Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Computer Gender

An English teacher was explaining to his students the concept of gender association in the English language. He noted how hurricanes at one time were given only female names, and how ships and planes were usually referred to as "she." One of the students raised her hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?"

The teacher wasn't certain. So he divided the class into two groups: males in one, females in the other, and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendations.

The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to as masculine because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.

3. They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time, they ARE the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to as feminine because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.


Article Courtesy : http://www.datingdiversions.com/computer_gender/joke.html

Monday, April 14, 2008

Using Keyword Articles and reviews to boost Revenue

One of the best ways to generate traffic to your site is by offering keyword rich articles and reviews on your site, because this would establish a bond of trust with your visitors.

When your website has content rich articles and real reviews, your customers will know that you know what you are talking about and they will begin to depend on your website for information and that is when you can approach “like” merchants who are selling similar products, services or ideas as yours. Doing this will also keep your website filled with new content for your regulars.

Your regular site visitors will view you as an authority on a particular subject, so it simply makes sense that you should write a review on a product or service that you are advertising. Many websites like www.cnet.com offer product and service reviews for the things that they are selling because this makes it easier for surfers to decide between products.

This also supplies excellent content for search engine to latch onto because the information often changes regularly.

If you are going to use this particular ad article concept to promote products, you need to believe in what you are writing because if you don’t believe it how can you expect visitor’s to believe it ?

Research the product and company well and try it out if you can so that you can offer specifics. Contact the company and let them know what you are doing and ask for further resources and assistance if you need it.

Once you have created the review, send them the link because you may be surprised at the response you get this way.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

6 Ideas for Viral Marketing

Here are six ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:

1. Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book. Allow people to give away your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.

2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.

3. Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice in tact.

4. Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine subscribers.

5. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.

6. You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for those products that provide "branding rights". That is where you can include your own name, website, and contact information.