Free CSS Template 019

Finaly I have created one new free css template for this blog after very long time.

This is simple and nice two column 100% valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS template with sidebar on the left. Vertical navigation bar is in the left column and main content in the right.

Template is SEO Friendly and is very simple to customize.

It can be used for number of different projects.


This is an open source template and is released and distributed under Creative Commons 2.5 licence. You are free to use this template in any way you like. All I ask for is that you leave the web site design credit links in the footer of this template intact. Thank you for downloading.

Download free CSS template here.

Websites and User Friendly Web Designs

FIVE SECONDS... that’s how long you have to capture the attention of a website visitor. Does your website engender trust, credibility and reliability within 5 seconds? Site visitors are impatient people seeking immediate gratification … they want to ooh and ahh … even before the page is fully loaded.

I've been designing websites since 1995, in the hey-day before Google, Yahoo and Web 2.0. The one thing that has not changed is the user; they want their information faster. If they have a 28K modem, they want the information at the speed of 56K. If they have DSL, they want it to load at cable modem speeds. A Web Designer has to take this into consideration when designing a site. At the same time, they have to create a site that captures the attention of the visitor and prompt them to interact with the site, and even buy something or fill out a form (the goals of the website).

User-friendly web design always begins with the visual effect.

COLORS

Colors are a “primary” factor. Most sites are designed with a white background and black fonts. This combination is eye-friendly for a comfortable reading environment. Eye strain is a definite no-no. If you want your visitors to read text, make it as easy as possible … that starts with the right color combination.

The obvious potential exception would be an entertainment site with a high reliance on multi-media video and photos. Different color combinations may be desirable here for emphasis and enhancing the entertainment value of the site.

The Psychology of Color

Check these 3 sites out for great insights on how psychology and color work together:

1. http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_psychology
3. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

Entertainment sites are about emotion, passion, energy, enthusiasm. Colors to be used are always strong. For instance black is used for Power and Authority while red is used to evoke passion, high energy and enthusiasm.

A business site, for instance a mortgage company, should not use the color scheme I suggest in the entertainment sites. Here I use blues and greens as these colors evoke trust, peace of mind and a sense of calm. The visitor is considered to be nervous entering the site because they are making a decision about pretty important things like their home, their money and their overall finances. They need someone they can trust.

LAYOUT

Layouts begin and end with simplicity. Make the site complex with a lot of so-called “features” and you will lose a great deal of your audience.

With layouts, “less is more” … the fewer feature or complexities, the easier it is for the visitor to understand your message and “engage.”

It’s always a good idea to check out your competition and see what it is you actually like about their website … view it as a customer not just a competitor … it can be a useful experience.

Always keep in mind the ultimate goal of your website … what is it you want the visitor to actually do … your layout should reflect the shortest distance between the first impression of your website and that ultimate goal you seek.

Additional Key Considerations

1. Simple Site Navigation is a must. Your visitor has to be able to move through the site quickly and in a logical sequence that they have become used to when visting other websites. They want their info fast and if your navigation goes against the generally accepted conventions of navigation, the visitor will move elsewhere.

2. Make your paragraphs easy to read... organize your information well by highlighting lists by number, symbols or bullets.

3. Look throughout our site and see that paragraphs are not just streams of uninterrupted text. The words, sentences, paragraphs et al are woven together through a structured hierarchy of organizational enhancers that make it easy for the visitor to read and understand and engage.

4. Don’t try to crush your competition with an overwhelming advantage in website features. Remember the Panasonic slogan … "just slightly ahead of our time"... keep this in mind here. Keep your “competitive bullets” in your gun and holster until they are needed. For instance, if your competitor doesn’t have a newsletter sign-up, add it. If they respond by adding one, consider adding a click-to-chat feature and so on and so on.

So, website design is about gaining the attention of the visitor through strong use of color, content, ease of use and navigation. Most of all … KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Optimum7.com is an Internet Marketing Company with primary focus on Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises (SME’s). Optimum7.com offers a rich consultative approach that our clients find refreshing. We actually listen to our clients to learn exactly what their problems and objectives are. Websites and User Friendly Web Designs.

The War Between Google Adwords and Google Free Traffic

Adwords -vs- Free Traffic


A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a site that advertised free website traffic. As you might have guessed my first thought was yeah sure, and what’s the catch. As I begin to read the article, there were several things that got my attention. One of the first things that got my attention was what I was reading on the subject of Adwords. The author of the article made this glaring statement “people are making Google money, no, lots of money with run away Adword accounts.” He was basically SHOUTING we are giving Google all of our cash, while we earn a pittance for an income. And I ask you What is wrong with this picture?

What gave this statement so much authority was not so much of what I have heard over the years as what a fellow marketer from a program where “a certain guy” tells all, wrote me four days prior to reading this articlet about free traffic. And this guy was on a limited income. This is what he says: “Larry, I did try to get my Marketing /Advertising in place by using Google Adwords (pay per click) to market my website as instructed in the program.

Using Google Adwords however is not as simple or anywhere near as cost effective as K's System leads you to believe... If you CAN get it right it can work for you... However it takes a lot of trial and error to get the correct combination of " KEYWORDS and COST/PER CLICK " to make it work without costing a small fortune as I found out.”

You did get that, didn’t you? “Without costing a small fortune.” This is the very thing I was reading about in this article, and I am hearing HELLO! loud and clear here. It isn’t like I haven’t heard it all before, but somehow it was like a light bulb going on at mach speed and flooding my brian with the news.

So one has to ask themselves, what’s the real skinny here? Can you really make out with adwords without it costing you a small fortune as some say? Then what about free traffic? Does anyone ever get anything for free, I mean really for free?

Having some experience with SEO, being a webmaster and network administrator a few years back my first thought was this is probably just about SEO. I was wrong. In fact I was almost entirely wrong about what I thought this guy was trying to sell me on. I hate admitting I am wrong, as do most of us, but I was dead wrong. Not only was I wrong, I had many things to think about after purchasing and reading the e-book this guy was selling.

There was something else he said that got my attention and that was this: “After I got this down right, I closed my Adwords account.” Then he dared me to do a search in Google to where one of his sites is number 1 and click on that link once, and double dared me to do it a thousand times, why? It wasn’t going to cost him a cotton picken penny. That’s right, not one red cent.
You know what? Not only was he right, he is getting free traffic from Google and the other search engines. The best part is he is more than happy to show us how he does it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather get my traffic for free! And guess what the good news is? You can get this information for a whole lot less than what a Google Adwords campaign will cost you and a whole lot less than a night out on the town would cost you.


The Internet is a fascinating entity particularly the area of marketing, with many ever changing faces. Those changes faces intrigue me, giving me reason to study trends and ways to earn and save money. My motto is to pass on valuable info to those who's interest is in making and saving money.
http://www.moneymakingdollars.com/free-traffic.html

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising - How to Get Success

PPC advertising is an internet marketing method which generates instant traffic to your website. However, unlike Search Engine Optimization, pay per click advertising requires investment without being able to guarantee a return. Visitors may click on your site but this does not mean an automatic sale, order or lead. PPC campaigns require focus, attention and need to be regularly monitored to stay effective.

PPC started in the year 1998 by Goto.com, a 25 employee startup company (later Overture, now part of Yahoo).However, Pay Per Click Advertising was only introduced in 2002, until then, advertisements were charged at cost per thousand (CPM) but Yahoo Advertisements have always been PPC, since its introduction in 1998. Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Ad Center are the largest operators in PPC advertising.

PPC advertising on search engines allows you choose keywords you would like your site to appear when a search is done. You decide how much you are want to pay each time a person clicks on the search results that is ad copy. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords you choose.

According to a recent US study, web searchers will not click on a search engine's results beyond page number three and 66% of users in the study clicked on sites listed on page number one only. Based on this research it is worth doing PPC besides other popular internet marketing methods like SEO, Article Marketing, Social Bookmaking and Affiliate Marketing.

Why Pay Per Click (PPC)?


Instant Results - No need to wait for your product or service to reach the user review. Immediate Traffic to your website.
Economical - It is economical as compared with other traditional advertising techniques.
Ideal for Testing Market - Pay Per Click is Ideal for short term advertisement campaigns. We can test the user reaction on particular products or services with immediate results.
Return On Investment - It can provide immediate return on Investment especially if your website is processing business or sales online.
Extremely Flexible - Its easy to adjust, add, delete or edit your keywords and copy, target geographic locations and set timings of appearing of your ad copy.
Avoid Unnecessary Keywords - For those keywords which you do not want your adcopy to get appear & hence clicked can be avoided by using negative keywords.
Total Control - In PPC Campaigns, the steering wheel is totally in your hands i.e you decide the daily budget, keywords, adcopy ( tile, description, URL) .



Some Basic Tips for Pay Per Click Campaigns:


Make a sensible budget for your PPC advertising campaign. Spend per click must be less than profit per click. Cost Per Acquisition/Lead/Sale must be kept in mind. Once the campaign has been launched, the number of leads or sales generated can be reviewed to ensure the campaign is going on the right track.
Make separate Ad Groups & ad copies for particular set of keywords.
Bid & Position for keywords & ad copies must be monitored on regular basis.
Choose specific keywords relevant with your website. Broad and non-specific terms must be avoided.

Besides the Benefits...Some Drawbacks of PPC

Junk Traffic sent to your website via some less known Search Engines and Click Fraud are the major drawbacks in Pay Per Click Advertising. It does not offer you discount if your site gets more traffic i.e Cost Per Click will remain the same. Advertising Budget must be agreed and bid price per keyword must be confirmed so bid wars are avoided and you don't go over budget.

For effective Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Campaign for your online business, visit expert SEO Companies - TIS India and SEO.india-designers.net that specializes in delivering high quality, cost effective and result oriented PPC advertising services in an efficient manner

Making Money Online With Website designing

As the years passed by, website designing, its definition and its presentation all have substantial changed. There are several new software like flash, 3D and Photoshop that had been developed and new technologies, such as broadband, to stay as a backup of these software are emerged. In contrast, people have altered the way of screening online information. So the life of the website designing brings along with it a hope of contact with content data and present web designs are all become an element of web designer’s work. Anyhow the basics principles of any website design are yet remain the same. Further it is usual; a website has to be easy to use and should have the capability to keep a viewer to remain enthusiastic to your website as long as necessary. On the other hand, a website designing could be favor you more than your pastime and interest.

There are few best approaches that one could accept if looking to make money online by websites. You can preferably focus on a few websites that could get you reasonable income or one solitary website, which can act as your "bread and butter". Actually, whichever technique you choose it certain to make money. For a novice that trying to make money online by website designing can also be a little irresistible, however if in progress and stay focused then no one can stop your cash flow. So one of the most excellent examples, which could be given is to get started your own auction website design.

When it comes to auction website design, the initial thing could come to anybody’s mind is the auction site called eBay. But why do people admire eBay? The answer is actually simple, it is because of the profession website designed and easy to use and it does not require a rocket scientist to navigate the pages. Today, eBay auction website stands out of other websites and stay the most reliable internet resource for getting what you desire. So here the final point is to come up with your own auction website design like how eBay did and permit users to purchase and sell products through your site. You have to be a foundation for what people wish to purchase and sell.


Alberdecruz is a Copywriter of Web design Houston. He has written various articles like Houston web hosting, Graphic design Houston, Seo Houston and more. For more information visit:Web design company Houston. Contact him at alberdecruzseo@gmail.com.

Website Designing: The Accessibility Factor

Today when there is a sea full of websites all over the web world it becomes extremely difficult to sustain a considerable amount of traffic to the site. This threat appears like a killer for any website owner. In order to overcome this threat what websites really need to do is create super duper web presences for themselves. This web presence can be created right from the website designing process itself.

The question now arises why emphasize on presence when you are already there in the web. Even though your website is there it is important to make it accessible to the users because until your website is accessible no user will spend time on your website. This will appear to be a great loss to your business since websites are the most important tool of communication between you and your users and the accessibility of the website is the most essential factor that can keep them glued to your services.

The accessibility factor of a website depends a lot on the user end also. It is possible that your end user is not being able to view your audio or video content because their system does not support such high end services. It is thus advised that web designers keep this factor in mind while doing website designing for a site. It is true that video and audio inputs make the website more attractive and happening, but what is the use of having attraction when essential content itself is being restricted.

Make sure that your website follows a proper style sheet while drawing the HTML format of the website. Though styling and colouring of the website is important and essential to make it look expressive and attractive it is equally important to make sure that the tags that are used on the HTML are properly closed. Even if a single tag is misplaced, the internet will not be able to read your webpage.

In order to make your webpage accessible, it is important that you use them appropriately. Make use of diagrams and tables too. It is not necessary that the diagrams and tables be for decorative use only, you can also use them as a medium to add additional information which will attract the user’s attention more than otherwise.

When a user comes into your website, the first thing they notice about you is the nature, whether you are welcoming or not. Yes a welcoming website can be distinguished from an unwelcoming website from their navigation. A broadly expanded and open navigation is an ideal situation which is most used by welcoming websites. User friendly navigation is the best technique of retaining your clientele using simple website designing.

Naman Jain is an expert in Internet marketing, presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading internet marketing company, offering online marketing services, SEO services, email marketing and search engine marketing over the globe.

Affiliate Marketing for the Beginners

Those who dabble with online marketing or want to get into this very lucrative industry might have come across the concept of affiliate marketing. Basically, affiliate marketing is a form of online promotion where the ads of one business is published on another site that enjoys good traffic inflow and is not related or owned by the business, the ads of which are being published.

Before we get on to more about affiliate marketing, let us clear some of the basic terminologies -

A Merchant is one whose ads are getting published. A merchant is usually one who owns a business or has something to sell or promote. He / she can place an ad for different reasons - for selling or promoting his goods or services, for collecting important data, for leads generation or for getting feedback on his services.

An Affiliate, on the other hand, is one who owns the site where the ads of the merchants get published. Usually an affiliate's site is one that enjoys a reasonably good number of visitors regularly.

Affiliate marketing is a performance driven concept where a merchant has to pay only when a defined goal is accomplished. This goal can be anything that a merchant has to get done, for example getting conversions, accumulating data, leads generation, getting feedback or anything at all. It is when this goal gets accomplished, the merchant pays the affiliate that has brought in the visitor from his site. The amount is fixed at the time of commencement of program.

Affiliate marketing has a lot of benefits for both the merchants as well as the affiliates. For merchants, this reduces the amount that has to be invested for promotion purposes and it also gives more returns on investment. It can also be fruitfully used to get qualified leads or for conversion of visitors into customers.

It is a good money making option for an affiliate since there is no investment or any cost involved. And the affiliate can simply earn by monetizing the web traffic that comes to the site owned by the affiliate. Each time a visitor clicks on an ad shown on his site, the visitor is taken to the destination site of the ad (the merchant's site) where the visitor may perform the activity that has been defined by the merchant. On successfully doing that, the affiliate gets paid a fixed amount by the merchant.

Hence, affiliate marketing is a win-win situation for both the affiliates as well as the merchants and therefore it has gained a lot of popularity from the time of its conceptualization.

About the Author- Naman Jain is an expert in Internet marketing, presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading internet marketing company, offering online marketing services, SEO services, web application development and search engine marketing over the globe.