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Starting out a website involves a few main ingredients that you need, as well as many optional pieces. In this article, we will discuss the essentials you need to at least be viewable on the internet. Main components are having a domain name and web hosting for your files, the actual physical files like HTML, that make up the design of the page and the option to secure your content against non encrypted attacks. Let’s take a look.

Registering a Domain Name

When starting up your website, you need a domain name to help people remember how to get to your site. Google.com is one of the most familiar domain name that almost everyone using the web knows. When starting out, you may want to look into some companies offering you to purchase cheap domain names to start your web business. These companies almost always provide similar features to the big companies and are a great alternative.

Web Site Hosting

You need a location to store your web site files. No matter what type of content you are displaying, including images or PDF files, they have to be accessible on a computer server that is always on. This is where an affordable web hosting solution comes into play. For a relatively inexpensive price of less than five to ten dollars a month you can get your web files hosted for others to see.

Web Page Design

Your web site will be designed with a variety of HTML files, Images, Videos, Flash and PDF files. This has to be created by either a web designer or yourself. The better the skills of the person doing it, the better your site will look like. You can use tools like Dreamweaver or other web hosting sitebuilders to create your site. Again, the tools used will be directly related to quality.

Secured Hosting Service (Optional)

Having your hosting secured is an optional practice for most sites as there is usually just static data. If your site is collecting information such as credit card data, then you will need to looking into buying ssl certificate for your website to ensure your visitors data is protected. The data is protected by a web server certificate that changes your site from http to https, indicating to the user it is secure. The https is what makes the data encrypted when sent over the internet so people cannot abuse the information being transmitted. It is a necessity for these sites, but not for regular sites.

The three requirements have been listed that you need, with the fourth optional secure option. Once you have decided on that, you can further dwelve into finding other web site solutions including a possible content management system you may want to use.

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Every online organisation should be constantly looking for ways of positively influencing their customers’ purchasing decisions.
If you want to increase conversion rates, then you should consider video marketing to connect emotionally with customers, existing and potential, in a more direct way than ever before.
Although a relatively new technique in online marketing, having a video spokesperson has proven to be very successful resulting in increased customer action through direct sales, click throughs and page views.
Video is compelling and dynamic – unlike the more traditional static pictures and text that we’re used to.
Video has inherent appeal.Consider these figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau which show that in January 2009, 29.6 million people in the United Kingdom clicked onto online video.That’s eight out of ten internet users and a ten per cent increase on the year before. 
Most of us would prefer to see and hear something in preference to merely reading about it.And of course, we’re more likely to make a purchase if the person telling us about the product or service looks decent and trustworthy and sounds knowledgeable.The bottom line is, having a video spokesperson can sway your customers into making a purchase – and that’s exactly what you want.
These are some of the advantages of having a video spokesperson :
• They can present your key proposition in seconds
* They interface with customers on a direct, personal level and therefore give your website a human element
* They can be the human face of your website on the home page and the tour guide through other web pages
* They can boost your brand-building efforts as they embody your organisation’s brand personality.
Website video also :
* can improve customer understanding of the product or service and boost customer education
* builds rapport with customers through an emotional trigger
* Engenders confidence and trust
* generates useful customer feedback, increases the time spent on the page and converts more visits into sales
With some forethought and planning, your clients and your organisation will benefit.  It’s best to consult a professional web design company which has the advantage of experience and technological expertise in internet video production to maximise the benefit.Dale Carter, managing director of a web development company in Perth, GTP iCommerce, had these suggestions for online video.
“First impressions count.  The video has to be professionally done. Sound quality and high definition picture resolution are vital.The words that you use are also important.The online spokesperson must portray an image of credibility and professionalism.The spokesperson should use ‘you’ and ‘your’ language which is much more meaningful for the viewer than language such as ‘me’, ‘our’, ‘we’ and ‘us’.
“Script length is also important”, he said.”The average person will only wait eight seconds before they move on, so capturing and holding their attention is vital.Unlike web copy which viewers can skim through or download to read when time permits, video is real time so it needs to make an impact – quickly.A homepage greeting should be limited to a minute, with other scripts for product and information pages limited to around 90 seconds.”
Online video is a proven technique to connect directly with your customers on a more emotional and personal level than ever before.It’s cost effective, relatively simple to implement and the results are there to be seen.

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I don’t know if every web marketer is similar to me. “I wish I had known then what I know now,” I frequently lament. By “then,” I mean my early months in my adventure into the jungle of Internet business. I could easily fill a book with significant things that I didn’t know how to do but that I attempted regardless. It’s unbelievable how many tasks that had consumed hours of my precious time had to be redone, once I overcame my ignorance bit by bit.

Periodically I try to share one of those bits of wisdom that have in time come my way. I identify one or two simple realities of the online business world about which I had been ignorant and that cost me a lot of money, a lot of wasted energy or, usually, both.

My tip for today is this: Every page on a web site is a landing page.

You see, I originally believed that every visitor to my websites would come directly to my home page. Those prospects would diligently read every well-crafted word, and then they would use that information to thoroughly explore the rest of the site in an order that I happened to find logical.

If I had discovered someone who could tell me how my prospective customers would actually discover my site and move around it, my websites wouldn’t have looked the way they did those early years. The sites may not have been as aesthetically pleasing, but they might have produced a liveable income. I guess I should have either hired a consultant or used an online marketer to professionally build a business website for me that could have met my expectations much sooner.

Here are some things that would have saved me a great deal of time and money in the long run:

* Understand that search engines do not view the Internet as a collection of websites; instead they see a collection of individual pages

* Recognize that each page on a web site should be created with the goal of achieving the ultimate purpose of the site (obtaining the desired action on the part of the visitor)

* Having tracking software that would allow me to diagnose how real people move through my site’s pages

* More quickly discovering that, cumulatively, the interior pages of my website receive more first time visits than my home page

* Distinguishing between a pretty website and a productive website

* Learning that spending some money early on can earn a lot more money down the road–and sooner rather than later

I truly enjoy building websites, so that is not something that I would have wanted to have outsourced. However there are lots of things that I should have outsourced (and that I now do) when I was first beginning.

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Many people who start up online businesses do so without any money. There is a need to perform all tasks with no assistance — preparing a product, developing a plan to sell the product, the construction of a website that will meet the marketing needs of a product. As their business grows over time, they will discover that their basic “homemade” website may not be adequate to handle everything and they will have to spend one or two days just to work on expanding their website.

Is these sounds are familiar? Most likely you had no funding when you started so you are wary of giving away your hard earned income for something you could easily do yourself. a designer than just finishing up a job that you don’t want to do.

When you employ a web designer to work on your behalf, you do more than hand over the “job that nobody else wants to do” to somebody else. It only takes a little money to have the designer worry about the little things that’ll drive you crazy. in this way you will concentrate on making business strategy and spend more time on it.

Another way to look at it is that you are hiring and paying web designers to competently perform professional services.  By giving them work to do on your web design, you don’t have to be concerned when trouble happens since they will always repair it for you. They have the more expertise than yourself, to immediately identify and set the issue right 

In addition, the work you pay for will look more professional than what you could create on your own–after all, the designers have been doing this a lot longer than you have! This is their career, so they better be good at it!

Don’t satisfy with sustaining your business, strive hard to improve it!
If you have very specific ideas for your new internet page, you can count on Ben Brooks Web Design to meet all of your needs! You can find a personable team with  lots of commitment towards creating websites at even a price which would be suiting you…

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You have decided that the time has arrived when you need to have an internet prescence for your small business. You have started to come to terms that the internet is the future of advertising. What has worked in previous years such as newspaper advertising may well now be a thing of the past. We all have to move with the times if we are to continue to succeed.

The scary thing for many new webmasters is all of the initial costs of setting up a website. I remember all too well just how expensive it was around ten years ago when I had my first website designed and built. It was based on the subject of speech therapy for stammering and I was investing in this new site at a time when I did not have a great deal of money. I have to say that it has proven to be one of the best investments that I have ever made. The website certainly enabled a lot of people to find out about the stuttering therapy service that I offer.

The initial costs of setting up a website include paying for the design, the domain and the web hosting. Then there are the ongoing costs of web promotion; there is of course no point in having a top notch website if nobody ever visits it.

So how can we ensure that we receive a web design service at an affordable price? Just like it is in other forms of business it is not so much what you know but who you know. It is prudent to ask people that you know if they are aware of any web designers. This way you may be able to secure a deal on “mates rates”.

A second idea is to search for freelance web designers rather than going to a web design agency. Many up and coming web designers start up on their own on a self-employed basis and are normally happy to offer a discount whilst they are building up their portfolio.

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Web design tip number one – Use black text on a white background.

Web design that converts visitors into customers must make sure that any sections of text greater than 2 lines uses dark text, preferably black text on a white background.  For blocks of text in your web design you need to forget about fancy font colours and dark backgrounds in your attempt to achieve visual appeal.Sticking with the basics of making it easy to read the text on you web site has proven to be the best strategy.

The web design reasons for it include…

In order for you to be able to make a sale to your potential customers.

1. Your web design needs to make it easy for people to take in your information.
2. Research indicates that having more than a 15% background tint will negatively impact on the effectiveness of your sales message.
3. Your web design needs to be all about conversion and less about the branding.

Small business will benefit from the simplicity of selecting a dark text on a white background for main body copy section on their sites. It will be the most effective and least expensive strategy in most situations.

Research your keywords.

A critical step in any internet marketing program is to research the most popular key phrases and target these in your web design.  Then once you know what they you need to make sure that these keywords occur on your website.

A great web design that never gets seen will not help you grow your business, and the best online way to be seen is to be found in the search engines.

Web design is often a less about the design, and more about the copy, because if the copy does not contain the frequently searched for keywords/phrases, then you are never going to get in front of a customer. So make sure that you know which keywords you should be being found for and place these strategically in your text throughout the site.

Web design tip number three – Make your website, visually appealing.

Some graphic designers may be worried web design tip number one and number two are diametrically opposed to web design tip number three.

The truth is that your web site needs to be found in the major search engines and for your information to be clearly communicated (i.e. easily read).  But you must also at all times present your information in a professional manner to engender the customer trust required in order to purchase from you for request information from you.

By the following of these three simple rules above in your business, you will benefit from more sales leads, signups and sales conversions from your web design.

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If you have ever been on a website where you could listen to some type of music or watch a video then you have undoubtedly visited a site that employs a popular form of multimedia interaction known as web design using flash. These types of sites are becoming more and more common. Website builders and creators are beginning to recognize that a more interactive undertone must be used in order to keep website traffic up. However, interactive sites are not the only ones benefiting from this style of design.

While it was somewhat problematic in the beginning because of broadcast regulations, radio stations have now begun to break free of the legal red tape and are now permitted to stream their broadcast over the Internet at their station’s website. In almost all of these applications a flash plug in is required to hear the streaming audio.

Flash website usage has made its way onto television websites also. These have been a true boom for the networks. Not only can they make many of their television programs available for viewing online, but they also add what is known as a bumper commercial to the show. This bumper commercial is separate from the television broadcast and is used to not only cover the cost of posting shows for viewing online but it also helps the network to earn a profit as well.

Internet based movie rental businesses have also benefited from aspects of website development using flash. One particular company’s website allows members to watch a selected group of movies free of charge. This feature has been the determining factor in many people selecting this online movie rental company instead of the others.

In retrospect, it is very hard to imagine a website that could not benefit from a flash design. No more is interactive audio and video solely for the MySpace and YouTube’s in this world. The simple truth is that it really does not mater what kind of website it is, the benefits of flash can make any site more compelling and capable of generating increased traffic. As long as traffic continues to be the driving force of any website, then it is a good thing indeed. If your business relies on the internet, you may want to think about contracting a web design company and get onboard with flash applications.

One might have success locating more data by checking out About.com or on Altavista.       

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If you have ever viewed a website where you could listen to some type of music or watch a video then you have undoubtedly visited a site that employs a popular form of multimedia interaction known as flash web design. These types of sites are growing more and more popular. Website designers and creators are beginning to realize that a more interactive undertone must be used in order to keep website traffic up. However, interactive sites are not the only websites benefiting from this type of design.

While it was somewhat problematic in the beginning because of broadcast regulations, radio stations have now begun to break free of the legal entanglements and are now permitted to stream their broadcast over the Internet at their station’s website. For almost all of these applications a flash plug in is necessary to hear the streaming audio.

Flash website usage has made its way onto television websites also. This usage has created a true boom for the networks. Not only can they make many of their television programs available for viewing online, but they also add what is referred to as a bumper commercial to the show. This bumper commercial is separate from the television broadcast and helps to not only cover the cost of posting shows for viewing online but it also helps the network to earn a profit as well.

Online movie rental companies have also benefited from the attractions of custom website design using flash. One particular company’s website allows members to view a selected group of movies for free. This feature has been the determining factor in many people choosing this online movie rental company instead of the others.

In retrospect, it is very hard to imagine a website that could not benefit from a flash design. No more is interactive audio and video just for the MySpace and YouTube’s in this world. The simple fact is that it really does not mater what type of website it is, the benefits of flash can make any site more compelling and capable of generating increased traffic. As long as traffic remains the life’s blood of any website, then it is a good thing indeed. If your business relies on the internet, you may want to think about contracting a web development company and get onboard with flash applications.

Use Wikipedia or by searching within Altavista for related articles on this topic.       

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There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitor spends accessing the website.

However, despite the vast amount of detailed information that is available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they dislike the site? Was the layout clear or confusing? Was it easy to navigate the website and were they able to find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are there some people that are visiting the website and not buying anything? Was it because they didn’t like what the product or service were or was it that they couldn’t find what it was that they wanted?

Online surveys provide webmasters with an accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, there is no longer any need to guess, just ask the visitors directly how they arrived at the site and if they were able to find what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they find the website?
• Is it for business or pleasure that they are interested in the website?
• Was the information they were looking for found on the website?
• How easy did they find navigating the website?
• Would they be prepared to recommend the website to others?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

Another alternative to a traditional survey is to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. One example would be to ask visitors at the end of the registration process if they found the procedure quick and easy; another example would be after ordering an item the customer could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. To avoid regular visitors from being canvassed every time they visit, the website can be configured so that they are only ever asked once.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey

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There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitor spends accessing the website.

However, despite the vast amount of detailed information that is available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they like the site? Was the layout easy to understand or confusing? Did they find it easy to navigate and maybe the most important thing, did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are some people that visit the website not buying anything? Was the reason because they didn’t like what was being offered, or was it that they couldn’t find what they wanted even though it was there?

Web based surveys provide webmasters with an accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, no need to guess, just ask the visitors themselves how they found the site and if they found what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they reach the website?
• Are they interested in the website for business or pleasure?
• Did they find the information they were looking for?
• How easy was it for them to navigate the website?
• Would they recommend the website to their friends and/or colleagues?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

An alternative to a traditional survey would be to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. For example at the end of the registration process the visitor can be asked if they found the procedure quick and easy; after ordering an item they could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. So that the questions don’t become a nuisance to regular visitors the website can be configured so that the questions are only asked once for every registered user.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey

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