Planning Your Website Layout - Top Tips

Planning your website layout before you start to populate can save you considerable time.

There are many aspects of the layout and content that can help you convert your website traffic into goals.

Define your goals

Evaluate the purpose of your website and establish at least one goal. For example, a goal could be:

• Purchase a product
• Sign up to a newsletter
• Request a quote
• Request a call back etc.

Goal Paths

Once you have established a goal you'll need to define a goal path. A goal path is the route which a visitor takes before reaching a goal. To achieve a successful goal path consider the following:

• Keep the path as short or a direct as can be
• Don't distract the visitor away from the path through links or adverts
• Supply enough information for the visitor to be able to make an informed decision, but not so much that the visitor loses interest
• Make the path intuitive by using "next" buttons or links
• Try to establish the visitor's needs by looking at the path from your visitor's point of view.

Preparing your website content.

Once you have defined your goals and the logical goal paths, you'll need to write the content.

• Prepare all images, videos, forms etc. in advance
• If the text is being copied and pasted from another source use a program like Adobe Dreamweaver or even MS Notepad to strip out the unwanted font styles before you paste it into your website
• Make the text keyword rich

Quick links

Once you have defined the number of web pages and the content that needs writing you can decide which content pages should be made available as quick links.

Quick links should be links that you feel will either be of most benefit to your visitor's or of most benefit to you (but still of interest to the visitor).

If you are unsure about which links to use, the following quick link suggestions might help.

• Home
• Testimonials
• About us
• Contact us
• Services

Meta tags

Meta tags are read by search engines to help identify the content of your web pages. By having all this information decided before you start populating each web page, you'll find the process much easier.

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Planning your website layout before you start to populate it can save you considerable time. There are many aspects of the layout and content that can help you convert your website traffic into goals. to read more about website planning visit our website: http://www.mistore.co.uk

Want Massive Leverage in Time and Profits For Your Website Design Business?

Imagine a life where you can get up and plan what you want to do today without even thinking about work. Safe in the knowledge that someone else is doing it for you.

Imagine a world where you wake up and know that other people have been doing your work and making you money even while you are asleep.

Well this can become a reality thanks to the power of the internet. You can now have people in other countries doing your work for you while you are enjoying your life doing what you want to do with your day.

It is called outsourcing and it is the best way to make large sums of money online without putting in endless hours of work. People are their personal fortunes online by letting other people to what they either cannot do, or do now want to do.

A lot of business owners think that they are the best at what they do and so they end up doing all the work themselves. This means that they are replacing a 9 to 5 job with a 9 to 9 home based business. This is not how it should be, people need to realize if you just let other people do a lot of the work for you, you will have a lot more time and a lot more money.

Website Development for commercial profit can be learned in two ways, the easy way or the hard way. The hard way will cost you money and a lot of time. The easy way will have you up and running and making money with your outsourced work in no time.

The easy way is to learn from people who have done it before. People who have made the mistakes, lost the money and done all the hard work for already. These are the people you want to learn from.

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Enchant Your Audiences With a Mesmerizing Web Banner Advertisement

A Web Banner advertisement refers to a form of advertising on the Internet. It is a link displayed in a box containing a promotional message. A viewer reaches to an advertiser's website on clicking this link. The main purpose of such an advertisement is to allure traffic to the marketer's website. An entrepreneur deploys this form of advertisement to promote brand awareness of a company among the potential customers as well as the public. It also aims at generating more sales of a product or a service.

Banners have the potential to capture the attention of prospective customers with animated images. An advertiser can use animations or sound to allure the viewer to a website. Animations create a visual impact in the mind of a viewer. It is an interactive feature in the banner advertisements. This feature engages a viewer's mind and allures him to an advertisement. A marketer should deploy attractive color combinations. One should use the colors that are more agreeable to potential customers. Every culture prefers different types of shades.

A banner designer should study the geographic and psychographics of the prospective clients. This helps in better understanding of the culture and preferences of a client. It helps you in selecting the colors that appear vibrant and attractive to a potential customer according to his culture. One can also use the logo of a company in the advertisement. A logo delivers an identity to an organization. It also distinguishes the company from its competitors in the minds of the potential clients. The size of a banner also matters in its presentation on a web page. Many times banners are very large that they curb a reader from reading the information on the web page. This can distract a viewer's attention from viewing the advertisement. Other banners are very small in appearance that their visuals are not able to allure a viewer. One should keep a standard size of the banner so that one can easily entice a viewer towards an advertisement. The banner size should also not hinder the viewer from viewing the information on the web page.

Banner advertisements on the Internet are measurable form of promotion. An advertiser can maintain a track by tracing the number of clicks or sales conversion rates. The results can be considered to improve future campaigns.

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Design an Exquisite Website to Boost Your Business

Business environment involves constant changes because of which marketers continuously look for creative ideas to establish themselves in the market. They constantly strive to maximize profits so that their organizations have sufficient funds during adverse times. In order to maximize the profits an entrepreneur should use various promotional methods effectively and innovatively to have an edge over the competitors. A marketer wants to make his presence felt through all forms of media. Having an online presence is one of the ways to stay connected with the potential customers. Due to the growing popularity of Internet, many marketers tap this medium to increase their customer base and enhance the profits.

In the modern world, many people perceive Internet as a source of resourceful and authentic information as well as knowledge. Many entrepreneurs build attractive websites to attract the potential customers. A good website offers flexibility to an entrepreneur to provide with the company's profile, products and services. You can mention about the management team, credentials, certification, policies, plans and schemes. One can provide information about the company's nature and future goals. A good website should have fresh and crisp content that can provide desired and essential information to a visitor. You should have original content on the website. It is beneficial to update the content regularly so that the viewer can have fresh information in your website whenever he visits the next time. The content that you display on a website should address the needs and wants of a targeted customer. Through a website, an entrepreneur should offer an opportunity to a client to satisfy his need by using the entrepreneur's products. A person can use graphics or animation to convey the intended message with a pictorial description. With a graphical description, a viewer can grasp the message easily and can retain for a longer time. Hence, one should present the animation, audio or video in clear and attractive manner. These interactive features also create a visual impact in the mind of a viewer.

In an environment of advanced technology, one can create good websites by hiring web design services from companies equipped with modern technology. There is also web design software available that offer you with advanced options. Some of these tools offer templates and various other designs. Others equip you with an ability to personalize these designs as per the requirement. Along with attractive designs, you should also ensure that your website is user-friendly and accessible that can contribute to boost your business.

Anee Steven is a successful author and an online market strategist. Written many articles on various topics and this time around with article on creating website, banner and slideshows easily using tools like flash web builder, flash intro templates,flash intro builder, slideshow software, flash intros, website builder, web design software,banner design, etc.

Design Templates - 3 Hurdles and Pitfalls

Avoid the pitfalls to do it yourself site design

Do it yourself website design can be fun if you have the time and patients. Here are 3 major obstacles to avoid while using a template to design your own site.

Avoid this major hurdle

The top, most asked question I receive is: Why won't my site work?

The question comes in many forms and formats but the basic problem is: the template doesn't work the way I envisioned it.

This may be contributed to wanting more than the template has to offer. The scope and purpose of the website template is to allow you, the user, to quickly put content on line. There are several ways to do this:

• Wizards: Site Builder provided by hosting account.
• Hire a designer.
• Design it yourself with free or paid template.
• Content Management System (Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Joomla, Etc.)

Each comes with its own set of challenges, so avoid wanting too much from your choose of site building tools. Know the limitations, scope and purpose.

Do not alter important elements

All templates will have components you can edit, but should you?

When I first started out some years ago, I would often change items in the template coding because of my experience and knowledge of HTML plus training in Mysql...

I would end up spending hours making 'small' changes to the code. It was fun to me but not a very effective use of my time. Remember, the purpose of using templates is to QUICKLY PUT CONTENT ON LINE.

I suggest you alter only the items that the documentation require you to edit.

Scripts within the templates or tools used in building your site are especially sensitive.

Altering images that come with your template is an expert level manipulation function. Are you expert with PhotoShop?

You can find an image to replace the one you 'don't like'. Do not attempt to change the image that came with the template. Trust me, this will save you time and avoid unnecessary frustration.

Don't forget marketing

Change and include Meta keyword and description elements, update the title tag on each page of the site.

After all, you want to be found by search engines, friends and potential clients.

Build yourself a robot file and Sitemap. Make your site visible to the World Wide Web.

Conclusion

Designing with templates have many hurdles, limitations and pitfalls, but understanding the purpose and scope of the tool you use coupled with making required changes only plus including marketing concerns, will have you a professional site up and running in as little as 24 hours to 48 hours.

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Anthony Morgan is an online marketeer and direct sales affiliate.
He is passionate about supplying entrepreneurs with systems and products that are effective in building personal success.

Evolution of Web Design

As a rule, web site layouts & designs evolve. At the beginning of the Internet era, many web site owners became captivated with "bells and whistles" that, on the superficial, might appeal to their target public. Java apps, Flash movies, gigantic animations and other graphic media has become increasingly prevalent over the years.

However, in the precipitate to have the "coolest" site layout design, web site owners forget whom they are creating their site for: Their target audience. Your audience might find that Flash movie irritating after viewing it multiple times. Your audience might not be able to find your site in the search engines. "Bells and whistles" are attributes of a web site that need to be measured and tested to see if they increase or drive away sales.

Below are the largely collective steps of web's evolution typically undergo:

Step 1 - Design Over Substance
Step 2 - Designing for On line Visibility
Step 3 - Designing for Your Audience
Step 4 - Site Redesign

Step 1 - Design Over Substance The first stage is to design a site that the CEO, venture capitalists, and ad agencies like to see. There are all types of "bells and whistles" in this design. An entire site might be a Flash site. Or there might be some beautiful Java-Script mouse over effects or drop-down menus in the design. It's always a pretty design, but the message is clear -- style over substance.

Step 2 - Designing for On line Visibility In Step 2, the reality of an ineffective web layout begins to hit, usually around 3-6 months after the first launch. A site will typically get rejected by many of the major portals, not be indexed by the major search engines, or not get the traffic or customers that were projected based on the various types of marketing strategies used. Typically, that's when corporates decide that they will try to hire a expert on line marketer to promote the site. Entrance page companies, in some way, profile or form, rear their horrid heads.

Unfortunately, many site owners fall for a entrance page company's pitch since the beautifully designed site couldn't possibly be the glitch with low site traffic. Google might have rejected a site, or the site might have been listed in Yahoo and the company cannot understand why they have no extra information. But in no way would many advertising agencies or doorway page companies want to tell potential customers the truth -- they simply did not design and write an effective web site -- because it would mean losing tons of money in business.

Step 3 - Designing for Your Audience By Step 3, afterward expenses an ridiculous amount of money on cool web site designs and various marketing strategies, web site owners generally assume out that they did not design or write an successful Web site for their target audience.

Typically, web site owners will bring in a usability expert to examine possible issues and present various solutions. Bringing in a search engine marketing expert to help with SEF design templates early in the design time can save a company thousands of dollars in on line marketing expenses.

Step 4 - Site Redesign After tender usability and search engine visibility analyzes, web site owners ultimately have an operational web site. A site that is crafted, coded and designed for user friendliness and search engine (SEO) visibility generally gets the the majority traffic and follow-on sales since it was written, planned, and designed for end users.

Conclusions Web sites be supposed to forever be designed with your target audience in mind, not your own individual preferences. Colors have meaning. Expert designers understand the psychology of color and the use of white space to superlative project the image your audience wishes to see.

If not the advanced technology unmistakably payback end users, do not use it on your site. If your venture capitalists like the site, ask if they are going to finish the thousands or millions of dollars to keep you in business. They're not.

Your target audience who will be the only one to determine the success or failure of your site.

Good talented designers meet at http://www.ZenLayout.com

Get the Best and Most Affordable Website Design

If you are getting your website designed and want it to be done in a cheap and affordable cost, then you will have learn to identify if the website design is affordable or not. You can say that the website design that you have opted for is affordable only when you see that there is return that you are getting for your investment in the defined time period. The cost of the website though is not limited to the building of the website only. You will also need to analyse the complete life cycle expectancy of the website. There are no doubt certain ways through which you can get affordable website design at the initial stage of the purchase itself.

To get a custom website design it will cost you time and money as you will have to travel all the way to the client and thus will have to do prior preparation. To begin with visit your local website designers and get as many quotes as possible. Once you have short listed the designers you it will take you more than one meeting to come to conclusion on who to choose for the job and this is when your preparation will come in handy for you. Thus being prepared helps you to strike a deal with your designer in fewer meetings.

The website designs are generally either very affordable or very expensive. But if you are clear about your requirements then it will help you to save more. You can access the templates available online and also website which are live and then further instruct the designer accordingly. But if you want the designer to work on your website right from the scratch then the cost that will incur for it will shoot high. The designs in vogue today in the market are simpler and hence if you choose for a simple design then it will not cost you much. If you have a company logo then the design can be worked out in and around the logo. This further simplifies the website designer's work and hence the cost goes down. To get the best website design concentrate more on the content of the website and your work will be done in a very effective and efficient manner.

After the designing of the website is completed you need to find a space to host your website. There are different forms of web hosting that you can choose from. To begin with identify what you need. For instance if your website is of ten page with a single page averaging 110 KB and you have plans of further growing the website by adding more page to it then you need to get a hosting space of around 11MB. However to be on the safe side you can opt for a space of around 35 MB as apart from the content there will images as well on your website.

So it helps to have a proper preparation before you start with getting assistance for an affordable website design.

For any help on Affordable website design, check out the info available online. These will help you learn to find the Best website design an instant go!

Web Design - Why Your Business Needs It

If you are reading this, you probably have some knowledge in how to design a web site, and you definitely have the desire to do so! If you are not proficient with web design, you can always use a free website that helps you design it yourself. Most professionals like to host their own sites though, especially if they are promoting a product or business.

The first thing you should know when you get down to the nitty gritty of creating your site, is that you want a sleek, professional look. Don't distract visitors with too many graphics and flashy colors. Secondly, always design your site with the reader in mind. What do you think they want? Make sure your site is easy for them to find, easy to read, and products are easy to order. Next, make sure that your home page is simple and runs fast- big flashy intros can be cool, but they also might detract visitors from coming back.

Another very important aspect of web design is your text. Always use professionally-written text- no spelling or grammar errors, and easy to read sentences- or you simply will not keep visitors coming back. Make sure your page is easy to understand and easy for readers to skim. You can do this by breaking up information into sections and not just adding long paragraphs.

Remember too, that headings are great, as they help direct visitors to the portion of your site that they are most interested in. Finally, make the site easy to navigate. Web design is not always easy, but it can be fun when you make your page fabulous!

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Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.

How a Business Website Can Play a Vital Role in the Success of a Business

he main purpose of businesses big or small is to run at a profit and make money. With the tremendous development of the Internet in recent years the Business Website has become a handy tool for the success of many a business. The Business Website can no longer be ignored. It has come to stay and organizations that continue to ignore this or do not give sufficient importance for the need of a website are certainly at a disadvantage and missing out on the many benefits that websites offer.

A professional looking business website adds credibility to your business and can impress a website visitor even if yours is a comparatively small business.

Projecting a good image is of vital importance for your business and having your website address in your Business Cards, Letter heads, e-mails and all other correspondence material certainly will do just that.

Full information of your business activities and images of products and prices can be displayed making it very convenient for your regular customers and website visitors.

You can regularly update your website with the latest information about your products and services. It is much quicker, easier and cost effective to update a website than print based media. Furthermore all special promotions and discounts can be regularly displayed to attract new customers.

One of the great advantages of a website is that it is very much cheaper and economical to advertise your products as compared to that of the media such as the TV, Radio and the Press.

Though your business might work only from 9.00 to 5.00, your website will be accessible to customers right round the clock 24/7, accepting orders locally, nationally or even globally thus vastly increasing the profitability of your business The present day life style is quite different from what it was some years ago. Time factor plays a major role in today's life style. Customers who work late hours can take advantage of this and make their purchases online thus increasing your sales.

Testing of new products can be easily undertaken in your website without resorting to a market survey which is expensive. By having a poll or a questionnaire in your website, you can easily obtain the response of your visitors and customers about all your new products.

By using proper keywords and optimizing the content of your website your business can be made searchable in the Internet thus bringing more visitors to your site and increasing your sales.

The presence of a website saves a lot of time and effort for both the business organization and customer. Businesses can direct most inquires about products and prices to their website for information. The customers too could in turn browse the website from the comfort of their homes as and when it is convenient for them. This is in fact a win win situation for the customers and the businesses concerned.

Establishing an online presence is very vital for businesses today. Customers are taking this for granted. A good professional looking business website can play an integral part in boosting the image of your business and help you beat the competition.

Copyright © 2009 Kanaga Siva.

To learn more check out Expert Author Kanaga Siva's Business from Home website and Internet Marketing Blog where you will find more Tips, Ideas and Business Opportunities for starting and operating a successful business.

Importance of Design in a Web Site

Design is an important factor that persuades buyers of any product. This is true even when buying a T-shirt from a shop. A shabby looking product, even if it is priced low is not given a second look. In a T-shirt, the material is important, but the first impression is created by its design and design alone.

The same rule applies to web pages. A trendy and professional website attracts more visitors than a shoddy one. Matching color schemes, correct use of graphics and optimum resolution, font and font size are all constituents of a good design.

Let us analyze the value of design using two hypothetical situations.

Web site A: A well-designed website with amazing graphics, color schemes matching the theme of the site and resolution, font and text size set for easy and convenient viewing.

Web site B: A web site where irrelevant and low-quality graphics are cramped into the limited space. The color scheme is too bright and mismatching with the theme. Fanciful font and too small font size making reading a strain.

A visitor to the web site A feels at home and spends more time on the web pages, which may result in a sale. The visitors to this site are impressed by the design and form a positive image of the company.

A visitor to the web site B is turned off by the jarring notes and does not hesitate a second to move on. The lack of co-ordination of the theme, colors, graphics and illegible text creates a bad impression about the organization.

To avoid including the wrong components in a web page, get feedback from prospective visitors. A plain site with proper design is any day better than a flashy one.

Johny Kapilakan is a professional web designer, specializes in affordable web design for small to medium business . You can learn more about his professional web design skill by visiting http://www.itgraphix.com