When creating a business website, you have two choices. You can put a brochure online or you can have a powerful marketing vehicle.

When presented with these options, people will overwhelmingly say they want a powerful marketing vehicle. So, why do so many business people create a brochure online?

I think it is fundamentally because they don’t understand how the web works.

Your most recent search on Google was probably about creating a business website. That’s how you ended up here. How do I know that? Because, having an understanding of how the web works, I know how to capture that search. I know how to drive you to this site.

Further, I know what the next action I want you to take is. I want you to click on the link in the resource box below. I also know that 9 times out of 10, you won’t click on the link in the resource box. But that’s okay, because I know that if I’ve done my job right, enough people will do what I need them to do make it worth my while to have written this article.

For those of you who do click on the link below, I know what I want you to do when you get to my home page.

My total plan for taking you through the sales cycle is mapped out. And, I can do that because I understand how people operate on the web.

The question I have for you is do you know how to make people find you on the web and are you able to take enough of them through the marketing cycle and turn them into customers? If not, you are missing a powerful marketing strategy.

This strategy is called “pre-selling” and it’s not a bright idea I had one day. Instead, it was developed by one of the web’s pioneers, Dr. Ken Evoy.

While many Internet Marketers have taken Evoy’s advice to heart, most small businesspeople have no understanding of how to maximize the potential of their web presence.

I’d go even farther and say that most small business people are actually minimizing the potential of their web presence.

That’s understandable. Unlike full time internet marketers, small business people are busy actually running their businesses. Fortunately, there are ways to go about creating a business website that actually makes you money.

Once you understand the value of preselling, you know how to go about creating a website for your business.

By: Stacy Fox

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Websites have become unavoidable part of every business or company who wants to get popular and get enough business. It is drawback for a company that operates without a properly designed website. Such things should be avoided at any cost because here the company would not be able to grab in the sufficient business from the clients. Many companies find websites very difficult and specialized task to be done. But you can get your website designed easily by either of the two ways. First option is to hire a web design company that would create your website for a fixed amount of fees; second option is using the web design templates that can be easily found online. The latter option is a cheaper one when compared to the first one.

The website design templates are easy to find and use, therefore many online companies use it in order to save in the costs. But these templates also have certain drawbacks to the taken care of. First problem that you might encounter is the difficulty you face in creating a website using the template. Proper working knowledge about different designing programs should be known to you.

So several we design templates that are available are using the external style sheets that needs to be edited. The templates using JavaScript or images for navigation purpose are difficult to use, whereas the ones with cascading style sheets and HTML navigation are easy to use. Web editor templates should not be used as they cause many problems while using them.

The template you are using should complement the page editor or website of yours. Thus it makes it certain that template will not get changed to accommodate the page editor. It would also avoid situations where template does not get properly displayed by editor as they do not support the technology of the design template. Graphics program is required for editing the graphics of the web design template.

You might also face some customer service issues with the companies providing the template design services. Such problems occur with companies who provide the templates at very cheap rates or for free.

So before buying any web design templates such issues should be cross- checked. If they ignore it, they might face difficulties in future which can be tricky to handle. Before making any buying decision, collect vital information about the company from which you are buying the templates. You can refer to online reviews available about the templates and experiences of people about it. So it is advisable to get the design templates from reputable companies who charge nominal fees for the same.

Copyright © 2010

By: Bryan Bell

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Successful web design companies and designers will all tell you that the most important factors for your website are that they offer original content to your readers in a way that will assist the search engine results.

Make Your Website Sticky

By achieving the above your website will keep regular viewers and of course attract new ones. By adding good quality, original content you can be sure not to lose too many visitors to your competitor sites permanently.

Get The Branding Right

When designing or commissioning the design of your company logo, try to get several variations created to choose from. Ask your friends and colleagues for their opinion to help you make the right decision.

Keep Homepage Text Content Short

Find ways to keep your homepage text content light. Use short paragraphs, line breaks and bullet points where possible to make the information easy to absorb quickly. Don’t put off the skim readers with too much text content.

Text Size Matters

Your target market may be much older than you and may require the use of screen reader tools and much larger text. Consider this at the outset so that your site design can accommodate this.

Easy Linking Between pages

Make it simple to move between pages with an organised menu structure. Anyone viewing the site and struggling to understand how to get around will probably leave.

Pictures Tell A Thousand Words

Good use of images can really improve the users ability to skim read the page and analyse the content more easily. Avoid confusing and non appropriate images and stick to the theme of your page when choosing images.

Give To Receive

Web searchers are usually happy to offer their details for you to use in your future marketing if you give them a freebie. A simple pdf download in trade for an email address is often enough to encourage an action from your visitors.

Learn From Your Peers

Sometimes you don’t need to be completely original. Research your competitors sites to see the things that they do well and try to incorporate that into your site.

By: Robert Melkonyan

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The dream of each entrepreneur starting a web-based business is to get affordable web design services. With affordable web design services, you would be capable to get the most effective designs at the lowest worth possible. The mix of these two components decide the success of an enterprise online. Of the huge number of web design firms, there are some that provide the good high quality at the worth a mean web marketer would be capable to afford.

Methods are involved in designing websites. The tips are supposed to get extra out of a website. The extent of internet design tips determines the full cost of operating a web site and the web business. Right here we shall discuss web design tricks that make net design services inexpensive:

1. Search engine friendliness – A web design trick is making the web site being search engine friendly. Which means that the web site have structures that help the location to be easily crawled and listed by the search engines. This may then make the positioning to simply appear in search engine results. Therefore it is extremely essential that you think about an online design company that has specialists in search engine optimization for websites. Search engine pleasant features are good URL construction, sitemap, RSS, characteristic, image kind, etc.

Not all web design companies are serch engine oriented. There are many good net design companies that will create good websites for you with good designs at low cost costs however with poor search engine features. In this case, the service of the net design firm is not inexpensive because you are paying for it that lapse by way of lack of revenue that might have been made via search engine traffic.

2. Easy replace – An online design trick is that the website needs to be simple to update. An affordable internet design service is one with an internet site that you would be able to simply replace yourself. It mustn’t require special skill to do. Net design companies turn expensive in the event you would all the time should get in touch with the net design company before you possibly can edit articles, change pictures, add movies, change navigation structure, etc. All these value extra money.

3. Customization – One of many net design methods that give affordable web design services is being able to customize the web site to swimsuit the needs of the client. An web business promoting fashion products ought to have designs that the shopper can simply incorporate to mirror the season. Throughout Christmas season, the shopper ought to have the ability to use the customization options so as to add designs exhibiting the Christmas trees, enjoying Christmas songs, etc. All these have impact on the web site visitors. Guests feel comfortable when the website they visit show designs that replicate the season and the product they’re interested in. This increases sales. There are websites for children. As an illustration, an internet site promoting youngsters video and laptop games must be personalized to include intro video games that may be performed online. The power to customise an internet site have a psychological effect on the shopping for behavior of internet users. An online design will flip inexpensive if that is in place.

Reasonably priced internet design services are usually not solely in terms of price. What determines affordable web design services is the experience of the shopper after the website has been designed. A website designed at a very low value could later prove very pricey for what you are promoting if it doesn’t have mandatory options that would enhance your on-line sales. Hence, among the web design tricks menioned above have lots to do with whether or not you bought an inexpensive web design service.

By: Jackson Leapington

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Introduction: This article briefly discusses why should one use a web design template and what are the advantages of having a website template.Why use a Web Design Template? Just image the good old days (early 90′s) of website creation process, when a web designer would start creating a website design from scratch. The designer spends a significant amount of time to “mould” his new design. Then either the designer himself creates the website based on the design or the design is handed over to a web developer, who completes the website creation process. Then came website templates, which made website creation easier, affordable and cut down significant amount of time to develop a website. A good template costs anywhere from $50-$100, whereas a custom built web design can cost you anywhere from $500-$3000. Pioneers like templatemonster.com made a big impact in website template world. Simply put, a website template is a quick tool to develop a quality website and makes the website creation easy and affordable without losing quality. A web developer perspective: Availability of website templates opened up a new world of opportunity for web developers, who could now, create more quality websites in much less time, thanks to many of the template websites available today. A web developer quickly chooses the template(s) he needs and completes the site creation process. It is no surprise that number of quality websites created in recent years exploded exponentially. Business perspective: Entrepreneurs or small business owners now have more choices as to what design they need for their website(s). By visiting a quality template website/vendor, a business owner can choose the design he needs and hand over to the development team for website creation process. There are significant time as well as cost savings here, considering the fact that a new web design process takes time for completion. Web hosting perspective: Once website templates became common use in design, a plethora of web site builders evolved and this was a great business tool for web hosting companies, who gladly added templates and site builders to their shared hosting environment. This made site creation very easy for novice people who do not know programming or html. Web designer perspective! Once template websites evolved, lot of freelance web designers emerged, who would create their own template design and sell it through template vendors, raking in $$ dollars. As you can see here, the concept of website templates opened up new business opportunities, jobs as well as cost savings.

By: Tom G George

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The very first written word of mankind was the beginning of Graphic Design! And its native land was none other then ancient caves and caverns! The very first symbol they had sketched through cave drawings, paintings, markings on boulders, bone, and ivory are the foremost indication and evidence where graphic design was born, nursed, nourished and grown! Nevertheless, the term Graphic Design was named by William Addison Dwiggins in the early 20th Century.

Anthropologists studying prehistoric periods on cave paintings leads us earlier than the Upper Paleolithic period from 40,000 – 10,000 B.C., where our ancestors were learning how to design signs and symbols that could be communicated visually; moreover they were successful on leaving their marks. The pioneers of graphic design are none other then our own ancestors, who had lived in the caves and sketched their drawing on rocks.

History of graphics design roots to our own ancestors of ancient era where civilization was cultured in caves, and left their drawings and sketches for us on their canvas of cave walls and ceilings.

The earliest drawings known today are from 6,000 years ago, are that of carved stone and pottery containers. Drawings contained in Egyptian pyramids with signs, symbols and letters are known to all and it leads us back 5000 years.

Furthermore, from 600-250 BC evolution on geometrical shape and structures in Europe played a major role for the development of designing and sketching. As an applied art of arranging images and text for an attempt of visual communication; the hand written copy of the Christian Bible “The Book of Kells”, created by Irish monks in 9th century AD with rich illustrations is a good example of the evolution of graphic design.

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg, a German metal-worker and an inventor, introduced a printing technology allowing the re-use of individual letters. The first book produced by Gutenberg press was “The Incunabula”. This book became the standard in the history of book printing and publishing and was a giant leap for printing and publication; though, block stamping on sheets of paper with text and signs carved, was in use in Europe and Asia long before 14th century; however, Graphic design of this era was formatting and we today have named it Old Style graphic design.

Guttenberg era of graphic design evolution was sluggish, until the 19th century, in Britain the division created between fine art and applied art boosted this evolution, and they successfully published some of the most major graphic design products through the Arts movement. William Morris made a great deal of business of publishing books with stylish printings and contributed a significant role to attract the potential market as well as commercializing graphic design; in addition he was the pioneer for the separation of commercial design and fine arts.

Another painter from the 19th century was Piet Mondrian whose innovation has greatly influenced today’s modern graphic designer. Though he was not a graphic designer, his uses of grids was the origin of modern day advertisement known as the grid system; widely used by graphic designer of our century today.

With the decadence of classical style, modern graphic design engrossed in the early 20th century with designs influenced by fine arts. The trademark of early modern fonts is the sans-serif typeface. In 1928, the book “New Typography” written by Jan Tschichold systemized the philosophy of modern typography.

Furthermore, the fathers of modern graphic design are still considered to be typographers such as Herbert Bayer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky as they broke new ground on typography building techniques and stylizing. Modern computer technology has changed typography production altogether, but for the experimental and evolutionary approach their contribution was highly recognizable.

The booming and flourishing period for graphic design was after World War II; as the American economy thrived, the demand of graphic design, particularly on advertisement and packaging sectors blossomed.

I Love NY ad campaign (1973) and a famous Bob Dylan poster (1968) designed by Milton Glaser are examples of applied graphic design culture and its influence. Progressions in graphic design in the early 20th Century were mostly enthused by technological expansion in printing and also in photography. But at the mid of this century, the raising of the computer era in graphic design has faced little backwards as early computers were far weaker and computer memory was limited. However, within the end of this century with the immense development of computers and its corresponding technologies, modern graphic design has evolved into a business that is done almost entirely on computers.

In mid 1980, the arrival of desktop publishing and the launching of software applications like Illustrator and PageMaker introduced an era of designers to computer image manipulation and 3D image creation. Computer graphic design facilitates instantaneous effects of layout or typography changes.

Today, graphic design the visual communication, is yielded in the rich soil of computer ground, fertilized with latest hardware and software technologies. Graphic designers worldwide plough through computers loaded with the latest gadgets and gizmos, software and hardware, academic and technology, information and communication, and are generating the new history of graphic design in their design laboratories.

With express elevation of the hi-tech industry, the future assures more and today’s designer are contributing their name and effort through their creativity for the next generation. History yet has to write all of her pages for new innovation and invention in this field.

Author: Bharat Bista Resources and References: Graphic Design – Custom Web Site Design – Silk Flowers

By: Bharat Bista

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To make a web page is now very easy if one has the right web page maker templates. Web design has been a time consuming headache even to seasoned developers for a long time. One can now literally create a professional looking page in seconds if one has the content ready. The right page maker templates should come fully customised for search engine optimization. Uploading of web pages to the subjects has also been confusing to aspiring web developers who don’t have knowledge of file transfer protocol. Therefore proper page maker templates should have easy uploading facilities that don’t require much technical expertise.

The first important feature the templates should come with is a variety of themes to chose from so as to blend in with the subject. If you a designing a cooking website, the template should have a recipe theme and not that of a restaurant. Since there is a wide variety of subjects, this calls for an extensive range of different themes. The web designer shouldn’t have to go scratching his head for themes, the web page design software should come loaded with attractive and appropriate themes. This makes branding of the web page even easier.

Secondly, template should allow you to customize your own theme. To customize a theme, the page maker should have a user selection for features like colors, a selection of single, double, triple or quadruple columns, left or right hand side bar and ready to use widgets. It should also be fast and user friendly with all caption descriptions of available feature that anybody even a newbie can use with ease. The template maker should also allow for editing of the appearance after the site has been uploaded.

Thirdly, the user should also be able to select his style of choice depending on the usage and subject of the website or blog. If it is for an international market, then it should have translation ready features. By also having a subject feature for example holiday, safari, adventure or mountain climbing, then it becomes very easy to customize the page. It should also allow for inputting of sticky posts and threaded comments. The width of a page is also important so to allow for flexibility on whether one wants a fixed or flexible width.

After the template has been selected and customized comes the crucial and the final important feature of a template. The administration control panel should be very user friendly, easily understood and with tutorials and help functions. Uploading a page, a comment or a post should not be rocket science. And editing a web page should be in real time. Then the content can be fresh and updated regularly which the search engines love.

Web design now has never been easier if you are using the right web design software. Then you will be able to produce professional looking and search engine optimized web pages very fast that you will keep content as current as you wish which translates into relevant and targeted web traffic. Not to forget happy prospects and high conversions.

By: Lawrence Kiragu

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As true as the old cliche “You can’t judge a book by its cover” may be, the fact is that we all do. The same goes for websites. When a visitor first lands on your website they make a judgment based on how it looks to them. This makes professional website design a critical factor for business websites because if the visitor doesn’t like what they see, gets confused or gets offended then your competition is but one click away.

When it comes to your own website, if you carefully consider the following important aspects of professional website design the end result should be an attractive, professional looking website that effectively meets the needs of your business.

Firstly, your business website must look professional. A good, professionally designed logo helps and make sure all photographs are professionally done or at least look like they were. Any text copy should be concise, to the point and purposefully written. If you’re planning on selling online then engaging the services of a professional web copywriter may be a worthwhile investment.

It can be tempting to try to create all the content for your website on your own to save some money up front but remember – you and your business will be judged by the way your website appears. If the logo, images or text copy appears amateurish or of poor quality then you run a very high risk of losing potential customers and, as a result, potential income. In the long run the initial savings may be marginal in comparison to the overall loss of potential business.

Good web design principles should be apparent throughout your website. It should be easy for a visitor to navigate through your website and any text should be in a font that is easy to read. If you make anything difficult or confusing your visitor will probably leave. A professional website designer will understand how to best structure the navigation and layout of your site as well as which fonts will be best and even down to the finer details such as colour schemes.

Lastly, don’t think your website needs to make it seem like your business is a large corporation if it’s not. While it’s easy enough online to make out that your business is bigger than it actually is there’s really no need and it can only work against you in the long run as you’re creating false expectations in your visitors minds. You don’t have to look like a large company to be successful online, you just need to look professional and provide your customers with a clear, easy to use website that meets their needs.

All you really require for your business is a professional looking website that is designed to be effective in meeting the online needs and goals of your business. It makes economic sense over the long term to seek out a professional website designer to do this for you, which leaves you free to do what you do best – running your business.

By: Megan K Roberts

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Recently a national recognized training company that I have been happy with sent me the following at part of their response to my inquiry:

2.) Web Application Development in Microsoft .NET and Web Design- (5 Months during the day or evening) This program teaches you how to write code to develop software and web -based applications using the most in-demand programming languages and tools. This includes writing customized business applications as well as customizing existing business applications. This includes everything from database design and control to script programming. At conclusion of the program you will earn 5 Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certifications. Our Placement Partner assists you with placement in the Kansas City area. Avg. starting salary with no experience is 51k per year, growing to 73k after just 4 years of experience. New Horizons guarantees that you will pass your exams and guarantees at least 3 interviews with Kansas City firms and/or government agencies. In addition to being certified in Web Development, you will also be trained to use the latest Web Design Tools like Dreamweaver, Flash, and Illustrator, In Design and many other Design Tools.

The salesman also said they were having no trouble placing entry-level students after the training. Given that I am a career-changer and the current economy is this a good idea? Assume I can take the courses, pass the exams and otherwise fully benefit from the training. Is this a good idea?

Thanks.

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Many options are before you when you wish to design your website which makes you feel puzzled of which to pick. Simply because there are numerous options, we often overlook the basic web design principles which usually may hinder us from attaining our objectives with our website.

Let us discuss the 3 essential web design principles.

First of all, stay focused. Start with your end goal in mind. You have to know the target of your website. What would you like it to achieve for your business? Jot down the goal of your website for you business and make it as a regular reminder when you proceed through the process of web design.

Evidently, we get quickly preoccupied by the hottest widget that may make our website sing and dance. However the questions is, is that what visitors going to be searching for? Possibly not!

Think about the market you’re operating in. Attempt to take a look at some websites in that market. Find out the characteristics that you like and those that you wish to click away. This is a very easy exercise that will help you refrain from overfilling your website with gizmos and gadgets which will just push your visitors away.

Next, draw your overall design just before creating your first page. You should think of your site from a user perspective. Give your website with a consistent feel and look throughout as well as generate clear and concise pages. Think of future expansion plans and include this into your overall design plan. Additionally, make sure that you have your own domain name.

Don’t reduce your efforts through using free hosting services. Despite the fact that free hosting services will save you a lot of bucks and efforts however it will impede you from making some enhancements in your site when you intend to do so later on.

Never fail to make sure that your website have clear navigation menus and links all through your site. Ensure to supply contact details to ensure that your visitors can contact you just in case they needed to. When you’re selling a product or supplying a service, make sure that you let your website visitors know how to buy your products or how to get your services and what to anticipate at each stage of the purchasing process.

And lastly, create your content strategy. “Content is King.” I am sure that you have over heard this saying lots of times. We can’t refuse the fact that we’re surfing the web searching for some form of information whether it be a particular product or content. Think about on the web sites you are browsing. What do they have that makes you go there? What are other parts of the site that make you click there?

The most apparent reason that you go there is simply because you find it simple to find the content or the product that you’re searching for. These websites have tested user experiences to redesign their site to be able to increase revenue. Consequently, it’s ideal to learn from their experiences.

You have to come to a decision what content strategy you want for your website right after having carried out this basic exercise. Consider how you can lure individuals to come to your site and spend some time there after they have got there. Plan on how you can have the ability to create sales from these site visitors. You additionally have to think about keeping your website fresh and updated in order to make visitors return to your site.

Utilizing these three fundamental web design principles when designing your website will help you not only stay away from pricey and troublesome redesigns in the future but also accomplish what your website seeks for your business.

By: Nicole Keller

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