Reference Page

Creating Your Own Web Page is Easy - A Tutorial (Part 3)

2009-11-01T13:04:00.005-08:00

Here's the last part of this tutorial. Our topics are:
Linking other pages and other websites Using CSS in styling your web pages
Let's begin here.
Creating and placing hyperlinks
It is very important to create and place hyperlinks in your website to help your visitors navigate your site from pages to pages. These are the links displayed in your web pages that will change the web page displayed when clicked by visitors. These must be prominent and properly placed in your pages. If not, your visitors will be confused and will eventually leave your site unhappy or unsatisfied. Hence, he may never return. So, make sure that your hyperlinks are prominent, descriptive and orderly placed in your pages.
Linking your pages
In page 1, you have to place the following code where you want the visitor to click to go to your page 2:
< a href="http://your-domain-name.com/page-2-name" title="description using relevant keywords">your link description
Looking at the codes, "a" is html anchor tag used for hyperlinks, "href" is the attribute referring to the URL of the destination page and "title" refers to the description of your link. If possible, use relevant keywords in your description for search engine optimization.
Now, type the above in your mywebpage.html and replace the domain name, web page name, title and link description with yours. Use relevant keywords in your link description for search engine optimization. Then, save and refresh your browser to show you how the above is displayed on the web.
To see more, hover or place your cursor on the link. The "title" value will be displayed on the link while the "href" value or URL of the destination page will be shown at the left side of the bottom bar of browser window. It may work only if you are online and your site is already active on the web.
Linking to other websites
You have to place the following code in your website pages where you want your visitors to click to go to other particular websites:
< a href="http://other-site-domain-name.com/page-name" title="description using relevant keywords" target="_blank">your link description< /a>
If you notice, it is the same as linking your web pages but it is pointing to other website. So, we added the "target" attribute with value of "_blank" to open the destination page into new browser window. This will make your site remain active or open even if your visitors click the link to other website.
To try it, type the above in your mywebpage.html and replace the domain name, web page name and link description with yours. Use relevant keywords in your link description for search engine optimization. Then, save and refresh your browser to how the above is displayed on the web. Click the link and a new browser window will open while the page where you clicked the link remained open.
Hyperlinks with images
You may use images in your hyperlinks. In this case, the visitors can click an image in your web pages with links that will send them to other pages in your site or to other websites you have linked to. See the example below:
Linking to your other web pages: < a href="http://your-domain-name.com/other-page-name>
Linking to other websites: < a href="http://other-site-domain-name.com/page-name>< /a>. So, in place of link description, you use image. When your visitors click the image, the page will change to the destination page.
To try the above, place the image that you want to be used with hyperlinks in the same directory where your mywebpage.html is located. Then, type the above codes in your mywebpage.html but type only the image filename in the "src" value. Then, save and refresh the browser to effect the changes. Hover or place your cursor on the image. The "alt" value or the image description will be displayed on the image while the "href" value or URL of the destination page will be shown at the left side of the bottom bar of browser window.
Styling your web page using CSS
W3C.org requires the website style definitions must be placed in the style sheets or CSS. Styles are used to manipulate the design of the website such font sizes, colors, font face, box properties, table properties, paragraph format, etc.
Placing your styles within the head or in a separate CSS file let you control the style of your web pages in just one page. Now, I will tell you the easy way to create your style sheets within the head tags and how it is implemented in the within the body tags.
To define a style, you have to use a selector as a reference. Basic selectors are body, div, span, li, table, td and p. div is used for group of paragraphs, p is for one paragraph, span is for selected characters, words or phrases, li is for lists, table is for table and td is for table data. The good thing here is you can make your own selectors using names you prefer.
Creating style sheets is the same as what we have done in CSS boxes. Whatever style properties you assigned to those selecters, it will affect area or content of your web pages where you have used the corresponding selectors. See example below:
< style type="text/css"> body {
margin: 10%;
color: #00f;
background: #ff0;
text-align: center;
}
< /style>
In the above style, all your contents within the body tags (< body> and ) will have the above style properties. Try it by typing the above in your mywebpage.html within the head tags. Save it and refresh your browser and see effect in your web page.
Let's see another example:
< style type="text/css"> p {
margin: 20px;
color: #cff;
background: #ccc;
text-align: right;
}

All of your content that you have placed within < p> and will have the above style properties. Now, type the above to your mywebpage.html within the head tags, save and refresh your browser and see the results.
Now, let's make our own selectors. As explained in creating CSS boxes, we can make an id and a class selectors and implement as follows:
< style type="text/css"> #ownidselector {
margin: 0px;
text-decoration: underline;
background: cff;
}
.ownclassselector {
margin: 10px;
font-size: 16px;
font-style: italic;
color: #f00;
}
.ownclassselector2 {
font-weight: bold;
font-family: courier;
border: 1px dashed #cff;
}

< body>
< div id="ownidselector">This is an example of using the id selector < div class="ownclassselector">This is an example of using the class selector < div id="ownidselector" class="ownclassselector">This is an example of using both the id and class selectors < span id="ownidselector">This is an example of using span with id selector and class selector This is an example of using both the id and class selectors This is an example of using the two class selectors at the same time

Let's me explain to you the above style properties that are not discussed in Creating CSS Boxes:
text-decoration: underline - creates underline to the text or characters. You may use "none" instead of "underline" to remove the underline.
font-size: 16px - fixes the size of the font within the affected selector. You may use px, em, pt and % as unit of measure.
font-style: italic - makes the text or characters italic. You may also use normal, oblique.
color: #f00 - defines the color of the text or characters. You may use different web colors here. It is advisable to use web-safe colors as other computers or browsers could not display other colors.
font-weight: bold - makes the text or characters bold. You may use also normal, bolder, lighter, 100 up to 900.
font-family: courier - defines the font type of the text or characters. Common font types are arial, verdana and helvetica.
Type the above codes to your mywebpage.html within the style and body tags as noted, then save and refresh your browser to see the effects of the above style properties. You may change the values, then save and refresh to familiarize yourself with styling properties.
For complete web-safe color codes and complete list of style properties, click here
When you have already familiarized yourself with the html and CSS codes, it will be easy for you to create a web page.
I hope you've learned something in this tutorial. Just continue practicing and learning. Research, research, research. There so many free tutorials here on the web.
To learn more of HTML and CSS, search Google by typing "html tutorial" or "css tutorial" - Click Search and you will find many choices. For standards, you may visit www.W3C.org.

Are You Making These Nine Fatal Mistakes in Your Yellow Pages Ads?

2009-11-01T13:04:00.003-08:00

Apart from the major downside of the Yellow Pages, that it is nipplepiercingly expensive, it is still a bottom achingly brilliant vehicle to take your marketing message to your target audience. Well, some people think, the YP is on its way out, and I totally agree, but I believe it has a few more years of marching to do until it completely vanishes into thin air or even into a puff of smoke.
The good news is that people who look you up in the Yellow Pages are very serious buyers. They need what you sell right now. So, when they contact you, you are in for a very short buying cycle. And that is a great advantage. However, this advantage comes at a price tag and a pretty high level of commitment from your end. The good news is that...
Some 97% of the Yellow Pages Ads Are Duds
Just look up the YP in any category. All the ads look exactly the same. No difference. Not a sausage. You can shift the company names between ads and you see that they all do the same thing the same way. There is no differentiation. They are like teenagers: They so desperately try to be different from everyone else that they end up looking and behaving exactly the same way as everyone else. Hm.
So, where is the problem with all those YP ads? The Book of Boredom, Yawn and Drab: Are You Making These Nine Fatal Mistakes in Your Yellow Pages Ads?
Apart from the major downside of the Yellow Pages, that it is nipplepiercingly expensive, it is still a bottomachingly brilliant vehicle to take your marketing message to your target audience. Well, some people think, the YP is on its way out, and I totally agree, but I believe it has a few more years of marching to do until it completely vanishes into thin air or even into a puff of smoke.
The good news is that people who look you up in the Yellow Pages are very serious buyers. They need what you sell right now. So, when they contact you, you are in for a very short buying cycle. And that is a great advantage. However, this advantage comes at a price tag and a pretty high level of commitment from your end. The good news is that...
Some 97% of the Yellow Pages Ads Are Duds
Just look up the YP in any category. All the ads look exactly the same. No difference. Not a sausage. You can shift the company names between ads and you see that they all do the same thing the same way. There is no differentiation. They are like teenagers: They so desperately try to be different from everyone else that they end up looking and behaving exactly the same way as everyone else. Hm.
So, where is the problem with all those YP ads?
First Let's Look at Some YP Stats
The Yellow Pages reach 76% of the population in the average month, 57% in the average week, and 17% daily. Adults refer to the Yellow Pages almost twice per week, or approximately 19 billion times per year.
88% of these references result in contact with a purchase or an intent to purchase.
Because the Yellow Pages is a reference medium, like classified ads in newspapers, providing over 50% of new clients.
52% of potential clients either have no service provider in mind, or have multiple names in mind when they see your Yellow Pages ad. Your ad can clarify one name for them: Yours.
The average business gets $6 in profit for every $1 invested in Yellow Pages advertising. With a good ad you can even beat that. But be aware of average. When the average temperature in a hospital is normal, it can also mean that half of the patients suffer from high fever and the other half are dead. The YP is the same. Some people make huge profits on their ads, and some curse the name of the person who invented the Yellow Pages. The interesting thing is that the idiots volunteer to lose on their ads rather than hiring a Yellow Pages specialist.
The average cost of half page Yellow Pages display ad for one full year is over $15,000, so you had better know what you are doing.
81% of YP readers (potential clients) start at the beginning of the heading when they don't have a business name in mind.
66% of readers believe that a larger display ad indicates a more established, more realizable business. 70% look at the larger ads when they are not sure where to buy.
20% of readers want to see more information. Can you see why you need a website?
81% of readers make contact with the advertising business.
34% will contact a company they had never contacted before. How good are you at handling first contacts? Is your receptionist a minimum-wage bimbo from the bottom of the unemployment scum barrel or a true professional with the necessary communications skills? Also, I sincerely hope that you have something better than a "corporate voice mail labyrinth".
42% of people will contact two or more businesses. Remember the receptionist syndrome. Your receptionist brings you business. I don't care how good of a lawyer, engineer or gravedigger you are. Everything hinges on your receptionist. So, start appreciating and paying her properly. Believe it or not, she carries major "bankrupting power" over your business.
For readers with both small and large directories in their homes, 38% will use the small book, 62% will use the large book, and 8% will reference multiple books. Maybe the lower cost of the small, local book is a good deal after all. There are over 4200 active headings in the yellow pages, and YP can create your own heading for you if needed. So, let's look at...
Ten Typical Yellow Pages Mistakes and They Can Be Avoided
1. Failing to do the necessary pre-placement planning: Typically when do business owners plan their Yellow Pages ads? Actually never, until they get a call from the YP rep, and they hand over their money to the rep and say they blindly trust the Yellow Pages' ad specialists to create the ad. Keep something in mind. The Yellow Pages doesn't care whether or not you make any business from your ad. With this in mind, what is the logic for the YP company to hire expensive ad specialists? Increasing overhead costs? No.
They will create an ad that looks exactly the same as all your competitors', so but your chance of being selected when potential buyers peruse your category is not much. So, what to include in your pre-placement planning?
Some are... What results do you want to achieve from your ad?
What is your Most Wanted Action? (Action you want your prospects to take?
What proportion of your business do you expect to come from YP?
Who is your target market?
What is your biggest primary and secondary benefit?
Do you have an offer both for "Ready to Buy" prospects and for prospects who are looking for more information?
Which directories do you put your ad in?
2. Imitating the competition: Most YP advertisers are like teenagers: In their efforts of looking unique, they look exactly the same. Again, what happens when a business' YP ad comes up for renewal? The ad must be in within ten minutes, so the job gets dumped on a people who have never done advertising in their lives. They look up YP, copy one of the competitors' ads and place them. And retarded business owners all over the world fork out their hard-earned money for some braindead "me too" type ads. Here are the typical ways businesses imitate each other:
The headline is replaced with the company name or logo.
Benefits are replaced with product description. Hint: If you sell drills, advertise amazing holes, not drills. If you are a realtor, advertise quality of life not houses.
Hours of business and location
Company's slogan or mission
"We take all credit cards"
And the normal reaction to all this rubbish is: "So what!?"
3. Failing to place ads under multiple categories: Most YP advertisers try to save money by placing their ads into one category only. The poor creatures spend a small fortune on their ads, but refuse to spend the extra few dollars to make sure they get maximum results.
4. Writing an ad that pleases you, while ignoring the buyer's self-interest: Most ads are "me" based: "Look what I want to sell you". They don't care about what buyers want to buy. Which only proves that so many companies totally don't understand their target markets and what they want. Just think of the hole and drill example. Don't get me wrong. I don't suggest extensive and expensive market research, but there are some cost-effective ways of testing the marketplace.
Just think about it. If you want to jump into the swimming pool, you just have to check it for water and temperature, and you are ready to swim at your heart's content. But you don't need to hire a team of experts to launch a full-blown research project on swimming pools, the science of concrete pouring and fluid dynamics. That's retarded but that what most companies do under the aegis of market research. Hint: How many people do you know who "research" their spouses before marrying them?
Don't waste your time and money researching the market. You will never get the true answers to your research. Instead of research, just keep testing the market. Then you find the true answer. You see Edison didn't research the light bulb. He tested his ideas over and over again, and then it worked out.
Before you place your YP, use some small ads in the local paper, or even better, use Google AdWords. Google can be your most trusted friend when it comes to testing your headlines and call for action.
5. Failing to consider the five main components of the ad.
1) A kick-butt compelling headline: The headline is the ad for the ad. The headline alone can increase or reduce response rate by as much as 2100%. When you write your ad, you have to spend at least 80% of your time on the headline.
2) Attractive benefits: No one cares what kind of cleaning agents you use in your carpet cleaning business. To succeed, you must promote cleanliness. Without this, even if your headline catches their attention, the ad itself fails to keep their interest.
3) A sexy offer: After the benefits, you must offer a very specific offer. Personally I prefer to direct YP reader to the website where a free Special Report or some other free offer waits for them. But they have to put in their names and email addresses. This approach has never failed.
4) Call for action: This is a huge problem. Most ads are lame and don't ask readers to take any kind of action. Make sure you ask for a very specific action. Remember, your ad's job is to generate sales leads and sales. If your ad doesn't generate new business, it is dead, and you have just lost your money.
5) Appropriate contact information: Put in all the appropriate contact points where you can be reached.
6. Failing to position your company as a trusted resource: You have two options here: Either you compete with other advertisers by peddling your stuff, or position yourself as helpful resource and offer relevant information to aid your buyer's decision. Yes, most prospects who look you up in YP are "Ready to Buy" buyers, but it is still a nice and unique touch to offer some relevant information - and I am not talking about brochures or this kind of nonsense. I mean some valuable stuff, like a Special Report or Consumer's Guide. Imagine. Every ad in your section is screaming, "Give me your money". But you say, "We have valuable information for you that can save you time or money. For a free report, "Ten Deadly Mistakes Accountants Make When Handling Their Own Taxes" call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx or visit our website at www.xxxx.com." Now this is an attractive proposition.
With this approach your ad stands out like a trombonist in a heavy metal band. You make your ad different. You create a predisposition towards your company. You position yourself as the expert of the category. It makes you unique for you alone are doing it.
7. Failing to use other lead generation channels: The biggest problem is that you peg your future on one single channel of lead generation. It is like a one-legged table. While standing, it is fine, but when it collapses, then years and years of hard work can go down the toilet.
In order to get a steady stream of qualified sales leads, you need at least four channels of lead generation. One is your YP ad, but you need more, and I suggest that one channel is a properly structured website. I say properly structure because some 98% of all websites out there are total failures as lead generation channels.
All right. Some people say they have no intention to use their websites to bring in business. Then what is the point in having an expense in your business that is not producing? Would you have employees in your company who openly brag about their unwillingness to do any work? That is plain retarded.
8. Telling prospects they can find you in YP: Why would you direct your prospects to a competitive minefield that is riddled with ads (many of them are much better than yours) from your competitors who are desperate to see you out of business and starve to death, knowing that will give them more business? This may sound drastic, and it is. But this is the reality. Yes, your ad is in YP but you lose all of your advantages because all your competitors are promoting the same advantages. Your ad just blends into the competitive environment. Instead of guiding prospects to the Yellow Pages, guide them to your website. That is your home turf with no competition.
9. Failing to track responses. Over the years of writing Yellow Pages ads and organising campaigns for clients I have seen this over and over again. And do you know where this logic comes from. From large ad agencies that try to convince their clients that ads can't be traced and tracked, and that clients just have to fork out the dough and then fly blind. Originally I studied engineering, so for me everything must be traceable and trackable, and this habit has served me nicely over the years. Just figure out how to track your responses and don't believe the ad agencies. Hey, have you thought why most ad agencies use door-to-door peddlers to sell their services? Maybe because they are pretty lousy at advertising their own stuff and they have to resort to traditional prospecting grunt work. Just a thought really...
So, we have covered some ground here. Make sure you implement these nine points in your Yellow Pages ads, and you will see a big difference.
Organisational Provocateur Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan of Dynamic Innovations Squad helps providers of professional services to achieve the income and lifestyle levels they desire through high-trust high-impact client relationships. For a FREE fee-setting guide: "Why most service professionals consistently and persistently undercharge for their services and what to do about it" visit his website at http://www.di-squad.com

Amplifying Your 'Start Page' Traffic

2009-11-01T13:04:00.001-08:00

'Start page' programs are the easiest way to get traffic to your website. Did you know you can amplify that traffic as much as four times with the same mouse clicks?

Amplifying your 'start page' traffic is crucial if your website gets few hits. Make a 'funnel page' and funnel traffic to your website.

Start with a doorway page, optimized for the search engines. It is not just a doorway page, because it will soon do more. It's going to funnel traffic to your website.

It needs a header in the visible top section of the browser so as to be seen as soon as the page comes up. Try to use the HTML H1 tag in this header. Like any ad, be gripping, catch the attention of the viewer.

Keep the body of your ad to about that 200 words. Link your 'funnel page' to the page your advertising. If the content is good enough to gain the attention of viewers, submit it to the search engines as well.

Your objective is to get the most hits out of your 'funnel page'. We will make additions to our page that will differentiate it from a doorway page.

Banners are declining in effectiveness, but a finely tuned creation can still get great success. Use different banner exchanges for best results, and no more than 4 banners on your 'funnel page'.

The more banners you use, the better your results will be, but the harder it is to make your page aesthetically correct. Play with arrangements to make it work for you.

Point your banners to the page your advertising, likely the same page your 'funnel page' points to. Try to use banners that will let you open up another window, so not to lose your visitor to another site.

http://www.bcentral.com/services/bn/ http://www.v3exchange.com/ http://www.bannerexpose.com http://BannersGoMLM.com/cgi-bin/ref/index.cgi?dist=dsextonj

Using MLM banners gives more amplification to your advertising. If you can find and use them instead of the run of the mill banners, do so.

We will further amplify hits from our 'funnel page' with 'pop under' ads. These are preferred over 'pop up' ads as they are not as intrusive. Point the 'pop under' ad to the page you wish to advertise. Using an MLM 'pop under' gives more leverage than other 'pop unders'. Remember, this is about amplifying and focusing.

http://www.freehits2000.com/index.php?id=dsextonj

Some 'start page' programs don't like 'pop up' ads. Pay attention to this when setting up your 'start page' programs.

Like a funnel, your website is the focusing end, and your 'funnel page', banners, and 'pop under' ads funneling to your website. Every time someone uses their 'start page' program and your 'funnel page' is seen, your banners and 'pop under' are seen elsewhere and shown, amplifying your hits.

Other tools that work well with your 'funnel page' are text ad exchanges and rotators.

Text Ad Exchanges act like banners, but are link exchanges instead. Like the banner ad, funnel it to your website.

http://www.mlmads.com/index.cfm?id=dsextonj http://site.linkbuddies.com/lb/textex.php http://www.linbo.com/refer.cgi?id=1393 http://www.exchangeomatic.com/refer.cgi?id=967">

I haven't found a use for a rotator, but you may, and I don't want to leave this option out. If you use a rotator, you will add your 'funnel page' to the rotation, and have your 'start page' programs point to your rotator.

Your rotator will rotate your 'funnel page' with any other page you need seen... like another 'funnel page'!?! hmmm... I may have a use for that rotator.

http://www.ebizrotator.com/goto/DS3003.htm

When your done with your 'funnel page' you'll want to spend time with your 'start page' programs clicking through websites and advertising your 'funnel page'.

http://www.startblaze.com/cgi-bin/intro.cgi?57064 http://nomorehits.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?user=dsextonj http://www.clicksilo.com/referrals/info.asp?Agent=dsextonj http://www.viralvisitors.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?flag=8962 http://www.hitpulse.com/cgi-bin/start/newuser.cgi?referer=dsextonj

Look at what you see with new eyes. There are always ways to squeeze the most out of free advertising. It's a matter of having an open mind and being creative.

Dale Sexton owns & operates 'PageCrafters.net', & publishes 'Small Business Tools magazine'. Both focus on tools & tips for small business. mailto:pagecrafters@pagecrafters.net Sign up for 'SBT magazine' at: http://pagecrafters.net/newsletter.html Need a 'Start Page' tool? Check out PageToolยฉ http://pagecrafters.net/pagetool.html

How To Use Viral "Refer-A-Friend" Promotions To Increase Traffic And Sales

2009-11-01T12:43:00.005-08:00

"Viral Publicity" and "Viral Marketing" are really just new buzz words for the oldest form of publicity in the world...

"Referral" or "Word of Mouth."

The Internet takes this ancient form of "buzz" and promotion and amplifies it with a global network of people connected digitally. "Word of mouth" now has an Internet version called "word of mouse" (word of computer mouse). With greatly increased speeds, people refer things to their friends and families spreading the word through the Internet and to the far-reaching corners of the world.

Many smart marketers and publicity people have learned to harness the power of viral publicity with Internet "Refer-A-Friend" promotional techniques and tools.

Examples of Viral "Refer-A-Friend" Promotions:

Viral "Refer-A-Friend" techniques can be used to promote just about anything under the sun.

For example, Audri Lanford conducted a giveaway contest at her new www.wz.com website where she gave away 4 Sony PS2's before Christmas as a website promotion. According to Audri, she gave people who had entered the Giveaway the opportunity to get additional entries and additional chances to win by telling a few of their friends on the Thank You page...

WZ.com Giveaway Promotion Thank You Page http://wz.com/ps2/indexw.html

On the Thank You page, every giveaway entrant received the following message: "Tell your friends about WZ.com, and get an additional entry for each friend you email." They are then given the opportunity to tell their friends about the giveaway at the "Tell-A-Friend" page...

WZ.com "Refer-A-Friend" Page http://wz.com/tellafriend/index.html

In return for the favor, they receive an additional chance to win for every friend they refer. This simple addition increased Tell-a-Friend results by 96 times (9600%)!, said Audri.

This is an amazing (and inexpensive) way to increase traffic and sales!

Another example of the "Refer-A-Friend" technique at work can be seen at Internet marketing guru Seth Godin's new IdeaVirus.com website.

"Unleashing The Ideavirus" by Seth Godin http://www.ideavirus.com/

"Unleashing The Ideavirus" is Seth Godin's excellent new book about viral marketing. Seth is promoting his hard copy book by offering the book in its entirety - FOR FREE! You can download the "eBook" version at his www.ideavirus.com website.

Why would Seth give it away for free?

Because offering something of high perceived value for free is an excellent way to promote something on the Internet. People are excited that they can get the complete book for free, so they naturally tell their friends. In fact, Seth Godin uses a viral "Refer-A-Friend" tool on this website as well...

IdeaVirus Send It

http://www.ideavirus.com/sendit.html

To see real-time data on how people are spreading the word with this viral "Refer-A-Friend' system, you can watch it spread at Seth's "Watch It Spread" page: http://ideavirus.gazooba.com/servlets/IVStatusReport2

This viral tool has helped Seth receive more than 100,000 downloads on website and more than 400,000 readers in just 30 days time. According to the website, IdeaVirus is "The Most Read Full-Length eBook Of All Time."

Yet another amazing example of viral marketing in action.

How To Use Viral "Refer-A-Friend" Promotions:

So how do you use this technique to leverage and increase your traffic, sales, and "word of mouse" publicity? It's simple, just "Tell-A-Friend" or "Refer-A-Friend" about everything! You can add Viral "Refer-A-Friend" forms to all of your...

> Articles

> Contests

> eBooks

> Freebies

> Giveaways

> Information

> Sweepstakes

> Thank you pages

> Etc.

Constantly think of ways that you can use a "Refer-A-Friend" pages to leverage each visitor into many more visitors (and sales).

Viral "Refer-A-Friend" tools are available for a wide range of needs and budgets.

For example:

BirdCast

http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml

BigNoseBird.com offers an excellent "Refer-A-Friend" script for your website that is totally free called BirdCast. BirdCast will even log each referral so you can measure how often it is used. You may even want to have a programmer customize it to fit your own needs.

qbiquity.com

http://www.qbiquity.com/

qbiquity is a "relationship marketing company" that offers "Word of Mouth" solutions to increase online sales, boost site registrations, or extend your brand's reach. qbiquity is a solution for highly trafficked websites who want all the "bells an whistles" such as real-time tracking and convergence to other communications mediums like pagers, telephones, faxes, and direct mail.

qbiquity is considered a "high-end" solution and has a large price tag in the thousands of dollars per month. Consider online marketing guru Seth Godin's experiences with qbiquity which he used with tremenous success for this IdeaVirus book...

"When you send junk mail to 100 people, on average one person does what you ask. Using qbiquity, 50% of the people who get a recommendation from a friend visit my site, and almost everyone downloads the book. That's astonishing!", said Seth Godin.

It sure is.

Action Step:

All of the viral "Refer-A-Friend" programs that are available are based on the same simple concept. They use the power of referrals and "word of mouse" publicity to multiply how many people see your message. I suggest that you add "Refer-A-Friend" and other viral techniques into your marketing mix before someone refers your competition to this powerful marketing technique...

Matt Hockin - Intrapromote - http://www.intrapromote.com/ For more information, download our white paper: "The Proof Is In The Pass-Along - A Viral Marketing Tutorial" http://www.intrapromote.com/popups/popup_register_whitepaper.html

List Building Tricks - 8 Landing Page Key Features

2009-11-01T12:43:00.003-08:00

Everyone wants a free gift. The key here is offering something that has value for the customer. Aside from offering something free, you must have your landing page professionally written. A good landing page is much like a sales letter. While you may be looking for subscribers at first and not a hard sale, you should have a page that is good enough to entice your visitors to offer their email addresses.

Good landing pages have some key features:

1) Eye catching headline that grabs your visitor's attention instantly and compels them to read on. Many refer to this as the hook. You may find you have to test a few headlines to find out which one pulls in the most people.

2) Brief introduction. Tell your customer who you are and what you are offering them. Don't forget to list the benefits of what you have to offer. You can do this using a simple bulleted list.

3) An offer, whether you are offering a free product, newsletter or guide in exchange for an email address.

4) You shouldn't have any links on your opt-in page (except for links to your privacy policy and other disclaimers) so your visitor is not distracted and freely offers their information.

5) A reminder that your visitor is receiving something free, that there is no charge, no risk and nothing to lose (provided you offer something free as one of your tactics to build your list).

6) A privacy statement to assure your visitors you will keep their information personal and private. Many visitors will not enter their information unless they know their information will be kept private and confidential.

7) Include your handwritten signature, which again builds trust and a personal experience for your visitor. Make sure when you include your signature it is legible. Signatures that are not legible usually suggest the author has something to hide.

8) Make your free product offer look as professional as possible. Consider getting an eCover for it even if it is free, so your customers assume the free gift or product is worthwhile.

When you design a simple web page in this fashion, you have a very high possibility of transforming customers into subscribers. You may find up to 80% of visitors subscribe when you create a great landing page.

Summary There are many simple ways to build a list. You can build your list using subscriber leads, opt-in leads, survey leads and through affiliating. When building your list, you want to ensure your list is profitable. The best way to achieve this is by building trust and loyalty among your customers, and by fulfilling your customers needs.

Discover the FREE Killer List Building Strategy Get Free E-Book "The Killer List Building Strategy" http://listbuildingreport.pluginnetproefit.com/. Latest news about latest list building-subscribe to my e-zine "E-Ezine - list building newsletter" http://ezine.pluginnetproefit.com/

Search Engine Results Pages - Where in the World Has it Gone?

2009-11-01T12:43:00.001-08:00

There are many different ways in which to generate traffic to your website but none more productive than being high up in the major search engine results pages. If you can gain a top spot on Google's first pages of search results for your chosen key phrases then you are pretty much guaranteed to get masses of hits to your web pages.

Clearly because ranking high in search engine results pages (SERPs) is so successful at driving hoards of traffic to your website then that is where you should be spending most of your time optimising your pages for maximum positioning in the results pages.

Google offer advice on how to optimize your pages and provide free keyword research tools so there is no excuse for performing badly, especially in a niche-market with little competition. With careful research it is possible to utilize free software (or trial software) to check your page optimization for specific keywords or key phrases. Building quality back-links from authority websites also plays a major part of your SEO. It is all about getting quality back-links rather than getting a maximum number of links from lower quality sites. It is perfectly feasible for your web page to get high rankings with fewer back-links than your nearest competitors if you focus on quality links.

So you have been using all of the above techniques to improve your web page rankings and you slowly start to see the results you have been looking for. Your pages are moving higher up the rankings for your keywords/key phrases and you are making progress. All of a sudden your page which had been doing well is not appearing in the results pages any more.

In a desperate bid to locate your web page you search through pages and pages of results, going through 30 to 40 pages without finding your web pages. Over night the Google fairies have been and erased you completely from their index. But hang on, your pages are still being indexed, your web pages are just not appearing in the search results anymore.

There is nothing quite as frustrating as being removed from the search engine results pages no matter where you were ranking beforehand. Because unless you take the necessary steps to rectify the cause you could remain out of the search engine results for up to 6 months. The impact this can have on your visitors, or lack of them, can have a detrimental effect on your bottom line. It is important that you limit the damage being done by correcting the situation which caused your pages to be removed from the SERP's as soon as possible. Unfortunately this requires that you are aware of or can quickly learn of the cause before you can correct it. If you are not sure why your pages have been removed then you're in trouble.

Everything you must do to promote a website where the main objective is to drive visitors to your web pages in order to fulfill an order so you can earn a living seems to go against everything the big search engine companies stand for. Their argument is that they want Internet users to enjoy their Internet experience without being hounded by sales pages (sometimes referred to as spam) from the latest affiliate information product. May be this is a little bit of "big brother" having too much control considering how the search engine companies make their money. Today's web pages are littered with sponsored advertising of all kinds and it is arguable as to how much added value adverts actually bring to a web page reader.

Learn how to make money using Clickbank with the Clickbank Cash System elearning course from Chris Cobb. Also get the Guru Domination Blueprint.

Google Web Page SEO - Secrets of Listing on Google's First Page

2009-10-30T19:57:00.005-07:00

Every business owner I consult with views a Google first page listing as the holy grail of online business marketing.

It's rare to discuss any business growth strategies without someone complaining they can't get their products & services on the first page on Google.

Google web page SEO secrets of listing on Google first page outlines strategies for the first page of Google. This Google website page first technology placement is achievable.

I consult for several different business across 42 different countries and I have noticed a definitive shift in conventional business marketing during the last three years.

Business owners are becoming more comfortable with internet business and e-commerce trading. I have noticed a sharp increase in the number of conventional businesses making the transition to an online presence.

And why not. E-commerce offers all businesses a tremendous opportunity for exponential business growth by tapping into additional complimentary revenue streams that they could not access in a conventional business.

One should think of search engines as contemporary dinosaurs, i.e. huge monsters who dominate the world of online marketing. In reality Google is the biggest meanest search engine in the land. This is why business owners and marketing specialists are keen to achieve a Google first page listing.

Google Web Page SEO Secrets Of Listing On Google First Page # 1 Natural Organic Listing

A first page of Google on the left side of the Google website page, is what is referred to as natural or organic listing.

Whenever customers search for a product or service on the Google submit page and land on the Google results page they are 4 to 6 times more likely to buy from a search engine organic listing than from a sponsored link or Pay Per Click listing.

In relation to first technology, the first page on Google is king. Some business consultants refer to this concept as pages Google.

Google Web Page SEO Secrets Of Listing On Google First Page # 2 Pay Per Click PPC

One of the quickest ways to get on the first page of Google is to invest in a pay per click marketing campaign to run on the Google website page.

In no time at all you can rise up the first page on Google by simply paying more than your competitors.

One of the best kept SEO secrets is that a new business can place higher on the PPC Google results page than a huge competitor who has been trading for many years. From a first technology perspective PPC advertising on the Google submit page offers many added value benefits for your online marketing campaign.

Google Web Page SEO Secrets Of Listing On Google First Page # 3 Search Engine Optimisation SEO

SEO on the Google website page is one of the best kept SEO secrets. Unfortunately many online marketing companies exploit what is known as first technology.

By this I mean many SEO specialists prefer to baffle conventional business owners with first technology black art terminology.

Some SEO marketing companies deliberately mislead non techie business owners by informing them they need a lead time of anything from 9 to 18 months to achieve a natural first page of google listing for your products or services.

In reality if you know a trust worthy SEO specialist he or she can get you a natural organic SEO listing on the first page on Google in a week and sometimes less.

Google Web Page SEO Secrets Of Listing On Google First Page # 4 Top 5 Listing

When business customers search via the Google submit page a top five listing on the Google results page demonstrates a sense of confidence in online buyers.

This is known in first technology parlance as positioning 'above the scroll on pages Google.' I am of course referring to a top 5 listing on the first page of Google for natural organic searches.

Google Web Page SEO Secrets Of Listing On Google First Page # 5 SEO Page Domination

If as already discussed, we know that online buyers are 4 to 6 times more likely to purchase products and services from a natural organic first page on Google. And we know that customers have more confidence in companies placing in natural search engine placement then it makes good business sense to try and dominate the organic rankings.

The very best way to dominate the search engine rankings is to employ the services of a professional business writer who is trained and skilled at writing proven successful articles about business products and/or services which have proven successful at dominating the search engine natural organic listings.

Online SEO business writers agree that any article which places 3 times in the top 10 positions on any search engine search page dominates the SEO page.

If this writer can gain high placement on pages Google then it is likely he or she will achieve similar high placement and domination on the other main search engines.

To view how a professional article can achieve SEO page domination cut and paste the following article title; Serious Organised Crime - Financial Scam By The British American Security Expert into Google MSN Bing, Yahoo, Ask or AOL and look at how many times the same article features on the first 3 pages of each search engine page.

As a matter of interest, when I just checked it out for myself, the same article actually placed in the 1st 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12, 13th,14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, & 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 28th, 29th & 30th, place on page 1 to 3.

I think any SEO specialist would consider this as true SEO page domination. It is worth mentioning that very, very few SEO marketing companies can achieve true SEO page domination despite the fact that most will tell you they can.

It's a highly specialized marketing skill. Now if one places themselves in the mind-set of a prospective customer looking to buy products or services from the British American Security Expert for example, then he or she can only be seriously impressed at this SEO page domination.

It is worth mentioning that I am only advocating an ethical and legitimate method of dominating the organic rankings by virtue of specialized article writing and submission designed to appear multiple times on the Google results page.

Some SEO companies try to circumvent the search engine rankings by implementing unethical processes known in the SEO business as Black Hat techniques. Attempting to implement any Black Hat techniques will result all of the main search engines black listing your business.

It is exceptionally difficult to get your online business back on track once the search engines have black listed you.

Dr Mark D. Yates The International Business Guru & Growth Consultant grows businesses fast delivering exponential growth, increased turnover & profit margins. He delivers business support to small, medium & large businesses in 42 countries. To claim his FREE business case files e-mail him at drmarkdyates@aol.com.

20 Ideas for Creating Traffic Rich, Search Engine Friendly Pages

2009-10-30T19:57:00.003-07:00

Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information pages or doorway pages. People have heard that "doorway pages" are BAD and some have stated that search engines "hate doorway pages".
For clarification on these type of issues, let's start by explaining some simple ground rules looking beyond the jargon and terminology.
Do Search Engines Hate Doorway/Gateway Pages?
To answer this we'll examine it in two steps.
Let's understand:
1. What it is that the Search Engines "HATE"?
and then...
2. What type of pages the search engines "LOVE"?
With this approach it will help us gain some understanding of the criteria that is most important.
1. What the Search Engines HATE:
a) To put it simply, search engines despise low quality doorway pages that contain little or no useful content. A few years ago these type of low quality doorway pages were rampantly produced as a means to try and trick the search engines. Looking at it from the search engines point of view, why even publish a page if all it contains is a couple of lines of text and an "enter the store" link. Pages with VERY LITTLE VALUE to the reader, do not belong in a search engine's index.
b) Search engines also despise any kind of duplication or use of mirror pages. Again, little or no content (often just garbled text or keyword rich paragraphs that have no real value) were reproduced over and over and cluttered up the search engines. These pages were supposedly going to bring great traffic but the bottom line is that they were and still are all labeled by engines as Spam.
c) Search engines hate any attempt made by Webmasters to manipulate pages optimized with content unrelated to the actual Web site. Some Webmasters were guilty of all types of trickery to try and attract clicks regardless of the site content.
Understanding these issues, clearly you could NEVER blame the search engines for their war on Spam and low value doorway pages which contained no useful content or information.
Next let's talk about
2. What pages the Search Engines LOVE:
a) Search engines love pages that far "information rich" and contain useful, original content that will actually make valued reading to the online visitors.
b) Instead of doorway pages (or pages with no value or little useful content), the term "information rich" can be used to describe a page loaded with useful, quality information. Search engines love pages that are content rich and able to stand on it's own merit. A quality information page is also part of the overall Web site allowing visitors to obtain more relevant and useful information having easy navigation through the Web site.
Instead of lightweight pages with no content, today's pages need to contains high quality information, which is relevant to the online audience. The information rich page is 100% quality, put together with research, relevance, thought and care. No tricks are ever needed.
Next Question is..... What kind of information goes into creating an information rich high performance page?
Invariably this question often comes up when I am teaching one of our live hands-on workshops. People need to understand that this is wide open to all the discoveries you make while researching your target audiences behavior. How you can meet the audience's needs exactly, is only limited to "your imagination" and the most effective way to present the information you know they are looking for, back too them. You want to give them what they "really want" as opposed to what you "think" they want and do this right up front.
The focus is on creating genuinely "useful content" for your ideal target audience of "potential customers" who happen to be already out there searching for you.
Not only is this what your visitors want, it's also the key to success for search engine acceptance. You will never run in to trouble with search engines by offering lots of original, quality content that is interesting, useful and of high value, to your online readers.
In brief, key to success for attracting your target audience, is doing quality research on your target audiences searching behavior and learning to identify their needs and what they are searching for and then, giving them what it is that they really want.
Okay, so what kind of information might a information rich page really contain? That will depend on what "your research" reveals of course, but here are about 20 rough ideas just to get you started thinking in this fashion.
20 Ideas for High Performance Information Rich pages:
Your high performance, information rich pages might be any of the following (but not limited just to these either):
1. A Questions and Answers information rich FAQ page.
2. An introductory story related to the appropriate Web site theme (something that is compelling or educational on topic).
3. Interesting and original statistics which you have discovered through your research, are in high demand by your audience.
4. An interesting interview with someone (make it exclusive and original). People love to read about other peoples experiences and or opinions and views.
5. It might be a page loaded with various product reviews with an emphasis on benefits of each in comparrison.
6. It could be a theme related feature article or story.
7. It could be a detailed tutorial loaded with valuable "How to" or "instructional" advice.
8. Your information page might even be a biography about someone's life that people are looking for detail on. Of course it should relate to the topical interest of your site's theme.
Recent eg. At the recent, sad passing of legendary screen icon Marlon Brando, just do a search for his bio and see all of the movie or film related sites that are no doubt getting additional exposure from Marlon's fans who are looking to buy up some of his old classic films.
9. Your pages might something with a current events or newsworthy or hard news angle. Your audience is probably looking for interesting news if you take time to study what they are searching for.
10. Your information rich pages might want to contain detailed historical information that your audience is seeking.
11. There may be room for the use of information pages that use some humor or emotional content that is still of good value.
12. Would there be value to having a questionnaire which asks your audience a series of important questions. Remember that like real life, most Web based businesses are about building rapport and relationships.
13. You could build an index to a whole library of similarly themed topics and all though your articles would all be similar in theme, each individual information rich page would contain useful and diverse subject matter. Remember high value to your readers but all original (and no duplication in content).
14. What about an information rich page offering an entryway into a useful, interactive section like a message board perhaps detailing terms of use for the message board.
15. It might be a page containing an interesting advice column on your chosen theme. Just old fashioned "good reading" which offers your readers advice or solutions to their challenges.
16. Your information page might be a reference page loaded with interesting, inspirational or famous quotes quite popular with all types of personalities.
17. Your pages might contain a related territorial map (yes images can be used most effectively with text)
18. It might be a sales letter but remember the emphasis is on quality content and originality. Things like detailed product reviews or content that emphasized some value added layout.
19. It could be a community related page with important localized community information. Tremendous value for Web sites that are looking for region specific traffic.
20. It could be any of the above suggestions with a seasonal angle relating to Christmas, Halloween, Easter, or something else appropriate to the Web content within your main theme.
One of the best ways to come come up with original ideas is to think laterally about "your audiences needs" in comparison to how they are searching on the major search engines. For more insight on how to research your audience's realtime behaviours you may want to visit http://www.wordtracker-magic.com
Best Regards,

Choose Your References Wisely!

2009-10-30T19:57:00.001-07:00

So, you need to submit employment references. A simple task, right? Sure, you could contact three of your closest friends and ask them to be your references. They may be able to testify to your character, but do they know how well you would perform on the job? Probably not. Let's explore the types of references you must seek, the number of people you should include, and to whom references should be submitted.
Whom To Select
When selecting references, it is always a good idea to find those people who know how well you work. Supervisors you reported to directly or co-workers are some of the best choices. However, some companies frown on supervisors from being a reference and, instead, require that they list the Human Resources department as the contact point. Legal issues play into that decision.
Co-workers can be a good choice, especially if they held a position of authority even if they weren't over you. The company's receptionist may know you best, but oftentimes it is the title [position] of the person that pulls the greater weight.
How Many References?
A minimum of three references should be garnered. Four or five if each one is solid. You need to inform the person you select that they are a reference in advance. Of course, that means you need to get their permission first. Do not put someone on the spot -- kindly ask if they would be a reference; if they decline don't take it personally. There could be any number of reasons why someone won't be your reference; speculating will only cause you to formulate a reason which could be entirely false.
Furnishing References
Never, ever list references on your r้sum้. Simply end your r้sum้ with References furnished upon request. Prepare a separate sheet of paper and list the same contact information you have on the top of your r้sum้ including your name, address, phone contacts and email address. After that, create a heading titled References and list each person's name and title, company, and phone number. Use an address if available and include an email address if available. You can double space it, number it, or use bullets. There is no "magic" to it, simply be as careful with your Reference page as you are with your r้sum้: check for typos, grammatical errors, etc.
Today, many contacts are done through other means [e.g., email], but most of the time companies will want to contact the reference for more information directly. Make sure that all your contact information is accurate.
One Final Point
Do not automatically send references unless they are requested. If a company only wants your r้sum้ send only your r้sum้. Guard your references very closely and only give them out to those who request it.
Matt is the manager of the Corporate Flight Attendant Community, a comprehensive resource center for business flight attendants; http://www.corporateflyer.net; http://www.cabinmanagers.com

Employment References - 5 Tips to Help You

2009-10-30T01:29:00.005-07:00

Excellent Resume References are a very important part of your job search. Most often you will need to be able to provide three strong references to an employer when applying for a job. Choose carefully who you use!

Tip #1: Keep It Professional

All your references should be professional references. The Employment References you choose will provide a prospective employer with an "image" of you. What type of image will they portray? Do not use a friend or family member for a reference. The employer wants to know about your work ethic and skill set from someone who is an unbiased source. The best person to provide that information is your previous or current supervisor, not someone that you see recreationally. In addition, a friend or family member may give out more information than you want an employer to have access to!

Tip #2:Who to use as an Employment Reference

Pick your references carefully; how they respond to the employer's inquiries about you may be the very thing that sets you apart in a positive or negative way from the other candidates they are considering. When choosing Employment References, your first picks should be the last 2 supervisors that you worked for. They are in the best position to give an accurate account of your work habits, skills and accomplishments, and they are most believable to a prospective employer. List these as the first and third references on your Resume Reference Page.

Here are some additional ideas for reference sources: A Shift Leader or other Professional where you work, your Employer's Human Resource Department, a Professor or Teacher that can verify your work ethic, an Organizational Leader whose group you are a member of, a Pastor or Clergy Member, a Leader of a Sports Team you participate in, a Professional from an Internship Position you held, and Former Customers, Vendors, or Business Acquaintances.

Tip #3: Obtain Permission

Always obtain permission from each person before using them as a reference and give them a copy of your resume to keep your skills and accomplishments fresh in their memory. I have to tell you a funny story that happened to me. My name is well known as a Job Search professional in the local community where I live. I run regular Job Clubs where I assist individuals in finding employment and have been doing this for over twelve years now. When a person starts this Job Club, I always ask for a copy of their resume and references. Many times I can suggest some minor (or major) changes to a resume that will result in the Job Club Member getting interviews where they were not before. Anyway, I was collecting the resumes of my new Job Club members one day, and later sat down to review those resumes and make suggestions where needed. One of my members whose name I faintly remember from giving her a job lead 6 or 7 years ago, had brought in a beautiful resume and I was glad to see that she had taken the time to get the resume professionally done and printed on resume quality paper. She had even included a copy of her Resume Reference page with the resume. How surprised was I to see my own name, professional title, business address, and business phone number listed at the very top of her Reference page! I had not seen or heard from her for 6 or 7 years. Apparently, I had made a great impression on her, because she wanted to use me as a reference! If an employer had contacted me regarding her, I would not have been prepared to discuss her abilities, much less remembered who she was!

Tip #4: Prepare Your Employment References

Once you have decided who you prefer to use as your references, you should contact those individuals. Make sure that you give them a copy of your most current resume and explain the type of position you are looking for. It is a good idea to review the major skill sets that a prospective employer will be looking for and point out for your reference how you meet those requirements. (Make it easy for them!) Another benefit to doing this is that it gives you a chance to network... those references in the business community may have some great job leads that you can reap the benefit from!

Tip #5: Use A Professional Looking Resume Reference Page

Your resume and references are your marketing tool with employers, so make sure you include all your reference information on a professionally done Reference Page to attach to your Resume! Help yourself to a Free Resume Reference Template on my website to make your job search easier!

Happy Job Search!

Marcy Travis is a Job Search Professional who provides Advice, Inspiration, and Direction for your job search. Check out her website JobSearchCafe.com for more helpful tips!

Good Web Design: Create A Custom 404 Error Page

2009-10-30T01:29:00.003-07:00

As you know if you've spent any time at all surfing the web, sometimes you will see the dreaded 404 error condition. This often occurs because you've entered an incorrect link (perhaps added a ".html" instead of ".htm" at the end of the file) or perhaps because a site has been updated recently and some links were broken.

Virtually all web sites (especially free sites) have some generic 404 error page displayed when this occurs. This error pages is either (a) completely unhelpful to a visitor or more likely (b) is very useful advertising for a web host but completely useless for helping your users navigate your site.

One excellent reason for choosing a paid host over a free host is that you can generally modify the .htaccess file to provide a custom 404 error page. (This is an important feature to demand from a paid host - if they don't let you use this feature, find another host. This is also an excellent reason to choose a host which runs the Apache server software over other brands. For example, Microsoft's Internet Information Server, IIS for short, does not allow for this capability).

So let's say you create a 404 error page. What do you do with it? It's simple - you help your visitors get back to looking around your site.

Tell them what happened - An error occurred, specifically a page was requested and not found.

Make sure they understand they are still on your site - Sometimes this is not clear, so be sure you include your logo and other identifications. In fact, the standard 404 error code often means you will lose that visitor forever because he will immediately assume the site is abandoned.

Give them some reasons why the error occurred - Most people do not know what "404 error" means. Be sure and give your visitors some tips as to what might have gone wrong. Perhaps they misspelled the URL or a link was bad?

Help them get back to surfing your site - Give them plenty of ways to navigate back into your site. Ideally, include your standard navigation menu and perhaps even a search option.

Inject a little humor - A joke or funny picture can help lighten up the mood. Remember, you are presenting an error - you want to get them to smile so they perhaps continue surfing.

Be sure your page is over 1,024 bytes in size - Some browsers will not display error pages that are smaller than this.

The most important thing to remember is that an error message is stressful to your visitors. These immediately give the impression that your site is poorly maintained or perhaps even has been abandoned. You only have a few seconds after the error occurs to get people back to surfing your site, so you had better use that time wisely.

Another useful thing that you can do is call a special CGI routine at the time the error occurs. How do you do this? Instead of modifying the .htaccess file to reference an HTML document, make it reference a CGI routine directly (perhaps with the error code as a parameter). This routine can send an email to you (and perhaps even page you) when an error occurs. This allows you to quickly handle any errors on your web site.

Don't get too stressed out about 404 errors. Remember that no matter how well you keep up your site they will occur occasionally. Even if every single link inside your site is perfect, other people will type or code the incorrect URLs, thus causing errors. Some search engines have bugs and reference pages incorrectly and sometimes the web server itself returns bogus errors. The best script that I have found to perform this function is Error Robot, available at http://www.newmediaone.com/scripts/

Personally, I prefer using a CGI routine to send an email whenever a 404 error occurs instead of asking the visitor to send an email. This removes the burden for quality assurance from visitors and places it upon me, where it belongs.

What can you do to prevent or correct 404 errors?

- Check the links within your site on a regular basis. Correct any references that are broken.

- If an external link, say from an article, is incorrect, you can create a redirect page to move the visitor from the incorrect reference to the correct reference. This is generally a lot easier than attempting to get the author to correct the reference.

- Check each and every 404 error that occurs and take steps to correct them.

Additional Resources

http://www.internet-tips.net/Surfing/404errors.htm The Dreaded 404 error This article tells you the meaning of the dreaded 404 error

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/htaccess_errors.htm Htaccess file - Custom error pages You can use htaccess to define custom error pages to trap 404 and other error conditions.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/maintlinkrot.htm Check your links regularly to prevent link rot Check your links regularly to prevent link rot.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge. Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net Weekly newsletter: http://www.internet-tips.net/joinlist.htm Daily Tips: mailto:internet-tips@GetResponse.com

Google Page Rank Secrets Revealed

2009-10-30T01:29:00.001-07:00

Google has established a popularity contest for websites. They have devised a grading system that examines all of the websites on the internet and crunches their existence down to a single number between 0 and 10. While the actual formula that Google uses to establish Page Rank(PR) is a closely guarded secret, there are several factors considered common knowledge that can increase the chances of getting a better PR. Among these factors are the ratio between incoming links and outbound links, the rank of the referring page of inbound links, the frequency with which you update your website, and the amount of actual traffic that visits your website.

The ratio of inbound links to outbound links on your website is an important factor to consider when you are trying to increase your PR within Google's Ranking system. Every day little Google-bots scour the internet and gather facts about all the websites on the internet. These facts are compiled into one large repository that we all know as the Google Search Engine. Once every few months, the Google brain trust crunches the numbers gathered from all those websites and establishes the Page Ranks based on the information gathered. Not only is the ratio of inbound to outbound links counted, but also the PR of the referring website is taken into account as well.

Page Rank can also be referred to as reputation. Websites with a greater reputation or PR give a greater benefit to the websites they refer. However it is tied closely to the ratio of inbound links to outbound links. Consider this example. A website ranked PR10 refers 1 website and a website ranked PR0 refers another website. The website referred by the PR10 website enjoys a greater PR than the site referred by the PR0 site simply by receiving a referral from a PR10 website. Now taking that same example one step further, if the PR10 website decides it likes 9 other websites as well and as a result refers a total of 10 websites the value of that PR10 website goes down. Now the value of the PR10 website is diluted by the number of outbound links. The PR10 divided by 10 links now carries the same weight as a PR1 website referring 1 other website. The PR of the 10 referred websites is still better than the PR0 website. The margin of benefit received by the first website referred by the PR10 website has been greatly reduced.

One of the most important factors that influence the Page Rank is a well-kept website. A website that is constantly updated and fresh receives higher marks than those that do not change. Websites that are kept up to date will get full benefit from the factors that establish the website's PR. The greater the time frame since the last update, the less benefit that website receives from the other factors establishing that site's Page Rank.

Another factor that helps boost a website's PR is the amount of actual traffic that goes to a website. More traffic tells Google that more people value the content of that website. Google will naturally give a higher PR to sites that hold more value for the internet consumer. Conversely, websites with little or no traffic do not hold any intrinsic value for the internet consumer, therefore the PR for those websites is very low.

While the actual method of determining the value of a website with Google's Page Rank system is a closely guarded secret, there are factors that are widely known to affect the Page Rank for a website. These factors include the ratio of inbound to outbound links, the Page Rank of the referring website, the frequency with which the website is updated, and the amount of traffic that actual visits the website. All of these factors are combined to establish a single number between 0 and 10 that sums up the popularity of each website on the world wide web.

Neil Rissler
http://www.100kNameList.com
Rocket Your Website to the Number 1 spot in all the search engines. Drive More Sales and Make Huge Profits.

Low-tech "Killer App" for Musicians Beats Computers

2009-10-29T19:26:00.005-07:00

Page 1 of 3

For Immediate Release

Contact Information:

Wayne Chase

Roedy Black Publishing Inc.

Tel 604-228-8444 (Office)

Tel 604-228-0592 (Home)

Fax 604-228-8424

http://www.completechords.com

wchase@completechords.com

-----

Low-tech "Killer App" for Musicians Beats

Computers

-----

Every so often, a simple, humble invention comes along that knocks the mighty computer off its pedestal.

Wayne Chase and his team at CompleteChords.com have come up with just such a low-tech brainchild for players and students of guitar and piano.

"It's the world's only wall poster that displays the fingering positions of every chord in every key," says Chase, 52, a music and language theorist and inventor with five patents under his belt.

"Actually, we have two of them, one for guitar and one for piano."

Chase and two colleagues, graphic artist Tom Quine and watercolor artist Bettina Lewis, spent more than two years developing the colorful laminated posters, which retail for $16 each.

Both charts are 38 inches wide and 27 inches high. Each contains more than 70,000 graphical and typographical elements.

The charts show each chord in picture form as well as spelling out the musical notes that make up each chord. As Chase points out, "You don't even have to know how to read music to play any chord, even extended jazz chords."

"Compared with computer software and web sites, each of these charts is a killer app," Chase claims. "They have several major advantages over computerized or web-based chord dictionaries. Or even printed chord dictionaries, for that

matter," he says.

"First, with one of our charts on your wall, you never again have to bother scrolling through computer screens or go flipping through chord dictionaries to find out how to finger a chord.

"Second, you don't have to interrupt your musical train of thought just to look up a chord. That's because you don't have to take your hands off your guitar or keyboard. You can keep right on playing with both hands as you learn and

experiment with new chords."

"Third," he says, "these charts provide the only possible way to see each chord in context with all other chords. When you look up a chord on a computer or in a book, you don't get any perspective. All you can see is one screen or one

page of information at a time.

"With our charts, on the other hand, you can see the whole forest as well as the individual trees, the individual chord diagrams. That means you can see at a glance exactly where every chord comes from. You can see how those extended, jazzy

chords โevolve' from simple three-note chords. So you can quickly get a grasp of the big picture and a solid understanding of chord structure.

"We've organized each chart so that the easiest chords are on the left side. These are the simple major and minor chords. In the middle of the chart are the intermediate-level chords such as sevenths, suspended, and diminished chords. And on the right side are the extended jazz chords such as ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. This arrangement makes it easy for the player to progress at his or her own speed."

The two charts, called the Complete Guitar Chord Poster and the Complete Keyboard Chord Poster, are distributed by Roedy Black Publishing of Blaine, Washington and Vancouver, Canada.

Biography

After earning a degree in English literature and psychology at the University of Alberta, Wayne Chase, 52, spent several years as a technical researcher in Edmonton, then began his career in music as a recording engineer in Vancouver.

He went on to produce records and live music, and also taught record production and recording arts.

He is the author of several music reference books, and the designer and author of Roedy Black Publishing's best-selling music reference charts.

As well, Chase is an expert on the identification, measurement, and analysis of emotional meaning in language. He holds five patents in the field of language reference technology.

--------

Questions that May Be of Interest to Your Audience

1) What motivated you to create these posters in the first place?

2) Do these charts actually display every single chord in every key? Aren't there thousands and thousands of chords?

3) Would these charts be useful for someone just starting out on guitar or keyboard? Or are they mainly for more advanced players?

4) Do these charts show how to play scales, or are they strictly chord charts?

5) Each of the charts has a rainbow-like color scheme,with a dozen different-colored horizontal bars. Is this design purely for visual appeal, or is there a functional aspect to it?

6) On the left side of each poster are sections labeled "Principal Chords" and "Relative Minor", with Roman numerals next to certain chord types. What's this about?

7) The posters are laminated. How come? Why not just leave them as plain paper posters?

8) When you buy one of these chord charts, do you get some sort of user guide with it?

9) What are the drawbacks or disadvantages of using your chord posters, compared with computer software, the Internet, or chord dictionaries?

10) Do you plan to create similar comprehensive chord charts for other instruments such as the banjo or mandolin?

11) Apart from the chord posters, have you created any other music reference materials for musicians?

Movie Outline 2.0 is here!

2009-10-29T19:26:00.003-07:00

August 9, 2004 -- Just when you thought it couldn't get better.. it did!

NEW IN VERSION 2.0:

PowerView - Customizable Color-Coded View to Plan Your 3 Act Structure

PowerTracker - Keep Track of Characters, Plot Devices & Keywords

HTML Export - Color-Coded Web Page Creation & Integrated Viewer

Story Tasks - Helpful Notes & Ideas Management System

Plus New right-click Contextual Style Menu and Word & Character Count!

POWERVIEW

PowerView enables you to view your story structure in a customizable color-coded visual manner alongside your selected Reference Outline.

Your structure is divided into five main sections: Prologue, Act I, Act II, Act III and Denouement, and within Act II there are two Turning Points and the story's Mid-Point. Each stage has its own popup window explaining what it represents and what should be happening in your story at that point.

You can customize the colors for each stage and adjust the scene start points to reflect the structure of your own story, however the Reference Plugin structure is independent of your own in order to help you visually gauge the progress of your story in comparison to your selected movie outline.

With a single click you can expand and collapse the entire outline or individual scenes to reveal or hide scene information, adjust the displayed font, text size and window size to suit your needs and all your settings will automatically be saved for the next time you launch Movie Outline and PowerView.

POWERTRACKER

PowerTracker enables you to keep track of a character, story development, plot device, keyword or phrase through your entire outline in a practical, visual manner.

Simply enter the character name or word you wish to track, such as "John" or "gun", in the PowerTracker window, or select a word in the main outline screen and choose PowerTracker from the new right-click Contextual Menu, and you will instantly see a small blue arrow icon appear beside the title of every scene that includes this text, and the line that contains the tracked word will be highlighted in red.

You can also independently track words in your currently loaded Reference Outline and both user and reference words will be stored in memory each time you access PowerView.

HTML EXPORT & INTEGRATED VIEWER

As well as being able to print and export your outlines to plain text files, rich text files and PDF documents, Movie Outline 2.0 now enables you to export your outline with the current PowerView structure colors to an HTML web page and then view it via an integrated HTML Viewer.

You can choose to display a Color Key at the top of your web page and export either a full outline of Titles and Scenes or just a list of Titles. With HTML Export you now have the option of sharing your color-coded outline on the web or with colleagues!

STORY TASKS

When writing a story, there are always bound to be ideas popping up along the way about characters and plot points, such as: I must remember to make Jessica find the gun in scene 12 or John should meet Mary before he gets mugged but after his date with Abby. You can't control when inspiration strikes and that's exactly where Story Tasks come in!

To help you keep track of all those complex character arcs, plot devices and story objectives, Movie Outline 2.0 now enables you to keep a task list specific to each outline you create. You can check, uncheck or delete completed tasks and print a full list of task Titles and Notes or just a list of Titles.

Other Key Features:

* Simple, user-friendly interface

* Movie Reference Plugins for Simultaneous Comparison - 6 Genres Included:

-Die Hard

-Good Will Hunting

-Scream

-There's Something About Mary

-True Romance

-When Harry Met Sally

* Easy Scene Reordering & Organization

* PDF / RTF / TXT Export

* Styled Text & Printing

* Notes Field

* Unlimited Undo / Redo

* Find & Replace

* Spell Check (130,000 word database)

* Tip of the Day - Practical Screenwriting Advice

System Requirements:

* Microsoft Windowsยฎ 98/Me/NT/2000/XP operating system.

* 25 MB of free hard disk space.

* 200 MHz CPU or higher.

* Intel Pentium/Celeron Compatible Processor.

* 64 MB of RAM.

* VGA or higher monitor resolution.

* Internet Connection for Download and Product Activation.

Availability:

Movie Outline 2.0 is available now and may be downloaded through our

Website at http://www.movieoutline.com/.

Contact Information:

Michael Trent: sales@movieoutline.com

Software Support: support@movieoutline.com

World Wide Web: http://www.movieoutline.com/

Getting Organized: Organizing for Today, Tomorrow, and the Next Day

2009-10-29T19:26:00.001-07:00

Getting organized is hard. If it weren't, we wouldn't put it off until it got even harder. There are hundreds of books out there on how to get organized; they have ideas on how to work in your garage, in your living room, in your mind, in your job. They offer every sort of idea for every sort of situation... but you know what happens to most of those books? They end up in the middle of some pile on our disorganized tables and desks.

What we need is some simple, applicable ideas and systems that we can start applying today. Here are my suggestions that I've come up with after working with all different sorts of clients and situations.

First of all, get an 'information assistant' (IA) that you can carry with you throughout your day. A paper-based daily planner, a personal digital assistant (PDA) like a Palm Pilot, or even a simple notebook where you keep everything written down (those are harder to keep organized, but don't think you need to spend a bunch of money on this tool).

Once you have that IA, use it. Have it be your calendar, your address book, your notebook, your reference page, your task list. Use it every day, and keep it up to date. I now always recommend a digital solution (like a Palm) if you already have a computer as these are much easier to keep updated, and are generally easier to carry around. I love that I can carry mine in the breast pocket of my sports coat. I used to have a paper planner, but I'd never take it with me in the evenings. Kind of hard to 'hit the town' with a notebook under your arm. More importantly, more and more of our lives are connected to the internet, and this flood of information will only grow. In addition, the data on a PDA can be backed up almost instantly, so if you lose it, there's no loss of information.

It takes a bit of time to get used to these tools, and of course you run into problems setting them up. It's a bit like a computerโฆ Once there's one on your desk, it's all set up and you know how to use it, you get a lot doneโฆ but it took a while to get used to it. Plan on learning how to use your PDA so you're not fumbling around with it.

Now that your information is organized, let's look at the other important aspects of getting organized. Look around your office or home: what disorganized stuff is bugging you? If there's one particular room, or corner, or drawer that really bothers you, tackle that now. Try to deal with this one space until it's cleared, but if you can't finish in one or two hours, don't worry, just come back to it again, until you've got that biggest 'monkey' off your back. Once you feel the lightness from that, you will be more ready to tackle the next one.

How do you tackle that spot? By applying two main rules to each and every piece of paper or stuff: (1) If it takes less than two minutes to deal with (to file it, to act on it, or to trash it), do it now. If it takes longer than two minutes to deal with, "contain" that project (meaning file/box it), and put it on your calendar to deal with it in the next week. (2) If you haven't used it in over a year, toss it.

An example of this might be a crafts table, piled high with craft ideas, old mail, maybe a couple of shoe boxes of photos. (Sounds sort of familiar to many of us, doesn't it?) Well, for example, take those photos, put them in a container that they just fit in, and put on your task list/calendar a time when you will get to that project. Now, you'll probably not find the 7 hours you'll need to put those photos in order all in one block, so plan on spreading that project out over time. Keep going through that pile using these two 'golden rules' of organizing.

The first step for 'tomorrow', Day 2: Managing time.

A great way to figure out 'where the time goes' is to spend a day tracking where you spend your time. You'll be surprised at how much of that day is spent on things you didn't expect. Your work can be full of interruptions, distractions, problems, moments of relaxation, etc. Try to keep track of what you're doing for one whole day, in 15 minute increments. Do you really intend to spend 3 hours a day responding to email and/or surfing the web?

Set up systems that allow you to focus on your priorities when you want to. Do things such as:

Set your email program to only check for email 3 times a day, not every minute. That way you won't be tempted/bothered when that latest email 'dings' into your inbox.

Don't answer the phone. Let the machine get it, and return calls all at once, on your schedule, when you're ready. Plan an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon.

Be smart about messages and emails you do send. Don't just call back and say, "yes, let's talk about that".. Say, "Yes, let's talk. I'd like to follow up on point A before we talk, and if you could handle point B and just CC me on the email, that'd be great. Call me back at either 4pm Tuesday or 11am Wed." In other words, move the conversation along, and give others options to choose from that work for you.

Step Two for Day Two: Setting priorities and scheduling review

We've all heard about setting goals and breaking them down into manageable, achievable chunks... Now it's time to prioritize those chunks and get them on the calendar. Then add a weekly review onto that calendar so you can look back at what you did in the last week, and what you'll do in the next week to meet those goals.

The big issue disorganized folks have is that they work really hard to get organized, then in a couple of days or weeks, it's all back to normal, and those great goals and lists are buried. A solution might be to share your weekly priorities with a friend or colleague who will hold you accountableโฆ And you do the same for them. (You could make a bet that if one of you doesn't get through your list, you have to buy dinner that week.)

Setting priorities and sticking to them is really hard for all of us. This is why organizational tools that spread your 'core' values into your everyday consciousness are such good organizational tools. Steven Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', the Franklin Planner's goals and values process, and it's why I suggest looking at your long term goals at least once a week during your weekly review. You need that reminder on a regular basis.

And the next day: Future steps.

As your systems start to fall into place, and you start to feel the benefits of getting organized, build on that momentum and start looking at what your overall life goals are, and what influences you. When you start working smarter and more effectively, you have to ask yourself what you're going to do with the extra time? Are you going to work more to accomplish more? Or do you want to take that time to do something else? You certainly haven't become more organized just so you can do more sitting in front of the TV have you?

Where do we look for models of how we want to live once we get the clutter out of our way? The following three cultural influences can be excellent guides for helping us focus our goals.

Zen and martial arts

As you gain mastery over your time and your 'stuff', look to become a master of whatever you do. The cultural precepts of most Asian martial arts, from Tai Chi to Kung fu closely follow precepts of Zen philosophy. As I attempt to understand what they're about, I read it as 'practice what you do until you can do it effortlessly, automatically. Do it in a reverent, loving way. Once you have mastered that action, move on to the next level, and focus again, on the present action.' Once you see the connection between your focus, clarity and the need for a clutter free, prepared environment, you will not want to move back to the old ways of distraction and stress again.

American 'Can Do' digital age

There's always a better way to do things, and American culture is always trying to invent it. There's much in the American way that can distract you from your new-found organization, like consumerism and greedโฆ But you can also use this influence to always be looking at how to bring more efficiency to all your projects. Is there a paperless way to do what you have in mind? Do you need to carry all that computer equipment? Can we do a 'virtual meeting' instead? Adaptation and absorption is the norm in American societyโฆ Use this opportunity to do more in less time.

La Dolce Vita

The Mediterranean culture has long had a handle on 'the sweet life'. From Morocco to Jordan they have always prized time with family, time for art, music, food, for life. Italians are aghast when they learn Americans only get two weeks of vacation... Turks struggle to understand how American male friends don't spend time together discussing politics, art, and relationshipsโฆ A two hour lunch with your family on a workday is not an indulgence, it's expected. Let the Mediterranean culture influence your new found time. Focus on life, and living, not simply working more.

The goal of looking at these different important influences as you look to get your life organized is to create a *lifestyle*, a way of living that allows you to focus on what's important, to do more, grow more, and to live better. Get started today.

Tys Sniffen, Founder of Idea Mountain, has helped hundreds of individuals and small businesses deal with what's slowing them down. Working nationally, he consults both in person and โvirtually' with clients to help them be more organized, work better, and get more out of life. Please visit www.ideamountain.com for more information, or call 415-606-7746

Tys Sniffen, Founder of Idea Mountain, has helped hundreds of individuals and small businesses deal with what's slowing them down. Working nationally, he consults both in person and โvirtually' with clients to help them be more organized, work better, and get more out of life. Please visit http://www.ideamountain.com for more information, or call 415-606-7746

Why Do You Need To Use Landing Pages?

2009-08-13T20:06:00.006-07:00

All the products that you want to sell online are prepared you have already signed up with the Google Ad sense curriculum. Your intelligence is now set to being the next most flourishing online entrepreneur. But is there something besides this that you might have elapsed to arrange? How about your landing pages? Are they all set for your commerce?

Landing pages are basically web pages where the visitors will be directed
to whenever they connect a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your prospective client to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate website. Homepage of their website is used by some online business men as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen wrong in their selection? Should you have a separate landing page for your affiliate programs?

If you want to accomplish something more from your online commerce, and also earn a lot of profits, you better create a landing page for your web ads, because it will help you to earn more. The reasons being:

The only way you earn conversion in an associate marketing plan.

There are a range of associate marketing programs nowadays, but most of these programs let the merchant pay them in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up and submit your ad. The curriculum proprietor would then dispense your ad to a range of affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites.

Now, days surely you would not get any alteration if you have posted an ad on your affiliate's site without an actual landing page for the prospective client to come in. Your ad may be tantalizing enough to hearten people to procure a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product so through land page only you can earn money and increase your prospective clients

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Countless community makes the error of making their website's homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a "contact us". Homepages are regularly planned to serve manifold user and contains a lot of associations to other pages or to other websites. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we're sure that you don't want your landing page to cater with others needs.

When you are choosing a landing page, you must always have the client aimed to get into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be appropriate to the keywords and the stuffing you placed on your ad. It is also imperative that the landing page can provoke your caller to take action.

Final Word
So to finally end up I would like to suggest before entering into affiliate marketing program you must have a land page.

Hereâs Why you Need to Use Landing Pages

2009-08-13T20:06:00.005-07:00

Here's Why You Need To Use Landing Pages

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate's site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe none. But how about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate's website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would do you a lot better if you create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions—that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won't get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate's site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It's just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website's homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a "contact us" page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we're sure that you don't want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action—that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you'll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don't have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don't get us wrong; it isn't enough for you to have just a landing page—it should be a great landing page!

Want to find the best money making programs on the internet? Click on the following Link to find out more!

http://www.thewealthypages.com/wealthyaffiliate.php?key=Y2lkPW1ha2luZzEwMjEmd2E9MEhsckljTjImcj0yMzc5Nw==

Choosing Page Names for your Web Site

2009-08-13T20:06:00.003-07:00

In this article I would like to comment how to choose web site page names to achieve best possible visitor's experience and search engine ranking.

Firstly one needs to understand the difference between static and dynamic URLs.

Dynamic Pages

Dynamic website page names are used to send variables to a script file in order to perform a task that usually generates dynamic results. Dynamic URLs always contain question mark that separates file name from sent variables. Example name "do.php?a=1&b=2" would pass variable a=2 and b=2 to "do.php" script file that generates some response.

Such technology is very useful for web designers but it down performs in search engine listings. Search engines prefer static URLs that are less likely to change over time.

Static Pages

To explain static page naming we are going to use two example URLs: "about.htm" and "about.php".

Classic example of a static page name consists of name and extension. Page name extension indicates technology ("htm" says that page uses HTML technology) or a programming language ("php" extension indicates that page was generated using PHP server side scripting) used.

Many consider that pages with extension other than "htm" or "html" are worth more than those with server side scripting language indicators (like PHP, ASP and others).

If you will try to search for "search engine optimization" in Google and look at domain names of first 20 web sites, you will notice that URLs with many extensions are present. This indicates that search engines don't really care about extension as long as the page represents useful information for the visitor.

Friendly URLs

Friendly URLs are static page names with no extension at all. Friendly page names are very useful to the user as they are easy to remember (E.g. help, shop, contact …). Page name extension that refers to scripting language/technology used in the page. Extension-less construction protects page names from becoming obsolete if different web technology is going to be used to generate / present them in the future. Such names can be achieved only using URL rewriting technology.

URL rewriting

Rewrite engine is a special service on the server that modifies URLs before they are processed by scripting language. It is used to convert dynamic page names to static ones:

Dynamic page:

index.php?page=news&item=34

Can be changed to static page:

news/34.html

Or simply

news/34

Rewrite engine is very helpful to maintain static page names for complex database driven websites, where parameters have to be sent to generate results. Dynamic pages are usually not cached by web browsers so by using rewrite technology to generate static pages one increases overall web site performance.

Apache web servers have built in component called "mod_rewrite" which allows setting up rewrite engine by uploading RegExp (Regular Expression) commands to ".htaccess" file. For those who use Windows IIS web servers - Free IconicIsapiRewrite plug-in can be installed to achieve URL rewriting.

Self-taught Php/mysql: a Simple Page Counter Tutorial

2009-08-13T20:06:00.001-07:00

Self-Taught PHP/MYSQL: a simple Page Counter

This article is a short introduction to PHP and MySQL using the example of a simple page counter. I will illustrate creating the database in MySQL, connecting to the database from the PHP script, querying the database for information, displaying the information in a web page, and writing the information back to the database. As always, the fastest way to master the process is to jump right in with the code, look it over and use it. We'll make a MySQL database to store the page names and the number of page views, and use PHP to increment and display the count on a web page. First here is all of the code, and then I'll go over it in detail:

This goes into a file called "pagecounter.php"

You'll no doubt have noticed that the script "includes" another, so without further delay here is the "connect.php" file:

The pagecounter.php script needs a database to operate on. Just briefly, here's how to create it.

Creating the database:

Log in to MySQL at your Unix prompt (which might be #):

# mysql –uYourUserName –pYourPassword

At the MySQL prompt enter these commands:

mysql> create database pages;

mysql> use pages;

mysql> create table counter (pagename varchar(60),hits int, stamp timestamp);

mysql> quit;

Naturally you can create the database and table with utilities or web-based interfaces, but doesn't it seem simpler to just enter three commands?

If you just wanted some code for a simple counter, this is all you need. Put this text into an SHTML web page, or this text into a php web page, copy the above two files into the same directory, and you're done.

The first thing you'll have noticed about the scripts are the dollar signs ($). All variables in PHP scripts start with a $. Anything starting with a $ is a variable. Instructions - statements and functions – end with a semicolon (;). starts the script and it ends with . When your script is hosed, look at these first.

Details about the pagecounter.php script

Line 1

include_once "connect.php";

The first line in the script is just what it appears to be. It includes whatever is in the file "connect.php". The "_once" means that it's only included once, even if you had the line twice in the script. The reason I've separated it out is that it's all the connection stuff to the database. All the php/Mysql scripts will need it, it's always the same, so you can just put it by itself and use the include function.

Line 2

$pagename=$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];

The next line creates a variable called $pagename and sets the value to a special pre-defined variable $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]. The brackets [ ] are used by arrays in php. $_SERVER is a pre-defined array of headers and paths. This particular one is the name of the file that accesses the script, i.e., the name of the page that the counter is in.

Line 3

$result=mysql_query("Select * from counter where pagename='$pagename'");

All the database work is done with mysql_query, which sends an SQL command string to MySQL, after you've already logged in and connected to the database with the connect.php script. "Select * from counter where pagename='$pagename'" replaces $pagename with its value. But there's a quirk here – the single quotes have to be inside the double quotes. If I had it the other way around, with the single quotes outside, the query would be for the text "$pagename" instead of the value. $result is the result set. It can be any name but in tutorial scripts it's always $result, so it is here.

Line 4

if (mysql_num_rows($result)==0){

The fourth line is the php version of "if-then". It simply checks whether there are any results from the query in line 3. The syntax is representative of php coding in general so it's a good place to start. The curly brackets { } are used to group instructions. The curved brackets ( ) are used for the "if" condition. Everything inside the curly brackets will be executed if the "if" condition is true. PHP uses double equals == for comparison; if I had used only a single equal sign it would try to set mysql_num_rows to 0, which wouldn't work for our purposes. A missing equal sign is the second thing to look for when your script is hosed and it's not missing a $ or ;.

Line 5

mysql_query("insert into counter (pagename,hits) values ('$pagename','0')"); }

Inside the brackets, which only happens when line 4 finds no records of the page we searched for, the instruction creates a new record with the page's name and zero for the hit count. Although mysql_query is a function, it doesn't necessarily need a variable $result= in front of it. That's optional in PHP if you don't care about the return value.

The closing curly bracket } from the "if" statement comes here, since we only needed one statement to create our record.

Line 6

$count=mysql_result($result, 0, "hits");

mysql_result fetches the actual data from the result set. You specify the result set (from mysql_query), the row number (0), and the column name ("hits"). This is a little confusing at first since to get here took four steps: 1) log into MySQL, 2) connect to the database, 3) select data from the table, and 4) fetch a particular piece of the data. Putting the repetitive first two steps into an include file where you can more or less forget about them makes it more intuitive: use SQL to select data with mysql_query, and then retrieve data with mysql_result.

Line 7

$count=$count + 1;

Just adds one to the count variable. This is the count of the page views of the page requesting the script.

Line 8

mysql_query ("update counter set hits=$count where pagename='$pagename'");

As with Line 5 we send an SQL command directly to MySQL. This one updates the count for just the page matching the variable $pagename.

Line 9

echo "Page Count: ".$count;

The echo function writes text to a web page, in this case the text "Page Count: " followed by whatever value is in $count. The period in between is the PHP concatenation operator: it simply adds the two strings together. Echo sees it as one string and outputs it.

Details about the connect.php script:

All this script does is connect to the MySQL server and select the Database.

Line 1

$host="localhost";$user="YourUserName";$password="YourPassword";$dbase="pages";

These are the inputs for the connect and select_db functions. Naturally you can insert the values into the functions on line 3 and 4 and eliminate this line, but it's simpler to change later (when you re-use this code for example) if you just list them out at the top. The host and dbase won't need to be changed in this example. The user and password are specific to your MySQL setup. As shown here you can put as many statements on one line as you want; PHP doesn't care.

Line 2

// change the user and password to your MySQL user and password

The double slashes // denote a comment line that is ignored by php. Each comment line needs the slashes.

Line 3

$connect = mysql_connect($host,$user,$password);

You log into your MySQL with the mysql_connect command. You would change the host from "localhost" to the database server if you were accessing MySQL from another server, provided you've set up the access rights for the specified user/

Line 4

mysql_select_db($dbase,$connect);

Since we can have multiple databases in the MySQL server, we have to select one before sending SQL statements to it. As I mentioned earlier, this part is repetitive, and once it's in this file and working you can forget about it.

In this tutorial we've examined a simple but functional web page counter implemented with PHP/MySQL. We examined the basic syntax of PHP statements and variables, the PHP "include" function and "if" control function, and the fundamental PHP MySQL functions mysql_connect, mysql_select_db, mysql_query, mysql_num_rows, and mysql_result. For further reference the reader should bookmark http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/6.0/en/index.html and http://us.php.net/manual/en/funcref.php .

Bill Hamilton is a former Database Administrator for United News and Media, and VNU inc. He currently operates several php/mysql driven websites including Gemstones and Beads

How to Build a Web Page That Sells

2009-07-12T19:06:00.001-07:00

A webpage (or web page), as it's referred to, is one page. A website is made up of webpages.

Sometimes the one page sites are referred to as "mini-sites."

I like to think of them as an advertisement!

The reason I put up one page websites is to sell something.

In order to sell something my site has to satisfy some conditions.

It has to offer a solution to somebodys problem! There are any number of problems when it comes to the human condition, and, if you have a solution to the problem, you can probably sell it online.

So a relevant example would be a site that sells web software and a tuition course for that software. Website making software is one of the biggest sales catagories on the web.

That's precisely because they can be used for so many different things AND be made to reach those people who are interested in that websites offering.

What if you were a piano dealer? When you run an advertisement in the newspaper people who need tires for their car see your ad for pianos. That's a bad match.

But, when you make a website about the history of pianos...the people who type a search query into the Google box like "history of pianos" may discover you almost immediately. That's relevance. These people are NOT looking for tires. Otherwise they would have typed in "tires"!

It's a message to market match! That's what makes websites work.

To make a website page (webpage, page) you need an HTML editor. Basically this is a word processor (sort of). When you type onto the page the word "Hello" the editor software creates the necessary HTML code that computers can read on the web.

I call that the "backside". Like pictures and text on the front and the code for that on the back.

That is what an HTML editor does for you. It lets you arrange the page the way you like it,and, as you are doing that it is compiling the code on what I call the backside.

It makes it pretty darn easy.

You don't want to know everything about this code. You want to be able to write "Click here for more info" on the page and when someone sees it on the webpage and clicks on it the software code takes the clicker right to it, right away.

These wonderful things are called "links".

It may be that they (links) are the most important part of the whole HTML experience because it allows you to effortlessly place your customer in front of a message you want them to see. With just a click.

I'll bet you can imagine what to do with links, and after a few experiments with it you will be a pro.

Open an HTML editor on your computer and ask for a blank document. Type into that document something like this...

"How would you like to see something really cool?"

Leave that sit for a moment and go out on the web and find something really cool. A pretty picture will do.

When you find something you want to practice linking to, go up to the top of your browser window and copy the thing that usually starts with "http://". Copy the whole thing.

Now go back to your HTML editor and find the "link" symbol.

Then, select the words "something really cool" and click the link symbol.

Paste the url you copied into the link box and, maybe, pick "Open in new window" Then, test the link.

You've done it and now you know how to link to anything on the web and that would include affiliate product landing pages and a whole host of other opportunities.

Listen, I know that if you are just getting started, web page building can seem intimidating.

That's just because you aren't familiar with it.

That's why one of the scammier headlines you'll see would read like this "Earn $300 per day and You Don't Need a Website!"

That's just a hook. They know their market target! People who don't know how to deal with HTML editors, that's who!

Don't let that be you! You go, folks. You can do it! It even gets fun in a little while.

Review: 2007 Landing Page Handbook: How to Lift Conversions Up to 55%

2009-07-12T09:21:00.001-07:00

By Karon Thackston

Back in 2004, I read a statement that seemed rather bold. "If you follow the Handbook's data and design guidelines, we estimate your landing page conversions may rise by 40%." Hmm. Really? It sounded like one of those too-good-to-be-true things. The quote was in reference to MarketingSherpa's Landing Page Handbook. Curious, I decided to fork over the money and just see for myself if they were stretching the truth a bit.

You can read my review of the original edition here: http://www.marketingwords.com/articles/articles_review-landingpage.html

The short version? No. After following the ideas, data and design guidelines in the Handbook, the conversion rate on the site I was testing did not rise by 40%. However, it DID rise by 37% and that was close enough for me!

Now, MarketingSherpa has released an updated version of the Landing Page Handbook for 2007 that promises a lift of up to 55% in conversions. I really didn't expect to see much of a change in the content, but - once again - I was pleasantly surprised.

If you've ever bought any of MarketingSherpa's other reports, you know they are sticklers for delivering timely information in a no-fluff format. Unlike others who purposely try to reach a certain number of pages in order to impress readers, MarketingSherpa focuses on quality rather than quantity. Don't get me wrong. The report contains 273 pages of information… and every single page is useful.

New for 2007 are:

-> Page Design & Copy Instructions

-> 54 Stat & Data Charts

-> 114 Samples of Landing Pages to Copy

-> Help for Search, Email, B-to-B, Ecommerce & Lead Generation Conversions

All the rage these days revolves around blogs, and video and audio clips online. How do those affect landing page conversions? You might be surprised! You won't find editorial dribble based on one person's opinion. What you will find is solid, definitive research delivered in an easy-to-understand manner complete with commentary.

What else can you expect? Quick-reference charts that answer:

-> What are the top 5 common mistakes that hinder conversion?

-> Which element has the highest impact on landing page conversion? Design, copy or video?

-> What landing page layout is most effective?

And they'll prove the results with 114 real-life landing page samples, 54 charts and those famous eye-tracking maps that are so very enlightening for seeing firsthand how visitors view your pages.

While the 2004 Handbook was very useful, I must admit I'm truly impressed with the 2007 version. It's presented in a more logical manner that takes you progressively from one step to the next, to the next.

If you're tired of guessing, get serious about raising landing page conversions. As with all MarketingSherpa products, you'll receive an immediate refund if you aren't completely satisfied.

If you're a:

** Website designer
** Copywriter
** Graphic designer
** Marketing professional
** PPC search engine marketer
** or anyone who wants to improve conversions up to 55%

… then you need to buy this book today.

Landing Page Generators Really Can Benefit Your Affiliate Sales!

2009-07-12T00:41:00.001-07:00

If you are an online marketer or a promoter of any kind you probably know the major importance of having a landing page also known as a lead capture page. These pages are what appears when a potential customer clicks on an ad or a search engine result link from a site like Google or Yahoo. This page will normally show content that is a logical extension of the ad or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines such as Google and Yahoo. There are two different variations of landing type pages, they include reference and transactional.

A reference landing page will present information that is relevant to the visitor, these will usually display content such as text, images, links or other elements such as videos. This is used as a "tease" to get the user interested in what you are selling!

A transactional landing page is developed to persuade the visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form with the main goal being; immediate sales.

If you are still really new to something like this, how can you figure out what works and what doesn't, or what steps you should or shouldn't be taking for your landing page? One of the coolest things I found recently was a landing page generator which will not only build the perfect landing page for you but it is almost guaranteed to bring you sales and conversions, which we all know is one of the most important aspects of any website! You can easily create a sales page, promote or sell any product, add valuable content, reviews, articles, link and much more. Plus you can do other cool things to "reel" in potential sales such as adding videos, which allows your site to be unique in both content and quality.

These generators really are an amazing feat when you think about how much time it would take a normal person to research how to make their own landing site, plus you get all kinds of tips and tricks with these generators handed to you that would pretty much be near impossible to find on your own. Even if you chose to try to find these tips, you would have to do some really hefty research, and that takes time, time that you may not be willing to waste! All in all, if you want a landing page that will work for you, rather than you having to work for it, these are an absolute godsend! Of course I have utilized these just yet but visit a few websites and forums and see what people are saying about these. They really are quick to set up, easy to configure, inexpensive to buy, and it results in sales which means profits for you. Just think you could just as well be rolling in the dough even a month from now! Check them out the next time you are looking for something like this!

How to Create a Landing Page For PPC Marketing

2009-07-11T16:21:00.001-07:00

If you are an online marketer you probably recognize the importance of having a landing page aka a lead capture page. These pages are what appears when a prospective customer clicks on an ad or a search engine result link. This page will normally show subject matter that is a logical annex of the ad or link, and that is optimized to possess specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines such as Google and Yahoo. In pay per click (PPC) promotions, the landing page will also be tailored to evaluate the effectuality of various advertisements. By supplying a parameter to the linking URL, marketers can evaluate ad effectiveness based on comparative click-through values.

There are 2 different variants of landing type pages, they include reference and transactional. A reference landing page will introduce selective information that is relevant to the visitor, these will usually show content such as text, pictures, links or other elements such as videos. A transactional landing page is formulated to persuade the visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form with the main goal being; immediate gross sales.

One of the major mistakes new affiliates or inexperienced affiliates make is buying junk traffic upon the truck loads and expecting it to turn over. Seriously, don't even waste your hard earned money with this crap. Do it the right way the first time and stick with it. Junk traffic is called junk for a reason; ITS JUNK!

Now in a lot of instances affiliates end up getting low conversions on their landing pages simply because they don't know how to set something like this up or you might do the same page that every single other marketer has. More often than not this is a turn off for potential customers. They want to see your site as being uniquely different. With a landing page creator you wouldn't have to worry about any of these problems because the creator itself can do amazing things with your site, and take the guesswork out of it for you. Some of the benefits of these creators include options such as; building a sales page, promoting or selling any product, adding valuable content, reviews, articles, link and much more. Plus you can do other cool things to "reel" in potential sales such as adding videos, which most definitely allows your site to be unique in both content and quality. These are the types of programs you really wouldn't mind spending money on because they could potentially make you enough money back threefold!

You could profit with things such as Click bank, Commission Junction, Amazon or any other affiliate program for that matter. Is the "home made" landing page you made yourself been able to offer any of this stuff? Doubtful! Get every and any sale you want! Your website will be the only one offering incentives, articles, links or whatever content you want! The sky is the limit! Remember to make things as unique as possible. Of course in some situations this is impossible and you might not have exact control over your landing page, but if you have control, change it. Make it interesting. Make it yours!

Stand Apart from the rest: Yellow Page Advertising and the Internet for Small Businesses

2009-07-11T07:56:00.001-07:00

A lot of people use the Yellow Pages when looking for information about local businesses. That is why, one of the tried and tested small local business advertising tips is Yellow Page Advertising. Why? When a consumer references the Yellow Pages, it means he is ready to buy, will most likely call, and will buy at the place stated in the Yellow Page ad.

But a new trend is growing that cannot be ignored: local searches in the Internet. Computer savvy consumers go to the Internet to look for products and services, with a high percentage of searches on specific localities. What about Yellow Page users? Studies conducted show that frequent Yellow Page users are likely to be Internet subscribers and heavy Internet users. And part of their online activities includes purchases via the Internet that sometimes amount to $1,000. A business that disregards online activities may do well to think again.

The convenience of online searching for local products and services is gaining acceptance. However, search results are not as comprehensive as the desired information for local businesses. Many small local businesses do not have online presence. Searching for specific services in a given locale is still done by referencing the yellow pages, as proven by the 13.4 billion Yellow Page references in 2006. After referencing the Yellow Pages, some consumers then turn to the Internet to check if the company has a website.

Who doesn't want a growing customer base? You can capture both Yellow Page users and Internet subscribers and users attention. Make online and offline methods of advertising work together. Make sure consumers find you whatever their method of searching is: online or offline. Cover all your bases. Yellow Page advertising for lawyers, doctors, and other professionals in a given locale may be effective. But having online presence in databases will give that edge over competitors in the local market. It increases your visibility and chances of being found by the people who need your services.Put together search engine marketing, local search and yellow page advertising whatever your services are, e.g. marketing for personal injury lawyers, etc., will make you stand out not only in your locality, but also worldwide.

Making the Most of References

2009-07-10T23:32:00.001-07:00

OK, so you've found a house or flat that you really like & want the landlord to think you're the best potential tenant(s) they could ever wish for. How do you go about doing that? Well, don't be surprised when you're probed for information about your credibility and stability. This "screening" process is one of the most crucial stages of your status changing from a "potential flatmate" to a flatmate.

Get organized and create a better impact!

What should you consider a good reference

It's easy to use friends and family to get good references and the person interviewing you is well aware of this. Also many landlords tend to be very sceptical of written references no matter how well done they are, unless they have a way to verify its authenticity, e.g. providing a contact number of your reference. Some landlords also resort to professional verification agencies like TenantVERIFY® or RentChecks.com. Bear in mind, you can also approach these agencies for a professionally verified reference certificate.

You can request a reference letter from your current flatmate or landlord, your friends and family, your employer or professor. Ask them also to include how and where they can be contacted to verify the contents of the reference letter. This will position you well in the eyes of your prospective landlord or flatmate.

Basic information you should not miss out on

Treat your reference check like a portfolio. Include a cover page that details information about you and include the reference letters in subsequent pages.

Remember to include the following information:

1. Your Full Name

> First name/Middle Initial/Last Name

2. Contact Information

> Phone number (mobile/residential/office); email address; postal address

3. Age or Date of Birth

4. Occupation

> Profession/Practice e.g. Software Engineer

5. Nationality

6. Current Employer/University (if student)

> Company Name and Address/University name and address

7. Salary or Bank Statement or other sources for proof of meeting your financial obligations

> If you're not comfortable sharing your salary, give an indication or a range. Or, you can submit this only on request.

8. Current Address - complete with postcode and landlord's or current flatmate's phone number

9. Previous Address(es) if current tenancy at current address is less than 2 years

> Information about addresses should include complete street address with post code and duration of tenancy at the address

10. References - (1) Current & Previous Landlords/Flatmates (2) Professional Reference - Co-worker/Boss (For students can produce proof of enrolment at university) (3) Personal references - friends/family/local acquaintances.

> Include a reference letter. For each reference, remember to include full name, address, relation, and how they can be contacted. Preferably provide a phone number where they can be contacted. Talk to them first and let them know that you've given their names as your references.

If any information you've provided does not match the account as given by your reference, it could project you in a poor light. Remember to recheck the information you've given and also be truthful in what you say during your conversation with the interviewer.

Creating Your Own Web Page Is Easy - A Tutorial (Part 2)

2009-07-10T15:11:00.001-07:00

Now, Let's continue with Part 2. We will discuss the following here: Creating tables and Using CSS boxes as webpage layout.

Here's how:

Creating tables

Tables are very useful in the presentation of data. The following are the html tags to be used to create a basic table:

Single-column table:

table width="400" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4">
trtdrow 1 data/td/tr
trtdrow 2 data/td/tr
/table

Type the above in your mywebpage.html within the body tags, save and refresh your browser. That's the table on the web. Referring to the above html codes, width refers to the width of the whole table (you may also use pixel here like "800"), border is the outside line or outline of the table, cellspacing is the space between the cells, cells are the area where the data are located, cellpadding is the space between border and cells. You may change the values of these table attributes or properties based on your preference or requirement.

Though the above table html codes are still working, http://W3C.org requires the table properties or attributes be defined in the style sheets or CSS. Using CSS, the above table properties could be presented as follows:

Within style tags in the head:

.type1 {
width: 400px;
padding: 4px;
margin: 2px;
}

.border {
border: 1px solid #000;
}

Then, within the body tags:

table class="type1 border"
trtdrow 1 data/td/tr
trtdrow 2 data/td/tr
/table

Looking at the codes, "type1" is preceded by dot (.), meaning it is a class selector. For the next type of table properties or attributes, you may label it as type2, then type3 and so on or with other names you prefer. "border" is also a class selector and "border: 1px solid #000" is the thickness (1px), border type (solid) and color (#00f) of the border. There are more discussions of CSS in "Creating CSS boxes as web page layout" and in "Using CSS in styling your web pages"

If you want to try the above, then type the codes within the style and body tags as noted, save it and refresh your browser. It must be the same as the first one.

Now, let's make a 2-column or multi-column table:

table width="400" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4"
trtdrow 1 data 1/td
tdrow 1 data 2/td/tr
trtdrow 2 data 1/td
tdrow 2 data 2/td/tr
/table

Type the above in your mywebpage.html within the body tags, save and refresh your browser. That's the 2-column table on the web. To add a column, just insert td/td after /td. 1 td/td is one column, 1 tr/tr is one row and 1 table/table is one table.

Now, lets make a table with 1 main heading and 3 subheadings:

table width="400" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4"
trtd colspan="3"Main Heading/td/tr
trtdSubheading 1/td
tdSubheading 2/td
tdSubheading 3/td/tr
trtdrow 1 data 1/td
tdrow 1 data 2/td
tdrow 1 data 3/td/tr
trtdrow 2 data 1/td
tdrow 2 data 2/td
tdrow 2 data 3/td/tr
/table

Type the above in your mywebpage.html within the body tags, save and refresh your browser. See? Yes, just use colspan to merge the columns. To merge 2 columns, use colspan="2" and for 3 columns, use colspan="3" and so on.

If you want to merge rows, use rowspan instead of colspan. See this example:

table width="400" border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4"
trtd rowspan="2"merge row data/td
tdrow 1 data 2/td/tr
trtdrow 2 data 2/td/tr
/table

Now, type the above in your mywebpage.html within the body tags, save and refresh your browser. Now, you see that 2 rows in your first column were merged.

Try creating your own table using different values to familiarize yourself in manipulating tables.

Creating CSS boxes for web page layout

Before, tables are being used as layout of a web page. So, the header, right bars, left bars, main content areas and footer are inside of a table. This slows down the loading of the page as the browser will have to complete first the table before it will display the content. Your visitor may have already left before your page could be displayed. If you prefer to use table as your layout, you have to avoid using big tables. You better use small tables to allow the browser display your page little by little but faster.

Though table could still be used, W3C requires CSS boxes to be used for layout instead of tables due to the issue of accessibility. CSS boxes load faster than tables. These could be controlled within the style sheets that could be within the head tags or in separate CSS file. The most critical part in css boxes is the positioning. So, I'll explain to you the positioning properties of these boxes, based on my experience:

position: absolute - You have to define the x-axis and y-axis as point of reference of the corner of the box. x-axis is either left or right and y-axis is either top or bottom. You have to define also the width or the left and right margin or padding of the box. The box is not affected by the preceding or subsequent boxes. Likewise, the boxes preceding or following the boxes that are positioned as absolute are also not affected.

float: left or right - You need to fix the width. You also need to select if left or right. The box will lean on the side you selected. It will lean on the box preceding it if there is enough space for it. This is affected by the other boxes except for the absolutely positioned boxes.

no position or position: static or fixed - This follows the normal flow. This is also affected by the other boxes except for the absolutely positioned ones. You need to define the width or the left and right margin.

Now, see the illustration below that will create 5 boxes, namely: headerbox, leftbox, centerbox, rightbox and footerbox. These are liquid boxes, which automatically adjust in width when the display window size of the computer is changed:

style type="text/css"
body {
text-align: center;
margin: 1px;
}
#headerbox {
width: 100%;
height: 15%;
background-color: #9cf;
border: 1px solid #00f;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}

#rightbox {
float: right;
width: 20%;
margin-top: 5px;
text-align: center;
background-color: #cff;
border: 1px solid #00f;
height: 100%;
}
#leftbox {
float: left;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 20%;
text-align: center;
background-color: #cff;
border: 1px solid #00f;
height: 100%;
}

#centerbox {
width: 99%;
margin-top: 5px;
text-align: center;
background-color: #cff;
border: 1px solid #00f;
height: 100%;
}

#footerbox {
width: 100%;
text-align: center;
height: 15%;
vertical-align: middle;
margin-top: 5px;
background-color: #9cf;
border: 1px solid #00f;
}

/style
/head
body

div id="headerbox"HEADERBOX content area/div

div id="leftbox"LEFTBOX content area/div

div id="rightbox"RIGHTBOX content area/div

div id="centerbox"CENTERBOX content area/div

div id="footerbox"FOOTERBOX content area/div

/body

First, you type the above html codes to you mywebpage.html within the head, style and body tags as noted in the above. Then, save it and refresh your browser or open the file with your browser. Are you seeing the headerbox on the top, the leftbox, rightbox and centerbox in the middle and footerbox at the bottom? Try to change the width of your browser window. See? The width of the boxes are also adjusting and that is excellent as your page will auto-adjust depending on the browser window size of your visitors! That is because I used %s in defining the width of boxes.

Now, let me explain the above codes for creating boxes as your layout.

headerbox - preceded with #, meaning it is an id selector and could be used only once per page; float: left means the box will lean on the left if fit; width: 100% means the box is 100% of the browser window and that is the reason why it is liquid; height: 15% means the box is 15% of the browser window; text-align: center is the alignment of the objects or characters inside the box; background-color: #9cf is the color of the space within the box; border: 1px solid #00f is same as discussed in Creating Tables.

rightbox - same explanations in the above except for the float: right which means the box will lean on the right and margin-top: 5px is the distance from the bottom line of the box above (headerbox).

leftbox - same explanations in the above.

centerbox - same explanations in the above except that it has no position defined, meaning it will follow the normal. It will fit itself based on the available space. This will be its 100% or full size. More than this limit will distort the box alignment.

footerbox - same explanations in the above except for the vertical-align: middle, which means that the objects or characters inside the box will be vertically-aligned in the middle.

Try changing the values of the values of the css boxes above, then save. Refresh your browser and familiarize yourself with the effect of each change. Please note, however that there may be minor differences if the above css boxes are displayed with browsers other than internet explorer like firefox and opera.

Continue with Part 3.

Yellow Pages Mumbai-helps you in Trouble

2009-07-10T06:41:00.001-07:00

Mumbai is called the dream land. People come here from every nook and corner to fulfill their dreams. They think that there are many sources to earn livelihood in Mumbai. People feel that to earn money in Mumbai is very easy. As Mumbai is a city of films, most of the people come here to get into films. However, their life becomes hazardous when they had to struggle to get a single chance. Only lucky people get a scope to act in films. Not only films but also people come here to get various kinds of jobs. Basically, people from villages come to Mumbai to make their dream come true. Since it is a very big place, most often a newcomer gets lost. In such a situation, yellow pages Mumbai is very helpful, they guide people and safely take them to their destination.

People from many corners of India come here to earn money. Mumbai became so much overcrowded that very often people are confused and lost in the midway. Crime is a common factor and many a times people fall in trouble. It is always preferred to keep yellow pages with you. Yellow pages Mumbai refers to a telephone directory of businesses. It serves many purposes. At the time of danger, one can refer it. The yellow pages Mumbai has a comprehensive list of detailed address and contact numbers for many establishments like a hospital, a cinema hall, restaurants and other offices, manufacturers and service providers who have registered with the website.
Nowadays, it is also possible to find online websites that offer the directory service Mumbai for the convenience of users across the world. The online directory service Mumbai is also available on the mobile handsets. The users of this service can now simply send a sms to the website and receive an instant reply to their query regarding any location in Mumbai. The convenience of having information at your fingertips makes the directory service Mumbai a popular option with the internet users. Yellow pages Mumbai is very easy to refer. The names are in an alphabetical order and people of any age group can refer it at the time of trouble.
Living cost in Mumbai is very high and people who earn very less are seen sleeping on the footpaths and railway station. Most of them have some misconception that big cities can give them all the pleasure and comfort. Many come here to taste the flavors of aristocracy and luxury. They feel that life in Mumbai is very comfortable and colorful and they will earn quick money but when they stay here for a long time, they get to experience the bitterness of life. People have to work hard to exist. They work day and night to earn money. Everything appears wonders from outside but when a person goes to the depth, he sees the real bad picture. People are so busy in their world that they do not have time to guide a lost person. In that case, yellow page Mumbai is very helpful. It shows path to the newcomers.

Landing Page Quick Reference Guide

2009-07-09T22:51:00.001-07:00

A landing page is a website page that is created for one purpose – to persuade the site visitor to convert into a customer by making a sale, completing a form (thereby becoming a qualified lead), signing up for a newsletter, etc.

We provide this landing page quick reference so you can pull it out every time you are creating a persuasive landing page. It is divided into 4 sections and is intended to be an all-inclusive tip sheet.

Most importantly, consider that you have 8 seconds or less to convince your visitor to act. If you haven't convincingly made your case in this time then your visitor will move on and will be lost, as the Internet has created the most fickle customer in sales history.

Page Layout

- Place your logo at the top left. Visitors expect it there so display your branding where it counts.

- If the visitor came from a search engine keyword search or a PPC ad then place the keyword terms in bold at the top of the page. This reinforces to the visitor that they came to the right place.

- Always keep the Golden Triangle in mind. It is the most important and scanned part of the page. It is the area of the page that starts at the top left of the page moves to the top right side of the page then down diagonally to the bottom left of the page just above the fold. The fold is the area of a web page that the visitor sees without scrolling vertically. You should never force a visitor to scroll horizontally. This means that your landing pages should be able to be seen completely on an 800×600 screen resolution. Place your UVP in the middle of the Golden Triangle.

- Contrast your Calls to Action with respect to the rest of the page – use contrasting colors, round vs. rectangular, straight vs. slanted, warm color vs. cold color, big vs. little. Make sure you can spot the Call to Action from 6 feet away.

- Place assurances, testimonials and guarantees in the far-right column

- Place logos to appropriate associations or online companies at the bottom of the page to show credibility – Verisign, BBB Online Reliability, certified by…, Alexa rank (if good), powerseller, live support, credit cards supported, open 24 hours a day, Hacker Safe, as seen in Entrepreneur Magazine, Chamber of Commerce, etc.

- Don't place external links on a landing page. Just allow them the option to proceed into completing the form and converting into a customer.

- Place privacy policies on the landing page. This instills confidence.

- Think of the Amazon.com website. Note their Call to Action is the hotspot at the top-right of all pages – add to cart, one click ordering, etc. This may also apply to you

Writing Style and Content

- Spend time on your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and place it into the center of the Golden Triangle. A UVP is the core differentiation of a company's product or service from those of competitors. A complete UVP will describe the market and a company's competitors and the key difference between competitors and your own company.

- Ensure that you don't have big paragraphs. Visitors tend to scan pages instead of reading all of the text on them.

- Write using headers above paragraphs that summarize the following text.

- Use bullets where possible as visitors can quickly scan them. Search engines also prioritize bullets instead of long paragraph text.

- If you want to add a picture ensure that it is going to reinforce your message. You can easily lose significant sales by having the wrong picture on the landing page.

- If the purpose of the landing page is to provide a white paper or article then create an image for the paper with enlarged text like the one below and place it on the page:

The Form

- Keep the number of fields on the form as small as possible. This is critical in getting them to complete the form.

- Add a Comments textbox asking for the visitor's input. It can be key to qualifying leads. Those that complete this form with the services they are looking for should be contacted immediately. Here are some requests you can use for this Comments box:

- What is biggest problem that you need to solve now?

- What is the purpose of your project?

- Please list your goals for this project.

- How can we help you?

- In case the visitor doesn't complete the Comments textbox on the first page, add a 2nd page with only a Comments textbox on it requesting the visitors comments again. Tell them that if they complete the Comments box now then they will receive an extra free white paper that is relevant to the same visitor. These visitor comments are important.

- Have the visitor check a box that says something like "YES! Send me the free white paper that will change my life." It is the psychological method of coercing them into completing the rest of the form.

- Prominently list the benefits of completing the form. It is a major validation. Make sure to write the benefits in terms of the users benefits instead of the features of your product or service.

- Ensure you save the form information into a database and send emails out as soon as the form is completed so you can immediately contact the visitor. The lead's effectiveness drops dramatically as time goes by. Contacting a lead within minutes is ideal.

Landing Page Mistakes to Avoid

- Graphics or text unrelated to the offer – limit copy to only the point of the landing page

- Long forms with unneeded fields – limit your form to what is absolutely essential

- Difficult to read fonts

- Navigation off of the landing page

- Placing important persuasive copy below the fold

Partial Page Rendering Using Hidden Iframe

2009-07-09T21:55:00.001-07:00

Partial Page Rendering Using Hidden IFrame

Executive Summary:

Partial-page rendering removes the need for the whole web page to be refreshed as the result of a postback. Instead, only individual regions of the page that have changed are updated. As a result, users do not see the whole page reload with every postback, which makes user interaction with the Web page more seamless.
Developers that want to add such behaviors to their web pages are often faced with a difficult decision. All of these actions can be implemented using a very simple solution: by refreshing the entire page in response to the user interaction. However this solution is easy but not always desirable. The full page refresh can be slow, giving the user the impression that the application is unresponsive. Another option is to implement such actions using JavaScript (or other client-side scripting technologies). This results in faster response times, at the expense of more complex, less portable code. JavaScript may be a good choice for simple actions, such as updating an image. However, for more complicated actions, such as scrolling through data in a table, writing custom JavaScript code can be a very challenging undertaking.
This paper provides a solution which avoids the drawbacks of the full page refresh and custom JavaScript solutions. In this paper partial page rendering functionality provides the ability to re-render a limited portion of a page. As in the full page render solution, partial page rendering sends a request back to the application on the middle-tier to fetch the new contents. However, when partial page rendering is used to update the page, only the modified contents are sent back to the browser. This paper gives the solution using a hidden IFrame and simple JavaScript to merge the new contents back into the web page. The end result is that the page is updated without custom JavaScript code, and without the loss of context that typically occurs with a full page refresh.

Introduction:

Web pages typically support a variety of actions, such as entering and submitting form data and navigating to different pages. Many web pages also support another type of action, which is to allow the user to make modifications to the contents of the web page itself without actually navigating to a different page. Some examples of such actions include.
Clicking on a link could update an image on the same page. For example, an automobile configuration application might update an image of a car as the user chooses different options, such as the preferred color.
Selecting an item from a choice box might result in modifications to other fields on the same page. For example, selecting a car make might update the set of available car models that are displayed.
Clicking a link or selecting an item from a choice could be used to scroll to a new page of data in a table. Clicking a button in a table might add a new row to the table.
All of these actions are similar in that they result in the same page being re-rendered in a slightly different state. Ideally, these changes should be implemented as seemlessly as possible, so that the user does not experience a loss of context which could distract from the task at hand.
Partial page rendering can be implemented with very simple solution using a hidden IFrame and minimal JavaScript. Any part of the page can be partially rendered with using a div or table tags in HTML.

Page Elements That May Change During PPR:

•Re-Render Data: The same fields are redrawn but their data is updated. Examples include the Refresh Data action button, or recalculate totals in a table.
•Re-render Dependent Fields: Fields may be added, removed, or change sequence, and data may be updated. Examples include the Country choice list, which may display different address fields, and toggling between Simple and Advanced Search.
•Hide/Show Content: Both fields and data toggle in and out of view.

Page Elements That Do Not Change During PPR:

Some page elements are always associated with a page, regardless of the content displayed on the page.

As a general rule of thumb, elements above the page title (except message boxes) remain constant and do not change position, whereas elements in footer constant but may move up or down the page to accommodate changes to page content. The following elements never change when PPR is initiated:
• Branding
• Global buttons
• Tabs, Horizontal Navigation, SubTabs
• Locator elements: Breadcrumbs, Train, Next/Back Locator
• Quick links
• Page titles (first level header)
• Page footer
• Separator lines between the Tabs and Page Title
In most cases the following elements will also not change, other than moving up or down the page to accommodate changed elements. Nevertheless, in certain cases actions on the page may require them to be redrawn:
• Side Navigation, unless it contains a Hide/Show control.
• Subtabs
• Contextual information
• Page-level action/navigation buttons
• Page-level Instruction text
• Page-level Page stamps
• Page-level Key Notation
In all above scenarios this solution can be used to achieve the good performance and user interaction of the web pages.

Contexts in Which PPR Should Not Be Used:

When PPR is implemented correctly, it significantly improves application performance. When performance improvement is not possible with PPR, it should not be implemented, thus avoiding unnecessary code bloat, PPR can't be used when navigating to another page (with a different title).

Partial Page Rendering Solution:

Solution provided to the Partial Page Rendering using simple hidden iframe and JavaScript, this can be used as a generalized solution to all the Partial Page Rendering scenarios.
Below is the main html (Table 1.1), which will have two buttons one is to show a simple table which will be generated by the server, and another button to remove the table.

[html]
[head]
[title] Main Document [/title]
[script language="JavaScript"]
[!--
function showTable() {
hiframe.location="./table.htm";
}
function removeTable() {
document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML="";
}
//--]
[/script]
[/head]
[body]
[iframe id="hiframe" style="visibility:hidden;display:none"][/iframe]
[table]
[tr]
[td]Table::[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td colspan="2"][div id="tableId"][/div][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][input type="button" value="Show Table" onclick="showTable()"][/td]
[td][input type="button" value="Remove Table" onclick="removeTable()"][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
[/body]
[/html]

Table 1.1

[iframe id="hiframe" style="visibility:hidden;display:none"][/iframe]
This iframe tag is used as target to the Partial Page Rendering Request.
The tag [input type="button" value="Show Table" onclick="showTable()"] gives the user action to get the contents of a table from the server, in this solution sample html is provided to render the table, which supposed to be generated by the server.
The tag [input type="button" value="Remove Table" onclick="removeTable()"] gives the user to remove the table from the user interface.
The JavaScript
function showTable() {
hiframe.location="./table.htm";
}
Is used to get the contents from the server, the line hiframe.location="./table.htm"; sends the GET request to the server, and as a response iframe gets the HTML.
If the requirement insists to send a POST request for Partial Page rendering Response, that can be achieved by setting the html form element target attribute as the name of hidden iframe.

The code for the post request looks like
[form method="post" action="/myaction" target="hiframe"]

Partial Page Rendering Server Response:

Table 1.2 shows the sample response from the server for Partial Page Rendering. This response has the JavaScript code to transfer the HTML from hidden iframe to main page.

[html]
[head]
[script language="JavaScript"]
[!--
function iframeLoad() {
parent.document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML = document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML;
}
//--]
[/script]
[/head]
[body onload="iframeLoad()"]
[div id="tableId"]
[table]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]One[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Two[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
[/div]
[/body]
[/html]

Table 1.2
The tag [div id="tableId"] encloses the content to transfer from hidden iframe to main page.
[table]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]One[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Two[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
This is the content to show the table to user.

The code [body onload="iframeLoad()"] is used for triggering the action to transfer the content.

function iframeLoad() {
parent.document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML = document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML;
}

This JavaScript function does the transferring data from the hidden iframe to main page.
parent.document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML This part refers to tag div html id in main page and this part document.getElementById("tableId").innerHTML refers the HTML of the Partial Page Response.

Conclusion:

Improve the user experience with Web pages that are richer, that are more responsive to user actions, and that behave like traditional client applications. Reduce full-page refreshes and avoid page flicker. Partial page rendering using iframe is a very simple solution.

References:
1. http://ajax.asp.net/docs/overview/PartialPageRenderingOverview.aspx
2. http://www.w3schools.com/htmldom/dom_obj_document.asp
3. http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_iframe.asp
4. http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/blaf/specs/ppr.html
5. http://download-west.oracle.com/otn_hosted_doc/jdeveloper/904preview/uixhelp/uixdevguide/partialpage.html

14 Great Games to Play With Reference Materials!

2009-07-09T21:16:00.001-07:00

Are you feeling trapped in the house this winter? Looking for a solution for the mid winter blahs? Break up the boredom by opening up a few reference books and playing a few games.

Reference books can be as dry as toast made in the Sahara and as boring as watching paint dry on a rock, but with gentle competition, your family can practice using reference materials and still have fun!

Here are several games to play as individuals, teams, or a family using a dictionary, a set of encyclopedias (the old-fashioned kind, not the computer kind), an atlas, and a phone book (like the Yellow Pages). These games will not only break up the long winter day but also reinforce skills that might have been overlooked during the course of the year. Most of these games are suited for fourth graders and older, but younger readers can still benefit with assistance from a parent or older sibling.

Dictionary

Dictionary skills include alphabetizing, using guide words, and recognizing parts of speech. These games reinforce those concepts while adding a bit of fun. Nearly any dictionary will work for these games, but the more complete the dictionary, the more fun the game and the more the student will learn. Picture dictionaries are not recommended.

Guide Word Trap

2+ players

Guide words are the words at the top inside and outside corners of each page in the dictionary. One player opens to any place in the dictionary and reads the two guide words aloud. The other players must say or write a word that they think should come between the two guide words. For example, the guide words might be "candle" and "carry." Players who say words like "carpenter" or "cantaloupe" are correct and get a point because those words are alphabetically correct. Points can be acquired with each correct word. Players should take turns finding the guide words, looking through the dictionary for hard words to try to stump the other player.

Word Drills

3+ players Each player needs his own dictionary. One player says a word (either from another dictionary or off the top of his head). Players wait with their dictionaries closed until given the signal to go. When the signal is given, players try to find the word as fast as possible. Points are given to the fastest finders, and players take turns coming up with the word to look up.

The Biggest Entry

1+ players

Ordinary words like walk, play, or read have multiple definitions. As a group, or even individually, brainstorm for simple words that have many meanings. With a ruler, measure from the top of the first line of the definition to the bottom of the last line to find out which of these words has the longest entry, using centimeters, not inches. Record which words have the longest entries, or even estimate their length before measuring. Words to consider: plane, house, bear, set, rock, run, stand, cup, pitch, sink.

Syllable Score

2+ players

Students take turns rolling three dice to come up with a three-digit number, which becomes a page number. For example, player 1 rolls a 1, a 3, and a 5—135. He turns to page 135 in the dictionary and finds the word on that page with the most syllables. The number of syllables in the word is the number of points he receives for that turn. In my dictionary, the longest word on page 135 is bouleversement, which has 5 syllables. I would get 5 points. The next player rolls the dice, turns to that page (1, 3, and 5 could be page 531, 351, or 153), and finds another long word, hopefully one longer than five syllables. As the students take turns, they collect points. Whoever gets to 25 points first is the winner.

Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia skills are similar to dictionary skills, because alphabetization and guide words are used. However, other skills, such as finding the main idea, timeline, and summarizing can also be reinforced with these games. These games require a full set of books, such as World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica, but it doesn't matter how recently they were published.

Six Degrees of Biography

1+ players

Each player selects a famous person such as Queen Elizabeth I and searches that person's entry for the name of another famous person, such as William Shakespeare. The student then goes to the second person's entry to find another famous name. The student continues with this process until he finds the name he started with. Many famous people in history are connected to each other. The point of this exercise is that within six entries, the original entry should be found. No fair looking up people who were partners, spouses, or known adver- saries. Your six "degrees" may look like this: Elizabeth I, King Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Pope Clement VII, Martin Luther, and so on. This can be a time-consuming project and is recommended for upper grades.

Where Am I?

1+ players

Find where your name, as well as the names of your friends and neighbors, would fall alphabetically in the encyclopedia. What entries would be before and after it? Do any seem funny or fitting to the person's name?

Apples to Apples, The Encyclopedia Version

4+ players

This game is played much like Apples to Apples. Using your green adjective cards from your Apples to Apples game (or a lengthy list of adjectives), each player opens a volume from his encyclopedia set, say, the G book. Each player chooses an entry from the volume that best describes the adjective (or green card) given by the judge (for instance, "clumsy"). The judge then chooses which entry is the best fit for that adjective (or the most humorous, if you play like my kids do).

Thesaurus

A thesaurus, a collection of antonyms and synonyms, requires dictionary skills. These games can familiarize a student with how to use a thesaurus and build vocabulary, all while having a bit of fun.

ABC Opposites

2+ players

With a thesaurus for each player, write down a pair of antonyms for every letter of the alphabet (for example, antecedent and after, bulky and bantam, cheerful and complaining). Once the lists are completed, or after a set amount of time, compare lists. Any duplicate answers between the players are omitted and only original answers count as a point. The player with the most points wins. Recommended for sixth grade and older.

Who Has the Most?

1+ players

Choose one of these simple words: big, happy, pretty, fast, smart. Each player predicts which word has the most synonyms, antonyms, or both. Look each word up in the thesaurus to find out. Can you find other words that have more? Brainstorm for your own words and find their entries too. Recommended for lower grades.

Describe Yourself

1+ players

Think of ten words that describe yourself, such as short, funny, cheerful, compassionate, and cute. Then with the thesaurus find multi-syllable synonyms of each of these words (for the given words, for example, diminutive, whimsical, effervescent, commiserative, and pulchritudinous). Try describing others in your family, your pets, or your friends.

Phone Book

A phone book also requires dictionary skills. Even though this isn't an academic pursuit, learning to use a phone book is a necessary life skill, especially during an emergency. The following games require commercial telephone listings (Yellow Pages)—the bigger, the better.

Fairy Tale Fix-It

1+ players

Consider your favorite fairy tale, such as "The Three Bears." What businesses might the Three Bears consult in order to avoid the whole Goldilocks fiasco? A home security company? A furniture repairman? A caterer who might provide a breakfast that is "just right"? Search the phone book for businesses that might help the poor bear family and discuss their ads, the words they use to market their business, and their location. Try this same exercise with "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Three Pigs," and any other stories in your memory.

It's a Dirty Job

1+ players

Each player creates the columns "Jobs I Would Want" and "Jobs I Would Not" on a piece of paper. Search through the Yellow Pages for 10 jobs to list in each column. To make this a competition, compare lists with other players, eliminating duplicates and assigning a point per original job. For an even greater challenge, find 26 jobs you do or don't like, one for every letter of the alphabet.

Opposites

1+ players

Your community is full of businesses that have opposing or contradictory jobs or services. Flip through the phone book for examples of this, such as obstetricians and funeral directors, construction and demolition, swimming pool supplier and snow removal, wedding chapels and divorce lawyers. Brainstorm for more examples and count them up. With more than one player, compare the number of pairs each player can identify to determine the winner.

Try these reference book games on a snowy afternoon. You might break up a dull routine, learn a great word or two, and perhaps even have a little fun!

Kathy Grubb lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her supportive husband and her five enthusiastic children. Before she was married, she was a public school teacher and a professional writer. She also had no idea just how much work it takes to be a mother, much less one with two fifth graders, one second grader, and two toddlers.

www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com

More Off-Page SEO For Your Home Internet Business

2009-07-09T12:56:00.001-07:00

There are many ways to go about getting high quality links from authoritative websites in your field to boost your search engine rankings when building your home internet business. Let's explore some linking strategies, and how to determine and obtain "high quality" links. We're also going to talk briefly about Google's PageRank.

First, let's examine a regular link. It's a piece of text (or image, but we're going for text) that links to your blog, and some of the factors that matter are:
1) The address which it links to
2) The text of the link
3) The PageRank of the page on which the link resides

Let's analyze this information one by one. First, you'd naturally want the link to link to your blog, but to which page of your blog? To an individual post or to your blog's home page? Since your blog is a constantly updated website, it is always wise to accumulate all the links to point to your main page instead of individual posts because they tend to be very time-sensitive.

The text of the link also affects your rankings for a certain keyword. Let's say your blog is about technological gadgets and another site has a link that says "Football helmets" and links to your blog. Doesn't make much sense, right? If a lot of links that link to your site contain the terms "technological" or "gadget", it will greatly boost your rankings for those keywords. Hence, it's essential to express some thoughts when requesting links from other webmasters as you want them to link to your blog with appropriate keywords.

Now, about Google's PageRank. It's basically a scale set by Google to measure the popularity of websites. You can read more about it at Google by searching under the term "Google pagerank". What is interesting is that the higher the PageRank of a certain website, the more frequent Google's robots will visit the website to index it. Of course, the PageRank of a page will also help it to rank higher in Google's search engine results. In short, having a high PageRank will bring you many benefits SEO-wise.

Your blog will start with no PageRank (which is different to PageRank 0) because Google has not yet indexed your blog. Once Google's robots find your blog through links on other sites, your blog will show a PageRank of 0 and depending on the PageRank of the referring page, your blog's PageRank will also rise eventually.

Getting high-quality links to your blog will help direct targeted visitors who are interested in your niche to arrive at your blog, enable search engines to find and
index your blog and ultimately rank higher in search engine results. The whole subject of SEO is one that cannot be overlooked when nurturing your home internet business. Invest in yourself and your business NOW to start earning the profits you deserve.

Professays Plans to Add New Pages About Apa Format to Its Site

2009-07-09T04:36:00.001-07:00

Basically, there are several documentation styles required by higher educational establishments in the USA, UK and other English speaking countries. One of the most popular styles is APA. If a student is asked to use APA format for a paper, it won't be needless to consult the book called the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition), which the American Psychological Association has recently updated. Citing electronic sources was a major part of this update as these types of sources are becoming more and more common in research within the social sciences. At present comprehensive information related to APA format is available only in the paper variant of this book. But soon such a state of things will be changed. Custom essay writing service ProfEssays plans to add new pages containing reliable and true data about APA requirements with all the modern updates to its site. It will offer complete guidelines for manuscript style and citation in APA, the documentation style of the social sciences as well as illustrate the most commonly used types of sources with examples drawn from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 4th ed. and The Bedford Handbook for Writers, 4th ed. However, it is always important to remember a number of points about APA which are often ignored. First of all, APA uses an author/date style of in-text citations, referring by the author's last name to the References page at the end of the text. All references are double-spaced. For manuscripts submitted to journals, APA requires the form with the first lines of reference entries indented and subsequent lines flushed left. The hanging indent form with first line flushed left, subsequent lines indented is customary for student papers. It is better to check with ones instructor to determine which form is appropriate. It is allowed to capitalize only the first word of an article title and of the subtitle, if any, and any proper names. On the references page, one should not underline the title of an article or place quotation marks around it. It is possible to capitalize significant words in the title of a journal, the first significant word and only proper names within book titles and the first significant word of the subtitle. Due to the fact that personal communications (letters, interviews, telephone conversations) do not contain recoverable data, they are not included in the reference list. One needs to cite personal communications in text only. For instance F. H. Mayron, personal communication, September 28, 2001. ProfEssays produces custom essays and papers in strict compliance with this format. It does not reduce the actual volume of one's ordered pieces of writing. The types of assignments which ProfEssays completes embrace accomplishes custom essays, custom academic papers, custom research papers, custom term papers, custom admission essays, compositions, book reports, case studies and many others. Contact details of custom essay writing service Professays are http:// www.professays.com support@professays.com.

20 Ideas for creating traffic rich, search engine friendly pages

2009-07-08T21:19:00.001-07:00

20 Ideas for creating traffic rich, search engine friendly pages

For clarification on these type of issues, let's start by explaining some simple ground rules looking beyond the jargon and terminology.

Do Hate Doorway/Gateway Pages?

To answer this we'll examine it in two steps.

Let's understand:

1. What it is that the Search Engines "HATE"?

and then...

2. What type of pages the search engines "LOVE"?

With this approach it will help us gain some understanding of the criteria that is most important.

1. What the Search Engines HATE:

a) To put it simply, search engines despise low quality doorway pages that contain little or no useful content. A few years ago these type of low quality doorway pages were rampantly produced as a means to try and trick the search engines. Looking at it from the search engines point of view, why even publish a page if all it contains is a couple of lines of text and an "enter the store" link. Pages with VERY LITTLE VALUE to the reader, do not belong in a search engine's index.

b) Search engines also despise any kind of duplication or use of mirror pages. Again, little or no content (often just garbled text or keyword rich paragraphs that have no real value) were reproduced over and over and cluttered up the search engines. These pages were supposedly going to bring great traffic but the bottom line is that they were and still are all labeled by engines as Spam.

c) Search engines hate any attempt made by Webmasters to manipulate pages optimized with content unrelated to the actual Web site. Some Webmasters were guilty of all types of trickery to try and attract clicks regardless of the site content.

Understanding these issues, clearly you could NEVER blame the search engines for their war on Spam and low value doorway pages which contained no useful content or information.

Next let's talk about

2. What pages the Search Engines LOVE:

a) Search engines love pages that far "information rich" and contain useful, original content that will actually make valued reading to the online visitors.

b) Instead of doorway pages (or pages with no value or little useful content), the term "information rich" can be used to describe a page loaded with useful, quality information. Search engines love pages that are content rich and able to stand on it's own merit. A quality information page is also part of the overall Web site allowing visitors to obtain more relevant and useful information having easy navigation through the Web site.

Instead of lightweight pages with no content, today's pages need to contains high quality information, which is relevant to the online audience. The information rich page is 100% quality, put together with research, relevance, thought and care. No tricks are ever needed.

Next Question is..... What kind of information goes into creating an information rich high performance page?

Invariably this question often comes up when I am teaching one of our live hands-on workshops. People need to understand that this is wide open to all the discoveries you make while researching your target audiences behavior. How you can meet the audience's needs exactly, is only limited to "your imagination" and the most effective way to present the information you know they are looking for, back too them. You want to give them what they "really want" as opposed to what you "think" they want and do this right up front.

The focus is on creating genuinely "useful content" for your ideal target audience of "potential customers" who happen to be already out there searching for you.

Not only is this what your visitors want, it's also the key to success for search engine acceptance. You will never run in to trouble with search engines by offering lots of original, quality content that is interesting, useful and of high value, to your online readers.

In brief, key to success for attracting your target audience, is doing quality research on your target audiences searching behavior and learning to identify their needs and what they are searching for and then, giving them what it is that they really want.

Okay, so what kind of information might a information rich page really contain? That will depend on what "your research" reveals of course, but here are about 20 rough ideas just to get you started thinking in this fashion.

20 Ideas for High Performance Information Rich pages:

Your high performance, information rich pages might be any of the following (but not limited just to these either):

1. A Questions and Answers information rich FAQ page.

2. An introductory story related to the appropriate Web site theme (something that is compelling or educational on topic).

3. Interesting and original statistics which you have discovered through your research, are in high demand by your audience.

4. An interesting interview with someone (make it exclusive and original). People love to read about other peoples experiences and or opinions and views.

5. It might be a page loaded with various product reviews with an emphasis on benefits of each in comparrison.

6. It could be a theme related feature article or story.

7. It could be a detailed tutorial loaded with valuable "How to" or "instructional" advice.

8. Your information page might even be a biography about someone's life that people are looking for detail on. Of course it should relate to the topical interest of your site's theme.

Recent eg. At the recent, sad passing of legendary screen icon Marlon Brando, just do a search for his bio and see all of the movie or film related sites that are no doubt getting additional exposure from Marlon's fans who are looking to buy up some of his old classic films.

9. Your pages might something with a current events or newsworthy or hard news angle. Your audience is probably looking for interesting news if you take time to study what they are searching for.

10. Your information rich pages might want to contain detailed historical information that your audience is seeking.

11. There may be room for the use of information pages that use some humor or emotional content that is still of good value.

12. Would there be value to having a questionnaire which asks your audience a series of important questions. Remember that like real life, most Web based businesses are about building rapport and relationships.

13. You could build an index to a whole library of similarly themed topics and all though your articles would all be similar in theme, each individual information rich page would contain useful and diverse subject matter. Remember high value to your readers but all original (and no duplication in content).

14. What about an information rich page offering an entryway into a useful, interactive section like a message board perhaps detailing terms of use for the message board.

15. It might be a page containing an interesting advice column on your chosen theme. Just old fashioned "good reading" which offers your readers advice or solutions to their challenges.

16. Your information page might be a reference page loaded with interesting, inspirational or famous quotes quite popular with all types of personalities.

17. Your pages might contain a related territorial map (yes images can be used most effectively with text)

18. It might be a sales letter but remember the emphasis is on quality content and originality. Things like detailed product reviews or content that emphasized some value added layout.

19. It could be a community related page with important localized community information. Tremendous value for Web sites that are looking for region specific traffic.

20. It could be any of the above suggestions with a seasonal angle relating to Christmas, Halloween, Easter, or something else appropriate to the Web content within your main theme.

What is Brain/ear Reference When Listening an High End Audio System

2009-06-24T09:16:00.001-07:00

What is Brain/Ear Reference when listening an High End Audio System
Ozhan Atalay

We know that hearing and listening are two different facts. For instance if we don't know Chinese, we will not understand if somebody speaking Chinese (Yes sure, yeah :-)) Not so much familiar people may confuse French versus Italian. By the same logic, as an example if we don't know viola sound well, we may confuse it quite easily with a violin playing at upper octaves or with a cello playing at the lower octaves. If we are not so much familiar with a live acoustic sound of a violin, we can not identify which record or which equipment reproduces the most natural sounds.

Hearing happens 24 hours a day even in sleeping mode. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to hear our alarm clock or screaming of our boy. Our brain scans every sound but rejects unimportant ones for the one. Brain does not only scan and select the sounds, but processes them actively. If a viola sound is heard, brain recalls the memory, compare with experiences and historical events and decide if it is viola or not. Listening, in other words can be described as active hearing. If brain does not participated to the process, it is called hearing but not listening.

Have you listened at your recorded voice? You liked it ? Was that similar to your voice or it was quite different. Everybody else will agree that it is your voice except you ! Our voice is transmitted to a listener directly via his/her ear but it is transmitted to us by internal vibrations as well as externally by ear, so sounds different. This is the brain reference. Brain reference for our voice is what we heard in our life.

Brain will decide if the sound is coming from piano or from a violin. The fact for such a judgement is our memory. If someone who did not listen piano in live acoustic concert properly, his brain reference for piano will be the one "was listened in a good hi-end system", may be his own system. He will obviously distinguish the piano sound immediately but may not like it or may not find it realistic or natural. If this is the case, how do we choose our equipments and how we will realize which system or component is better ? Is the only way to trust Stereophile or Absolute Sound writers, I believe the key element is to attend live acoustic concerts (not amplified) as much as possible and locate to the performers as close as possible. This is a must to adjust our brain references.

A couple of examples are given here. A friend who visited us heard my daughter who was playing piano in her room, went to her room. He did not like the sound of the piano at all. He said that a piano can not be such a dark and dull. No inner details, no resolution nothing !! Our piano surely can not play at the same league with a long Steinway Sons but it is a live piano, live music and we are only few centimetres away. I know he likes such piano records that the mikes were located inside of the piano body and every inner timbre was recorded and boosted. Even the musician himself can not hear such details. His brain reference served him his memory of piano sounds and once he listened at a real piano, he found it unrealistic.

Years ago, when I commenced attending the regular concerts of Istanbul Symphony Orchestra, I found the sound do dull at that time. The sound was as if covered by a cloth. Mid and upper frequencies were not exist. Timpani and the big drum were kicked like hell but their sounds were not killing powerful. I got used to it in time and perceived the neutrality and the purity of the non coloured sounds. A couple of months ago I invited an audiophile friend who does not attend to acoustic concerts. He was shocked. He told that the entire orchestra was covered by something, there were no details and upper frequencies, and sound was so soft and gentle. He said that he can not perceive the violins, rustles of soprano, drums are not shaking the floor. We were located only at the 8.th raw. During the entire concert, he strived to find the reasons but never judged his brain references. It is obvious that we will not like our systems each other due to our expected sounds and brain reference points are different.

May be the last example; Years ago, we visited an audiophile friend for a long listening session. He is very good audiophile and very good music listener too. He used to have very good systems. We listened at mostly classics for hours and admired the sound of the system. When we wanted to try our own reference CD's (Patricia Barbers, etc) his system sink and disappointed us. Actually we should have judged our own brain references but not the system. We had coloured our systems to achieve more details but estranged by neutrality.

We, most of the audiophiles make this fault unconsciously. We load our brain references with wrong information then accuse better systems, better equipments, and better sounds even better records. We don't like the sounds of better systems, we can not come to an agreement or can not compromise on fundamentals due to our own particular brain references

Ozhan Atalay www.nonamehifi.com

March 2004

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