2.0 Guru

Introduction

When I decided I needed a website for my business I had no idea of the planning involved. Like most people, I thought web design meant deciding on the graphics and the look of the pages and then by some magic it would all happen.

I have a friend who is in the business of web design and website development so I approached him for a quote. As a complete novice who is computer literate up to a point, I was amazed at the depth of initial questioning required to find out exactly what I wanted to achieve.

I had no idea about the various aspects and the structure of the site and I found it mind blowing when I learned about the amount of work involved. So I thought other people would be interested to know more about this complicated process and I have asked my friend to supply the technical information for this article.

Stages in the Process

Target Audience

Before building a website there are important questions to consider. I was asked who would be my potential audience. Who are my customers likely to be? Would they be children, businesses, home owners, sales people, parents or teenagers and so on?

The objective of the website

Then I was asked, what was the purpose of my website?
Did I want to sell products on line or use it to market my business and get more leads for possible customers? Maybe I would want to use it as an online brochure to showcase products. Another possibility was to use the website to foster a community so that I was in contact with other like-minded people, with chat rooms, online discussion and being supported by advertising on the site.

I hadn’t quite realised the scope of a website but as I was asked these questions it became clear that a lot of careful planning went into the preparation before building a website.

How to be Found on the Web

One of the first questions I was asked was, ‘Do you want it to be found by Google the main search engine?’ If I did then there was a whole process of establishing Keywords. So finding the best keywords are vital if you want to be found in Google. Generally most users only look at the top ten results so you will also want to promote your website to get on this page for your chosen keywords. By using a keyword research tool you can find the single most popular keyword for your industry.

Your Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is often quite a challenge because every name you initially come up with will almost certainly have been taken. Domain names ending in .com are by far the most popular and internationally recognised; the snag is that it’s very popularity means that the majority of the shorter names have already been registered.

So looking at names with endings such as .net; .co.uk or .info may be able to provide you with the domain name you want.

When a building is scheduled for demolition part of the process is to undertake asbestos survey research which our company does, we were able to register a domain name with the word demolition in it back in 2004 because we were given good advice and this ties in quite well with the service meaning we get quite a few enquiries about it via our website, apparently these days there are less choices for really good domain names but given enough time and creativity you can usually find something suitable.

When choosing your domain name it is very important to include one or more of your keywords if possible as this can apparently help with search engine rankings. So although the name of your business is the obvious choice for a domain name, it is not necessarily the only option.

Creating a Site Map

The importance of creating a site map is to get it clear in your mind of all the pages you will have on your website so you can prepare the content for each page and begin to design the flow through the website, such as when a user adds a product to their basket, then enters their delivery and billing address and makes the credit card payment in the correct order.

The aim is to make the site as user friendly as possible so that there are no barriers to getting into the website. For that reason often user name and passwordz are set for the customer so that they are not put off making a purchase by having to register.

For a non e-commerce site things are simpler with a contact form which allows you to receive enquiries by email without publishing your email address on the website, thus avoiding spam.Web forms can also validate the information before you receive it, so ensuring that the phone number provided does not contain words, and that the email address is in the correct format, for example. These things may sound very technical to us lay-folk but I assure you everything has to be decided in advance before starting on the construction of the site.

Copy

The next stage is preparing the content. This is not the design of your website – just the words and visuals you want to have one each of the pages.

Having gathered all the above information you will need to decide what imagery you want to use within the website content. As we all know, a picture speaks a thousand words and remains in people’s memory far longer than just words.

For each image you should also have a caption, as the caption of an image is the next ‘most read’ words on the page after the page title. Images and their captions need to be clickable. When you click on a picture it should take you to the next stage of the process such as the sale page or placing an enquiry if your website is for lead generation.

Navigation

Another important aspect when building a website is how you want your navigation to work. You can have links within the content of your website, in the text, so there are not just links from the menu. You will need to decide whether the links will open into a new window, retaining your original page open. Next time you go online, you will realise how much thought has gone into the way in which a website works.

Website Design

Finally we come to the design of your website. Ask any web developer like my friend and they will probably tell you that the design stage of building a website is the most difficult bit unless you are an exceptionally talented designer, because people like different things.

What one person might like, another person might not like. If you are setting up a website for yourself alone then you will probably have some idea of what you want to see on the site. But if, as so often happens, the website is for a large corporation there will be inputs from many people or departments and you can be sure that they will never all agree!

There are a number of ways to approach web design but ultimately you need to create a design brief for the designer(s) to work from. Look at other websites and your competitor’s websites to find out what you like or dislike. The design brief should give reference to the logo, any existing brand guidelines or schemes and fonts and colour schemes, and should also detail which pages of the website that the designer is being tasked with creating visuals for.

The very best results will be achieved by using a graphic designer, and beware – not all graphic designers are the same. A graphic designer who designs specifically for print is working in a different discipline than a graphic designer who designs for screen and specifically the web. So choose your designer carefully, look at other work that person has done and determine whether or not you like their style.

If you are working in the big time and budget allows, use multiple graphic designers who have all been given the same design brief and request three concept designs from each designer. If the client themselves also do a graphic design, even if it’s a back of the envelope scribble, you will then have 10 concept designs. The next step is to get them all together and select the preferred elements from each design. Then give the work to the preferred graphic designer to work up as the final artwork.

The artwork should be finalised and agreed on by everybody before development of the site begins.

Production

Finally the preparation has been done and the site is ready to be constructed. Now for the more technical stuff! You will need to have decided which programming language to use to build the website. There are two main types for developing a website, one is Unix based, and the other is Windows based. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. If you are starting from scratch then it probably won’t matter, so you can go with the preference of your professional doing the work. My website is built on the Unix platform (apparently!) which is the same as many of the more well known websites such as Ebay, Facebook, Google and Amazon. Also your website hosting must be compatible with the development language with which your website is built.

Accessibility and Compliance

The website has to meet the current standards for website coding and doing so insures that disabled users, such as the visually impaired, can still access the entire website if they are using a Braille web browser.

Website Development

The best way to develop a website is on the web Server where the site is going to live. This way, those involved in reviewing the work can see work in progress and provide feedback throughout the development.

Unforeseen items

There are always some things that arise in any project which you suddenly realise you have forgotten, so no matter how well the web developer prepares and asks the right questions, there will always be a last minute change or addition. The main aim is to minimise the number of glitches that might arise because they aren’t calculated in and they could cause extra costs and delays on the date of the website going live.

Publishing Your New Website

The moment of excitement comes when your site finally is published to the internet and you see the results of all the thought that has gone into the whole process. When the demolition company website for my firm eventually went live I was really pleased, but also relieved that it was eventually done!

Reporting and Monitoring

Once your website is up and running, you will want to know how many people visit your website and from that number how many actually buy the products or place an enquiry. From these statistics you can work out the ratio of hits to sales and gradually make changes to improve the ratios. There are some reliable statistics packages such as Google Analytics or Web-Stat.com which allow you to collect and review website visitor data in near real time. All you need to do this is to have a small block of code inserted into each web page on your site.

Another useful service that Web-stat.com provides is to monitor the website and warn you by email or text message if the site is offline. Google Analytics doesn’t yet provide a comparable uptime monitoring service, maybe they just decided it was too much of a headache as it is an intensive service checking a website every 5 minutes to make sure it is still responding and indeed web-stat do promote this difference as one of their unique selling points but it is pretty hard to compete with free. In fact Google Analytics is not quite free, which makes it an even better marketing decision for Google because sometimes it is harder to give things away for free than it is to sell them! Google Analytics is a free service available to Google AdWords advertisers, you don’t actually have to have any AdWords campaigns running but it will cost you a one-time activation fee of £5 (or similar in your local currency) to open your AdWords account, but once you have done that you can go on to use Google Analytics for as many websites as you like.

Marketing

Once the website is live there are lots of things you can do to market your product or service. The first step is to submit it to the search engines and at the same time write articles, and press releases. Getting links to the site from forums, blogs and other social networking spaces are other options. For more on this subject ask your developer about SEO

Conclusion

Wheww. What an amazing amount of work! I hadn’t realised when I started the process of getting a website up and running, how complicated it all is and how many factors you have to consider before even designing the website. The word web design is really a misnomer, as people often think it’s just about the graphic design on the home page, and the branding of the product. Unless you are a computer buff, most people have no idea how much goes into designing and building a website and the systems that support the work you want it to do. I hope that this article will give readers an understanding and insight into the whole process of website development from start to finish.

Add Links

When you go to the wine capital of California, missing out on experiencing Napa Valley wine tours is the last thing you would want to do. There are lots of things you will get to experience when you go to Napa Valley, and often times, hotels in the area and even travel packages are already included with the activities you will choose doing while on the area. With an estimated number of over three hundred wineries established in the county, experiencing a Napa Valley wine tour becomes an exquisite pleasure.

Activities During Napa Valley Wine

ToursThere are plenty of stuff which are being showcased in such a tour. One of them is of course wine-tasting. But more than just letting you sip lots of wine from many refineries, tour guides (who most of the time are the owners themselves) also teach a few tricks and tips when it comes to reaching satisfaction in wine tasting. Some even teach you how to appreciate wine and note differences in various wine products. Aside from this, wine tours also let you on the colorful histories of many popular wineries, so you can get a glimpse of how these distilleries started out and what’s the secret behind their generations of success.

Aside from these really cool experiences, there are also wine and food pair-ups. One of the things that wineries keep in store for their visitors is to educate them about the ways in which food and wine can help enhance each other’s taste. If you are lucky, you will be in on some food and wine pairing festivity while experiencing a Napa Valley wine tour. This way, you will get to see and experience how wines can fare alongside various cuisines from all over the world. You will also get to meet a lot of people, and in essence increase your networks throughout these fun-filled activities. 

Having a small appliance that will save you time, money and give you great tasting food is what food dehydrators are all about.  When people home grow their own fruits and vegetables in the summer chances are they plan on canning, freezing and dehydrating what they can.  The reason many these days are choosing to grow a garden is to save money.  Having the products and items needed to freeze, can and dry will let consumers get the most out of their time, money and efforts from their home grown garden.  Also many people may choose to stock up and purchase some produce when they are in season to get them at the better rate and when that is the case a food dehydrator may be necessary.  Learn more about food dehydrators at http://www.food-dehydrator-pro.com

Many people may be familiar with the canning process but they many not be familiar with the drying process.  Drying foods in the sun has been done for centuries however now a days people need their foods dried quicker and they in a more contained space.  Knowing that a food dehydrator does exactly what the sun does but only in a quicker amount of time and in a confined space will help people understand when they need to purchase one of these products.  Those products that are normally canned such as beets and green beans can also be dried to be used in soups or other recipes.  Foods that are usually frozen such as corn or berries are other examples of foods that can be dried and rehydrated for recipes.

Drying fruits is what many people choose to do with their food dehydrators and the reason is because they make great snacks.  When people ask themselves what are food dehydrators they may not realize that they can make fruit leathers as well as beef jerky.  Dried apples, apricots and berries are all able to be dried as fruit leather with the help of a little yogurt and the right dehydrator tray.  Drying fruits to use in recipes or as snacks is another popular reason people choose to look into purchasing these small appliances.

With great ease in drying not only fruits and vegetables that can be used for snacks but also recipes consumers will enjoy the benefits of dried foods in a quicker amount of time.  These products are also capable of making the best tasting beef jerky in not only a quicker time but with a great flavor.  Many consumers may not have the knowledge they need to pick the food dehydrator that will best meet their needs however chances are if they are growing their own garden larger sizes may meet their food dehydrator needs the best.

Knowing that there is a product like this that can save both time and money while still producing great tasting food may be valuable to may home vegetable growers.  Chances are families wanting to eat more healthy and save a few dollars will also want to find out what food dehydrators are all about and how they can purchase one.

Test that attempts to find innate intellectual power, and not acquired ability.

It is nowadays generally thought that a kid’s ability in an iq test can be affected by it’s environment, cultural and ethnic background, and teaching. 

There is widespread  questions about the accuracy and reliability of intelligence tests, however they are still commonly used as a diagnostic tool when children display learning  problems.

The French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1911) devised the first intelligence test in 1905.

The IQ (from  the German Intelligenz-Quotient), was coined by the German psychologist William Stern in 1912 as a proposed method of scoring early modern children’s  intelligence tests.

It is calculated according to the formula: IQ = MA/CA x 100 in which MA is ‘mental age’ (the age at which an average  child is able to perform given tasks) and CA is ‘chronological age’, hence an average person has an IQ of 100 ± 10.

Although the term “IQ” is still in common use,  the scoring of modern IQ tests such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale is now based on a projection of the subject’s measured rank on the Gaussian bell  curve with a center value (average IQ) of 100, and a standard deviation of 15, although different tests may have different standard deviations.

Intelligence tests were first used on a  large scale in the USA in 1917 during World War I for two million drafted men, and their subsequent widespread use for education and employment decisions has  provoked protests from minority groups who contend the tests are culturally biased and discriminatory.

‘Sight and sound’ intelligence tests, developed by Christopher Brand in 1981, avoid cultural bias and the pitfalls of improvement by practice.  Subjects are shown a series of lines being flashed on a screen at increasing speed, and are asked to identify in each case the shorter of a pair; and when  two notes are relayed over headphones, they are asked to identify which is the higher. There is a close correlation between these results and other  intelligence test scores.

IQ scores have been shown to be associated with such factors as morbidity and mortality rate, parental social status, and to a considerable degree, parental  IQ. While its heritage has been looked into for about a century, controversy remains as to how much is inheritable, and the mechanisms of inheritance  are still a matter of some debate.

IQ scores are used in many contexts: as predictors of educational achievement or special needs, by social scientists who study the statistical distribution of IQ scores  in populations and the relationships between IQ score and other variables, and as predictors of job performance and income.

The average IQ scores for many populations have been increasing at an average rate of three points per decade since the early 20th century with most of the  increase in the lower half of the IQ range: a phenomenon called the Flynn effect. It is disputed whether these changes in scores reflect real changes in  intellectual abilities, or merely problems with past or present testing methods.

http://www.originalthugs.com

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites.

The search engine is the one handling all the tracking and payments, providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive and targeted ads without having the hassle to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor the clicks and statistics which could be a time-consuming task in itself. When you are on a mission to start to earn money try to give yourself a fair chance by using the advertising programs that are proven to work…

It seems that there is never a shortage of advertisers in the program from which the search engine pulls the Adsense ads. Also webmasters are less concerned by the lack of information search engines are providing and are more focused in making cash from these search engines. Never forget to experiement with programs like project payday and scour the web for feedback from others on gpt programs like this send earnings review…

Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, this will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

People rarely understand that by optimizing your placement of advertisements and placing the most profitable ones on top of your site, you can increase your earnings to record rates!

Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

Most importantly, never forget that Google, being the undisputable leader in search engines from then until now, is placing a high importance on the quality and relevancy of its search engines. Most especially now that the company is public property. In order to keep the shareholders and users of its engines happy, the quality of the returned results are given extreme importance.

Showing your client with a trouble-free means to finance your property can add a whole new dimension to your sales process.

Client retention and raising income opportunities are supreme to any business in today’s aggressive marketplace. Vendor Finance will not only give you a vital edge over your rivals, but can also produce valuable complementary income.

Financing is inherent to the majority of asset expenditure. By using Vendor Finance, your customers are supplied not only with your services, but also the finance with which to complete the purchase. As you now cover all aspects of the dealings, the attachment between your client and yourself will be greatly enhanced.

If the customer has to source finance elsewhere, the sales agreement could be delayed and may allow a competitor to step in. There are many reasons, why your client delays or fails to complete the purchase.

It may be that they wish to spread the cost of the asset over its useful life, or maybe they do not have the capability for capital expenditure within their budgets, or possibly they do not want to tie up vital cash reserves.

Vendor Finance packages can be tailored made to suit your business sector and your typical customer profile. We provide a full range of innovative and flexible finance facilities, along with all the tools and support you need to make quoting and administration as simple as possible. You can then concentrate on selling your products.

In easy terms, you can enjoy increased sales and better client retention without the need to take any credit rating risk. Vendor financing puts you back in control of your property sale by making it easy for your client to purchase from you.

bransonlakesidehomes.com

What I am about to reveal will probably not make some fellow gurus happy, but this needs to be said:

- No matter what they say about affiliate marketing, it’s virtually impossible for everyone to get those 5,000 – 10,000 dollars a month they are raving on about. The reason? There is simply too much competition! However my fellow gurus are correct on one point: No money will fall into your hands if you are not doing anything to get it there…

I decided to help you get started in the right state of mind, by giving you these high level tips below, that will help you make some money with the different kinds of affiliate marketing programs you can find on the internet.

1. Google Adwords

Some say the days of free traffic are over, but there are still some traffic coming that way, however those hits are surely fading away quickly. You can choose to work hard creating web pages that rank well in the search engines, but still – it’s very hard to do. If you still feel like trying, there are lots of Search Engine Optimization Guides available for you to download, both paid and free.

Simply by paying for clicks with Google (it’s called the Adwords program), you can get the top three positions on the search engines that matter the most – in a matter of minutes. It may come as no surprise to you that there are lots of guides available on how to optimize your google adwords campaigns as well! Did you know that the “engine” that drives some of the traffic is called Adsense? The adsense program allows website owners to put ads on their sites, and when the ads are clicked – the site owner just made some cents online. Most Google Adwords Guides recommend turning off that part of the campaign, due to the click fraud involved, which will give you bad quality, non converting traffic.

2. Your own email list

Building an email list of subscribers is hard, but doable. The task of sending offers to your very own email list is the ideal way to build a residual income online. Instead of sending traffic away and hoping for the best, the best alternative for you (in my opinion) is having your own email list to which you will be able to send multiple offers on periodic intervals. There are lots of autoresponder services that you can subscribe to, and if you feel like having total control, there are several Autoresponder Scripts available for purchase as well.

3. Having Your own affiliate program

Did you know that the gurus are aware of the fact that every visitor that fills out form on your site can generate 50 cent in revenue? What about if you pay someone 25 cents (50% commission) to generate that same amount of traffic, that you would otherwise pay Google to get?

This is the secret most newbies don’t know (and that the gurus don’t want you to know about): Let others generate the traffic you need to make some sales! There are a lot of advantages using this approach, including the fact that now others pay Google to get the traffic for you.

Final Words:

Yes, when it all comes down to it, everything involves paying for traffic in one way or the other. Just remember – in order to make the online income you dream about, you’ll need to invest very wisely in the different kinds of advertising available to you.

To Your Success,

Anders Eriksson

Private Label Rights Membership Site Owner

There are very few forex training courses on the market that actually deliver what they promise. Most just use rehashed old information and deliver systems that just do not work in the long run.

There are however a couple of forex training courses on the market that goes a long way in giving you what they promise.

One of these is the latest forex megadroid review. Not only do you get great educationmaterial, but you get access to live forex trades and training. It is par none some of the best forex education on the Internet with hours of training on video and printed books. You even get access to the online version of the training materials when you buy so you do not have to wait for the hardcopy to arrive.

One controversial program that came out recently that can not be really be classified as a forex study course is FABTURBO forex Robot. It’s a forex signals service that gives buy and sell signals via a EA on your trader platform. You still trade with your usual trading platform and your normal broker account. The robot does the trading for you and will work even while you sleep, as long as you keep your PC on. Get a full FAPTURBO review right here. This Robot works!

A new course in the world of forex training is the 10 Minute Forex study course. Not just training, but live ongoing support, interaction, training sessions, trader interaction and trade calls with their monthly membership system. It is one of the better products out there that continues to deliver long after you read the manual and watched the video. Did I say it comes with it’s own custom EA that can help with automated trade signals? You can watch a secret video of the backend exclusive members section on my 10 Minute Forex Review page.

Here are a few valuable tips and ways to keep your home and workshop safe from fires. Prevention is the best method so keep these things in mind. Of course you should have at least one of the many types of fire extinguishers on hand for the ultimate in preventing a fire from spreading.

1. Make sure flammable items are disposed of properly including wood scraps, wood shavings, sawdust and other wastes.

2. Store oily rags in a proper waste can and empty it daily. You can also soak them in water and toss them outside in a sealed metal container.

3. Make sure electrical tools don’t have frayed cords, bad motors or bent and broken plugs. These are a hazard and should be replaced.

4. Make sure your wood working shop has at least a 20 amp electrical circuit to make sure you have enough power for your tools and lights.

5. You need smoke detectors on every floor.

6. Invest in a good fire extinguisher by Kidde, and get proper fire extinguisher training. There are many types of fire extinguishers available so be sure to get the one that is right for your home. You’ll want one that can handle electrical and combustible materials including liquids that are flammable.

7. You need a fire escape plan. In some cases that will mean exiting through a door, in others perhaps a window.

Gimme Wealth

There is no reason to buy soap at the store when you could be making your own soap of better quality at home. When you make your own soap, you are the one choosing what goes into the soap, and preventing beneficial ingredients from being removed.

One of the benefits of home soap making is that in the process, the humectants, such as glycerine, remain within the soap, attracting moisture to the skin. Beauty companies like to extract glycerine because they can market it separately. It leaves the consumer with clean but dry skin. When you learn how to make soap at home, you control the process and you donat have to worry about corporate manipulations.

If you use a proper method for how to make soap, you can shave off the cost of buying expensive department store soaps that do the same thing. There are plenty of easy soap making projects out there and once you get the hang of it, you will probably never have to shop for soap again.

In addition to saving money, your homemade soaps can be great gifts to give to friends and family. Or you can have a soap party where you teach your friends and family how to make soap so that they can design and create their own individual soap bars. The process is not recommended to teach to children, however, because there are acids involved that could be harmful.

The basic ingredients for soap making are lye, oil and animal fats, which join together to make soap in a process called saponification. You must always wear protective gloves when making soap, as lye can burn or irritate your skin.

At a craft store you may even purchase a soap making kit that will have everything youall need to start: recipes, oils, lye, and a mold to shape your soap. Once you get more comfortable with the process you can expand your thinking outside of the kit, maybe by using different oils and playing with shapes.

You may find that getting back to nature is exactly what your skin needs and you donat have to buy expensive organic products to do it if you know how to make your own. Making your own soap can be beneficial for the rest of your family as well, especially if someone is allergic or has sensitive skin. Many commercial soaps are perfumed and actually irritate the skin and provoke allergic reactions.

When you make soap, you are being both creative and useful. It’s likely that you will find your homemade soap to be better for your skin than the soap you used to buy at the store, because you are in control of what goes in and what comes out of the soap. The opportunities for the fun and creativity know no bounds!

Jen Hopkins has worked in the anti aging skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about make your own soap, and how to make soap. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.