35 Tips for Online Success

1. Don't overload your site with flashing lights and slow loading graphics. Keep it simple and to the point.

2. Put a little of yourself into your site and make it unique.

3. Have your contact information listed on every page.

4. Make every page of your site consistent. You want your site to be easy to understand and navigate.

5. Provide a lot of useful content and resources. Don't just make your site one big ad.

6. Make yourself available to answer questions and to help your visitors when needed.

7. Answer all email inquiries in a timely and courteous manner.

8. Make it very easy for people to order your products. The easier to order, the more orders you'll get. http://www.paypal.com http://www.clickbank.com

9. Publish an ezine. This will enable you to keep in contact with your readers and form a a very important relationship.


* http://www.myownezine.com/tutorial/index.shtml

* http://www.ezine-z.com

* http://www.ezineuniversity.com


10. Use an autoresponder for follow-ups.


* http://www.getresponse.com/?34218

* http://www.sendfree.com

* http://www.aweber.com


11. Write and submit articles for publication in other ezines.


* http://www.MakingProfit.com

* http://www.vectorcentral.com/articles-form.html

* mailto:ArticleReview-subscribe@topica.com

* mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com

* mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com


12. Participate in ad swaps with other publishers.


* http://www.freezineweb.com/ad-swaps1.html

* http://www.yoursalesoffice.com/Ezine_Joint_Ventures.html


13. Set up a links page and exchange links with other websites.


* http://www.reciprocallink.com

* http://folksites.com/linkconnector/reciprocal.html


14. Build your reputation and yourself as a foundationfor your online success.

15. Follow-up on all sales and inquiries.

16. Develop contacts and relationships with other publishers and netpreneurs.

17. Learn how to write your own ebook to sell or give away.

18. Join discussion lists and message boards and network, network, and network. Enjoy some new friendships along the way.


* mailto:ideasbypost-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* mailto:hbj_chat-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* mailto:digital-women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

* http://theebookcatalog.com/forum


19. Find and join some good affiliate programs to help you learn marketing and selling and to add to your income.


* http://www.associateprograms.com

* http://www.affiliatebroadcast.com


20. Do not spam! If you are unsure if something is spam, find out before you proceed.

21. Purchase your own domain name.

22. List your ezine in several popular directories.


* http://www.ezinelocater.com

* http://www.atozines.com

* http://www.bluechiptraffic.com/ezines/

* http://www.worldmegastore.com/newsletters.php


23. Be true to yourself and your customers. This will establish trust which is essential to your success.

24. Include some original material in your ezine. If you are not yet writing articles, write an editorial for each issue. Let your readers get to know you.

25. Do not insult other people. ALWAYS treat others with respect.

26. Subscribe to several popular ezines. Read and learn from them. The good ezines are loaded with information and resources.


* http://www.bizybodies.com

* http://www.forwardproductions.com

* http://rimdigest.com


27. Participate in joint ventures with ebook authors, ezine publishers, etc. This is a good way of making more money and providing resources for your subscribers. Always review the product before you promote it.

28. Never stop learning!! There is an endless amount of information to learn when running an online business. Do not ever think that you know all you need to know.

29. Be open to new ideas and be willing to take risks.

30. Learn from others who have been there already. Most of the publishers and netpreneurs are willing and happy to help Newbies.

31. When publishing an ezine, stuff it with useful content and resources. Give your readers what they crave - information! Don't throw 30 ads together and call it an ezine!

32. Thoroughly check out all opportunities and offers before joining or buying. There are a lot of scammers out there.

33. When writing articles, write as if you are teaching. Don't turn the article into a sales letter for one of your products.

34. Back up all your information and work, so you do not lose it. This is very important!

35. Do not think you have to read, buy or use every product, ebook or program out there.

36. Choose a business that will bring out your passion and commitment. Running an online business can be a very rewarding and fulfilling experience.



Do we create sites for user or the engines?


What’s more important? Creating sites for users or the engines? The answer is both.

Primarily a site should be designed for the user, with search engines in mind. Google tends to talk out both sides of their mouth when they say, “Don’t do anything special for the engines”. Yet, they create a webmaster tool center where you can submit a sitemap, and get information about how the engines see your site, errors and what key phrases your site ranks for. That gives new site owners a little bit of confusion.

I like sites that are easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye and that help sell whatever it is you need to. Pages should be set up as landing pages. This way you can give the visitor everything they need to make a purchase or fill out a form. At the same time you can optimize these pages for the engines and use the pages for your PPC campaigns. I believe in doing sites this way. It brings the visitor a much better experience.

The perfect site is not only user friendly, but optimized for the engines. You need to target where people go to in order to provide them with the information or product they need. There is nothing worse than having people landing on a page that is optimized for a phrase but offers no information about it.. It brings the user a bad experience and you a missed sale or lead. Once you have a page optimized, you can streamline the transition from viewing what you have to offer to facilitating a purchase. You can also provide related content and links. This, in turn, will help with you PPC because Google is now checking to see how relevant your landing pages are to the keywords you buy.

In the grand scheme of things, you do need to optimize your site. However, if you do not have usability for the user, your traffic won’t convert. Non-converting traffic is worse than having no traffic at all. It’s a webmasters nightmare.


Join SEO forum at http://www.mr-seo.com/message_board_SEO.html

To learn about SEO read our SEO articles, SEO podcast and other information resouces on our site. http://www.mr-seo.com

Go to home page

Have you heard it? There's a buzz like never before on the
Internet. Everyone is talking about Web 2.0. If you're like
many people, you may think it's a marketing gimmick and quite
an overused statement. If so, you would be at least partially
right.

Fortunately, there's another side to the story. Underneath all
of the chatter is a concept that is even more powerful than the
hype that surrounds it.

The concept of Web 2.0 started as a conference brainstorming
session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. During
their discussion, they analyzed the companies that had survived
the dot-com collapse. Interestingly enough, many of these
companies had quite a few things in common. Was there a
connection? Was the dot-com crash a turning point for the web?
O'Reilly and MediaLive believed so. And therefore, Web 2.0 was
born.

So, what is it?

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as:

"The term Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services
available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and
share information online. In contrast to the first generation,
Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications
than the traditional static Web pages. Web 2.0 applications
often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s,
including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax
(1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass
publishing (web-based social software). The concept may include
blogs and wikis."

There is no official standard for what makes something
"Web 2.0", but there are certainly a few common attributes
that often describe this new culture of transformation.

You can see many of these concepts in sites like Flickr,
del.icious, Wikipedia, Amazon reviews, and the eBay reputation
system.

Web 2.0 is built on a system of collective knowledge. It
provides a social fabric for the Web, empowering the individual
and giving them an outlet for their voice to be heard.

However, we have only seen a small glimpse of the effects of
these new transitions. Del.icio.us and Digg are just the
beginning of what will soon become a much more interactive Web.

Each day there are a variety of new online applications being
released: online spreadsheets, online word processing, to-do
lists, reminder services, and personal start pages.

In addition, many of the changes that are evident in the
world of Web 2.0 can be seen through common design practices.
Old-school HTML was full of boxes and square tables. Today's web
designers are rapidly moving away from boxy designs to flexible
curves. When designing for today's Internet, it's all about
rounded designs, nice big text, gradients, glassy effects, and
bright colors.

Rounded Corners:

Let's face it. The days of good 'ol tables and square boxes are
good and gone. The Web 2.0 era has ushered in the pleasing sight
of rounded corners.

Unfortunately, many web masters have spent unending hours trying
to obtain perfectly rounded corners. Their pain and suffering
has led to a number of tutorials that will help us bypass the
grief.

Below are some links to tutorials that will get you started
creating your very own rounded corners:

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/css/
css-round-corners-boxes.shtml
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/mountaintop/
http://www.web-20-workgroup1-swicki.eurekster.com/rounded+corners/

Nice Big Text:

Have you ever been to a web site where you could barely read the
text? Well, join the club. Fortunately, times have taken a turn
for the better. With Web 2.0, oversized fonts have come into
style. You can start using plenty of oversized text to make
important messages stand out. Of course, you don't want all of
the text on your web site to be supersized, but make sure that
the most important text on the page is bigger than normal text.


Gradients:

Gradients are another popular design element of Web 2.0. This is
especially true of backgrounds. A common background used today
has a gradient at the top, fading down to some other color that
continues throughout the background for the rest of the page.

For a complete tutorial on how to create this type of effect, go
to http://www.photoshoplab.com/web20-design-kit.html.

Colors:

Web 2.0 sites are strongly defined by their colors. They nearly
always use bright and cheery colors - lots of blue, orange, and
lime green.

They also often include large, colorful icons, sometimes with
reflections and drop shadows. To see some samples of how web
sites are effectively using bright colors, check out:

http://www.9rules.com/
http://www.iconbuffet.com/


Other common design characteristics include the use of tabs,
reflections, glassy effects, large buttons, and big text boxes
for submission forms.

Sites that are embracing Web 2.0 can also often be identified by
their tag clouds. If you have traveled the web much in the last
6 months, then you have surely seen tag clouds. They are used
prominently on del.icio.us, Technorati, and Flickr. A tag cloud
is basically a visual depiction of the conent on a website. Often
times, more popular tags are shown in a larger font.

Why not add a tag cloud to your own site? Not only do they look
cool, but they also provide your visitor with a search tool that
helps them to find your content quickly and easily.

You can create your own tag cloud with a very simple service
called Eurekster Swicki (http://swicki.eurekster.com/). This is
a community-based search engine that creates free tag clouds for
web sites.

Although we have discussed many of the design elements associated
with Web 2.0, this change is much more than just an aesthetic
transition. Web 2.0 is essentially about a transition in the way
we experience the Internet. The new Ajax programming base allows
web masters to create an architecture of participation for their
users. Web 2.0 refers to the ongoing transition to full
participation on the Web.

Your web site can be so much more than an information resource.
Your web presence is a place. With the proper programming skills,
you can create a virtual world complete with an online shopping
mall that compares prices from a variety of merchants, looks for
potential coupons, and displays Amazon reviews.

In addition, traditional desktop applications are rapidly
becoming available online as a service. Why not offer your
visitors the ability to create their own to-do lists, online
note pads, reminder services, and personal start pages?
http://www.linkedin.com/


Create an experience, not just a site.
================================================================
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com) and SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com)

================================================================

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