So what’s a “favicon”, then?

It’s the thing you see in the address window of your browser. Every company that wants to have a credible web presence has one. Google’s favicon looks like a lower-case, blue “g” now; it used to be an upper-case, multicolored “G”. It was a big branding change for them, so they thought long and hard before altering it.

Why should you have one? Here are some pretty good reasons for you to consider:

- They add to your company branding – They make your company look “with-it”, website-wise – You get to choose how your website is shown and don’t just settle for the Internet Explorer or Firefox default favicons – It’s easier to pick out graphical images than text, so they stand out from other sites in your browser’s “Favorites” lists – You can even have favicons that rotate graphic images with text

I can’t recommend them highly enough. This is how you make them.

The Quite Easy Way:

1. Make the graphic image you want to use for your favicon. Got to be small, though! 32×32 or 16×16 pixels.
2. Save the image as a bitmap, for example “favicon.bmp”.
3. Use a graphics editing program to change the bitmap file to an icon file.
4. Don’t have any graphics software? Download a free one — Irfanview, for example. Google the name for the link.
5. Change the file you made. Its name should go from “favicon.bmp” to “favicon.ico”.
6. Upload the new icon file to your website, along with the following HTML code, which you should put in the “Head” section of your page (don’t forget to enclose the code with “” brackets):<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://-your website's homepage URL here-/favicon.ico">

And hey presto!

The Even Easier Way

1. Go to the “Favicon From Pics” site (Google the name). I’m not affiliated with them in any way, so use the site with confidence.
2. Select the graphic image you want to use for your favicon (don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be an “icon” file, it can be a gif, jpeg, png, whatever. It can even be a picture of you).
3. Type in the text you want, if you’re using scrolling text along with your favicon, and tick the “Animate Favicon” box.
4. Click “Generate FavIcon.ico” and save the file it comes up with.
5. You’ll get a favicon file, along with a file called “animated_favicon1.gif”. Don’t worry; it’s all completely free.
6. Upload the favicon file to your website, along with the HTML code given below (don’t forget to enclose the code with “” brackets):<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://-your website's homepage URL here-/favicon.ico">

7. If you’re having an animated favicon with scrolling text, upload “animated_favicon1.gif” to your site and put this HTML code directly underneath the code given above (don’t forget to enclose the code with “” brackets):
   <link rel="icon" href="animated_favicon1.gif" type="image/gif">

And that’s it! Check it out. See how it looks. Don’t you feel all warm and fuzzy about your site now?

Daniel O’Connor is a top SEO copywriter based in the UK. See his 100% satisfaction-guaranteed site’s portfolio at http://www.daniboy.com/copywriting_portfolio.htm

He’s worked for some of the biggest companies and organisations in the world — including NTT and Mitsubishi Electric, not to mention the 1998 Olympic Winter Games — as well as some of the smallest.

And he can do a job for you, too.

Fluent in both Japanese and French and with a background in languages, Daniel is supremely qualified at explaining complicated things in a simple way. There’s nothing you can throw at him that he won’t have dealt with before.

Because it’s all about one thing: the words. The right words for you and your business. Blog articles. SEO for websites. Direct marketing. White papers. Flyer advertising. You want words? Daniel O`Connor has words.

Want to try out his writing before getting in touch? Check out his free ezine at http://www.daniboy.com/ezine

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_F_O’Connor

Reading a website is not similar to reading a book or a newspaper, therefore before you start spilling money on campaigns be sure your site is built in accordance with internet writing standards. Lets talk about few simple rules you don’t want to break when building a website:

Don’t waste your visitors time

Time is money. Most people decide whether they are interested in what the website has to offer in just to seconds. Therefore make sure your landing page provides the most crucial and appealing information about your business.

Number one time waster is a heavy loading pages with lot’s of Flash animations and pictures. Make sure your web pages are not too heavy otherwise you might loose your visitors before they entered your website.

Most of the visitors need to find what they are looking for fast, otherwise they look for it elsewhere. As a webmaster you must make sure your data is well categorizes and divided to relevant pages, categories, headlines and sub-titles. A visitor must be able to navigate your website easily and successfully.

Avoid too much “Special affects”

By this I mean don’t include too much Flash movies and avoid using music if you don’t have to. As we mentioned earlier, Flash has a large loading time which damages viewer experience, besides too much Flash may be annoying and search engines can’t read it.

Music is a great thing, but somehow music and websites do not fit too well. If you want to put some background tune anyway, make sure a user can silence it quickly and easily. Or in contrary, let the user click “Play” and begin the music when he decides.

Pop-ups and new pages

If you have links in your site, I strongly advise you not to use the pop-up option and not to open these links in new window. Seemingly pop-ups and new windows are a very good idea if we don’t want the visitor to navigate from our website but many years of experience shows that users prefer to click “Back” buttons. As to pop-ups, most of browsers tend to block them, and you don’t want to waste your viewer time on enabling pop-ups.

Text

Use standard fonts which are supported by all browsers, like Arial and Times New Roman. You don’t want your viewers to get gibberish and go away from your website. Don’t use very small or very large fonts. You don’t want your pages to smear for miles and you don’t want to scare away people with poor vision.

Gally Reznor is a web developer and marketing manager at http://Site123.com. She has a large experience in planning and creating e-commerce and other business websites.

Website design has become an integral part of businesses. Thus, the website design should be able to catch the eyes of customers and to do so it is crucial that it should be user friendly. It should be properly designed to have a professional look. First impressions are the best impressions and hence the first impression of the site can be got from its graphic and layout designing. The Professional Website Design should be simple and lucid. All the pages need to be consistent in background, color usage, text format and screen layout. A detailed understanding can be seen below.

Background and Text Colors

The color schemes express the characters of the website and make it unique and attractive. The selection of the set of colors for background and text has to be done very carefully. It is recommended to use the dark color versus light color combination, In other words, light text against a dark background or dark text against a light background is suggested. It would be a blunder if a background pattern that has both dark and light colors is used, as this would make it difficult to choose a text color that is readable against such a background. Background image or texture chosen should contrast well with the text color, so that it is easy to read on screen.

Selection of Fonts

One of the most important parts of a web page is text. It can make the page look very professional or very unprofessional. Consistency in fonts is required; In other words, using varied fonts throughout the pages should be avoided. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana as they are most readable on computer screen and as for headlines Georgia is used most extensively, as it has a slightly larger display.

Formatting Pages

Layout of the page should be with tables, and the width should be in percentage terms (100% to window size) instead of a fixed number of pixels. If done so, the content of the page will be flexible even with changes in browser window size, without the need to scroll horizontally. Tables enable displaying the contents in sections like a newspaper. Links should be well organized, properly interlinked and easy to detect by using appropriate colors. Links should be underlined and a different color can be used for visited links, a link to the homepage should be displayed on all the internal pages. It should be ensured that there are no broken links simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages should be provided, so that users don’t need to scroll up. Optimize pages to be viewed at 800×600 (the most popular resolution).

Content of the Pages

The content of professional website should be in bulleted or numbered list with direct to the point in short paragraphs, as long blocks of text passages can be boring for the reader. The intention of the web pages should be made clear. Top of the individual pages are to be loaded with most important and essential content with a brief header. This will quickly let the user know, your web page is the page what he is looking for, helping the user easily identify his/her requirement. A simple logo with captivating tag line on the top of the page acts as an identity of the website. Common names for menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, and Products, a copyright statement at the bottom of the each web page are to be used.

Limit File Size

Web page size is defined by the total size of text, images and supporting files (including JavaScript, Flash, etc.) within the page to be downloaded from the server. So, the size of a web page should be kept small to open up fast. If the page has too many items to load and is slow to display, it should be broke into smaller pages and linked to a new web page, with link back from the second page. Limit the size of an image inserted in a web page. Large image takes longer time to display hence, the size of image is to be limited. Adobe Photoshop can be used to slice the image and call it in a table. Bulky contents such as video, audio, Flash animations etc, which slow down the display of the page should be avoided.

The article is written by ConEdify Technologies providing reliable Web Hosting Service in India and offshore http://www.conedify.com

“Content is King! If you want a website to generate back-links and have quality content the search engines love, be sure to make it readable by both people and search engines. Search engines are working to give people quality results. Thus, they are looking for sites with quality content. So – by building site content for people, not only are you getting back to basics (information dissemination to people via the Internet), you are creating a site search engines will love. So, build sites for people – and the search engines will come.

When creating a new website or redesigning an existing site, there are four critical rules which should be followed to make the site effective, functional, loved by search engines – and successful.

1. Easy to Read

When building a website, the first thing you need to be sure of is that your website is easy to read. When you write content, remember that most web site visitors don’t read every word of a page – in fact, they only scan pages to find what they want.

Break up Your Content

Break up your pages and use headers between major ideas so people scanning your site can find what they want quickly. Use meaningful headers between each paragraph or major idea – this helps with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always use good writing structure. Additionally, avoid long paragraphs that run on. You should break up any long paragraphs.

Color and Fonts

To help readability, use high contrast colors between font and background. Black text against a white background may seem stark, but it is very readable. To make a website easy on the eyes, try an off-white background and a dark gray (almost black) text color.

Things to avoid with content color:

• Avoid vibrant background colors like purple or yellow. Such back colors make text difficult to read.
• Avoid using an image behind your text.
• Avoid using bright text colors on bright backgrounds.

Fonts Matter

One simple statement covers the font issue:
Simple fonts are the best; the more fancy the font, the harder it is to read.
Since many browsers only have the standard font set, use standard fonts. In reality, there is no “standard”, but there are certain fonts that are installed on most browsers. These include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. Your readers will see something different than you see if you use other fonts.

Standard Compliant Browser for Development

When developing and testing your site, use a Standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your site to be standards compliant, it will work in most browsers, including MS Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you test your site using the latest and last browser versions of IE (IE6 and IE7). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft.com has a free installer that will install multiple versions of IE. It works great!

Keywords in Content

Of course, when writing content, not only should it be formatted to be readable, but it must also be consumable by not only people, but by search engines. One way to make the subject of the content known to search engines is to use the keywords that people use to search for your site in your content. Be sure to use keywords in your header tags, your first paragraph and throughout your text. The keyword density should be between 4% and 7% – but any more than that could 1) be hard to read and still make sense and 2) be considered spam by search engines and banned. Keywords should also be used in your TITLE tags and your Meta description.

2. Simplify Navigation

The menus and links make up the navigation that the visitor uses to get from page to page in a site. Always plan a site around how people will get from page to page. A visitor to your site should be able to get to what they want within three clicks of their mouse.

Multiple navigation points makes it easy to find things. Repeat the top menu and at the bottom. Also create a left or right menu.

Using links within your text to other areas on your site. You can create links so that they are good for search engine optimization (SEO). There are generally two ways to create links within your text:

1. The wrong way: “For search engine optimization techniques, click here.”
2. The right way: “Good techniques for search engine optimization are important to use.”

Using link text (anchor text) that describes what the link is about is the best way. Search engine web crawlers (programs that automatically index the contents of websites) visit your site, they “read” links. Spiders can index descriptive links into a subject or keyword category. Spiders have nothing to work with when reading a “click here” until it reaches the linked page.

This is Cross Linking – use it as much as possible when it makes sense to do so when writing your content.

3. Consistent Design

At most, one or two layouts should be used in your site design. As a reader browses your site, they should be able to get used to looking in the same place for your navigation, for your sub-navigation and for your content. That’s all there is to say about that.

4. Lower Page Weight is Better

Page weight is the total size of a page on your site in bytes – code, text and images. Your site’s page weight makes a big difference to your viewers. Lighter page weight is better for your readers because the page will download faster. The faster a page downloads, the faster they will get to the content.

What is Means to be Light:

1. No large images.
2. Fewer images are better.
3. Optimize images for the web at no more than 72 dpi.
4. Use as small an image dimension as possible for the given design.
5. Use a table td bgcolor attribute or a background-color style attribute for solid color backgrounds.
6. Make gradients horizontal or vertical (not diagonal) so that you can use a small image “strip” and repeat it.

How “Heavy” Should a Web Page be?
Certain studies show that 64K is a good maximum webpage size. 64K is a maximum, however it is still, in my opinion, really big! The smaller the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between design and function. It is a good idea to focus more on function.

Try putting pages on your web host server as you build your site so you can test it as you go. For pages online, you can test the page weight at www.quasarcr.com/pageweight/ to be sure you are on track.

Ways to make pages lighter:

• Use linked style sheets.
• Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible.
• Use simple repeating backgrounds for effect.

Summary

Visitors to your website should be able to find what they are looking for within about three clicks. Search engines should be able to navigate easily through your site. Making a site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to navigate will make it easy to find information. When people can find information, they are more likely to refer your site or link to it – which is exactly what you want to encourage. You will be on the way to building a readable and hopefully successful website that is loved by search engines if you follow these principals.

Nicholas LaPolla has been a web applications developer for 11 years. He created AcmeWebResources.com to help others build or improve, market, and monitize their websites with a focus on web design, website seo / internet marketing, and working to make money online.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat in with the good meat or wasn’t clean? Would you buy a car from a sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I wouldn’t and neither would you. Your website is your grocery store; your car lot. You must have an atmosphere that is pleasing to buyers. One that tells that buyer that you are not an amateur, but instead a trained, seasoned professional. Your site is a direct reflection of your product and that is why that having a well designed website can make or break your sales.

The first thing to keep in mind when designing your website, is “surfability”. Take a few minutes a look around at several web pages. What makes them appealing? Were there some that you closed out of immediately? Why? Take notes and do your research. Keep in mind that when a person visits your site they have a goal in mind. They are either seeking information or shopping for a product. Give the person what they want without having to search for it. Be sure that all the information on your site is relevant to your product. Make the buyer think that they need your product to solve their problem.

Your main page serves a very specific purpose. It should be an avenue by which the customer can shop your site. It should be easy to view and load very quickly. This is your first impression and we all know that first impressions can either close the deal or loose the deal. Make it simple. It is best to have links that are easily viewable by the reader that will navigate them to where they want to be. Tables are often a great choice when deciding on a way to design the main page of your site. Your main page should load very quickly, chances are if it takes the page more than ten seconds to load even on a 56k modem, the customer will click away to save time, hoping to find the information or product elsewhere. To increase the loading speed of your main page you should avoid large graphics or excessive graphics. Too many banners or special effects can cause a page to load slowly as well.

To make your web site more appealing to the eyes, you should stick to mild colors. If your site is a content site where the user will be doing a lot of reading, it is best to stick to black and white. Color can be added when using tables, as a way to brighten up the page, but remember to keep the overall look of the page professional and appealing to the audience that will be visiting most often. Since screen resolutions vary among monitors, it is a good idea to set the pixels to a standard 800×600. You may also choose to set the tables in your web page to span a percentage of the page rather than a set number of inches. This will be sure to accommodate all screen sizes. You should remember that a lot of Internet users will not use the same browser as you, and therefore you should be sure that your site looks as good on other browsers as it does your own. You can do this by downloading several browsers through which to look at your page.

Be aware of the fact that the overall look of your website is a way to make money. The appearance of the site, if designed properly, can be an excellent marketing strategy for your product or service.

Glenn McDonald can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours… To learn more, visit: www.AutoProfitCash.com/pips.html
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

To most people the process of building a web site remains somewhat of a mystery. This confusion probably stems from the fact that there is a cornucopia of web sites on the Internet. Even with wide variety of sites, every single one can be divided into two sections: front-end and back-end.

The front-end is the first thing that it is designed. It encompasses the look and feel of a web site. This is probably the most established part of the web site production process. Design has been around since Guttenberg printed his first bible. Much of what has been used in print media (especially art magazines) has transferred to the web.

Most well thought out web sites start off with sketches on paper. We like using the big huge box of crayons, the one with the crayon sharpener built in. Most of the colors in the “big box” are pleasing to the eye and are web friendly. If you use begin paying attention to sites you’ll notice that only a few colors are actually used, 256 to be exact. Only about 100 of those won’t give you a headache when you look at them. On request we will give these early designs to a client that wants to control the look and feel of their site. The site, of course, never ends up looking like the early designs. The same idea and concept is there but because of restrictions colors and whole images are lost.

This brings us to the next part of the front-end, the actual site creation. This is what many people view as the most important, which is what separates a professional looking site from an amateur one.

The images are created using products from across the board. Mainly, designers stick to industry standards like Photoshop and Illustrator. After getting the basic image in terms of proportions and size the designer should create the static HTML page.

This is the basic page you would see if you viewed the page source. This is one of the most rewarding, most hated and most tedious part of the web design process. Each browser displays a page differently. Since most users either use Internet Explorer 4+ or Netscape 4.5 we cater to those two. Sometimes we build a different site for each, trying to maintain the same layout.

That concludes the front-end section. Personal sites and some small business sites stop here. While this maybe acceptable today, tomorrow any web site hoping to attract and keep visitors is going to have a strong back-end.

There are many sites and website designers that offer premade templates, these have the entire graphical layout that a page needs.

For those with little or no experience with website design software, templates have quickly become a practical solution to professional website design. Most of the top end sites offer a huge selection of very impressive, easy-to-edit website templates. All you have to do is check your email containing the link to download the .zip file. The html in these templates is compatible with Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage. The major advantage is the price, they run anywhere from $20 to $70. Another great advantage is you don’t have to hire a web designer, who usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to produce a page of such high quality. Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save thousands of dollars on design fees by using website templates.

There are also some exception sites, such as http://www.web-site-templates.org that provide packages of templates at one price, instead of providing a different price for each template.

Alexandru Marias is an IT student mentaining software sites like: www.amicutilities.com, www.downloadsplaza.com, www.fungamesplaza.com, www.bluedownloads.com

Home Page

Regardless of our connection speed, Internet users expect information to be readily obtainable, pages to download quickly and solutions at the click of the mouse. As such, you should look at your home page as your Sale point. Have you explained succinctly what you are selling and included links to more detailed information? Note that on the first page, you should try to pre-sell your potential customers on the benefits of your product or service.

If you are offering many products or services, place only the most attractive on the first page. Do not overload your first page. People might get confused if you provide too much information on one page.

That is one of the reasons why I always advise my customers not to use Flash intros on their first page or at the very lease, allow them to skip through it. Today, internet users have less patience to wait and will move on quickly if pages take too long too load or if they have to “wait through” fancy openers that are all Flash and no substance.

Site Structure

Structure of your site should be dedicated to one goal only. Leading the visitor from your home page (pre-sale point) to different pages (sale points) on your site.

Structure of your site should be as simple as 1 – 2 – 3.

The 1 should be your home page, where you provide the basic information (read benefits) about your product or service.

The 2 should be a “more details” page where you will list and elaborate on benefits and prices of your product

And 3 should be your “add to cart” or “contact us” page.

Navigation Structure

If you are serious about having your business on the Internet, do not experiment with the navigation of the site. Keep it simple and easy to use. If your pages are long, place a menu on the bottom of the page to save your users from scrolling to the top of the page to reach the menu.

Text

Do you believe that people read everything written on your page? They don’t. What they do is SCAN. They are scanning your page, looking for specific information regarding your company, what you have to offer, pricing and how to contact you. What you say and how you say it can mean the difference between a visitor and a sale.

For first timers, the look and content of our pages may evolve based on customer needs and comments. So… always, be sure to include search options in case visitors don’t find what they are looking for as well as readily obtainable contact information. Most importantly, make sure someone is available to answer questions. Never keep a potential first-time customer waiting for information.

In many cases, search option will keep the visitor on your site, giving you one more chance to convert the visitor into a customer.

Creating Emphasis

Having in mind that users scan the pages, determining what to emphasize and creating emphasis on your pages is very important.

Eye catching details will help you to lead the visitor to the pages on your site that you want to be exposed, and it will increase your chances to convert the visitor into a customer.

Graphics

Graphics should emphasize the benefits of your products or service. Don’t use graphics unrelated to your product or service. Placing the graphic on the site just because you like the graphic, and you think that your site looks better with it is simply wrong. Use that space to explain to your visitors why they should buy from you and not from someone else.

Graphics should emphasize quality of your product or service. If you can’t find or create such a graphic, use text. It’s that simple.

Speed

Faster is better. There are still millions of people still using dial up for their connection. So try to make the download time for your site as short as possible. Remember, time is money and the longer it takes to download your website, the faster potential customers will go elsewhere for their business.

Zoran Makrevski is the president of SEO.Goto.gr. We offer customized and affordable http://seo.goto.gr/seo-services.html SEO Services.