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Owning Your Own Web Site

Owning your own website is a must if you are doing business on the Internet.

There are so many factors involved in creating a web sitelayout and or design that there is really no right or wrongdesign.

A web site that may have looked clean and crisp in the template stage can totally change when you add your textand other content.

The saying - less is more, often applies where creating a web page, by having a clean crisp design with minimal graphics your site is quicker to load and easier to navigate aroundand easier to read without the distraction of flashinganimated images and banners.

The resulting layout of a web site is often a productof the content that is added to its pages.

This is where it is of the utmost importance to research the focus of your site before you start work to create it.The same applies if you are selling widgets, flowers, coins, supplying information of marketing an Affiliated member opportunity.

There are so many variables to keep in mind that it is bestto sit down with pen and paper to list all the items you will or at least, what you want to place on your Web site.

Make a list of the topics, products or services you wish to promote. This is important later when you start promoting your web site in search engines.

Search engines give more importance to a page that is focusedon one topic for two reasons. Firstly because search engineswant to provide the most defined search results for their customersand secondly if a page is about one topic or product you canoptimize your keywords and content, increasing the chance of your page appearing at the top of search results.

For web sites that have between ten to twenty pages you can use a button or text menu bar to link to all pages. When yoursite starts to grow beyond 20 pages a button or text menu canstart to take over the page. With my ezine as an example I havecreated sub menus for the achieves and other related groups ofproducts or information.

The next step is to create a small number (6 to 10) of productor service groups. Then you can have these 6 to 10 groupsaccessible from the main menu. You can either create a small directory or second level pages for each group, or the otheralternative is to use drop down menus.

This is where you hover your cursor over a button or linkand a sub menu drops or scrolls down with the links for thatgroup of products or services. The drop down menus oftencreated using java script. Some templates come with the scriptsincluded or you can search for the scripts on the net.

The layout and design of your site should use the same template to create every page to enable your visitors ease of locating theproduct and services they are searching for.

The most user friendly color for the page back ground is whitewith black text. White being a neutral color and black being a contrast.

Using a clear easy to read font is important too. Pages that useItalics are harder to read. By all means use Italics to highlighta quote or to make a point. The same applies to bold, coloredand underlined text, use sparingly. Pages that over use boldand multi colored text can look very amateurish.

The overall design should enhance the information you areproviding for your site visitor. Too many animations and differentcolors also distract people.

Many newer high profile, high traffic sites are using less graphics at the top of their pages. Usually there will be a logo in the top left corner of the page as this is the first area of the page most people see. Second they see the main headline in the center of the page and from there they either look up to the top right corner or scroll down the content of the page.

There are some very clever graphics used on Web sites, but it is generally thought that a simple logo or easy to read companyname will be retained by more sites visitors than a more complexone.

Using a simple header (logo - Company Name) at the top of yourweb site is also of a higher name branding value.

Even the placing of the menu bar can have an effect. There are No set rules here, the buttons or links can be places at the rightor left side of the page or across the top or a combination of both. Many sites also have a number of text links at the bottom of thepage, usually company information and disclaimers etc.

Make sure you also include a site map containing links to every page on your site. The propose is to assist search engines finding all your pages to spider and for your site visitors so they don't getlost. Your site map link should be easily found.

The web site layout and design is usually arrived at by the site owner and or webmaster and as we are all individuals we all have our personal color preferences, likes and dislikes. This being thecase, do some home work and compare your design with other Web sites selling or promoting similar products and services.

Make sure your theme falls in line with other similar sites. If you are going to sell home made chocolates from your website, I would suggest rather than showing a closed chocolatebox, you would be better advised to show a person holding an open box with a few chocolates missing and the person taking a bite of a chocolate with a big smile on their face. This gives you a subliminal message of how yummy the chocolates are and will even get your mouth watering.

A picture can express a thousand words, but too many pictures on your site can be distracting.

My conclusion on good web site layout and design will be different to yours and I don't have any problems with that. But the end result of your web site will tell the tale when you check the sales you make.

In all this there is ONE point I wish to make very clearto you and that is, you cannot in all honesty promote anyproduct or service on the Internet to its full potential marketwithout owning your own Domain Name and Web site

Reason Number One.

Search Engines, If you are promoting anything on the Internet you need to have your site listed as it is very hard or almost impossible to list an affiliated member site.

Reason Number Two.

With the ISP's filtering or dumping tons of email every day you do not know if the person or prospect you are writing to will receive your email or if their ISP will filter and delete or dump it. On the other side is that email being sent to you is also being filtered so any email even from a family member or business contact maybe filtered, never to be seen again.