Websites, there's literally billions of them out there in cyber-space. How many of them do you go to and just think this is boring, bland, or hard to use? It seems like too many to mention. So what makes a good website? I reckon it's about interaction. You've got to make the visitor interested. You've got to grab their attention. Many sites use plenty of bright and shiny gimmicks to attract you, but once you make it through to the content of the site it's just not worthy. A good site uses easy navigation, relevant content, and interactive media like comments and message boards. If you're fortunate, whoever builds your site may even have a few tricks up their sleeves to make it really fun with sound, video, and other interactive fun stuff.
Do you want people to come to your site and then tell their friend and family about it? Do you want to have huge amounts of visitors? Do you want to succeed in making your dreams come to fruition on the Web? Make your website exciting! It might be easier said than done, but there are people around whose job it is to construct and design sites for a living. If you can afford it, go for the best. How great is it when you come across a site that has some special feature that you've never seen elsewhere? Isn't it great when you find a site that relates to one of your interests that is simple and easy to get to the information you want? If you want to have people to come back again and again, you've got to keep updating the content to keep it fresh and interesting. Have a way for people to communicate with yourself and others who are into the same things. E.G. Forums, message boards and comments. The aim is to catch the 'viewer's' interest. A lot of sites just look like giant advertisements and you have to search for the needle in the haystack to find out what the actual site is for. I know advertising is a way of making money, but if you want your site to have an authentic, respectable atmosphere that exudes a feeling of integrity, you better be careful. People are becoming wary of this consumer driven, mindless attack at the average civilian's wallet. Some people will automatically leave a site if a bunch of commercials pop-up on the screen. Pop-ups, don't even make me go there? So, the aim of the game is to make a site that offers the public to be part of the action as well as being a source of knowledge or information that is in demand. A simple to navigate, good 'feel', and if possible-innovative site is the means to becoming the popular Internet magnate you've always dreamed of becoming. Another important fact is the idea of 'you'. Your website is a chance to put your identity out there in the world. Be yourself. If you try to appeal to an audience in a way that doesn't reflect your true self, you're destined to fail. Be honest and speak from your real perspective on life. Give it to us from the heart.
Making Good Websites that Stand Out
How to Use your Autoresponder for Maximum Profits
In order to maximize the profits you receive from your internet marketing it is important to automate as much of your internet marketing business as possible and autoresponders are one of your main tools in doing so. In this article we discuss how you can best use your autoresponder to maximize profits.
Maximize Profits by Using your Autoresponder to Create an Opt In List
One of the first ways you should use your autoresponder to maximize profits is by creating an opt-in list. Create an opt-in page on your website with a form where people can fill in their name and email address and then send this information through to your autoresponder. As soon as people have sent in the form they should get a request to confirm their subscription and then give something in exchange for their email address. Start immediately to send them information either through running an autoresponder course or starting to send them your newsletter. Using an autoresponder to create an opt-in list means that you will be able to increase the exposure people have to your products and make them more likely to buy from you.
Maximize Profits by Running an Autoresponder Course
Your autoresponder can also be used to maximize profits by running an autoresponder course. The purpose of the course should be to give practical information through which you can sell your products. By using autoresponder courses to maximize profits you are not only ensuring that people stay on your opt-in list to get the latest information or the next part of the course but you also increase their exposure to your products.
Maximize Profits by Improving Customer Service with an Autoresponder
Autoresponders are also great for improving your customer service and the more people like your company and the better customer service you offer, the more likely people will be to buy your products. Create an FAQ email that can be sent out via your autoresponder when people have questions they need answered so that they can get an immediate reply to commonly asked questions.
Maximize Profits by Sending Product Descriptions through your Autoresponder
Another way you can maximize your profits using an autoresponder is to send people product descriptions and specifications using your autoresponder. Give people an option to order more details on any of your products via your autoresponder and so make more sales.
Maximize Profits by Allowing People to Order Information through your Autoresponder
If you have lots of content and articles on your website then allow people to request that this information gets sent to them through your autoresponder. Have copies of your articles and content programmed into your autoresponder to be sent out to people when they request it. Also constantly update the information you have on your website and in your autoresponder so that people keep coming back to find more. Allow people to send your articles to others after they have received them in your autoresponder provided that they keep it as is so that more people will visit your website.
In conclusion, autoresponders are a great way to automate your internet marketing business and maximize your profits. You can use your autoresponder to create an opt-in list, send out autoresponder courses, provide additional information via autoresponder, answer frequently asked questions, and get the content on your website emailed to them. All of these methods increase the exposure the client gets to your company or improves their perception of your company and so maximizes your profits from each customer.
Make More Money Online - How to Create Effective Ads
If you wanted to make more money online, you will have to have your own online business. No matter what kind of business it is, you may consider to use Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing or any other kind of advertising methods to help you promote your business. Therefore, you must know how you can write an effective ads before you can capture more business online.
As you know, more and more people are getting online, and they wanted to make money online. Small business owners are increasing drastically. And this includes bloggers as well. Since they are managing small business, they don't have much budget to run advertising campaign. And if they run an advertising campaign, they will have to make sure that it will be a hit! So I'm going to discuss with you how you can create an effective ads.
1. This is the most basic, and same with every money making concept. You will need to identify the reason and the goals of your advertising campaign. So you see, it is the same as the Millionaire Mindset you will need if you want to be a Millionaire. You may want to get more traffic to your site, and hence more sales. And your goals can be attracting 10,000 visitors to your site after one month. There are many reasons and goals, just define yours.
2. Look for the most suitable sites for your ads. Of course, if you want to use PPC campaign like Google Adwords, then your ads will appear on many sites that are relevant. So just assume that you would like to set up a banner ads now. The things you should do is to look for a site, or a few, that is the best for your target market. For example, if you are selling weight loss pill, then you may consider to advertise on a site that talks about weight loss only. If you have more than one product, then you should consider on a site that has a larger category of audience.
3. The content of your ads are very important. An effective ads content can bring a lot more visitors than the one that has low quality. You should write something eye-catchy and call to action phrases. Write benefits of your product or service and not features. Your ads must have something that is different from your competitors, just think of what makes your ads so special that it could attract more visitors than other ads. As for the description on your product or service, the more detail your ads, the better filter the ads will be. For example, when you write some description like "make money", your targeted visitors will be large, it is not concentrated. You may get a lot of clicks, but less quality. But if your description sounds like "make money using blogs" then the click through rate of your ads may be less, but more quality. Therefore, the a detailed ads will also work as a good filter. It is up to you to choose between quality or quantity. The above are just examples.
4. And lastly, if you want to run your ads campaign, be sure to create a few more different ads, and keep switching them. For example, if you are using Google Adwords, then you may create at least two ads, and advertise them both. Then change the ads with lower click through or conversion, change it to be better. Use the better ads as standard and keep changing the one with less quality.
With all the tips here, I believe you can now create a better and effective ads. So now you can capture more traffic and your conversion will increase. To Your Success.
When Others Do not Approve of your Blog
Regardless of the topic of a blog, all bloggers face the potential for situations in which others do not approve of their blog. Although this type of reaction is popular with blogs focused on political or controversial issues, bloggers who maintain a personal blog may also face disapproval from those who do not approve of the bloggers choices in life. This article will discuss subjects such as dealing with negative comments on a blog, dealing with criticism from friends and family members and will touch upon situations in which blogging can cause legal problems for the blogger.
Dealing with Negative Comments on Your Blog
Negative comments posted on a blog are one of the most common forms of disapproval a blog may receive. These comments may be posted in response to a specific blog posting or may be posted as an objection to the blog in general. These negative comments may be very troubling to the blogger but fortunately there are some methods for dealing with these comments.
Bloggers who are concerned that negative comments may influence other blog readers have a few options for dealing with these negative comments. One way to do this is to set the blog to not allow comments. This will effectively eliminate the comments but it will also eliminate comments from supporters of the blog as well. Another option a blogger has is to simply delete the negative comments as he finds them. This is not a very effective method because other readers may have time to read the comments before they are deleted. Bloggers who are online often and are not concerned about negative comments appearing on the blog for a short period of time may utilize this method. Another method of dealing with negative comments includes rebutting these comments on the blog. Finally, bloggers often have the opportunity to ban visitors who are leaving negative comments from making future comments.
Dealing with Criticism from Friends and Family Members
Bloggers may also face criticism from friends and family members for the content of their blogs. Friends and family members may not use the comment section to express their disapproval but may express their concerns directly to the blogger in person, via telephone or via email. This can be a difficult situation for bloggers because they may be torn between maintaining the blog according to their vision and keeping their friends and family happy. In many cases friends and family members may object to a blog because they believe it can be potentially harmful to the blogger or because they are concerned about how the blog will reflect on them. In these delicate situations the blogger has the option to either delete or modify the blog or to speak to the friends and family members to explain his feelings without making changes to the blog.
When Blogging can Cause Legal Problems
Bloggers should be aware there are some situations in which their blog can cause legal problems. Making statements about another person which are untrue and defamatory can result in the subject of the blog seeking retribution for libel. Other blog postings can also be found to be illegal for a wide variety of other reasons. Bloggers may assume freedom of speech laws protect them fully but there may be situations in which the statements in a blog are not protected under freedom of speech laws and the blogger faces legal ramifications for his postings. Blogging which violates the copyright laws of another can also cause legal problems.
Can Online Videos Drive Targeted Traffic to My Web Site?
Even before Google purchased YouTube for a whopping $1.6 billion, the 20-month old YouTube was doing well on its own with millions of video views per day. YouTube holds millions of short video clips on their website, produced by both amateurs and professionals. How can the YouTube traffic translate into your web site's traffic and actually help in promotion or sales?
Amateur publishers upload their videos for fun, fame or notoriety, while professional publishers use these videos to drive traffic to their web sites, sell services, advertise products, attract new customers and make sales. When you browse videos of amateurs and professional publishers on YouTube, you are actually viewing along with 10 million users. Many web marketers are taking advantage of the high YouTube traffic for the sake of their own marketing goals and objectives. How do they do this?
Since YouTube is a video hosting website that allows free uploads of short clips and videos, virtually anyone can publish their own videos. You can measure the number of times your video was viewed, how many clickthroughs were generated that drove to your website and how many visitors converted into subscribers or buyers. The YouTube traffic from your video leads the viewers to your web site and thus allowing them to check out your products or services.
As simple as this process may sound, it is important to understand the nature of the environment wherein your videos will be distributed. While you can always count on YouTube traffic to divert visitors to your web site, only a small percentage of viewers will "accidentally" find your video. As such, it is best that you follow certain optimization techniques for your videos so that tens of millions of people can find your video within YouTube.
YouTube traffic, plus proper optimization of your videos, increases the chances of your short clips and videos to be more visible within the YouTube website and being found easily through the search engines of other online communities. As YouTube is a community-oriented website, it allows viewers to vote, share, rate and distribute videos they like the most. Meaning, the larger your video's audience becomes, the more traffic your website receives.
If you want to learn how YouTube traffic can help your website increase popularity and clients, master optimization techniques and implement these tricks into your marketing campaign, then you may want to check out various YouTube related Traffic sites online.
Suicide in Cyberspace -Your Outward Links Can Kill Your Rankings
Link building strategies have, for most people for a long time, revolved around reciprocal link exchanges. Whilst most people understand that links are important, they generally don't understand why this is so. In a nutshell, a link to your site has traditionally been accepted by Search Engines as a vote for your site. A link from a topic or theme-related site to yours is better than a link from a site having a completely different topic. An important site's link to yours carries more weight - for example from The Open Directory, or Yahoo Directory. All pretty straightforward...
BUT... the rules have changed... significantly! All the thinking webmasters worked diligently to build links - willy-nilly - in order to subvert the search engine rankings and gain an advantage to themselves at the expense of everyone else. For a long time, there have been mutterings about this, and comments from Google staffers about possible penalties from linking to "bad neighbourhoods'" and - heaven forbids it - buying links! Google et al simply don't approve of willy-nilly link-building schemes, and have recently tightened the screws a bit more, in two notable ways...
Bad Links
Some links are bad... for example, if you are a car sales company and you've got dozens of completely irrelevant links to international hotel sites... yeah, YOU know the ones! in Prague, Munich, Shanghai etc! That's a BAD neighbourhood over there! That IS going to put a world of hurt on you! And as for the Free For All link sites, web rings, and 3 way link schemes... that's just suicide in cyberspace! Why? Coz its a blatant and completely indefensible attempt at cheating the system!
Reciprocal Links - Almost a Waste of Effort
Reciprocal links are still of some value, providing the link titles are explicit, and if the page they link to you from has a higher Page Rank than the page from which you link to them. The concept of a link to you being a vote for you, and being added to your site's Total Vote Count has a flip side. A link from you to someone else essentially deducts one vote from your total vote count... meaning its value is minimal when compared to a 1-way incoming back-link!
1-way Outward Links Are Toxic
Ok, lets assume you are a service provider, maybe a health clinic, and you deal with hospitals, other doctors, specialists, nurses, laboratories. So, as a benefit to your visitors, you place direct links to their web resources on your links page. Is that clever?
Most certainly it is NOT! Transfusion time, because you'll be haemorrhaging Page Rank with nothing in return! Do it, but be smart about it, because there is NOTHING to be gained (by you) from linking to any site that does not link back. So make sure your links include the "nofollow" attribute that tells SE's that the link is NOT a vote by your site for that site!
Link Content Is Mission Critical
This is mission critical because Google and other have decided that they can't trust you to be honest about your site! Basically, it seems like there are two web tribes - those who know not so much about how things work, and those who know more than they should. There should also be a flourishing third tribe, who just build great sites with lots of terrific content that automatically ranks highly - but nobody's seen nuthin' from those guys for ages!
The tribe who know more than they should ruthlessly manipulate every available loophole to dominate search engine rankings, at the expense of those who have yet to read SEO For Dummies. Therefore, Google decided that its essential that there is some external correlation between what YOU say your site is about, and what OTHER people say your site is about... This is done by analysing the words in the Link Title on all links pointing to your site. Bottom line here is - if a keyword phrases does NOT appear on links to your site, you ain't gonna rank for that phrase!
For many established sites, this is the main reason they might have experienced a noticeable decline in rankings in the last few months. Most older sites will have a majority of incoming links based on their business name, and NOT on their activities / products / services / location etc. To use the common "widgets" analogy - if you are selling "widgets" and all your incoming link Titles have your only business name e.g. Smiths Manufacturing Co Ltd, its now very difficult for you to rank for "widgets"!
Backlink analysis reveals this shortcoming rather quickly and, lucky for you, it is possible to remedy this by building 1-way incoming back-links using multiple Title / Description combinations that contain a good spread of relevant keywords. It does require some keyword research, and it is tedious - but if you don't do it, you are certainly not going forwards! But
your competitors might be...
Easy To Build Website Builder.
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The site provider allows you to try the site for free here you can test all features offered by site builder. The trial site will be active during 30 days. During this time you will be able to load your trial site to your real hosting account, if you will decide to order the hosting service. Easy-To-Build will refund your hosting fees at anytime during the first 30 days, no questions asked. Give a try and if you are not happy, they will give you your money back.
During this trial version you can manage all advanced parameters of the site, Email system, Statistics, Sub domains, FTP access, Databases, Password Protect Directories, forums, chats, counters, shopping carts and much more... on the site at demo of web based Control Panel i.e, Cpanel.
Easy-To-Build is professional web hosting service, so you can use any web site builder software. Good example of popular and compatible web design software is: Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. Unfortunately they are expensive. So they offer free web design software NVU. You can download it and use for free.
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Free Directory Submission Gets You Tons Of Quality - 1 Way Links
As the search engines are evolving each and every day, it's getting harder and harder to get top search engine rankings.
The search engines now, highly favor, websites that have a large number of quality, one way links pointing to them. Because of this, it's absolutely critical that we consistently try to get other websites to link to us, WITHOUT us linking back to them.
Yes, reciprocal linking is becoming less and less valuable. Submitting your website to website directories is an excellent way to get, quality, 1 way links pointing to your websites. You see, many of the website directories online have a high amount of page rank and have been online for several years.
These are 2 of the most important criteria for determining what a good link is, vs what a bad link is. These two criteria are:
The age of the website linking to you
The Page Rank of the website linking to you
With that said, many of these directories have both a high Page Rank AND are old websites, giving them more authority and power in the search engines.
Not only that, but there are literally thousands of website directories on the internet that are absolutely free for you to submit your website to! While it does take time to find these directories and then manually fill out all of the required criteria to submit your website, it is an excellent way to help increase your search engine rankings.
There are some good website directory submission software products on the market. The best of which is a product called Directory Submitter created by Brad Callen. Esentially you simply enter your website details into the software program 1 time, and then click on any of the 1600+ website directories in the software and it wil automatically fill in all of the submission criteria for you. Click the submit button and then your site has been instantly added to the website directory.
FAQs In Choosing A Content Management System (CMS)
Content management system remains to be a big question mark to some web developers and web marketers. They are missing out an important factor in website development by being naïve to CMS. To help webmasters and web developers get the benefit of CMS, here are some of the frequently asked questions about CMS and their answers:
What is CMS'
CMS stands for Content Management System. This is a system that helps in maintaining and expanding website. It aims to make content and structure expansion easier.
What does CMS create'
Content management system stores data in a database. It makes pages only when a site visitor asks or searches for it. This is useful especially for websites that constantly updates their information. So when a site visitor asks for a specific page, the system will display the page being searched for. Some systems cache every new page and create a new one only when some changes are made.
Is CMS useful in publishing site on different platforms'
Content management system is very useful in ensuring your website appears at its best in different platforms. CMS allows you to create different templates that will be suitable to different platforms. This can be done without changing anything with the content.
Is CMS being used now'
There are several large organizations that are already using content management system. Most websites prefer to use CMS because of its promising features and benefits in terms of web content and structure maintenance and expansion.
What is the cost of CMS'
The cost varies depending on the supplier. Some may charge a large amount but includes training on its usage. Others are cheap as well. But be careful in choosing low fixed rate since most of the time the supplier doesn’t give extra technical support.
Will there be website restrictions if I use CMS'
Content management system breaks up the presentation and content by using templates. There are systems that restrict templating. But others don’t offer restrictions. There are also systems that impose restrictions on how the site is hosted. So when looking for a CMS, consider asking the supplier about the restrictions of the system.
Can I use my existing data base'
In choosing for CMS service, be sure that the system can be easily linked to your existing database. This makes working easier. Most websites have data stored in their own databases. Easy linking of the existing database with the system is a big relief for work.
Lifetime Commission From Online Affiliate Programs
An online affiliate program adds value to your website. Signing up for an online affiliate programs can be very effective way of paying for web hosting charges, domain names, and the time it takes to keep an informational site updated. Now, purely informational website that doesn’t sell anything can generate outstanding revenue by adding recommendations to products and services via online affiliate programs.
Online Affiliate Programs with Lifetime Commission
Earning lifetime commission from affiliate programs is the most effective way of promoting any affiliate product. Lifetime commissions are very important because they mean that links you put out there today and get clicked on months from now will still pay you the commissions you deserve.
Merchants paying lifetime commissions offers membership products or services where you as an affiliate recommend those merchants. As your referred member upgrades their membership you get paid your affiliate commission.
Top Affiliate Programs paying Lifetime Commission
Some affiliate programs works in tiers which pays residual income for life. Following are some top affiliate programs that pays lifetime commission:
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Keyword Country: Keyword Country powers you with 4 Keyword Research tools that let you recognize most profitable niche keywords that exist on planet earth. Not only their affiliate programs offers 2-tier commission but also gives you chance to make lifetime commission.
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Search Engine Promotion Tools: New easy to use high end, professional grade, search engine submission, promotion & optimization tools that free up hours of your time each and every month! Their amazing affiliate program pays steady recurring income month after month.When you send them a new subscriber, not only will you receive a 40% commission when their first month of service, but again each and every month for as long as they stay with them.To top it off, they’ll pay you another 10% override for any affiliates that sign up under you. That’s right; this is a 2-Tier program which means you can even earn money on clients you’ve never even sent to our site!
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Real Estate Articles - PLR: Private Label Right membership website gets 50 fresh real estate articles a month with private label rights - Use these articles any way you want - There are No Restrictions!
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Five Pillar Affiliate Program: The Five Pillar Program is the affiliate program of SiteSell. They market a range of quality products to help online businesses. To ensure commissions are paid for the life of the customer, SiteSell uses lifetime cookies, an in-depth customer database and cross checking of customer details, making it one of the best tracked and most rewarding programs around.
The Five Pillar Program is two-tier and pays between 15% and 30% commissions on the first tier and, depending on how much your referrals earn, up to 20% on the second.
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Internet Marketing Center: Get a big share of the revenue pie! Derek Gehl pays his affiliates 60% of net profit. Derek offers wide range of courses.
Just as there are a number of products you can promote, there are a number of tools you can use to promote them - ranging from pre-written e-mail promotions, to pop-up and banner ads, to classified ads and product reviews.
Utilize Traffic Exchanges By Using Splash Pages
When advertising in traffic exchanges, you have to remember that most surfers won't be interested in your site. All they want is that traffic credit they will get by waiting a short amount of time (15 to 30 seconds usually). You can, however, try and get them out of that "clicking zombie" state by using splash pages.
A splash page is used to capture the surfer's attention before they move on to the next site. Here are some guidelines to creating an effective splash page for traffic exchanges:
1) Write an attention-grabbing headline. It should clearly define what your site/product you want people to see is about. I advice against using cliché headlines like "Discover How You Can Fire Your Boss in 7 Days With This Guaranteed Money Making System™" - most people know already that it's usually an ad for yet another useless e-book. It's better to keep it short and simple.
2) Keep it short. Tell them what makes you different. A bulleted list might work well to outline the most important information that surfers will find interesting. If they will want to find more, they will have to take action.
3) Keep graphics to the minimum. A lot of traffic exchange users actually surf with graphics off - if they see nothing where a big image should be (a chart with text, for example), they will leave. Not to mention that a splash page must load quickly (remember, you only have 15 to 30 seconds - site load time included). If you absolutely have to add a big image, don't forget to write alternate text for it.
4) Keep it silent. Sure, an auto-playing video telling how awesome this product is, will get surfers' attention, but it almost always triggers a negative reaction. Traffic exchange users hate sites with sound! If you absolutely have to add a video or a record to your splash page, let the visitors decide whether they want to hear it or not. Consider the loading time as well. It won't be affected if video will be streamed only when visitor clicks the "play" button.
5) Add a "call to action". That's what visitors do after they read through your splash page: join your mailing list, visit your main site, join the program you promote through your affiliate link, and so on.
6) Track your splash page performance. Create several copies of the splash pages, with different headlines, colours and promotional text. Find out which combination generates most clicks on your links and concentrate on promoting that particular page.
Remember that there is no "best way" to design a splash page. Your best bet is creating something original and different from those advertisements we see every day.
How to fidelize users throughout online games
Which are the questions every webmaster is asking himself everyday? How can I get new users? How can I make them come back to my site? How can I make them stay longer?
According to the last rumors, time spent on a site will become the real criterion to understand which are successful sites or not. Nilesen/NetRatings will begin tracking how long visitors spend at the sites. The move by Nielsen/NetRatings comes as online video and new technologies increasingly make page views less meaningful. Very soon "time parameter" will be much more important than page views or unique visitors to award the most popular sites on web.
This new parameter will make necessary users to be entertained as longer as possible on the site. In this article, I'd like to suggest to webmasters one of the most convincing method to increase time spent on a site (and also make them constant users of the site).
The secret lies on contents since content is king: you should give users funny and high quality contents that will be able to involve users on the community of the site, of which he/she will become an important part.
Generally speaking, webmasters should try to give substance to their site: many webmasters take for granted that this is the way to follow, but looking at many online sites, everyone can understand that it is not so clear for everyone. There are thousands of sites without any kind of communicative target or aim, without coherence or essence.
Good webmasters know the great value of community tool used till now: newsletter, chat and forum are the mainly used tools to fidelize users. But now, the same goal can be achieved with less time and in a more effective way using new tools which are having a great develop in the last period.
And what is better than giving users the possibility to play, have fun and challenge many other people directly online?
Online games are extremely good contents to increase widely time spent on a site and, if they are multiplayer games, they are able to create a real community: users play, challenge each other, save their scores and climb charts. Daily online "rendezvous" will become a necessity for them.
There are many and many online games that can be inserted on a site, but today I'd like to suggest to every webmaster a high quality platform with a simple affiliation system, that allows everyone to display many different games on the site.
This affiliation program is offered by the online game site www.popyeah.com. With the program "Popyeah on your site", you could insert easily and freely (...very good!) all the archive of singleplayer and multiplayer games on your site. Popyeah online games are free, extremely funny, involving and easy to play: there are a hundred of online games divided into different categories - from Word Games to Board Games, from Arcade to Billiards.
Popyeah is a very good example of what I'm sayong above: users needs a gaming experience integrated into a wide and vivid community. They want to become part of a real community that plays, talks, has fun and meets throoughout the games.
On Popyeah, users can have their own players profile, they can insert their photos, search for other players, insert them to their friends list to follow on their favourite games, communicate through the chat, the personal blog and even through Skype. These advanced community features make Popyeah platform really suitable to every site that wants to offer real entertainment to users and build a strong community.
Thanks to this affiliation program, everything is available for those site that want to host new contents dedicated to online entertainment.
Browsing this page you can choose between the different available graphical options. Clicking on the link "Code", you will go to a page where you can set up some parameters: language, colours, other plaiyng options and then generate the code to insert into your site.
Such a simple system that allows webmaster to have an additional content with a strong impact to make your site a funny place to come and return and where users can spent their saper time enjoying themselves.
Affiliate Networks Explained – Webmasters Get Paid Today!
An affiliate network is exactly what it sounds like, a network of affiliate programs. Affiliate networks work by having merchant’s signup and submit there commission offer which can come in the form of pay per sale, pay per lead or pay per click. Therefore other webmasters pay you to display there link or banner on your website. Once choosing the affiliate program that best fits your website tracking is then accomplished by having each affiliate given its own unique affiliate link. This affiliate link tracks when visitors to your website click to the merchant’s website. All you have to do is place this link or banner on your website in some prime real estate so it gets some attention.
Three different types of programs exist, the first of the three being pay per sale. Pay per sale can be a flat rate fee or a percentage of the total sale. I personally prefer a flat rate per sale so I know how much to expect from each sale. The second type of program is pay per lead or action. This program pays out when a visitor clicks on your link affiliate link and then performs some type of action on the merchant’s website. The action ranges from signing up for a newsletter to submitting a form. The merchant chooses what action the visitor must take for you to earn commission. I highly suggest starting with a pay per lead program if you are new to affiliate programs and networks. The last type of program is a pay per click. Payouts range from $0.01 to $4.50 per click and payouts vary by website subject. I would not suggest signing up for any pay per click program paying anything less than $0.25
You may be asking yourself how affiliate networks are at all different from affiliate programs. Well the answer is simple, affiliate networks are simply a collection of affiliate programs compiled in a user friendly fashion so you have the flexibility to find programs and change which programs to promote simply by replacing a link.
Many benefits are associated with affiliate networks including the variety of programs to choose from. With the advanced search tool that many networks offer you can filter affiliate programs in the network related to your website by selecting a similar category or searching for a particular keyword. You can also narrow these searches by choosing only programs that are pay per click, within the United States, newly added, etc...
While not all affiliate networks offer multiple payment methods many do. This is another great benefit of working with an affiliate network in opposition to an affiliate program. I personally do not like waiting for a check to be mailed out every month which is the payment method of most affiliate programs. Instead affiliate networks often offer additional payment methods like Paypal or direct deposit.
Running a profitable ad campaign is another tough obstacle to overcome. I suggest if you are new to affiliate networks to signup for one that offers pay per lead programs and choose a program that fits your website. If you notice your affiliate campaign is not performing as well as expected this could be the cause of multiple reasons. The most common error would be choosing an affiliate program that has a high payout yet does not relate to your website content. Please I cannot stress this enough, when choosing an affiliate program from your network choose the one that best fits your website content. Even if the payout is less more of your visitors will convert to sales, leads, and clicks so in the long run it is the more logical choice.
On occasion you will find an affiliate program that fits the content of your website perfectly yet still does not perform. The solution is more of a trial an error than anything else. You need to try multiple affiliate programs to see which one results in the highest payout by percentage. This is why affiliate networks are so superior, they offer the flexibility to test different programs effortlessly and choose which one best fits your personal needs.
Finding an affiliate network has been made easy, our affiliate network list displays the program types available, payment methods, amount of programs in the network, and if the program is two tier or not. The link for our website is in the article signature, so start earning money with your website today!
Written by: Michael McLaughlin at Affiliate Networks – List of quality affiliate networks. Affiliate Program Directory - Most comprehensive directory of affiliate programs on the web.
Selecting a Quality Domain Name
When you're ready to launch your web site and you're trying to select a good domain name, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration.
Select a Domain Name that Reflects Your Web Site
Above all else, your domain name should reflect what your web site is all about. For example, if your web site is about grooming a dog, you certainly wouldn't want to select a domain name like 'mybusinessname.com,' as this would have nothing to do with your web site's focus. You would want to select a domain name that tells the world what your web site is all about -- something like 'doggrooming.com.'
Select a Domain Name that Contains Your Web Site's Keywords
Another consideration of great importance are your keywords. Try to select a domain name that contains your most relevant keyword phrase, as some Search Engines place relevancy on them. A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your web page. If your web page is focusing on grooming a dog, your best keyword phrase will be "dog grooming."
Select a Domain Name that will be Easily Remembered
With millions of web sites accessible on the Internet, it is also very important to select a domain name that will be easily remembered. As in the 'doggrooming.com' example above, 'doggrooming.com' is very easily remembered, contains the most relevant keyword phrase and describes the web site in explicit detail. It is the 'perfect' domain name for this particular web site.
Select the Best Domain Extension
Another consideration of importance is the domain name extension. Although there are many new domain extensions available, dotcom is still the best choice. When typing in a web address, Internet users automatically want to type in a .com extension, as this is the extension that has been embedded into our brains from the start.
Avoid Using Numbers in Your Domain Name
Although you may be tempted to do so, avoid using numbers within your domain name. Including a number within your domain name can cause problems, as when you tell someone your web address, you will continually have to tell them it's a number and not the word. For example, if you selected a domain name like number1host.com, if you were to tell someone your web address, they may try to type it as 'numberonehost.com' instead of 'number1host.com.' This type of domain name would cause confusion.
Avoid using Dashes and Underscores in Your Domain Name
Although many people do it, don't make the same mistake I made when I first started out. Avoid using dashes, underscores or any other characters within your domain name that may cause confusion. When I registered my domain name, Web-Source.net, I actually wanted websource.com; however, it had already been registered. So, I settled for Web-Source.net. Now, when I tell someone my domain name, I have to say it like this: web dash source dot net.
Don't get me wrong, www.Web-Source.net is now a high traffic web site, but I can only imagine how much traffic I've lost over the years due to my domain name. I have received many emails over the years from visitors who had a hard time finding my site. They said they couldn't remember the domain name and kept wanting to type in websource.com.
Avoid using Abbreviations within Your Domain Name
Although well-known companies, such as IBM, can get away with using abbreviations within their domain name, most companies can't. As a rule, try to avoid using abbreviations or anything that will be difficult for your visitors to remember. Not only will this cause confusion, but it can also cause your potential visitors to make spelling mistakes when trying to type in your web address.
Avoid using Long Domain Names
Although you may now register long domain names, it's really not a good idea. I learned this lesson the hard way. I registered 'www.workfromhomebusinessguide.com' and the sad thing is ... I can't remember the domain name half the time. How can I expect my potential visitors to remember it? Try to keep your domain name as short as possible. The longer the domain name the harder it is to remember and the more apt your potential visitors are to make a typo when typing it into their browser.
Ensure Your Domain Name is Not a Trademark Infringement
Prior to registering a domain name, you may want to consider searching the Trademark Electronic Search System, http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm to ensure your potential domain name isn't infringing on any trademarks.
Please don't take this point lightly, as trademark infringement could cost you your entire business. It is your responsibility to ensure that your potential domain name doesn't infringe on any registered trademarks, as the trademark laws that apply in the hard copy world also apply on the Internet. Any company that registers a trademark has the right to protect their trademark and has the right to notify you that your domain name is infringing upon their trademark.
When you're ready to begin, create a list of a dozen or more potential domain names, as chances are, your first choice will already be taken. With any luck, one of the domain names on your list will be available.
Take your time and select a quality domain name that will grow with your business. It will be well-worth your time and effort in the long run.
35 Deadly Website Sins That will Kill Your Business!
by Shelley Lowery
After reviewing thousands of web sites over the years, I have come to the conclusion that many business web sites are missing the boat.
For example, I've been working on some offline promotions and was searching for a simple targeted mailing list. I searched through about twenty sites and not one of those sites were, what I would consider, professional. Their standard blue links were enlarged to about a size 16 font, busy backgrounds, flashing images and very unorganized.
Did I purchase a mailing list from any of those sites? Absolutely not. Why? The way I see it, if those companies don't take pride in their web sites, chances are, they won't take pride in their products either. Large linked text and flashing graphics won't make sales.
Your web site is a direct reflection of you and your business. The appearance of your site is the most important factor in determining your sites value. In other words, if your site doesn't look professional or pleasing to the eyes at first glance, its perceived value and the value of your products and services will be low.
On the other hand, you may have a great web site, well designed and a quality product or service, but if it takes too long to load, the value will still be perceived as low. Why? Because your potential customer won't wait. Ultimately costing you business.
Another consideration of great importance is your content. Not just links, but content with value. When someone is surfing the net and they visit your web site, they're visiting for a reason. Your site has something they want. Whether it is your product, service or information, that's why they're there. If they don't find what they're looking for, they'll move on to the next site and so on.
If you want your visitors to stay at your site, provide the quality content they're looking for in a nicely organized fashion. Give them a reason to want to explore your site and to continue to visit your site in the future.
After receiving many questions in regard to web site design, I have devised a list of, what I refer to as, "35 Deadly Web Site Sins."
• Poor load time
• Poor overall appearance
• Spelling/Grammar
• No contact information
• Poor content
• Poor navigation
• Broken links and graphics
• Poor browser compatibility
• Large slow loading graphics
• Too many graphics
• Pages scrolling to oblivion
• Multiple use of animated graphics
• Animated bullets
• Too many graphic and/or line dividers
• Busy, distracting backgrounds
• Multiple banners and buttons
• Poor use of frames
• Large fonts
• Pop up messages
• Over use of java
• Poor use of tables
• Poor organization
• Different backgrounds on each page
• Over powering music set to autoplay
• Confusing
• Too much advertising
• Large Welcome banners
• Multiple colored text
• Text difficult to read
• No Meta tags
• Multiple use of different fonts
• Under construction signs
• Scrolling text in the status bar
• Large scrolling text across the page
• Poor use of mouse over effects
Take some time to really look at your site. Compare it to sites that you feel look professional. Time your site's load time -- your customers won't wait. Their time is valuable.
The simple, well designed sites make the sales. If your sales aren't what you had hoped, take some time to seriously evaluate your site and make some changes before spending your time and money on advertising and marketing. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net
You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.
**38 Web Design Mistakes you should Avoid
- Confusing
- Pop up messages
- Poor load time
- Over use of Java
- Poor overall appearance
- Poor use of HTML tables
- Spelling/Grammar mistakes
- Poor organization
- Inconsistent page design
- No contact information
- No 'about us' page
- No privacy policy
- Different backgrounds on each page
- Poor content
- Poor navigation
- Over powering music set to auto play
- Broken HTML code links and graphics
- Poor browser compatibility
- Large slow loading graphics
- Too many graphics
- Large Welcome banners
- Flashing banners
- Pages scrolling to oblivion
- Multiple colored text
- Multiple use of animated graphics
- Text difficult to read
- Animated bullets
- No Meta tags
- Too many graphic and/or line dividers
- Multiple use of different fonts
- Under construction signs
- Busy, distracting backgrounds
- Scrolling text in the status bar
- Multiple banners and buttons
- Large scrolling text across the page
- Poor use of HTML code frames
- Large fonts
- Poor use of mouse over effect
Quick Website Tips
Fill out the subject in email from your site.
This is a handy way to organize your incoming email, it's could also be fun to decide what they'll say to you ;-)
OK, here's how you do this just add: ?subject=whatever you want inside your email tag, like this:
email me
Fill out the body of an email for your visitors.
Yes, this can be used as a fast and easy alternative to the Tell a Friend scripts. The body will be filled in for them, and it allows them to fill in the recipients email address.
Here's how you do it, just change the subject and body to whatever you'd like:
Tell a friend about us!
Website Maintenance Tips
Why are some people seeing an old version of your site?
Most browsers will cache or keep a local copy of your pages to speed-up future viewing of those pages. Depending on how the viewer set up their browser, it might display an old version of your site, especially if you update your pages often. To tell browsers when to use get a newer copy of your site, you could use following tags:
< equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 01 Jan 1980 1:00:00 GMT">
< equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
These meta tags should be placed in between your and tags. Also the specified date should be a date in the past so that the browser will immediately get rid of the cached copy or not keep it at all. The reason for two tags is that while the "Expires" tag is understood by most browsers, some older browsers may still look for the "no-cache" tag.
Find out how many sites are linked to yours and who they are.
Most search engines offer this feature but each do it a bit differently.
- Yahoo: type in either linkdomain:www.example.com link:http://www.example.com into the search box... or for more detail, try Yahoo! Site Explorer, click "Inlinks", then choose "Except from this domain" from the drop box (this is it's current setup, I don't guarantee that it will stay exactly those steps, but if it changes look around and I'm sure you'll find it.)
- Google: link:www.example.com
- MSN: link:www.example.com
Method 1 - .htaccess 301 Redirect
The smoothest way to redirect your visitors is to use an .htaccess redirect. This has no delay since before a page is served to the browser the server checks first for an .htaccess file... if it sees this the old page never loads, instead visitors are sent directly to the new page.
These are a few .htaccess redirect codes that I've used that might come in handy for you. This is not a complete list by any means, but it took me ages to find how to do these so I'll save you the hassle and list them here. Oh, and please don't email me with questions about how these work, like I said, I found these with the help of others.. I have no idea in the slightest how to write this stuff and take no credit (or responsibility) for how they work.
If you're more technically minded than I am and want the information straight from the source, check the Apache Tutorial: .htaccess files for more detailed info.
Important notes about htaccess redirection
1. Always be sure to upload .htaccess files in ascii mode, sending it up as binary will break it (and usually make your server very, very unhappy.)
2. .htaccess does not work if you're on a windows server.
3. Make sure you triple check your changes. Clear your cache and look, test the server headers to make sure you see a 301 (that means its permanent) not a 302 (temporary) unless you are absolutely sure you really mean temporary.
4. Since some operating systems don't allow you to make a file without something before the "." you may need to save it as something.htaccess, some may even have to save it as htaccess.txt and change it once you've uploaded it.
5. Make sure your ftp program will show .htaccess files (FileZilla does and is free) It is a bit hard to edit something you can't see ;)
6. Double check that you're not overwriting an old one (some servers already place one there for your custom 404 pages etc.)
7. Make sure you replace example.com with your own sites URL ;-)
301 Redirect Examples
To Move a single page
Quick, easy and seamless for your visitors.
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html
To Move an entire site
This will catch any traffic on your old site and redirect it to your index page on your new server. If you want to redirect each page to its new spot, this isn't the one for you.
Redirect 301 / http://www.example.com/
Changed file extension?
This example is perfect if you've decided to switch to .php from .html pages. It will look for any .html page and redirect it to .php (ie http://www.example.com/yourpage.html and redirect it to http://www.example.com/yourpage.php). Now, be careful with this, it does mean any html page. I did this on one of my sites and had totally forgotten I had an iframe with .html content on some pages... I didn't notice for weeks that it was broken :S.
So learn from my mistake ;-) check, double check, then check again.
RedirectMatch 301 (.*)\.html$ http://www.example.com$1.php
Redirect www to non www version of site
It's best to stick with either always using www.example.com or just example.com. Allowing both can confuse the search engines. So here's how to force your site to always show the non-www version. (Search for "canonical url errors" in your favorite search engine for more info.)
Note: If you do use either of the next 2 codes below, and use a secure server (ie. https:) be sure to check that it doesn't redirect the secure to the insecure version. I'm pretty sure this will do that and that isn't something you want!
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} . RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com RewriteRule (.*) http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Redirect non-www to www
Same as above except in the reverse, this one forces the www. into your url.
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Redirect example.com/index.php to example.com/
Another snippet that I've heard is a good idea to make sure search engines don't give you a duplicate content penalty, this will also redirect example.com/folder/index.php to example.com/folder/.
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on # index.php to / RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3, 9}\ /.*index\.php\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]
I might add more later as I need them, for now those are the one's I use on a few different sites I run. Remember, I can't stress enough to test, test and re-test anything you do to your .htaccess file.
Method 2 - Meta Redirect
I'd really advise against redirecting this way! Most search engine are having difficulties with this one (and spammers have been using this in very bad ways) and it might get your page in a heap of trouble! Some browsers also don't read it properly so your would-be visitors may get stranded. Seriously, it really isn't advisable to use this anymore but if you insist on trying it, here it is.
< meta equiv="refresh" content="10; url=http://example.com/">
Content="10; tells the browser to wait 10 seconds before transfer, choose however long you would like, you can even choose 0 to give a smoother transition.
Final Notes
I can't stress enough how important it is to test your server's response headers any time you make a change to your .htaccess file! If you use Firefox the LiveHTTPHeaders extensions is the best I've ever found. That will tell if you're sending a 301 (permanent redirect), 302 (temporary redirect, not what you want probably!) or 200 which means page found, as well as a ton of other info.
Reference Tips For Uploading
Ascii or Binary?
The general rule of thumb is if you can view the file in a text editor like notepad (ie. .html, .js, .css files etc) you should upload in ASCII mode, most others (including images, sound files, video, zip files, executable's etc) should be uploaded in Binary.
Exceptions to the Rule
It seems all things related to computers have exceptions to the rules. Yes, this is yet another case of it.
If your text files contain international characters (ie. Chinese or Japanese text), they are to be uploaded as binary. The reason is that ascii takes into account differences between DOS and UNIX files (7 bits) but it doesn't do well with text using higher bits.
Why Does It Matter What Mode You Transfer Files With?
If you upload images etc. as ascii you'll end up with corrupted files. Some browsers seem capable of figuring it out, but not all... and not all the time. Netscape is much more picky, so you'd end up with broken or missing pictures for your Netscape users. (Yup, I learned this the hard way :-o )
Same thing with uploading text files as binary. While this is less important for html files, scripts will have a HUGE problem with it and will just not work. This is the most common cause of the "Server 500 Error - Malformed Headers", and other equally unlovely errors that have caused many a webmaster to bang their heads against their computers.
So What Does Uploading In ASCII Do?
I'd wondered this for a while and finally decided to learn why uploading in ascii is so important for some file types. What I found out is that different Operating System's use different ways to specify that a line has ended. So if you're using a different operating system than your server (which is very likely), the files will have extra characters at the end of each line that the server doesn't recognize. So it'll usually print them out resulting in script errors.
Setting Your FTP Program to "Auto"
Most FTP programs have the option to set your upload to auto. What this usually does is compare the file type you're transferring against a list of known file types and set it to binary or ascii upload on its own.
By default, most FTP programs will have a pre-set list of files to be transferred in ascii and will upload / download everything else in binary. (These settings are in different places depending on the program you are using. Check the "Read Me" file or their Website if you can't find it.) Be sure to double check that the files you want to transfer are in the appropriate list.
Summary
ASCII Files
.htm .html .shtml .php .pl .cgi .js .cnf .css
.forward .htaccess .map .pwd .txt .grp .ctl
Binary Files
.jpg .gif .png .tif .exe .zip .sit .rar .ace
.class .mid .ra .avi .ocx .wav .mp3 .au
Chmod - What is it?
Chmod stands for Change Mode and is a command usually needed for installing CGI scripts on a UNIX server. Basically it tells the server what the file or folder permissions are, ie. can the script read the info, or can it write information as well.
What do the Chmod Settings Mean?
Chmod tells the server the access privileges for a file. For example, common file settings are:
777: all can read / write / execute the file.
755: owner can do all, group / others can read / execute.
644: owner can read / write, group / others can read only.
Common Chmod Settings
cgi scripts: 755
data files: 666
configuration files not updated by the script: 644
directories: 777
Tips For Creating Your Website
What is Hotlinking?
Are you a hotlinker?
Ok, so you may be new to the web or even web design in general and want to create your own space online...
You see an image you'd love to add to your website, you:
- Download it to your hard drive and upload it to your own server (after checking that is is allowed to be used)... or,
- Add it to your page without uploading it to your website.
If you chose #1, congratulations, you've already decided to not hotlink! If you chose number 2... please read why this is theft.
Hotlinking - What is it?
Hotlinking, inline linking, remote linking and many other terms are used to describe a way taking images, or other files and embedding it directly into a website. In other words, unauthorized use of someone else's bandwidth. Hotlinked files are files Not stored on your own server. For example, a hotlinked image code would look something like this:
![]()
OK, so why is Hotlinking wrong?
If the person who owns the media file you are embedding into your own website gives permission to hotlink, then nothing is wrong. Sadly, this is not usually the case.
If you don't have permission, remote linking to any media and / or program file is theft.
Yes, theft.. even if it's a clipart archive offering free images, a music server giving away free tunes or a website with freeware... Unless the original website specifically states otherwise, hotlinking is stealing.
"Wait a minute" I hear you say, "I didn't steal anything, the file is right where the owner left it!" OK, let me explain this a bit. Each time a file is called from our servers we have what is called a data transfer request, or another way of saying it.. we have bandwidth used.
Bandwidth is a bit like gas for a car. Every time you drive (or a file is loaded), a bit of fuel (or bandwidth) is used up. Now imagine if each night one of your neighbors siphoned out a tiny bit for their own car... then other neighbors thought "I'll just take a couple drops as well"... by morning your fuel tank is empty. Your neighbors each thought taking just a tiny bit would be unnoticeable.. but added all up it left nothing for you.
Serving up images is not only usually our biggest consumer of bandwidth, when others remotely link to them (ie. embed them in their websites from our servers without our permission), we have to pay... bandwidth is not free! Most websites have a limited amount of data transfer and the website owners either have to cough up extra money each month to pay the fees, or face shutting down.
The difference between hotlinking & linking to a web site:
When people link directly to a media file (gif, jpg, png, mov etc.), the webmaster of the original site has to pay the fees. When someone links to a page on that same website, the webmaster still pays fees but the content is shown in the form the designer (and copyright holder) wished, and they may be able to cover costs by displaying advertising on the page.
Super simply put... Hot Linking to media files = bad... Linking to pages = good ;-)
Other reasons you shouldn't hotlink files
Eventually every website owner that faces this dilemma has to make a decision. Close up shop... or fight back? Since their files would now be embedded into your website, they are free to do with those files as they wish... and most will.
Some things webmasters can do to hotlinkers:- Rename the file and give the hotlinker a broken file.
- Replace it with a very nasty file (think of whatever you'd most dislike seeing on your page and I can guarantee the website owner with the original content can imagine something ten times worse.)
- Replace it with a notice that hotlinking is not allowed and an advertisement for their own website.
- Contact the hotlinker's website host and submit a copyright / terms of service abuse report. In most cases this will result in the hotlinker losing their website.
OK, but...
So by now you (should) realize why hotlinking is wrong, but what if your web site host doesn't allow images stored? That's an easy one!
Either find a better host, (here are free subdomain hosts and a list of free domain hosts) that will allow image uploading.
Option number 2, keep your current host and use a free image host that allows hotlinking.
Can't save files?
If for some reason you can't save a file, or perhaps not on your own computer and find an image that you want, there's the Transload Service that will upload it for you, or you could always email yourself the file for later use.
Oh, and please, before you take any file whether it's an image, sound file or anything else.. check that it is allowed to be used elsewhere. Just because something is on a website does not mean that anyone is free to take it! There are copyright laws online as well.
Thank-you for taking the time to learn about hotlinking
If you didn't understand what hot linking or remote linking files before was, a big thank you for reading this! My hope is that by reading through this, learning why hotlinking is theft and how to avoid it.. there will be more responsible linkers in the future.
Please help keep the free clip art collections and sound files that are freely offered online, and available for free for future users. Do your part by linking properly and explaining it to other people you might know that hot link simply because they don't know any better.
Speed up page load time
Formatting Tips To Speed up Your Website
While more and more people are getting access to high speed internet, there are many left on dial up. Be kind to those visitors and do a few, simple things to speed up your webpages. Not only will these tips give you a faster load time, most will also help keep your bandwidth fees low as well!
Use CSS For Faster Pages
Even if you decide to use tables, CSS can greatly improve your web sites load time! With your styles in an external .css file, the browser can cache all the formatting and stylizing for your pages instead of having to read each and every single tag all over again. Also it cuts down on long drawn out tags and replaces them with smaller class styles instead.
Use External Scripts
Use the same script on multiple pages? Switch to an external script. I'm not talking about remotely hosted, I mean loading javascript files from one source instead of adding all that code to each of your pages like this:
That way the browser already has it in it's cache and won't have to read it each time another page loads. This one saves a ton of load time, specially for larger scripts!
Remove Anything You Don't Really Need
OK, while this might sound obvious sometimes the hardest thing about creating a website is not using every fancy trick that you know. Images, flash and sometimes even sound files are very impressive.. but do you really need to showcase all your talents one one page?
Embedded sound files are something many people just find annoying anyway. You'd be surprised how many are surfing at work ;-). The last thing anyone wants is a loud music or sounds announcing to their boss that they're surfing. Also many people have their own music playing... hearing a song over top of what we're listening to is less than pleasant. As for Java applets, try to ditch them or if you want those effects, JavaScript unusually loads faster and can do just as much or more. Stand back and take a critical look at your website, you may see a few special effects that can be let go of for the sake of faster load time.
Avoid Nested Tables
OK, I'm not a big fan of using tables for layout anyway (I'm one of those people that believes content and presentation should be separate.. but thats another tip page). With that said, if in your templates tables seem neccessary (or the easier way to do it), try to avoid nesting. Why? When you place a table inside another table, it takes a lot longer for the browser to work out the spacing since it has to wait to read the entire html and then work out the layout. If at all possible, try using CSS to create the columns on your page.
Avoid Full Page Tables for Faster Rendering
If you use tables, try avoiding the whole page being one big table. The browser won't show anything until it's read the whole thing that way. For a faster loading webpage, either try multiple tables (not nested) or having stuff above the main table to make your content in the first table show up faster. That way your visitors will have something to read while the rest of your page loads. It may not really make you page faster, but it will feel like it to your visitors.
Split Up Long Pages - Multiple Short Pages Load Faster
By splitting up long pages into multiple pages you not only make the content show up faster but many people that see a very long scroll bar give up. Remember, people's attention spans are often shorter than a grasshoppers (OK, not literally, but you get my point) since so much information is available at our fingertips. Try breaking it up into more readable lengths.
Remove Excess "Whitespace"
Whitespace is the spaces between your coding, removing the unneeded tabs and spaces can help a lot! Doing this will take a lot of extra bytes off the total size of your page and will speed up load time quite a bit. (Careful using automatic squishers, I find they often squish too much and makes it rather hard to edit later.)
Keep Your Code Clean
If you do use a wysiwyg editor, most times the will add useless code to your pages for example, many will leave empty tags (ie. ). Removing any of those excess tags will not only speed up your load time, but make you pages validate a lot cleaner.
Speed up Images Load Time
Don't Go Overboard On Images
While images can greatly enhance the look of a site they can really slow it down if there are too many. Try to decide if all your images are really needed (quite a few nice effects can be done with css, so sometimes images are unneeded.)
Height And Width Tags
When the page loads and the image size is already defined (ie. you've used the height and width tags), the browser knows where everything will be before the images are loaded. Otherwise the page has to wait and load the images before the text. Same goes for tables, so try to use width tags when possible on those as well for a speedier page.
Faster Images? Reduce Their File Size
There are many totally free, online image optimizers so you don't even have to install anything and it's extremely easy! Online Image Optimizer will greatly reduce the file size of your gif, jpg, or pngs and neither you or your visitors will be able to see the difference other than a page that loads a heck of a lot faster. They also keep the transparency and animations in gifs! For another JPEG reduction, try JPEG Wizard, also free, this one will only work with pictures in your hard drive not ones from the net. You can also choose some simple effects to be done (flip, mirror and rotate).
GIF vs JPG vs PNG
Personally on new sites I design I tend to go for optimized pngs. They have lossless compression (unlike jpgs and can be used without worry (gifs have the potential to have copyright issues) and load fast! With all that said, if you still want to use gifs and jpgs, here's a bit of fast info... If you don't need sharp resolution, choose GIFs over JPEGs, as GIFs generally load quicker. JPGs are generally best for photos, GIFs for anything else.
(I'd add a rant here about how Microsoft had held up the web's development with not making IE6 support png transparency... but *sigh* I've ranted about this already to anyone who will listen. Firefox, Opera and other modern browsers however have been able to show alpha transparency in png for years... oops, sorry, that was a mini rant after all!)
How To Create a Custom 404 Page
"Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.
Apache/1.3.31 Server at www.example.com Port 80"
Look familiar? We've all seen that too many times while wandering the Web. And if you're like most people you just hit the back button and try another website. Why not make a custom 404 page that's friendly for your website visitors and gives them a way back to more familiar (or at least not lost) territory.
These tips won't work for windows servers, but are perfect for Unix hosts.
Step 1 - Create the .htaccess
To begin open up your .htaccess file if you already have one, if not pop open notepad or your favorite text editor (No, a WYSIWYG editor won't work here) and add this line:
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php You can name your error file whatever you'd like and use whatever extension you are most comfortable with.
Step 2 - Create the Custom 404 page
Create a file called 404.php (or whatever you wrote in your .htaccess), add whatever you want your visitors to see when they hit a missing page. A sitemap or search is nice, along with letting them know the file they requested is not available.
Step 3 - Upload
Make sure your FTP program is set to upload as ASCII, upload the 404.php, then the .htaccess.
Step 4 - Check it
Make sure your browser cache is clear and type in a file you know doesn't exist on your server.. something like http://www.yoursite.com/oops. You should be seeing your new, fancy, and much more welcoming 404 page.
Step 5 - Double Check it!
This is important, make sure your custom 404 is actually sending a 404 header! The best way I've found is using the Firefox extension called Live Http Headers. It shows you the entire conversation between your browser and the website. Again, type in a file you know doesn't exist on your page, it should say 404 Not Found, not 200 OK. (If you have images on your 404 page, those will show code 200 which is exactly what you want because.. well they are there ;), so scroll to the top of the header testers output and read carefully. The page itself should send a 404.) If it's showing a code 200, remove the .htaccess and try again. The last thing you want is for the search engines to see a 200 response code for a page that doesn't really exist!
Notes About a Custom Error Page
What you have on your error is personal choice. Some people prefer just a link to the main page, others go for a more friendly approach and let the visitor know that the file isn't there, but give a nicely designed page with links to other areas or even a search to let them find what they wanted. Below are a few (hopefully) helpful notes.
"Friendly" Error Messages in Explorer
Internet Explorer 5 and up display "'friendly' error messages" and not the carefully crafted and actually helpful 404's available on many sites. To avoid this simply make sure your 404 files size is over 512 bytes, not including images (the actual pages code itself) and even IE users will have the benefit of your new page. (This is probably the only time I suggest to get files size up. Useful in this case though!)
Absolute URLs
If you use images or any type of external files in your new custom page, use absolute links in your error pages code. (ie. /images/mylogo.png or http://www.example.com/images/mylogo.png). Why? Well your 404 pages is different than other files on your server, if someone lands on http://www.example.com/stuff/morestuff/lostfile.php the error page is actually being served from that folder. That in place you should have your bases covered in case of an accident or confused bot.
Things to Avoid
I've seen many people use the 404 to redirect to the main page... no warning that the file was missing, no way of letting the visitor choose where to go. Besides, do you really want the search engines to get caught in a redirect and see you main page as one big 404?
Another thing I've seen a lot is a customized 404 that is well... not so customized. More than once I've seen just the logo and "Not Found", no way of getting to the main page or other areas.
What is a Favicon?
Favicon stands for "Favorites Icon". It's the little icon beside your site's name in the favorites list, before the URL in the address bar, as a bookmarked website on the desktop, in the "Links" bar and on the windows taskbar.
Why does Favicon.ico Show Up as a 404 in the log files?
I was confused when this first started showing up, if I'd never had a file called that... why were people looking for it? The answer is simple, all it means is that people with browsers that use favicon (Internet Explorer 5.0 +, Firefox, Mozilla, Konqueror and a most others) are visiting your site. While seeing a 404 in your log files usually means that a visitor got the dreaded "404 Page Not Found" error, in this case it doesn't. All it means is that the default icon was shown instead of a custom one, your visitors saw no errors :-)
Why should you use a favicon?
Most peoples bookmarks / favorites list is a very cluttered place. Having yours stand out with a nice graphical reminder of your site beside it is a good way to get their attention again.
How To Make a Favicon
There's quite a few good favicon creators for free, a few of my favorites are FavIcon from Pics (within seconds create a favicon from any image on your computer, even an animated favicon!), Favicon.com's online creator, or use one of the popular icon creating programs. You could also make it in your favorite image editor, save it as a bitmap (.bmp) and use Icon Master to change it over to the icon format. (Just renaming the file isn't going to work.)
I'm not going to go into detail here about the actual creation of icons, there are tons of other sites to help you on that if you get stuck.
I will tell you the icon basics. Icons are image files that actually contain one or more images, so a good idea is to make the 16x16 size as well as a 32x32 size. If you want you can make other sizes since xp users can have larger icons on their desktops. Make sure you use the default windows color palette (256 colors), again, if you wish you can make extra images inside it that go up to the XP colors. When you've done that, name your file favicon.ico.
How To Get Your Favicon To Show
There are 2 different ways to do this:- Method 1
- This is the easiest to do and it will show your icon no matter what page your visitor adds to their favorites. Simply upload your new icon to the main directory of your site, ie. www.example.com/favicon.ico.
- Method 2
- If you don't have access to your root directory (if your on a free server for example) or it you want a different favicon for certain pages, add this to the < head> of your html. URL:
< link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://example.com/favicon.ico">
Note:
The first time (OK.. I admit it, the second time to) that I tried to add a favicon I got rather confused when I decided to change it. If you upload a new one, be sure to clear your cache for the new icon to show up ;-)
How To Link to a Specific Spot on a Page
Want to give your website visitors a shortcut to a specific spot on a page? Or maybe add a link back to the top so they can get back to your navigation menu or any other area within the page? Targeting within a page is really easy and there's 2 ways to do this, here's how.
The XHTML Compliant Way to Link Within a Page
If you don't know what XHTML compliant means, don't worry it just means that it will help your pages validate as XHTML Strict, the old way won't pass. This method is just as easy as the older link jump and when you continue getting better at designing you will probably be glad you did it this way in the first place (no messy editing later).
1) Name the Target
Choose the exact spot you want to send your link to, choose and element near it (a div, header tag, paragraph.. whatever as long as it's in the right spot), add id="something", you can call them anything you like as long as the names are the same in the link and the target ID and preferably no spaces (spaces change to %20 in the address bar and look a tad messy).
An example would look like this:
The content of your div here.
2) Link To Your Anchor Target
To link to your anchor simply use:Link Text Here
or if it's on another page:Link Text Here
The Old Way
This way of jumping to a spot within a page is not as good an idea for a few reasons. The "name" attribute has been depreciated for XHTML, and using tags you already have on your page like < h1>,
or any other places you can add id's will leave you less clutter on your page. (ie, you can use them for css styles, javascript and a lot more. And yup, if you happen to already have a something styled on your page using ID, linking to it works just fine.)
With that said, just in case for some reason you want to try the other way, here it is. As with the linking method above, you can call it anything you'd like, try not to use spaces though (they look rather messy in an address bar).
1) Naming the Target
Choose a spot on the page you want to link to and make an anchor by making a link mostly as usual but instead of "href" add "name" inside it.
Here's an example:something here so you don't have an empty tag
2) Linking to your new jump spot
This step is the same as above: Link Text Here
See, either way you choose to link within the page it's fast, easy and can be very helpful to your visitors.
