Clip art- Is it relevent to the website nowadays?

It is said that images can capture a person's attention more than words.

This is especially true in the image-conscious market of today. With all the images being presented to the people everyday, the perfect image can grab the attention of a potential customer faster than any lines. 

If selected cleverly, striking clip arts will add flavor to your marketing effort without you shedding some money for it.

Using clip art to do the marketing for you.

Put clip art images in emails. Find an image or design that will support your purpose what you want to communicate. For sure, there will always be one image that can convey your message. Be it humorous, serious or plain professional. 

Something people will remember you by.  Being overly pretty is a turn off in business. So is being too vulgar. A wise idea is to try and change your choices often. This will make you not so predictable. Have an assortment of images ready but be sure they express the same concept. 

Use clip art in a presentation. In Power Point, there are a variety of pictures, sounds and video clips to choose from. All these can easily be inserted into slides. Create your own clip art slide show that explains about how your company work and other related stuff. You can get the attention of your readers and get them to listen to what you have to say.

Less is actually more. As much as possible, do not use as many clip art as you want. Although they can add some variety, that does not mean that they will be effective. Sometimes over usage will make everything seem busy. When this happens, you will lose your message.

Focus on your message and target customers. Select something that will give highlight to your message. It needs to be parallel to the tone and purpose of your message. Make sure the method, palette and theme of your images is fitting for your wares and branding. Choose your own style and theme and try to stick with it.

Organize your clip art. Each time you choose a new image, mark and then store it in a folder on your hard drive.

When used properly, clip art can help you in promoting your business. They will serve as an alternative source of marketing you would not get anywhere else.

Try them out and see how they work.

Most mistakes online marketers should avoid

Some wise human once said "Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't nearly enough time to make them all yourself." Hence this article. Here are five of the most annoying and common web design mistakes.

1. Slow download time - Don't be that site that is filled with the coolest gizmos in the world. You know, animation, music and other "cool" things. Why? Because nobody is going to go to it because it takes too long to download. A nice clean site that downloads quickly will get you much further than a site with all the fixings that takes forever to download.

2. Unreadable text - If a user has to struggle to read the text on your web site, chances are they won't. Here are some common readability issues:

A. Low contrast text and background - Don't use light colored text on a light background. Also, don't use dark text on a dark background. Text is most easily read with extreme contrasts between the background and text. Black on white is about as good as it gets for readability. Red on black is pretty bad. Yellow on white isn't so hot either.

B. Text on a busy background - Text is most easily read on solid color background. Putting text on textured backgrounds can make it much harder to read.

C. Small Text - Text that is really tiny may look cool, but is hard to read. If you must use small text, make sure changing the text size in a browser will change the size of your text. Using style sheets can some times over-ride a browser's ability to increase text size.

3. Unpleasant designs - Designs that use too many colors, colors that clash, or a messy layout, are just plain hard to look at. A site should be pleasant to look at, not a chore.

4. Long pages - Long pages are a problem because your force people to sift through piles of information to get what they want. Pages that focus on just a few topics with links to related topics on other pages are much better. This approach allows the reader to isolate the specific subject they are interested in.

5. Poor Navigation - It is extremely important that a user be able to access all pages of your site from every page. Users will often enter your site from a search engine listing with a link other than your home page. You do not want your visitors at a dead-end with no way to access the rest of your site. You will have wasted the traffic and given the prospect a bad impression of your business.

As you surf the web, you should keep a list of annoying things you find on other sites. Every so often, check your site to see if you have the same problems. Regardless, if you avoid the common web design mistakes listed above, you will stand a better chance of running a successful web site.

Myths of website design

Website design is the first step towards registering an online presence.  There are many myths surrounding it. Some of the common myths surrounding the web design are:

1.    Use of maximum colors will help in making the site beautiful.
Pleasing website design is important to attract a web visitor. But many times web designer believes that using maximum colours will add value to the website. Whereas in reality myriad of colours may spoil the outlook of website. Also there are chances of these web visitors getting irritated with the use of too many colours. So the website designer should always use the colours that go well the theme and purpose of the website. Maximum 2 or 3 colours should be used to during web design and always those colours should not hinder the visibility of the website.

2.    Adding too much graphics is helpful.

It is true that graphics will make communication easier, but over use of graphics may make it difficult. Many times website developer believes that using too many graphics will add believability to their website.  Graphics can be utilised to lend the believability to webpage but more of it may prove intrusive. The page carrying heavy graphics takes lot of time to load. Web design which is spun around simple and easily loading graphics is always loved by the visitor.

3.    Flash is necessary to add attractiveness to the website.

Flash is widely used to create advertisement banners and animations during website design. Flash banners can serve their desired purpose only if they are used efficiently and sparingly. As these flash banners may add believability to particular web design, but they have many disadvantages as well.  Flash banners can be easily downloaded only if you are connected to high speed connection. When web designer uses too many frames to describe a simple animation then it doesn抰 enhances the purpose of website rather it hinders it. A bad decision from website developer is enough to convert the site into trash like using too many frames or duplicating the background in every frame etc. Web designer should remember that not all people have flash pluggins installed in their computer so people may lose their patience if they are asked to download pluggins first to view your site. So web developer should provide the option of non flash version along with the flash version, which allows the web visitor to browse through the information.

4.    Website will look same in all browsers.

Even after designing some successful websites many web developers love to believe that the website will look same everywhere as it appears on their pc. Whereas in reality different website browser perceive HTML pages in different manner.  So website developer should always make it sure that the website is optimised with web standards adopted by different browsers.  Also the web resolution varies from pc to pc. Some may prefer to view the website in 1024 X 768 resolutions whereas some may view the website in 800 X 600 resolutions. Most of the web visitors love to view the website in 800 X 600 resolutions, so the web designer should ensure that the website looks good even in that resolution. The width of the tables should be set in percentage rather than in pixels. If the website designer decides to use pixels in any of the website design then it becomes difficult for the viewer to scroll left and right to view the website properly. So to avoid such circumstances during web development the website developer should use percentage while giving assigning the properties to the table because it will help the viewer to view the website properly in any resolution. 

As a conclusion, the website designer should always remember that website is designed for the visitor.

Choosing and buying an affordable web design service

There is a new deal that people looking for affordable quality web site design service need to be on the look out for. The main problem of this is the fact that not all of these services provide much in the way of quality. In the old days there was nothing short of amazing things coming out of the web design services that were in operation. Of course these services charged thousands of dollars for their service and not everyone could afford such a large bill. Well the times changed just like they do with everything and finding an affordable quality web site design service is more common place today and one needs to just know where to look. The other matter for discussion is find the actual quality embedded in a sea of poor quality companies that seem to spring from the well of eternal scams.

The problem with today's web site design services is there is so many to choose from. One might say that a fair amount of competition is a good thing to help control the prices, but in all truth it has done more damage then good. Thanks to the new software programs that are currently available where software titles are sold just about anyone can claim to be an affordable quality web site design service. But that does not mean they are of the quality that you will need to draw and impress visitors. If you are looking for the kind of web design that these low quality design companies provide there are more than enough free sites around the web that will help you to build such a site. In most cases you find that the actual affordable quality web site design service is by far more professional and have been in business for a good amount of time. This is the first give away with a poor company. Look for a company that has been in business for a while and you will have something to work with.

An actual affordable quality web site design service will provide a variety of services through their web site. Not only will they do web design, but they may even offer something a bit more suiting, like hosting and domain name registration. To cover all the bases you should find an affordable quality web site design service that has been in business for a fair amount of time, that can provide you with references and that offers estimates on the design that you are seeking.

Affordable Ecommerce Web Site Design

Going into business over the internet is not something to be taken lightly these days. In most cases the new internet businesses are failing for one reason: A poorly designed and non-functional web site that does not attract customers. That is a staggering thing when you will read that anyone can make money on the internet, which is actually true, but in light there is a lot more that goes into it then they will reveal to you. They are trying to get your money for their "system" and after that you are on the good graces of the world and those who visit the site. This is why an affordable e-commerce web site design company is needed when you are thinking about going into business. A powerful and attractive web site is one of the most important weapons that you can have when it comes to internet business. There is nothing that will take the place of this weapon and a person needs to ensure that they have this in place to make it happen.

Affordable ecommerce web site design is important because you do not want to have a lot of money in the game early on. Having massive amounts of over head and going into debt above the line will make things very difficult from the start. Affordable ecommerce web site design is about the only answer that you will need and that is a smart decision from the beginning. One of these companies will provide the tools that you need to be a massive presence in your chosen market without the hassles of having someone that is not above par build the site. Affordable e-commerce web site design is the beginning and the end when it comes to internet business. Once you have the proper web site in place you have already won half the battle and you will need to try and market the site to the best of your ability. Having an impressive and completely functional web site makes it much easier to draw in the customers and impress the visitors with the skill and time of the web site and the products that you offer.

Affordable e-commerce web site design is not all that difficult to find. You will most likely not find them when searching for the lowest price. A true company that offers the high quality service that you need will be the one that is competitive in the market but also charges a fair amount for their service.

Choosing an affordable Custom Website Design Solution Company

Making the right choice when it comes to the web design company that you will use can be very difficult. Thanks to the cheaper and more user friendly software programs that are now available just about anyone in the world can create a web site and have it live in a matter of days or perhaps even hours. That is not to say that this will be a good or even pretty good web site. Most likely this will be the most basic and low quality of all web sites and nothing that would attract and impress the visitors that you have. Sadly this is so common place anymore that people will take what they can get, hence the reason why so many new web sites are running around the web today. If you are looking for an affordable custom website design solution company then you need to be looking in the right places and not always looking at the lowest price to be the marker.

The matter of web design should be looked at from the perspective of retail purchases that you will make. In light, the lowest price is not always the best idea. Why? Well the truth is that the lower the price the lower the quality in most cases. While the item may be the same, it will not be made as well as the higher priced models and in truth may cost you more money down the road when you have to spend more money to replace it. The same goes for the web design services. What could be gained by having a cut rate web site designed when you have to hire someone else at a greatly inflated rate to fix and repair the entire process because of the poor quality? So you can see that it is not always the best idea to go with the cheapest of them all. In most cases the absolute cheapest of all of them will invariably be the one that causes you the most problems. The customer service may be poor or they may be nothing more than a scam that takes away all the money and leaves you with nothing.

An affordable custom website design solution company will provide all the necessary information that you require upfront. There will be valuable customer service in place and you will find that the answers that you require are answered quickly and honestly.

Earning commission with affiliate programme

Maybe you have dreamed of personally developing a website for either personal or business use. If this is true of you then you might consider affiliate revenue sharing programs as a means of trying out your web designing skills while offering you the opportunity to offset, fund entirely or even make additional income through an affiliate revenue program.

Web design through web building software can be a relatively easy and inexpensive way to learn web design skills. You could, of course, build a website for personal reasons, but the discipline of developing an e-commerce site can be helpful in practicing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) skills.

This web design test case can be enhanced when you have the potential of a residual income stream essentially paying you for learning the skills of web design.

Web builder technology is a useful tool because it is intuitive for customers who have never personally developed a website and can help guide them through most design difficulties they may encounter.

The ultimate web design is customizable in many ways allowing essential creative freedom in design while maintaining proper flow and balance for the overall site.

When a website is optimized well in relation to accepted SEO techniques the result is high placement in search engines and greater traffic to your site.

Should you work to make an affiliate revenue program your test case for web design you always have the ability to develop additional sites and cross-link those sites to assist in even greater traffic building efforts.

For many entrepreneurs there is a fear about the possibility of developing a site without the aid of the long established web master. However, by accessing an affiliate revenue program you have both reason and opportunity to develop a site on your own.

REASON ?It is only by developing the site that you actually have the opportunity to derive a return on your site design investment.

OPPORTUNITY ?When you develop a site and your SEO strategies start to bring in more traffic you begin to see the possibilities that may exist in a business of your own.

Many individuals have even developed a series of affiliate revenue sites. These sites have, in some instances, exceeded typical monthly expenses for their families. This didn't happen overnight and it certainly didn't occur without a solid SEO strategy, but in many cases an individual can make a living working exclusively with affiliate revenue sharing programs.

Web design using web building software combined with an interest in affiliate revenue programs can be a combination that pays off in increased web design expertise as well as residual payments that have the potential to exceed your current standard of living.

You抣l notice I used the word potential? Affiliate revenue programs vary widely in success and SEO strategies can take a while to realize maximum results. While affiliate revenue programs can perform beyond expectations they can also be stagnant in results. Research the product you are wanting to sell and ask for some actual figures (not best results) to gain a clear idea of the expectations you should have when signing on as an affiliate.

6 Important Rules in Website Design and Hosting

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements
Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.

6) The most important - Host only with a Reliable Hosting Provider.
Before Choosing a Web Hosting provider, read its reviews and always check the top 10 hosting providers. A good resource to research hosting providers is at Top10DedicatedHosting.com

5 Basic Rules of Web Design

          5 Basic Rules of Web Design the most important rule in web design is:

Your web site should be easy to read.

What does this mean? You should choose your text and background colours very carefully. You don't want to use backgrounds that obscure your text or use colours that are hard to read. Dark-coloured text on a light-coloured background is easier to read than light-coloured text on a dark background.
 
You also don't want to set your text size too small (hard to read) or too large (it will appear to shout at your visitors). All capitalised letters give the appearance of shouting at your visitors.
 
Keep the alignment of your main text to the left, not cantered. Centre-aligned text is best used in headlines. You want your visitors to be comfortable with what they are reading, and most text is left aligned.

Your web site should be easy to navigate
 
All of your hyperlinks should be clear to your visitors. Graphic images, such as buttons or tabs, should be clearly labelled and easy to read. Your web graphic designer should select the colours, backgrounds, textures, and special effects on your web graphics very carefully. It is more important that your navigational buttons and tabs be easy to read and understand than to have "flashy" effects. Link colours in your text should be familiar to your visitor (blue text usually indicates an unvisited link and purple or maroon text usually indicates a visited link), if possible. If you elect not to use the default colours, your text links should be emphasized in some other way (boldfaced, a larger font size, set between small vertical lines, or a combination of these). Text links should be unique - they should not look the same as any other text in your web pages. You do not want people clicking on your headings because they think the headings are links.Your visitors should be able to find what they are looking for in your site within three clicks. If not, they are very likely to click off your site as quickly as they clicked on.

Your web site should be easy to find

How are your visitors finding you online? The myth, "If I build a web site, they will come," is still a commonly held belief among companies and organisations new to the Internet. People will not come to your web site unless you promote your site both online and offline.

Web sites are promoted online via search engines, directories, award sites, banner advertising, electronic magazines (e-zines) and links from other web sites. If you are not familiar with any of these online terms, then it is best that you have your site promoted by an online marketing professional.

Web sites are promoted offline via the conventional advertising methods: print ads, radio, television, brochures, word-of-mouth, etc. Once you have created a web site, all of your company's printed materials including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, etc. should have your URL printed on them.

Not only should your web site be easy to find, but your contact information should be easy to find. People like to know that there is a person at the other end of a web site who can help them in the event that:

1. They need answers to questions which are not readily available on your web site;

2. Some element on your site is not working and end users need to be able to tell you about it, and

3. Directory editors need you to modify parts of your site to be sure that your site is placed in the most relevant category.

By giving all relevant contact information (physical address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email address), you are also creating a sense of security for your end users. They can contact you in the way that makes them feel the most comfortable.

Your web page layout and design should be consistent throughout the site

Just as in any document formatted on a word processor or as in any brochure, newsletter, or newspaper formatted in a desktop publishing program, all graphic images and elements, typefaces, headings, and footers should remain consistent throughout your web site. Consistency and coherence in any document, whether it is a report or a set of web pages, project a professional image.

For example, if you use a drop shadow as a special effect in your bullet points, you should use drop shadows in all of your bullets. Link-colours should be consistent throughout your web pages. Typefaces and background colours, too, should remain the same throughout your site.

Colour-coded web pages, in particular, need this consistency. Typefaces, alignment in the main text and the headings, background effects, and the special effects on graphics should remain the same. Only the colours should change.

Your web site should be quick to download

Studies have indicated that visitors will quickly lose interest in your web site if the majority of a page does not download within 15 seconds. (Artists' pages should have a warning at the top of their pages.) Even web sites that are marketed to high-end users need to consider download times. Sometimes, getting to web sites such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems is so difficult and time consuming that visitors will often try to access the sites during non-working hours from their homes. If your business does not have good brand name recognition, it is best to keep your download time as short as possible.

A good application of this rule is adding animation to your site. Sure, animation looks "cool" and does initially catch your eye, but animation graphics tend to be large files. Test the download time of your pages first. If the download time of your page is relatively short and the addition of animation does not unreasonably increase the download time of your page, then and ONLY then should animation be a consideration.

Finally, before you consider the personal preferences of your web page design, you should consider all of the above rules FIRST and adapt your personal preferences accordingly. The attitude "I don't like how it looks" should always be secondary to your web site's function. Which is more important: creative expression/corporate image or running a successful business?

3 Traits Of Quality Seo Web Design

       When it comes to web design, there are so amazing designers out there.  Most web designers are very creative and have a strong artistic background.  They are able to use their artistic talents to create layouts that are guaranteed to catch the eye of your visitors.  Unfortunately, there is one major thing that most web designers are missing.  The majority of web designers are not familiar with the concepts and implementation of search engine optimization techniques.  Even if a web designer has at least some basic knowledge of SEO, the majority do not worry about implementing search engine optimization strategies into their designs.

        While this may seem like a trivial detail, it can actually be the root of some major problems.  No matter how attractive your web site is, if it is not indexed by the major search engines, the traffic it receives is going to be minimal.  Once you realize this is happening, you are going to have to hire someone with SEO knowledge to fix your layout.  Therefore, you may end up paying double for something that should have been done the first time around.  Whether you are a web designer or someone getting ready to hire a web designer, here are three traits of quality SEO web design:

         Usability: As a general rule of thumb, if the design of a web site makes it easy for your human visitors to navigate, it will also be relatively easy for search engine robots to access, crawl and index your web site.  Making your site user (and search engine) friendly includes minimizing (or completely eliminating) things such as Flash, Javascript navigation and layouts designed with tables.  By designing with usability in mind, you can be sure that your visitors and the search engines will be happy with your web site.

        Avoid Being Sneaky: Because web designers are generally very creative people, they like to push the envelope when it comes to designing web sites.  Although this mentality can result in some truly amazing web layouts, it can also cause problems if taken too far.  When creating a web site layout, it is important to keep the web master guidelines of search engines like Google in mind.  Incorporating things like hidden text into your designs is a sure way to get penalized (or de-indexed) by search engines.  It is ok to push the envelope with your designs, but just make sure that you avoid doing anything that the search engines tell you not to do.

         Onpage SEO: Although this is the last item on the list, it is actually the most important.  On-page SEO is the basis for quality SEO web design.  It is vital that properly implement things such as title, meta, H1 and H2 tags, along with internal linking and the other key components of on-page search engine optimization.  Taking the time to employ these practices will make a significant difference in where your web site ranks in the search engines.

Keywords:
internet marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web design