5 Important Rules in Website Design

5 Important Rules in Website Design


When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.

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5 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back

5 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back


A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

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The Easiest Way To Get A Google Adsense Account

The Easiest Way To Get A Google Adsense Account

by: Penelope Smith

Google Adsense is one of the most coveted programs on the web. You can get code to place ads on your website, blogs,YouTube, RSS feeds, as well using their search bar to earn. There are many possibilities to earn using Adsense.

Now that Google has changed their policies about using other ads on the same page as theirs, it makes it a good choice. You will need to read their policy to make sure you are clear, but the basic point is to make them look different than other ads on the same page.

How do I get a Google Adsense account if I dont have a website?

Get a blog!

Blogger.com is now owned by Google. They even have a function in blogger that allows you to easily add Adsense to your blog.

Sign up for Blogger and start your blog. You can make it about anything, so long as it doesn’t violate their terms. This is pretty much the same terms you will find anywhere for just about any site. Nothing illegal, hate or porn related, and no viruses.

Be sure to ad some posts. If you can’t think of anything to write there are numerous sources available that offer free content for your site. Simply do a search for “free content” on any search engine.


After you have this done, wait a few days. Continue to add content if you would like. Then go and apply for your Adsense account

https://www.google.com/adsense



About the author:
This article is written by Penelope Smith. Owner of this site.

http://free-lifetime-upgrades.blogspot.com

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All About Traffic Exchanges

All About Traffic Exchanges


by: Penelope Smith

Traffic Exchange Sites are websites where you essentially exchange traffic. You submit your sites and earn page views to your site by viewing other sites. This can be done both automatically and manually. But dont think the work automatically means its without work on your part. Some sites offer both and some specialize in only one type of surfing.

Auto Surf

Auto surf is more for page-view/site-view stats. Your sites do get viewed by real people but can be missed or not clicked on because they automatically continue on to the next site. I know I have missed something I wanted to click on because it moved on before I was ready. When surfing on these sites, you really have to remember that you are on auto and that if you see something interesting to open the site in a new window or tab before it moves on.

Manual Surf

Manual sites can be broken down into 2 separate kinds. There is hover surf and click surf. Some offer the options to choose. Hover surf is where you simply have to hover over the location required to move on to the next site. Click surf is where you have to click a particular image or number to move forward to the next site. I personally prefer hover surf because it is just simpler in my opinion. You also have to be careful with hover surf as you do with auto surf. Once you slide past the spot, it will go on to next page. You can sometimes miss a bonus or offer because you hovered over the wrong location.

Choosing a site

There are numerous sites to choose from. Site with less than 100 people to sites with over 50,000 people. Don’t be deceived by big numbers. The more people in an exchange, the faster your credits run out. These larger sites often have much lower surf ratios as well which means you will have to work harder and longer to get views for your sites.

I find it better to get in with small exchanges when they are just starting and grow with them. You can get great surf ratios and many times extras like free upgrades or a large number of free credits. They sometimes also offer an extremely cheap upgraded account or have contests for free upgraded accounts. It is also easier to get signups under you when there is a really great offer.

I suggest making a blog about your exchanges and using it in your promotions. You can visit my blog for an example: http://free-lifetime-upgrades.blogspot.com and also find free upgrade offers as well. I would suggest to start at these exchanges if you are new to exchanges and then add new sites as you come across them in your surfing. A blog is free and is a great way to spread the word about all your sites in one place.



About the author:
This article is written by Penelope Smith. Owner of this site.

http://free-lifetime-upgrades.blogspot.com

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My Page Rank full of great tools for your website or blog...

http://www.mypagerank.ne/

If you look to your left you will see some of the tools pulled from this site. You can get a google page rank button or a detailed list of your rankings and links in and more. There is also button you can add to your site that will tell you when was the last time Google, Yahoo, or MSN has checked your sites.

They also have other tools that will check your Meta Tags and etc. Deffinately a site to bookmark.

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Submit Express a great free service...

Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools


This site is a great way to get your site sent to several search engines at one time.

Just your site and an email and you are on your way. You will get emails from a few services that require you to verify your submission.

For a free service its pretty great. They also have some other services that might be worth checking out.

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Stat Counter the better counter by far...

After testing out several different counters, I feel that StatCounter.com is the better of them.

It gives you the most detail and picks up the most sites.

Some sites have the same features but do not catch all site views. You may think your advertising budget is going down the tubes, but it just may be that your counter is not picking up these soruces. I ran all counters at the same time for a month and could see what was being missed.

Hitstats isn't too bad nor is Google's tracking service, but they are not very expandable. They also seemed to miss some hits. Hitstats will give you a nice counter you can display on your site that will show your number counts to visitors. If you want to put a counter that shows to the public, you might as well pick Hitstats since you get both a visible counter and tracking services.

I highly recommend Stat counter for your site tracking needs.

http://www.statcounter.com/
http://www.histats.com/

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Free Banners

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Traffic Exchange - Is it worth it?

Many people have many different opinions on whether traffic exchanges are worth it. So let me give you mine.

I think that for sites just starting out both website and blogs, it can be a great thing. It gives you some ranking leverage and gets some people to look at your site. Not everyone can afford to pay for advertising. There are many other free methods as well which I will cover in later posts.

I will say there are differences between traffic exchanges. You may be tempted by the big numbers of some of the large traffic exchanges but they are usually the ones with the worst numbers in your favor.

Do your homework. Don't settle for less than 1:1 unless there is a really good progressive bonus that will take you up to that level. You will wast too much time and your credits will be gone to fast.

There are far too many new places poping up all over the place with much better odds.

I have started a blog dedicated to just this: http://free-lifetime-upgrades.blogspot.com

I list all free lifetime upgrade sites I come across, so if you want to get in, free lifetime upgrades is the way to go. These sites are new and is why they are offering such great deals. They will be slow to go at the begining, but all traffic exchanges have to start somewhere and you might as well get in while the getting is good.

Do remember that these are real people that are surfing for traffic too. Many of the ads you will see surfing will be for get rich quick schemes but there will also be personal pages, bands, and stores that just want to be seen. You may find something you need or want in the process, as well as make some friends.

The fact boils down to, people are looking at your site, and maybe it will appeal to someone and maybe it won't but you get the same amount of odds with a PPC program and exchanges are free. I would rather spend an hour surfing then $100 on PPC and get the same results.

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Free Lifetime Upgrades - Gold - Platnium - Pro

I am a sucker for free stuff, especially free upgrades. So I put them all on a blog that I can easily add to for anyone interested to go check out.

http://free-lifetime-upgrades.blogspot.com/

I am always finding new free upgrades and posting them there, almost daily now.

There is a time stamp on top from when I added last.

You are free to follow that blog too and get free upgrades as soon as they hit the market.

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Free Commercial Type Banners

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Learn From A PPC Expert

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a marketing technique that has been embraced by internet marketers all around the world. For many it has proven to be a very lucrative part of their marketing mix - these are the people who have learned the tips, tweaks and techniques to make their campaigns successful.



Other people have 'dabbled' in PPC and had their fingers, or more precisely, their pockets, burned. They have given up and decry any benefit of pay per click advertising.



The trouble is, they did not take the time to L-E-A-R-N. And that does not mean undertaking the Google tutorials. Google want you to spend money - they are not going to explain to you how you could make better use of your resources are they?



Here is an example:



If you automatically click through on the instructions when you set up a PPC ad, the system defaults to your ad being shown 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to every country in the world. Is that what you intended? To have people in Timbuktu clicking on your ad for home security systems, available only in the US? What a waste of money - you are paying for each time someone who is curious clicks on your ad.



Now, here's the thing. The experts who have perfected PPC techniques know how to make little adjustments to their campaigns. They know how best to use the limited number of words in the heading and two lines below, to convey a message that will get buyers (not tire kickers) to click through to their sites.



They run very efficient, focused campaigns. They know what they are doing - and you can too.



What you need is some expert tuition, but not from just anyone. You need to find someone who has proven success with PPC, and can demonstrate every step of the process, preferably with an actual campaign.



For this type of training, it is really critical to have video demonstrations available so you can actually see the step involved put into action.



Credibility is everything. If you can find someone who can teach you the tweaks and shortcuts, keyword research methods and emotive language to use in your ads, you will be streets ahead. You will find that you can budget economically and effectively and achieve impressive conversion rates from the targeted traffic you generate to your website.

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Kerry Finch is a writer and researcher with a focus on internet marketing. There is only one PPC Coach that she recommends.

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Twitter is a Mini Myspace

For those of you who haven't heard of Twitter, it is a community of people that takes elements of myspace and a blog and minimizes it to 140 characters.

Users can post quick messages either to their followers or in replies to others post. The can only be a miximum of 140 characters, so it makes you have to get really to the point.

This is called a Tweet or a Twit.

I have seen this around for some time and finally decided to give it a try. It is not to hard to use and before you know it you are hooked. Even Obama had a Twitter account during the election. It is still up but hasn't had a Tweet since mid Dec.

It is a great way to connect with friends, customers, followers, or strangers. It only takes a click of a button to follow or unfollow anyone on Twitter.

There are newsgroups that will Twit the news regularly as well as many of the bloggers you follow are probably on there.

For those of you on Facebook, there is an application that will update Facebook with your Tweets. Now if they could just do that on Myspace, I would be killing 3 birds with one stone. Maybe it will come in the future and maybe we should send emails to Myspace to add it. If one exist that I do not know about, someone PLEASE email me.

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If you look to your right you will see that I included a whole section of just free Twitter resources. There are all kinds of apps, buttons, pictures, and more for Twitter.

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Free Banners

These are designed so you can open them in paint or photoshop and add text so you can create your own banners.

You can also use them as heading banners on a website or blog.

Enjoy.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

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Getting Traffic - A Test

We could all use more traffic right?

Im running an experiment on a traffic exchange system.

I made a full post about it on my money review site here.

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Free Backgrounds or Images: Money

Publish Post

This image can be used as an image or as a background. Ive edited it to be of different transparency levels to hopefully suit multiple needs.

Enjoy.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.

Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

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Free Backgrounds: Solid Colors

Solid colors for those that want it simple. Enjoy.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.

Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

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Free Backgrounds: Odd Shapes

Hope you like some of my new odd shapes. Most of these are happy accidents. Enjoy.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.

Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

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Free Backgrounds: Transparent

These were all edited by me to give a transparent effect. This way you can give style without distracting from text. It will give your site a little more than just a solid color back ground will.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.

Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

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Free Backgrounds: Transparent

These were all edited by me to give a transparent effect. This way you can give style without distracting from text. It will give your site a little more than just a solid color back ground will.

Don't forget to save these to your computer if you plan to use them. They may not be here forever.

Feel free to use these commercially or privately. A link back to my blog is always appreciated.

Read more...