It’s amazing really. The longer you hang out online the more you realize how small the Internet community is. Sure there are millions of people online, but there are tight communities people hang in…

I run into people I know in different forums all the time. I had someone e-mail me today in a private forum that I’ve bumped into on numerous occasions at namepros.com… Out of the blue.

It’s not the first time. It happens all the time.

That’s a good thing. That’s part of doing business online. Building relationships… but you also build personal relationships with some. You share personal experiences. You help each other through good and bad times.

It’s amazing.

If you haven’t already done so, find a good forum to hang around. There are some bad ones, but if you look, you’ll find the good ones.

Just start hanging around. You’ll start to get to know the people. Then you can start participating… or just jump in.

There are forums for everything. Whatever you’re involved in. If you got a career, there’s a forum for it. If you have a hobby, there’s a forum for it.

I hang around mostly Internet marketing, tech, and other business related forums.

I don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t discovered their power.

Beyond relationships you can learn endless things. Not just anything. Things drawing from experience. It’s better than a reading a textbook. It’s interactive. If you ask there is usually a member waiting with an answer. You can search old threads that could contain untold information…

Experience the Power of Forums… Explore and Grow!

No matter what your site is about a very important key to a successful site is usability. You don’t have to be a marketing professional to make your site users friendly, all you may need is a little guidance if you are not sure what you need to do. Here are some tips to help you keep your site user friendly.

Home: When you design a home page, keep the home link accessible to the user, make sure they know where it is at all times and on every page of your site. A good tip is to keep it in the same place on each page.

Links: If you are going to have links on your site. Make sure they look like links. The underlined blue text you see on sites is a link. Designers don’t like it much but users love it because it makes it clear that the word or a phrase is a link.

Text Size: Designers sometimes use small text to save room but if the text is too a users won’t stay on a site because they have a hard time reading the text. Keep the text at a normal size about 11 will be ok.

Navigation: Navigation is the key to any site. Place your navigational bar on the top of the page under your logo or maybe even down on the left side of the page. Never change location of the navigation that would defeat the purpose for easy navigation.

Orientation: If you have a site that has a lot of pages and many different products you want the user to know where they are as much as how they got there. You want to make sure your site has a click path. It shows how they got there in case they wish to go back they can find their way again.

Content: it is really not a factor in usability but it is a main part of the site. Keep the information pertinent because most users don’t read as much as the scan. Keep it short and to the point.

Placement: Place features where users expect to find them. The user understands that each is different but try to keep in uniform with other sites so the users will not have to search for it. Also, keep banners small and on the top of a page. Keep your search box on top to the right.

The 30 Second Rule: This applies in this context, in 30 seconds a user should know what site they are on and exactly where they are on that site.

Search: If you have a lot of pages on your site, give your users a search box. Place it on the right side of the page where it is easy to find.

Speed: There is nothing more annoying that having to wait for something. Keep your site flowing and keep your Flash effects to minimum. A user wants to be on a site that is speedy.

What makes a website a website is the arrangement and the original web pages created for the site. There are many different methods to creating a website and because the Internet is always growing new methods are always be introduced. The term web design is self explanatory it is when a person designs or creates a website, web page or any web applications. The designer uses two types of methods to create the graphics on their site, CSS and XHTML.

Many online marketers realize the importance of ranking high in the major search engines. They spend hours and hours optimizing some content and looking for links to get people to their site and optimizing the title and the Meta Tags. Marketers overlook one key fact and that is the web designer has an important role in search engine optimization or SEO.

Web Design sounds complicated but it is not as hard as it sounds. You have to have an idea of what you are doing. If you are creative and can incorporate content and design you can develop a website. Building a site is important but the optimization is very important. Your site has to be user friendly and have all original content, search engines love original content so to optimize your site it should be original.

Traffic is very important to site, without it you have nothing. If you design a great site, people will stay longer but they have to be able to find your site first and that is where SEO comes in. Here are 5 tips to make your site SEO friendly.

• Decide on what you want your site to be on and make a plan on how to do it
• Try to keep your web designs simple, clear and user friendly
• Keeping a simple layout will keep the site easy for you to build
• Keep your content original, complete and to the point
• Review your site, if you don’t like something about it change it.

These following elements are important to any web site design while trying to optimize your site.
• CSS Style Sheet, this type of format is good to use to do the formatting of your site because it has the ability to help you lay out your site.
• Try using Content Management Software or CMS
• HTML Code Compliance is a great way to format your text, make sure your HTML coding is compliant with your browser so the search engines can see it.
• Keep your graphics to a minimum, search engines do not index based on graphics
• Multi Level Navigation Menus are good ideas and many are used in JAVA, try to use HTML because search engines aren’t crazy about JAVA.
• Bad Web Design, avoid this by making your site user friendly for the search engines avoid using redirect and frame methods.
• Flash gives you site more appeal and it can also improve the way the site runs but don’t depend on it for SEO.

Every day the World Wide Web expands itself more and more. There are people building and designing sites every minute of everyday all around the world. Web pages, sites or applications are all being developed for users. The great thing about technology in any medium like TV or Radio, the Internet is the only place where you can have your own space to say what ever it is you want to say. You can’t do that on TV or Radio. There are two types of sites on the web, the professional site and the personal site.

The professional sites are websites selling products and sometimes giving out technical information but a personal site is having a place like a blog to say what you feel and maybe invite others to do the same. Video sites are a form of a personal website. They have fun videos that anyone can see and maybe share a video of their own.

In the professional website arena, more goes into developing a site. Designers actually use a creator’s tool called Storyboards. They plan out their site in sequence and when it is complete then they create it and upload. Storyboarding is a very good way to layout your site and see if any changes are going to be made. When the site is done, the developers get the credit for making the site look the way it does.

Read More