Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Web Design For The Home Based Business


New technology released in 2007 has made it easy for people to create their own websites and FTP upload entire pages from the tools in MS Office Suite 2007-Business Edition.

However, now that it is easy to make a website without FrontPage or DreamWeaver, there are still some elements of web design that you need to remember before publishing your site.

Tools

Both MSWord and Publisher can be used to create websites. But, like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, the page will not appear the same on every browser. Anyone who wants to create their own webpage needs to download Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox.

IE is the most popular browser in the USA. But, Firefox (Modzilla) is most popular in the world.

All images should be chanced to .75 dpi. This is easy using Window’s Paint.

There are several FTP publishers. These are software programs that lift your web pages off the computer and publish them on the Internet. This is the best way to load a website. Avoid the ‘easy’ tools.

Here is a quick guideline to help work at home business owners build a website which can earn money.

1. It’s about the content. The only way to get listed today is to have good content, updated at least once every two weeks.

Many new business owners build a website on a few dozen keywords. They believe this brings more traffic. Unfortunately, it works backward. Too many keywords confuse search engines, reducing the websites Page Rank.

There are no keyword search engines anymore. Today’s search engines are more concerned with inbound links. Instead of writing articles that have a keyword repeated a few dozen times, write an insightful article that solves problems for your readers.

The search engines not only know how many people click onto a web page, but they know how long they stay. Websites that keep readers for more than 30 seconds will rank higher.

2. Don’t sell. The web visitor is not walking into a store. They do not arrive at a website thinking, “I want to buy something.” Instead, most of them want to be entertained, or educated. The best way to sell from a website is to solve problems. This includes things like posting the cost of a product or service, and even problems and solutions.

Avoid the long pages of testimonials. These are so ‘out of date.’ Instead, add a forum to the website and let the ‘real’ website visitors leave their comments.

3. Make effective use of the title and description tags. The only keywords most search engines care about are buried in the Heading Tags. Word will imbed Heading tags into a web page.

Forget the Meta keywords. They rarely play an important part in today’s Search Engine Optimization.

4. Don’t design in Flash or use any other ‘cool tools.’ Many people do not have the tools needed to view these. If you must add a video, then upload it to www.youtube.com and paste the code onto your page.

Search engines cannot see pictures. This means that a page full of pictures will only reduce a page rank, not increase it.

Flash creates major problems with search engine indexing. There is no way for the search engines to extract content from the website as it is all contained with in the swf file.

5 .Instill a sense of well. One of the first things most web visitors will look for is proof that the business cares about them. They want something before they are sold. It is also important to have business contact information pricing, privacy information, shipping, problem solving FAQ, and even a personal blog from the ‘owner.’

These things will improve the success of any web based business, or work at home web site.


About The Author

Mark Walters is a third generation investor who guides others to financial independence through the Creating Wealth Club http://www.CreatingWealthClub.com

Royalty Free Stock Photos for Web Design

Stock photography websites contain thousands of existing photographs that can be licensed for specific uses. A customer who uses stock photography instead of hiring a photographer can save time, effort and money. Typically publishers can either purchase exclusive rights to a single image or they can purchase a subscription of sorts. The subscriptions allow publishers to download a limited number of photos over a specified period of time.

Stock photo websites allow webmasters, marketers and publishers to locate pictures for their marketing and promotional materials without the hassle of organizing a photo shoot. With copyright laws businesses must be very careful in using unlicensed photos.

There are also risks to using "free" photographs. Many of the free websites contain collaborative works from multiple photographers and artists. While the websites attempt to monitor the images in their collections in violation of copyright laws, there are no guarantees. If you opt to use photographs or images from a free portal, it is important to keep this in mind.

The following are a large number of reputable stock photo websites available:

Photo-Wizard.net - The Photo-Wizard's website contains thousands of fantastic, high-quality photographs, in more than 30 categories. Photos can be used on websites, in promotional materials or educational materials. The Photo-Wizard's stock photo directory is packed with eye-catching photos that will meet the needs of graphic designers and webmasters looking for exceptional quality images at reasonable prices. The site is filled with inexpensive, professional quality royalty free photographs. There is no longer a need to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a single photograph. Single images can be purchased for $.99 each or subscriptions can be purchased for $49.95 - $ 179.95.

Photo Wizard - http://www.photo-wizard.net

Photos.com - Photos.com contains professional royalty-free stock photographs available via a subscription. Pay only a single fee and download up to 250 photos from the Photos.com collection per day. The photos.com collection contains more than 325,000 professional quality stock photographs. Subscriptions can be purchased for $149.95 - $ 699.95 .

Photos.com - http://www.photos.com

ClipArt.com - The ClipArt website is exceptional, known for its large variety. You can filter images based on file formats, (photographs, photo objects or clipart) so only the specified format appears in the search results. Subscription can be purchased for $ 17.99 - $ 269.99.

ClipArt - http://www.clipart.com

Morguefile.com - The term "morgue file" is popular in the newspaper business to describe a file that holds past issues. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. Photos on Morguefile can be used free of charge, but only for personal use; but are not available for commercial or business use.

MorgueFile - http://www.morguefile.com

PixelPerfectDigital.com - PixelPerfectDigital contains 4,000 images. The website uses a forum format to display the images, many of which are clipart rather than photographs. The images can be used free of charge for personal use.

Pixel Perfect Digital - http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/free_stock_photos/

StockVault.net - StockVault contains photos and logos that are free for non-commercial use. They have additional image packs available for fixed prices.

StockVault - http://www.stockvault.net

Free-Photographs.net - The Free Photographs Network is an online resource for royalty-free stock photographs for non-commercial use. The collection is very limited and a search function specifically for the site is not available.

Free Photographs - http://www.free-photographs.net

FreeStockPhotos.com - Photographs on Free Stock Photos can be used free of charge for non-commercial use, but the photograph must include credits to FreeStockPhotos.com when used on the Internet, in a web page, in printed publications, or in any product, advertising, or packaging. This credit, however, may be cropped out or digitally removed from the photograph if it is included in readable type near each photograph, group of photographs, in the text, or in the credits. The collection is limited and a search function is not visible.

Free Stock Photos - http://www.freestockphotos.net

FreePhotos.com - FreePhotos is a collaborative website that contains photos. The website contains many different image categories, but not a large variety in each category. In order to download an image users must register.

Free Photos - http://www.freephotos.com

ArtFavor.com - ArtFavor contains a limited selection of small high-quality photographs. The images are not available for commercial use.

ArtFavor - http://www.artfavor.com/types.php?type=12

FreeDigitalPhotos.net - The photos on Free Digital Photos can be used for commercial and non commercial interests. If the images are used for promotional items (greeting cards, mugs, t-shirts, screen savers) there is a $ 20.00 charge for the use of each image. Some images also stipulate that they require a link back to the FreeDigitalPhotos website.

Free Digital Photos - http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

FreePhotosBank.com - Free Photos Bank is a collaborative website with a number of attractive photos. Photos contained on the Free Photos Bank are from a variety of photographers and the reprint permissions may vary.

Free Photos Bank - http://www.freephotosbank.com

DesignPacks.com - Design Packs offers free, high-quality image collections that can be used in both personal and commercial web design projects. Each collection features a group of 15 images that share a common theme.

Design Packs - http://www.designpacks.com

ShutterStock - Shutterstock is a large subscription-based stock photo agency. They have an outstanding collection of premium, royalty-free photographs, illustrations, and vectors. Subscription can be purchased for $ 199.00 - $1,999.00 and allow subscribers to download up to 25 images per day.

ShutterStock - http://www.shutterstock.com/

ComStock - ComStock contains a large collection of royalty-free images. ComStock offers three purchase options images can be purchased individually, CD options are available or publishers can purchase a subscription for $299 - $1999.00 which allows them to download up to 50 images per day.

ComStock - http://www.comstock.com

These are all a number of options available for webmasters and publishers in need of images for marketing campaigns or packaging. Regardless of the website selected, be sure to read the agreement terms carefully to ensure that you are adhering to the guidelines.


About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

Easy Web Design Software For Home Businesses


Designing your own website from scratch that you're proud of is not as hard as you may think. Especially nowadays, because there is software available that takes on much of the work that used to be relegated to the webmaster (which is you!).

In days past, in order to build a website from scratch, you had to know HTML, or "Hyper Text Markup Language." And really, you are still better off knowing at least the basics of HTML. Nevertheless, it's not required. Especially if you find easy web design software that does most of the work takes care of this for you. Now, every single HTML editor on the planet now features a "WYSIWYG" interface. (What You See Is What You Get.) So, in theory, you shouldn't have to know the first thing about hand-coding a website.

The reality is, however, not all HTML editors (or "web design software") does WYSIWYG well. Little annoying problems tend to crop up. For example, say you typed the following sentence using your site builder:

"Discover the best places to SCUBA dive in the Cayman Islands." Say you want "best places" to be italicized and "Cayman Islands" to be bolded. Here's what's supposed to happen:

In the background, your HTML editor is supposed to 'type' the phrase as such: Discover the best places to SCUBA dive in the Cayman Islands. (I put extra spaces between the tags for this example, in order to keep the article publishing software from parsing it like normal HTML.)

But instead, this is what you get: "Discover the best places to SCUBA dive in the Cayman Islands." Even though you selected the words "best places" and clicked the little graphical icon on your html editor's toolbar that represented italics, your phrase comes out non-italicized. And your bolded words are not bolded.

Well, in this instance, you'd have to go to the "Source View" of your HTML editor and manually insert the above HTML tags to make these things happen. This is a very annoying problem with too many popular web design software titles nowadays.

Another problem that will frustrate the heck out of you, is seeing a totally different result in the web browser than you see in your desktop. For example, your formatting changes are (apparently) taking effect as you type--just as it should (remember it's touted as being WYSIWYG)...

However, they don't show up when you publish the page to the internet! I don't know why, but this problem still plagues most web design software to this day.

Fortunately, there are a few (very few) good software titles that work for cheap, while doing all the other things to make your site stand out and (if you're so inclined) draw visitors by the hundreds.


About The Author

Charles Brown

Just because you spend lots of money on a HTML editor, doesn't mean it will be easy to use. Discover easy web design software that won't break your wallet. Charles Brown is the author and webmaster of http://honestysellsbest.com.