Low Price Web Design – Advertising and Marketing

Building a website for a small and medium enterprise can be a stress free
experience If handled efficiently. Follow these 10 basic web site design tips
and they will make your task much easier.

1. Own Your Project: It’s your site, your investment on the line. Be
prepared to lead and keep the momentum heading towards a realistic
launch date. Be patient but firm and keep directing the flow towards your
end goal. If you don’t have the time to manage the construction of the
site, hire someone who does.

2. Choose Your Color Scheme and Layout: Search the web and
choose a few sites featuring the colors and layouts you like and a
few sites with colors and layouts you don’t like. Otherwise, you might
be presented with a design or color scheme that is not what you had in
mind and that will be force a major delay in your site launch date while
you start from scratch again.

3. Decide on Theme and Images: Choose your images with a common
theme in mind and make sure your concept is easy to understand.
Run it by your friends and family, if they don’t get the idea immediately,
you need to go back to the drawing board. There are lots of great images
you can purchase on the web, however, make sure that the theme and
the backgrounds of the images are consistent. Merging light and dark
backgrounds can make the best images look out of place. You can find
a great variety of royalty free images on Fotosearch.com.

4. Plan Your Site Structure: Write your site structure down on paper
or use an excel spreadsheet; otherwise, it might get out of control. Keep
it simple but scalable so you can continue to add pages as the need or
demand arises.

5. Hire a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Firm: Your developer
should have SEO experience or be working with an SEO firm. You
want your links and content developed around keywords and phrases
that customers are actually using to search for your products not industry
insider terms that your customers are not familiar with. An SEO firm
will guide you through the process. You can find top SEO firms advertising
on Searchenginewatch.com or go to Google and type in
search engine optimization and visit some SEO sites.

6. Meet Suggested Deadlines: A good web design firm will give you
target dates for images, content, keyword development and site structure.
Be prepared to meet the proposed deadlines at the agreed time or you will
be put on the sidelines while the developer works with a client that has their
act together.

You know what you want; you have assembled a team of experts and
You understand the perils of keeping your teammates waiting

You are good to go!

7. Begin With Keyword Research: Participate in the keyword research
but trust your SEO partner. Start with Google Suggest, a free keyword
tool. Start typing your keyword phrase. Google Suggest will show you a
drop down list with numerous alternative keyword phrases that might be
valuable to your business. Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool provides free
results as well

Once you have exhausted these tools, Wordtracker.com is a terrific paid
subscription software that can lead you into profitable directions you
may never have imagined.

8. Start Writing Your Content Now! Did I say now, I meant right now!
Now that you have your keyword phrase list, you will soon discover what
an onerous task it can be to write the content for an entire site. A better
idea might be to outsource the content to a good writer. You can edit their
work before you site goes live and your SEO firm should have a hand in the final product. You can find a list of award winning content writers at TopSEOS .com.
should you decide to outsource your content development.

9. Don’t Assume Anything: Just because you have given instructions to
one of your teammates don’t assume that they are being executed. Keep
a list of items that you have delegated and check to see if they have been
completed.

10. Edit The Site Yourself: Once the site is complete, review every page
for spelling mistakes, graphic mishaps, incorrect internal linking and
unnecessary links to the SEO or developer sites. Review your site in Internet
Explorer and Firefox to make sure it is consistent both web browsers.

Anticipate delays in your project but keep the pedal to the metal until the site
is operational. Don’t compromise on your vision of the site but be flexible
enough not causing major delays in the construction. Finally, track
everything. Your new site will be drawing web traffic to your business; you need
to know where your visitors are coming from.

Barry Byers
Vice President
Search Engine Academy Toronto & Montreal

Barry Byers and Greg Mate have a significant body of experience as Professional Search Engine Optimizers and Internet Marketers and they have owned and operated successful National Yellow Pages Advertising Agencies for the past 15 years. Together they have helped a number of businesses achieve top search engine rankings and increased web site traffic in both Canada and the U.S. Together, they have designed and programmed effective websites as well as consulted on SEO and marketing on existing sites. Offices located in Montreal and Toronto. Web addresses:
http://www.serchengineacademy.ca and http://www.adperformancedirect.com

Home-based businesses need a strong web presence to combat the inflated advertising and marketing budgets of their larger competitors, but establishing that presence through a professionally designed and developed web site may not be an affordable option. In many cases, the only cost-effective way to get the web site you want for your business is to do it yourself.

Even if you are not experienced in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), you can find helpful programs which will assist you in your design efforts. Trust me, it is not as difficult as it may seem to be.

Here are a few tips for finding software to meet your small or home-based business’s needs.

1) Know Your Options

When it comes to web site creation software, there are three types to choose from: text editors, HTML editors, and WYSIWYG editors.

Text editors, which are basically any word processing program such as Word or Notepad, require extensive HTML knowledge.

NoteTab Light (Freeware)
http://www.notetab.com/download.htm

HTML editors are much like text editors except they include additional features to aid inexperienced users, such as color-coded tags and pre-prepared CGI and Java scripts. If you have little or no experience with HTML, WYSIWYG editor is a better choice.

HTML Kit (Freeware)
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/download/

Web-O-Rama (Donationware)
http://www.kevingunn.com/weborama.htm

WYSIWYG, which stands for What You See is What You Get, programs like FrontPage or DreamWeaver allow you to design the pages’ appearance without writing code. You pick what
you want and the program automatically generates the code.

Macromedia Dreamweaver ($399) (Recommended)
http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/download/

NetObjects Fusion ($149.95)
http://www.netobjects.com/products/html/download.html

2) Look for the Features You Need

When you start browsing for web site software, you’ll want to look for a few key features, such as ready-made templates, wizards (they make many tasks easier and quicker), auto-backup, and pre-built code.

Remember to also keep in mind your own level of HTML experience. If you are inexperienced, then you will want plenty of templates and wizards to help you along. Likewise, if you feel comfortable working with code, then you may want to choose programs without all of the bells, whistles, and help since they will cost you less.

3) Do Some Research

Never buy a program, especially not one for business, without trying it out first. Most of these programs have demos or free trials available on their manufacturers’ web sites. You can also check with sites such as CNET.com or Epinions to get an idea of which programs are being recommended by users. Check with popular computer magazines for their experts’ input as well.

All of this research will give you a good idea of which programs to explore and which to avoid when you are making your final buying decision.

4) Keep in Mind Your Budget

Depending on which type of web design program you choose, your costs will vary dramatically. Text editors, for example, are often already on your computer. Notepad, a feature of Windows, makes a very usable text editor and will cost you nothing extra.

HTML editors, on the other hand, can cost anywhere from $30 to $100 while WYSIWYGs are priced between $70 to $500 and up.

Well-known brands, such as Adobe and MacroMedia, will cost more but the quality of their programs and the stability of their company make them a better choice than the inexpensive software from unknown vendors.

Also, be sure to look for programs that offer free or reduced price upgrades so you continue to get the most from your software without paying full price again every two or three years.

With these tips, you should have no trouble finding an HTML program that fits your needs and your experience level so you can create your own professional-looking web site without draining your business’s budget.

—–SIDE BAR—–
No matter which software you use, a good knowledge of HTML
will always be helpful. Here are some links that have helped
me tremendously in building my HTML and web designing
skills:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/teachingtool/html.html
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
—–SIDE BAR—–

———–
Vishal P. Rao is the owner of Work at Home Forum, an
online community of people who work from home.
———–

For those of you who are involved in electronic commerce, you would know that one of the reasons why some people don’t buy online is the lack of ability to feel the product. By creating e-book covers, product boxes and software packages you can increase your sales of your electronic goods. As for the usual products a photo of a product can have the same impact. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

In the advertising of your electronic product the story changes completely. Customers prefer text ads rather then the graphic ones. Perhaps, users are tired of pop-ups and flashing banners. In this case you can say the opposite, “a word is worth a thousand pictures”. Wondering how? Think of the word “home” for a moment. Got a few warm thoughts coming to your head? Well every single person will percept this word differently in a personal way. I guess you now better understand why textual ads can have more impact on people.

There is not a single person out there who can’t make money online. It’s the income that varies. Some people sell thousands of dollars of products through their websites, others use ebay and make just as much. There are ones who don’t sell anything at all but get paid from content advertising and of course there are ones who are sceptical that it all will work. Which category do you fall into?

About The Author
Alexei Kouleshov is a web developer and an online marketer.
For more information visit http://www.youreasywebsolutions.com