Towards A Healthy Economy + Marketing World

It’s a proven fact simple and user friendly websites
generate more sales. To improve your sales, look for ways
to simplify and make it easier for your visitors. Test your
ordering process. Remove the clutter, broken links and
anything that distracts or confuses. Here’s a quick
checklist to help your site pass inspection with your
visitors and convert more of them to customers:

1. Sizzle Your Headlines.

Headlines are the most important marketing element of your
website and your web marketing in general. Think about it a
minute. What makes someone click your email out of the
scores of emails in their ebox? Why do people choose your
article out of a list of 20 or so on the page. They click
because of your headline.

Invest time into crafting a sizzling headline. Seek to
capture the interest of your visitor when they first arrive
at your site. Using your headline make them want to know
more about your product or services. Develop your headline
to grab your prospect by the hand and lead them throughout
your site emphasizing what your product/service can do for
them.

One more thing, after developing a heated headline, make
it stand out from the rest of your copy. Use bold type,
large font sizes and even a different color according to
the style of your web page.

2. Write Sizzling Sales Copy.

If the headline is the most important marketing element of
your website, the second most important element is your
sales copy. Turn the key to your profits by using benefits.
After capturing your visitor’s interest with a sizzling
headline let them know immediately what’s in it for them-
benefits. Make the most of your direct contact with your
prospect. They have arrived at your site looking for
something. If you have targeted your visitors well they are
looking for your information, product or service. Include
the basic elements every sales letter should have. There’s
lots of good sales letter writing software, templates and
advice around the internet. Don’t know where to start?

3. Create Simple Navigation

Make your site easy to navigate. Place your links or
buttons in a prominent place and keep them in the same
place on every page. Your design should guide visitors
through the information you want them to read. Make your
colors, layout, links, and buttons consistent. Title every
page so visitors will always know where they are. Place
your buy buttons or contact information in same place from
page to page. Provide links on every page back to the
homepage.

4. Develop a Clear Call to Action

Many website’s lose countless opportunities to make a sale
or capture a lead because they fail to ask something of
their visitors. Call your visitors to a specific action. At
the end of every page use the power of the direct command
whether it’s simply directing them to contact you for
further information or a directive to browse further into
your site. For example, instead of “If you would like this
beautiful travel brochure, we will be happy to send it” use
“Sit down right now and fill out this form to start
planning your vacation.” Or instead of “Call us to
purchase your very own widget” use “Dial this number 877-
846-9908 to purchase your widget today.”

5. Use Harmonic Images

Unseasoned site owners will sometimes use graphics or
photos that do nothing to help illustrate their message.
For example, they choose cutesy stars and flowers on a site
selling accounting services. Look for clipart and photos
that will support your important message.

Select graphics or design elements that will harmonize and
illustrate your site’s message. Web Wit Tip: For non-
techies like the author invest in inexpensive clipart/photo
sets that will enhance and help illustrate your
communications. Additionally, unless you are training to
become a graphic artist look for graphic programs with
templates to shorten your learning curve.

Now for your homework. I bet you didn’t know homework came
along with this article. Well it does. Now that you have
discovered or re-discovered this information you must act
upon it. Remember the old phrase, “Use it or you lose it.
I don’t want you to lose. I want you to win-win more sales,
more subscribers, more clients, more profit. As we have
covered, to win your site must pass inspection with its
visitors.

Don’t worry it’s a take home assignment and there’s no
timer involved. All you need to do is go through your site
and make sure the above items are in place: sizzling
headlines, sizzling sales copy, simple navigation, clear
call to action, harmonic images, compelling opt-in offer,
testimonials, about us page, usability/function test, and
visible contact information. Pass inspection with all your
web visitors and prosper!

©Earma Brown, 11 yr. Web Developer, Author, Service Business Owner
Helps service business owners, and writers with full featured hosting, domain names, websites and a host of other web solutions. Send any email to webwit@arrowproduction.com for free ezine Web Wit and mini-course ‘Jumpstart Your Website to Success’

Most webmasters on the net today are familiar with what the
industry calls “shared” web hosting accounts. A shared hosting
account is where you rent a small amount of space on a server
which is shared among many other users.

This is a cheap way to get started online but it has many
disadvantages - you will encounter email delivery problems
because of spam complaints against other sites on the same
server. You will find your site’s grinding to a halt when
someone else does some heavy database work on your server. You
might even find your site going down because of a denial of
service attack against someone else hosting hacking or piracy
related material on your server (these type of sites attract
antisocial elements!)

How can you avoid all of this drama?

By upgrading to a virtual dedicated server. A virtual dedicated
server lets you run your sites as if you had your own
“dedicated” server, except it is cheaper because you are really
just using part of a server that has been split into multiple
virtual dedicated servers.

You can find out more about this by searching Google for
“virtual dedicated hosting”. Virtuozzo is the main commercial
software that web hosts use to run virtual hosting services.

You will find virtual dedicated server accounts starting at just
$30 a month. You’ll get a much larger chunk of bandwidth
compared to shared hosting, and none of the problems that go
with a shared host. You can also get multiple IP addresses that
are exclusive to your sites.

So what’s the catch? Not much. You’ll probably spend a bit more
on hosting each month. The main disadvantage of upgrading to
virtual dedicated hosting is that you will need to be more
technically proficient so that you can administer the server.

This requires a bit of time learning the necessary Linux skills
to make sure your server runs smoothly.

Many hosting providers will have a “premium” support offering
that includes a bit more hand holding - this is definitely
recommended if you don’t have much experience with Linux, or are
new to virtual dedicated hosting.

With the increased speed and bandwidth that a virtual dedicated
host offers, and none of the shared hosting headaches, the move
is one you will never regret.

There are more than billions of Web Sites, running Online Businesses, offering products and services. But only a few Web Sites manage to make any sale.

Only a few Web Sites are capable of pulling in visitors and turn them into customers. Only a few are able to get profitable returns for their investments.

Then what’s wrong with the rest of the Web Sites that are unable to get the required returns of their investments or do not make any sale at all?

Even if they recieve huge traffics, they don’t make any sale. No need to talk about the Web Sites that doesn’t even recieve any visitors, leave alone making any sale.

They just don’t follow the basics of an effective Online Business process.

They don’t know how to build websites properly, how to write keyword-focussed contents that ranks well with the search engines, how to write effective contents that PRESells the visitors and turn them into lifelong customers, how to write contents that builds credibility and trust, how to successfully promote web sites to reach a wider, targeted, willing-to-buy audience.

The basics below are usefull to anyone, whether you want to build, develop or promote a web site…

What are the basics of selling on the Net?

Simple,

3) Write high info-value keyword focussed content that ranks well with the search engines. A PRESelling content (not a sales pitch) that establishes confidence and trust and influences the visitors into becoming customers.

After you are done with the above process, you need an effective, useful and easy to use marketing and promotion strategy to let the audience know that you exist.

There are many online as well as offline ways to promote your web site.

Online methods include:

Media and television advertising, newspaper classified ads, placards. radio announcements, word of mouth and others.

Remember, for a professional, profitable and successfull Online Business you need effective strategies, intelligent investments of time, money and energy and motivation to succeed.

Devasish Gupta
Independent WebMaster: I run my own Internet Marketing Blogs. I strive to deliver my visitors quality informations on effective Site Building, Site Development and Site Marketing services.

http://evarsity.blogspot.com/
http://emarketingtips.blogspot.com/

What you should do and know if you are an artist and you
have decided to have a website.

1) Look at “Web Sites That Suck.”

If you are an artist and have never had a website, the
concept of a website can seem unnerving. The first thing to
do is look at a web site called “Websites that Suck”, www.
websitesthatsuck.com by Vincent Flanders. This is a
website that is so funny, and so enlightening and it is very
hard to stop looking at it. You will also learn a great deal as
an artist about the Web and feel much more at ease after
that experience.

2) Get a domain name.

A domain name is “www. name.com” of your web site.
Artists need to have their own name as part of their domain
name, “www. yourname.com” or “www. yourname
artist.com”. It is not a good idea to have the gallery that may
represents you as part of your domain name. Web visitors
are looking for the artist, the artists art work, not the gallery.
But, by having the website in your name, you also help the
gallery, because you can promote the gallery on your
website.

3) Find a person to design the website.

People like to design for artists; this is one of the “perks” of
being an artist. There are a lot of great people involved with
the Web who do not have huge overheads who can design
a very good website for you. The cost can be for as little as
$500 or less.

4) Find a Hosting Company.

There are many places that will host your website for $100
or less a year. Your web designer should be able to help
you with this.

5) Web browsers come in different sizes.

Web browsers come in all different shapes and sizes, from
very small to very large. It will be impossible to make your
wesite look perfect for every size web browser. This means
that you as an artist will need to make some compromises.
This is a good thing to know while you are thinking about
your website design.

There are websites that let you look and see how your
website looks in different sizes and on different web
browsers for free. After your web design is completed,
lookup “web browser size test tool” on a search engine to
find one.

6) Copyright information.

It is impossible to completely protect your images on the
Web. People simple do not pay attention to copyright
information. Your best protection is to keep the images
small, so if a visitor enlarges the image, it will look blurry.
Also put “your name © the year” under the image of your art
work. All the fancy things that are suggested for protection
do not work. You can put copyright information all over your
art work, I’ve seen it done, but it defeats the purpose of your
website and web visitors will not return.

© Mary Baker 2005

Mary Baker is a contemporary realist painter, whose studio
is in Newburyport, Massachusetts. This New England city,
north of Boston, has been the inspiration for the artist’s
realistic oil paintings. Mary Baker is a professional artist and
has shown in New York art galleries.

You can visit Mary at her website, Mary Baker Art, at http://www.marybakerart.com, see her beautiful paintings and read her
articles on a variety of subjects including, Art, Artists and
Money, Tips on Breaking the Creative Block , Art,Women and
Creativity and the four part series on Art, Artists and the Web.

A list of articles can be found on her Site Map and Mary’s
paintings can be seen on every page of Mary Baker Art.

Redesign To Stay Relevant
Web sites have the same shelf-life as print and broadcast advertising commercials. Very seldom do you see the same ad run longer than several months? You’ll see the same product, but the packaging changes because times change, issues change, public consciousness changes, and the way people research and judge businesses or buy items changes. If businesses are not updating their materials or message, they are shortchanging themselves and will eventually be overtaken by smarter, more aggressive competitors.

The new competitive edge is to redesign and update your Web site in order to stay relevant to potential customers.

And these customers are no longer down the street or across town. They’re worldwide and they’re creating a large pool of wealth for businesses that take their Web site seriously and do what’s necessary to connect with people. The Internet has erased state and country borders and has created a global economy that gets more technically savvy each day.

When potential customers surf the Internet, the first impression they get from your Web site is its design. Much like a storefront, it’s either attractive and professional, or it’s shoddy and questionable. A powerful Web site design creates a sense of trust and respect between you and your on-line visitors. The site explains its purpose clearly and quickly, and why a visitor should spend time browsing it. The client has to be able to say with little doubt, “This is a place where I can do business.”

Search Engine Optimization

The growth of the World Wide Web continues at a phenomenal pace. And that explosion is quickly changing the way people shop for items or information. The World Wide Web has truly made us one economy, one world.

Whether it’s a product, service, issue or cause that you want customers and potential customers to know about, you’ll need to rank high in major search engine results or become a victim of “search fatigue” because you’re buried on page 8 or 18, where most people never tread.

It is paramount that your Web company specialize in Search Engine Optimization so your business is listed on the first or second page of a search. This tactic ensures more eyeballs see your site than your competitors. “Eyes on screens” is the name of the game when it comes attracting new customers. Your Web company also must be dedicated to studying the major search engines to stay in tune with new algorithms and search methods that deliver top rankings.

Experience
Almost anyone can build a Web site these days, so your best bet is to find an experienced company that has built hundreds of successful sites — someone who’s seen it all and has the knowledge to prove it. They should have a good understanding of Web marketing, e-commerce applications, data management, and e-mail marketing.

A broad background in Web design could include: computer companies, medical groups, trade industries, financial management firms, E-commerce businesses, auto retailers, software companies, real estate companies, architectural firms, engineering companies, military contractors and many other businesses. Experience like this ensures your Web company understands the world of business, the economy and buyer’s habits. It provides a great competitive edge over the business using a run-of-the-mill Web designer.

Rick Vidallon is President of Visionefx,
a Web design company based in Virginia Beach, Va. They provide services to
national companies as well as small to medium businesses throughout the United
States. Rick can be reached at (757) 619-6456 or rick@visionefx.net

The matter of choosing between the operating system (OS) running the web server hosting your web site as old as the web hosting business.
The OS controls all the functions of the web server hosting your site, so it comes naturally to pay special attention when choosing one over another. But what are really the options you have?

Mainly you can choose between web hosting based on Windows, Linux or Unix operating systems. A brief description and analysis of the different systems will narrow the list of options to only two.

Microsoft’s Windows server operating systems (NT/2000/2003) have a rather friendly and familiar user interface, making IT teams to easier in this aspect. Another plus is given by it’s excellent integration capabilities with other applications developed by Microsoft and let’s face it their range is absolutely impressive. The main key point of Windows based hosting is its support for .ASP (Active Server Pages) or the advanced ASP.NET. This language for web development was created by Microsoft to facilitate the creation of dynamic web pages linked to SQL databases. It also provides capabilities for integration with other systems.

It can be said that Unix is the OS that powered the beginning of the Internet era and due to his qualities is still used today. Linux OS was developed having Unix as starting point and this is how the two share many features. Today the Linux version of the Unix system is more common on web servers and this has to do with the higher licensing costs and with the rather specific hardware requirements for Unix. This is why we will continue with Linux only, but Unix is taken into account as well. Linux hosting has its strong points in fulfilling one’s requirements for a good web server and Web serving, file serving, mailing, and streaming are only a few. It proves itself is a very cost-effective choice from using hardware efficiently, and allowing an increased web sites per server ratio, this ultimately resulting in a decreasing the cost of hosting per account.

So here are our two choices Windows and Linux.

Reliability

In the past Linux OS were seen as more reliable over Windows. However with the release of Windows 2003 server Microsoft has gone a long way and closed the gap in this area.
Linux servers are compatible with certain Microsoft extensions and applications and the same is true for Windows.

Web Programming

Even if trying to host a simple personal web site, your might want add some simple scripts to spice up your pages. The issue gets bigger when you are looking to host an e-commerce site supported by some serious server-side programming. So how are our two contenders doing in this aspect?

Supporting java scripts is not a topic to be argued upon as they are executed on the client side (the user’s web browser) and both Linux and Windows have no problem feeding this content to your visitors.

It is a whole different matter when discussing server side scripting. For web site owners trying to implement forms on their site it is common knowledge that ASP is supported by Windows and PHP is the tool to do just that under Linux. However both developed solutions to support each other’s programming language for web development. This support is not perfect and its limitations recommend Linux for a good PHP support and Windows for ASP, especially when it comes to hosting web sites that require the full use the advantages offered by PHP or ASP.

Linux offers a support for FrontPage extensions. Windows has a weak point in offering only limited CGI/Perl support, so if Perl is the scripting language of your choice, you should opt for Linux.

Databases

Dynamically driven web sites require some sort of databases. Beyond sites employing databases, most frequently you will encounter mySQL or MSAccess. If your web site is relying on mySQL, then you’ll have no problems hosting it on either Windows or Linux. For MSAccess databases, look your only option is Windows.

Price

Linux web hosting is cheaper. The reason must be searched in licensing costs, that are lower that for Windows, and in the ability of Linux web servers to support a higher web sites per server ratio without compromising the quality of service.

Although Windows hosting cost a bit more, you will get something for your money. It’s reduced development time and functionality

As the option of one over another depends basically of your actual needs and of the plans you have made for the future of your web site. For example will it move from a rather static web site to one relying heavily on server side scripting? And if it is so what would be the programming language used: PHP or ASP? Consequently your web site will be set up on a Linux or on a Windows web server.

Almost all serious web-hosting providers will offer you the choice between Linux and Windows.

There is no winner of this contest, at least not yet. In today’s terms, your preference of one system over another should be given only by your requirements and the needs of your visitors.

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory Resource.

HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the “About” and “weblinks” are kept intact.

You’ve heard the expression, “The Great American Novel?” If
not, a short explanation is in order before I continue.

The “Great American Novel” is that “quick email” you start to
write that goes on for two screens. Or the short memo that turns
into a business letter, or the solo that takes three complete
window scrolls to read. Or an article that runs on a tad too
long… or… oops, sorry! I guess I’ve made my point.

Anyway, the newest of my own personal expressions is “The Great
American URL.”

If you haven’t created your own website yet, and are promoting
affiliate programs, you’ll have to make do with using one of the
“short url” services. http://tinyurl.com is a popular choice
lately and free to use. However, everyone’s link ends up showing
“http:tinyurl.com/whatever” and loses a bit of its own uniqueness
in the process. Don’t get me wrong, if your url is the size of
Brazil and you don’t have your own website, run don’t walk, to
shorten it now!

However, if you do have your own website, there is a quick, easy
way to hide those long, ugly links and make them appear to come
directly from you.

And it’s not hard to do!

Take for example this fictious link:
http://www.applesforsale.com/cgi-bin/bananas/waytoobig.html

Looks suspiciously like an affiliate link, doesn’t it.

So, how do you turn the above monster into that mighty mouse?

Click on My Computer. Open your C drive. Highlight the folder to
your website pages (you do have a backup of your website on your
hard drive, right?) Create a new folder within this directory.
Give it a short name, like RD (for redirect). Close Windows
Explorer.

Now, open the HTML Editor of your choice. Begin a NEW webpage. No
doubt there’s a bit of code already on your page, like a small
meta tag of sorts and the < TITLE >< /TITLE > area.

Now you COULD do a standard redirect in the BODY of your new page,
but this type of redirect causes a pause as the system stops either
briefly or not so briefly on its way to its final destination.

It’s like getting from one link to another via a “middleman.” We’re
going to take the middleman out of the equation and let your viewer
pass immediately to the page of your choice.

You will not enter anything into the BODY of this new webpage.
Instead all your redirecting code sits inside the
portion of the webpage you are creating.

Here’s a sample code (do copy and keep it for your own use):

[Note: To double check that the code below appears the way it
should, you can see a text-only version of this article at:
http://www.mywizardads.com/article14.txt]

< html >
< head >
< title >Apples For Sale< /title >
< meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="0;
URL=http://www.applesforsale.com/cgi-bin/bananas/waytoobig.html" >
< /head >
< /html >

See where I’ve filled in the TITLE? And I’ve copied and pasted
the monster of a url from above just after the URL= portion of the
coding.

That’s it. You do not add anything else to your webpage.

Now you’ll save this page giving it a short name like “apples.htm”
inside the RD folder you created on your hard drive.

Next you upload it to your website.

However, before you FTP it, or publish it if you use FrontPage,
you’ll need to create a new folder on the server side (the internet).
You’ll also name this new folder “RD” (without the quotes). You then
upload your newly created page called apples.htm to this new
server-side folder RD at your website.

The final product? The url you’ll use to advertise will reflect
YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME and will look something like this:

http://www.mydomain.com/RD/apples.htm

No more worries about broken links when you advertise! Plus, your
link now has a more professional appearance. It takes your visitor
to where you want him or her to be, but does it with a lot more
style.

© Theresa Cahill - All Rights Reserved. Feel free to distribute this article. Please keep it intact and with the resource box included below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Theresa Cahill, a two decade veteran of marketing, is the owner of http://www.mywizardads.com and invites you to take a look at the services of MWA and download fr.ee helpful information and more at http://www.mywizardads.com/sitemap.html

Why Should My Business Develop a Website?

There are several specific reasons why a business should
develop a website. Below are a few of those reasons:

• A website will allow you to provide basic information
  that establishes your company’s legitimacy in that having your
  own company domain
  reinforces your legitimacy as a serious business professional.
  Apparently approximately 70% of those who use the internet also
  shop online.
• If you have a physical address a website
  comes in handy when potential customers are looking for your
  location. Providing a map on your site will help these customers
  find you.
• More and more people use the internet to
  shop around and compare prices. This is an excellent opportunity
  for you to list your products and services along with their
  pricing.
• Just about every small business has limited
  office hours. The internet never sleeps and neither will your
  website. This gives you the opportunity to be “open” 24 hours a
  day.
• A website will allow you to update your
  information as frequently or infrequently as you choose.
• A website can reach both your local market and the world
  market. There are no boundaries online thus enabling you to do
  business across the globe.
• You will be able to reduce
  costs by using your site to answer most frequently asked
  questions and showcasing your product or service over the
  internet without the need to spend money on printed materials.
• Your very own website will also make it is easy to
  gain information and feedback from your customers. Customer
  responses can be very valuable in determining the most effective
  methods of marketing to your target audience.
• A
  website can also open up new and complimentary markets for your
  business. You will be able to test new services and products
  online and you might learn that you have a market you hadn’t
  thought of.
• A website will also make efforts easier
  to publicize specials and discounts offered by your company.
• A website will even help enhance your business
  relationships. Informing your clients about your website
  will add to your overall professional presence and abilities.

For more information about website development and
website hosting
simply search the internet to a company that best fits your
needs.

The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is regarded as a service and therefore falls under this law, and as such must be made accessible to everyone.

Some organisations are making accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly not making the accessibility adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?

Why you should care about disabled Internet users

The statistics on the number of users who may face difficulties due to your website’s accessibility are quite startling:

* There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK - 14% of the population (source: DRC)

* One in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness - 9% of the UK population (source: Institution of Electrical Engineers)

* Two million UK residents have a sight problem - 4% of the population (source: RNIB)

* There are 12 million people aged 60 or over - 21% of the UK population (source: UK government)

Although there is inevitably some overlap between the aforementioned groups, adding up these numbers provides a total of 48% of the UK population that could potentially face problems with your website’s accessibility. That’s an extraordinarily high number.

It’s not just disabled users who can’t access your website

Non-disabled people may also experience difficulties with your website’s accessibility. Not everyone is viewing your website on the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all the plug-ins and programs that you may require them to have for optimal access.

If your website relies on images, Flash or JavaScript, and fails to provide alternatives, then your website won’t be accessible to a number of web users. The following examples are a common occurrence:

* Users on slow connections regularly turn images off to enable a quicker download time. Some browsers, such as the text-only Lynx browser do not display images at all.

* Not every user has downloaded the latest Flash program that’s needed to access your site. Additionally, the download time on Flash websites often takes so long that users lose patience and don’t even wait to see the content. Just 25% of web users in the UK are connected to the Internet via broadband (source: National Statistics).

* JavaScript is a scripting language that can cause changes to a page, often through mouse functions, buttons, or other actions from the user. For example, pop-ups are opened using JavaScript. JavaScript is unsupported by about 5% of web users, either because they have turned it off to prevent pop-up adverts or because their browser doesn’t support it (source: The Counter). Any JavaScript-driven content provided on your website won’t be accessible to these users.

* PDAs, mobile phones and WebTV have limited support for large images, Flash and JavaScript. You can test your website by downloading the free WebTV viewer. You can also check how your website looks on a mobile phone with the Wapalizer. Don’t underestimate the importance of this: in 2008 alone an estimated 58 million PDAs will be sold (source: eTForecast) and one third of the world’s population will own a wireless device (source: ClickZ)

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He’s crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy (Webcredible - www.webcredible.co.uk) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

You probably work hard to promote your online business but without a Website that appeals to your potential customers, your other marketing efforts will be a waste of time. No matter how many visitors come to your website, if you don’t have a comfortable stimulating environment, they just go away and never come back.

And believe me, having a great Website content and state of art navigation system will not help you if your visitors feel overwhelmed by your colors or your text is too hard to read.

Seriously, red color on blue background? I’m leaving… Surprisingly enough, red text on a blue or green background is used a lot, even though this is one of the worst combinations of colors. Same thing about dark text on a dark background and vice versa. White on black may seem attractive but it’s difficult to read and it hurts your visitor’s eyes.

Now tell me, would you be comfortable reading the book printed on the dark brick background? Quite frankly, I don’t think so. Neither do your visitors. If you use a background, avoid the busy ones, stick with the lighter shades and let the text stay black.

Also remember: graphics should enhance your web site, not detract! Use the graphics sparingly, avoid dancing, spinning and twirling animated images - they have an overpowering effect on human vision (and make your website look unprofessional). Try to keep your pages simple and calm.

Just like your navigation, you want your font color, style and size to be consistent. Don’t change colors or font style on every page. Choose a color theme then pick a couple of fonts and stick with them. Just remember to use the same size and font on every page and don’t overdo with colors. Also don’t set your text size too small (it’s hard to read) or too large. Size 10 is an ideal size for your main text area.

Before picking any fancy fonts remember that many people may not see them: if they don’t have this particular font installed on their computer, they are going to see Times New Roman instead. So it’s better to use “Web safe” fonts like Arial, Verdana and Tahoma. In my opinion these are most suitable fonts for a website. There are other common fonts like Comics and Times New Roman but if you want your website to look professional, do not use Comics!

To make your pages easier to read have a plenty of white space and use separators, headlines or sub headlines. Also avoid long paragraphs: break up your paragraphs often (follow the 5-6 lines rule).

Your visitors will be much more comfortable if your main text is left aligned or ‘justified’ (HTML: align=”justify”), and not centered.

Whether you’re designing a new website or improving an existent one, follow these simple rules - your visitors will appreciate it!

By Yohana Saint-Etienne
Copyright © 2005

You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification, and the resource box is left intact. I’d very appreciate if you could send a courtesy link or email where you publish to: article@onlinebusinesslaunch.com

Yohana is creator of Beginner’s Guide to Starting and Running Online Business. This guide will take you step by step
through the process of building your online business.
You will find FREE collection of business and marketing tips, tricks, resources and practical information to get you off on the right foot at: http://www.onlinebusinesslaunch.com