Thursday, November 8, 2012

Website Design and Internet Marketing Tips

Website Design and Internet Marketing Tips

- Advertising & Management

Websites and the internet can be complex, and on certain levels they are, yet the fundamentals are simple.
Some basic rules for good internet and website marketing, and for creating effective business-to-business websites:
  • The internet and the website medium are suited to specialized providers, suppliers, companies, etc., so try to specialize and be the best in what you offer within that specialization on the web.
  • Give as much as you can free online from your website - material that can be printed or downloaded, or information that can be read from the web page are all good worthy free things to offer.
  • A website should be like a shop - think about it in the same way - ease of access to what you want - make browsing easy - layout clear and clean - the experience should be warm and welcoming.
  • Remove obstacles like registrations and password requirements as far as possible - these are barriers to visitors - shops don't have barriers and registration requirements do they?...
  • Fancy graphics visual effects please designers but not customers - fancy complicated design puts people off.
  • Lots of text is good - if it's relevant search engines like lots of text too, but it must be relevant.
  • Keep information updated many search engines take account of update frequency, so update your website frequently even if it's just small changes.
  • Offer what people are interested in - not what you want to push.
  • Good websites will be found by most search engines - don't pay for regular submissions services unless you have a very complicated and extensive internet and website strategy.
  • Search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN are account for virtually 95% of all search engine visitors to all websites, so if you concentrate on your listings with anyone, concentrate on these. If you only focus on one, under all normal circumstances this should be Google.
  • Other sites linking to yours will certainly improve your search engine rankings, so reciprocal links are okay, but building a site that other sites will want to link to is far more beneficial than directing all that effort instead into a reciprocal ink campaign. Reciprocal linking is much over-reated as a website optimisation tactic. relevant high quality links matter. Having hundreds of irrelevant links on tiny unpopular websites counts for very little.
  • Search engines downgrade or de-list sites that cheat, so don't cheat. If you want to know what constitutes cheating look on the web for the very many highly complicated website marketing and promotion websites. www.deadlock.com is a good one, and they also have lots of really detailed advice far beyond these basic principles when and if you're ready for it.
  • Measure your traffic - there are lots of trackers and systems to use - www.extreme-dm.com is a good example of a system that is either free (their 'public' version) or paid-for (multiple pages 'private' version). Aside from these separate trackers most website hosting solutions and providers now include traffic statistics packages. Google Analytics now offers an extremely sophisticated free website tracking and analysis tool.
  • If you engage a website designer or agency follow the principles for engaging with any creative agency - develop your specification first and then let them get on with it - don't waste a designer's time finalising and correcting these fundamental content and material issues once they've begun the design stage.

How do I configure the iPhone for my email accounts?

How do I configure the iPhone(software version 2.x) for my email accounts?

To configure your iPhone (software version 2.x) for email, follow these steps:
1. From the Dashboard, click Settings.





2.Under Settings, select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.



3.Select Add Account…



4.Select Other as the type of account.



5.Enter the requested information:
  • Name: the name of the mail user
  • Address: the email address of the mail user
  • Password: enter the users password (incoming mail server and external mail server)
  • Description: a description of the mail user


6.Click Next.

7.Click POP and enter the Incoming Mail Serverinformation:
  • Host Name: enter the mail server address
  • User Name: enter the full email address
  • Password: enter the users password


8.Scroll down and enter the Outgoing Mail Serverinformation:
  • Host Name: enter the mail server address
  • User Name: enter the full email address
  • Password: enter the users password


9.Click Save.

10.If you see a message that says “Cannot Connect Using SSL”, click Yes when asked to setup the account without SSL.


11.The Advanced settings for the account will be displayed and do not need to be changed.



How do I configure the iPhone(software version 1.x) for my email accounts?

To configure your iPhone (software version 1.x) for email, follow these steps:
1. From the Dashboard, click Settings.



2.Under Settings, select Mail.



3.Select Add Account…



4.Select Other as the type of account.



5.Select POP.



6.Enter the requested information:
  • Name: the name of the mail user
  • Address: the email address of the mail user
  • Description: a description of the mail user
  • Host Name: enter the mail server mail.yourdomain.com (incoming mail server and external mail server)
  • User Name: enter the full email address (incoming mail server and external mail server)
  • Password: enter the users password (incoming mail server and external mail server)
7.Click Save.

8.If you see a message that says “Cannot Connect Using SSL”, click Yes when asked to setup the account without SSL.

9.Click Save.


10.Click Settings for the account you just created.

11.Click Advanced.

12.Set Incoming Uses SSL and Outgoing Use SSL to OFF.



13.Under Incoming settings, click Authentication and select Password.

14.Under Outgoing settings, click Authentication and select Password.

The Benefits of a website?

The Benefits of a website?

Increase communication with you customers or members
Source of leads for customers or members
You can say so much more on a website than you can in a print ad or brochures
Show lots of photos at a limited cost
Add credibility for a new business
Provide an easy way for customers or members to contact you
We're sure you can imagine many other benefits for your organization!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know

  1. How to Place Facebook Chat On Firefox Sidebar

    If you are using Firefox, you can place the Facebook Chat at the sidebar.

    Facebook_Chat_Firefox_Sidebar

  2. How to Download Facebook Photo Albums

    FacePAD: Facebook Photo Album Downloader allows you to download your friends’ facebook albums, Events albums, and Group Albums, en masse, with the click of a button.

    facepad

  3. How to Share Flickr Photos to Facebook

    Flickr2Facebook is an unofficial Flickr to Facebook uploader(bookmarklet) which allows you upload photos to Facebook from Flickr.

    flickr2facebook

  4. How to Update Facebook without Using Facebook

    hellotxt and Ping.fm both introduced features that let Facebook administrators update Facebook Pages.

    hellotxt

  5. How to Schedule Facebook Messages

    Sendible lets you schedule Facebook messages ahead of time so you can send messages to your friends, customers or colleagues in the future.

    sendible

  6. How to "Friend" Someone on Facebook & Hide It From Your Status Updates

    A short tutorial on Makeuseof to guide you how to hide Facebook status updates and keep that fact confined to your closer friends.

  7. How to Create a Photo Collage Using Pictures of Your Facebook Friends

    Click on Friends tab. Proceed to More tab. From "Choose an option" dropdown, choose any of the dashes "" . Your Facebook friends collage is right on your computer screen.

    photo_collage

  8. How to Know When Facebook Friends Secretly Delete or Block You

    X-Friends is a unique tool for tracking friends that disappear from Facebook.

    X-friends

  9. How to Display Selected Pictures Only on your Facebook Profile Page

    A little-known feature in Facebook that lets you decide who shows up in that Friends box. Click that "edit" pencil in your Friends box and type the names of your best friends in the box that says "Always show these friends"

    friend_photos

  10. How to Remove Facebook Advertisements

    This Greasemonkey script – Facebook: Cleaner removes many of the annoying ads and updates that unavoidably appear on your Facebook pages.

    ads

  11. How to Syncs Photos of Facebook Friends with Contacts in Microsoft Outlook

    OutSync is a free Windows application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to select which contacts are updated. So you can update all contacts at once or just a few at a time.

    outsync

  12. How to Display Facebook Statuses on Wordpress Blog

    The following method make use of Facebook status feed and Wordpress RSS widget to display Facebook Statuses on WordPress blog.. It will also work for self-host Wordpress blogs.

    statuses

  13. How to Post Your Blog Posts to Your Facebook Wall Automatically

    Wordbook allows you to cross-post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook “Boxes” tab will show your most recent blog posts.

    wordbook

  14. How to Access Facebook Chat on Desktop

    Gabtastik and digsby let you keep Facebook chat sessions open on your Windows desktop outside of your regular web browser, using minimal screen real estate and system memory.

  15. How to Create Quiz on Facebook Easily

    LOLapps provides quiz creator that can be employed to conjure up these popular personality quizzes that are so widespread in Facebook.

    lolapps

  16. How to Hide Your Online Status on Facebook Chat from Select Contacts

    Facebook has integrated friends list with Chat and you can also choose which of these list members get to see you online.

    hide

  17. How to Get Facebook Updates on Email

    NutshellMail consolidates your Facebook accounts through the inbox you use the most.

    nutshellmail

  18. How to Update Facebook Status from Firefox

    FireStatus is a status update utility for multiple social networks, including FaceBook.

    firestatus

  19. How to Get Facebook on Your Desktop

    Seesmic Desktop, Facebooker, Xobni, Facebook Sidebar Gadget, Scrapboy and Facebook AIR application are desktop applications that allows you interact with your stream just as you would on Facebook, but without the browser.

  20. How to Delete, Cancel and Terminate Facebook Account and Profile

    A simple guide to terminate, delete or cancel Facebook account, together with the Facebook profile easily.

    terminate

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Some more facts on Internet

Facebook And Your Privacy

factsOne of the major points that Facebook scored over all of the other social networking sites, at least initially, was its stringent privacy settings that gave you a sense of security and safety regarding the contents of your profile on Facebook. However, with the advent of Twitter and other such sites, Facebook might be in a mood to keep up with the growth of its competitors - and this might be why now Facebook content is easily accessible to strangers and gone are the days when you had a sense of privacy that only you and your exclusive friends shared on the network.

Google Quantum Algorithm

factsSeveral reports suggest that in the past three years Google has developed a quantum algorithm that is capable of automatically recognizing and sorting objects from videos or still images. This has been achieved by using physics that exists at the subatomic level. Several research teams have been working on the development of quantum processors that can store data as quantum bits. These qbits represent both the 0 and 1 that are used in the binary computer language simultaneously. That dual possibility state allows for much more efficient processing and information storage. To consider an example given by Google, an average computer requires 500,000 peeks to find a particular object hidden in one of a million drawers on an average. But such a quantum computer could locate the position the ball by just peeking into 1000 out of the million drawers.

Twitter Facts

factsTwitter is a micro-blogging social network service which allows users to share not-so-important things in their life by answering a simple question: "What are you doing?" Answers to this question are organized in a short messages called Tweets, length is limited to 140 characters. The good thing about Twitter, there is no "noise" created by boring people since "friendships" are not mutual - you can "follow" interesting people while they don't have to follow you. In February 2009, Twitter had a monthly growth (of users) of over 1300 percent - several times more than Facebook. Twitter made huge success from the mobile device users (in 2009 there was 735,000 unique mobile visitors).

Facebook Finally Makes Money

factsFacebook's user base is constantly growing and now it reaches more than 300 million active FaceBook users. With 50 million mobile users FaceBook wants you to stay connected to your friends and family where ever you go. The interesting fact is that FaceBook just recently started making profits (in 2009). Enormous expenses and growing databases pushed FaceBook inventors to re-invent their advertising market. 2009 was the great year for FaceBook even this being the year of greatest recession since 1930's. We as users hope that FaceBook will continue working on privacy issues and never share our individual information with companies and government agencies. Shhhhh, soon we can expect voice chat directly from FaceBook.

Google Pagerank Facts

factsHere are some facts about page ranks that a webmaster should keep in mind. The sites do not have a page rank, pages have. PageRank to some level is link referral program. The page "A" ranks higher when it gets referred by another page "B", however just the number of referrals or links is not enough for a page to rank high. The rank of "B" site which refers user to site "A", is also important in determining the rank of site "A". To check the PR of a page, download Google toolbar or use Firefox plugin. PageRank is bit outdated Google technology. Today Google uses advanced algorithms in order to produce search results. Formula calculates many variables such: Keyword Usage Score, Domain Strength, Content Quality Score, User Data and Inbound Links. However, webmasters around the world still compete for good PageRank since it represents popularity of your page. PageRank is trademark of Google, but true patent owner of PageRank is Stanford University. Google has exclusive license rights to use PageRank. The cost of this right was 1.8 million shares of Google ($336 million in 2005).

Facebook Facts

factsFacebook was originally named TheFaceBook and it was developed by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. The first use of the FaceBook was on the Harvard campus and it was limited only to Harvard students. Soon the FaceBook spread like wild fire around the other major U.S. Universities. Mark Zuckerberg dropped the Harvard and pursued his facebook dream to become one of the 4th most-trafficked websites in the world with more than 90 million active users. The FaceBook website is built on PHP-MySQL technology and it is probably the most popular PHP website ever built. Interesting fact is that the facebook.com domain was purchased for $200,000 and FaceBook has more than 24 million photos uploaded daily.

Internet Addiction Facts

factsAre you addicted to your online connection? Are you one of those crazy folks that can’t wait to read the email with your morning coffee? Doctors are calling it serious addiction combined with: Cybersexual Addiction, Computer Addiction and Cyber-Relational Addiction. They even managed to stamp the cool names for it, like Internet Addictive Disorder (IAD) or the Internet Overuse Syndrome (IOS). Based on the latest research and simple human reasoning. Internet addiction should not be labeled as addiction like gambling or drug addiction. There should be a strict line that distances other addictions from the “internet addiction”. Staying in touch with your friends or watching funny YouTube videos is not a destructive behavior which usually characterizes major addictions. If you gamble on the internet then you are not addicted to the internet, but online gambling. Internet is a wonderful tool, but like everything else in this Universe there is the sunny side and the dark side of the pyramid of life. Stay Positive!

Myspace Facts

factsMySpace was founded by former Friendster members Chris Dewolfe and Tom Anderson in 2003. They saw opportunity to beat Friendster with more options and less restrictions for social network users. MySpace was purchased in 2005 for $580 million by Rupert Murdoch creator of a media empire that includes 20th Century Fox and the Fox television stations. MySpace has more than 40 billion page views a month. Google paid $900 million to be MySpace's search provider. MySpace runs on Microsoft .NET Framework, operating under Windows 2003 server and applications written in C# for ASP.NET.

History Of Amazon.com

factsJeff Bezos coined the term Amazon.com from the earlier name Cadabra.com. It was the excellent way to present large volume online bookstore. But did he have hidden intentions? It is hard to believe but in the early Internet days, when Yahoo was dominant search engine, results on one page were listed alphabetically. Amazon would always appear above its competition for a specific keywords. This could be a breaking point for Jeff to expand and became what it is today.

What Is Google?

factsGoogle, the Internet search company founded in September 1998. by Larry Page & Sergey Brin, got it's name from the word Googol, which represents number 1 followed with hundred zeros after it.

What Is Yahoo!?

factsYahoo the complex internet organism has complicated name. Word "Yahoo" is shortcut for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". It was coined by PhD candidates at Stanford University: David Filo and Jerry Yang.



Are You Internet Addicted?

You probably use the internet every day and can't imagine your life without it, but do you know how much time you spend surfing the NET? It's estimated that each month YOU normally visit 58 domains, viewing over 1050 web pages while allocating 45 seconds for each page. Each surfing session lasts approximately 51 min. Generally YOU spend about 25 hours every month on your internet activity!
Surprised?

Fun Interesting Facts .com offer some vital statistics:

  • Accorting to latest researches only 17% of the worldwide population surf the internet and 19% of all internet users are from United States of America.
  • Country with the highest percentage of internet users (75% of all population) is Sweden!
  • In Africa only 3% of people surf the web and the cost per megabyte is highest on the planet.
  • 6 countries still doesn’t have Internet connection at all.
  • Today Google’s index list contain over 8 billion of web pages. Did you know that Backrub was the original name for Google search engine!
  • The Internet online users are roughly 35% English speaking, 14% Chinese speaking and 51% speakers of all the other languages in the world.
  • Super-Affiliate is the best profession in the world! They are making very large incomes ($150,000+ per year) while working from home. They can spent most of their time with family.
  • According to the latest polls, 32% of American are thinking about starting own home-based online business. You are not alone.
  • Wednesday, April 7, 2010

    Interesting Internet Facts





    DEMOGRAPHICS OF INTERNET USERS 2000

    – 84% Caucasian (1999 - 76% Caucasian)
    – 12 % African-American
    – 3% Asian
    – 1% mixed
    –38% have Bachelor’s degree or higher (down from 47% in 1996)
    –27% are relatively new to the Web
    –60% are married or partnered (was 71% in 1997)
    –Over 50% go online every day


    TOP ONLINE ACTIVITIES

    92% browse the Web
    88% send/receive email
    87% collect information about hobby or personal interest
    81% collect product or service information
    74% read the news
    65% get business or work information
    63% collect travel information
    60% download images or photos
    58% look up entertainment events
    56% check the weather
    xx% doing online investing


    WHO’S BUYING WHAT

    MEN
    – men mostly buying computers, CDs and videos
    – 12.6 million male shoppers research automobiles and buy auto parts
    – 9.4 million men buy computers online

    WOMEN
    – number of women buyers up 80%
    – 9.6 million women bought books, CDs and videos
    – 6.9 million women buy clothing online
    – 6.4 million women buy computers online


    SMALL BUSINESS USE OF INTERNET

    72% use for email and customer contact (up from 62% in 1999)
    48% operate a Web site
    28% sell goods or services online


    WEB SITE STATS

    Over 1 million active Web sites (over 80 million web pages)
    – typical Web page 5k
    – typical Web image 12k
    – median site has 300 pages
    – 50 sites have over 30,000 pages
    – top 1,000 sites account for 50% of all web traffic

    Tuesday, April 6, 2010

    What is advertising?




    Advertising is a non-personal form of promotion that is delivered through selected media outlets that, under most circumstances, require the marketer to pay for message placement. Advertising has long been viewed as a method of mass promotion in that a single message can reach a large number of people. But, this mass promotion approach presents problems since many exposed to an advertising message may not be within the marketer’s target market, and thus, may be an inefficient use of promotional funds. However, this is changing as new advertising technologies and the emergence of new media outlets offer more options for targeted advertising.

    Advertising also has a history of being considered a one-way form of marketing communication where the message receiver (i.e., target market) is not in position to immediately respond to the message (e.g., seek more information). This too is changing. For example, in the next few years technologies will be readily available to enable a television viewer to click a button to request more details on a product seen on their favorite TV program. In fact, it is expected that over the next 10-20 years advertising will move away from a one-way communication model and become one that is highly interactive.

    Another characteristic that may change as advertising evolves is the view that advertising does not stimulate immediate demand for the product advertised. That is, customers cannot quickly purchase a product they see advertised. But as more media outlets allow customers to interact with the messages being delivered the ability of advertising to quickly stimulate demand will improve.



    Types Of Advertisement


    Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups,skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes ("logojets"), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers,doors of bathroom stalls,stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.

    Television

    The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached US$3 million (as of 2009).

    The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle that listeners soon relate to the product.

    Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none exist in real-life. This technique is especially used in televised sporting events. Virtual product placement is also possible.

    Infomercials

    An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically five minutes or longer. The word "infomercial" is a portmanteau of the words "information" & "commercial". The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the consumer sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have testimonials from consumers and industry professionals.


    Radio advertising

    Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium of radio.

    Radio advertisements are broadcasted as radio waves to the air from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials. While radio has the obvious limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage.


    Press advertising

    Press advertising describes advertising in a printed medium such as a newspaper, magazine, or trade journal. This encompasses everything from media with a very broad readership base, such as a major national newspaper or magazine, to more narrowly targeted media such as local newspapers and trade journals on very specialized topics. A form of press advertising is classified advertising, which allows private individuals or companies to purchase a small, narrowly targeted ad for a low fee advertising a product or service.

    Online advertising

    Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketingmessages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, includinge-mail spam.

    Billboard advertising

    Billboards are large structures located in public places which display advertisements to passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often, they are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and pedestrian traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large amounts of viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in shopping malls or office buildings, and in stadiums.


    Mobile billboard advertising

    Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including:Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted billboards or digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely for carrying advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also be specially-equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change; for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of advertisements.

    § Target advertising

    § One-day, and long-term campaigns

    § Conventions

    § Sporting events

    § Store openings and similar promotional events

    § Big advertisements from smaller companies

    § Others

    In-store advertising

    In-store advertising is any advertisement placed in a retail store. It includes placement of a product in visible locations in a store, such as at eye level, at the ends of aisles and near checkout counters, eye-catching displays promoting a specific product, and advertisements in such places as shopping carts and in-store video displays.


    Covert advertising

    Covert advertising, also known as guerrilla advertising, is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with theBulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played byWill Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi andMercedes-Benzlogos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW and Aston Martincars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale. In "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", the main transport vehicle shows a large Dodge logo on the front. Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product placement; the whole film stops to show aCoca-Cola billboard.