Ignition Media

Choosing the Right Company to Design Your Website – What to Look for and Ask

admin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:05:32 +0000

The Internet has grown a lot in the past few years. The penetration of the Internet is such that websites, email addresses, and instant messengers are now seen as competitors of real life offices, office addresses, and telephone numbers. It goes without saying that a website today would mean the identity of a person or even a company. There are several web-designing companies, which you could hire to design your website. However, there are various aspects of web designing that you should consider before hiring a web-designing outfit. Here are just some of them:

Experience and Profile: Two factors that you will need to know about any company doing any work for you, let alone setting up your website. Recently, almost anyone has started a web designing business, even students who learn the tricks of the trade in the morning and make web pages in the evening. Getting an idea of what websites the companies have prepared will give you a better idea whether they are fit for your job or not.

Variety of Work: Web designing is a customer driven process. Therefore, the web designing company is bound to have a vast portfolio, with almost all types of designs and layouts. You should try to find out whether the company has moved along with the times.

Talent: If possible, you should ask the backgrounds of their employees. Many web-designing companies have the profiles of their employees on their websites. Make sure to go through them and get an idea of the talent that would be working on your website.

Office: Ask whether the company has a physical office. Some new web designing companies are just a group of people working from the confines of their homes via the Internet. Though work at home is increasing almost daily, you may have a problem if you wish to talk and interact with them, for the lack of a commercial place.

Advertising On The Internet: What Are My Options

admin — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:47:29 +0000

The Internet is by far the fastest growing medium of information and entertainment. It goes without saying that with the increase in people using the Internet, it has become a potent platform for advertising. Internet advertising forms a very important chunk of any advertising budget for today’s major companies. There are various options you have for Internet advertising. Here are some of these several options:

Types of Ads: There are only two major types of advertisements on the Internet – text ad and graphics ads, if you consider flash as a graphic ad for want of simplicity. You should decide which type of ad you want for your product or company. With the advent of Web 2.0, graphic ads are being phased out. Most successful Internet advertising has been non intrusive and non obtrusive to the reader. While these were the different types of ads, below are the various options you have when it comes to internet advertising:

Traditional Banner Ads: You can buy ad space on the various websites that offer them. The websites will charge depending on their web traffic, the size of the ad and where you wish to place them on their website. Also, you can opt for the various types of pop unders and pop unders for your advertising needs.

Agencies: If you find it too tiresome to look for websites and contact them for your advertising needs, you can sign up as an advertiser with the various advertising programs prevalent on the Internet today. The most famous of these are Google Adsense. Google Adsense acts as a middle man between companies and individuals who wish to advertise their product, and individuals and companies who have webspace available for advertising. Google Adsense may be the most successful advertising module ever to hit the Internet.

Article Marketing: Article marketing is touted to be the next best advertising option in a spate of two years. There are various article directories where you can post articles about your product or company, with a link taking the readers to your website at the end or even in between your content.

SEO - What NOT To Do

admin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:54:59 +0000

Most search engines have laid down some strict standards that you need to follow to make the search engine optimization process successful. There are many people who might not be aware of what they can or can’t do and so here are some things related to SEO that you should never do:

Advertisements: If you have created a new website then refrain from putting any advertisements in it from the word go. If you put ads on your new site then Google will mark it as a suspected “ad farm” site and hence will not index it for a particular period, which means that your website will remain in the sandbox. Instead, you can make your website content keyword rich so that it can be indexed.

In bound Links: If your website doesn’t have any inbound links or if you add too many irrelevant links or multiple links from one site then it will hamper your Page Rank as Google will label your website as a Link farm. Ensure that you pick links from only those websites that have some similarity to your industry or content.

Duplicate content: If you use content copied from other websites then you will be penalized by the top search engines and your website ranking may suffer due to this. Always make it a point to use non-copyright and original content so that search engines can index your website.

Keyword spamming: Over-using of keywords or using of too many irrelevant keywords can have a negative impact on the overall ranking of your website. Ensure that you research your keywords, use relevant keywords and keep the keyword density at around 2%

Invisible Text: Invisible text refers to content that can’t be seen by the user because it is of the same color as the background and is jammed with keywords. Search engines today are smarter and they will ban your website for doing it.

Basic Rules Of Website Promotion

admin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:30:34 +0000

How do the basic rules of website promotion help your cause? As a company or an individual having interest in the Internet real estate, you pump in substantial amount of dollars on development of your website under the impression that once the completed website is on the Internet, people will simply visit it in hordes and therefore, you don’t have to undertake any website promotion for it. Let’s put things in perspective. With hundreds of websites being uploaded on the internet each day, prompting your website becomes a necessity unless you want it to get lost, anonymously, in the realms of the virtual world.

Effective website promotion demands that you utilize every proven best method available to promote your website. Typically, there are two different types of search tools – search engines and directories. Search engines are algorithms driven while directories are driven by human editors. If you get your website listed in these directories, you can be sure that the search engine spiders will index your site soon enough.

Here are two wonder rules for easy and effective website promotion.

Start with Directories: Search engines love directories. Since they are humanly driven, directories such as DMOZ or Open Directory project provide you free and effective website promotion opportunity. Keep in mind these basic rules can help you with a smooth submission process.

- Find out if your website is already listed in these directories
- Get a professional to pen an objective introduction of your company/website
- Choose only the most suitable subcategory from the directories menu
- Follow all rules of submission as per directory specifications

Next Step, Search Engines: Algorithms used by SEs prowl the internet real estate for web pages making it important for you to put some backlinks to your website. Some of hottest search engines are Google, Altavista, AllTheWeb, Lycos and MSN, AOL Search, etc. Google is the biggest with over 3.5 billion indexed web pages to date.

Sure there are many more rules of website promotion, but the above two are most important and effective.

Top 5 Rules For On-Page Optimisation

admin — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:50:35 +0000

On-page optimisation is essential for making a success of your off-page optimisation campaign. It’s a process by which various elements of a single web page are combined in a correct structure so that it can be picked up for special keywords by search engines.

Unfortunately, on-page optimisation alone doesn’t guarantee top page ranking but combined with off-page optimisation it’s a winner. So, keep these following rules in mind for on-page optimization.

Keyword(s): Start by listing down any and all keyword(s)/keyword phrases that you are trying to target. Once done, short list the keywords based on importance. Ex: if you have a handbags site, the keywords could be: handbag, handbags, clutch bags, leather bags etc.

Placement of Keywords: Thumb rule: Content is king in the virtual world. Populating the content on your site with the right amount of keywords – a minimum keyword density of 2% is recommended – or use of at least 2 keywords per 100 words is necessary.

META Tags: A META tag is an HTML code that doesn’t change the look for your web page, but attracts the SE spiders for specific queries. Ensure you use the below META tags at the top most part of your web page’s source code as well as include keywords here.

ALT Tags: Tags given to images using keywords are called ALT tags and they become visible every time the mouse cursor moves over an image.

Page Titles: Appearing at the top of your site page, page titles are eye grabbing captions that include the appropriate keywords.

Remember to treat each page of your site as a project and try to use 1-2 keywords or phrases/page only to boost your page rankings.

Page Not Found? Make The Most Of It!

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:47:26 +0000

Nothing annoys an Internet user more than seeing a 404 Page Not Found error after clicking on a particular link from the search engine result pages. Internet searchers are generally enthusiastic when they find that their keyword search has yielded results. But if they are saddled with a 404 Page Not Found error, all this enthusiasm goes down the drain. They will just shut down the tab or window and forget about that site forever. There itself, the prospect of the website of getting a visitor and probably, a potential customer, are nipped in the bud.

That is the reason why you, as a webmaster, must try to avoid 404 Page Not Found errors as much as possible on your website. Even if a single page on your website shows this error, it can be upsetting, especially if that page was ranking highly on the search engines. You need to keep checking your website often, especially all the links to see if they are directing visitors to the intended destination.

But it is not possible to keep checking all the time. That is why you must think about customizing your Page Not Found displays. Instead of the routine “Page not found” message, you can change it to read something like “Sorry, our page is not functioning at the moment, but you can check out the rest of our site by clicking here.” There you can provide a link of your homepage or any other page you wish to take your visitors to. Of course, you have to ensure that that page is functioning properly, because two consequent 404 Page Not Found errors are nothing short of suicidal.

You can actually mask your 404 error page in such a manner that visitors would not recognize the page as an error page at all - this is the most common way to make the most of your 404 Error and is done via your .htaccess file. By doing so, you are actually preventing visitors from slipping away from your website by telling them that the rest of your site is up and running.

How To Earn Money Writing An E Book

admin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:36:47 +0000

The Internet has countless possibilities. With the advent of e-commerce, making money on the Internet has become real, simple, risk free and without any hassles. E-Books are one of the best ways to make money online.

Ebooks, an acronym for Electronic Books, are basically special files with the extension .pdf. These files are read-only by default and can be viewed by an e-book reader, by Foxit or Adobe Acrobat Reader. The main advantage of a ebook over a office document is that it is a read only file and one cannot make changes to it, unless they have special privileges to the ebook and the software.

Making money with an ebook is simple enough. For one, you can write an ebook giving information catering to any one niche, like business and finance, entertainment and media, commerce, computers and internet and then sell it either via your website or any website catering to these niches. You can either sell your ebook to such a website, or can get a part of each and every sale made on the ebook. Basically, the ebook should cater to a relevant niche and making money writing an ebook would be a breeze.

If you are one of those who do not like to write, fret not, there are ways by which you can make money from a ebook. You can join any of the ebook affiliate programs and sell it via your website. You just have to decide which ebook is complimentary to your website and the niche that it caters to. If you have some good writing skills yourself, you can create a nice advertisement or a copy for the ebook, thereby ensuring that your ebook gets the interest that it wants

Once you have got this in place, making money with an ebook over the Internet will just be a matter of time.

Design With SEO In Mind

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:49:57 +0000

People want their websites to look beautiful, especially if these are business websites where the main focus is on attracting clients. Towards that end, webmasters may go ahead and include various kinds of design elements on their websites to grab their visitors’ attentions. But in doing so, they are possibly making the fatal mistake of ruining their website for search engine optimization. It has happened time and again. A good looking site, great content, high ranking keywords, but one design mistake… and the whole site goes from the top pages of Google, Yahoo! and MSN to the irrecoverable depths of the Internet.

So what are these design mistakes that should be avoided? Here are the top three:-

Focus on the HTML code of your website. Many times, your website will look good and be functional even if there are faults in your HTML. This is because you may not be checking all elements of your website every time. Even a single fault can actually spoil the SEO of your webpage. Hence, you may need a professional to look at it. Also, get your sitemap done with HTML coding. Image coding for sitemap generally confuses the search engines and they overlook it.
As far as possible, avoid using Flash animation. To the search engines, the Flash file is a whole lot of gobbledygook. Most times, they will only perceive Flash as gaping empty spaces in your site and they will simply no-rank them. But if you want to take the risk with Flash, you must ensure your webpage is content rich and keyword optimized.
If you are using JavaScript, do that somewhere at the end of the webpage. Avoid putting it at the top of the page because this is where the search engines will concentrate on, in order to rank your page. This applies for CSS too.

.com Vs .com.au Domain – What’s Best For SEO?

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:23:41 +0000

The most common local domain name suffix in Australia is .com.au. There’s also the .net.au, but the .com.au suffix is more commonly used. Now, when you are registering for domain names in Australia, it becomes a very important first decision to make whether you should use .com or .com.au in your domain name. A .com.au domain name is slightly cheaper than a .com domain name. That is the reason why some people like to go for the local suffix. But is price all that is there to it?

Basically speaking, the SEO of a site is not affected much on the grounds of the suffix that it has. This is actually region based. If you are searching in Australia, then a .com.au will have an equal if not more chance of figuring in the search engine results. But if you are in Germany, it is highly unlikely that a .com.au site will come up in the search results. Hence, your decision should be based on geography. If you do not mind your website to be associated with Australia, and if that is actually good for your business, then there’s no reason why you should even consider spending more on a .com domain name. But if you have an international scope, then go for .com. It will be better in the long run if not now.

There is one more very important factor that is at play here. .com.au domain name registrations are only given to you if you have a legitimate business on Australian soil or if you intend to have one. So, this domain name bolsters the credibility of your business. People who know this will understand your business is genuine. But anyone in Australia can have a .com domain name. Keep this point in mind. It is a significant factor that you must remember when registering a domain name in Australia.

In conclusion, the choice between .com.au and .com is not as much for SEO as it is for the impression that your site creates. Let that be the deciding factor for the domain name that you choose.

Advice For Designing A Blog Template

admin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:08:12 +0000

Blogs are the future of the Internet. They are the single most important concept that has changed the way the Internet was. Some even say that the blogs is a concept that has given the Internet back to the common man. Think about it, without blogs, you would have to spend money on a domain name, web space, and even know a bit of web designing and web programming to think of an identity on the Internet.

Blogs are commonly used today by people for personal as well as professional reasons. If you have your own blog, understand that the blog is as important as a website, and with the proper implementation of various effects, the blog will be visited by people, all and sundry. Therefore, you should pay proper attention to your blog template. Here are some suggestions for a good blog template:

Default Blog Templates: If you are setting up your blog on any of the free blog websites, the basic and default templates are good to use. Blogs are all about support to outside widgets and outside HTML and not every spunky new blog template will support every nifty piece of coding you wish to integrate into the template.

Color: If you do have a company color combination, make sure you use it. If not, make sure you do not use any jazzy or dark colors for either the background or the font. Dark backgrounds are simply unable to decipher and you will experience many people just coming to your blog and veering away from it immediately.

No Ad Hell: People will come to your blog to read about whatever you wish to tell them. Keep the ads at a minimum. Ensure that there are no ads in the middle of the text. Graphic ads are slowly being phased out and it is better if you start phasing them out right now.