Web Design Discussion

A brand new web site will not sell anything unless you drive traffic to it. The more traffic you receive the better your chances of making a sale. Once you’ve got a reasonable amount of visitors you can begin to test the effectiveness of your sales copy.

There are 100s of methods to attract visitors to your new site. One highly effective strategy is article marketing. This requires you to write a 300-700 word article then submit it to article directories, ezine publishers and niche web sites.

The key to getting lots of visitors to read your articles is to write content that focuses on a particular problem your audience has then offer them a number of solutions. The purpose of your article is to provide quality content that gets them to click through to your web site and possibly purchase your product. Your article pre-sells the visitor by preparing their minds.

Make sure you create an attractive resource box at the end of your article because you only get one chance for them to take action. Test different resource boxes to see which receives the most click throughs.

Article Submission

Once you have written your article, submit it to the top article directories. Submit it to ezine articles dot com first because this is the best one. Rewrite the article then submit it to other top article directories.

Be consistent

Write and submit several articles per week. Once you have reached 25 articles you will begin to see a consistent flow of traffic by looking at your site statistics. Increasing the volume of articles you write and submit, will boost your rankings in the search engines and result in driving more visitors to your web site.

Track your visitors

Monitor the visitors to your web site by viewing your site statistics. It usually comes with your hosting package. If not find another host that provides them. Focus on the number of page views not hits. Page views refer to the number of unique visitors whereas hits refer to the number of times a visitor clicks to and on your web page. Unique visitors is really what counts.

Focus on writing lots of high quality articles. As the volume of articles increases so will the amount of traffic to your web site.

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Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

If you want your web content to get found by the search engines and receive high rankings it needs to be unique. If the content is duplicated 100s of times your rankings will suffer and the number of page views will decrease. Even though it takes a little more time to write unique content it benefits you in the long run because it consistently attracts new visitors.

The article below clarifies what duplicate means and how it affects search engine results.

Although there is no such thing as a general duplicate content penalty it is difficult to get high rankings for a web page which contents can also be found on other web pages. If you want to avoid problems with duplicate content, the following tips and illustrations will help you.

What is duplicate content and what do search engines do about it?

• Duplicate content is if two or more different web pages contain the same or nearly the same content.
• Duplicate content can occur within a single website and across many different websites.
• Web pages can be considered duplicate even if they are not 100% identical.
• Search engines want to list only one version of duplicate content on their search result pages.

Search engines want to return as many different options as possible in their result lists. That’s why they filter all duplicates in the search results and display only one version.

How do search engines determine which web page will be used for the search results?

When search engines find a web page, they compare it to previously found web pages to determine whether it is a duplicate or not:

Web pages that are hosted by known spam sites will be removed from the list:

The remaining web pages will be sorted based on the number and the quality of their inbound links:

The web page with the best inbound links will be chosen for the search results:

How to avoid duplicate content on your on websites

1. Hide duplicate content from search engines

If you offer different versions of your website content (regular view, mobile view, print view, etc.) then search engines might pick the wrong variation for the search results.

Add a noindex meta tag to your duplicate content versions so that search engines don’t index the duplicate content (you can use IBP’s website optimization editor to do it).

2. Require backlinks if you syndicate your web page content

If you syndicate your content to third parties, search engines might favor the version published by one of your partners.

Require a back link from your partners to the original document on your own website so that search engines can find out from which web page the content comes.

Duplicate content can cause problems with your search engine rankings. If you follow the tips above, search engine spiders should index your web pages correctly.

Also make sure that the web page content that search engine spiders index on your website has been optimized so that search engines can give your web pages the best possible rankings in the search results.

Source
http://www.axandra.com/

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Article marketing is one of the best methods to generate traffic to your web site. Ezine publishers are constantly looking for quality content that helps subscribers market their business. A well written article will attract visitors for many years if it gets published all over the Web. If lots of web site owners link to it, it can even appear on the first page of search engine results.

Success depends on the volume of articles written

You can’t expect to receive lots of visitors to your web site by writing a few articles. Many folks conclude article marketing doesn’t work because they submitted a few articles and the number of visits to their web site did not increase.

You need to write and submit at least 25 articles to get a trickle of traffic, then continue writing more articles to increase the flow of traffic. You’ll find the volume of articles you write and submit is proportional to the amount of traffic you receive.

Make a plan to write a set number of articles over a period of time. Monitor the number of visits you receive to your web site from the site statistics of your web hosting service. It will increase each week as you consistently add more articles.

If your stats go from 10 visits/day to 100 visits/day you will begin to sell more products. If not, review the call to action in your article resource box and the content of your sales page.

Test each aspect of your marketing process to improve conversion rates.

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

5. Quality content

There’s a lot of junk content on the Net.

How is your article going to stand out from others?

Begin writing in a natural style like you are sitting across from your customer and talking to them. The quality of your content will determine how many readers you attract. Seek out popular ezines in your target market then ask them if they would be open to receiving your articles.

A thoroughly researched and well-written article will attract many more readers than one that was been hastily put together.

6. Call to action

So you’ve written a great article but no one is clicking on the link in your resource box. This means you need to take a hard look at your call to action. Try to make a natural transition from your content to your CTA.

For example you’ve just explained the benefits of writing articles to gain traffic. Your CTA could say something like:

“To learn the secret strategies of how to write and submit articles to gain lots of traffic please visit: www.yourdomain.com.”

This CTA emphasizes you’ve got to know these secrets if you are going to do this correctly. It appeals the reader to take action to find them.

7. Testing

The key to successfully marketing your ebook or product is to continually test your marketing strategies until you find one that works then stick to it. I’ve discovered article marketing is a very effective way to generate long term traffic but it needs to be done correctly. This means you need to try different headlines, resource boxes, vary the style of your content and submit your article to the top article directories and niche web sites.

Use Google Analytics or your hosting stats to track the visitors to your web site. If you write and submit articles consistently you will notice a steady increase in page views, rankings and sales.

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

So you’ve finally finished your ebook and are ready to release it to the public. One of the biggest problems selling your ebook is how to drive traffic to your ebook web site. A web site with no visitors is like having a store in the desert. You’re not going to make any sales.

Why is article marketing so effective?

1. Pre-sell your customer

An ad only gives you one chance to sell to your visitor unless you keep purchasing new ones. An article can contain more information than an ad. You can address all the benefits of your product or answer customers’ questions. Pre-selling the visitor prepares their minds for purchasing your product.

2. Everlasting traffic

Your article may remain on the Net forever when submitted to article directories, ezines and other online publications. If it attains and retains first page rankings in the search engines it will continue to drive traffic to your web site for many years. This means you can generate ongoing sales of your ebook automatically resulting in passive income.

3. Generate lots of backlinks

Backlinks are sites that link to your web site. The quality and quantity of backlinks determine your search engine rankings. A link from a high traffic web site means some of this traffic will get redirected to your site. Place 2 links in your resource box..one with your full web site address and the other containing the link text (anchor text).

Your rankings will increase in proportion to the number of articles you write and submit.
Always include your resource box but vary your anchor text so it doesn’t look like you are just trying to get links.

Submit your articles to the top article directories and niche publications.

4. Attractive headline

The headline is the first thing your readers see. It should encapsulate the content of your article. Here’s a couple of suggestions:

Ask a question that captures the interest of your reader. ie
“How to Market Your Ebook with Articles.”

Provide one clear benefit in your headline ie
” 7 ways to increase sales letter conversion rates”

Points 5-7 can be read in my next post

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Recently I received a call from a client who had the front page of her wordpress blog hacked. Hidden in the source code was hundreds of links to spam sites. As a result of this Google removed her blog pages for 30 days. She was upset because she had not caused this and her blog pages had some top rankings that attracted a lot of traffic.

Obviously she did not have a secure WordPress version.

Here is what Google said:

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html. This appears to be because your site has been modified by a third party. Typically, the offending party gains access to an insecure directory that has open permissions. Many times, they will upload files or modify existing ones, which then show up as spam in our index.

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, we have temporarily removed some of your webpages from our search results. Currently pages from your blog are scheduled to be removed for at least 30 days.

We would prefer to have your pages in Google’s index. If you wish to be reconsidered, please correct or remove all pages (may not be limited to the examples provided) that are outside our quality guidelines. One potential remedy is to contact your web host
technical support for assistance. For more information about security for webmasters, see
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/quick-security-checklist-for-webmasters.html.

What I did to Secure WordPress

1. Removed all spam links from posts and pages.

If you have phpmyadmin, you can scan your posts for links to that particular spam domain, which might make it easier to see which posts have the spam in them. Typically spammers only touch about a half a dozen or so posts per blog, but sometimes more.

2. Upgraded WordPress Blog to the latest version.

Read “10 Steps for Upgrading WordPress”

According to the folks at the WordPress Forum the version she had been using contained many security holes.

Resources

How to harden WordPress
http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

9 easy ways to secure your WordPress Blog
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/09/10/9-ways-to-secure-your-wordpress-blog/

WordPress Security White Paper
http://blogsecurity.net/wordpress/wordpress-security-whitepaper/

Secure Form Mailer Plugin
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/secure-form-mailer-plugin-for-wordpress/

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to my “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Have you ever stared at a blank computer screen hoping for some inspiring topic to pop into your mind so you can start writing?

This can be very frustrating because it not only wastes your precious time, but prevents you from going forward with other business tasks.

Here are some simple steps to writing an article.

1. Select a topic

Choosing a topic is easy if you know where to look. Visit forums, blogs, article directories, create google alerts. Create a folder of article topics or write them down on paper as they enter your mind. When reading books, add sticky notes to the pages that contain headings of possible topics on the content you’re reading.

2. Write an introductory paragraph

The first paragraph of your article should point out the a specific problem. Describe how bad the problem is by tapping into the emotions of your reader. Make them feel the pain then point out the solutions.

3. Write the main content

The body of your article should contain the main content. Outline several solutions to the problem you described in the introduction by writing a paragraph on each one.

Don’t worry about spelling or grammar as you write. Just focus on writing to keep your creative juices flowing. If you stop and correct each sentence your creative ideas won’t be spontaneous and you’ll struggle with writing the rest of the content.

Write short paragraphs of approximately 5 sentences. If you create create white space between paragraphs and use bullet points it will be easier to read the content.

4. Write a concluding paragraph

This paragraph summarizes the content of your article. Don’t use the same words you used in the body but use synonyms.

5. Create a resource box

This contains a call to action, a little about yourself or your business and a link to your web site. Try to include 2 links…one that contains link text and the other your full web site address.

6. Proof read your article

Don’t just run your article through a spell checker, but read it aloud to yourself or get someone else to read it. If the sentences sound strange, rewrite them until they sound and flow well.

Leave the article for a few hours or a day then read it again. Taking a fresh look at the content helps you to find better ways to write it and have greater impact on your readers.

7. Submit to article directories

Manually submit your article to the top article directories in the correct categories. Don’t submit to thousands of directories using automatic submission software. Search engines don’t spider duplicate content. It’s more important how to submit your article correctly than to blast it to thousands of directories.

*****************************************
If you want to attract a continuous stream of NEW visitors to
your website without spending a dime on advertising pick up a copy of
my new ebook”Article Marketing Strategies“…
to receive immediate and long-term traffic to your web site.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

The key to successful article writing is to not to write superficially but to spend a more time researching and thinking about your topic and its content. Often times you quickly write an article, only to discover it only got read by a few people.

There is so much junk content on the Net these days it’s no wonder the search engines are constantly refining their algorithms to filter out the junk so searches can be more targeted and return high quality results.

Don’t just write for the search engines

Optimizing your content for the search engines is important however if your content sounds and looks out of place when read you won’t retain your audience. Your main focus should be to write for your readers. A well written article will naturally get picked up and published by people looking for in-depth content.

It will also have a longer life because an authority article carries more weight than a superficial one. It tends to stand out from all the scraped content you see on a lot of sites and blogs. This scraped content has often just been regurgitated by another writer so it appears in a different format.

My Secret Strategy for Writing Quality Content

The biggest challenge I have is to find the time to write a well thought out article. I overcome this by writing the article over a period of days. Depending on how much time I have, I’ll write for 15-30 minutes segments each day until the article is completed. If I have more time and/or my creative thoughts are flowing easily I’ll write more.

Once I’ve finished writing the article, I’ll go back and proof read it to check for spelling mistakes, grammar and perhaps rewrite some sentences to make them read better.

Tip

Review the content you’re writing by looking for ways to improve its quality then monitor its effectiveness. If you submit your articles to EzineArticles dot com you can track how many visitors your articles receive. You may be surprised at how many more readers you’ll get and more sales you’ll make.

*****************************************
If you want to attract a continuous stream of NEW visitors to
your website without spending a dime on advertising pick up a copy of
my new ebook”Article Marketing Strategies“…
to receive immediate and long-term traffic to your web site.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Do you prefer a customized blog that ties into the theme of your business?

There are many Word Press themes you can easily install for a Blog however many people want a design that is unique to their subject and prefer to have some input as to what it will look like. You can’t do this if you just grab one of the free themes online without it being customized to suit the desires of the owner.

Recently a client asked if I could create a 3 column web site (blog) . These are the customizations he wanted:

1. New header banner
2. Links, Categories and Admin in the left sidebar
3. Search box and Ads (or Google Ads) in the right sidebar
4. Widen the right sidebar
5. No evidence of comments on the web site
6. Different colors for the template and content backgrounds
7. Change footer color and text
8. Change navigation bar links from brown to white
9. Add a contact form
10. Optimize the blog for the search engines

Here’s is how I proceeded with the customization:

I began with the installation of the downtown-java-3column theme
http://www.briangardner.com/themes/downtown-java-wordpress-theme.htm

Changing the style

1. I created a new header banner with the same name and dimensions as the original then replaced it on the server. I adjusted the height of the header in the header section of the CSS and adjusted the font size of the header text (#header a)

2. I changed the template background by editing CSS body

3. I changed the content body by editing the CSS #wrap

4. I changed the footer color by editing CSS #footer and edited the text in footer.php within the template files.

5. I widened the right sidebar (#r_sidebar) by increasing it from 180 pixels to 190 pixels
then reduced the CSS ID…#contentleft from 500 pixels to 490 pixels. This means the client can now place wider ads in the right sidebar.

6. I changed the navigation link colors from brown to white by editing the color in #navbar ul li a then removed the color from #navbar ul li a:hover and added text-decoration: underline; (instead of none;)

Changing the theme within the admin panel

1. The blogroll (link) was in the right sidebar by default (in the original theme) so I removed the blogroll code in r_sidebar.php and placed it at the top of l_sidebar.php (before the category code).

2. Within design – widgets…I added the search box and a text box. I placed the html code for an ad inside the text box. (You can also place your google ads code here to display Google Ads).

Removed evidence of comments

1. I removed this comment code from index.php in the template files.


<h4>Comments</h4>
<?php comments_template(); // Get wp-comments.php template ?>


2. I removed this code in home.php to get rid of “leave a comment ” under each post on the home page.


<?php comments_popup_link('Leave a Comment', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?>


Added a contact form

I downloaded the contact form plug-in from http://www.douglaskarr.com/projects/wp-contactform/ then uploaded it to the plug-ins folder and activated it. I then configured it within the admin panel to reflect the correct contact information.

Blog SEO optimization

1. I added the headspace plugin so the user can insert his own title and description tags for each post or page.

2. Under permalinks I added /%category%/%postname%/ to custom structure then created a .htaccess file to add the code the template produced and uploaded this to the server. This enables friendly URLs to be displayed for each post.

Conclusion.

The customization I did for this Word Press web site can be applied to all word press themes however I found this particular template and related templates clearly commented. This enabled me to easily find the appropriate code to edit.

If you improve the conversion rates of your sales letter you make more sales. One of the biggest challenges of a web site is to prevent visitors leaving your web site without capturing their information so you can present them with other offers in the future.

What is an exit survey?

The purpose of the exit survey is to ask the visitor why they are leaving your web site. By getting feedback from your visitors, you can adjust your sales page to improve its conversion rate and make more sales.

Here’s an example of a web site with an exit survey:
http://www.articlerewards.com

After a visitor enters their information they are asked if they wish to add an exit survey to their own web site. In this case I provide a link to my main site where they can view my web site design services.

Features

*The beauty of this exit survey script is that it can’t be blocked by pop-up blockers.

*Visitor feedback is stored in a database

*The password protected administration panel provides access to the visitor feedback information submitted by the form on your sales page.

Alternative uses for the exit survey

The text used in the survey can be modified to reflect different offers. For instance you could offer an e-course, a subscription form or take them to another offer related to the first one.

Conclusion

This exit survey provides another opportunity to interact with your visitors before leaving your web page. The visitor feedback will help you to adjust the copy of your sales page and improve its conversion rates.

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If you want to install an exit survey just like the one displayed at:
Article Marketing Strategies“…please visit Web Site Designer

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO