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Below are some basic tips for the new webmaster. These tips range from how to find a good web host to marketing your finished web site.
Building traffic for your site
One of the most important jobs you have after creating your site and going ‘live’ is drumming up traffic for your site. Like I have said in previous articles, you can have the best-looking, most informative web site to ever be uploaded to the internet; but without visitors it is completely useless. Many banner exchange services will not even allow you to participate in their programs unless you have existing traffic visiting your web site regularly. Many programs will also ask to see your raw log files from your server to prove the amount of traffic your site actually gets as well. Without traffic, your marketing campaign can end up being a vicious circle of pulling out your hair trying to figure out how to get started.
I have found the following resources (I myself use them to promote my own personal web sites as well as some of my current customer’s web sites) that are vital to getting your traffic statistics jump-started.
Hit Pulse.com
Hit Pulse.com has been a strong force in the marketing industry for just over 3 years now. They combine their referral system with a brand new Power Points system that can literally earn you thousands of unique, targeted visitors to your web site. The key word here being targeted. If the traffic that a service is delivering to your web site has absolutely no interest in the products that you sell, it is just as bad as having no traffic at all.
They use a unique approach with the referral system as well, you get credit just for someone going to their site via your referral link, they do not even have to sign up for the service and their referral program goes 5 levels deep.
Another nice perk with this service is that you can list more than 1 url in their service, so you can have your home page as well as 2 other pages (20 total pages under their paid service) listed for them to deliver traffic to. If you really want to jump start your traffic flow, they also offer a start page option where you set your browser’s home page to the url they assign to your account and surf their network of site to earn credit that you can trade for directed traffic. Best of all, this is a free service.
Traffic Swarm.com
Traffic Swarm.com uses almost the identical system as Hit Pulse.com, but they also throw in a lottery-type drawing and a search engine for additional traffic potential. These two system are so closely similar that I use them in conjunction with each other constantly. (I never use one without using the other) This company also utilizes a start page system. This system may sound somewhat time consuming, but if you are at all serious about driving traffic to your site, you will at least give it a try. This is another free service.
Blinding Hits.com
Blinding Hits.com is a newer company that uses a similar approach as the company’s listed above, including the start page option. Since they are new and are trying to build their member database of web sites, they offer much better incentives when you join like 1,000 hits for joining and an additional 1,000 hits for each person that you refer that joins. They also offer pre-written promotional materials such as email templates and banners. This is another free service.
Boom Clicking.com
Boom Clicking.com is a real die-hard program. If you are willing to invest the time (maybe 1 - 2 hours a day) surfing their network, it will pay off very well for you. They also have a banner and text link program that you can convert your start page credits to as well as a great interconnected referral system that allows you to tie your account in with 30 other referral-based traffic building programs like Traffic Swarm, Hit Pulse and No More Hits.com, which can end up doubling or tripling the traffic that is delivered to your web site!
While I have seen success with the above systems, I can’t guarantee that you
will have the same level of success that I have achieved; I have devoted a bit of my personal time to making these systems work for me. These systems, while very simple in nature, will require at least some time out of your schedule every couple of days. By now you should be well aware that the ‘set it up and watch the money flow in’ myth is just that, a myth. If you truly want to succeed with anything, including your online business, you will have to work (at times, very hard) to reach your goals.
I have offered the above programs to you mainly because they are free (some with a paid upgrade option) and you can at least try them with no out of pocket expense. I myself have stayed with the free versions of these programs by choice, while other people I know have opted to use the paid versions after being successful using the free versions initially. The choice is completely up to you. Give them a try and good luck on building your initial traffic flow!
Finding a good web host
One of the very first hurdles that you will run into (after deciding to
take a fifth mortgage out on the house) after deciding to create your first web
page is hosting.
Hosting refers to obtaining space on the internet to put and
display your web site, you may have also heard of this referred to as server
space, web space or web space account.
A web server is not too much different
from your home computer with a few exceptions:
1. A web server is configured
specifically for serving web pages.
2. Most web server’s are connected to a
high speed connection.
There are many people that have DSL or cable modems
that do host their own web sites straight from their home computers utilizing
web server software like Apache, PWS (Personal Web Server from Microsoft) or IIS
(Internet Information Server from Microsoft). I know of one person in the next
town over that hosts his own online forum right from his DSL connection, but
this method is not suggested unless you have a strong background in server-based
environments.
There are literally hundreds of companies out there to host
your web site, the challenge is to weed out the bad hosting companies from the
good hosting companies. When shopping for a web host, there are a couple key
facts that you must keep in mind:
1. Monthly cost.
2. Amount of web space
for the account.
3. Amount of bandwidth for the account.
4. Has the IP
block that the host resides on been blacklisted by search engines.
1.
Monthly Cost
Most hosting companies will offer somewhere in the neighborhood
of 3 different plans for you to choose from. The first plan will be the bare
minimums to host a web site, while the last plan will have all of the bells and
whistles that you could want (and probably some that you don’t need). Some
providers will offer tools such as html editors, mailing lists, etc. While some
companies offer good tools, other companies offer ok tools that laden your site
with their own links to their web site (the trade off for using their ‘free’
tools) in an attempt to get traffic from your site to their site.
2. Web
Space and Bandwidth
These are probably the biggest 2 factors when shopping
around for a hosting plan.
Web space means that actual amount of space that
you will be allowed to use for your web site. These days web space is either
measured in MB (megabyte) or G (gig). MB is the smaller of the two measurements.
Most web pages (not including pictures) can be anywhere from 1K to 30+K in size
(1,000K = 1MB) while pictures can be from 5K to 100+K. To effectively figure out
what size web space you need, you will need to have a rough idea of how many
pages you will have and how many images you will have. You can usually average
each page as being 10K in size and be safe, but with images you will always want
to optimize them for the web, which will allow you to have a good picture with
the smallest size possible. AS a rule, I usually try to keep all of my pictures
between 5K and 25K, anything larger than that and you will doom a dial-up
(access via phone line) customer to the eternal World Wide Wait.
Bandwidth is
the main reason for keeping your pages and images as small in physical size as
possible. Bandwidth is the allotted amount of data transfer that your account is
allowed for a given time period, usually per month. The biggest problem with
bandwidth is running out, when your bandwidth runs out 1 of 2 things will
happen:
· Your web site will not be displayed when people go to it, or
·
You will be billed for extra bandwidth as used for an outrageous price as a
penalty for exceeding you bandwidth limit.
Either way, you NEVER want to run
out of bandwidth. Think of running out of bandwidth like someone coming and
boarding up your retail store, not letting anyone in to shop even though they
know they are in the right place.
3. Blacklisted IP’s
An IP (Internet
Protocol) address can get blacklisted on search engines pretty easily these
days, especially in the case of web space providers that offer free email
accounts. Many people utilize these free email accounts and addresses for their
email spam campaigns. How many pieces of spam have you received from a Yahoo or
Hotmail account over the last 60 days? Not to say that only free providers get
blacklisted, even good paid hosting accounts can get blacklisted, it only takes
1 person to start spamming.
Once a certain IP range gets blacklisted on a
search engine, it is this side of impossible to get it off of the blacklist, and
odds are that if you are on one of these IP’s you will have to request your web
space provider to move your account to a different IP block, or change hosting
companies all together.
The main pitfall of being on a blacklisted IP block
is the fact that most search engines will not bother indexing your web site into
their database because they have associated YOU with being a spammer just
because of your IP address. Is this fair, no. Is this right, no, but it is their
world and to succeed you have to play by their rules.
Web sites and shopping carts
We have all heard of the term web sites, most of us have also heard the term
shopping cart. While both of these are essential to doing business online, many
people do not realize the difference between the two.
Web
Sites
A web site is the core of your online presence. Through your web
site, you can show visitors pictures of the products and/or services that you
offer, offer your visitors a way to contact you or offer your visitors useful
information that they may be seeking.
Most standard web sites are
constructed using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language).
HTML based web sites
can be created using any one of a wide array of commercially available WYSIWYG
(What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors like
Microsoft
Front Page
Adobe
Go Live and
Macromedia
Dream Weaver.
You can even use something as basic as notepad (which is
included with all Windows operating software), but that is recommend for users
well versed in HTML. By building a web site, you complete the first step in
creating your very own online business.
Shopping Carts
Now
that you have your web site built, people can actually see what product(s) you
have to offer, but you have no way of allowing your customer to purchase the
item(s) online.
This is where a shopping cart comes in.
A shopping
cart integrates with your web site to allow people to actively shop your web
site and place items in their cart that they would like to purchase from you.
Shopping carts can range from being fairly simple cookie based systems to
extremely complex database systems. Which you should choose for your particular
web site depends on a number of factors:
- How many products will you be offering on your web site
- What additional options you would like to offer your
customers (i.e. wish
lists, the option to save their current cart for
checkout at a later time,
etc)
- Your personal budget
When dealing with database
shopping carts, you will usually deal with two different types; single or ‘flat
file’ databases and multiple file databases (i.e. Access and MYSQL). While most
companies that are just starting out online can utilize a flat file database,
any successful online business will eventually have to upgrade to a multiple
file database. Multiple file databases allow extra features such as a customer
login, saving of current shopping carts for future checkout, coupon codes for
discounts, the list of options is almost endless. In the end, much like
everything else in business, you are only governed by the amount of money you
have to invest when it comes to selecting a shopping cart.
Click
here for a sample listing of different shopping carts. There are a wide
variety of shopping carts on the market today. Some are geared towards ease of
setup while others are geared towards multiple options for your
customers.
Again, one of the biggest factors you will have to weigh when
selecting a shopping cart is cost. Some shopping cart systems, like the cart
offered by PayPal,
is free to use if you have an account with PayPal but PayPal will charge you a
flat rate fee as well as a percentage fee based on the amount of the total
purchase meaning you will have to pad the sales price of your products in order
to recoup some of the cost associated with using PayPal's services. While this
method is probably the simplest to implement into your web site, the initial
setup time can be lengthy if you have a lot of different products. One way
around the time factor is to use Microsoft Front Page and the plugin that PayPal
has released to work with Front Page. Using PayPal's plugin does cut the overall
data entry time, but it is still very time consuming if you have a large
selection of products.
There are some web sites that you will run across
that do not offer online payment methods, instead they only accept personal
checks and/or money orders.
While this would be more cost effective versus
using PayPal or accepting credit cards, you may lose potential customers by not
offering a payment service that accepts credit cards.
One other thing you
will need to do when choosing a shopping cart to use is check to see what type
of customer service and support you will receive AFTER you purchase the cart.
The internet is littered with 'fly by night' dot com's that are there one month
and gone the next. Support for any shopping cart that you are interested in
using is PARAMOUNT.
Imagine that you have your web site and shopping
cart all set up and ready to go. Your shopping cart runs fine for a few months,
then something goes wrong and your shopping cart fails to function properly,
this would be akin to having a brick and mortar retail store and having the door
to your store get stuck closed. Sure your prospective customers can still look
in the windows of the store at the products you offer, but they wouldn't be able
to enter your store to make a purchase and odds are they will go to another
store that offers a similar product to make their purchase and you have lost
that prospective customer, not to mention the word of mouth that could spread
about the overall functionality of your web site via emails and online forums.
Without the proper support from the company that you purchased your cart
from, the above situation can become all to real. Once you get your web site
established and start marketing your web site to gain your share of traffic for
your market (which will be covered in a different post coming up), you honestly
can not afford to start turning people away to your competitors. Many dot com's
have gone bust because of that very reason, lack of a viable traffic flow going
to their site.
Basic HTML (making basic web pages)
This article will cover the basics of the HTML language. Basic HTML consists of
two main elements, one being what is called tags and the other being the
displayed content.
HTML tags
HTML tags are very simple in nature. Tags
work on a basic principle of open tag – content to be displayed – close tag.
Almost any type of content can be displayed with tags. While some tags relate
only to a certain kind of content (i.e. text or images), other tags can be used
for both types of content.
Here is a basic HTML page:
<html>
<head>
<meta name="description" content="Enter the description you want to use for your page here.">
<meta name="keywords" content="enter the keywords for your page here.">
<title>Basic HTML Page</title>
</head>
<body>
This is a basic HTML page.
</body>
</html>
Let's look at the above tags one by
one.
<html> & </html>
This tag set is one of the most
important tags in an HTML document. This tag tells the browser that this is an
HTML document and that it should process all of the tags to render (or display)
the page to the end user.
<head> & </head>
This tag is
where certain elements are loaded for the page. Notice that the page's title
resides inside this tag. Your page's meta tags also reside in the head tag. This
tag can also have scripts included to load for your page such as java
script.
<title> & </title>
The title tag is just as it
suggests, the title that you want for your page. The text that you enter in this
tag will be processed by your browser and displayed in the top bar (title bar)
of your browser. Since this tag resides in the head tag, the text is not
displayed on the web page itself, only in the title bar of your
browser.
<meta name="description" content=""> & <meta
name="keywords" content="">
These tags are unique from other HTML tags
because there is no open and closing tag, just a basic tag. Meta tags can be
used for more than web page keywords and descriptions, they can be used for
information like the following tags:
<meta name="generator"
content="notepad"> - This tag just states what program was used to author the
HTML page, this tag is completely optional. You may also see meta tags like this
one put in HTML code to list patents, copyrights, the page author's name or any
other type of relevant information. Again, these tags do not need to be included
for your page to load properly, but it is considered to be 'proper web design
practice' to include these types of tags.
<body> &
</body>
This tag is where you put the content that you want to be
displayed on your page. Text, images, etc are put between this set of
tags.
Now that you have a basic understanding how an HTML page works,
lets try some basic formatting and designing.
Highlight and copy the
above basic HTML page.
Paste the page into the program that you are using to
create your web page. (if you are not using a commercially available program,
you can use notepad. Notepad is included with Windows and can usually be found
in the accessories folder).
Now save the page. (If you are using notepad, be
sure to save the file with an HTML file extension (.htm or .html) or your
browser will not know to process the file as a HTML document. To save a notepad
file as HTML, click on file, then save as. click on the save as type drop down
box and select all files.) When saving your page, name the page index with the
html extension. (index.html)
Now that the page is saved, open your browser,
click on file, then open and select the file you just saved. Your basic page
should have loaded with the text 'This is a basic HTML page.' displayed.
Minimize your browser and go back to your designing program.
Here is a short
list of tags that can be used to format text:
<b> & </b>
- this tag will make the text inside it bold.
<i> & </i> -
this tag will make the text inside it italics.
<u> & </u> -
this tag will make the text inside it underlined.
<left> &
</left> - this tag will make the text inside it line up on the left side
of the page.
<right> & </right> - this tag will make the text
inside it line up on the right side of the page.
<center> &
</center> - this tag will make the text inside it line up on the center of
the page.
<br> - this tag will start a new line in your page. (this is
another unique HTML tag that does not have an open and close tag)
<p>
& </p> - this tag will create a new paragraph from the text entered
into it.
Now try experimenting with the above list of tags within the
'body' tags with text. One example would be: <b>this is bold
text</b>.
Try to use all of the tags with different text, save your
file (you can use your save button instead of 'save as' since we have already
saved the file once) and hit the refresh button on your browser to see how
everything is displayed.
Now try using more than one set of tags per line of
text, remember that when you use more than one tag (embedded tags) that you must
close the tags in the exact opposite order as they were opened:
<b><i>your text here</i></b>.
How to create tables
Tables are probably about as old
in web design as font formatting. People use tables to display listings, images
or just to lay the page out how you want it to look. The only real rule of thumb
when it comes to tables is the table has to be in a square or rectangular
pattern, you can not create tables that are in any other shapes, like an
L.
Table tags
The base tags for tables are as follows:
Table
(to start a table): <table>
Table (to end a table): </table>
Table row (to start a row inside the table): <tr>
Table row (to end
a row inside the table): </tr>
Table cell (to start a cell inside the
row): <td>
Table cell (to end a cell inside the row):
</td>
Notice how the table tags follow the same rules that apply to
other basic HTML, one tag to start an element and one tag to close an element.
Just as with font formatting, when closing tags, you must close them the
opposite of how you opened them. So in a 2 x 2 table (2 cells wide and 2 cells
tall) the HTML code would look like
this:
<table>
<tr>
<td>cell 1, row 1 column
1</td>
<td>cell 2, row 1 column
2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>cell 3, row 2 column
1</td>
<td>cell 4, row 2 column
2</td>
</tr>
</table>
Now copy the above code and
insert it into the program you are using to design your web page. (i.e. MS Front
Page, Dreamweaver, etc.) Save the page and then open it in the browser of your
choice and look at how the table is visually shown versus the HTML. Pretty
simple, huh?
There is a whole array of optional tags that you can also
use in conjunction with the above basic table tags. The above listed tags are
the bare minimum that you have to use to build a table. Other tags that you can
use in your tables can be found here:
http://www.mountaindragon.com/html/tables.htm & http://www.mountaindragon.com/html/tables2.htm.
Be sure
to scroll down to the bottom of each of these pages because there is a button
called practice window that will open a new window for you to enter the HTML for
a table into and show you the results of the code you enter in table form.
How to use meta tags
Meta tags were one of the very first marketing methods available to web
site designers. It was the perfect way for people to promote their site to
crawler-based search engines, almost.
While meta tags allow you to enter
keywords that you would like to target for your site as well as descriptions to
be displayed for your site (and a half dozen other uses), many unscrupulous web
designers started to use keywords that were very popular for people to search
for on search engines but had absolutely no relevance to what their web page was
about. That problem has been long since fixed on most popular search
engines.
Since there are so many different meta tags currently in use, we
will be covering the main meta tags that search engines might use when looking
at your site to include into their search results.
<meta name=”keywords”
content=”enter your web page keywords here”>
<meta name=”description”
content=”enter your web page description here”>
Meta tags can only be seen
by people if they look at the source of your web page. Meta tags are placed
between the <head> and </head> tags in your web page. When a search
engine that supports meta tags goes to your web page (not all search engines are
meta tag based) it does not look at the page that your visitors see (in their
browser), instead it looks at the actual html of your web page. The search
engine will then read your meta tags and compare them to what is actually on
your web page.
Let’s take the keyword tag and break it down.
<meta name=”keywords” content=”enter your web
page keywords here”>
The first part of the meta
tags tells the search engine what type of meta tag it is reading. In this case
it is a keyword meta tag, so the search engine knows to compare the words
entered in this meta tag to the rest of the words on your web page to see how
relevant each keyword is to this particular web page. The more relevant each
keyword is to the content on your page, the higher potential ranking your web
page may get when someone search for that word on a search
engine.
The second part of this tag is where you
list the keywords that you want to use on your web page. Although previously
mentioned, I can not stress the importance of only using keywords that are
relevant to your web page. Using keywords that have little to no relevance to
your web page can and will hurt your potential rankings in a search engine. So
if you created a web page that talks about candles and you created the following
meta tag for your web page:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”candle,
candles, container candles, free, music”>
you would get
penalized for putting free and music in your meta tag if your web page has
little or nothing to do with those two words. You will see many web pages with
meta tags just like the one above. The word’s free and music are some of the
most popular search words (alone as well as in combination with each other) on
the internet and some people think that if they include those keywords in their
meta tag that it will help boost their search engine ranking, when in all
actuality it may harm their rankings more than help. The easiest rule of thumb
to keep from getting penalized like this is to stick to what the page is about,
no matter how tempting it may be to just try a popular word or two. Remember
that once a web page gets a low ranking because of incorrect keywords, it can
take months or even years to try to increase that page’s ranking.
Another
pitfall you want to avoid is over use of a particular word or words. If you
created a meta tag like this:
<meta name=”keywords”
content=”candle, candle, candles, candle”>
your web page
could get flagged for spamming the search engine because you are repeating the
same keyword over and over. It is generally ok to use say candle and candles in
the same tag, but much more mention of either of those two words in your meta
tag may get you flagged for spamming. Even worse, it may not just be your web
page that gets flagged for spamming, but your entire web site. So if you have a
couple of web pages that are already ranking well on your site and you create a
new page that gets flagged for spamming keywords, all of your web pages for that
site can get penalized or, in a worst case scenario, completely dropped from the
search engine. If that happens, moiré often than not you will have to either
start using a different domain name and/or a new web host to try and get your
web pages listed in the search engine again.
Now let’s take the
description tag and break it down.
<meta
name=”description” content=”enter your web page
description here”>
The first part of the meta
tags tells the search engine what type of meta tag it is reading. In this case
it is a description meta tag, so when the search engine reads this tag, it knows
that it is the preferred description of your web site and just like the keyword
meta tag, the search engine will compare the description to the rest of your
site.
Lets again say that your web page is about
candles and you enter the following meta tag for your page’s
description:
<meta name=”description” content=”Welcome to our
candle web site. Here you will find our complete collection of container, votive
and pillar candles.”>
Again, you can use the same word a
couple of times, but avoid over using the same words so you do not get flagged
for spamming. It is best to use at least 2 or more keywords in the description
meta tag to increase the overall relevance of your web page, but do not just
copy and paste your keywords into your description meta tag; I can almost
guarantee that you will get your web page flagged for spamming by doing that. In
the end, the more relevant your keyword and description mate tags are to each
other as well as the rest of your web page, the better chance you have of
getting a better overall ranking on the search engine.
On a side
note, you may want to use one or two of your keywords in your title tag too, as
this just increases the relevance of your keywords across the entire web page,
just do not go crazy with it.
Using CSS to format your web page
What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. A style sheet is
used to format HTML pages. One of the biggest advantages of using CSS to format
the look and feel of your page is that anytime you want to change an element of
your web site (not just a single page) you can simply edit the CSS and the
changes will take place across your entire web site, versus having to change
each and every single page individually.
Just the amount of time that using
CSS formatting over page-by-page formatting can save you is worth its weight in
gold.
Although there are some elements in CSS that are only supported in IE
or Netscape browsers, most all of the main elements are supported by both
browser types which keeps you from having to design browser specific pages
throughout your web site.
How CSS Works
CSS will override your
browser’s default settings for how it will display the HTML on any given page.
Ever notice how most web pages show links in blue? With CSS you can force the
browser to show your links in red, green yellow or any other web-based color
that you can think of; and since this is done with CSS, you can go in and make
one change to your style sheet for your link color and the change will be
updated for each page within your web site.
In order to have control such as
this over your HTML, you first must start with the basics of a CSS declaration,
which has 2 parts:
selector {property
1: value 1; property 2: value: 2; etc..}
selector is the symbol that you will use to tell the browser
what part of the CSS file to use to format anything that is used inside this
tag. The selector must be used like standard HTML tags, but you do not have to
use only HTML-based tags for the selector. If you want to use the word
‘paragraph’ instead of the HTML shorthand of ‘p’, you certainly can. The main
thing to remember is to design your code so that you can easily go through and
identify what you are looking for.
property 1: value 1;
property 2: value: 2; etc.. is the section where your CSS file will tell
the browser exactly how to format anything that is enclosed within the selector
tag. You can put font types, sizes, colors, just about anything that you would
normally use in standard HTML can be entered here.
Here is an example of a
finished CSS declaration:
P
{
font-family:arial;
color:#ffffff;
font-size:12
}
Notice
that I did not write the above as one long line of code, I did this to make it
easier to read and edit, it is considered ‘proper’ programming practice to write
your declarations as above, but is in no way enforced (i.e. the declaration
will work the same if it was written as one long line). It just lets you
take each element of the tag one step at a time. Let’s break down the above CSS
declaration:
The letter ‘P’ defines the tag that this declaration will
affect, so everything enclosed in the tags <p></p> will have the
following formatting:
Font family (type face) - arial
Color - #ffffff
(HTML code for white)
Font size - 12
Now with this in place, anything
enclosed in the <p></p> tags will have the above formatting applied
to it anytime someone views your page in their browser. Now let’s say that you
decided to make the font size on your web site larger. Instead of having to go
to each and every paragraph on your web site and changing the font time (which
could take a considerable amount of time if you have more than a few pages in
your site that you need to make changes to) all you have to do is make one
change to the font-size section, save the page and upload it to your web host
and the change is made automatically to every single text area that is enclosed
within <p></p> tags. Easy, huh?!
While CSS can certainly speed up
the time that it takes you to format text on your web site, it is all for
nothing unless you can link your web pages to the style sheet. For this, you
will have to add one line of code to all of your web pages between the
<head> and </head> tags:
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="style.css" type="text/css">
The linking section is href="style.css".
You will need to put the correct address and name to link your style sheet to
you page. So if you have your web site at www.yoursite.com, you will need to enter www.yoursite.com/style.css inside the " " marks in the href
tag; style.css is one of the most popular names to give a style sheet, but you
can name it anything that you want, just make sure that you change the above
address to reflect the correct name of your style sheet.
By now, you have
probably noticed the .css file extension that I have associated with a style
sheet, ALL style sheets need to have the .css extension on it for them to work
properly. The best way to do this is to create your style sheet in a program
such as notepad, when saving the file select save as (versus save) and select
under the ‘save as type’ box ‘all files’, then type in the name you want to give
the file and include the .css file extension.
Below is a starter CSS file
that you can use to test and play around with. This example page does not
include all of the possible tags that can be used, but should do for getting
started. This file includes the following tags:
body
(<body></body>)
links (<a href></a>)
paragraph
(<p></p>)
headline (<h1></h1> through
<h5></h5>)
You can add more tags as you need them to this style
sheet, just copy and paste an existing one in the CSS file and alter it
according to your needs.
CSS starter file
Background image (water mark) script
Here is a real simple script that even the most novice web designer can
put onto their web page. You can view an example of what this script can do by
clicking here.
This script will allow you to put an image
(watermark) of your choice as the background of your web page without the image
staying at the top of the page when the user scrolls down and without the
annoying repeating feature that you see on so many web pages today.
This
script is what is called DHTML, which is basically a supercharged version of
HTML using HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
Here is the script itself:
<script language="JavaScript1.2">
/*
Watermark Backgound Image Script- © Dynamic Drive (www.dynamicdrive.com)
For full source code, 100's more DHTML scripts, and TOS,
visit dynamicdrive.com
*/
if (document.all||document.getElementById)
document.body.style.background="url('your-image-here.jpg') white center no-repeat fixed"
</script>
The only section of the code you need to modify
is this line:
document.body.style.background="url('your-image-here.jpg') white center no-repeat fixed"
You
will need to enter the name of your image in place of the your-image-here text.
Also double check the type of image file you are using (jpg, gif, etc)
and make sure you change the image extension to match the type of image your are
using.
The next step is to insert the script into your web page.
This
script must be entered right after the <body> tag in your web page.
Not placing this script right after the body tag may result in the script not
functioning properly.
After you have inserted the script into your web page,
save the page.
Now you need to upload the web page and the image.
(i.e. if you are using an online html editor, you will only need to upload
the image.) The web page and the image must be in the same directory,
or the image will not show up on your page.
Once you have the necessary
files uploaded you should be able to see your background image on your web page.
You may notice that your image is much more visible than the example page above.
To achieve the ‘faded’ effect, you will have to edit the image in an image
editing software program such as Jasc Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop. You
will want to decrease the opacity of the image to 50% or less, so the image is
not so overpowering when it is displayed on your web page.
Taking product pictures
Displaying pictures of the product you are selling is a huge part of marketing
not only you product, but your web site as well. While placing the finished
pictures into your web pages and uploading the pictures is relatively easy,
taking the pictures is a whole other story.
Just about anyone can take a
picture, some people can even take good pictures and have photo albums full of
pictures of family, friends, vacation getaways, etc to prove the fact. The only
drawback is that most of these pictures are taken from a distance of over 3 feet
away and in natural (full spectrum) lighting. Things change when you have to
start taking pictures of your products.
To start with, when taking pictures
of your products you are usually within a couple of feet from your product. In
order for your pictures to be the best they can be you must consider a couple of
factors:
The camera that you are using
The Lighting that you are
using
Mounting your camera for taking pictures
All of the above play a
vital role in how well your pictures turn out. Let’s start with your
camera.
You don’t have to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the
latest camera to take good pictures, but you also can not rely on that camera
you got for free and all you had to do was pay the shipping. The most important
aspect of your camera is going to be whether or not it has what is called a
macro lens or macro setting. Macro is used for taking pictures up close (usually
less than 3 feet away from the subject). What a macro lens/setting does is allow
the camera to focus on closer objects. More and more cameras are being made with
a macro option due to the popularity of posting pictures online.
Your camera
choice (digital or conventional film) is really of little consequence. The main
thing you have to look for in a digital camera (other than the macro feature) is
the pixel resolution. There are a ton of very affordable cameras on the market
today that have an extremely low pixel count; meaning that the cameras will take
pictures fine, but the end quality of the picture itself leaves much to be
desired. As a rule of thumb, you should not even bother with any digital camera
that is less than 2 mega pixels.
Personally I would suggest sticking with a
digital camera. With a digital camera you save time by being able to view the
pictures right after you take them, letting you decide right then and there if
you want to keep that picture or just delete it and try again. With a standard
(film based) camera you have to take all of the pictures that you want to take,
then get the film developed and sort through what pictures are keepers and what
pictures need to be retaken. You will also have to scan the pictures in order to
upload them or alter the picture. In the end, you may be able to purchase a film
based camera cheaper, but by the time you buy the film, pay for developing and
spend time scanning pictures, you are out more money than it would have cost you
to get a digital camera in the first place.
The lighting that you use is
almost as important as the camera that you use. When lighting your photo area,
you want to minimize the amount of yellow light as much as possible. Yellow
light will make your photos turn out with a yellow hue to them. While sometimes
(depending on the amount of yellow the light is giving off) this can be cleared
up using photo editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop, more often than not you
will be stuck with a yellowish picture in the end. Most standard bulb type
lights will give off a lot of yellow light, so your best bet is to stick with
fluorescent lighting, the higher the wattage per bulb the better. You will want
to set the lights up in a way so that when you set you product down to be
photographed, it casts as little shadow as possible. There is no magic
positioning secret to lighting, as each photo area will be different, so take
some time and experiment by taking a few pictures with the lights mounted in
various places and positions.
Mounting your camera is also another one of
those hugely important issues that directly affects your final picture. Most
people mistakenly think that they have a steady enough hand to just hold the
camera. Some people actually do have that steady of a hand, but what 99% of all
people do not realize is that each and every time you put the camera down,
change the product that you are photographing, pick the camera back up and take
another picture, you have actually changed the angle that you are taking the
pictures from. Even if you mark out on the floor exactly where to stand, there
is no way to really judge how to hold the camera so it is the same as the
previous picture. Posture, fatigued arms or legs, a completely different person
taking the picture, can all play a part in this problem. Your best bet is to
invest in a tripod. You can find tripods for cameras at just about any retail
chain store ranging from $10 - $20 all the way up to $50+. Just about any type
of tripod will do, just be sure to mark the floor so you know where each leg of
the tripod goes if and when you have to move it. You may also want to use a
permanent marker and mark the tilt or angle of the tripod’s base as well.
Anything that will help you maintain consistent pictures is a plus. Not only
does it make the pictures look more professional, but it will make your web site
look more professional as well.
Dynamic web sites and marketing
With more and more web sites being driven by databases, more and more web
sites are being programmed in dynamic code such as ASP, PHP and cold fusion.
While these web sites usually offer their visitors/customers a good overall
shopping experience, they do not work out too well with search engine
spiders.
One of the main problems with dynamic sites is that the web
pages really do not exist until you click on a product or category to view. Once
a user clicks on something specific (called a variable), the code then assembles
information from the database and creates a user viewable web page to look
at.
Dynamic web site URL’s contain what are known in the marketing
business as spider traps. These are symbols that the spiders have been designed
to ignore such as ?, @, #, etc. Usually when a spider comes across a URL that
contains such symbols, it just drops the URL and moves to the next one that it
is supposed to crawl.
Now if it seems there is no real way to get your
dynamic web site ranked well in the search engines, there is a work around to
get part of your site indexed.
In order to get part of your site indexed
while still using a dynamic web site is to create what are called static pages.
Static pages are just standard HTML pages. When you type in an address to a
static page (i.e. www.yoursite.com/aboutus.html) that page will load into
the web browser without any intervention from the user. That page is meant to
load the exact same way regardless who calls the page (human user or web
spider).
By using static pages in conjunction with a dynamic web site, you
are able to target certain keywords with each static page that you build while
including links from your static pages into the dynamic side of your web site
making your static page not only useful for marketing, but for real people as
well.
Targeting key words
In order to target keywords with
a static web page, there are a few steps that you must follow if you plan on
having any hair left on your head when you are through:
- Limit your keywords/phrases to 4 per page
- Try to stay away from heavily marketed keywords relating to your industry
(i.e. if you are a soap maker, you would not want to target the single word
‘soap’, rather a phrase like ‘hand crafted soap’).
- Do not use the same word for each of your four keywords/phrases, this will
get you flagged for spamming the search engines and can get your URL
blacklisted. If this happens, you are better off getting a new URL for your site
than trying to get your current URL off the blacklist.
A properly
made static page (for marketing) will consist of few pictures, but a good
portion of text that relates to your keyword choices. Creating a page with
keywords of:
- tires
- wheels
- rims
- lug nuts
while having your text copy on the page consist of
mainly talking about engines will not rank well.
The main point in
creating static ranking pages is the fact that it is not a race. A good ranking
page can take over a week to fine tune and tweak so it is just right for your
marketing needs.
Creating static web pages
In the previous topic I touched on marketing a dynamic web site using
static web pages. In this article, we will go through the steps of creating a
static web page. Creating static web pages is a good way to increase your web
site’s visibility in the search engines when you are not maintaining your own
web site. This method will also work for non-dynamic web sites as
well.
First thing’s first
The first thing you will want
to do is choose your 4 keywords/phrases. As in the previous article, try to stay
away from individual keywords that everyone and their mother’s uncle is trying
to market for their web site.
We will start with making a static marketing
page for a web site that sells coffee and coffee supplies. This page will be
designed to target
Let’s start with the following
keywords/phrases:
- fresh ground coffee
- coffee maker supplies
- filters
- fresh roasted
Now that we have our keywords/phrases picked
out, let’s start building our page. You can use anything to build your page from
notepad to your favorite web page design program such as Microsoft Front Page,
Adobe Go live or Macromedia Dreamweaver. In the head section of the page, you
will want to enter a keyword meta tag such as below:
<meta
name="keywords" content="fresh ground coffee, coffee maker supplies, filters,
fresh roasted">
Just remember that this meta tag must be placed
between the <head> and </head> tags of your page.
Now
that we have our keywords/phrases entered, we need to come up with a good
description meta tag. The key when designing description tags is to use some of
your keywords/phrases, but not to over use them so you get flagged for spamming.
Below is an example of a ‘correctly’ made description meta tag:
<meta
name="description" content="’Company Name’, leading suppliers of fresh roasted
ground coffee and coffee making supplies.">
*Note that you will
need to put your company name in the tag above where it says ‘Company
Name’
As with the keyword meta tag, your description meta tag will
need to be placed between the <head> and </head> tags of your
page.
Now comes the fun part, coming up with text copy that discusses
or describes the above keywords/phrases. Sometimes this can be relatively easy
when you know what you are talking about, but then again it can be one of the
toughest parts of marketing your web site if you experience writer’s block.
(like I do on most occasions when I am just starting work on a static web page.)
After staring at a blank page for about 15 minutes, this is the text copy I came
up with for this static page:
Fresh Ground Coffee.
If you
enjoy coffee for more than just giving your body a kick-start in the morning,
you have come to the right place. Here at ‘Company Name’, we specialize in fresh
roasted and fresh ground coffee. You will not find mass produced coffee like you
would find in your local grocery store; instead we focus on providing our
customers only the best and freshest coffee and coffee making supplies that we
can offer. We believe that drinking a cup of coffee should be an experience that
you look forward to whether you prefer to have your coffee first thing in the
morning or as an after dinner treat. Long gone are the days of simple coffee
types that come from a can (or heaven forbid instant coffee), today people
demand quality fresh ground coffee and that is our goal, to provide you, the
consumer, with the best cup of coffee you can get without having to roast and
grind the coffee beans yourself.
At ‘Company Name’ we don’t stop at
providing the best tasting coffee, we also offer high quality coffee making
supplies such as coffee pots, coffee filters and even coffee grinders for those
customers that want the absolute freshest coffee they can get.
Whether
you are just a novice coffee drinker, or a die hard coffee drinker we are sure
that you will find our custom blends of fresh ground coffee as well as our
coffee making supplies some of the best that you can get without roasting the
coffee yourself. For more information visit our online store at http://www.storename.com.
If you look at the above
text copy, you will notice that I used some of the keywords/phrases that were
placed in the keyword meta tag. This is a most important step to follow, but do
not over use your keywords/phrases or you will run the chance of getting flagged
for spamming. It is a delicate balance that changes from search engine to search
engine, so you will have to start out small and tweak it until your are seeing
the desired results on the search engines. Now that we have our text copy, we
are over half way done creating our first static page. The next step to increase
your search engine rankings is to convert a few of the words in the above text
copy into links that point directly into your web site. You will want to use
words or phrases that you included in your keyword/phrase meta tags if at all
possible. Something like pointing ‘fresh ground coffee’ to a category or product
that is pertaining to fresh ground coffee. The trick here, again, is to not
overuse this so you don’t get flagged for trying to spam the search
engine.
At the bottom of the text copy you will notice that I
included a link to the main web site that this page is designed to market. This
is another method of increasing your web site rankings that is called link
popularity. Many of the top search engines such as Google, MSN, etc utilize the
link popularity of your site when ranking your web site, but we will visit that
topic and what you can do to increase your web site’s link popularity in our
next topic.
Link popularity
Link popularity has been a huge determining factor in how web pages rank
with most of the major search engines since the late 90’s.
The actual
breakdown of link popularity is very simple; search engines analyze all of the
sites that they index and look for external links to other sites. The more links
they find to a particular site, the higher that site’s link popularity usually
is, usually.
While it may seem easy to build link popularity for your
site by simply exchanging links with your friends, link popularity rankings are
indeed a double-edged sword.
Rule number 1 in building link popularity is
to only have web sites that are related to your own (i.e. candle making,
sewing, vacation getaways, etc) linking to you. While there is no way to be
able to guarantee that only similar sites link to you (since anyone can place a
link to any web site on their own web site without having to get permission),
there are a few things you should avoid at all costs:
- Link farms or FFA (free for all) link sites. These sites are honestly of no
use to anyone except the individuals that own and/or run them. These sites are
usually free to submit your link to, but the price you will pay is possibly
having your inbox flooded with spam as well as possibly getting your entire web
site completely dropped from the major search engines. Most search engines will
automatically drop your web site from their database if it is found to be
related to any of these types of sites. What these sites will do is link all
sorts of unrelated web site to each other, which will do nothing as far as
improving your link popularity.
- Mass submissions of your web page(s). There are many services and pieces of
software out on the market today that say they can submit your web site to
thousands of search engines with one click. While this may seem to be a good way
to get your web site’s name and address out there, it really isn’t. What these
services and software packages usually do is end up submitting your web site to
all sorts of search engines (as well as link farms and FFA link pages) that are
located in countries other than the United States, which is fine if your target
market happens to be outside of the country, but for most of us this just isn’t
the case. Another consideration would be that many country specific search
engines will only allow web sites within their country to be considered for
inclusion into their database and when they find a web site that is outside of
their country, they simply drop that submission completely.
The
best way to build link popularity for your own web site is to set up
reciprocating links between your own site and other sites that deal with the
same subject content that your site does. The main pitfall of trying to do this
is that most sites that are selling something really do not want to advertise or
send possible customers to a competitor’s web site. If you are selling products
from your web site, the easiest place to start would be places like online
forums. Many forums have some sort of a link section where you can have your
link placed as long as you place a link back to their site. (this forum has a
section in your member profile for you to list a couple of links to web sites of
your choice)
Another good way to start building a solid link popularity
base would be to go to an online auction web site and setup an online storefront
(if they offer the service) with them to work in conjunction with your current
web site. This way your auction storefront and your main web site will both be
dealing with the same subject matter and you do not have to worry so much about
sending a potential customer to your competition’s web site. The only problem
with this is that it only gives you 1 linking site, but you have to start off
somewhere.
Many people currently do this with eBay.
The last main
point in building link popularity is where the web site that is linking to you
is hosted. If both sites (yours and theirs) are hosted with the same company,
odds are that your link popularity will not improve much if at all. This is
because the search engines see this as a site linking to itself, even though the
two sites may be completely unrelated (even having different domain names
entirely), because the link is seen as coming from the exact same host as your
own site. If at all possible, try to keep to the sites that are on a different
web host than your site is to maximize the effectiveness of reciprocal linking.
Adding interaction to your web site
Once you have your web site up and operational, get all of your products
setup and in place and start marketing your site to your target audience; you
need to start thinking about how to make your site ‘sticky’. What this means is
giving your customers a reason to visit your site regularly other than to
purchase your product.
Let’s use this forum as an example. If you look at
the site news page (the home page) of this forum, you will see a few different
things that may entice people to come back for more than just to purchase candle
making supplies. Simple things such as the Tetris game, the guest book,
announcements about new products and class offerings and the virus information
feed. Individually these items do not really do a whole lot for a web site, but
when you start combining these items into the design of a single page, you start
offering your customer base (or potential new customers) somewhere to go to get
information that they may find useful. The real trick is trying to profile your
customer base and guess what they may find to be useful information. Some items
are usually a safe bet for 90% of people that use the internet; items such as
virus information and interactive elements like a forum, guest book or even
games that can be played online can keep a good percentage of your customers
coming back on a regular basis.
Now that you have an understanding of how
to make your site ‘sticky’, it is time to try and find content to put onto your
site. If you do a search for web site content, you will run into 2 main
category’s of content; free and not free. For this article we will focus on the
free stuff because it is, well free.
In my opinion, the first stop
you should make when you are looking for free web site tools and content is
Bravenet. Bravenet is one of the internet’s leading suppliers of web site
resources. They have been in the business of offering tools for web sites for
years and are probably one of the most recognized brands in the industry today.
Whether you are looking for a simple guest book or need customized forms to
place onto your web site, odds are the folks at Bravenet have exactly what you
are looking for. Below is a partial list of what free services Bravenet has to
offer to put on your own web site:
- Calendars
- Counters
- Classified ads
- E-cards
- Live chat
- Guest books
- Mini polls
The list goes on and on. Bravenet offers these services
completely free of charge and most all of the services that they offer are
completely customizable so you can change colors and text to match your site for
a professional finished look.
Registration for these services is quick,
easy and, of course, free. Within 20 minutes you can register an account with
Bravenet and start using all of the above services plus a bunch more that I
didn’t list immediately. No waiting for ‘approval’ of your web site or anything,
just register and go.
To register your own free account with Bravenet
just click
here and you will be on your way to making your web site not just a place to
sell you products, but a regular stop for your customers.
Choosing a domain name
Choosing a domain name seems like a really easy task; you do a search on
a name you would like and if it is available, you register it. Simple enough,
right?
Most people are so excited about getting their domain name
(usually 'first timers') that they do not think about who they will be trying to
market their domain name to (i.e. their prospective customer
base).
When you are looking at registering a domain name, there are a
few things that you should consider like what keywords you plan on marketing
your web site with. The more of these keywords that you have in the domain name
itself, the better your potential is for getting your web site ranked on search
engines for those keywords. Much like choosing keywords for your web site,
choosing your domain name(s) follow a lot of the same rules of thumb. The
simplest example being trying to sell tires with a domain name of www.tedsstore.com . While that
domain name might rank well for the keyword store, odds are it will not rank as
well as it potentially could if the name was www.tedstirestore.com or
something similar using the keyword tire.
First off, know your market. Do
some research as to what your potential competitors are using for keywords.
Don't just type a keyword that you like into a search engine and pick the top
listing and see what keywords they are using, research multiple companies that
are selling the same or similar products that you are/will be selling and see
what they are doing with their actual domain name versus the keywords that they
are using in their web site. In this game, reinventing the wheel doesn't
pay.
You may also want to get out and 'press some flesh' with people that
could be your potential customer base. Talk to them and see what terms they use
to describe certain products, items or services. This is a HUGE part of a
successful marketing process that many people don't realize or just simply
overlook.
You can mimic the highest ranked keywords of a site and still
be missing a key demographic of potential customers. If you have the ability,
try talking with people from different regions of the continental US. You would
be surprised how many people will use different words or terminology to describe
the exact same item, product or service.
The more research you do before
purchasing your domain name, the happier you are likely to be with the end
result of your marketing efforts for your web site.
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