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Web Development Articles |
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| The Cost Of A Web Site |
| Just starting out, you can start with a simple informational site, which is all most need initially, and build up to a fuller site (e-commerce and/or interactive) when you can afford it.
Your goal should be to get an online presence. Remember, most surfers are looking for information. Dancing cartoons, streaming video and other interactive features are, in the great majority of cases, unnecessary.
Naming Your Site: Selecting and Registering a Domain Name
The first step in getting a web site i More.. |
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| How To Convert More Sales On Your Website |
| One of the biggest mistakes that most online retailers make is they do not take into account typical buyer behaviour. The conversion from real world to online provides many benefits to the retailer, but present some real challenges for the customer because their buying decision is made more difficult in an online environment.
This means having a website needs to be more than having just an online catalogue.
What to I mean? Lets take the example of a recent client of mine who sells sterling sil More.. |
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| How to Increase Sales with Automation Improvements |
| How popular is online shopping? And is there room for improvement? Let's check out some pros and cons of automated shopping and see.
Digital carts offer convenience for people around the globe 24 hours a day. Yet an estimated 4 percent of shoppers make purchases, up from 3.5 percent in 2003, reported by DoubleClick, an online marketing company.
And approximately 30 percent of shopping carts are abandoned, according to recent surveys by BizRate.com, a shopping search engine.
The main reasons f More.. |
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| 9 Keys to an Effective Website |
| Many small companies choose not to invest in a professionally designed website, although a well-designed Web site may raise the company's level of professionalism and exposure - AND drive business and sales!
Make sure your website is working for you with the following characteristics:
Usability enables your users to get the most out of your site. This means that thesite's navigation is consistent, clear and easy to follow; forms and links are inworking order; and the information on the site is More.. |
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| How to Build a Database Driven Web Site |
| If you ever want to create a state directory, article directory, dating site or link directory, you need to know about creating database driven web sites. This may seem like a daunting task at first, if you have never done it, however I was in the same boat as you. It is not as difficult as you think.
Benefits of building database driven web sites
-Store vast amounts of information about your products or services.
-Efficient data sorting and retrieval
-Complex queries and statistical analysi More.. |
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| 4 Marketing Tips for Resourceful Webmasters! |
| The internet is a sea of knowledge. Getting your information to 'float' by the right audience can be like finding that one special grain of sand on the seashore. Paying big bucks for marketing can strain your already limited budget. What is a webmaster to do? Let's discuss four valuable and proven ways to market your site without breaking the bank.
1. Join forums. Yes, even if running a forum is something you already do, join forums similar to what you have and become a moderator. No, I do not More.. |
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| Sticking To Your Plan |
| So you have a good idea for a business and decided that the Internet would be the perfect place to start it.
WAIT.
Having an aspiration is only half the battle. In fact, too many people start an Internet Business with only a hunch or a rough idea of what they plan to do. I've also heard that if you don't know where you are going, you are guaranteed to get there!
I can't stress how important it is to have a clear idea of your goal and develop the strategies to attain it. Too many people overlo More.. |
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| Web accessibility for screen magnifier users |
| The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing web accessibility on to a website. Screen magnifiers are used by partially sighted web users to increase the size of on-screen elements. Some users will magnify the screen so that only three to four words are able to appear on the screen at any one time. You can try using a screen magnifier yourself by downloading the Zoomtext screen magnifier from http://www.aisquared.com/Products/ZoomText8_mag/FreeTrial/Z8FreeTrial.htm for a More.. |
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| Tell me what your website does! |
| You know exactly what your organisation does and what your website offers its users. This information has probably become second nature to you, but first-time visitors to your site won't know this. As such, make sure you don't forget to tell them what you do.
As soon as new site visitors arrive at your website the first thing they need to know, before anything else, is what you do. You can talk all you like about how great you are, but unless you spell out what you actually do, they won't even More.. |
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| Website For The Company Store |
| If your company own one or more stores, you might be wondering if it would be a good idea to have a website. You might also be wondering if a website for the company store would be profitable for your business.
Those are very legitimate questions.
I worked as a marketing director for a store for some times, and I was always harassed by salesman wanting me to by publicity for every imaginable form of paper advertising. Some offer were interesting, most were not.
Are you in the same situation?
More.. |
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| Should You Design Your Own Website? |
| If you're anything like most small business owners, you probably think that web site design is expensive - possibly too expensive for you to justify the expense. If that's the case, then it can be tempting to just design your small business web site yourself. You have a computer, complete with Microsoft Frontpage, you have a copy of Photoshop - why pay a web designer when you could just do it yourself?
Well, here are a few reasons why a DIY website may not be the best possible solution for your More.. |
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| How Your Own Website Helps Your Small Business Grow |
| What do you mean, you don't have a website for your small business? Now that the Internet age is well and truly upon us, small business owners who haven't yet realised what a well-designed website could do for their business are getting harder and harder to find. If you're one of them, though, read on to find out how starting your own website could help your small business grow.
A small business website widens your client base
And it doesn't just increase it a little bit either - it increases More.. |
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| Make Your Web Site User-Friendly! |
| Making a web site is easy. Making a good web site is not so easy. There are many things you have to consider if you want to make a good and successful web site.
Everyone who knows at least something about marketing knows that you have to fit your product so that suit customers need. Don't expect that customers will accommodate to your web site. If, from some reason, they get an impression that your site is confusing and that you didn't tried hard to make their visit as easy as possible. As you More.. |
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| Top 10 Webmaster Challenges |
| Webmasters deal with a myriad of complex design challenges every day. This article will discuss the top ten challenges and provide solutions and tips for solving each problem.
1. Browser Compatibility You must design your Web site so that it is viewable on both browsers: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Netscape Navigator is very strict when it comes to HTML tag completion, but IE isn't. You need to view your site first using Macromedia Dreamweaver before publishing to t More.. |
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| Earning From Your Website |
| Before you start building your site, ask yourself "WHY?". Why did you decide to build your own web site. How are you going to earn money? Creating simple homepage will not get you any money at all nor you receive lots of visitors. Your website must be the part of your business. It also must be the part of your business plan.
When you are planning your website, ask you the following questions:
1. Who is your audience?
Your main goal is to provide information to meet the needs of your key audien More.. |
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| Running An Effective Website |
| Running an effective website is a continuous process. I have compiled five (5) ways of doing it on a regular basis.
1. Maintain and Optimize Your Site.
Maintenance is making sure your site is technically ready for visitors. To do this, a web site owner needs to regularly run site diagnostics to unearth common problems, such as browser compatibility, load time performance, dead links, link popularity, spelling check, HTML, design and directory registration readiness. You have to make sure your More.. |
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| Are You Being Scammed By Your Web Design Company? |
| This is a growing concern amongst many business owners. Does your web design company own you? This may be possible if you've allowed them to host your web site for you and also register your domain name for your company.
Web design companies have a lot of control over their clients. I refer to this as "False Power". The sad reality is that most of their clients don't even know they are stuck in this potentially painful predicament. This power is usually exercised when a client of a web design c More.. |
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| How To Keep Your Website Sticky |
| Developing a website with content that entices visitors to return over and over again is something that takes time and effort to put together. This checklist can give you a great start on creating a popular website that entices readers to hang around on your site.
Readers love fresh, relevant, useful content. People surf the net to find solutions to everyday problems. If you can provide this kind of information, your readers will love your site and will tell their friends.
We recommend you con More.. |
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| Website Value - Whats Your Business Website Worth? |
| If you were asked to put a value on your website what would it be? Perhaps you paid a small fortune and commissioned a top design agency to build it. It would still be worth at least what you paid for it, right?
It's a sad fact that a great number of websites are worthless. They give no value to their owners and are little more than a drain on resources. Would it surprise you if your website was classed as one of these?
The World Wide Web is made up of millions of webpages so it's not surprisi More.. |
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| Autoresponders Make You Look Like A Pro |
| People like to get immediate responses to requests. Autoresponders are great for letting people know you are on the job and that their requests are being taken care of. These are much better than thank you pages.
Below is one example of how you can use an autoresponder to save time and make your customers feel a little more at ease until you can handle their request. Along with being an example it is also a guide to actually setting up the autoresponder in your mail account.
Customer Service - More.. |
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| Why Is No-one Buying From My Website? |
| Are you, like many other website owners, frustrated at the amount of time, effort and money you've put into your website, only to see few or no sales?
Like most business owners, you probably know your products or services inside out; you know the benefits of them, and what they can give to other businesses or consumers. And you probably paid good money for a website to promote them. You may even be getting hundreds of visitors a day to your website, but if this isn't converting into sales, what More.. |
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| Top 5 Webmaster Tools You Can Pick Up For Pennies |
| 1. SiteSpinner V2 - On Sale
www.deprice.com/sitespinner.htm
SiteSpinner is a user-friendly web site development tool that includes many advanced features such as drag-and-drop positioning, built in FTP to publish directly to your web site, an image editor and graphics creation all in one.
2. Codelock 2.0 - On Sale
www.deprice.com/codelock.htm
Codelock encrypts PHP and any HTML generated by your PHP scripts. You can password protect your scripts, create an expiry time or unlock key, lock to IP More.. |
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| Warning: The Truth About Having a Web Site! |
| If you don't have a web site yet, are thinking of slapping one up or have one that simply isn't producing, this Warning is for you!
All too often folks contact me about getting a Web Site when they really have not done their due diligence in determining even if their "idea" is one worth investing in. And although they hate spam and don't believe most of it, they do tend to fall into believing much of the fast, easy and cheap noise online in existence only to line the pockets of shysters and uns More.. |
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| Beware the Software Siren |
| I've heard several prominent web marketers mention in their classes and public forums how easy it is to create your own software. Why, all you have to do is run over to Elance.com or RentACoder.com and have some poor shmoe from Outer Slobvia whip out what you want. And all for the price of a few trips to Starbucks.
Uh, not quite.
Is that a spec in your eye?
First of all, there is the matter of specifications. A spec is a description of what your software should do. The more specific your desi More.. |
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| What ROI You Should Expect From Your Web Site |
| Is Your Web Site an Expense or an Investment?
Why don't you think of your web site as of an investment rather than of an expense? Having a web site is very similar to having an investment property.
Let me show you why.
When you are buying an investment property, you have to invest a certain amount of money at the first place and then pay trivial ongoing fees (property management, rates, maintenance, etc.).
From time to time you would spend some money on improvements and renovations.
You are More.. |
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| Setting Up A CGI Script On Your Web Site |
| Before you set up any scripts you will need some information about your server. You can get this by e-mailing your web hosting provider. It's good to have these on hand before you try to set up a script. You may not need all of the information for each script, but some of the larger scripts demand more information to work. The information you may need is:
Path To Perl This is normally the first line at the top of a ".cgi" or ".pl" (Perl) script. A sample of a Path To Perl is /usr/bin/perl. Most More.. |
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| 7 Ways to Gain a Professional Online Reputation |
| A professional online reputation is essential to theflourishing of any business big or small. Many businessowners spend countless hours on the core operations of theirbusiness forgetting the importance their website has. Havingan up-to-date website with a professional appearance andeasy navigation can make or break a lot of potentialbusiness deals. Below are 7 ways you can gain a professionalonline reputation.
1.) Simple Site Navigation. A site with simple navigationallows customers to focus on More.. |
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| How Does Your Website Make Me Feel? |
| When people think about the Internet, they think about technology. When people hear that I am a Website strategy expert, they see me as a "techy type".
But for me, the most intriguing aspect of your online business isn't about the technology. It's about human connections, and how you can create these in a virtual environment.
It's commonly understood that "people buy emotionally, not intellectually." Even when people think they're making a rational decision, powerful subconscious factors come More.. |
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| 3 Ways To Increase Your Websites Conversion rate |
| Everywhere you look these days, people are telling you that in order to sell through your website, you need tons of traffic.
Well, even though my business is traffic generation, *I'm* going to tell you that it's a BIG FAT LIE!
The secret of a successful website isn't just in the amount of visitors it has; it's in the amount of visitors that are converted to buyers. It's no good having 4,000 visitors if your means of bringing them to your site means that they're vague rather than targeted visit More.. |
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| How to Create Sizzling Sales online |
| "Don't Sell the Steak, Sell the Sizzle."
Have you heard of this phrase before? It has been widely regarded as "principle number one of salesmanship" as far back as 1936.
What does this phrase mean? Selling the sizzle means making it possible for the prospect to salivate for your product or "steak". If you are really selling the sizzle to the steak, you will be connecting with your prospect with his/her sense of smell, sight and sound. He or she will be catching the whiff of the steak cooking o More.. |
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| Seven Daft Things Not To Do To Your Website |
| 1. Splash pages
Most of the time splash pages are uncalled for. There are only a handful of reasons why you may ever need to use a splash page on your website but these reasons don't seem to apply to most of the splash pages you can see on the Internet. The worst example of a splash page is when a company creates a page and adds their logo with no content. They may also add a 'click here to enter' button link when there is no reason to have not entered already.
If a website was a printed broch More.. |
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| Setting Up Your First Website |
| Q. Hey, Cathy: I'm just setting up a website. What should I do?
A. First, don't call the web designer yet! Write out a detailed summary of your ideal client, if you haven't already done so. Get very clear on what benefits you will offer and how you will stand out from the crowd. Before you spend days and weeks refining your copy, test your ideas on real people -- as close to your ideal client as possible. Study your competition to see what works -- and to avoid creating a "me-too" site that get More.. |
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| I Did It: Six Months to a Successful Website |
| For years now I've been looking to start my own business, but my highest priority has always been to spend less time working, and more time with my family, while still giving them everything they need (and most of what they want). It's a common dream, right? No boss to answer to, less stress, more vacation, more quality family time... I wanted to get away from the 9 to 5 and the traffic. (I bet you do, too.)
So, I started to research various business opportunities. I looked into franchises of a More.. |
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| Abandonment - Why Visitors Don?t Turn Into Customer |
| Every good Internet business understands the value of conversions versus hits received. Far too often, businesses become fixated on the hits they are receiving instead of monitoring their hit to sale conversion rate. This misguided focus is the road to ruin because it fails to take in the issue of abandonment.
Abandonment
"Abandonment" is one of those terms that has a unique meaning when applied to the Internet. The term refers to reasons why a user abandons a site before taking the action the More.. |
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| Guidelines for Web Page Optimization |
| Below, I have listed 8 simple steps that you can take to optimize your web pages. By following these, you will improve your chances of increasing your rankings:
1) Target one word for each page: A huge mistake that many beginners make is cramming numerous keywords onto every page. Instead of doing this, you should focus on one specific keyword for each page. That way, you can make sure that the page is focusing on that one word without any distractions. If you want to target multiple keywords t More.. |
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| Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 2 |
| Succeeding with an eCommerce website is a dream for many these days. It may seem nearly impossible at times, but it can be done. This series covers some of the basic success factors - things you must consider in creating, implementing, managing and developing a quality eCommerce web site. There are many ways to do business on the internet - and, not surprisingly, a lot of ways to both make and lose money. Mainly, I'm focusing on eCommerce sites intended to sell products of various kinds. Not eve More.. |
| Read more About Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 2 |
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