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Saturday, August 8, 2009

choosing a good hosting company for ur website

Determining the best web hosting company for you is critical to your web site's success. Whether it is for business, e-commerce, a fan site or just a hobby, the host you choose plays a large factor on how well you’ll fare in the online world. In such a flooded market with so many different hosting companies and packages out there, how do you know who to trust with your site? You want a reliable company that will make sure your site is always available, you want a support department that actually exists and can help you quickly, but of course it needs to be affordable and fit into your budget, especially if your web site isn’t intended to generate any income.

Knowing your requirements is the first step in finding the best host for you. Try to determine how much disk space your site is going to require, how your site will deliver its content such as static pages like HTML or dynamic automated content via scripts like wordpress or Joomla, and of course how many visitors you are expecting to visit monthly to gauge how much bandwidth you will need. If you already have a website, you should know most of this information, if you are just creating your website and have no idea, don’t sweat it. If you are just starting out chances are you will need less then 500MB of disk space, and 5,000-10,000MB (5-10GB) of bandwidth should be sufficient for a starter. It you plan on running a personal blog or a message board, make sure the package you choose has access to a database, it’s best to pick a host that allows you at least three databases. Most hosting companies have a small basic package that should work well for the time being. If you plan to mass market your website or run a business or ecommerce site you may have a higher bandwidth requirement. Always check with potential web host’s to make sure you have growth potential. So if your website out grows your hosting package you can always move up to something with more room.

Next you are going to need to determine your budget. How much can you financially afford or are willing to spend on web hosting? Figure this out before you shop for a host, don’t let a host decide your budget for you. Remember, you want a reliable web host that gives your site good uptime but offers you support should you experience a problem. Running reliable and stable servers can be expensive and so can staffing a support department 24/7. So make sure you have a practical budget that takes this into account. Do not waste your hard earned money on hosts that offer you the world for a buck or two, it will only lead to heart ache. For a basic plan with 500MB – 2,000MB storage space and 5,000MB – 10,000MB bandwidth you should expect to pay around at minimum $6USD for a good host. However, hosts that sell their plans at this price are not necessarily a good host.

Do not be fooled by marketing gimmicks, flashy web sites or statements made on a web site! The biggest problem in the hosting industry today is the UNLIMITED sales pitch. No host worth their salt is going to offer you up unlimited everything. It’s not possible. Web servers are simply “heavy-duty” computers that use RAM and Hard drives just like your home PC or laptop. When is the last time you bought a computer with an “UNLIMITED” hard drive? As for bandwidth, sure, it could be unlimited, but only if you have unlimited money. Hosts that offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth generally “oversell” their servers. This means they can pile hundreds of customers on one server. They sell the same storage space and bandwidth they sold you, to other customers as well. What they offer you is not dedicated only to you, but to everyone. If you try to start using that unlimited space and store 25GB of files or use that unlimited Bandwidth using over 200GB a month, you will soon find your site shut for “abuse”. You see, a huge secret in the hosting rules is the TOS known as the terms of service. Some hosts will state unlimited on their sites and in the TOS they declare unlimited as 500MB or something similar. They may also limit you to what you can store on your site, saying you are only allowed to have html files. No images, videos, or anything. Sure you can upload these files and use them, but if you use that disk space and bandwidth they will shut you down and claim abuse because you uploaded files that were not allowed. Unlimited hosts have a lot of dirty tricks like this up their sleeves always stipulated in their TOS.

Look for a host that is upfront about your limits. For a personal website, small business or hobby site 1000MB (1GB) is plenty of disk space and you should be more then fine with 10,000MB (10GB) of bandwidth. As your site becomes more popular you will use more bandwidth and when the time comes you can upgrade your package to include more bandwidth. All hosts include a control panel where you can track your disk and bandwidth usage so you know what you are actually using.

Okay so we got your requirements, your budget and what hosts to look out for. Now it’s time to actually find your potential hosting company. You may have a web companies in mind, which is great. If not ask around with friends and family to see if they can recommend anyone or someone to avoid. Do a Google or yahoo search if you are up to it, you will find hundreds of thousands of potential web hosts. Generally in the top results on Google are “Hosting review sites” they can provide you with helpful information in narrowing down hosts, but always take the reviews with a grain of salt. These sites are often paid to post certain kinds of reviews by the hosts themselves or they are linked to affiliate systems where they get paid if you sign up with a particular host. However you find your possible hosts is up to you.

Once you have a list of web hosts you are interested in, it’s time to research them and evaluate them. First make sure they offer a package that meets your budget. Then contact the hosting company, email the sales department or submit a sales ticket in their customer support panels this should be easy to find. Let them know you are a potential client, and you are interested in their services. Ask them any questions that may be on your mind, or to clarify what exactly their hosting packages include, ask about their uptime, response time to support tickets and so on. If all else fails simply ask them that if you out-grew your plan, if you could easily upgrade to a bigger one. Generally the answer should be yes, but what you are actually testing here is their response time. You want to see how long it takes for a host to respond to your inquiry. This is a good test to tell how fast their support could be. Also try to submit a support ticket, you should be able to email support@hostingcompaniesname.com or enter a support ticket via their website. Sometimes they will reply to sales tickets faster to get a new customer then reply to current customers needing support. So always check this out. When you submit a support ticket be honest and just say you are a potential client and wanted to test out the support response time. Try this at different times of the day and night to see if they truly offer ‘round the clock support, this may be important should your site crash at 1AM.

Next do a Google search on them, enter the companies name and then add review to the end (example: hostingcompaniesname.com review) this should pull up at least a few reviews that should help you know what you are getting into with this company. Remember always take reviews with a grain of salt. Even very reputable companies will have a bad or negative review. Try to find as many reviews as you can.

Check out their guarantees, many hosting companies offer a 15, 30 or even 45 day satisfaction guarantee. This means you can try them out for that amount of time. If you don’t like them, you can get a full refund and find a new host! Always make sure to find and read the fine print on these offers to make sure there are no catches that could bilk you out of a refund should you not like their service. Also make a note to find out whether or not a host has an uptime guarantee, this will give you a rough guide on how much downtime you could expect from a hosting company, this means how often your site *may* be inaccessible. Industry standard is generally 99.9% this means your website *could* be down for as long as 45 minutes in a month. Be wary of hosts that say their uptime is 100% as it’s a fact of technology that something will at some point fail and need to be repaired or replaced. Avoid any host that offers a 95% uptime guarantee because 95% means your site could be down for as much as 30hours a month! This is not acceptable it today’s standards.

Look for additional or bonus features. Some hosting companies offer extra’s like a free website builder tool, one click script installation for many useful programs like bulletin boards, word press, and many other things. Keep an eye out for extra’s like $25 or $50 worth of free advertising credits on sites like Google’s adwords or facebook advertising.

See whether or not the company backups your website. Should their server fail or hard drive crash, your site is gone! If they have backups at least you know in an event of a disaster they will have a backup of your site for you. On this note, always make sure you backup your own website. I cannot stress enough on how important it is to backup your own website. Never rely on anyone else to do it for you. Some companies may claim they do this for you then when a disaster hits, they don’t have your backup and your site is gone. Or should you happen to wake up one to find your website and your host has disappear or gone out of business, you will have minimal downtime because you have your site backed up. This is a MUST for EVERY web site owner. Having the hosting company do it for you is only an added benefit and the third backup just in case.

If you follow these steps, use a little common sense and understand that no one can offer you unlimited anything, especially for a few bucks a month, you are well on your way to finding a good, solid host that will serve you well for years to come.

AJAX Technology for Giving Better Look to your Website

AJAX is a unique programming language that can be used on various types of operating systems and web applications that is based on DOM and Java Script. It uses client-side scripting for exchange of important data, making it one of the strong approach of web application technique. This programming language increases the chances of fast responses of user interface and interaction as it can establish independent communication with the web server.

In earlier days the process of web browsing comprises of a new web page interacting with every single user's request. It leads to dynamic web application user interface that creates obstacle in effective usage of desktop applications. The main aim of AJAX is increasing a web page's interaction, functionality, usability and speed.

This concept is combination of different computing technologies instead of a single one. You can find different types of web applications like CSS and XHTML in AJAX for giving standardized web presentations. XML and XSLT is used for data exchange between the client and the server, Document Object Model is used for better display and interaction, for standardized presentation CSS and XHTML is used, Java Script is used as code for AJAX application and for sharing data with web server using XMLHttp request.

Lets us see how a typical web application functions. The older version of web interface sends an HTTP request back to the web server. After that it is processed and retrieved before getting back the HTML page to its users. But the main drawback of this process is the web application does not make the user interface as functional and as interactive as compared to AJAX.

AJAX is the solution to all above mentioned problems. It uses AJAX engine to fasten the loading of web applications which works as an intermediary between server and the users. One of the biggest benefit of AJAX engine is it allows the application and user interface to exchange data which is not dependent to the server communication. Thus there is never a communication gap between the web and the users.

It is a very strong technique that grows along with the growth of web application. Now-a-days it is being considered as guiding factor with the advent of web 2.0. More number of marketing and business sites are being connected with AJAX application server platform. Various popular services like Google maps, gmail, photo sharing application, Yahoo! Maps, etc are supported by this programming language. It supports simple functions to complex ones.

What is vtiger CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

vtiger CRM is a customer Relationship Management system that increases productivity and maximizes the most customer satisfaction available. This program can help you bring the full potential to life in marketing, sales, and overall customer service. vtiger CRM is open source meaning that it’s free the for the taking and able to manipulate however it will best suit you and your business needs. This has become a proven program for millions of small to medium businesses and delivers what it promises with the best in customer satisfaction.

The feature list includes and is not limited to pipeline analysis, campaign management, inventory management, invoice processing, information database, lead management, and the best in customer service. vtiger CRM offers extensions of Web browsers such as Mozilla Thunderbird mail, Microsoft applications such as Outlook plug-in and Word, and Office plug-ins. So you see the kind of support this wonderful program is getting from some of the most reputable names in the business.

vtiger CRM is gaining recognition and popularity every day that passes and is estimated to be downloaded a thousand times a day now reaching 1.5 million downloads total. This is staggering considering many people are just starting to learn what a CRM program is.

Many vendors that support the use of vtiger are making this an On-Demand application which means you are able to access it from anywhere at any time. This is a great resource for people who spend their days in the field chasing leads or supporting physical customer relations. The vendors who are involved with marketing and maintaining vtiger are in business to bring you the very best in customer satisfaction.

We all know the importance of a customer to a business. This has been drilled into us since our first job whether slinging burgers or selling retail. “Without the customer we would have to close our doors” is a very popular phrase for office art and office morale and all of us have probably seen this at some point in time throughout our lives. vtiger CRM utilizes the very best technology available to give you every option you can think of when connecting with your customer base.

The information that is on the Internet pertaining to vtiger clearly shows how reputable and wonderful this program is and how it can work for you. This is a very dynamic program that is getting support at every turn and is showing nothing but getting better and more diverse as time marches on, which is excellent news for every user. Every business should want to get the most out of their clientele and vtiger CRM makes this venture much more specific and realistic which is a win-win situation for every business that used vtiger CRM. Keeping a good customer base is what business is all about, it is the lifeline of any business, and using an available resource like vtiger CRM will make it so that base is never worn thin or dissipated.

Building A Search Engine Friendly Website

Search engines (SE) play a vital role in helping users find information over the Internet. With the use of certain keywords, users are able to find web pages filtered by search engines in terms of relevance, making it easier for them to find the information they need. With Google alone, billions of search queries are done every month (US). Add that up with queries from other major search engines such as Yahoo and AOL, this massive amount of usage makes search engines the biggest source of traffic for any website.

Seeing how beneficial they can be for websites, the question now is how to appear on the first few pages of the search results for their targeted keywords? Since people tend to stop browsing search results after a few pages, it is thus important for websites to come up on the first page of search results. Aside from Search Engine Optimization (off-site SEO in particular), having a search engine friendly (SEF) web design helps boost the search rank of a website.

Search engine friendly web design is aimed at building websites on a framework that is easily read by engines therefore giving them a higher chance on gaining good position in search rankings. Website owners and web designers have become well aware of the importance of building search engine friendly websites, but for those who are relatively new to this concept, here are some thing to take note of in order to build an SEF website:

1. Meta tags. Meta tags can be found in the head section of an HTML document. Though meta tags are no longer as influential as they were before in terms of search rankings, they can still boost a websites popularity in search engines. The title tag very much affects on how these engines categorize your website, therefore its important to have a relevant title tag on the pages of your website. The meta keywords and description provide additional information about your web page. Some engines use the meta description as the information below the link to your web page in search results.

2. Search engine friendly URLs. An example of a search engine friendly URL would be econowebexpress.com/full-feature-list. With keywords listed on the URL, it's rather SE friendly compared to URLs with random alphanumeric characters and symbols. Not only does it help you boost your search ranking, it's also easier for your readers to remember.

3. Content. Needless to say, the content of your web page should contain relevant keywords since search engines would rank websites based on the relevance of their content with search keywords.

4. Flash design. Since search engines rely heavily on text content in their indexing, websites made purely or mostly made in flash or may not be considered as search engine friendly web design. Before, content placed in flash are not readable by web spiders, but now there are tweaks on how to optimize flash for search engines.

5. Site map. Having a site map increases your website's SE friendliness. A better way of making a site map is by using keywords or phrases that is targeted by the said page that you are linking to.

6. Alt tags on images. Since images are not being crawled by web spiders, placing an alt tag on images helps boost ranking since it's readable by major search engines.

Having a search engine friendly web design helps boost search engine ranking, therefore a concept that should not be taken for granted by website owners and designers. It is a big help in terms of search engine optimization. But since SEO is a very dynamic concept, what may be effective techniques today may no longer be effective tomorrow. The same holds true web the concept of search engine friendly web design. It is best website owners and designers should be updated with the latest concepts in web design and search engine optimization.

How Can A Website Benefit Your Business

1. Why should you have a website?

In order to succeed in today's world, you must have an Internet presence. More and more people log on to the internet everyday; there are billions of users world-wide and there are several reasons why one needs a web site. A website is a powerful first impression. Placing your business on the World Wide Web, gives your business the potential for global exposure, no matter the size of your business – be it large or small; singular or multi-national. To have your own website gives your business invaluable advantages, which is illustrated in the answer to the next question, viz-a-viz:

2. How can a website be useful?

Website help you leverage web services for streamlining data transfer to and from your organization.

There are myriad reasons for - How a website can be useful and why you should bring your business online? Some of them are, briefly, mentioned below:

a. Enhanced customer convenience

Your business concern can be more easily and quickly reached, every time a potential or an existing client searches for relevant businesses, products and services over the Internet. Your customers can always keep in touch with you and your business, just by knowing your web site address.

b. Greater reachability of your business profile:

Your business profile can be accessible from anywhere in the world. No other ad medium provides such global coverage. You need not depend on phone book entry or restricted yellow pages and newspaper ad presentations, any longer.

c. Greater possibilities for promoting your business portfolio:

People will not buy your products or services unless they know that they actually exist. You can tell your potential audience much more through a WEBSITE, than you could possibly do via any print advertisements, Yellow Pages listings, or TV/radio commercials. There are no limitations as far as space, time, nationality and residency are concerned. You can say as many things as you want, to as many people as you wish. And your business representation can be as resourceful as is the Internet itself.

d. Efficient low-cost advertising:

Your customers will always be able to obtain thorough up-to-date information about your services or products. Instead of having to rely on randomly aired TV or radio commercials, they can simply browse through your website whenever they like.

e. 24/7 availability:

Website is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It will be your hardest working employee, never getting sick, or taking a holiday. And you can rest assured that your website is always there for you – to answer your customers’ questions or to collect their feedback on your behalf.

f. Time-saving:

Prospective clients can learn about you and your business at any time of the day simply by visiting your website, so you won’t have to be present or involved with the process in any way. Your precious time can be saved and invested in other activities that can increase your profits and further enhance the scope of your business.

g. Cost -cutting:

You can save a lot of money cutting your costs on print ads, brochures, coupons, flyers, specials, newsletters or mailings. What’s more! Its always quick easy and extremely efficient to update real time information on your website; whereas regular renewals of printed materials turn out to be very expensive and time consuming. The fact optimized productivity at minimal cost is more valued in any business and it is possible only through world wide web.

Web services provide a standard way to implement a business function that can also be managed remotely. It employs an effective exchange of information and data-feeds between B2B and B2C portals, information warehouses, news providers, shopping portals like e bay and search engines like Google, MSN, yahoo etc.

Your website must work hard in today's competitive online environment — attracting visitors, providing a rich user experience and converting them into loyal customers.

3. What makes a site work successfully?

Its a hotly debated question – “What makes a website work well that will genuinely help your business and attract more customers?”

A well designed website can certainly lead to increased business. By following simple guide-lines, it is possible to create a good-looking website that will really give your business the best chance of being noticed.

For your online presence to really count, your brand needs to exude credibility, confidence and efficiency through your website. A well designed website can certainly leverage your business processes. One can achieve this by blending strong design and content, with seamless functionality, and expert support throughout - with time tested processes.

Web Designing is “a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media delivery via Internet in the form of Markup language suitable for interpretation by Web browser and display as Graphical user interface” (ref- Wikipedia)

Web Design can have a powerful affect. Web Design is important and it must be right! The right design kindles in a website visitor the right perception of your business. It engenders confidence and trust in your business. Success online is vital to the overall strength of your business.

It’s essential that –

In an arena saturated with billions of web pages, it requires innovation and expertise, to represent your brand effectively.

Your site must be easy to navigate and simple to use. If your users and potential customers can’t find what they want, this will undermine your site’s performance, in relation to your business goals.

Your web site should, clearly and concisely, reflect your business, values and products, since your web site is now the first point of contact for a new user or potential customer.

A good and innovative design ensures that the site is memorable and encourages the viewer to explore beyond the home page.

The web functionality and programming should use only standard, compliant, valid coding and also provide an alternative programming, to ensure that your site is viewable in any Browser and at any Screen Resolution.

Most Web design and development companies possess skills in one or the other – rarely both. This is where ImagiNET Ventures web solutions differ, as we understand how to design a website that will most effectively present you, your business or organization, with your products and services.

4. What are the common mistakes of a website?

Lets face it! If visitors get lost or become confused while attempting to surf your website, they might hit the back button, and look for a more user- friendly website. People do not like to think, when it comes to finding their way around websites. Don’t make them tick. You need to plan your website from stage to stage, and make a difference between between a very poor website and a very good website.

Let us now see – what are the pitfalls inherent in designing and setting up a website? You may know some of them already, but by avoiding and correcting them, you can be sure to keep constant flow of visitors entering and re-entering into your portal! The list of most common errors is unending but invaluable for new designers, web developers and content writers – who need a list for their website spot check.

1.Site best viewed:

New designers usually use this “site best viewed” with a disclaimer statement regarding which web browser or screen resolution they designed their site, for best viewing. It does not impress the visitor. Instead, invest in skilfully designed website that renders well in multiple browsers, and in any screen resolution.

2.Shabby lay-out and glaring design:

Some sites are totally unbalanced in their lay-out and overloaded design. The designs do not match the page content and appears misplaced and misfit in the entire scene. Give your pages a pleasing appearance, with just the necessary facts and place your design out-lay with a professional touch. Always take screen shots of designs in different resolutions, before uploading the appropriate one.

3.Horizontal scrolling:

The horizontal scroll makes it extremely difficult to read the content on your site, and often your visitors will lose patience and leave. Check your website in a site resolution viewer. A professional website can be viewed without horizontal scrolling in, both, a smaller and larger screen resolution. User's find scrolling from the top to the bottom of your pages, more clear to view and easy to read.

4.Free Web Hosting:

This is a common web page mistake you definitely need to avoid. Often business owners claim that the business is "just starting”, and that is why they have not yet moved their site to a domain host. Do not use free web hosting if you want your business to be taken seriously. It reflects on your image and credibility.

To resolve this issue, you must choose and purchase a domain name if you, already, do not have one. You also need to choose a professional domain host. There is no getting around this one. If you want to run a successful online business, you absolutely must have a reliable domain host.

5.Appalling Images

Don’t allow your visitor view badly shaped or terribly cropped images and missing graphics files. Optimize your images, using the best height and width. Keep your files in the best formats - j peg for Photographs and gif for artwork.

6.Blaring and ghastly color schemes:

Avoid using ghastly and loud colors that does not match your website concept and mission. Although your text may be easy to read, overly-bright colors distracts and repels the reader away from your site's purpose. Your designs must reflect class and designer quality, with state-of-the-art designs and pleasantly eye-catching color schemes for your web pages.

7.Slow loading:

If your page does not download rapidly, visitors will quickly move on to find another site. Take action now to reduce the "weight" of your pages . Each image on your site must be correctly sized and optimized for web use. Keep your pages lean and fast for the visitor to move on quickly, with interest.

8.Spell check:

Always spell check the text , keeping it free of grammatical error, punctuations and spelling mistakes. Without spell check, the site looks amateurish and shabby.

9.Ineffective Text Content:

A major mistake is to fill the pages with long text, without any headings and sub-headings. Do not cram your web pages with loaded decorative words and hi-funda text. Readers do not have time to fill their heads with all details.

Make your text more effective. Keep your text simple, crisp and to-the-point. Use decorative words in the right context. Your language should spell clarity, consistency and coherence in content, style, structure and font. The pages should be easy to read and simple to understand, with a smooth flow. The fonts should be rightly used, with appropriate side-headings and the text need to be phrased in short paragraphs, giving a pleasing feel to the reader.

Your website must provide a clear message with a goal-oriented direction, setting you apart from your competitors. Your content should easily answer his question - “what's in it for me?” The reader must be able to identify with your write-up and find you as his 'partner' for addressing his solutions.

10. Absence of an Email Subscription Form:

This critical aspect is often neglected by most website owners. It is very important to have a lead generation for your website via Email subscription form, for optimal business returns. Having a mailing list gives you several advantages like maintaining a visitors list who allow you to contact them, build a relationship, and establish yourself as an expert for solving their problems.

11.Using a weak message 'join my newsletter':

Your content , design layout and solutions should be so user-friendly such that it compels the reader to subscribe your mailing list. Do not use a weak message like – “join my free newsletter”. The reader would wonder “Why?” and “If I subscribe, will you give me a bonus, or a free gift instantly, as soon as I join?” If your design and text work impresses the reader for availing your services, you would automatically get email subscriptions for a membership, from your visitors. It speaks on your credibility.

12.No Contact Information - Just giving your email id and the web address is not sufficient for your readers – who may be prospective clients. Keep your detailed contact information easy to find and easy to read. Inclusion of a site-map works wonders for your business.

13.Advertising – Advertisements provide huge revenue but it should be placed skilfully and with reference to the current times. Appropriate advertisements should be placed - reflecting the different verticals of your business. Do not overload your page with ads, especially the big flashy banners. Well placed, well designed ads are okay, if you don’t overload the page.

14. Prices –. Don’t waste your time, hoping you will get email inquiries on your prices. The moment a visitor sees your product or services, his prime question will be “what is the price of this item?” Do not keep the visitor guessing the price; it will give him an opportunity to jump into another website where the price is mentioned and you may end up losing a prospective customer. You need to include a price with the item description, if you sell something.

15.Under Construction - Avoid having a “closed – under construction” or “yet to open” website. Give your visitors atleast a single page of content, with a notice - when the whole site will be open.

16.Music: Include a soft and soothing music or that which is relevant to the content. Do not include music, if it is not needed. Music should not be out-of-control and keep the control buttons easy-to-use. Music can turn one's mind on but at the same time put your mood off, if it is not rightly timed, controlled and soft.

The list of common mistakes are innumerable. The above general tips gives you an idea of what to avoid and how to resolve. By keeping your website design in good shape and ensuring your web content writing is in good taste, you will find more people visiting and enjoying your website!

Keep your Website Lively with Content Management System

Every small or big company can have a website of their own, but creating and maintaining them is a tedious task. Content management system can play vital role in accomplishing this task with much ease. Basically a CMS is a centralized interface that does the job of management of cascading style sheets.

You can use this tool for uploading content, manage graphics library, visitors can also create content, getting affiliate program links and so on.

It also has some technical aspect. In online market free CMS software is also available which you can use for your website. This can be beneficial if you have a fixed budget and don't want to pay a custom developer for writing.

Need for this system becomes necessary when the number of web pages on your website increases. It facilitates its running and management in reference to the content. Experts always advice to use common installation strategy for CMS. It would make the work of meeting clients' requirements much easier which includes upgradation of present website, by making use of blog-style software.

There are many benefits of a content management system for a website user, they can post the content whatever they desire and maintain the site quality. It would give user the freedom to manage the web content and don't need to post it to the service provider for formatting or editing, and saves on time also. It works wonders for website owners and do immense good for their online business. Some of the sites still follow the old format of websites of four pages that are same after many years.

A site that is upgraded after regular time period gets positive response and web traffic from the search engines. It increases the attraction quotient of your website. Well-framed CMS reduces your overall burden for maintaining your website and you even don't have to work more for it!

Hence it is very important to select right type of content management system, you can also hire a good content writer. However hiring a writer, installing a general CMS or a customized CMS depends upon your requirements. For instance if your requirements include version tracking of articles, maintaining a deadline for freelance writers, etc need a customized content management system. If your work is related to IT work, getting a commercial package is best thing to do.

In order to gain complete control over this system and get ahead to competition, consider taking technical advice and help.

Hints For Developing Website Design

Houston Web design is devoted to beautifying the Internet and website itself is an eminent marketing tool so, here are some ideas for developing it.

You must always employ a professional web designer to put up the look and feel of your website. Your website will be the foremost point of contact connecting you and your customer. The toughest part of any business is engendering interest and traffic. So, it is obvious that your website must be professionally designed as it makes a lot of difference when your web design is volunteered your nephew.

You must never use a Splash Page which is a page that has some type of image or animation and is utilized like a door to enter a website. You must instantly give pertinent content to your visitors. You should always emphasize on your Products, Services, & Contact Information and must highlight them immediately. Don’t even think of using roadblocks to avert visitors from getting what they are looking for. Always endeavor to give information in as few mouse clicks as possible.

You should always air your contact information liberally. Even give your phone number and email address to every page of your website design. This helps the visitors to contact you once they find what they are looking for. Remember, a Web site provides you credibility, uniqueness and legitimacy. Don’t forget to add contact info to the prime real estate on your website to make it trouble-free to hit upon.

You have to offer a Hook as your website can be an amazing tool for creating a customer database. An elegant, customer focused website will be a successful one. You need to actualize a form on your homepage that articulates something like, “Enter name and email address for our free newsletter“, or “20% off coupon on our products or services“. Homepage mini forms will collect customer email addresses 24/7 and give you with permission based directs that you can market to in the future.

You need to hub on your core competencies and acquire the best to do the rest. You even need concentrate on your content. Your website design must embrace copious numbers of text based content in order to be indexed by the major search engines. You must make use of your keyword phrases frequently when building your paragraphs. You must also use text based navigation so the search engines recognize what your links say! You may be surprised to get your site moving up the ranks in Google with just a little work. There are a lot of ways to set your web design; the key is to hit upon that difference and use it to set up and converse a benefit for your customer.

Flash Website Design in Dubai – Experts At Their Best

The potential of the Internet to provide unique levels of sensory stimulus not only to deliver hard to find information but also to market a dazzling range of products and services has been successfully leveraged by many companies around the world. Now you too can affordably use the power of Internet visual imagery by using the services of a web solutions provider to demonstrate the power of Flash website design from a dubai based company. Before we share with you some of the reasons why you should seriously consider outsourcing your web design project to a company in Dubai, let us tell you why you should have a Flash-based website in the first place.

The Secrets of Flash Animation

More Flare means More Punch to your Message

When you market your product or service on the Internet using a Flash based website, your sales pitch can be effortlessly supplemented with a live demo, eye-catching images and stunning Flash visuals. This aids customer retention and long-term product reinforcement. When the medium complements the message, the message becomes even more potent.

Interactive Visual Elements for High-impact Persuasion

Senior level web designers with tons of experience can introduce content-specific Flash elements on your website as an implied call to action (CTA). These elements are also known as Flash scripts and can quickly sky rocket your conversion rates when used expertly.

No Longer a Deterrent to Google’s Search Bots

Conduct any type of search on Google today and chances are that you will spot many Flash websites on the search engine result pages (SERPs). The only barrier to Google indexing created by Google has been demolished by Google itself and the lost frontiers are now open again.

Outsource your Next Flash website design Project to dubai

Here are five great reasons why you should consider outsourcing your Flash website designing to Dubai:

1. Flash website design in Dubai is highly affordable because of the relatively low cost of living and a tax free business environment.

2. There is never a compromise to quality because Dubai continues to attract the world’s finest web professionals due to its no-crime reputation and exceptional quality of family life.

3. Keen competition between web designing firms in Dubai means that you win each time all the time.

If it is time you decide to graduate to the next level of website marketing, contract for a Flash website design with a Dubai based interactive marketing and web solutions company firm. The results will truly amaze you and your pocket book will experience a memorable soft landing!.

Asp. Net And Php Language : Which One Has The Edge?

How to know about the question "Asp. Net And Php Language : Which one has the edge" The most authentic and widely used languages for making website are ASP.net and PHP. The million dollar question is that which one is more viable. For the purpose of freely information exchange and interaction with databases these two languages are useful. Microsoft has developed ASP.Net (Active Server Pages) and it is generally used with IIS (Internet Information Server) which works on Microsoft services. Basically PHP (Hypertext Pre Processor) was the brain child of Rasmus Lerdorf but later on it was modified by many others also. It works on Linux and Apache Server. Here are the difference of ASP and PHP:

Cost - ASP is always used along with IIS. The internet information server is quite expensive to purchase. In contrast, PHP uses LINUX for which you do not have to pay. In order to make use of ASP.Net in default the MS-SQL is not free, but it is scalable to using access, MY-SQL and oracle also. Where in default My-SQL which is used by PHP can be downloaded from internet free of cost.

Speed - People always told by developer the speed of PHP is very much higher than ASP.Net. Actually after Asp.net compiled and loaded into memory as intermediate binary code, compare to Php always interpreted at run-time, asp.net performance can be far more faster and scalable.

Compatibility - PHP can be run various platforms whereas the ASP.Net needs only its window platform. The ASP can be run on Linux platform but for this ASP-Apache must be installed. So there is more flexibility in PHP to run it as compare to the ASP. ASP has limited choice in this context.

Other related cost - As PHP is an open source project; its tools as well as codes can be found easily in most online forums with no cost at all. There are some other inbuilt features too of PHP like email from a web page and many encryption options. The case is totally different as for as ASP is concerned as these bonus you can not avail for granted and you have to purchase separately all the components which you require from the Microsoft site

Base Language used - One of the best programming language from which PHP has been made is C++. Most of the computer programmers rely on this programming language and they consider it to be the best ever programming language. On the contrary ASP.Net have been release and support it Visual Basic, CSharp, JSharp, C++ together in one website. It is more powerful that Php in reality. However, you can use any of these languages that best meet your requirements.

Conclusion - There is a general comparison that ASP.Net is better for all rounded developer. However, this may not be necessary. Depending on your require with various programs, both ASP.Net and Php can be the edge. Keeping in mind only the cost effectiveness of the development, then PHP is better than ASP.Net.

SIGNS FOR HIRING A WEB DESIGNER

There are many signs that may tell you that you need to hire a web designer. These signs include losing users as quickly as they arrive to your site, users exiting continuously on the same page, your site not appearing on the search engines, and much more.

A web designer is the best person you can hire for your online business if you find that there is something wrong with your site. Many businesses fail online and they don't give their site a chance by having a designer look at it first. There are ways to tell why a site is not doing well online. A designer can do the research required to determine why the company is not doing well and what needs to be done to fix it.

If you notice that users never stay on your site for longer than 5 seconds when they arrive on the home page then you may need to change a few simple things. A web designer can confirm what problems are causing users to leave. These problems may be simple like the wrong colors that are too bright for the users eyes, a page that takes too long too load, and other things.

If you have a lot of visitors to your site but you find they all exit from the site on the exact same page then maybe there is something wrong with that page. A website designer can help fix problematic pages and make them perfect so they retain the users rather than run them away. If you have users come to your site and they leave upon arriving then you should hire a designer.

One of the biggest problems that cause companies online to fail is that they do not display on the search engine results. A successful company always has a decent rank. A decent rank is at least on the first or second page with the results of the search engines with keywords about the products and services offered by your company.

There are many signs you might be experiencing that should signal a red flag that you need to hire a web site designer to help you with your online business. You may notice users leave your site as soon as they arrive or on a specific page. You may not even be able to find your company on the search engines. If your online business experiences these things then you need to hire a web site designer to turn the company around.

Common Website Mistakes

Websites engage in search engine optimization in order to gain more visitors via search engines. But website owners need not only consider attaining new visitors but should also focus on making the old ones want to come visit back. In no particular order, here are the list of what may be considered as “common website mistakes” that can be a turn off for many visitors and errors that hinders a website from being easily indexed by major search engines. This list mainly deals with the web design aspect of a website.

1. Bad website design. First impression lasts, this means that even though your website may possess good content, visitors may be forced to look for another website the moment they see how bad or disorganized your content is displayed. A good example of a bad design would be poor text and background color combination which may cause eye strain for most visitors.

2. Page Not Found. Also called error 404, this type of error comes up when a link connects to a web page that was either moved to another location or completely removed or simply connected to a incorrectly typed URL. This can become annoying to some visitors. What website owners could do is instead of displaying a dull Error 404 message, they could redirect it to a sitemap or search page where visitors could look for the information they need. SEO wise, error 404s can be redirected to a page that needs boosting.

3. Server not found. An error that could cost money for a commercial website, this can be brought about by unreliable web hosting. Website owners should consider the uptime capacity when choosing web hosting services.

4. No meta tags. Although search engines have lessen their reliance on meta tags in terms of indexing websites, a good web design should be complete with meta tags since they help search engines to easily categorize a website. This helps boost a website's rank on targeted keywords.

5. Non SE friendly URLs. Having targeted keywords on the URL not only helps in search engine ranking, as opposed to dynamic ones (URLs with random alphanumerics and symbols), a search engine friendly URL is also easier for visitors to remember.

6. No search box. Most of the time, visitors would use the search box of a website when they couldn't easily find what they're looking for. Having one that is not functioning, or having none at all, might cause a number of visitors to look for another website.

7. Poor navigation/usability. Just as having no search features, poor navigation or user interface may bring confusion or difficulty (and annoyance) to visitors.

8. Flash/no alt text on images. Flash not only has issues with search engines in terms of indexing, it may also cause difficulties to visitors since not everyone has hi-speed Internet connection. Flash may take time to load and may cost a number of visitors as a result.

9. Domain Name. Having a good domain name is one of the characteristics of a successful website. Basically, the easier they are to remember or the closer they are to targeted keywords the better. The only problem is that most of the strategic domain names are probably taken or being sold at very high prices. Website owners could innovate by using prefixes such as “my” or “the” on their domain names. Long and confusing domain names should be avoided as much as possible.

10. Pop up ads. Probably one of the biggest turn offs for a website, pop up ads are just basically annoying to most people. Websites may want to avoid or at least minimize in engaging with pop up advertising.

These common website mistakes can be prevented with careful web design and a little knowledge in search engine optimization. Not necessarily saying that having prevented all of what is listed above will surefire a website's way to success, it is still good experience to be well aware of what is considered to be common mistakes that websites commit.

URL Structure - It is Important For Search Engines and SEO

The URL structure can play a very important part of any SEO campaign and is something that you should always take great care and consideration when planning a new website, again, especially more so if the site is going to be driven by a database with thousands of possible data outputs.

What Is The URL Structure?

It is very easy to go into unnecessary complex details when explaining what the URL structure of a website is, and indeed there are a few elements, but the basic answer is the URL structure is how your URL looks to search engines and of course your clients.

Take for example two different websites, WebsiteA and WebsiteB. Both sites deliver thousands of products for sale to the general public, everything from washing machines to fridge freezers. They are both database driven sites, they are both offering the same kind of products and are both hosted in the UK, so in theory, should be similar in ranking.

We are going to look at the example of a Zanussi Washing Machine, for not other reason than I have just purchased one and it looks nice! SiteA doesn't really understand the importance of URL structure and therefore all of its links are similar to:

WebsiteA/1ddsdfggt00455429493ttreee466319?cm34_re34ee4

SiteB is really switched on and therefore understands the importance of the URL structure to the search engines, so its URL is similar to:

WebsiteB/washing_machines/Zanussi/ZANUSSI_ZWF140701_White_Washing_Machine

Straight away you can begin to see the difference of how the search engines will take to the links. WebsiteA tells the search engine nothing about the product, whereas WebsiteB not only tells the search engine the product detail, but also that it is a washing machine and in fact a Zanussi Washing Machine in white colours.

So when the customer searches for a Zanussi Washing Machine, WebsiteB has a far greater chance of ranking well, where as it will take WebsiteA a lot more time and hard work to rank for this product.

When designing your website, make sure you place as much importance on your URLs as anything you are considering in your planning stages. Getting this right from the start will make sure your site is indexed correctly as you really do not want to go changing your structure half way through the indexing process, or even worse, a year down the line.

Use of H1 tags in SEO

H1 tags are one of the most important part of SEO which is the header tag situated in body of a website. It can be termed as the most simple form of header found on a web page. Through h1 tags search engines come to know about the site content details. If its used in proper co-ordination with anchor text and title tag then you can even expect increased density of website traffic from major search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google.

Although the feature of h1 tags is not new and is present since years, but from last few years its significance has grown due to increased demand by Google. It carries much more importance than keyword meta tag and description meta tag. The best position to place these H1 tags is at the header situated above the content. Experts recommend to exclude the HREF links from the tag. When you keep a link in h1 tag, it gives the impression to the search engines that the linked web page is more important rather than the present page.

Those desiring to keep a descriptive link to their own page can use the link along with proper anchor text including content of that particular web page. The tags produced by h1 are of largest form, and are very important requiring to be used independently having same HTML commands.

They also consists of same attributes having higher level of suitability like the Class, Align and ID attributes. Always keep the header tag at the top of the web page. You should know this that- when Google scans a web page, it goes from top left to the bottom right of the page. Search engines generally view websites from text perspective instead of graphical point of view.

Place the h1 header tag on the top left hand side or middle part of your web page, as here the main content is found. You can even use the h1 header tag as the title for the content present on that particular page.

You can also construct sub-keywords having same heading tags. In order to separate the text in the tags they are made BOLD, thus they get separated from other text on the page.

Usually search engines are in the search of important and authentic text on the web pages. And when h1 tags are used, they are considered signifying anything important thus giving more visibility to the heading tags.

Benefits of Graphic Designing Combination with Website Design

Graphic design holds great position of importance along with website designing although both processes are different with each other. Graphics is more associated with the creative part whereas website design with the coding side. There combination leads to a site that is good looking and appealing. Those who fail to recognize the importance of application of graphic design in websites, fail to generate the sites that are attractive. Adding visual appeal to a site goes a long way in deciding their success level.

From visual aspect, graphics are of paramount importance on a site. A picture can convey many messages or information that sometimes words fail to tell. It is easy for people viewing a site to connect better to graphical designs. Sometimes these designs establishes strong emotional bonding with the customers. It is obvious that visitors like to see images that are good looking and attractive and comeback to such sites for regular viewing. Adding and updating the pictures on regular basis is an extra benefit for the website owners. This goal can be very well achieved with the help of graphic designing.

Graphics provide a sense of professionalism to a website. Therefore it is important for site designers to have its knowledge. Many times a site might be coded very well with advanced javascript functions and fail to get visual appeal. So if you want to give that polished and professional look to your site, don't ignore the element of graphic designing.

Apart from looking good a website should be high on usability quotient also. Visitors should be able to use it in the manner it was meant to be. Keep it easy on navigation and also the visitors should be able to locate the desirable content in it. Try to avoid going overboard with graphics and keep it moderate and within a specific range so that there is maximum website usability.

In other words you can make your web design user-friendly with graphic design elements, and give a professional overall look. Online competition to grab the target customer base is highly competitive, therefore to present your company in different yet attractive way is essential.

You can view graphic design portfolio of the designing company, which would give the gist of their work quality and standard. It also gives an idea whether their designing team would be able to do justice to your designing project or not.

Growing Importance of Website Seal

Establishing trust with the customers is highly essential for earning profits and higher sales. The trust factor is same for a physical shop as well as a website. If you have offered quality product first time, the same thing is expected when they come second time for purchase and if you fail to offer that similar quality, they look out for another website.

People's trust once broken is difficult to restore, the reasons might be many and different in nature. Sometimes companies make fake promises at the time of sale and fail to fulfill it or are unable to deliver quality goods or services. Nearly all customers might have been duped of their expectations by merchants once in their lives, or have listened to their friends or relatives about the bad experience

A website that looks trustworthy scores well with the customers. Generally people have the tendency to generalize the things, so overall website appearance and look is very important.

The world of internet is very huge and diversified. Apart from genuine players, you would also find phishing websites that are on constant hunt for user names and passwords of people. Therefore many target customers are highly reluctant in providing their details to websites that don't seem to be trustworthy.

A site that succeeds in developing confidence factor in their clients are successful in selling their products/services to them. Market is basically dominated by feelings and emotions of the customers. A product that fulfills clients' needs are demanded repeatedly by them, thus creating brand loyalty.

Creating such strong base of trust via websites is also possible via- 'website seal'. This seal is very important as it protects your data as well as customers' details. When you give value and preference to your customers, you would get the same from them. Buying products from websites that offer safety to them is also preferred by people.

If you think that a site seal occupies too much space which is not true, they take very small space on your website. Customers feel secure when you communicate to them that you want to protect their privacy and confidential information. Website seal gives the impression that care to safeguard your customers' data and their hard earned money too.

The basic idea is to make your target customers feel that you value them, and in turn they would take your offering and your products more seriously. Some confidential information includes credit card numbers and passwords. So what are you waiting for go have a trust seal for your site!

Top CMS Applications For SEO

CMS or Content-Management System is an application which can be very beneficial for SEO. A CMS, or in this case WCMS (Web CMS), is a software usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.

Different SEO specialists and consultants have come to use CMS applications to easily and conveniently make several changes within a website that would help in their SEO campaigns such as the use of Meta tags, Alt Tags, Title tags, and more. This also saves from asking an already busy web developer for making changes in a web page. But the question now is, which CMS is the best. There are, however, too many CMS softwares to go around, thus usually brings the question on which of these CMS' are the best when it comes to SEO.

After doing some research on which is the best when it comes to CMS for SEO, there are several names that came up from the list of prospectives. These names include:

Joomla!

Joomla! is considered by many as one of the most use-friendly CMS used not only for SEO, but also for other web-based applications. So what is Joomla!? Joomla! is a free open source content management system for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets as well as a Model–view–controller (MVC) Web Application Development framework. According to several SEO Philippines consultants, the system includes features such as page caching to improve performance, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, website searching, and language internationalization.

Popular features:

The Joomla! package consists of many different parts, which allow modular extensions and integrations to be made easily. These includes "Plugins", "Components", and "Modules".

* Plugins are background extensions that extend Joomla! with new functionality. The WikiBot, for example, allows the author of Joomla! content to use "Wikitags" in Joomla! articles which will auto-create dynamic hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles when displayed. There are over 4,000 extensions for Joomla! available via the Extensions Directory.

* Components allow webmasters to perform such tasks as build a community by expanding user features, backup a website, translate content and create URLs that are more friendly to search engines.

* Modules perform such tasks as displaying a calendar or allowing custom code like Google AdSense etc., to be inserted within the base Joomla! code.

Drupal

Drupal, like Joomla!, is used as a back-end system for many different types of websites, ranging from small personal blogs to large corporate and political sites. SEO consultants have made several use of Drupal when it comes managing a website to set it up for On-Page SEO.

The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features common to most CMSs. According to SEO Philippines consultants, these include the ability to register and maintain individual user accounts, administration menus, RSS-feeds, customizable layout, flexible account privileges, logging, a blogging system, an Internet forum, and options to create a classic brochureware website or an interactive community website. SEO specialists and consultants made use of Drupal when it was designed to allow new features and custom behavior to be added by third parties, which in this case several features used for SEO. For this reason, Drupal is sometimes described as a content management framework.

The good thing about Drupal is that although it offers a sophisticated programming interface for developers, no programming skills are required for basic website installation and administration.

SilverStripe

Another great CMS for SEO is SilverStripe. SilverStripe is a free and open source content management system (CMS) for creating and maintaining websites. The CMS provides a web-based administration panel that enables users to make modifications to parts of the website. This panel includes a WYSIWYG website editor. Notable features of the SilverStripe CMS include:

* A modern, extensible web-application interface

* Drag and drop customization of tree-based navigation structure

* Customizable output markup with CSS-based, table-free defaults

* Work-flow management:Draft/Published separation through content staging, and document revision control/rollback with 'compare' functionality

* Highly configurable security/permissions model

* Data object model, automatic database schema generation, and a suite of CMS data controls to enable easy customization of inputs. asset management and image resizing

* Multiple templates per page

* Search engine friendly URLs, meta-data management, and automatic XML sitemap generation

* Full text search and RSS feeds

* Optimizations for heavy loads (e.g. manual cache refresh)

* Internationalization/Languages: SilverStripe supports multiple-language content. UTF-8 and the internationalization of character sets are supported.

WordPress

Although not as popularly used for SEO compared to those mention above, many still use WordPress for SEO purposes. WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations.

According to several SEO Philippines consultants that use the application, WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; multiple author capability; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters that provide for proper formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes) are also included.

WordPress supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.

The Importance of Web Design, SEO and SEM

Whether your company is large or small, you must have a web presence that works for your business. Commanding a powerful presence on the World Wide Web has become a table stake. A company's web design details and web presence has replaced a wide array of communication vehicles.

Nowadays customers, suppliers, and even potential investors form a first impression from a company's web presence. And it's not just the homepage - a good cover followed by unfriendly navigation, hard to decipher visuals, or simply too many graphic images will ruin a visit to a website.

Next, you have to be sure that the front end, "the market engine," is tied tightly to all of your company's back-office functions. Everything must work smoothly so that billing, customer care and relationship management, inventory, shipping, and even sales can use your web presence as an integrated business tool.

So in a nut shell, here is basically the steps to great web design when you tie it into SEO and SEM. Getting yourself a favorable listing in search engines is a matter of following these two steps when designing your website pages.

Step 1: Use your TITLE Tag Properly!

Most search engines place a lot of weight on the content of your TITLE tag. Your page's title is very important and you should design it properly. Do not set the title of your page to something totally unrelated to your site. For example: "Welcome!" or "Thank You For Visiting!" simply will not do.

When surfing the net I often see plenty of pages where the title is "Untitled Document" or "Title Your Page Here" - the page owner hadn't even specified a title at all. It's unfortunate because those pages are missing out on potential search engine ranking.

Your TITLE tag should clearly represent what your site is about. If you're building a page that talks about your company's products, the title should thoroughly reflect that topic. "Our Products" or "Product Listings" is a bad choice for a page title - people are probably going to be searching for your company by name or by the type of product you sell. Thus, using our website as an example: "Vancouver Web Design, SEO Vancouver, BC Web Design". What ever business you are in, make sure your title tag reflects exactly who you are and what you do.

Also consider using keywords in your TITLE tag. For example, let's say you're selling real estate. You might want to make the title of your main page "Seattle Real Estate, Real Estate Agency in Seattle, Listing Homes, Property and Commercial listing for the Seattle Area!"

As you can see, this title gets right to the point about the topic of the page. It also uses your keyword: "Seattle Real Estate," and more specifically "Real Estate Listings in Seattle" (twice). Someone searching for "Real Estate" is more likely to find YOUR page than a page titled "Homes For Sale."

Step 2: Keywords aren't just for META tags

Over the years, META tags have been hawked as "the" way to get good listings in the search engines. Early on, this was true - when META tags were first created in the HTML specifications, search engines put a lot of weight on them. Several years ago you could literally boost yourself to the top of the search results by including repetitive keywords in your META tags.

However, META tags have now become the most abused part of web pages. People routinely add META keywords to their page which have no relevance to their site's topic. For example, many webmasters use META keywords like "pics" or "mp3" even if their site has nothing to do with those categories. They're hoping that people who search for hot topics will stumble across their page and stop by.

Those tactics do not work anymore. META tags now carry a surprisingly low weight in all of the popular search engines. What is important now is the overall content of your page. Search engines have algorithms (methods) for determining what your web pages are really about. These algorithms are closely-guarded secrets, for obvious reasons.

However, they all focus on one thing these days: the REAL content in your web page. If you create a web page about "The CompanyABC Business Opportunity" but include META keywords like "free pics" and "download music," your site's not going to be indexed under the topics you defined in your keywords. In fact, it might be rejected altogether!

Not only should you make sure that your META keywords tag appropriately reflects the content of your page, you should ensure that the text content of your page contains a good distribution of your keywords. Mention your company name often (and evenly) throughout your site.

For Example: "Our Company is the best company around. Imagine working at home and being your own boss - Our Company makes it possible! Your potential for earnings with Our Company is unlimited. Our Company allows you to sell as much as you want or as little as you want. The amount of money you make with Our Company depends on how much effort you put into your Our Company business."

Using your company name strategically and through out your web page is going to get you much higher rankings when someone performs a search for Our Company. As you can see, the keyword (Our Company) is evenly distributed. Don't try bunching up your keywords at the end of the page, that doesn't work and may prevent you from being listed at all. You should concentrate on using keywords as part of your site's content, and spreading them evenly throughout your text.

As you can see, these two steps are pretty simple. It's all a matter of incorporating them into the design of your web pages - or redesigning your pages to fit, if your site is already live and submitted. There is never any guarantees that your website will end up #1 in the search results, but I do guarantee that if you follow these two steps you'll achieve better overall rankings.

Above all else, avoid common spammer tactics like grouping keywords at the bottom of your page, or trying to "hide" keywords by making the text the same color as your page's background. Search engines look for these methods and will often disqualify your page if they encounter what they think is spam.

Essential Repair with a Website Developer

There are many companies all over the web that claim they can repair and fix problems on a web site. The problem is that they only know marketing techniques and a few basic things about how sites should look. A website developer is the best option because this person knows the backend of the Internet, the best site building techniques, and ways to help you with bringing in the best customers.

Most online companies that make promises to build up an online company may not really know what goes on. You may talk to someone to seal the deal but they really aren't going to do the work. They are going to contract the work out to a website developer. The best thing you can do is hire a developer for your site on your own. This will save you money and you will get someone who will be honest and that really knows what they are talking about.

A website developer is the best person to help with an online business because they know the Internet inside and out. Developers understand the code; they know the functionalities of the Internet, the different tools, and other things. You cannot get that from a marketer who wants to write content for you because they do not really know the technical aspects behind the scenes with the web. The best sites are built with a developer that knows the backend, the stipulations of the search engines, and how to target the global marketplace properly.

There are many site building techniques that companies offer to businesses today. They offer proper page depth, good content, no broken links and other things. However, they don't understand the global ramifications of understanding the different ethnic groups and ethics. Some symbols are offensive to other countries. If you are trying to target a global marketplace you don't want to be offensive to some countries and not be aware of it. Hiring a marketing company will limit you.

Another reason you need to hire a web site developer to repair your online business and redesign it is because they know the best ways to bring in the relevant customers. Marketing companies drive in traffic but the traffic may not be looking for the products and services that you offer. You need to drive traffic that is interested and already knows what you offer. This is relevant traffic.

A web site developer is the best option when you need to redesign your site. This is because a developer knows the basics of the web but so much more. You can learn a lot from a developer and they will help you be successful online.

Benefits of Graphic Designing Combination with Website Design

Graphic design holds great position of importance along with website designing although both processes are different with each other. Graphics is more associated with the creative part whereas website design with the coding side. There combination leads to a site that is good looking and appealing. Those who fail to recognize the importance of application of graphic design in websites, fail to generate the sites that are attractive. Adding visual appeal to a site goes a long way in deciding their success level.

From visual aspect, graphics are of paramount importance on a site. A picture can convey many messages or information that sometimes words fail to tell. It is easy for people viewing a site to connect better to graphical designs. Sometimes these designs establishes strong emotional bonding with the customers. It is obvious that visitors like to see images that are good looking and attractive and comeback to such sites for regular viewing. Adding and updating the pictures on regular basis is an extra benefit for the website owners. This goal can be very well achieved with the help of graphic designing.

Graphics provide a sense of professionalism to a website. Therefore it is important for site designers to have its knowledge. Many times a site might be coded very well with advanced javascript functions and fail to get visual appeal. So if you want to give that polished and professional look to your site, don't ignore the element of graphic designing.

Apart from looking good a website should be high on usability quotient also. Visitors should be able to use it in the manner it was meant to be. Keep it easy on navigation and also the visitors should be able to locate the desirable content in it. Try to avoid going overboard with graphics and keep it moderate and within a specific range so that there is maximum website usability.

In other words you can make your web design user-friendly with graphic design elements, and give a professional overall look. Online competition to grab the target customer base is highly competitive, therefore to present your company in different yet attractive way is essential.

You can view graphic design portfolio of the designing company, which would give the gist of their work quality and standard. It also gives an idea whether their designing team would be able to do justice to your designing project or not.

Dynamic Websites versus Static Websites

Websites can be created in mainly two formats- dynamic and static. The basic difference between them is about the programming languages being used. In dynamic websites they are created using programming languages like JSP, ASP, PHP, ASP.net and so on. Whereas static websites are usually created by use of HTML and styling is done either with CSS or graphics.

Both the formats have their own set of benefits and drawbacks. Choose the one that meets up your online business requirements. When you use static website, you can sit back and relax without worrying about the database management or code management of the web pages. It would also not show any server errors that occurs due to any runtime error in your website code.

New content can be added to your site, just refer to template page and insert in the content. In short span of time you can make it online. This concept can work well for sometime when your site contains loads of content and have any reliable source for providing quality content, thus you would need to make changes in the HTML pages often. Most of the times it becomes quite difficult to make every minute changes in static pages like menu or style that is common in each page. You would have to open the respective page, make changes in it and then upload it again to the server.

Although creating a dynamic website is little difficult when compared with static website, but in long run you are definitely going to get good results out of it. The credit goes to the use of programming languages like PHP or ASP. The role of programming languages is very important for creation of dynamic web pages helping in website content management dynamically.

Here you can access the site via the browser and make relevant changes in the content and also alter the look and feel of your website. A good CMS system can be installed to your website for better content management which you can find very easily online. In dynamic website you may have to meet up some conditions like display of site content based on users demographics, taking of users' information, storing them, etc.

Such websites also require a strong database for storing the information. Generally a content management system make use of database for storage of content and information like styles and preferences kept by you.

Choosing a Good Hosting Company For Your Website

Determining the best web hosting company for you is critical to your web site's success. Whether it is for business, e-commerce, a fan site or just a hobby, the host you choose plays a large factor on how well you’ll fare in the online world. In such a flooded market with so many different hosting companies and packages out there, how do you know who to trust with your site? You want a reliable company that will make sure your site is always available, you want a support department that actually exists and can help you quickly, but of course it needs to be affordable and fit into your budget, especially if your web site isn’t intended to generate any income.

Knowing your requirements is the first step in finding the best host for you. Try to determine how much disk space your site is going to require, how your site will deliver its content such as static pages like HTML or dynamic automated content via scripts like wordpress or Joomla, and of course how many visitors you are expecting to visit monthly to gauge how much bandwidth you will need. If you already have a website, you should know most of this information, if you are just creating your website and have no idea, don’t sweat it. If you are just starting out chances are you will need less then 500MB of disk space, and 5,000-10,000MB (5-10GB) of bandwidth should be sufficient for a starter. It you plan on running a personal blog or a message board, make sure the package you choose has access to a database, it’s best to pick a host that allows you at least three databases. Most hosting companies have a small basic package that should work well for the time being. If you plan to mass market your website or run a business or ecommerce site you may have a higher bandwidth requirement. Always check with potential web host’s to make sure you have growth potential. So if your website out grows your hosting package you can always move up to something with more room.

Next you are going to need to determine your budget. How much can you financially afford or are willing to spend on web hosting? Figure this out before you shop for a host, don’t let a host decide your budget for you. Remember, you want a reliable web host that gives your site good uptime but offers you support should you experience a problem. Running reliable and stable servers can be expensive and so can staffing a support department 24/7. So make sure you have a practical budget that takes this into account. Do not waste your hard earned money on hosts that offer you the world for a buck or two, it will only lead to heart ache. For a basic plan with 500MB – 2,000MB storage space and 5,000MB – 10,000MB bandwidth you should expect to pay around at minimum $6USD for a good host. However, hosts that sell their plans at this price are not necessarily a good host.

Do not be fooled by marketing gimmicks, flashy web sites or statements made on a web site! The biggest problem in the hosting industry today is the UNLIMITED sales pitch. No host worth their salt is going to offer you up unlimited everything. It’s not possible. Web servers are simply “heavy-duty” computers that use RAM and Hard drives just like your home PC or laptop. When is the last time you bought a computer with an “UNLIMITED” hard drive? As for bandwidth, sure, it could be unlimited, but only if you have unlimited money. Hosts that offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth generally “oversell” their servers. This means they can pile hundreds of customers on one server. They sell the same storage space and bandwidth they sold you, to other customers as well. What they offer you is not dedicated only to you, but to everyone. If you try to start using that unlimited space and store 25GB of files or use that unlimited Bandwidth using over 200GB a month, you will soon find your site shut for “abuse”. You see, a huge secret in the hosting rules is the TOS known as the terms of service. Some hosts will state unlimited on their sites and in the TOS they declare unlimited as 500MB or something similar. They may also limit you to what you can store on your site, saying you are only allowed to have html files. No images, videos, or anything. Sure you can upload these files and use them, but if you use that disk space and bandwidth they will shut you down and claim abuse because you uploaded files that were not allowed. Unlimited hosts have a lot of dirty tricks like this up their sleeves always stipulated in their TOS.

Look for a host that is upfront about your limits. For a personal website, small business or hobby site 1000MB (1GB) is plenty of disk space and you should be more then fine with 10,000MB (10GB) of bandwidth. As your site becomes more popular you will use more bandwidth and when the time comes you can upgrade your package to include more bandwidth. All hosts include a control panel where you can track your disk and bandwidth usage so you know what you are actually using.

Okay so we got your requirements, your budget and what hosts to look out for. Now it’s time to actually find your potential hosting company. You may have a web companies in mind, which is great. If not ask around with friends and family to see if they can recommend anyone or someone to avoid. Do a Google or yahoo search if you are up to it, you will find hundreds of thousands of potential web hosts. Generally in the top results on Google are “Hosting review sites” they can provide you with helpful information in narrowing down hosts, but always take the reviews with a grain of salt. These sites are often paid to post certain kinds of reviews by the hosts themselves or they are linked to affiliate systems where they get paid if you sign up with a particular host. However you find your possible hosts is up to you.

Once you have a list of web hosts you are interested in, it’s time to research them and evaluate them. First make sure they offer a package that meets your budget. Then contact the hosting company, email the sales department or submit a sales ticket in their customer support panels this should be easy to find. Let them know you are a potential client, and you are interested in their services. Ask them any questions that may be on your mind, or to clarify what exactly their hosting packages include, ask about their uptime, response time to support tickets and so on. If all else fails simply ask them that if you out-grew your plan, if you could easily upgrade to a bigger one. Generally the answer should be yes, but what you are actually testing here is their response time. You want to see how long it takes for a host to respond to your inquiry. This is a good test to tell how fast their support could be. Also try to submit a support ticket, you should be able to email support@hostingcompaniesname.com or enter a support ticket via their website. Sometimes they will reply to sales tickets faster to get a new customer then reply to current customers needing support. So always check this out. When you submit a support ticket be honest and just say you are a potential client and wanted to test out the support response time. Try this at different times of the day and night to see if they truly offer ‘round the clock support, this may be important should your site crash at 1AM.

Next do a Google search on them, enter the companies name and then add review to the end (example: hostingcompaniesname.com review) this should pull up at least a few reviews that should help you know what you are getting into with this company. Remember always take reviews with a grain of salt. Even very reputable companies will have a bad or negative review. Try to find as many reviews as you can.

Check out their guarantees, many hosting companies offer a 15, 30 or even 45 day satisfaction guarantee. This means you can try them out for that amount of time. If you don’t like them, you can get a full refund and find a new host! Always make sure to find and read the fine print on these offers to make sure there are no catches that could bilk you out of a refund should you not like their service. Also make a note to find out whether or not a host has an uptime guarantee, this will give you a rough guide on how much downtime you could expect from a hosting company, this means how often your site *may* be inaccessible. Industry standard is generally 99.9% this means your website *could* be down for as long as 45 minutes in a month. Be wary of hosts that say their uptime is 100% as it’s a fact of technology that something will at some point fail and need to be repaired or replaced. Avoid any host that offers a 95% uptime guarantee because 95% means your site could be down for as much as 30hours a month! This is not acceptable it today’s standards.

Look for additional or bonus features. Some hosting companies offer extra’s like a free website builder tool, one click script installation for many useful programs like bulletin boards, word press, and many other things. Keep an eye out for extra’s like $25 or $50 worth of free advertising credits on sites like Google’s adwords or facebook advertising.

See whether or not the company backups your website. Should their server fail or hard drive crash, your site is gone! If they have backups at least you know in an event of a disaster they will have a backup of your site for you. On this note, always make sure you backup your own website. I cannot stress enough on how important it is to backup your own website. Never rely on anyone else to do it for you. Some companies may claim they do this for you then when a disaster hits, they don’t have your backup and your site is gone. Or should you happen to wake up one to find your website and your host has disappear or gone out of business, you will have minimal downtime because you have your site backed up. This is a MUST for EVERY web site owner. Having the hosting company do it for you is only an added benefit and the third backup just in case.

If you follow these steps, use a little common sense and understand that no one can offer you unlimited anything, especially for a few bucks a month, you are well on your way to finding a good, solid host that will serve you well for years to come.

Strategic Advantages of Web Based Applications

The World Wide Web (WWW) has changed how today's businesses communicate. WWW is not only used to get and disseminate information but now is also employed as a tool for performance. Today's websites are not just static pages but interactive tools that enhance your business capabilities in real time. These responsive sites are powered by the web-applications that are capable of responding and interacting with the user and allow skimming the information that is relevant and is up to date. To be more precise, a web- application is the one that uses a website as a front end and you can access this website viz application from any computer connected to the Internet. The application is delivered to users from a web server.

The most common web application you must be using almost everyday is an e-mail like hotmail, yahoo etc. Other web-application that are used frequently to interact with clients, partners and other businesses are:

Customer Relationship Management

End-to-end web based recruitment

Online customer support software

Online data collection, analysis and reporting

Online quote software

Online product database development

Online ordering systems

Personalization of web page content

SMS messaging integration

Secure client areas

Secure areas to allow collaboration with business partners

Web Content Management Systems

Strategic Advantages of a Web Based Application

Web-based applications are all about convenience and getting the combined power of desktop and server applications with the accessibility of 24 hrs, anywhere and anytime. Let's see how they become the most strategic business tools:

No Installation and Maintenance of the Software: These web applications run on a web server, which you can access through the Internet. You don't have the hassles of installing and configuring a program. So, one does not need to worry about the maintenance and troubleshooting or on heavy backups on the disk space.

Cost Effective: Since you are running the program from someone else's computer and no license and space management on your disk is required, so save heavily.

Latest Updates Available: Since someone else is hosting the program and maintaining it remotely for you, whenever there are latest updates you just need to click on your web browser as usual and avail the latest features of a web application.

Readily Available Data: To access your data you just need to be connected to the Internet through your PC, which is no more a novelty. So, wherever you are, you can get connected your data anytime. So the accessibility to your data is 24x7.

Multiple Platforms: Almost all the web application are suitable for every web browser like Internet Explorer, Netscape etc or whichever operating system you have on your PC. The web application will always look and function uniformly

Six Rules To Gain The Most Of Offshore Software Development

While some enjoy large cost cuts through outsourcing software development offshore, for others it’s a nightmare. Offshore software development is no doubt a trump card to race your competitors but one should know to play it right in order to reap the best. Always remember that you are not out to “get the cheapest” but to “get what you want at the best price.” Here are few handy rules you must follow to keep your offshore software development project in place:

RULE 1: Work out what you exactly want:

It is very important to detail your requirements while outsourcing your project offshore. Just remember that you cannot communicate a vague idea and then shape it through the process. It does not matter if you are a technical person or not you can at least work out the functionality and features that you want your project to have. You can even try look for similar websites or software to present as an example. Provide as much detailing as you can starting from color, design, look to the minutest trait you want it to have. Knowing what you want helps in clear communication of idea and it also provides you grounds while negotiating cost and timelines. Furthermore it also helps the development party to provide you with quicker and more exact quotes when the scope of your work is clearly defined.

RULE 2: First hand documentation:

After you have figured out all your requirements the next thing to do is documentation. Most small and medium companies ignore documentation and communicate the requirements through emails, IMs or phone. This is a wrong practice. No matter how small and obvious the work is it is always good to have a first hand documentation done by you before the other party does it for you. To make the documentation more organized and traceable you can segment the work on the basis of scope, features and/or timeline. If you have certain technical considerations then mention them clearly in a separate segment. Offshore software projects always need timely monitoring and proper management in-house and documentation is the first step to it.

RULE 3: Do your home work right:

The very motive of opting offshore software development is the cost variance. It is not always required to play safe by choosing the big brands because then you are not looking at great savings. You can get quality work at good price if you are ready to explore the marketplace and do a bit of homework. Firstly, categorize your work on the basis of technology, field or functionality. Start searching web, bidding portals and job hiring sites for companies with experience in similar technology or domain. For short-listing the companies you can start from the portfolio listed on their websites and credentials to judge company standing. It is always good to seek the listed clients for a reference check.

RULE 4: Seek Different people:

As you are done with listing prospective companies you start approaching them for quotes. Established and professional companies usually sent a well defined proposal including technical architecture, functional specifications and a payment plan with project timelines. You should use this as a base to compare the cost and the offerings. One can easily judge the level of experience and sincerity through the document itself. Don’t get tempted by the cheapest but try to figure out the best deal out of it.

RULE 5: Terms and conditions are important:

Before allotting work to a certain company it is very essential to clarify terms and conditions they propose and also set few on your side. See what terms and conditions a company follows regarding payment and delivery. You can also define few by yourself to ensure on-time delivery. For example you can set penalty charges for late delivery. You can also include meeting time slabs and review schedules to make it even more defined.

RULE 6: Timely Monitoring:

Lastly you need to do timely monitoring to ensure that the benchmarks are being met. Make sure communications are clear and timely and all the requisites are presented as and when required. Follow the practice of directing all the mails and conversations to a single person to avoid miscommunication.

Offshore software development is not as daunting as it is made out to be all one needs to do is practice it right and do a good research before jumping into it.

Improve Your Image by Hiring a Web Design Company

There are many ways that a web design company can help you improve your online image. They can completely redesign the look and feel of your site, repair problems you may have, and even write appropriate content that is interesting for the users.

You may not realize it but your company may have a bad image by the way the sites looks and feels. Poor content that is incorrect with errors could cause you to lose credibility. You can lose credibility by bad functionality and more.

A web design company will look at your site and give you a list of problems that need to be repaired on your site. They may even determine you need to completely redesign your site. They can fix your image and change the way you are viewed with the entire Internet community. A complete overhaul of your company image may be exactly what the company needs.

You may have content on your site that doesn't work well. It may have improper keywords that cause the site to be pulled up on products and services that you don't even offer. The last thing you want to happen is for your site to pull up on irrelevant searches. A web design company can determine where you are pulling up and why. In addition, a design firm can help with the content by creating content that is interesting for the users that visit a site. You want content that is interesting but useful for the visitors. It is common for visitors to return to sites they find useful. They will even bookmark the site and make it a favorite place.

A web design company can also change a company image by repairing problematic web pages. Some businesses have a ton of traffic but the functionality on the site is poor. Users may be unable to make purchases when they want to and the company fails due to issues like this. It is common for an online business to fail if they are unaware of functionality problems.

A web design company can give a company a complete overhaul on their image. They can do many different things but credibility is very important when you want to have returning visitors. The company can improve functionality with problematic pages. They can write content that is useful and interesting which works by bringing the visitors back for more and give you a complete overhaul.

Resource Box

For more information, tips, and resources about web site design, visit http://www.7strategy.com, or send an email to info@7strategy.com