could create standard clips for your files and use them in your libraries. Other system requirements include Pentium 100 or better, 32Mb of RAM, 256 color display or better. It does not require Flash to be installed, too.
Acquiring and using SWiSH is easy enough. You just go to the site and download its trial version. Until you get a key, it will scramble text when you export to SWF. Currently, SWiSH has a US $30 price tag, with free minor updates. Major updates would be around US $10 – a big difference in the price of Flash at US $275. Need we say more? Try SWiSH and see for yourself! -30-
About the author:
Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a non-government organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.
Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.
Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns -- imagined and observed, to bear witness.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com
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CREATIVE SUITE - THE UNDERLYING INTEGRATION
by: Blur Loterina
Are you an Acrobat user and needs a complete tool for your print or web design projects? Read on.
A few months ago, Acrobat launched its main creative design packages including Photoshop/ImageReady, GoLive, InDesign and Illustrator. After a long period of silence, it came up with a much better package.
Adobe’s Creative Suite now comes in two new packages, the Standard Edition and the Professional Edition. The Standard Edition is composed of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. This package contains most of the print-oriented flagships. On the other hand, Adobe GoLive and Acrobat Professional comprise the Professional Edition, which focuses on web design.
Basically, these packages are combinations of the strengths each application offers. They are integrations of tools for handling colour management, screen display, type handling and more. They allow cross-application, meaning any file done in one program can be opened to the other programs as long as the file was created on one of the programs that comprises the packages. When a file is transferred, all other options can be applied. For example, when you open an Illustrator file to Photoshop, that file will be opened as a Photoshop file.
Every creative application on the package uses PDF file format. Not just a PDF format, they use the latest PDF 1.5 format. PDF format allows you to import and export directly. You can embed vector PDFs from Illustrator and bitmap PDFs from Photoshop in a multi-page InDesign PDF. This can also be exported for PDF web display or repurposed via GoLive.
Adobe Creative Suites has a new integrated file management system, which is essential in the software’s workflow and tight integration. Different components and versions of a project are hard to manage, especially when you are going to use a lot of programs, as in workgroups. But Adobe has a solution to this, the Version Cue. Version Cue, through the application of Save dialog, enables you to store all job elements and important version of your project. The Open dialog accesses visual thumbnails of the project file. You will also be warned if other users are using the same file. In other words, it provides file versioning and management.
The packages also contain XMP or eXtensible Metadata Platform standards. This allows you to search for files according to related information like keywords or authors.
Creative Suite applications are guaranteed excellent tools to provide you with your desired result. Think of these packages as the total of all these applications.
About the author:
For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com
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Are you an Acrobat user and needs a complete tool for your print or web design projects? Read on.
A few months ago, Acrobat launched its main creative design packages including Photoshop/ImageReady, GoLive, InDesign and Illustrator. After a long period of silence, it came up with a much better package.
Adobe’s Creative Suite now comes in two new packages, the Standard Edition and the Professional Edition. The Standard Edition is composed of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. This package contains most of the print-oriented flagships. On the other hand, Adobe GoLive and Acrobat Professional comprise the Professional Edition, which focuses on web design.
Basically, these packages are combinations of the strengths each application offers. They are integrations of tools for handling colour management, screen display, type handling and more. They allow cross-application, meaning any file done in one program can be opened to the other programs as long as the file was created on one of the programs that comprises the packages. When a file is transferred, all other options can be applied. For example, when you open an Illustrator file to Photoshop, that file will be opened as a Photoshop file.
Every creative application on the package uses PDF file format. Not just a PDF format, they use the latest PDF 1.5 format. PDF format allows you to import and export directly. You can embed vector PDFs from Illustrator and bitmap PDFs from Photoshop in a multi-page InDesign PDF. This can also be exported for PDF web display or repurposed via GoLive.
Adobe Creative Suites has a new integrated file management system, which is essential in the software’s workflow and tight integration. Different components and versions of a project are hard to manage, especially when you are going to use a lot of programs, as in workgroups. But Adobe has a solution to this, the Version Cue. Version Cue, through the application of Save dialog, enables you to store all job elements and important version of your project. The Open dialog accesses visual thumbnails of the project file. You will also be warned if other users are using the same file. In other words, it provides file versioning and management.
The packages also contain XMP or eXtensible Metadata Platform standards. This allows you to search for files according to related information like keywords or authors.
Creative Suite applications are guaranteed excellent tools to provide you with your desired result. Think of these packages as the total of all these applications.
About the author:
For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com
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Press Release MX8 - Heralded as the most PERFECT Computer System with Click Instant Performance and x800!
by:
MX8 - Heralded as the most PERFECT Computer System with Click Instant Performance and x800!
World's Proven Most Powerful and Fastest Computer - MX8 with Pentium 4 3400MHz E (EXTREME EDITION Blows away Apple's G5) and 500GB SATA-X Hyperdrives. No other computer proves to be as fast, convenient or complete as Michael's Computers MX8 Tower
Marina Del Rey, CA July 9, 2004 -- MX8 - World's only Computer with Click Instant Technology (If you have to wait when you click, your computer is TOO slow)
"When someone hears about Michael's fastest computers" - 1000's of clients worldwide voice the same after seeing a system from Michael's Computers. Maybe that's why those who use Michael's Computers are the only fortunate customers to experience CLICK INSTANT performance. Outdated computers are those that when you click something, you have to wait for it to load to come on. All programs launch instantly on Michael's Computers MX8 3400 Pentium 4 Enhanced Edition Processor (Much faster than Previous HT Version or Apple G5!)
Michael's MX8 Tower continues to be the most powerful Desktop in the world. Featuring the NEW Intel Pentium 4 HT 3400MHz Extreme Edition Processor, it outperforms it's nearest competition AMD (AMD FX-53) processor by over 65% and is over 40% faster than Apple's G5!. Significantly faster due to Michael's integration of over 1024MB of PC4000 DDR Memory, 500 GB SATA-X Hard Drives (That's more than 500,000 MB of space!), ATI's VERY latest X800 Video which is 85% faster and richer than Nvidia's latest 6800 256MB DDR Video Card. Technology developed by Industrial Light and Magic (a George Lucas Company) or ATI's Radeon 256MB x800 8X AGP Video Card (updated with Direct X 9.01b), SoundBlaster's Platinum Audigy ZX 108dB Soundboards (up to 7.1 Surround Sound), 8X DVD Re-Writeable, 52X CD-R's, and SO MUCH MORE...there is no computer on the market that performs as best as the MX8 day in and day out. Compare to ANY system and you just won't find the speed or power better than in a Michael's MX8...if it doesn't have the EAGLE, a computer systems speed does not FLY.
Everything is working fine and I have all I need so far. Still can't believe the incredible speed this MX8 computer has. I will be getting a laptop next from you guys. If I can send some business your way I will. I guess I can invite some of my friends to come check out my MX8 and see what it can do. I know they will be in awe. I surely was. Thanks again Michael for the incredible systems you build. This is the FASTEST production computer I ever had.
--Darryll Patterson, Belle Glade, Florida
Michael's Computers invites you to stop by www.MichaelsComputers.com today and by simply asking, they will install an extra 512MB of PC4000 DDR MEMORY FREE!
Additionally, Michael's Computers bundles top of the line software that makes computing more useful, productive and fun. There is never a point in buying a system, unless you have stellar software to run and show off the performance.
With the longest 8 year warranties in the business, world's only proven systems to load programs and run operations nearly instantly, best service and web posted benchmarks, Michael's Computers have personally proven to have manufactured the perfect computer system, both desktops and laptops, for the professional and gamer user.
United States Navy Sidewinder Missile Division in California - "We have computers from every company, and your MX Systems surpass every computer we have ever tested. Our technicians saw your latest systems and they practically drooled over them"
Where parts may be similar, side by side, no other computer can be as instant or as fast. Many wonder how this is possible? Simple explanation - Ever wonder how one V8 engine in a car can be beat by another manufactures V8 in another car? It's always the way a system is built and optimized that makes the total difference.
Who builds your system at Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP, IBM, Alienware or any other company? Do you actually get to know the maker? Why do you think more people trust Michael's Computers?
About Michael's Computers:
Michael's Computers, founded in 1996, is the world leader in design and manufacturing of the highest performance computer systems under the brand names MX8 (Previously MX7 which the MX stands for "Michael's Xtreme" and the number stands for years in warranty AND business). The company does 100 Percent business online and can be contacted by mail at 4712 Admiralty Way, Suite 359, Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292.
Michael's Computers have been designing world performance systems for Gamers, Web Designers, 3D Cad Designers, Law Offices, Realtors, Doctors, Movie Producers, Audio Enthusiasts and personal within the US Navy, US Air Force and US Marine Corp since 1996!
Michael's Computers systems are sold throughout the United States and also ship as far as Canada, Alaska, Ireland, Australia, Germany, UK and London.
Michael's Computers are sold exclusively online at MichaelsComputers.com
Financing is Available by American Express Bob Gardner bgardner@amexbf.com
Owner: Michael J Gonzales
Company http://MichaelsComputers.com California/Worldwide
Contact:
Michael's Computers
4712 Admiralty Way Suite 359
Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292
About the author:
.
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
MX8 - Heralded as the most PERFECT Computer System with Click Instant Performance and x800!
World's Proven Most Powerful and Fastest Computer - MX8 with Pentium 4 3400MHz E (EXTREME EDITION Blows away Apple's G5) and 500GB SATA-X Hyperdrives. No other computer proves to be as fast, convenient or complete as Michael's Computers MX8 Tower
Marina Del Rey, CA July 9, 2004 -- MX8 - World's only Computer with Click Instant Technology (If you have to wait when you click, your computer is TOO slow)
"When someone hears about Michael's fastest computers" - 1000's of clients worldwide voice the same after seeing a system from Michael's Computers. Maybe that's why those who use Michael's Computers are the only fortunate customers to experience CLICK INSTANT performance. Outdated computers are those that when you click something, you have to wait for it to load to come on. All programs launch instantly on Michael's Computers MX8 3400 Pentium 4 Enhanced Edition Processor (Much faster than Previous HT Version or Apple G5!)
Michael's MX8 Tower continues to be the most powerful Desktop in the world. Featuring the NEW Intel Pentium 4 HT 3400MHz Extreme Edition Processor, it outperforms it's nearest competition AMD (AMD FX-53) processor by over 65% and is over 40% faster than Apple's G5!. Significantly faster due to Michael's integration of over 1024MB of PC4000 DDR Memory, 500 GB SATA-X Hard Drives (That's more than 500,000 MB of space!), ATI's VERY latest X800 Video which is 85% faster and richer than Nvidia's latest 6800 256MB DDR Video Card. Technology developed by Industrial Light and Magic (a George Lucas Company) or ATI's Radeon 256MB x800 8X AGP Video Card (updated with Direct X 9.01b), SoundBlaster's Platinum Audigy ZX 108dB Soundboards (up to 7.1 Surround Sound), 8X DVD Re-Writeable, 52X CD-R's, and SO MUCH MORE...there is no computer on the market that performs as best as the MX8 day in and day out. Compare to ANY system and you just won't find the speed or power better than in a Michael's MX8...if it doesn't have the EAGLE, a computer systems speed does not FLY.
Everything is working fine and I have all I need so far. Still can't believe the incredible speed this MX8 computer has. I will be getting a laptop next from you guys. If I can send some business your way I will. I guess I can invite some of my friends to come check out my MX8 and see what it can do. I know they will be in awe. I surely was. Thanks again Michael for the incredible systems you build. This is the FASTEST production computer I ever had.
--Darryll Patterson, Belle Glade, Florida
Michael's Computers invites you to stop by www.MichaelsComputers.com today and by simply asking, they will install an extra 512MB of PC4000 DDR MEMORY FREE!
Additionally, Michael's Computers bundles top of the line software that makes computing more useful, productive and fun. There is never a point in buying a system, unless you have stellar software to run and show off the performance.
With the longest 8 year warranties in the business, world's only proven systems to load programs and run operations nearly instantly, best service and web posted benchmarks, Michael's Computers have personally proven to have manufactured the perfect computer system, both desktops and laptops, for the professional and gamer user.
United States Navy Sidewinder Missile Division in California - "We have computers from every company, and your MX Systems surpass every computer we have ever tested. Our technicians saw your latest systems and they practically drooled over them"
Where parts may be similar, side by side, no other computer can be as instant or as fast. Many wonder how this is possible? Simple explanation - Ever wonder how one V8 engine in a car can be beat by another manufactures V8 in another car? It's always the way a system is built and optimized that makes the total difference.
Who builds your system at Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP, IBM, Alienware or any other company? Do you actually get to know the maker? Why do you think more people trust Michael's Computers?
About Michael's Computers:
Michael's Computers, founded in 1996, is the world leader in design and manufacturing of the highest performance computer systems under the brand names MX8 (Previously MX7 which the MX stands for "Michael's Xtreme" and the number stands for years in warranty AND business). The company does 100 Percent business online and can be contacted by mail at 4712 Admiralty Way, Suite 359, Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292.
Michael's Computers have been designing world performance systems for Gamers, Web Designers, 3D Cad Designers, Law Offices, Realtors, Doctors, Movie Producers, Audio Enthusiasts and personal within the US Navy, US Air Force and US Marine Corp since 1996!
Michael's Computers systems are sold throughout the United States and also ship as far as Canada, Alaska, Ireland, Australia, Germany, UK and London.
Michael's Computers are sold exclusively online at MichaelsComputers.com
Financing is Available by American Express Bob Gardner bgardner@amexbf.com
Owner: Michael J Gonzales
Company http://MichaelsComputers.com California/Worldwide
Contact:
Michael's Computers
4712 Admiralty Way Suite 359
Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292
About the author:
.
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Oakland, San Jose Web Design Company
by: Web-Design.nr.10
"In today's world, websites are not just the clout of major companies alone. Web presence has become affordable for smaller businesses, organizations and even individuals. Having a website helps build and expand business, increase sales or offer services by reaching out to the people who seek it. And contrary to what you may think, it is not enough to just have a website created and uploaded; maintenance, website promotion and marketing are equally important aspects. So, when looking for a web design company, you need to ensure that you get all these benefits to get an edge over others.
At #10, we understand that your website reflects your company's motto and image. Hence, the web design solutions we offer are in keeping with your original ideas and the image you like to project. Whatever be your industry, the web design team, at #10 is adept at designing websites that exude professionalism and character. Our design staff works with you, understanding your requirements and focusing on your needs. Logo creation, logo placement and the flow of the various pages are all designed as per your requirements. During every stage of the web designing process, we take your inputs and feedbacks. We work upon your ideas and add our expertise, to make your website stand out from the clutter.
At #10, we use technologically advanced and effective software tools to ensure that your website attracts target audience. Use of a combination of right HTML text, background images, and graphic images with the right and most legible typefaces and fonts make your website presentable and popular. We also create customized web banner or advertisement banner in a variety of styles. Our interactive flash banners are created aesthetically, and can be embedded within the homepage. These features add a charisma to your website, if used tastefully.
We also use marketing and promotion strategies, so that your website is listed high in the search engines and directories. Our ecommerce tools, coupled with long-term maintenance and innovative solutions from time to time, gets your target audience hooked. Also since the website we create are written, coded and designed for user friendliness and search engine visibility, you can rest assured of maximum visitors to your website.
Although the attention span of a web surfer is just a few seconds, a neatly laid-out website with interesting graphics, updated facts and user-friendly navigation is sure to have visitors linger on. Trust us at #10, to design that kind of a website for you.
#10 web design company offers services especially in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.
"
About the author:
##10 web design company offers services especially in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. For more details go to www.web-design.nr10.com
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"In today's world, websites are not just the clout of major companies alone. Web presence has become affordable for smaller businesses, organizations and even individuals. Having a website helps build and expand business, increase sales or offer services by reaching out to the people who seek it. And contrary to what you may think, it is not enough to just have a website created and uploaded; maintenance, website promotion and marketing are equally important aspects. So, when looking for a web design company, you need to ensure that you get all these benefits to get an edge over others.
At #10, we understand that your website reflects your company's motto and image. Hence, the web design solutions we offer are in keeping with your original ideas and the image you like to project. Whatever be your industry, the web design team, at #10 is adept at designing websites that exude professionalism and character. Our design staff works with you, understanding your requirements and focusing on your needs. Logo creation, logo placement and the flow of the various pages are all designed as per your requirements. During every stage of the web designing process, we take your inputs and feedbacks. We work upon your ideas and add our expertise, to make your website stand out from the clutter.
At #10, we use technologically advanced and effective software tools to ensure that your website attracts target audience. Use of a combination of right HTML text, background images, and graphic images with the right and most legible typefaces and fonts make your website presentable and popular. We also create customized web banner or advertisement banner in a variety of styles. Our interactive flash banners are created aesthetically, and can be embedded within the homepage. These features add a charisma to your website, if used tastefully.
We also use marketing and promotion strategies, so that your website is listed high in the search engines and directories. Our ecommerce tools, coupled with long-term maintenance and innovative solutions from time to time, gets your target audience hooked. Also since the website we create are written, coded and designed for user friendliness and search engine visibility, you can rest assured of maximum visitors to your website.
Although the attention span of a web surfer is just a few seconds, a neatly laid-out website with interesting graphics, updated facts and user-friendly navigation is sure to have visitors linger on. Trust us at #10, to design that kind of a website for you.
#10 web design company offers services especially in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.
"
About the author:
##10 web design company offers services especially in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. For more details go to www.web-design.nr10.com
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Disappointing Designs
by: Paul Hood
Fred Showker catches a line from a Pete Seeger classic, “Where have all the flowers gone?” His flowers are the web designers that he thinks are going extinct. He laments on the seeming “decay” in the art of web designing and says gone are the designers who made a difference in the making of web designs and who provided quality sites for the people to visit.
Showker argues that he has seen a decline in the quality of web sites basing from reviews he made of several sites. From his statements, I can see that he is well-versed in making analyses of web sites and is a credible source of information. Many sites came under his meticulous scrutiny and not one was spared.
Some of the sites that he revisited were dead and others that are still up failed to meet the expected standards. The changes he saw came as a shock since he did not expect many of them to go down the drain.
Riddler.com was one site that Showker said proved to be a disappointment as it took out of consideration the reading pleasure of the reader and instead took on a much commercialized look. Webshaker.com is similar as well.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was another site that was axe by Showker. Indeed, I was surprise to see a content in the site about the Black History month with Martin Luther King Jr.’s picture in it. I have to agree with Fred on this one as I see no relevance of the content in promoting B&J’s ice cream. Perhaps there is an underlying purpose for that but I honestly don’t see its bearing here.
Of course there are web sites that met Showker’s scrutiny like Hallmark, Camobell Soups and Smuckers. These sites provided a good site for browsing and had a good visual offering for the visitor.
Fred Showker’s main thesis in his review is the importance of the reader as an element in the creation of web sites. The site must be tailor-made for the reader for it to reap the fullest benefits. The content must be of relevance to the reader and not just provide a stiff approach to giving out information.
He further adds that a site may come up short on the design aspect but it still should follow this basic concept, "The reader is the most important element in the equation." Style gives way to message, and content is STILL king.
About the author:
Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com
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Fred Showker catches a line from a Pete Seeger classic, “Where have all the flowers gone?” His flowers are the web designers that he thinks are going extinct. He laments on the seeming “decay” in the art of web designing and says gone are the designers who made a difference in the making of web designs and who provided quality sites for the people to visit.
Showker argues that he has seen a decline in the quality of web sites basing from reviews he made of several sites. From his statements, I can see that he is well-versed in making analyses of web sites and is a credible source of information. Many sites came under his meticulous scrutiny and not one was spared.
Some of the sites that he revisited were dead and others that are still up failed to meet the expected standards. The changes he saw came as a shock since he did not expect many of them to go down the drain.
Riddler.com was one site that Showker said proved to be a disappointment as it took out of consideration the reading pleasure of the reader and instead took on a much commercialized look. Webshaker.com is similar as well.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was another site that was axe by Showker. Indeed, I was surprise to see a content in the site about the Black History month with Martin Luther King Jr.’s picture in it. I have to agree with Fred on this one as I see no relevance of the content in promoting B&J’s ice cream. Perhaps there is an underlying purpose for that but I honestly don’t see its bearing here.
Of course there are web sites that met Showker’s scrutiny like Hallmark, Camobell Soups and Smuckers. These sites provided a good site for browsing and had a good visual offering for the visitor.
Fred Showker’s main thesis in his review is the importance of the reader as an element in the creation of web sites. The site must be tailor-made for the reader for it to reap the fullest benefits. The content must be of relevance to the reader and not just provide a stiff approach to giving out information.
He further adds that a site may come up short on the design aspect but it still should follow this basic concept, "The reader is the most important element in the equation." Style gives way to message, and content is STILL king.
About the author:
Additional Information about the articles can be found at http://www.catalogprintingexperts.com
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Review: Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS
by: Carla Ballatan
Photoshop CS is no doubt the most momentous Photoshop progress which complements digital photographers. Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS discusses exciting new features for general users, web designers, video editors and digital photographers. This book is authored by Bruce Fraser.
Bruce Fraser is a noted author having co-authored the penultimate Photoshop resource book Real World Photoshop from Peachpit Press. He is also a contributing editor for Mac World plus a regular contributor for CreativePro where he wrote his “Out of Gamut” articles. Fraser is also a co-author of Real World Color Management from Peachpit Press. He has also made a study of human vision and how it relates to reproducible color in photography and photomechanical reproduction. Bruce is a regular speaker and presenter at notable trade shows and conferences as well as Seybold and Thunder Lizard’s Photoshop Conferences. He has also consulted for an extensive series of major photographic and digital imaging companies.
Adobe Photoshop CS is the new version (Version 8) of Adobe Photoshop. It is a part of the newly announced Adobe Creative Suite which combines new versions of Adobe Photoshop CS with ImageReady CS, Adobe illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe GoLive CS, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional, and the new "Version Cue" file version manager, which lets you track integrations quickly and locate files easily.
Camera RAW part of Photoshop 7 Adobe Photoshop Camera RAW & JPEG 2000 Plug-in Bundle is now an integrated part of Photoshop CS. This has added substantial power to Photoshop CS. JPEG 2000 delivers superior quality for the same compression ratios. Conversely, since no camera support JPEG 2000, support is available through a separate plug-in that ships with the software.
Depending on the camera brand, Raw may come in different flavors. Adobe Photoshop CS covers most RAW formats available today. However, RAW data may not be always read accurately. For example, the white balance of Nikon Coolpix 5000 images may have unnatural result which is not a case with Nikon Capture 3.5. To fix the white balance, click in a non-specular white area followed by a minor tint adjustment. Supplementary adjustments can be made through the advanced “Calibration” tab. The “Adjust” tab controls exposure, shadow, brightness and contrast sliders. Albeit Photoshop CS features now a new Histogram Palette, the RAW dialog box also features live histograms.
Noise reduction is not a problem with Photoshop CS. It has the color noise reduction and luminance smoothing sliders which allow you to reduce colors and luminance noise. Luminance noise should be use with caution because it can lead to an artificial “water paint” effect. The noise reduction performs very well and preserves the image detail and sharpness.
To remove chromatic aberrations, apply a local desaturation in the corresponding color channels. The Lens tab of the Raw dialog box provides effective ways of eliminating these aberrations.
To have additional knowledge of Camera raw with Adobe Photoshop CS, purchase a copy of this book. It will sure enlighten the dark areas of the subject matter.
About the author:
For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com
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Photoshop CS is no doubt the most momentous Photoshop progress which complements digital photographers. Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS discusses exciting new features for general users, web designers, video editors and digital photographers. This book is authored by Bruce Fraser.
Bruce Fraser is a noted author having co-authored the penultimate Photoshop resource book Real World Photoshop from Peachpit Press. He is also a contributing editor for Mac World plus a regular contributor for CreativePro where he wrote his “Out of Gamut” articles. Fraser is also a co-author of Real World Color Management from Peachpit Press. He has also made a study of human vision and how it relates to reproducible color in photography and photomechanical reproduction. Bruce is a regular speaker and presenter at notable trade shows and conferences as well as Seybold and Thunder Lizard’s Photoshop Conferences. He has also consulted for an extensive series of major photographic and digital imaging companies.
Adobe Photoshop CS is the new version (Version 8) of Adobe Photoshop. It is a part of the newly announced Adobe Creative Suite which combines new versions of Adobe Photoshop CS with ImageReady CS, Adobe illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe GoLive CS, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional, and the new "Version Cue" file version manager, which lets you track integrations quickly and locate files easily.
Camera RAW part of Photoshop 7 Adobe Photoshop Camera RAW & JPEG 2000 Plug-in Bundle is now an integrated part of Photoshop CS. This has added substantial power to Photoshop CS. JPEG 2000 delivers superior quality for the same compression ratios. Conversely, since no camera support JPEG 2000, support is available through a separate plug-in that ships with the software.
Depending on the camera brand, Raw may come in different flavors. Adobe Photoshop CS covers most RAW formats available today. However, RAW data may not be always read accurately. For example, the white balance of Nikon Coolpix 5000 images may have unnatural result which is not a case with Nikon Capture 3.5. To fix the white balance, click in a non-specular white area followed by a minor tint adjustment. Supplementary adjustments can be made through the advanced “Calibration” tab. The “Adjust” tab controls exposure, shadow, brightness and contrast sliders. Albeit Photoshop CS features now a new Histogram Palette, the RAW dialog box also features live histograms.
Noise reduction is not a problem with Photoshop CS. It has the color noise reduction and luminance smoothing sliders which allow you to reduce colors and luminance noise. Luminance noise should be use with caution because it can lead to an artificial “water paint” effect. The noise reduction performs very well and preserves the image detail and sharpness.
To remove chromatic aberrations, apply a local desaturation in the corresponding color channels. The Lens tab of the Raw dialog box provides effective ways of eliminating these aberrations.
To have additional knowledge of Camera raw with Adobe Photoshop CS, purchase a copy of this book. It will sure enlighten the dark areas of the subject matter.
About the author:
For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Affiliates need to read their Newspaper.
by: Alex Hachtman
Millions of people check the news everyday-- in the morning paper, online, and on the nightly news. But far too often affiliates do not find out what has occurred in affiliate marketing that day; this is important because affiliate marketing changes daily. There are many resources for affiliate marketers to learn about the day’s happenings. The best way to learn about the changes in affiliate marketing is by visiting forums often.
Forums provide a great resource by allowing new affiliates to learn from the experts. New affiliates hear and learn about the different opinions and techniques that are used in the industry. In turn, this information helps educate the affiliates and helps them decide whether they agree or disagree on the particular subject or technique. By visiting forums often you can learn timesaving tips as well as common mistakes that you can avoid.
Here are some of the most popular forums that are most useful for affiliates:
· AbestWeb: http://www.abestweb.com/
Who it’s for: affiliate program managers and affiliate marketers.
With over 14,000 members this is a vast pool of knowledge that you can draw from.
· WebmasterWorld.com: http://www.webmasterworld.com/
Who it’s for: webmasters and marketing managers.
For all of your questions about anything having to do with Web design, this is the place to go. There are a lot of quality discussions that are segmented as well as moderated.
· Search Engine Watch Forums.
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/index.php
Who it’s for: webmasters and affiliate marketers.
Here you can find discussions and questions that deal with all aspects of search engines. Some of the topics include: Questions on specific search engines and directories, specific discussions on search engine optimization and web marketing, general search issues, and current issues.
· ReveNews.com: http://www.revenews.com/
Who it’s for: webmasters, affiliate program managers, and affiliate marketers.
This site is a great location to find articles on various topics and learn about what is news worthy in the industry.
There are also forums strictly for affiliate managers. Here, managers can learn about those issues that are strictly pertinent for them, such as keeping an affiliate program in-house or outsourcing. You can visit http://www.10xmarketing.com/affiliate-program-management.asp to learn more about some of the options that are available to managers. These forums provide a great resource to learn about the technical details of running a program.
Forums teach valuable information about affiliate marketing that will make help make affiliate sites more successful. By visiting and posting often in these forums many people become experts on certain topics. Networking opportunities will also arise. Many of these forums help industry leaders form business relationships.
Forums are an amazing resource; do not overlook them because they are vital to ones success. Since affiliate marketing changes everyday, one should visit them as often as you watch or read the daily news.
About the author:
Alex Hachtman, of 10x Marketing, wrote this article. 10x Marketing provides companies with Internet marketing solutions that will increase consumer visits on a regular basis, thus increasing potential sales and revenue. Contact 10x Marketing today for more information about your companies affiliate program. See http://www.10xmarketing.com/res/ecommerce-affiliate-program.aspfor more information.
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Millions of people check the news everyday-- in the morning paper, online, and on the nightly news. But far too often affiliates do not find out what has occurred in affiliate marketing that day; this is important because affiliate marketing changes daily. There are many resources for affiliate marketers to learn about the day’s happenings. The best way to learn about the changes in affiliate marketing is by visiting forums often.
Forums provide a great resource by allowing new affiliates to learn from the experts. New affiliates hear and learn about the different opinions and techniques that are used in the industry. In turn, this information helps educate the affiliates and helps them decide whether they agree or disagree on the particular subject or technique. By visiting forums often you can learn timesaving tips as well as common mistakes that you can avoid.
Here are some of the most popular forums that are most useful for affiliates:
· AbestWeb: http://www.abestweb.com/
Who it’s for: affiliate program managers and affiliate marketers.
With over 14,000 members this is a vast pool of knowledge that you can draw from.
· WebmasterWorld.com: http://www.webmasterworld.com/
Who it’s for: webmasters and marketing managers.
For all of your questions about anything having to do with Web design, this is the place to go. There are a lot of quality discussions that are segmented as well as moderated.
· Search Engine Watch Forums.
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/index.php
Who it’s for: webmasters and affiliate marketers.
Here you can find discussions and questions that deal with all aspects of search engines. Some of the topics include: Questions on specific search engines and directories, specific discussions on search engine optimization and web marketing, general search issues, and current issues.
· ReveNews.com: http://www.revenews.com/
Who it’s for: webmasters, affiliate program managers, and affiliate marketers.
This site is a great location to find articles on various topics and learn about what is news worthy in the industry.
There are also forums strictly for affiliate managers. Here, managers can learn about those issues that are strictly pertinent for them, such as keeping an affiliate program in-house or outsourcing. You can visit http://www.10xmarketing.com/affiliate-program-management.asp to learn more about some of the options that are available to managers. These forums provide a great resource to learn about the technical details of running a program.
Forums teach valuable information about affiliate marketing that will make help make affiliate sites more successful. By visiting and posting often in these forums many people become experts on certain topics. Networking opportunities will also arise. Many of these forums help industry leaders form business relationships.
Forums are an amazing resource; do not overlook them because they are vital to ones success. Since affiliate marketing changes everyday, one should visit them as often as you watch or read the daily news.
About the author:
Alex Hachtman, of 10x Marketing, wrote this article. 10x Marketing provides companies with Internet marketing solutions that will increase consumer visits on a regular basis, thus increasing potential sales and revenue. Contact 10x Marketing today for more information about your companies affiliate program. See http://www.10xmarketing.com/res/ecommerce-affiliate-program.aspfor more information.
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Internet Tutorials are the Teachers of the Future
by: Jesse S. Somer
I know some people don’t even believe that the Internet or World Wide Web exists. They think that it is an abstract concept and that if asked to show it to someone they would fail miserably. Well, whether or not it exists I think that the collective consciousness of humanity is evolving everyday because of the sharing of ideas on the strange boxes called computers and the electronic network that connects them.
Every time I go on the Internet these days I am surprised by some new function that it has for our lives. My most recent discovery has been on-line tutorials. Tutorials are websites that have been created to help novices and amateurs alike learn more in their areas of specific interest. Just about any aspect of life seems to have tutorial sites dedicated to it that will teach you want you want to know. Of course some knowledge can cost you money but you’d be pleasantly surprised to see how much information you can get for free.
For example, I am interested in learning about how to play the guitar. You should see how many sites are out there, just look up guitar+tutorials on your search engine (E.g.: Google). There’s all sorts of great help from how to change your strings, hold a plectrum properly, and tuning, to learning complex chord scale systems and finger tapping on your electric guitar.
There are often diagrams, photographs, and intensive explanations relating to everything you ever wanted to know. Some sites have video and audio to help drive the lessons home. Life really has changed. In the past you had to get lessons from a teacher, drive to and from their house or music school, pay high tuition fees, and buy books on chords and songs. Everything is downloadable these days, and a lot of it is free.
Web designers could also probably learn a few things from these guitar tutorial sites. The ways the guitar teachings are expressed are often quite extensive but done so in a very simplistic manner. It’s a real one, two, three approach starting with verbal explanations of exercises, followed by diagrams, and then finally with audio and visual representations. It is an extremely thorough way of teaching without ever having to meet anyone in person.
However, a strange phenomenon is the fact that if the site is good, the visitor does feel a connection to the personality of the creator. Making the site individual is a major factor in both achieving success and touching a personal chord (no pun intended) with people. Many of the sites have means in which you can get direct contact with the site owner thus creating an opportunity for real personal interaction and tuition. Check out some of these sites:
www.alanhorvath.com/tutorials
www.ezfolk.com/guitar/Tutorials/tutorials.html
www.learnthat.com/courses/fun/guitar/
www.8j.net/~lwind/guitar.html
www.tutorgig.com/t/Guitar
Get connected to the teachers of the future. Find a tutorial that helps you to follow your dreams.
About the author:
Jesse S. Somer
http://www.m6.net
Somer is a writer and guitarist learning about how to learn more through the Internet.
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I know some people don’t even believe that the Internet or World Wide Web exists. They think that it is an abstract concept and that if asked to show it to someone they would fail miserably. Well, whether or not it exists I think that the collective consciousness of humanity is evolving everyday because of the sharing of ideas on the strange boxes called computers and the electronic network that connects them.
Every time I go on the Internet these days I am surprised by some new function that it has for our lives. My most recent discovery has been on-line tutorials. Tutorials are websites that have been created to help novices and amateurs alike learn more in their areas of specific interest. Just about any aspect of life seems to have tutorial sites dedicated to it that will teach you want you want to know. Of course some knowledge can cost you money but you’d be pleasantly surprised to see how much information you can get for free.
For example, I am interested in learning about how to play the guitar. You should see how many sites are out there, just look up guitar+tutorials on your search engine (E.g.: Google). There’s all sorts of great help from how to change your strings, hold a plectrum properly, and tuning, to learning complex chord scale systems and finger tapping on your electric guitar.
There are often diagrams, photographs, and intensive explanations relating to everything you ever wanted to know. Some sites have video and audio to help drive the lessons home. Life really has changed. In the past you had to get lessons from a teacher, drive to and from their house or music school, pay high tuition fees, and buy books on chords and songs. Everything is downloadable these days, and a lot of it is free.
Web designers could also probably learn a few things from these guitar tutorial sites. The ways the guitar teachings are expressed are often quite extensive but done so in a very simplistic manner. It’s a real one, two, three approach starting with verbal explanations of exercises, followed by diagrams, and then finally with audio and visual representations. It is an extremely thorough way of teaching without ever having to meet anyone in person.
However, a strange phenomenon is the fact that if the site is good, the visitor does feel a connection to the personality of the creator. Making the site individual is a major factor in both achieving success and touching a personal chord (no pun intended) with people. Many of the sites have means in which you can get direct contact with the site owner thus creating an opportunity for real personal interaction and tuition. Check out some of these sites:
www.alanhorvath.com/tutorials
www.ezfolk.com/guitar/Tutorials/tutorials.html
www.learnthat.com/courses/fun/guitar/
www.8j.net/~lwind/guitar.html
www.tutorgig.com/t/Guitar
Get connected to the teachers of the future. Find a tutorial that helps you to follow your dreams.
About the author:
Jesse S. Somer
http://www.m6.net
Somer is a writer and guitarist learning about how to learn more through the Internet.
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Computer Learning Center for Kids is Committed to the Federal "No Child Left Behind" Law
by:
We would like to assist the educational community in meeting those goals by providing a small classroom environment, with a focus on individual student and adult learning at affordable prices.
Hiram, GA (PRWEB) February 23, 2004 -- Computer Learning Center for Kids exists to respectively serve as a highly valued resource for this regions educational, economic, social and cultural advancement with a commitment to a teaching / learning environment. And, provide computer training skills for children and adults of all ages in a diverse, ergonomic, safe environment and meet the technological needs in this technical world in which we live.
Serving Paulding County, Powder Springs, Carroll County, Cobb County, Douglasville and neighboring counties in Georgia.
The pride in understanding basic education and computer skills is priceless. Students will feel secure in the pace of classroom instruction due to the small class sizes and interactive teaching methods. Each student addressed at a personal learning pace that will boost their emotional appeal to learning the computer skills needed for tomorrow. The ease of use of the training programs will attract prospective students to our facility, and encourage existing students to return for more instruction. Computer Learning Center for Kid's Inc will benefit all peer groups of the community. Children will benefit from the advanced computer learning by increasing their appetite for technology and learning. Parents will benefit from the increased appetite for learning their children will experience, as well as the assistance of an additional educational institution to help raise their child's real world IQ. The benefits of our service extend beyond the realms of education into security of childcare and social activities with the belief in “No Child Left Behind”.
The learning facility is an 1800 square foot office space located at 1899 Lake Road, Suite 211, Hiram, Georgia 30141. The learning center has a restroom, break room, 6 computer workstations, along with fax-scanier, copier, printer, and e-learning educational manuals that will allow ample supplies for an effective learning environment. A sitting area is available for parents that allow visual observation of their child learning sessions. The learning center for children held at the facility with set business hours of operation of Monday-Friday 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Saturday hours 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
The primary objective of our organization is to teach computer skills to children of all ages to include adults and senior citizens.
On hand, experienced trainers will lead small class sessions from beginning to end of basic computer functions and tutorial programs.
Tutorial courses in math, spelling, reading. Computer training in computer basic, word processing, excel, e-mail,Internet usage and web design explored in a fully comprehensive instructional setting.
Visit us on the web @ www.clcfk.com or take a tour of the facilities. Mention this press release and receive 1-hour free computer class.
1899 Lake Road
Ste. 211
Hiram, GA. 30141
770.222.6414
Sincerely,
Carolyn Blassingill
President
About the author:
Press Release
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We would like to assist the educational community in meeting those goals by providing a small classroom environment, with a focus on individual student and adult learning at affordable prices.
Hiram, GA (PRWEB) February 23, 2004 -- Computer Learning Center for Kids exists to respectively serve as a highly valued resource for this regions educational, economic, social and cultural advancement with a commitment to a teaching / learning environment. And, provide computer training skills for children and adults of all ages in a diverse, ergonomic, safe environment and meet the technological needs in this technical world in which we live.
Serving Paulding County, Powder Springs, Carroll County, Cobb County, Douglasville and neighboring counties in Georgia.
The pride in understanding basic education and computer skills is priceless. Students will feel secure in the pace of classroom instruction due to the small class sizes and interactive teaching methods. Each student addressed at a personal learning pace that will boost their emotional appeal to learning the computer skills needed for tomorrow. The ease of use of the training programs will attract prospective students to our facility, and encourage existing students to return for more instruction. Computer Learning Center for Kid's Inc will benefit all peer groups of the community. Children will benefit from the advanced computer learning by increasing their appetite for technology and learning. Parents will benefit from the increased appetite for learning their children will experience, as well as the assistance of an additional educational institution to help raise their child's real world IQ. The benefits of our service extend beyond the realms of education into security of childcare and social activities with the belief in “No Child Left Behind”.
The learning facility is an 1800 square foot office space located at 1899 Lake Road, Suite 211, Hiram, Georgia 30141. The learning center has a restroom, break room, 6 computer workstations, along with fax-scanier, copier, printer, and e-learning educational manuals that will allow ample supplies for an effective learning environment. A sitting area is available for parents that allow visual observation of their child learning sessions. The learning center for children held at the facility with set business hours of operation of Monday-Friday 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Saturday hours 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
The primary objective of our organization is to teach computer skills to children of all ages to include adults and senior citizens.
On hand, experienced trainers will lead small class sessions from beginning to end of basic computer functions and tutorial programs.
Tutorial courses in math, spelling, reading. Computer training in computer basic, word processing, excel, e-mail,Internet usage and web design explored in a fully comprehensive instructional setting.
Visit us on the web @ www.clcfk.com or take a tour of the facilities. Mention this press release and receive 1-hour free computer class.
1899 Lake Road
Ste. 211
Hiram, GA. 30141
770.222.6414
Sincerely,
Carolyn Blassingill
President
About the author:
Press Release
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Building Websites for Charity
by: ARA
(ARA) - Learning doesn’t just happen inside a classroom. For The Art Institutes, learning is also creating opportunities for students and faculty to take their talents and skills outside the classroom, into the community, to help others.
This year, The Art Institutes will hold its second national “webraising” event, with schools throughout North America participating. Based on the Amish concept of a barnraising where neighbors gather together and build a barn in one day, webraisings build websites for nonprofit organizations in one 24-hour period.
Webraising is just one of dozens of volunteer efforts that some 5,000 students from The Art Institutes take part in each year, contributing more than a quarter million hours toward improving the communities in which they live and attend school.
For a webraising event, students and faculty of the Multimedia and Web Design departments of The Art Institutes work closely with nonprofit organizations several weeks in advance, conducting research, learning about the organization and the population it serves, and the purpose of its Website. They then work for a period of 8 to 10 hours to meet the launch deadline date.
"Webraisings are a unique opportunity for Multimedia and Web Design students to put their skills to work creating a critical marketing and communication tool for these non-profit organizations that they otherwise might not have the resources to create for themselves,” says Dr. Ameeta Jadav. She is coordinating the current effort underway.
In fact, many students who have participated in webraising events have continued to be involved with the organization as volunteers and Web site managers.
For Art Institute of Atlanta student Robert Horton, the experience of helping to raise a Web site for a local arts organization was overwhelmingly positive. “I liked the whole experience working with my team members and the organization representative,” says Horton. “My participation means a lot to me; it says that I'm a part of something that's productive."
“While the goals of the event are to develop a strong partnership among students, schools and their communities, and provide our students with professional hands-on experience, perhaps most importantly, we hope to instill in them a life-long commitment to volunteerism,” adds Dr. Jaday.
For more information on careers in Multimedia and Web Design and The Art Institutes, visit www.artinstitutes.edu/nz.
Courtesy of ARA Content
About the author:
Courtesy of ARA Content
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(ARA) - Learning doesn’t just happen inside a classroom. For The Art Institutes, learning is also creating opportunities for students and faculty to take their talents and skills outside the classroom, into the community, to help others.
This year, The Art Institutes will hold its second national “webraising” event, with schools throughout North America participating. Based on the Amish concept of a barnraising where neighbors gather together and build a barn in one day, webraisings build websites for nonprofit organizations in one 24-hour period.
Webraising is just one of dozens of volunteer efforts that some 5,000 students from The Art Institutes take part in each year, contributing more than a quarter million hours toward improving the communities in which they live and attend school.
For a webraising event, students and faculty of the Multimedia and Web Design departments of The Art Institutes work closely with nonprofit organizations several weeks in advance, conducting research, learning about the organization and the population it serves, and the purpose of its Website. They then work for a period of 8 to 10 hours to meet the launch deadline date.
"Webraisings are a unique opportunity for Multimedia and Web Design students to put their skills to work creating a critical marketing and communication tool for these non-profit organizations that they otherwise might not have the resources to create for themselves,” says Dr. Ameeta Jadav. She is coordinating the current effort underway.
In fact, many students who have participated in webraising events have continued to be involved with the organization as volunteers and Web site managers.
For Art Institute of Atlanta student Robert Horton, the experience of helping to raise a Web site for a local arts organization was overwhelmingly positive. “I liked the whole experience working with my team members and the organization representative,” says Horton. “My participation means a lot to me; it says that I'm a part of something that's productive."
“While the goals of the event are to develop a strong partnership among students, schools and their communities, and provide our students with professional hands-on experience, perhaps most importantly, we hope to instill in them a life-long commitment to volunteerism,” adds Dr. Jaday.
For more information on careers in Multimedia and Web Design and The Art Institutes, visit www.artinstitutes.edu/nz.
Courtesy of ARA Content
About the author:
Courtesy of ARA Content
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How To Build A successful Hosting Company
by: Ron Swerdfiger
There are a couple of key things to look at when starting a hosting company. Basically there are four major factors to look at provided you have the servers, and technical abilities.
1. Site design is the first thing a prospective customer sees!! I have seen some horrible designs for hosting companies. If you think putting some text, links and a logo on a page is enough, you will likely fail before you even realize. You will also notice a lot of companies have a generic template that can be found online at templetemonster or any other temple site. Avoid these. It is very hard to develop a company image when you look like 134,000 other hosting companies. I suggest put a bit of effort and creativity into a well designed "professional" looking home page for your company. The bottom line is a new customer will not even consider you as their host if they feel you are an armature no matter how great or cheap your packages are.
2. Develop your website as a total package to it's clients. Don't just present your hosting packages and leave it at that. Offer tutorials, articles, support forums etc. These additional services not only provide additional content for you clients, but if developed correctly will bring additional traffic to your site which will potentially lead to more sales.
3 You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines. You could have the greatest hosting plan in the entire world, but if no one knows about it, then it’s useless. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also a countless number of companies out there who offer SEO services. Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first
3. Find your niche. The hosting business as a whole is a huge industry which is very competitive. Your best chance at success is to simply find a market and develop your business to cater to that specific niche. An excellent example of this is http://elite-hosts.org/ who offer hosting and development to those who operate online forums.
Maybe in the early 90’s the idea of “if you build it they will come” might have been true. But in the year 2005 the internet is a far more competitive and complex. place To be successful today, you have to develop a business plan which works from all angels. If you can develop a hosting company which has a professional design, some extra content, search engine friendly and which targets a specific niche, you will have a far greater chance at success Of course there are many other factors to consider as well, but if you can master these four, everything else should fall into place.
About the author:
for more info on hosting visit hosting forumand Canadian web hostingand Canadian Web Design
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
There are a couple of key things to look at when starting a hosting company. Basically there are four major factors to look at provided you have the servers, and technical abilities.
1. Site design is the first thing a prospective customer sees!! I have seen some horrible designs for hosting companies. If you think putting some text, links and a logo on a page is enough, you will likely fail before you even realize. You will also notice a lot of companies have a generic template that can be found online at templetemonster or any other temple site. Avoid these. It is very hard to develop a company image when you look like 134,000 other hosting companies. I suggest put a bit of effort and creativity into a well designed "professional" looking home page for your company. The bottom line is a new customer will not even consider you as their host if they feel you are an armature no matter how great or cheap your packages are.
2. Develop your website as a total package to it's clients. Don't just present your hosting packages and leave it at that. Offer tutorials, articles, support forums etc. These additional services not only provide additional content for you clients, but if developed correctly will bring additional traffic to your site which will potentially lead to more sales.
3 You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines. You could have the greatest hosting plan in the entire world, but if no one knows about it, then it’s useless. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also a countless number of companies out there who offer SEO services. Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first
3. Find your niche. The hosting business as a whole is a huge industry which is very competitive. Your best chance at success is to simply find a market and develop your business to cater to that specific niche. An excellent example of this is http://elite-hosts.org/ who offer hosting and development to those who operate online forums.
Maybe in the early 90’s the idea of “if you build it they will come” might have been true. But in the year 2005 the internet is a far more competitive and complex. place To be successful today, you have to develop a business plan which works from all angels. If you can develop a hosting company which has a professional design, some extra content, search engine friendly and which targets a specific niche, you will have a far greater chance at success Of course there are many other factors to consider as well, but if you can master these four, everything else should fall into place.
About the author:
for more info on hosting visit hosting forumand Canadian web hostingand Canadian Web Design
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Web Hosting Basics
by: Sintilia Miecevole
If you have decided you or your company is in need of a website, you will have to purchase web hosting services from a hosting company. There are many different web-hosting companies to choose from, and they can easily be found on the internet. If you do a quick search for them in any search engine, you will find that there are almost too many to count. Choosing the company that is right for you can be a harrowing experience, but there are really only a few basic things to consider.
The first factor to consider when choosing a web hosting company is how much space they will give you for your account. If you merely want a single page on the Internet with little or no graphics, you can get by with purchasing an account with the smallest amount of space available. However, if you are planning to create a full e-commerce site with multiple pages and order forms, you will need to make sure you have enough server space to support your entire operation.
Before you sign your web-hosting contract, you will first have to choose and purchase a domain name. Though many of the names you might want are already taken, you can often find one that suits your needs, especially if you get creative with it. For instance, if your business is called Cards For You and that domain name is already taken, you might consider choosing More Cards For You or Cards For You Today. The possibilities are endless, and with a little thought you will be able to think of a snappy domain name.
You can often purchase a domain name through your web hosting company, or you can purchase it through a private domain name retailer. These companies are very easy to find. Often times, if you type the domain name you want into a search engine, a domain name seller will pop up if the name is not already taken. You can purchase a domain name for a year at a time, or for several years, depending on how much you want to invest at the get-go.
Once you have a domain name, you will of course have to create a website to put on the Internet. There are many do-it-yourself web design programs that are fairly user friendly. Software like FrontPage makes web design a cut and paste, fill in the blank soft of affair. However, if you would like a more professional look, you can use programs like Dreamweaver or Image Ready to make your sites. There are always freelance web designers looking for work who are ready to take on your cause if you are not savvy enough to do it yourself.
Web hosting companies give passwords to allow you access your space on their servers. You can upload files and pages using their own interface programs, or you can utilize the upload tools built in to your web design program. Once you upload a page, it is important to make sure it looks correct on a variety of different web browsers. Because each browser interprets information differently, you may run into trouble if you build a site while only previewing it in Internet Explorer. There are often compatibility issues between Safari and Mozilla browsers that distort site tables and images.
However, once you work out the kinks and create an excellent site, all you have to do is pay your web hosting bills, and your site will be available for the whole world to see. Web hosting companies usually offer options regarding payment plans. You can pay for a year at a time, or you can monthly or quarterly to maintain your place on the World Wide Web.
About the author:
Sintilia Miecevole has many years experience on the internet. Be sure to visit http://www.ritzyhosting.comfor expert information on hosting, providers, host finders, resources, reviews, reliability and much more. To find the right web hosting plan to meet your business and ecommerce needs click on http://www.ritzyhosting.com
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
If you have decided you or your company is in need of a website, you will have to purchase web hosting services from a hosting company. There are many different web-hosting companies to choose from, and they can easily be found on the internet. If you do a quick search for them in any search engine, you will find that there are almost too many to count. Choosing the company that is right for you can be a harrowing experience, but there are really only a few basic things to consider.
The first factor to consider when choosing a web hosting company is how much space they will give you for your account. If you merely want a single page on the Internet with little or no graphics, you can get by with purchasing an account with the smallest amount of space available. However, if you are planning to create a full e-commerce site with multiple pages and order forms, you will need to make sure you have enough server space to support your entire operation.
Before you sign your web-hosting contract, you will first have to choose and purchase a domain name. Though many of the names you might want are already taken, you can often find one that suits your needs, especially if you get creative with it. For instance, if your business is called Cards For You and that domain name is already taken, you might consider choosing More Cards For You or Cards For You Today. The possibilities are endless, and with a little thought you will be able to think of a snappy domain name.
You can often purchase a domain name through your web hosting company, or you can purchase it through a private domain name retailer. These companies are very easy to find. Often times, if you type the domain name you want into a search engine, a domain name seller will pop up if the name is not already taken. You can purchase a domain name for a year at a time, or for several years, depending on how much you want to invest at the get-go.
Once you have a domain name, you will of course have to create a website to put on the Internet. There are many do-it-yourself web design programs that are fairly user friendly. Software like FrontPage makes web design a cut and paste, fill in the blank soft of affair. However, if you would like a more professional look, you can use programs like Dreamweaver or Image Ready to make your sites. There are always freelance web designers looking for work who are ready to take on your cause if you are not savvy enough to do it yourself.
Web hosting companies give passwords to allow you access your space on their servers. You can upload files and pages using their own interface programs, or you can utilize the upload tools built in to your web design program. Once you upload a page, it is important to make sure it looks correct on a variety of different web browsers. Because each browser interprets information differently, you may run into trouble if you build a site while only previewing it in Internet Explorer. There are often compatibility issues between Safari and Mozilla browsers that distort site tables and images.
However, once you work out the kinks and create an excellent site, all you have to do is pay your web hosting bills, and your site will be available for the whole world to see. Web hosting companies usually offer options regarding payment plans. You can pay for a year at a time, or you can monthly or quarterly to maintain your place on the World Wide Web.
About the author:
Sintilia Miecevole has many years experience on the internet. Be sure to visit http://www.ritzyhosting.comfor expert information on hosting, providers, host finders, resources, reviews, reliability and much more. To find the right web hosting plan to meet your business and ecommerce needs click on http://www.ritzyhosting.com
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Why Google Indexing Requires A Complex Blend Of Skills
by: John Fowler
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Getting a company’s name and products, or services, onto the first page of a genuine Google search isn’t a trivial piece of work. In fact, there are four distinct skills that a search engine optimiser needs to possess. Most people possess one or maybe two of these skills, very rarely do people posses all four. In truth, to get to all four, people who are good at two of these need to actively develop the other skills. Now, if you are running your own business, do you really have the time to do this? Is this the best use of your time?
Specifically the four skills needed for SEO work are:
Web Design – producing a visually attractive page
HTML coding - developing Search Engine friendly coding that sits behind the web design
Copy writing – producing the actual readable text on the page
Marketing – what are the actual searches that are being used, what key words actually get more business for your company?
Many website designers produce more and more eye-catching designs with animations and clever rollover buttons hoping to entice the people onto their sites. This is the first big mistake; using designs like these will actually decrease your chances of a high Google rating. Yes, that’s right; all that money you have paid for the website design could be wasted because no-one will ever find your site.
The reason for this is that before you get people to your site you need to get the spiderbots to like your site. Spiderbots are pieces of software used by the search engine companies to trawl the Internet looking at all the websites, and then having reviewed the sites, they use complex algorithms to rank the sites. Some of the complex techniques used by web designers cannot be trawled by spiderbots. They come to your site, look at the HTML code and exit stage right, without even bothering to rank your site. So, you will not be found on any meaningful search.
I am amazed how many times I look at websites and I immediately know they are a waste of money. The trouble is that both the web designers and the company that paid the money really do not want to know this. In fact, I have stopped playing the messenger of bad news (too many shootings!); I now work round the problem. So, optimising a website to be Google friendly is often a compromise between a visually attractive site and an easy to find site.
The second skill is that of optimising the actual HTML code to be spiderbot friendly. I put this as different to the web design because you really do need to be “down and dirty” in the code rather than using an editor like FrontPage, which is OK for website design. This skill takes lots of time and experience to develop, and just when you think you have cracked it, the search engine companies change the algorithms used to calculate how high your site will appear in the search results.
This is no place for even the most enthusiastic amateur. Results need to be constantly monitored, pieces of code added or removed, and a check kept on what the competition are doing. Many people who design their own website feel they will get searched because it looks good, and totally miss out this step. Without a strong technical understanding of how spiderbots work, you will always struggle to get your company on the first results page in Google.
Thirdly, I suggested that copy writing is a skill in its own right. This is the writing of the actual text that people coming to your site will read. The Googlebot and other spiderbots like Inktomi, love text – but only when written well in proper English. Some people try to stuff their site with keywords, while others put white writing on white space (so spiderbots can see it but humans cannot).
Spiderbots are very sophisticated and not only will not fall for these tricks, they may actively penalise your site – in Google terms, this is sandboxing. Google takes new sites and “naughty” sites and effectively sin-bins them for 3-6 months, you can still be found but not until results page 14 – really useful! As well as good English, the spiderbots are also reading the HTML code, so the copy writer also needs an appreciation of the interplay between the two. My recommendation for anyone copy writing their own site is to write normal, well-constructed English sentences that can be read by machine and human alike.
The final skill is marketing, after all this is what we are doing – marketing you site and hence company and products/services on the Web. The key here is to set the site up to be accessible to the searches that will provide most business to you. I have seen many sites that can be found as you key in the company name. Others that can be found by keying in “Accountant Manchester North-West England”, which is great, except no-one ever actually does that search. So the marketing skill requires knowledge of a company’s business, what they are really trying to sell and an understanding of what actual searches may provide dividends.
I hope you will see that professional Search Engine Optimisation companies need more than a bit of web design to improve your business. Make sure anyone you choose for SEO work can cover all the bases.
About the author:
John Fowler trained as a Mathematican and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via http://www.seogurus.co.uk
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Getting a company’s name and products, or services, onto the first page of a genuine Google search isn’t a trivial piece of work. In fact, there are four distinct skills that a search engine optimiser needs to possess. Most people possess one or maybe two of these skills, very rarely do people posses all four. In truth, to get to all four, people who are good at two of these need to actively develop the other skills. Now, if you are running your own business, do you really have the time to do this? Is this the best use of your time?
Specifically the four skills needed for SEO work are:
Web Design – producing a visually attractive page
HTML coding - developing Search Engine friendly coding that sits behind the web design
Copy writing – producing the actual readable text on the page
Marketing – what are the actual searches that are being used, what key words actually get more business for your company?
Many website designers produce more and more eye-catching designs with animations and clever rollover buttons hoping to entice the people onto their sites. This is the first big mistake; using designs like these will actually decrease your chances of a high Google rating. Yes, that’s right; all that money you have paid for the website design could be wasted because no-one will ever find your site.
The reason for this is that before you get people to your site you need to get the spiderbots to like your site. Spiderbots are pieces of software used by the search engine companies to trawl the Internet looking at all the websites, and then having reviewed the sites, they use complex algorithms to rank the sites. Some of the complex techniques used by web designers cannot be trawled by spiderbots. They come to your site, look at the HTML code and exit stage right, without even bothering to rank your site. So, you will not be found on any meaningful search.
I am amazed how many times I look at websites and I immediately know they are a waste of money. The trouble is that both the web designers and the company that paid the money really do not want to know this. In fact, I have stopped playing the messenger of bad news (too many shootings!); I now work round the problem. So, optimising a website to be Google friendly is often a compromise between a visually attractive site and an easy to find site.
The second skill is that of optimising the actual HTML code to be spiderbot friendly. I put this as different to the web design because you really do need to be “down and dirty” in the code rather than using an editor like FrontPage, which is OK for website design. This skill takes lots of time and experience to develop, and just when you think you have cracked it, the search engine companies change the algorithms used to calculate how high your site will appear in the search results.
This is no place for even the most enthusiastic amateur. Results need to be constantly monitored, pieces of code added or removed, and a check kept on what the competition are doing. Many people who design their own website feel they will get searched because it looks good, and totally miss out this step. Without a strong technical understanding of how spiderbots work, you will always struggle to get your company on the first results page in Google.
Thirdly, I suggested that copy writing is a skill in its own right. This is the writing of the actual text that people coming to your site will read. The Googlebot and other spiderbots like Inktomi, love text – but only when written well in proper English. Some people try to stuff their site with keywords, while others put white writing on white space (so spiderbots can see it but humans cannot).
Spiderbots are very sophisticated and not only will not fall for these tricks, they may actively penalise your site – in Google terms, this is sandboxing. Google takes new sites and “naughty” sites and effectively sin-bins them for 3-6 months, you can still be found but not until results page 14 – really useful! As well as good English, the spiderbots are also reading the HTML code, so the copy writer also needs an appreciation of the interplay between the two. My recommendation for anyone copy writing their own site is to write normal, well-constructed English sentences that can be read by machine and human alike.
The final skill is marketing, after all this is what we are doing – marketing you site and hence company and products/services on the Web. The key here is to set the site up to be accessible to the searches that will provide most business to you. I have seen many sites that can be found as you key in the company name. Others that can be found by keying in “Accountant Manchester North-West England”, which is great, except no-one ever actually does that search. So the marketing skill requires knowledge of a company’s business, what they are really trying to sell and an understanding of what actual searches may provide dividends.
I hope you will see that professional Search Engine Optimisation companies need more than a bit of web design to improve your business. Make sure anyone you choose for SEO work can cover all the bases.
About the author:
John Fowler trained as a Mathematican and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via http://www.seogurus.co.uk
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Keywords, Competition And Being Number One- Uncovering The Algorithm
by: John Krycek
By following these steps you will see that most closely guarded secret-- the search algorithm. Remember the movie "The Matrix?" The Matrix is there, you just can't see it. So is the search algorithm.
It's easy to pay a Search Engine Optimizer to give your pages some ranking power. Unfortunately, given the inherent time factor involved in climbing the ranks, your money may be long gone before you know if you've spent your money well.
THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL
Forget any advertisement you see for instant number one search results or automated this or that. Most are scams, and the ones that aren't might get you positioned, but it will be very short lived.
Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. Achieving and maintaining a high rank, especially on highly competitive keywords, requires constant maintenance. If you do find a legitimate SEO firm, it is well worth the money to pay their monthly maintenance fee and let them continue to help you after the initial project. At least for 6 months or a year as you establish yourself.
In this article we'll look at some of the intricate and complex tasks of optimizing a page for long term ranking power. You will learn how to read between the code and the content to find what is necessary to bring you to the top. Being number one is easy to say, but is quickly overwhelming when you stare at tens of thousands of pages you want to out rank. So how do you begin?
The starting line on the road to that first page SERP (search engine results page) ranking is not as blurry as you might think. In fact, you can uncover the starting line, the route, and all the scenery along the way to the finish line without knowing the search engine algorithm.
STEP 1- YOUR KEYWORDS ARE THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF GRUELLING DAYS OF WORK
If you have investments in the stock market you know how much research and thought goes into choosing those securities. Now take that same effort and multiply it by three. That's how much planning and revision your keywords should take.
A simple, broad key phrase like "shoes" could hypothetically bring you up in a countless stream of different searches. Women's shoes, baby shoes, sneakers, high heels, etc. If somehow you manage to settle into a good ranking (which would be difficult) you would have more traffic on your site than you could handle. But traffic is worthless is it doesn't get to it's destination. Chances are, you weren't that destination.
Your keywords must be focused and precise, specific to what you are selling. Using a key phrase like "Gucci mens black leather loafer" will bring a targeted lead to your site. You may not reach as many people as the more generalized keyword, but the people that do come to you have a much deeper interest in the specific product you are selling.
Therefore you have much greater chance of converting that targeted lead to a sale. Your keywords are your magic beans, your winning lotto numbers, your energizer bunnies, your sales force, whatever you want to call them. They must be perfect.
STEP 2- WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE? LOOK AT WHO ALREADY IS
Competition Analysis- no SEO book can give you this information.
Now take your keyword list and type them into a search engine. Who comes up in the first ten results? That company that is number one is because they have most closely matched what the search engine algorithm says should be number one. You can learn a great deal from them.
A. INTERNAL FACTORS
Take that number one page, and the other top 9 pages and study them, look at the code, break them down. You are looking at the first half of what is needed to rank in the top 10 pages for your key phrases on that particular search engine. The list of what to look for is enormous.
Studying the Internal Factors on a page is taking it apart to see how it's put together. Not how it works, but statistical research into the precise construct and layout of keywords and phrases in relation to each other within the page.
Start with these areas:
URL address, Page Title, Meta description, Meta Keywords, First sentence on the page, Body copy, Bold or Emphasized Phrases, H1 or other tags, Alt Tags, Navigation system
In each of those sections, look at:
Keyword densities- the number of times your phrase and each word in your phrase appears compared to the text around it
Where and in how many times the same phrase and words appear in different sections
The word and character position of each phrase in each
The total number of characters
The total number of words
The quality and thought of the content
Beginning with these comparisons should keep you quite busy for a while. A spreadsheet is quite useful. Some commercial products are also available that can make this daunting task much more feasible. Keep looking for other patterns and differences. You want to duplicate them in your own page. NOT copy and steal. You want to mimic the patterns that are bringing that page to the position it is. Then move onto to examining the external factors of these pages.
B. EXTERNAL FACTORS
External factors of a web page deal with the links to, from and within a web page, both inside the same site, and out into the web. This analysis usually takes more time because it involves more dissection of pages beyond the one you're trying to optimize.
In this analysis as with Internal Factors, you want to compare and contrast your page versus the top 10 competitors, find similarities and differences. Here is a list of criteria to get you started.
Number of internal (to the same site) on that page
Number of external links
Number of links pointing TO that page* (see below for details)
The link/anchor text- which keywords are used and where
Google Page Rank value of incoming links
Alexa Rank of incoming links
*To get a listing of the links that point to a site, type the following into Google, MSN and Yahoo searches: "link:www.domainname.com". Google tends to only show a small portion of the links back, but MSN and Yahoo will give you much more pertinent data.
Now you want to compare the content on each of these pages to the one they point to. Is it of similar theme, in what context does the link back appear and where. Subject of much debate, the consensus is that Google Page Rank does not mean what it used to. However, if it is in some fashion a measure of how significant or "important" a site is, it is worth looking more closely at the sites that link back that are of high page rank.
EVEN A SURGEON USES TOOLS
Now, this is definitely a ton of work to do all by hand. There are software programs that can help do some of the digging and mathematical computations for you, figuring out densities and organizing information.
Tools like this are definitely ones a professional SEO will have in their arsenal. But remember, these are tools, not miracle workers. It takes a human being to evaluate and realize connections, similarities, draw conclusions and interpret the data. Then, you have to extrapolate this data.
Remember, you want to do one better than every site you just examined. To do that you have to draw some conclusions and make some educated guesses and link to even better sites.
FINAL THOUGHTS
You have access to the inner workings of every page that you want to beat. Learn from them and do one better. This process is not a one-time shot. It is ongoing. Check your key phrases every week. Do the same people still rank in the top ten?
Some have probably moved. Remember too that they're going to adapt to maintain their positions too. If you want the ranks, you have to spend the time, and not just once, or pay someone to do it for you.
Don't ever believe anyone who says they can guarantee any kind of results. And ask them how they will optimize your pages. If they explain to you something like the above, then you've probably got yourself someone experienced and honest. You money will be well spent and you'll quickly recover it.
About the author:
John Krycek is the owner and creative director of http://www.theMouseworks.caweb design in Toronto. Learn more about search engine optimization and internet marketing in easy, non-technical, up front English!
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
By following these steps you will see that most closely guarded secret-- the search algorithm. Remember the movie "The Matrix?" The Matrix is there, you just can't see it. So is the search algorithm.
It's easy to pay a Search Engine Optimizer to give your pages some ranking power. Unfortunately, given the inherent time factor involved in climbing the ranks, your money may be long gone before you know if you've spent your money well.
THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL
Forget any advertisement you see for instant number one search results or automated this or that. Most are scams, and the ones that aren't might get you positioned, but it will be very short lived.
Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. Achieving and maintaining a high rank, especially on highly competitive keywords, requires constant maintenance. If you do find a legitimate SEO firm, it is well worth the money to pay their monthly maintenance fee and let them continue to help you after the initial project. At least for 6 months or a year as you establish yourself.
In this article we'll look at some of the intricate and complex tasks of optimizing a page for long term ranking power. You will learn how to read between the code and the content to find what is necessary to bring you to the top. Being number one is easy to say, but is quickly overwhelming when you stare at tens of thousands of pages you want to out rank. So how do you begin?
The starting line on the road to that first page SERP (search engine results page) ranking is not as blurry as you might think. In fact, you can uncover the starting line, the route, and all the scenery along the way to the finish line without knowing the search engine algorithm.
STEP 1- YOUR KEYWORDS ARE THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF GRUELLING DAYS OF WORK
If you have investments in the stock market you know how much research and thought goes into choosing those securities. Now take that same effort and multiply it by three. That's how much planning and revision your keywords should take.
A simple, broad key phrase like "shoes" could hypothetically bring you up in a countless stream of different searches. Women's shoes, baby shoes, sneakers, high heels, etc. If somehow you manage to settle into a good ranking (which would be difficult) you would have more traffic on your site than you could handle. But traffic is worthless is it doesn't get to it's destination. Chances are, you weren't that destination.
Your keywords must be focused and precise, specific to what you are selling. Using a key phrase like "Gucci mens black leather loafer" will bring a targeted lead to your site. You may not reach as many people as the more generalized keyword, but the people that do come to you have a much deeper interest in the specific product you are selling.
Therefore you have much greater chance of converting that targeted lead to a sale. Your keywords are your magic beans, your winning lotto numbers, your energizer bunnies, your sales force, whatever you want to call them. They must be perfect.
STEP 2- WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE? LOOK AT WHO ALREADY IS
Competition Analysis- no SEO book can give you this information.
Now take your keyword list and type them into a search engine. Who comes up in the first ten results? That company that is number one is because they have most closely matched what the search engine algorithm says should be number one. You can learn a great deal from them.
A. INTERNAL FACTORS
Take that number one page, and the other top 9 pages and study them, look at the code, break them down. You are looking at the first half of what is needed to rank in the top 10 pages for your key phrases on that particular search engine. The list of what to look for is enormous.
Studying the Internal Factors on a page is taking it apart to see how it's put together. Not how it works, but statistical research into the precise construct and layout of keywords and phrases in relation to each other within the page.
Start with these areas:
URL address, Page Title, Meta description, Meta Keywords, First sentence on the page, Body copy, Bold or Emphasized Phrases, H1 or other tags, Alt Tags, Navigation system
In each of those sections, look at:
Keyword densities- the number of times your phrase and each word in your phrase appears compared to the text around it
Where and in how many times the same phrase and words appear in different sections
The word and character position of each phrase in each
The total number of characters
The total number of words
The quality and thought of the content
Beginning with these comparisons should keep you quite busy for a while. A spreadsheet is quite useful. Some commercial products are also available that can make this daunting task much more feasible. Keep looking for other patterns and differences. You want to duplicate them in your own page. NOT copy and steal. You want to mimic the patterns that are bringing that page to the position it is. Then move onto to examining the external factors of these pages.
B. EXTERNAL FACTORS
External factors of a web page deal with the links to, from and within a web page, both inside the same site, and out into the web. This analysis usually takes more time because it involves more dissection of pages beyond the one you're trying to optimize.
In this analysis as with Internal Factors, you want to compare and contrast your page versus the top 10 competitors, find similarities and differences. Here is a list of criteria to get you started.
Number of internal (to the same site) on that page
Number of external links
Number of links pointing TO that page* (see below for details)
The link/anchor text- which keywords are used and where
Google Page Rank value of incoming links
Alexa Rank of incoming links
*To get a listing of the links that point to a site, type the following into Google, MSN and Yahoo searches: "link:www.domainname.com". Google tends to only show a small portion of the links back, but MSN and Yahoo will give you much more pertinent data.
Now you want to compare the content on each of these pages to the one they point to. Is it of similar theme, in what context does the link back appear and where. Subject of much debate, the consensus is that Google Page Rank does not mean what it used to. However, if it is in some fashion a measure of how significant or "important" a site is, it is worth looking more closely at the sites that link back that are of high page rank.
EVEN A SURGEON USES TOOLS
Now, this is definitely a ton of work to do all by hand. There are software programs that can help do some of the digging and mathematical computations for you, figuring out densities and organizing information.
Tools like this are definitely ones a professional SEO will have in their arsenal. But remember, these are tools, not miracle workers. It takes a human being to evaluate and realize connections, similarities, draw conclusions and interpret the data. Then, you have to extrapolate this data.
Remember, you want to do one better than every site you just examined. To do that you have to draw some conclusions and make some educated guesses and link to even better sites.
FINAL THOUGHTS
You have access to the inner workings of every page that you want to beat. Learn from them and do one better. This process is not a one-time shot. It is ongoing. Check your key phrases every week. Do the same people still rank in the top ten?
Some have probably moved. Remember too that they're going to adapt to maintain their positions too. If you want the ranks, you have to spend the time, and not just once, or pay someone to do it for you.
Don't ever believe anyone who says they can guarantee any kind of results. And ask them how they will optimize your pages. If they explain to you something like the above, then you've probably got yourself someone experienced and honest. You money will be well spent and you'll quickly recover it.
About the author:
John Krycek is the owner and creative director of http://www.theMouseworks.caweb design in Toronto. Learn more about search engine optimization and internet marketing in easy, non-technical, up front English!
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
The Changing Face of Web and Search Engine Marketing
by: Charles Ryder
A few years ago, search engine placement was arranged by your average Web designer and/or Webmaster. The Webmaster would simply submit a site to search engines manually or use rudimentary software that was widely available.
Keyword relevance was largely a matter of link popularity and the Webmaster assigning a simple keyword meta-tag to each page of your site. The system used to work reasonably well, or so it seemed. That is no longer the case.
Today, submission to the major search engines like Google is largely irrelevant, although there is a complex mix of PFI (pay for inclusion) and PFP (pay for performance, sponsored links, PPC ads) that require complex submission of details.
Today's Methodology
In today's Internet economy, sophisticated and complex programs - called spiders - surf the Web looking at the source code of Web pages. They sort through the complex web of formatting tags, programming script, multi-media, page titles, and content that the user may or may not see, to ascertain how to rank each page of your site for each and every word and word combination that it finds.
These spiders index the words of each page found and add it to the engine's database, making them available as keywords for search engine searchers. In this new environment, sophisticated software programs that analyze the various search engine algorithms and how they rank selected pages have moved to the forefront of search engine placement.
This has spawned a large industry of SEO (search engine optimisation and marketing) experts and specialist SEM firms.
What Does Keyword Based Marketing Offer?
If implemented correctly, SEO can offer a higher return on investment than nearly any other marketing strategy (online or offline). Placing high in the search engine ranking positions (SERPs) is a great way to attract first time visitors. Placement in the search engines can largely determine the "reach" of your online marketing strategy.
The stakes in this battle are being raised all the time as the number of users going online increases - which in the U.S. alone approaches 100 million - with over 60% of those users spending some 48 BILLION dollars per year for online shopping (Greenspan, 2002, cyberatlas.com).
With broadband prices in Australia falling rapidly and the rate of Internet takeup extraordinarily high, the Australian consumer is showing similar enthusiasm for online sales. Unfortunately, many potential buyers - some say as many as 70% - give up because they cannot find the good sites to shop at, because they are poorly keyword indexed or the actual site has poor navigation and design.
When any business is making plans to improve their Search Engine positions, they need to understand that optimisation of your site for the Search Engines is not a one-shot job. It requires ongoing monitoring and tweaking in order to keep ahead of both the competition AND the changes the Search Engines make to how they rank sites.
Any comprehensive Web marketing plan should:
(1) Promote your web site based on the (optimised) content of your site and knowledge of the relevant marketplace;
(2) Utilise data of how the average search engine user actually looks for information on your site - including alternative terms, synonyms, common phrasing, etc;
(3) Include internal and external link building with relevant sites and relevant keywords;
(4) Regular reporting of search engine positioning, general Internet visibility and actual visitor statistics/analytics and recommendation for improvements.
Every serious Web site owner should be on a Web marketing plan that is definitely more than just a submission or reporting service. Set a monthly budget and take action.
We've seen many of our clients benefit from the ongoing relationship we have developed with them through our web marketing plans. Plenty of page 1 rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN are not uncommon over time, as we monitor and tweak their sites for the Search Engines.
However, in almost all cases, those clients would have never achieved and then maintained those high rankings if they had not had someone in the know keeping track of how their site is ranking, and making changes where ever needed.
It's like advertising in the Yellow Pages really. If you don't pay to have your ad included, you don't get an entry in the book, and eventually the calls to your business start to drop off as people update to the newest edition.
Search Engine Optimisation / Marketing is the same. The Internet is NOT static - it's always changing and evolving, and in order for your site to get and maintain good rankings around the keywords that are important to you, you have to keep someone on the job on a regular basis who knows how to react to the changes happening.
The Return On Investment (ROI) for good SEO/SEM services is very high, compared to traditional advertising and marketing. According to Google's statistics, Search advertising is up to 20 times CHEAPER per lead, compared to (for example) Direct Mail. For any company spending money on advertising, this statistic should be of EXTREME interest! After all, what company doesn't want to reduce their cost of customer acquisition?
That's what SEO/SEM companies are supposed to be about! Well, at least at our company, we are - I can't speak for our competitors. Before you hire an SEO/SEM company, ask what their plan is for the ongoing optimisation of your site. If they don't have a plan, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit and hang onto your money.
About the author:
Charles Ryder is the CEO of WCR Internet Marketing, a specialist Australian Search Engine Optimisation company. For a free site analysis, visit www.wcr-internet-marketing.comau
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
A few years ago, search engine placement was arranged by your average Web designer and/or Webmaster. The Webmaster would simply submit a site to search engines manually or use rudimentary software that was widely available.
Keyword relevance was largely a matter of link popularity and the Webmaster assigning a simple keyword meta-tag to each page of your site. The system used to work reasonably well, or so it seemed. That is no longer the case.
Today, submission to the major search engines like Google is largely irrelevant, although there is a complex mix of PFI (pay for inclusion) and PFP (pay for performance, sponsored links, PPC ads) that require complex submission of details.
Today's Methodology
In today's Internet economy, sophisticated and complex programs - called spiders - surf the Web looking at the source code of Web pages. They sort through the complex web of formatting tags, programming script, multi-media, page titles, and content that the user may or may not see, to ascertain how to rank each page of your site for each and every word and word combination that it finds.
These spiders index the words of each page found and add it to the engine's database, making them available as keywords for search engine searchers. In this new environment, sophisticated software programs that analyze the various search engine algorithms and how they rank selected pages have moved to the forefront of search engine placement.
This has spawned a large industry of SEO (search engine optimisation and marketing) experts and specialist SEM firms.
What Does Keyword Based Marketing Offer?
If implemented correctly, SEO can offer a higher return on investment than nearly any other marketing strategy (online or offline). Placing high in the search engine ranking positions (SERPs) is a great way to attract first time visitors. Placement in the search engines can largely determine the "reach" of your online marketing strategy.
The stakes in this battle are being raised all the time as the number of users going online increases - which in the U.S. alone approaches 100 million - with over 60% of those users spending some 48 BILLION dollars per year for online shopping (Greenspan, 2002, cyberatlas.com).
With broadband prices in Australia falling rapidly and the rate of Internet takeup extraordinarily high, the Australian consumer is showing similar enthusiasm for online sales. Unfortunately, many potential buyers - some say as many as 70% - give up because they cannot find the good sites to shop at, because they are poorly keyword indexed or the actual site has poor navigation and design.
When any business is making plans to improve their Search Engine positions, they need to understand that optimisation of your site for the Search Engines is not a one-shot job. It requires ongoing monitoring and tweaking in order to keep ahead of both the competition AND the changes the Search Engines make to how they rank sites.
Any comprehensive Web marketing plan should:
(1) Promote your web site based on the (optimised) content of your site and knowledge of the relevant marketplace;
(2) Utilise data of how the average search engine user actually looks for information on your site - including alternative terms, synonyms, common phrasing, etc;
(3) Include internal and external link building with relevant sites and relevant keywords;
(4) Regular reporting of search engine positioning, general Internet visibility and actual visitor statistics/analytics and recommendation for improvements.
Every serious Web site owner should be on a Web marketing plan that is definitely more than just a submission or reporting service. Set a monthly budget and take action.
We've seen many of our clients benefit from the ongoing relationship we have developed with them through our web marketing plans. Plenty of page 1 rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN are not uncommon over time, as we monitor and tweak their sites for the Search Engines.
However, in almost all cases, those clients would have never achieved and then maintained those high rankings if they had not had someone in the know keeping track of how their site is ranking, and making changes where ever needed.
It's like advertising in the Yellow Pages really. If you don't pay to have your ad included, you don't get an entry in the book, and eventually the calls to your business start to drop off as people update to the newest edition.
Search Engine Optimisation / Marketing is the same. The Internet is NOT static - it's always changing and evolving, and in order for your site to get and maintain good rankings around the keywords that are important to you, you have to keep someone on the job on a regular basis who knows how to react to the changes happening.
The Return On Investment (ROI) for good SEO/SEM services is very high, compared to traditional advertising and marketing. According to Google's statistics, Search advertising is up to 20 times CHEAPER per lead, compared to (for example) Direct Mail. For any company spending money on advertising, this statistic should be of EXTREME interest! After all, what company doesn't want to reduce their cost of customer acquisition?
That's what SEO/SEM companies are supposed to be about! Well, at least at our company, we are - I can't speak for our competitors. Before you hire an SEO/SEM company, ask what their plan is for the ongoing optimisation of your site. If they don't have a plan, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit and hang onto your money.
About the author:
Charles Ryder is the CEO of WCR Internet Marketing, a specialist Australian Search Engine Optimisation company. For a free site analysis, visit www.wcr-internet-marketing.comau
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Monday, April 16, 2007
Using Anchor Text Effeciently
by: Jason Rickard
One of the most underused things by Newbies in regards to linking is "Anchor Text". This is the visible text showing in a link.
The prime mistake Newbies make is to put their website name into the Anchor Text. Unless your website contains your keywords this is a waste of a perfectly good link. Remember that Google puts a very big importance on those Anchor texts and they should always use your keywords.
The second mistake is trying to put every single keyword into your anchor text and give that to everyone. There are two mistakes with this technique.
1.) Google assigns weight to each word in anchor text so if there are a lot of filler words (common in long sentences), they will "dilute" your target words
2.) You should vary your text throughout your links. That is, change it every 20 or so. This just makes sense. If your links were placed naturally, there would never be 300 links all with the EXACT same anchor text.
So with all that in mind here is an example:
You sell Blue Widgets in England and want to rank first for "Cheap Blue Widgets in England"
Your anchor text could be varied between the following:
Cheap Widgets
Blue Widgets
Widgets in England
Cheap Blue Widgets
Hopefully this helps you start an effective campaign.
About the author:
Jason Rickard is the webmaster for http://www.yourfavouriteshop.comand owner of Grafton Web Design in Dublin, Ireland. *Article may be reprinted provided it is not altered and links are live.*
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For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
One of the most underused things by Newbies in regards to linking is "Anchor Text". This is the visible text showing in a link.
The prime mistake Newbies make is to put their website name into the Anchor Text. Unless your website contains your keywords this is a waste of a perfectly good link. Remember that Google puts a very big importance on those Anchor texts and they should always use your keywords.
The second mistake is trying to put every single keyword into your anchor text and give that to everyone. There are two mistakes with this technique.
1.) Google assigns weight to each word in anchor text so if there are a lot of filler words (common in long sentences), they will "dilute" your target words
2.) You should vary your text throughout your links. That is, change it every 20 or so. This just makes sense. If your links were placed naturally, there would never be 300 links all with the EXACT same anchor text.
So with all that in mind here is an example:
You sell Blue Widgets in England and want to rank first for "Cheap Blue Widgets in England"
Your anchor text could be varied between the following:
Cheap Widgets
Blue Widgets
Widgets in England
Cheap Blue Widgets
Hopefully this helps you start an effective campaign.
About the author:
Jason Rickard is the webmaster for http://www.yourfavouriteshop.comand owner of Grafton Web Design in Dublin, Ireland. *Article may be reprinted provided it is not altered and links are live.*
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Creative Ways to Gain Links
by: Jason Rickard
Creative Methods for "One Way" Links
Everyone knows the importance of getting other sites to link to you and the most common way is for a reciprical link. That is the kind of link that Click Sentrys reciprical tools address. These are great links and should always be sought after. However, there has been much discussion about Google giving less weight to a link that is recip. One of the ways to combat this is "triangle" linking but this can be very time consuming and hard to explain to new website owners. That brings us to another method:
One Way Linking
When most people think about one way linking their mind immediately turns to directories. These are a great source (and are seemingly endless) of one way links but there are even more creative ways to get them. I am going to break it into two very easy categories - Press Releases and Article Submissions
Press Releases - New websites seem to believe that people who need their service or product will just find them because of that need. Anyone who has started a site just to sit back and let the orders or visitors roll in has been quickly reminded that despite being the "web", people still need to know you are there.
There are plenty of great sites that allow you to "announce" your arrival. Even if you are an established site you are still able to write a press release to announce any new products or tools you may have. Somehow in the move from newspapers to internet many have lost the fine art of writing an engaging (and self serving of course) press release. I will write another article sometime about that lost art with step by step instructions. In the meantime, just read some of the other Press Releases and adapt your own. These press releases are spidered by google so it is a great way to not only get a link but to also drive traffic to your site.
Here are some sites to start with:
http://www.prleap.com
: Your free press release goes to google news(news.google.com) and searchengines like yahoo, msn altavaista and you can view the history and statistics.
For this release, your article must be professional.
http://www.prweb.com:
One of the best press release websites i come across. You can issue free press release which goes to related websites and article posting websites.
For a fee of 60+ only, your article goest to various news sites like yahoo news, business.com(iam not sure of this) and related big news websites.
Article Submissions - The second great way to gain links is to submit articles. Do you have a web design site? Write an article about Google starting to index flash sites. All of the good submission sites allow you to put an about the Author section with links to your site in it. This gives you an instant link from the site you submitted it to but MORE IMPORTANTLY, these sites allow other website owners to boost their content by including YOUR article in their websites. The only thing they ask is for the article and your link to not be modified. Write a good article and you may see 100's of one way links within weeks. Write 10 great articles and.... well you get the idea.
Here are some sites to start with:
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
Good Luck!!
About the author:
Jason Rickard is the webmaster of http://www.yourfavouriteshop.comand owner of http://www.graftonwebdesign.com.*Article may be reprinted provided it is not altered and links are live.*
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Creative Methods for "One Way" Links
Everyone knows the importance of getting other sites to link to you and the most common way is for a reciprical link. That is the kind of link that Click Sentrys reciprical tools address. These are great links and should always be sought after. However, there has been much discussion about Google giving less weight to a link that is recip. One of the ways to combat this is "triangle" linking but this can be very time consuming and hard to explain to new website owners. That brings us to another method:
One Way Linking
When most people think about one way linking their mind immediately turns to directories. These are a great source (and are seemingly endless) of one way links but there are even more creative ways to get them. I am going to break it into two very easy categories - Press Releases and Article Submissions
Press Releases - New websites seem to believe that people who need their service or product will just find them because of that need. Anyone who has started a site just to sit back and let the orders or visitors roll in has been quickly reminded that despite being the "web", people still need to know you are there.
There are plenty of great sites that allow you to "announce" your arrival. Even if you are an established site you are still able to write a press release to announce any new products or tools you may have. Somehow in the move from newspapers to internet many have lost the fine art of writing an engaging (and self serving of course) press release. I will write another article sometime about that lost art with step by step instructions. In the meantime, just read some of the other Press Releases and adapt your own. These press releases are spidered by google so it is a great way to not only get a link but to also drive traffic to your site.
Here are some sites to start with:
http://www.prleap.com
: Your free press release goes to google news(news.google.com) and searchengines like yahoo, msn altavaista and you can view the history and statistics.
For this release, your article must be professional.
http://www.prweb.com:
One of the best press release websites i come across. You can issue free press release which goes to related websites and article posting websites.
For a fee of 60+ only, your article goest to various news sites like yahoo news, business.com(iam not sure of this) and related big news websites.
Article Submissions - The second great way to gain links is to submit articles. Do you have a web design site? Write an article about Google starting to index flash sites. All of the good submission sites allow you to put an about the Author section with links to your site in it. This gives you an instant link from the site you submitted it to but MORE IMPORTANTLY, these sites allow other website owners to boost their content by including YOUR article in their websites. The only thing they ask is for the article and your link to not be modified. Write a good article and you may see 100's of one way links within weeks. Write 10 great articles and.... well you get the idea.
Here are some sites to start with:
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
Good Luck!!
About the author:
Jason Rickard is the webmaster of http://www.yourfavouriteshop.comand owner of http://www.graftonwebdesign.com.*Article may be reprinted provided it is not altered and links are live.*
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Design VS. SEO: Can My Site Look Good and Rank Well?
by: John Krycek
Do you have to sacrifice all of the creative and artistic elements of your web site to rank in the search engines? Later in this article I'll show you a real case scenario and the design and SEO approach used.
Thanks to the birth of professional search engine marketers the top ranks are saturated with the pages of companies that can pay for such insight. That said, it's certainly possible to employ high ranking tactics in your own website. Actually, the most basic tactics can move you up from an 800 position to a 300. However, it's the top of the scale where efforts seem almost inversely exponential or logarithmic, you put a ton in to see a tiny change in rank.
How do you meld the ambitious overhauls required to attain significant ranking and NOT compromise the design of your site?
DESIGN CAN'T BE IGNORED
If you have an existing site, you've probably tied it into your existing promotional content. Even if you've allowed your website to cater to the more free form of the net, it should still be designed as a recognizable extension of your business.
The reasons for doing so are valid, and can't simply be ignored for the sake of achieving a first age position, can they? If your research into search optimization leaves you shuffling around thoughts of content, keyword saturated copy and varying link text, you are correctly understanding some of the basic pillars of search engine optimization.
And, you aren't alone if you have this disheartening thought—If I do all this SEO stuff and reach number one across the board, who would stay at my site because it's so stale and boring I'm even embarrassed to send people there!
There are two ways to successfully combine design and SEO. The first is to be a blue chip and/or Fortune 500 company with multi million dollar advertising and branding budgets to deliver your website address via television, radio, billboards, PR parties and giveaways with your logo.
Since chances are that's not you, and certainly not me, lets look at the second option. It begins with some research into your market, some thoughtful and creative planning, and a designer who is a search engine optimizer, and understands at least basic CSS and HTML programming techniques. Or a combination of people with these skills that can work very well together.
DESIGN IS FOR BROCHURES, INSTANT RESULTS ARE FOR THE WEB
That's not the whole truth, but it will help compare and contrast design and SEO. In reality, SEO needs the quantity and detail of supporting text that a brochure has, but good web design has to catch a viewer's attention in 5 seconds. It's pretty difficult to read and absorb the content of an entire brochure in less than 5 seconds.
Search engines need rich, related, appropriate, changing and poignant content. And for them to rank you, all of that must be on your pages. But if it's not well organized and broken down into bite size chunks, no one is going to bother learning about what you're offering.
CONSTRUCTION 101- ATTRACTIVE DESIGN AND SEO
Sadly, it's very difficult to optimize a site without completely overhauling it. You'll soon understand why. Design and SEO must be strongly rooted into every aspect of each other, possessing a true, symbiotic relationship. Lets look at a simplified example of this. Lets say you are optimizing a page for the keyword phrase, "pumpkin bread recipe."
From a design standpoint "Pumpkin Bread Recipe" would be the heading for the page, in a nice, readable font with the words perhaps an orange-brown color. And lets add a fine, green rule around it.
There are many ways to create that simple, colored heading. However, there is only one way that is best for both design and SEO. That is to use Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS. In addition, that line of code containing "Pumpkin Bread Recipe" needs to be as close to the top of the page as possible (which CSS also allows).
To a viewer, the recipe text might be read more if it were located to the right of a photo of a buttered piece of pumpkin bread on a small plate next to a lightly steaming cup of coffee.
SEO needs to read that ingredient list and baking instructions. Search engines now understand on a rudimentary level that the ingredients are indeed related to the optimized words- pumpkin bread recipe.
Additionally, it would take many extra lines of code to make a table in this example if you didn't use CSS. Search engines don't like extra code. In fact, given enough times, that "extra" code will make the keyword phrases seem less important and hurt rank.
Note: In the page code, a few thousand characters more than you need to get all of that content organized would normally just add to your page load time, and might be acceptable. But to a search engine, that time can really add up. It wont read through page after page, site after site, billionth after billionth character of unimportant code to find the relevant text. Therefore, the less code, the better your chances. Moral- Less code, more content.
SEO USUALLY MEANS REDO
In the previous pumpkin example, CSS will eliminate the need for almost any extra code at all, and provide the means to place the text to the right of the photo.
Now, imagine that someone had already created this page, but done so using other programming methods. The page could very well be W3C compliant, well programmed and got the job done. However, without designing and programming for optimization as in the above illustration, the end result would have no significant rank compared to others that do.
You can be sure that there exist at least 30 web sites built to rank for the keywords "pumpkin bread recipe". Note- why did I use the number 30? It's safe to assume if you're not on the first three results pages of a search, you're not being seen.
While this is a simple example, hopefully you understand that it would be impossible to optimize this simple page without redoing it. This isn't always the case, but extrapolate this into detailed, multiple pages in an entire website and the issue is greatly magnified.
AESTHETIC IMPORTANCE VS. TRAFFIC
Everyone has an idea of what they want their site to look like. The pretty factor- splash pages, cool flash and graphics must now be justified as to their importance to the bottom line. If you want/need to establish an online presence, you will have to make some compromises in these areas.
Understand exactly the role your site should play in your company marketing.
Ask- What is the goal of your website and who is its audience? Is it for existing clients to see? Is it to reach new clients? To venture into yet untapped market segments?
Ask- How strongly do your other marketing efforts promote your site?
Ask- Is your website an extension of your existing collateral that must reflect the same graphical look?
Ask- Is your website meant to assist to your sales force or is it your sales force?
Chances are you wont have any single answers. That's ok. It will give you some meat for your designer/SEO to digest and develop a solution for you.
REAL CASE OF DESIGN BALANCED WITH SEO AND SALABILITY
If you sell jewelry solely online, you must have a catalog of exceptional photography and detailed, high-resolution close up images. But, you must be optimized and rank well if you want to sell any of that jewelry.
If such a company approached me with this project, my recommendation would be this: If you sell a product, people have to see that product. Lots of good images. The site should be slick and sheik and easy to navigate. The home page has to capture the buyer's attention. If it's very expensive jewelry, the site should have a lot of class and elegance. If it's home made jewelry, the site shouldn't look home made.
However, as you have no store front, if the online community can't find you, you're business will fail. So I'd have a very optimized home page with some discussion of the quality of your product, the history of your company, etc. This is also great sales copy. Ad a few special catalog pieces with descriptions below some smartly placed gifs, jpegs and readable type graphics built out of CSS and you've got a cool to look at, content rich, well optimized layout.
I'd make the link to your catalog very obvious and prominent. Note the catalog is not the homepage. I'd also include subsequent well written, in depth pages about the history of some specific pieces. Load them with targeted keywords and a few images. Again, make your catalog link very prominent. In doing so you're creating relevant content for search engines AND providing additional pages that can rank.
The catalog can be database driven, simple and changeable, and you have the foundation to build your search rank.
PLANNING YOUR SITE
If your designer is not a search engine optimizer, hire one to work with your designer from the initial development stage of your site. If you would like a visible presence that is not dependant on traditional marketing efforts to get your name around, then you will have to optimize.
However, with advances in html and css, text itself can be a very flexible and attractive design element with endless possibilities. Site optimization consists of some rigid, unbendable rules. It can be intertwined successfully with very creative and attractive design. If your Designer and SEO aren't the same person or company, make sure they have the same, close working relationship.
About the author:
John Krycek is a creative director at theMouseworks.ca Toronto website design.. Learn more about search engine optimization, internet marketing, web development and graphic design in easy, non-technical, up front English at http://www.themouseworks.ca!
Circulated by Article Emporium
For more information on the same topic visit http://www.profitliner.com
Do you have to sacrifice all of the creative and artistic elements of your web site to rank in the search engines? Later in this article I'll show you a real case scenario and the design and SEO approach used.
Thanks to the birth of professional search engine marketers the top ranks are saturated with the pages of companies that can pay for such insight. That said, it's certainly possible to employ high ranking tactics in your own website. Actually, the most basic tactics can move you up from an 800 position to a 300. However, it's the top of the scale where efforts seem almost inversely exponential or logarithmic, you put a ton in to see a tiny change in rank.
How do you meld the ambitious overhauls required to attain significant ranking and NOT compromise the design of your site?
DESIGN CAN'T BE IGNORED
If you have an existing site, you've probably tied it into your existing promotional content. Even if you've allowed your website to cater to the more free form of the net, it should still be designed as a recognizable extension of your business.
The reasons for doing so are valid, and can't simply be ignored for the sake of achieving a first age position, can they? If your research into search optimization leaves you shuffling around thoughts of content, keyword saturated copy and varying link text, you are correctly understanding some of the basic pillars of search engine optimization.
And, you aren't alone if you have this disheartening thought—If I do all this SEO stuff and reach number one across the board, who would stay at my site because it's so stale and boring I'm even embarrassed to send people there!
There are two ways to successfully combine design and SEO. The first is to be a blue chip and/or Fortune 500 company with multi million dollar advertising and branding budgets to deliver your website address via television, radio, billboards, PR parties and giveaways with your logo.
Since chances are that's not you, and certainly not me, lets look at the second option. It begins with some research into your market, some thoughtful and creative planning, and a designer who is a search engine optimizer, and understands at least basic CSS and HTML programming techniques. Or a combination of people with these skills that can work very well together.
DESIGN IS FOR BROCHURES, INSTANT RESULTS ARE FOR THE WEB
That's not the whole truth, but it will help compare and contrast design and SEO. In reality, SEO needs the quantity and detail of supporting text that a brochure has, but good web design has to catch a viewer's attention in 5 seconds. It's pretty difficult to read and absorb the content of an entire brochure in less than 5 seconds.
Search engines need rich, related, appropriate, changing and poignant content. And for them to rank you, all of that must be on your pages. But if it's not well organized and broken down into bite size chunks, no one is going to bother learning about what you're offering.
CONSTRUCTION 101- ATTRACTIVE DESIGN AND SEO
Sadly, it's very difficult to optimize a site without completely overhauling it. You'll soon understand why. Design and SEO must be strongly rooted into every aspect of each other, possessing a true, symbiotic relationship. Lets look at a simplified example of this. Lets say you are optimizing a page for the keyword phrase, "pumpkin bread recipe."
From a design standpoint "Pumpkin Bread Recipe" would be the heading for the page, in a nice, readable font with the words perhaps an orange-brown color. And lets add a fine, green rule around it.
There are many ways to create that simple, colored heading. However, there is only one way that is best for both design and SEO. That is to use Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS. In addition, that line of code containing "Pumpkin Bread Recipe" needs to be as close to the top of the page as possible (which CSS also allows).
To a viewer, the recipe text might be read more if it were located to the right of a photo of a buttered piece of pumpkin bread on a small plate next to a lightly steaming cup of coffee.
SEO needs to read that ingredient list and baking instructions. Search engines now understand on a rudimentary level that the ingredients are indeed related to the optimized words- pumpkin bread recipe.
Additionally, it would take many extra lines of code to make a table in this example if you didn't use CSS. Search engines don't like extra code. In fact, given enough times, that "extra" code will make the keyword phrases seem less important and hurt rank.
Note: In the page code, a few thousand characters more than you need to get all of that content organized would normally just add to your page load time, and might be acceptable. But to a search engine, that time can really add up. It wont read through page after page, site after site, billionth after billionth character of unimportant code to find the relevant text. Therefore, the less code, the better your chances. Moral- Less code, more content.
SEO USUALLY MEANS REDO
In the previous pumpkin example, CSS will eliminate the need for almost any extra code at all, and provide the means to place the text to the right of the photo.
Now, imagine that someone had already created this page, but done so using other programming methods. The page could very well be W3C compliant, well programmed and got the job done. However, without designing and programming for optimization as in the above illustration, the end result would have no significant rank compared to others that do.
You can be sure that there exist at least 30 web sites built to rank for the keywords "pumpkin bread recipe". Note- why did I use the number 30? It's safe to assume if you're not on the first three results pages of a search, you're not being seen.
While this is a simple example, hopefully you understand that it would be impossible to optimize this simple page without redoing it. This isn't always the case, but extrapolate this into detailed, multiple pages in an entire website and the issue is greatly magnified.
AESTHETIC IMPORTANCE VS. TRAFFIC
Everyone has an idea of what they want their site to look like. The pretty factor- splash pages, cool flash and graphics must now be justified as to their importance to the bottom line. If you want/need to establish an online presence, you will have to make some compromises in these areas.
Understand exactly the role your site should play in your company marketing.
Ask- What is the goal of your website and who is its audience? Is it for existing clients to see? Is it to reach new clients? To venture into yet untapped market segments?
Ask- How strongly do your other marketing efforts promote your site?
Ask- Is your website an extension of your existing collateral that must reflect the same graphical look?
Ask- Is your website meant to assist to your sales force or is it your sales force?
Chances are you wont have any single answers. That's ok. It will give you some meat for your designer/SEO to digest and develop a solution for you.
REAL CASE OF DESIGN BALANCED WITH SEO AND SALABILITY
If you sell jewelry solely online, you must have a catalog of exceptional photography and detailed, high-resolution close up images. But, you must be optimized and rank well if you want to sell any of that jewelry.
If such a company approached me with this project, my recommendation would be this: If you sell a product, people have to see that product. Lots of good images. The site should be slick and sheik and easy to navigate. The home page has to capture the buyer's attention. If it's very expensive jewelry, the site should have a lot of class and elegance. If it's home made jewelry, the site shouldn't look home made.
However, as you have no store front, if the online community can't find you, you're business will fail. So I'd have a very optimized home page with some discussion of the quality of your product, the history of your company, etc. This is also great sales copy. Ad a few special catalog pieces with descriptions below some smartly placed gifs, jpegs and readable type graphics built out of CSS and you've got a cool to look at, content rich, well optimized layout.
I'd make the link to your catalog very obvious and prominent. Note the catalog is not the homepage. I'd also include subsequent well written, in depth pages about the history of some specific pieces. Load them with targeted keywords and a few images. Again, make your catalog link very prominent. In doing so you're creating relevant content for search engines AND providing additional pages that can rank.
The catalog can be database driven, simple and changeable, and you have the foundation to build your search rank.
PLANNING YOUR SITE
If your designer is not a search engine optimizer, hire one to work with your designer from the initial development stage of your site. If you would like a visible presence that is not dependant on traditional marketing efforts to get your name around, then you will have to optimize.
However, with advances in html and css, text itself can be a very flexible and attractive design element with endless possibilities. Site optimization consists of some rigid, unbendable rules. It can be intertwined successfully with very creative and attractive design. If your Designer and SEO aren't the same person or company, make sure they have the same, close working relationship.
About the author:
John Krycek is a creative director at theMouseworks.ca Toronto website design.. Learn more about search engine optimization, internet marketing, web development and graphic design in easy, non-technical, up front English at http://www.themouseworks.ca!
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