Exchange links

1. Submit your web site to search engines. Don’t wait for them to find you. You can automatically submit to 20 at freewebsubmission.com. You’ll have to submit manually to Google (www.google.com/addurl.html).

2. Directories. Do a search for niche directories for the topic of your website. Just type in “directory + online games,” or whatever your site is about. There are also many general directories that accept submissions for free. The primary value of directories is not direct traffic, however. It is the links that help your ranking (and therefore traffic) with the search engines.

3. Forums. A great source of traffic for some sites. Talk about things of interest to you, and get free traffic to your web site (always sign off with a link). You may want to link to subscription pages for newsletters or e-courses you offer, to get maximum repeat visits from the traffic.

4. Free classifieds. There are many places that you can advertise for free, although few of them seem to be of any value. Test a little, and go with the ones that deliver.

5. Exchange Links. Exchanging links with other web sites can get you free traffic in two ways: traffic from the site, and traffic from the search engines, because the link helps your ranking with them.

7. Give testimonials. Do you love an e-book or other online product? Tell the author, and let her know she can use your testimonial. Mention that you’d appreciate it if she left the link to your site (under your name) active. Good testimonials are valuable, and you’ve probably seen them with a name and link attached.

8. Write articles. A great way to generate free web site traffic. In fact, thats what this article is about, and I have to tell you that there are at least ten more ways to get free traffic in my newsletter. You may want to visit the site and sign up.

1. Ask visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. It’s a good idea to also give them a freebie when they subscribe.

2. Have them sign-up to get access to download a f.ree ebook. The subject of the ebook should be related to your target audience.

3. Give your visitors a free membership inside your member’s only web site. Have them sign-up to receive a user name and password.

4. Hold a free contest or sweepstakes at your web site. Ask them to give you their contact information to enter.

5. Offer your visitors free consulting via e-mail. Have them fill out a web form to e-mail you with their questions.

6. Hold an interactive poll on your web site. Ask your visitors to e-mail you their vote or opinion.

7. Ask your visitors to sign-up for a chance to get a web site award. Have them e-mail you their contact and web site information.

8. Have visitors fill out a survey on your web site. Give them a f.ree gift as an incentive to complete the form.

9. O.ffer a free online service from your web site. Have visitors fill out their contact information to sign-up to the f.ree service.

10. Ask visitors to sign your guest book. Tell them they will get a f.ree gift in return.

11. Offer a free affiliate program for your visitors. They will have to sign-up in order to receive marketing materials and commissions.

12. Allow visitors to submit a free classified ad on your web site. Require them to give a valid e-mail address in order to post an ad.

13. Give people who visit your web site a f.ree course sent via autoresponder. Just ask them to fill out their contact information to receive the free course.

14. Offer your visitors free software to download. Have them sign-up to get an access code to unlock the software.

Web design is an artsy interface. It is all about blending, harmony, unity and functionality. Its beauty and usability combined. Given is the fact that each web designer has his own style of making his design communicate. It varies according to the art influences that they have, their preferences and the stuffs that they want to incorporate in a certain design.

Time is one great influence. As we move forward, we are discovering lots of things to make our design better and more effective. Two of the new designs invading the internet nowadays are the design with the use of 3D objects and robots. This design is made possible by the use of 3D software, production technologies and other sophisticated materials.

When it comes to 3D objects, a simple spreadsheet can edit the same. Anyone skilled in the matter can control the object’s chamfers, fillets, dimensions, shell thickness and more. After that is to go into details. Even the minutest style element detail must be given a leeway and must be considered so as to yield a productive output.

3D software allows the designer to edit the image continuously. The style tools are just around the interface for easy access. This access can speed up the design process of the object. It can be edited and refined in an easy manner.

The evolution of these 3D tools will give a wider leeway to all the designers. As a result, design will be enhanced so as to make it catchier.

Another worthy discovery is the use of robots on the website. Robots can be easily downloaded. There are numbers of sites that are offering them. Through robots, you can give ample information. They are recorded so that the moment the viewers set their eyes on your site, they immediately hear the information. No need to scroll, no need to type. The information is readily made available to them.

These additions will surely uplift the web design’s aesthetic and functionalism aspects. More discoveries are yet to come.

A lot has been written on web design that sell products and services but relatively few web designers know how or are even bothered about developing websites with the basic elements required to give your website a head start on search engines.
Here are a few important web design tips that will set your website apart when it comes to ranking on search engines and selling your products and services.

1. Every web design should include the famous tags. There is no excuse for not including these in a web design from the outset. No matter what they say, tags have their say in the way search engines look at your website and no web design is complete without carefully chosen tags.
There are 3 important tags namely the Title tag, Description tag and the keywords tag. Each web page should have its own set of tags. What are these tags? These are words and phrases that are embedded in the HTML of the website and very easy to include in your web design.
Let us look at each of these tags.

2. The Title tag is an important part of web design for search engine optimisation. This tag is likely to be picked up by search engines and displayed as a result header when a visitor finds your website on a search engine. This tag also appears as the title that in the blue strip at the top of your browser.
A good web design will contain a short Title tag that includes the keywords you think visitors will use to find your site.

3. The Web design should also include the Description tag. This is a short description of what the web page is about and it often appears just below the title in search engine results. Although the importance of the Description tag in search engine ranking is uncertain, the description in a web design acts like a sales pitch. This is your opportunity to tell the visitor what the web page is about and why he or she should click on your website. Remember, web design is not just about building a website and getting it ranked. A good web design should do all this, get the visitor to click on your website when it is found and sell your products and services.

4. Let’s look at the Keywords tag. A lot of web designs contain a mass of supposed key words in the Keywords tag. Keywords are the words or phrases that visitors use to search for websites on search engines. A good web design practice is to have focussed and themed web pages. This means that each web page should be focused on one keyword at a time and this keyword should be in the web page Keyword tag. It is very important that the keywords used in the tag also appear in the body of the text.

5. The h1, h2 headers are also important elements of a good web design. Use h1 and h2 headers as these are read by search engines. Use them as high up on your web page as possible and where possible use the keywords in the h1 header. H1 headers are by default large fonts. It is possible to format these so they match the overall look of the web design and retain their header properties.

What is Web Designing?

Web designing is the design of web pages, websites and web applications. It is the complete web page outlay which is visible to the viewer. It is a medium used by companies to promote their business and corporate agencies to market several products to the customers. It is simply like fine art, creative art of designer.

Web site is a collection of number of web pages, it is very necessary that there is a direct link between each documents loaded on the web site so that the viewer can have access to all the pages. In other words, we can say web site is a bigger picture of web pages.

The task of web designer is to combine the graphic, textual and other elements of a site to create an appealing layout. They exhibit their passion for creativity. They love to be provoked with new web site design ideas and designs. Web Designing is the process by which web designer make visitors able to access the web pages at one platform with several images, texts, links, graphics etc.

Web Designing Skills or Documentation:

Web designing is a career in which a professional simply sell his high creative web designing skills. Quality of your design and programming skills determines whether you are a truly professional web designer. Web designing is a skill that cannot be learnt overnight. Your designs and formats should be well organised and well maintained. Content is the main integrients needed in any website that should be well written and easy to understand. A web designer should also create a coherent and consistent "look and feel" for the entire web. Site graphics and images should be according to the theme of website. Symmetry between the pixels and links should be unbroken. Colour Combination is another factor that web designer has to keep in mind. Your site should be such that it attracts the visitors with all the relevant information. To become a skilled professional, these qualities need to be advanced and worked over the period of 2-3 years. To be a successful web designer you not only need hard work and perseverance but also a through combination of creativity and new ideas which can appeal to the masses.

Website Layout:
To start his work, every web designer must fully understand the requirement of client. He must start his work by keeping in mind those requirements. Heavy animations and images often imposes heavy burden on the site. Such websites consume much time to load and most people quickly lose interest in such websites. The competition is only a couple of clicks away, and if clients become dissatisfied, they can simply go elsewhere.
Designers art becomes more and more refined over the passage of time. His creativity and quality of the web pages improves day by day with hardwork and adaptation of new skills. Web designer’s goal is to help you design effective and aesthetically pleasing web pages while keeping in mind what the client wants him to depict. A good designer knows how to achieve the effects called for in the most flexible, efficient, and elegant way.

Scope of Web Designing:

As more and more websites are been developed in every field so the demand and scope of a professional web designers is increasing. New technologies are coming out daily, so the web designer has to stand up with them to give best work. There are several web design jobs which are available online, offer people the chance to express both their creativity and talent to the entire world.
Web design career for small business continues to be a profitable marketplace, this results to many medium companies setting up specialising in the creation of ‘company for websites’. Internet will grow continously in the coming years, as a result of which more demand of web designers would occur. A designer who can deliver the latest as per the market demands like designs for ecommerce website, content management systems, optimized flash headers will surly have a bright future.
Thousands of potential customers visit a site on a daily basis, providing your products and services with a high visibility. Designing for a computer screen has its own set of problems. Add to these the elastic nature of a web page, which has to work across different computer platforms and screen sizes and browsers, and the problems get even worse. It is the designer’s job to understand these issues and to address them - to maintain some kind of control when everything else is shifting.
In the end we can conclude that web designing as a profession has a wide scope in the coming times if the person has the creativity inside him along with knowledge of the latest skills and the ability to adopt to new changing world of website designing.

To know web designing essence, let us first compare a poorly designed page from that of an outstanding one.

Poorly made page is passive, linear, confusing, pathetic and lacks concentration on details. Thus, it will not do you any good. It will just be a waste of time and effort.

On the other hand, an outstanding page is active, nonlinear, clean and consistent with its style and details. Moreover, this type of page can drag your e-commerce to full blast.

Now, let us discuss the significance of each essential quality.

Interactivity

This quality allows the reader to participate actively and willingly. Examples of interactive device are the following: tests, hypermedia, hypertext, games, chat rooms and the likes.

To be active with the site encourages revisit. This is because visitors are keen enough to know whether this site is enjoyable or not, educational or crap and inviting or flaccid.

Linear Organization

Functionality does not equate to boredom. Thus, do not make your web page more boring than a book and difficult to read like a technical thesis. You have to make it catchy, engrossing and illuminating. Classroom atmosphere lulls visitor to sleep, be sure to arrange your page in a way that it will not be to taxing on them to read your page.

Concentration on Details

There must be consistency as to details. On the educational aspect, cognitive loading, sequencing of information, feedback and erroneous text must be avoided since they represent bad design.

On the technical aspect, broken links, poor navigation and inactive pointers are annoying. Thus, if you want to incorporate the same into your design, be sure they are functioning well so as not to infuriate the visitors.

Graphic User Interface

Quality is your topmost priority. Hence, graphic user interface must not be overlooked. To give you a hint, do not use dull colors, avoid busy screens and the overuse of animations and graphics.

E-commerce web development is crucial to your web page. Be sure to apply them effectively and rightfully.

The options are many and stem from two main categories: free directories and paid directories.

A free directory is a great way of getting back links. Your site will probably get listed on a PR3 or PR4 page. Sometimes, your site will get listed within a few days otherwise it may even take a month. But it can also happen that the free site never gets around to listing your site. The options in the free category are numerous and one can opt for an open directory project such as DMOZ or a free directory like JoeAnt. Apart from main directories there are niche directors that are specific to one segment only like health, alternative medicine, and so on. Remember, every listing will add to the website’s Google PageRank and free directories of standing do provide a steady rate of referral traffic. Many free directories have editors who do the vetting for no remuneration; this allows the directory to include hundreds of sites at little or no cost. Directories like DMOZ are used by Google and other search engines as databases; this means that your web site will automatically be listed in several major search engines and directories.

A paid directory is one that offers premium service which includes faster approvals. Most paid directories deliver high quality traffic or a good PageRank. Less crowded than free directories, your site stands a good chance of being listed on a higher PR page. Some directories like Yahoo charge a fee for considering a site for inclusion. This is towards costs of reviewing your site and the fee is a recurring expense to be paid yearly. However, there are exceptions where non-profit sites are reviewed free but there is a special path for submission of such sites. Other sites charge a one-time inclusion fee. The costs of paid directories can vary from US $ 25.00 (one time fee) to US$ 299 (annual recurring fee).
Whether you should opt for a paid or free inclusion depends on your needs.

•Consider what is your goal?

•Determine how much immediate exposure your website needs?

•Is there time to wait for a free inclusion or would you benefit from a quick paid inclusion?

•Is there budget provision for paid inclusion: pay per click or recurring yearly expenses?

•Do you have time to assume the role of a reviewer and vet your directory before a free inclusion?

•Or, would it be more feasible to pay for a professional editor to review the web site?

•Learn how each directory is organized and what its guidelines are.

•Surf the net and find out where your competitors are listed.

Make a working plan and choose wisely what will benefit your business plan the most.

The Basics:

Web hosting offers you the opportunity to put your web site online, when you think about it; it’s the only way you can do it. No matter how large or small in content your web site happens to be it has to go onto a web server. A web server is simply a larger and much more powerful computer than your own. Your internet content simply sits on this server for people to access and view your information. The web servers are stored within data centers, all you are simply doing is renting some space on the server.

Why use a web hosting service:

Firstly it’s very affordable. Web hosting companies will look after and update all software required to maintain your site, they will also add all security patches making sure your content is safe from hackers/viruses and unwanted spam. Once you register your domain name (web site name) you have to have it hosted for the public to view your information. If you run into any difficulties you will have a full technical support team to help you out. To host your own will cost too much on hardware, bandwidth and ongoing software updates.

I hear of shared web hosting – What is it?

When shopping around for a web host company you will find that many are offering shared web hosting. Shared web hosting is simply a server that has a number of different web sites sitting on it simultaneously. You will be allocated a certain amount of disk space on the server and this may allow you to have a number of web sites hosted on the one server. Shared web hosting is a very secure service even though you could be sharing the server with many different companies. No other company will have access to your files. Many people think that using a shared service will make the web site act very slowly, this is totally incorrect, the information will be displayed and downloaded equally as fast as if it where on the server on it’s own. Web host companies offer shared hosting simply to use up all the space on the server, there is no benefit to you or them having empty hard disk space.

What makes a good web host site?

If you have developed a web site for business opportunity or to sell merchandise online you need reliability. Downtime costs you money so the less downtime you experience the better chance of making money. You need to compile a list of questions to ask the web host company when it comes to hosting your site. You need a guarantee response time if the unthinkable should happen and the site goes offline. You need 24 hour access to your files with 24 hour support if you intend selling products online, most of your sales could be made in the evening or night time so you have to have support for any issues that could arise. Statistics are also important; you need to know how many unique hits (people visiting your site) you are getting so you can see the trend of people just visiting to those who are buying. Some web host companies offer very substantial stats while others can be less informative, you should ask for a demonstration.

Word of mouth is a great way to hear as to who is a good host and a bad host. If you know somebody in a similar position to you, ask their opinion from their experience. There are plenty of good honest web host companies out there but like every market there are a few bad apples. Ask the questions and make sure you are confident with the replies before you join up.

Will it matter if I host my web site in my own country or in another?

Generally speaking no. If you are happy with your questions answered and the company have 24 hour support to allow for time differences you should have the same level service as if the web host company was based just down the road. Some people think that by hosting their website outside of their registered country they will lose their domain identity, this is false e.g. if I was based in Ireland and I had a computer website it would be something like www.computerparts.ie The .ie is the identity of Ireland but if I wanted this site hosted in the US I would still keep the .ie, there is no need to change to .com. That’s the great thing about web hosting, the world is your oyster and you can shop online globally until your are truly happy with the service.

Bandwidth can make all the difference when choosing where to host your website

A common mistake made by so many people when looking to choose a web host company is not asking about bandwidth. After spending so long designing or with a developer designing your web site you do not want to see a good web site ruined and only viewed by a handful of people at a time. A web site is generally your shop window and you want as many people as possible to look in and hopefully click on your information or purchase online if you are offering products. All web host companies will offer you a limited amount of bandwidth, it’s then up to you to calculate whether or not you need to pay a little extra for bandwidth you may require.

Don’t be afraid to ask for advice from the web host company, it is there job to help you along the way and after all it’s you who is paying for there service. You will need to advice them as to how big each page is on your website and if possible a rough calculation as to how many people you think may view your site on a weekly or daily basis.

Is it possible to save bandwidth?

Yes it is and this comes into play at the time of designing your website. If you are looking to save the bandwidth you should put all photos in the JPEG format and all graphics in GIF format. By doing so you are compressing the files using only the very least bandwidth required.

Why do some companies offer only a very limited amount of bandwidth?

You have got to remember that web hosting is an extensive market and very profitably for the web hosting company. The more people they can attract to their services the more profit they make. They in turn have to pay out to the telecoms companies for the bandwidth provided to them and are only wanting to pay the bare amount to keep profits high. Web host companies that are not offering you the additional bandwidth are the ones to avoid. If they say it is not possible to purchase additional bandwidth, then the chances are this is a small company with poor technology behind them operating on a shoestring budget.

What will happen if I do not have enough bandwidth?

It’s very simply really, if your website has not got enough bandwidth to operate with, one of two things will happen. Your website will download onto peoples monitors very slowly and the chances are they will not wait around. The second problem is that your web site may only be viewed by a very limited audience at one time. You may have great link backs from other websites driving traffic your way only for that traffic to be diverted elsewhere to a properly functioning competitor.

How can I ensure that this will not happen to me?

Undoubtedly it is very frustrating to spend time and money developing a good informative website only to have it’s viewing reduced by lack of bandwidth. You need to be honest with your web host company and tell them the number of pages and how large your overall files are, by doing this the onus is on them to offer us the service your require. You can ask for a guarantee from the web host company that all will be fine with your site and there are many out there willing to give such guarantees. If you decide to go it cheap and risk the low bandwidth you are only fooling yourself. Look at the rates from the different web host companies for extra bandwidth and you will be pleasantly surprised that it will not cost an arm and a leg to have a little extra. Knowingly going over bandwidth with only cost you revenue in the long run and makes your website very unprofessional. If you are hosting with a reliable web host company they will not allow this happen anyway.

If you are unsure as to how large your website actually is act the person or company who developed the site for you to advise or simply ask the web host company, all will be happy to oblige you.

In scouting for a web hosting company, always ensure the disk space and amount of traffic needed.

Amount of Disk Space

The requirement of a small or medium web site is between 10 and 100MB of disk space.

When looking at the size of HTML pages, you will notice that the average size is very small - smaller than 1K. But looking at the size of the pictures used within the pages, you will often find them several times bigger than the page itself.

5 and 50K of space on the server is the expected consumption of each HTML page which is dependent on the use of images or other elements that may consume disk space.

More disk space is needed for web sites that plan to utilize lots of images or graphic elements (not to mention sound files or movies).

Before scouting for your web host, make sure that you have knowledge of your requirements.

Monthly Traffic

Monthly transfer of data for a small or medium web site will take up between 1 and 5GB.

On the other hand, monthly traffic in larger commercial sites consumes more than 100GB.

Before the contract with the host provider is signed, be sure that the following is checked:
What are the limitations on monthly transfer?
Will your site be closed if you go beyond the volume?
Will you be the billing be higher if the volume is exceeded?
Will it cover future requirements?
Is upgrading easy?

Connection Speed

Your web hosting provider should offer a relatively faster connection for your visitors who often connect through a modem.

During the early days of the Internet, connecting using a T1 was considered a fast connection. However, modern speeds are much faster.

One byte is 8 bits long, and that is usual amount of bits used to transfer a character (a letter or a digit). 14,000 to 56,000 bits per second (bps) is the transfer speed for low speed communication modems. The range is within 2024 and 7000 characters per second, nearly 1 to 5 pages of written text.

Before making any deal with hosting providers, research some other web sites on their servers, to have a good background about the speed of their network. Likewise, compare the other sites with your site, to check if you have the same requirements. Getting in touch with other customers is another alternative.

Disk space and the amount of monthly traffic is not the only requirement in web hosting. This will depend on the web site you are planning to put up.