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Showing posts from September, 2020

10 step to publish your books

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 Learn how to publish your novel, poetry, memoir, how-to book, children books. 1) The first thing you need is book publish software http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/ >> Every day, more graphics professionals, publishers, and print service providers are discovering that Adobe InDesign is a leap forward in page layout software. Get more information on the benefits of switching from QuarkXPress and Adobe PageMaker, as well as resources to aid you in making a smooth transition to InDesign. http://www.quark.com/ >> The first thing to get straight when evaluating QuarkXPress 7 is that with three million registered users worldwide, Quark is more focused on keeping existing customers happy than on converting Adobe InDesign users to QuarkXPress. While many people have switched to InDesign, many more have stayed with QuarkXPress, just biding their time. The newly released QuarkXPress 7 is what they've been waiting for.  >>>> After you get the layout software,

10 Secrets To Improving Your Websites Conversion Ratio

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However, what if you could improve your conversion ratio to 3 percent, 5 percent, All of a sudden; you're making £60 to £100 a day with the same amount of traffic. Improve your conversion ratio to ten percent and viola, that £100 a day turns into £200 a day!  According to the so-called experts, a decent conversion ratio is right around one percent. In other words, one out of every one hundred visitors to your website converts to a sale. Personally, I think you should ignore what the experts say, and strive to achieve as high a conversion ratio as possible. You should never be satisfied. You should always be looking for ways to improve your conversion ratio. My website consistently converts anywhere from 3 to 5 percent, and often converts as high as ten percent! Unless you're selling a big-ticket item and making £200 or more per sale, it's extremely difficult to make any real money with only a one percent conversion ratio. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and i

10 Essential Tips For A Web Designer

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 One of the toughest challenges facing any designer is the web page. There are perhaps millions of pages in the World Wide Web all jostling for attention. The question that is foremost is how you as a designer can make a difference.  Study the subject being featured. Visit as many sites as possible that cover the same as well as related topics. Make a list of what works and what doesn’t. Avoid using a design that is going to be uniform with others. Unless your pages are distinctive they are not going to work. 1. Try and avoid run of the mill things like page counters, java text scrolling, flashing images, GIF images, signs which say “we are not ready.” Or, too many illustrations or animations, black grounds or fade ins.    2. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to. Instead of using downloaded illustrations use original ones.  3. Avoid things like heavy files or graphics. These will slow down your pages. GIF is better than JPEG files.   4. Think of the targ

8 Things You Must Know To Build A Great Website

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 Last week we talked about how a bad website can do your business more harm than good. That column brought several emails asking what is the key to building an effective business website. I replied with the same answer I always give: building an effective business website is a simple matter of definition. Before the first graphic is drawn or the first line of code is written, you must define the website’s budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that’s all said and done you must define the marketing that will bring visitors to your site. It sounds easy, but you’d be amazed at how many really bad business websites there are out there. Yours might even be one of them. If so, listen up. For nearly ten years now my company has been building and rebuilding websites for every kind of business you can imagine: from mom-and-pops to multinationals. We’ve designed (or redesigned) a couple hundred websites and along the way I have come to the conclusion that mos

7 Pointers about Web Design

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 In order to master the art of web design, designers must follow the subsequent pointers: 1. Web designers are marketers per se. Web sites are all about advertising products, ideas and services. Thus, a web designer has to understand the mindset of marketers in order to create a design that sell.  2. Read, read and read. We do not experience everything. Thus, our tendency is to learn from others. Reading web design books, newsletters and tips are pretty valuable since they can save you time and effort. Basically, books are more conclusive than newsletters and tips however, they are for free and mostly updated.  3. Narrow down your target market. You cannot please everybody same thing that you cannot be good at everything. Thus, this fact calls for the narrowing of your target market. Even in the interface of the so-called web design, a designer cannot claim that he is an expert at anything or everything about the needs of a website. It is better to pick a certain audience and try to be

7 Fisherman's Tips to Avoid Losing Money on Your Web Site Design

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 Web site design to hook a customer is very like fishing. Try these seven tips to make money. Step 1: Research What - you don't think a fisherman starts with research? How does he know not to fish in the bathtub? How does he know not to fish for dorado in USA? How does he know that his favorite lemon meringue pie on a sardine hook won't catch sharks? Imagine you've invented a 100% cure for Paraguayan piques. You pay a graphic designer to make your web site design. After a year you still haven't been able to make money. Your host tells you that the few visitors that you had only stayed for ten seconds. Research would have told you that *Your prospects speak Guaraní not English *Most of them can't read Guaraní *Even fewer speak English *Most of them don't have computers A little research at Overture would have told you that only 3791 people looked for pique in a month, but most of them were interested in polo, not in an insect. Does your potion kill Jiggers? 1432

7 Best Tips for Communicating with Your Offshore Team in India

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 If you are reading this article, most probably you have faced some communication problem with your offshore team or you are considering to offshore your project work and want to learn effective ways to communicate to the team which is thousands miles away. Lets try to understand the basics of communication and possible ways to make mistakes when communicating with your offshore team in India. There are 3 entities involved in any communication - 1. Sender, 2. Receiver & 3. Channel between Sender-Receiver. Now, try to understand Sender (its you yourself!!!). Mostly you are born & brought up in western country, having some cultural inclination and English language knowledge. Receiver is mostly the person in India, who knows English, but finds it hard to understand American English accent as well as having different cultural & geographical understanding. Channels of Communication can be phone, email & chat most of the time. Now, lets try to accept the fact that - when mess

6 Easy Ways to Create a Website

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1. Conceptualize an idea.   Think what you like your future website to be. What audience will you cater? Everything you do must redound to their fulfillment. They will be visiting to get what they need. Be sure that their needs are answered. That way they will be satisfied and will keep coming for more. Not only that, they can recommend your site to their friends if they find it functional and nice. 2. Find a host.  Having a host is not that expensive. In fact you can get one at $70 for two years. However, if you don want to spend a single penny, there are lots of sites that are hosting for free. The only consideration is that their banner must be placed in your site. That for one is a great deal, isn’t it?  3. Start with your first page.  Do the layout and design your first page. It will be easier and better if you have basic knowledge in HTML. Though there are hundreds of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors, but you will create a better site using HTML. There are tutorial

5 Ways To Guarantee Your Website Is Ready For Traffic

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It's so easy to annoy and drive away your website visitors without even realizing it. Ensuring your site is user-friendly--and not annoying--is one of the most important factors in creating a successful online presence. To guarantee your website is ready for traffic, consider the following 5 points before kicking your advertisements into high gear: 1. Remove any "under construction" signs. People are visiting your website because your promotional message triggered their fancy. Nobody wants to be directed to a site that holds a welcome message and a sign that states, "under construction." Frankly, sending traffic to unfinished website only defeats the purpose of advertising in the first place. The idea is to cater to visitors, as long as possible, in hopes of getting them to join your list or to buy. Neither is possible when you're promoting a site that isn't ready to accommodate the traffic it receives. 2. Create your subscription forms. You can't wa

5 Surefire Ways To Ruin Any Website

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 Owning a website gives you certain rights. For example, you have the right to plaster your URL all over the doors and windows of your SUV in hopes that someone in one of the 7 cars you pass on the way to work will get the urge to visit your website and spend gobs of money. You own the website-this is your right. You also have the right to post pictures of your family, friends, pets, and other totally uninteresting images all over your website after all it's yours. One of the biggest rights you have as a webmaster is the right to make your website successful (and profitable) or to run it into the ground like a 737 missing both engines and landing gear. For those of you who despise online success and frown upon the wealth of cyberspace I have compiled a list of 5 ways to ruin any website. 1. Make Your Website As Cluttered As Possible Nothing makes visitors leave quicker than a cluttered website that is hard to navigate around. So if you want people to flee from your site like it'

5 Important Website Writing & Design Conventions.

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This article outlines the five most important conventions for writing and designing your webpages. Your presentation is every bit as important as your content. The best content in the world won't ever be read if the presentation is so bad that nobody stays long enough to read it. If you maximize your website usability, your visitors stay longer, read more, and you make more sales. If the purpose of your web site is to educate your readers and/or lead them to a specific action, (like buying something) then you should seriously consider following these design and writing conventions...  1. Start Each Page With Your Most Important Content. 2. Use Meaningful Link Text to Provide Information. 3. Write Scannable Pages. 4. Use Simple Website Designs. 5. Use Clear, Consistent Website Navigation. 1. Start Each Page With Your Most Important Content. People are impatient; they will scan your page quickly and leave as soon as they get bored. Put your best, most important content near the top o

5 Important Tips On How To Build A Professional Website

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 The advent of the internet, a lot of business transactions are done online. Almost every business nowadays has a website. Although some customers will go to the shop to buy the product from the shop, they firstly shop for what they are looking for and compare prices on line. It is now almost imperative that any business must have a website. Whether you own a home based online business of any type, or you own a shop in your town or city, you need a website to let potential customers know that you exist and that you offer products or services or business opportunities they may be interested in. If you do not have a website, then you are not represented on the largest and most popular medium of communication today. What hints must you heed in order to build a professional website that will effectively promote your products or services and encourage visitors to actually buy from you? A well presented website: A tidy and professional looking website is important. Your website is your store

5 Common Mistakes of Website Design

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Huge Mistake #1: Creating a Website with Flash -- Did you know in a recent study, top internet marketers discovered that having a website created with Flash, actually decreased the response from prospects and customers by as much as 370 percent?  Here's why: Your prospects and customers are most likely visiting your website using all types of different computers, connection speeds and internet configuration settings...  What may look great to one visitor may not even appear for another! You could very easily have shelled out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have a website created using the Flash technology, only to find out that some of your visitors will never see it! (Not to mention the loading times can cause your visitor to close your site, never to return again.)  Huge Mistake #2: The "Internet Catalog" Approach -- You see this everywhere. Good, honest and hardworking businessmen and women get online to sell their products or services, and have a site creat

5 Basic Rules of Web Design

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 The most important rule in web design is that your web site should be easy to read. What does this mean? You should choose your text and background colours very carefully. You don't want to use backgrounds that obscure your text or use colours that are hard to read. Dark-coloured text on a light-coloured background is easier to read than light-coloured text on a dark background.  You also don't want to set your text size too small (hard to read) or too large (it will appear to shout at your visitors). All capitalised letters give the appearance of shouting at your visitors. Keep the alignment of your main text to the left, not cantered. Centre-aligned text is best used in headlines. You want your visitors to be comfortable with what they are reading, and most text is left aligned. 1. Your web site should be easy to navigate All of your hyperlinks should be clear to your visitors. Graphic images, such as buttons or tabs, should be clearly labelled and easy to read. Your web gra

4 Steps To Success In Web Development

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 If you are planning to become a serious player in the webdesign world, you should now what to learn and discover. Here's a short list that gives you an overview of your needs. 1. Learn HTML  Before you start creating websites you should master HTML. This is the key element to even start publishing documents on the web. This sounds pretty obvious but there are some elements that you should understand like the label element which will add great usability to a form.  2. Master Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)  I can't stress this enough. DO NOT USE TABLES FOR YOUR LAYOUT!  Is it clear? Don't, just don't. Why? Because they work against you instead of for you. You can have so much more control of your layout, design and colors if you use 100% CSS. 1. CSS is easy 2. CSS is fast to create 3. CSS is lightning fast when your website loads 4. CSS is easy to modify So forget table layouts and start using stylesheets. You will really like the things you can accomplish once you master

4 Stages of Website Design

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 Stage 1 - Style over substance The first stage is to design a site that the chief executive officer, venture capitalists, and ad agencies like to see. There are all types of "bells and whistles" in this design. An entire site might be a Flash animated site. Or there might be some beautiful JavaScript mouse over effects or drop-down menus in the design. It's always a pretty design, but the message is clear - style over substance. Stage 2 - Designing for online visibility In Stage 2, the reality of an ineffective web design begins to hit, usually around 3-6 months after the initial launch. A site will typically get rejected by many of the major directories, not be indexed by the major search engines, or not get the traffic or sales that were projected based on the various types of marketing strategies used. Typically, that's when companies decide that they will try to hire a professional online marketer to promote the site. Doorway page companies, in some way, shape or

4 Secrets of a Great Page Layout

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 Designers especially the newbies go frantic on how to go about it. It has to be attractive, engrossing, user-friendly and functional. Thus, unraveling the secrets will definitely bind the website. So, what are these layout secrets? Together let us unfold them one after another… 1. Centering it all is no good. The secret is doing the contrary and not centering everything. The latter will just make the page disorganized, strewn and drab. The alignment may also seem weak and wanting. 2. The use and mastery of contrast is indispensable. Contrast is one thing that makes the page attractive. The use and mastery of it in color, value, size and weight will greatly affect the site’s appearance and edge. In fact a typeface may appear bigger with the use of contrast in color. The latter can also affect the look of organization of the page. At a glance, a page may appear organized or the exact opposite. That is the secret of contrast. 3. Apply deviations if necessary. Most of the designers practi

3 Ways Coaches Can Use Their Site To Get More Clients

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 Coaches have a big challenge when seeking clients. They are selling the unknown. By unknown, I mean that most people who can benefit from coaching, whether it be business coaching or personal coaching, either never heard of it or don't really understand how it works. When people work with a coach for the first time, there usually comes a point when they say “a ha!” and are better able understand the value they can get.  So trying to get clients can seem like a catch-22. In order to hire you, they need a strong sense of what you do. But to get that sense they need to work with you first!  It's because of this hurdle that direct selling or direct response methods like cold calling or placing ads don't work. Those channels don't get you clients directly.  Dealing with this challenge can be frustrating for many new coaches. They really want to help their clients succeed in their business or in their life, but getting the prospect to sign on the dotted line doesn't happ

3 Steps To Your First Small Business Website

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 When planning your first small business website, there are three essential questions you should ask yourself: Who is your target audience? How will your target audience find you? How will you convert your visitors into sales? These questions sound obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't bother...and then moan that "our website doesn't bring us any business". 1) Who is your target audience? Give a great deal of thought to your target market.  Who do you want to attract to your website?  Why?  The answer to that is more than likely to sell them something - a product, a service, or an idea perhaps. Claiming that your market is anyone and everyone is far too vague, and your website will lack focus, and fail to maximise its potential. Ideally you should be aiming to create a niche. 2) How will they find you? Creating a niche will also help you with the search engines, and drive hot leads to your site. Consider what keywords your target market might type into a