Tag Archive | "websites"

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Website Updates – Does Outsourcing Save Money?

Posted on 28 November 2009 by Tony Herman

It seems like getting the company website updated is like pulling teeth. The in-house IT department does not seem to want to do them right away or else it takes way too long to get one, simple update completed. The work is not difficult, so you wonder why this is such a problem. There are some reasons why this happens. We will discuss those reasons and offer a good solution.

It might be fair to say that some people out there find web maintenance work as boring or below their pay grade. This work may not seem too glamorous and people in the company IT department may not favor doing it since there are things that could go wrong. When that does happen, they may not know the best way to fix things. So there is no incentive for them to do web site updates.

When doing website maintenance, you need to be careful and make certain you do a number of things:

1. Make sure you take a backup of what you are changing in case there are issues. This includes grabbing a full database back up if the website runs on a database.

2. Do the website updates and then make sure they look correct in different web browsers. How a website looks can greatly differ when you look at it on web browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer if the web site is not coded in a way that all browsers like.

3. Also check the update on different computer operating systems like Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OSX.

If there happen to be issues, then it will take that person additional time to investigate them, fix them and then test things again.

Some Benefits of Getting the Work Completed by an Outside Firm

When website maintenance is done by someone in house who is not an expert at doing these tasks, you may be paying more than if you sent the work out of house.

If the work is not done the right way, then you are paying for them to fix it. If you have the work done out of house and it is not done right, then the web site design company that did the work must correct it for no charge.

Another thing is, if you give the work to someone that does not have the skills to do website maintenance work well, it is going to take them more time than someone who knows exactly what to do. Website updates are not always as easy as they sound especially since websites are more complicated on the back end now than before. They would also need to make sure they do testing. Someone that does this kind of work for a living gets the work done right and on time.

Who Should You Hire to do Website Maintenance?

The best kind of company to hire to do this work is a website design firm that has full time people on staff. They have people that they need to keep busy. When there is down time, they are losing money. They are experts and will do the right job for you, on time.

Get web site maintenance services from a trusted partner like Webstix, Inc.

Share This Post

Comments (0)

Tags: , , , , , , ,

How to Choose Your Ecommerce Hosting

Posted on 07 November 2009 by Loren Allen

Ecommerce hosting means the ability of the web host to allow you to trade in your merchandise or services that you have on offer from your website. In the simplest of terms it means the ability for you to showcase your merchandise on your site, and once they have been selected by the buyer then they can go on to the checkout page. Before this the selected products will be placed in a shopping cart. Thus, you can provide the highest amount of security for your customer so that they are not hesitant to provide the required data online in order for the transaction to go through.

Although many sites offer options for other forms of payment, the primary and most efficient method is by credit card. In order to protect the consumer, encryption and firewall gateways provide enhanced security against credit card fraud as well as trust and confidence between business and customer. The objective of a quality Ecommerce site is to engage consumers to purchase a given product or service via effective and inspiring marketing aesthetics, ease of selection, and secure transaction options.

The public at large have come to demand the highest standards of quality, equitability and customer satisfaction as a result of severe competition. One need only defer to countless other vendors or merchants in the event of an unsatisfactory experience. Therefore, a uniformly functional and serviceable hosting site is imperative to procuring and enhancing new and repeat business.

This was a simple basic out line of how Ecommerce hosting helps the customer from the very first page to the final step of paying the bill and receiving their receipt number. However it does not end there. There are various options that Ecommerce hosting lets a customer choose from which suits them best.

The Ecommerce hosting that you choose from must enable you to display your products attractively, allow your customers to choose and pick what they like and load it into their shopping carts, and finally they get to know the total amount and check out. The buyer, in order to get a fulfilling experience whilst shopping at your website must be assured of a hassle free and trouble less experience. At the same time, you might not want to spend too much on Ecommerce hosting as you feel that your focus should be on marketing. In that case, you must choose your Ecommerce hosting site that offers you the basic facilities, and you can do the rest of it on your own. This is also known as supplied Ecommerce hosting. On the other hand, you can opt for hosted Ecommerce whereby they will do everything for you. The difference between this is the amount that you agree to pay the web hosting company.

In fact, lots of consumers will vouch for that hosted Ecommerce is the perfect thing for your website. All the things that you will require in order to charm your customers will be provided for you. All that you will need to do in this case is to just upload the products on sale. It is as good as it can get in Ecommerce website for you.

To look at all of the great benefits and different WebHosting sites now click here now. We will make sure you find the greatest deal to suite your needs.

Share This Post

Comments (0)

Tags: , , , , ,

Learn This Easy Way To Make A Website For Free

Posted on 05 November 2009 by Dhruv Patel

The first commercial websites needed professionals to program and put them together. They were difficult to program, tough to upload, and almost impossible to design with the slow computers and high graphic needs. Almost two decades later, things are much simpler. Learn an easy way to make a website for free nowadays!

All the programming that needed high level professionals less than twenty years ago can be accomplished through means totally unheard of way back when. Programs and code have been written to do what the program and the code only touched on in the early 1990s.

These template based websites have become very popular. No one needs to know anything about CGI scripting or XTML coding. Many of these sites even come with shopping carts, autoresponders, email, a huge selection of built in animation and graphics, news, and even the ability to use HTML if you want to.

Some of the large search engines even offer their users free websites or at least very cheap websites. A few offer the first year free and after that, it’s a few dollars a month to renew. Other than having the free website though, you need to buy / register a URL. This isn’t absolutely necessary, however. You could have your company name as a sub file for the hosting company. A bit less professional, but much cheaper.

The only difference would be this: www.yourwebistecompany.herearemynewpix.com OR www.herearemynewpix.com. Getting your own domain can be as little as $6. 95 a year.

One option that has become increasingly popular is to use a blog as a website. Blogging sites are free and there are no hosting charges to deal with either. You might need to deal with some advertising on your web pages because that is how the blog companies make their money. Some blogs are easier to customize than others, so depending on your needs, do some research before spending too time setting it up.

If this doesn’t interest you, you can still search online for free web templates, build your site for free, and then pay a few dollars a month to have your site hosted somewhere.

Free doesn’t necessarily mean “cheap” or unattractive. There are some superb websites out there that were done using free services they found online. Not just tiny companies, but companies that do business nationally or even internationally. Business owners have finally realized that there is no need to spend hundreds of dollars a month to have someone on call to update their site on a regular basis. They do it themselves, for free, using user friendly template services. Why pay for something when you get it for free?

Dhruv Patel is a customer of DreamHost. He has created site to help new DreamHost customers and to promote DreamHost by giving DreamHost coupon. You can also find detailed DreamHost review there.

Share This Post

Comments (0)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Market Your Portfolio Website

Posted on 02 November 2009 by Steven Snell

The online portfolio is one of the most important assets for any web designer or web developer (not to mention other professions like photographers). A good portfolio site is capable of being the leading source of new clients, which is the lifeblood of any service-related business.

Although the importance of the portfolio site is obvious, having an effective one requires that people actually see it. Having a great portfolio is one thing, but getting it seen is another. There are so many designers out there that competition is very stiff and without marketing your site it is likely to get very little attention.

Here we will go over several tips that can help you to get more out of your portfolio site by increasing its exposure to potential clients.

1. Build a Search Engine-Friendly Site

SEO (search engine optimization) is a huge topic that could never be covered in one brief article. However, one of the basics of optimizing a site for search engines is to simply make it easy for the search engines to crawl the site so they can accurately determine what the site is about.

Creating a search-friendly site is all about making it easy for search engines to crawl through your site and determine what it is about. This involves things like using heading tags and opting against any questionable tactics that may trick or confuse search engines.

2. Optimize Your Page Titles

The page title is one of the most significant factors for determining how search engines rank pages. Because of this you should take your time and give some thought (and research) to how you will be titling your pages. Try to use phrases that people are likely to search for.

Since there are so many sites out there already that are about web design-related topics, it’s best to pick more specific phrases that can narrow down the amount of competition you have and increase your chances of ranking high.

Try using a specific phrase like “custom WordPress themes.” This will be highly relevant to the services that you offer, plus it will give you a better chance of actually getting search engine traffic since there will be less competition for your keywords.

3. Consider Localization

Optimizing a site for local traffic is a great way to cut out a lot of competition and prepare your site in a way that targets a specific audience. Most designers do not target a locality with their portfolio, so doing so can put you way ahead of the competition in searches like “Texas web designer.”

4. Build Links

Link building is probably the most important aspect of marketing a website. Search engines see links like a popularity contest, and sites with a lot of links from quality websites are going to be respected by the search engines, and thus very likely to rank well.

Anyone that aspires to build a site that gets lots of search traffic will need to focus on link building. Here are a few ideas of ways to get links to your portfolio site:

Start a blog – Putting a blog on your domain is a very effective way to start getting links. Bloggers link to other bloggers quite frequently, so blogging and getting connected will certainly help here.

Market your site and blog via social media – SMM is a great way to get links. Articles that draw a lot of attention from social media users will generally get a lot of links.

Reciprocal links – You can exchange links with other websites, just don’t go overboard and do this with hundreds of sites or it will put up red flags for search engines.

Get your site featured in design galleries – There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of web design and CSS gallery sites that showcase excellent work from various designers. You can submit your site and if it is good enough you can build a lot of links this way.

5. Create Something Amazing

One of the best things you can do to promote your site is to simply make it special. A great portfolio design will market itself quite well. Take your time and make something that is reflective of your best work.

6. Consider Giving Away Freebies

One popular way for designers and design bloggers to gain exposure and links is to give things away for free. You could give away a free template or theme that you designed, an icon pack, Photoshop brushes, or just about anything thing else that will be useful to others.

Steven Snell is a web designer and freelance blogger. He maintains a gallery of designer portfolio sites and a gallery of e-commerce websites.

Share This Post

Comments (0)

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Importance Of Yahoo Sitemap

Posted on 06 July 2009 by Ferdinand Emy

A website pertains to a compilation of web pages that may be essentially accessed through a software package,ordinarily known as a web browser(one example is the http on the net ). These pages,which are inevitably and basically documents that are in the HTML or xhtml format(HTML stands for hyper text markup language ),are accessed from a ‘common root url’-or the website’s homepage(as most persons recognize it ). From this homepage,the visitor/internet user may browse or look through the whole website either with the use of the hyperlinks or the urls of the various web pages.

Viewed on computers and other gadgets that are available and capable of connecting with the net(suchlike pdas and cellular phones ),websites may be grouped into numerous types,contingent upon their use or the services that they offer. Many of them include:

Archive site- maintains and protects electronic contents for posterity

Business site-promotes a business or a service.

Commerce or ecommerce site-offers goods that are purchasable.

Community site-allows persons with affiliated and alike interests to communicate with one another(either through chat or message boards ).

Database site-searches and displays a peculiar database’s content.

Development site-provides selective information and roots that are affiliated to software development and web design, among others.

Directory site-holds broad-ranged contents that are normally grouped into categories and subcategories.

Download site-allows users to download electronic contents,suchlike game demos and software.

Game site-provides a ‘playground’ where persons meet and play.

Information site-holds selective information or content that have the only purpose and intent of informing visitants(not for mercantile intents ).

News site-dispenses or distributes news and commentaries(alike to an data site ).

Pornography site-shows pornographic videos and images.

Search engine site-provides common data and serves as a ‘gateway’ for other sites and resources(may likewise be a web portal site ).

Shock site-shows images and other means and materials that serves to offend readers.

Vanity site-a personal site that is run or maintained by somebody or a little group,the contents of which may be of any data that the site proprietor wishes to include.

Blog site or blogs-registers online readings and posts online diaries or discussion forums.

Wiki site-lets users to collaboratively edit the contents.

yahoo! Is perchance the most renowned example of a truly big website. The most accomplished and widely-utilized website,yahoo! Is a combination of the dissimilar types of sites- it is a directory site and a search engine site, among others.

Because of the enormous(and distant and diverse)amount of data that it holds,the yahoo! site map is an exceedingly useful feature in the yahoo! Website.

A site map is a web-page that lists the whole pages on a web site. coordinated in a hierarchical fashion,site maps may be in textual or visual form(a diagram or an effigy ).

The yahoo! site map serves as a blueprint for the yahoo! Website. Similar to a book’s table of contents,the yahoo! sitemap makes it easy for visitants or users to find personal and particular data or pages on the yahoo! Web site without even having to browse some pages,because the site map gives an overview or a visual profile and outline of the yahoo! Web site,with every section provided with active links to enable the user to directly move to a personal and particular page.

In addition,the yahoo! site map allows web developers to place links from all over their sites,making it easy for search engine robots(or engine spiders)to find these pages.

Because the yahoo! site map improves the search engine optimization of a site,this feature may be regarded a worthy tool for online venders,whose function and purpose is to stimulate and direct traffic to their web sites.

Note, however,that the yahoo! site map may only give you the ‘basics’. Because its crucial for web venders to ‘rank high’ on main search engines,an in-depth and efficient web promotion campaign that promotes your web site is likewise very much necessary. Below are many search engine systems to follow:

1. Write a descriptive page title at the top of your web page that fends off ‘filler’ words like “the” or “and”.

2. comprise descriptive keywords on your home page,along with your business name. This is called “keyword prominence”.

3. Include a description meta tag at the top of the web-page. This pertains to the sentences(1 or 2 lines,with a maximum of around 255 characters)that describe the content of your web-page.

About the Author:
Share This Post

Comments (1)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Search Engine Optimization Unravelled

Posted on 17 June 2009 by Finbar Minstrel

Although some would have you believe that search engine optimization is one of the Internet’s evils, it is in fact seen as necessary by the search engines as it organises the information on web pages to be more clearly readable to their spiders, allowing them to rank websites more effectively.

Basically, they achieve this based on how your pages look to them, together with as much information as they can find spread all over the net using their spiders. This extra information that they find elsewhere, pretty much takes the form of a popularity contest in that the more links you have pointing at your site from other sites, the higher your page will appear in the rankings.

In reality it’s a lot more complex than simply “the most links wins” because each link is worth a different amount. MANY factors go into determining how valuable a link will be, to name just a few; the PR of the page your link is on, the title of the page, the click-able text of the link, the page of your site that the link is pointing to, titles on the page that your link is on etc.

It is an achievable feat to be ranked higher that a site with 4000 links with only 400-500 links pointing at your website, as long as they are better links based on the criteria of that search engine’s algorithm. As these search engines become more and more complex, the link quality criteria is getting stricter and stricter.

Ideally, your backlink (the link pointing to your page from another site) should meet the following criteria; the site that the link is on should have a related topic to your site, on a page that has a title that’s similar to your keyword, th actual clickable text of your link needs to be the keyword that you want to be ranked for (this is crucial).

If you can get these links without having to link back to the site with the link on it then so much the better as it would then be a one way link that you had which is considered far more powerful than a reciprocal link where you link to each other.

As the algorithm of the major search engines gets more and more complex, they develop things like trip-filters for if a website gets too many links that all say the same thing (they will penalise this) so you want to change the anchor (clickable) text that you’re using around every fifty links or so.

I would recommend adding a maximum of one hundred link a month to try and stay within the limitations of the search engines. If the links are of a good quality as described, then it should be doing wonders of good for your website.

About the Author:
Share This Post

Comments (1)

Advertise Here
Advertise Here

Sponsored Links

titi is Green

Easy AdSense by Unreal