Successful companies invest in brand image and in establishing a solid leadership image in their industry. Companies of all sizes can utilize the same strategies though, to compete for new revenue. Development of an effective internet message strategy requires an investment of time and effort. This investment usually pays off with increased sales.

Most organizations utilize the company website as the major communication tool to interact with customers and prospects. Effective use of this tool though requires understanding of customer behavior and the level of internet and web skill users typically possess. Savvy business markets know the level of internet skill that current customers have and have taken the time to build a consumer profile that outlines who the usual customers are and how they acquire data and information.

Newer companies and start-ups may have to invest time in coming up with these answers. Research into these areas using current customer data can provide a general idea, but an understanding of how your customers use the web is important for structuring your communications strategy. Read the rest of this entry »

Dreamweaver’s New Related Files facility

HTML is a fairly limited environment which relies on files created with other technologies to add functionality to web pages. Typical examples of related files are server-side includes, CSS, JavaScript and XML. Dreamweaver now includes a feature called “Related Files” which enables you to edit the content of such files, without having to open them separately, and to instantly see the effect of your changes on the main file.

There have also been some nice new additions to the Spry form validation widgets. The Spry Validation Password widget allows you to specify the minimum and maximum number of characters, numbers, uppercase and special characters which can be included in the password entered. The Spry Validation Confirm widget checks that the entries in two fields are identical and displays a customizable error is they are not. This makes it ideal for creating “Password/Confirm Password” or “Email/Confirm Email” functionality.

Photoshop Smart Objects Read the rest of this entry »

You check your traffic every day but all you find are tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape of your blog. Well, there’s a reason you’re not building readership. Your blog sucks. Most do, and all for the same reasons. The same 7 reasons.

1. Your writing is boring – Ever come across writing that are both educative and entertaining? The simplest way to add life into your articles is by writing your post the same way you talk. It adds personality in your post.

2. Your blog revolves around you – Stop talking about yourself already. I don’t know you personally, and I couldn’t care less about your ramblings. Tell me something I can use in my own life. Facts, stories, not boring personal stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

One popular post can bring your more traffic and links than a month’s worth of your usual content. In this post, I want to set you a challenge with the potential to launch your blog into the stratosphere. So make sure to use these tips and make the next post you write your most popular post ever.

1. Time is more important than talent – Work on something for eight hours and you can bet it will be good. Spending more time on an article means you can refine, format and fill your post with more values. My advice is, take the time to really craft your content. It will show in the finished product.

2. Use your best idea – I’ll be honest here. I use to have a tendency to keep my best idea for later use. I won’t recommend this to anyone. The whole point is to try writing your best post one after another. Here’s the rule of thumb. The more your post help people solve their problems, the better it will do. Read the rest of this entry »

HTML is a markup language used to create web pages designed to be accessed across the World Wide Web using browser software such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. The version of HTML in current use is referred to as XHTML, a stricter, rationalised version of the original HTML specification. One important fact to note about HTML and XHTML pages is that they describe the content and structure of the page rather than the position and presentation of the elements on the page.

The first significant difference between an HTML and XHTML page is the document type definition. There are several ways in which this specification can be done in Adobe Dreamweaver. One of the most convenient is to go to the Modify menu and choose Page Properties. Here, in the category marked Title/Encoding, one of the options reads Document Type (DTD).

There are quite a few options available in the drop-down menu next to this setting, some relating to HTML version 4 and some to XHTML version 1. These DTD settings specify the rules that the mark-up language must follow so that the browsers can render the content correctly. For any new content you may be creating, the best specification to choose is XHTML 1.0 transitional since it uses the current XHTML specification while allowing backward compatibility with slightly older browsers. Read the rest of this entry »

Search engine optimization, better known SEO, is the most important single investment any website owner can make for their ongoing success. Every year the strategies that go into SEO become slightly more specific and slightly more nuanced. Search engines themselves are always changing, becoming more accurate and more effective in responding to specific user inquiries, and more selective about sites that may be spam. That’s why website owners everywhere need to reevaluate their search engine optimization strategies every year to make sure they are still employing the best strategies available.

In the’90s, SEO was simple. You added a few meta tags to your website, and made sure your content was peppered with keywords at a high percentage. Just repeating keywords was once enough to draw traffic. This was back in another era when spider technologies were relatively new, and when website visitors were OK with simple matches that approximated the information they were seeking.

To and through 2009, however, search engines have striven to deliver more accurate results for their users, and no search engine has done more to increase accuracy than Google. In the’90’s, Google’s algorithm was to count back-links and prioritize. If you had enough back-links to “good” sites, and you had keyword anchor text in those links, and you had keywords in your content, you could effectively optimize your site. Read the rest of this entry »

While starting a money making blog may not be the easiest thing to do, it won’t be the hardest thing you’ve ever done either!

If you’re just starting out I would suggest you set-up a Blogspot blog. They are free and easy to monetize. Blogspot, also called Blogger, is owned by Google so setting up AdSense is really a snap.

A hosted Wordpress.org blog is widely felt to be the best way to gain respect and credibility for your blogging, but if the $10.00 or so a month is beyond your reach one of the free blogging platforms is the way to go. Read the rest of this entry »

XML schema definition languages are based on the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They use XML 1.0 syntax and aim to explicit describe the structure of XML documents and constrain the data which they may contain. They offer a distinct improvement on the more limited schema features offered by the Document Type Definition (DTD) recommendation which formed part of the original XML specification released in 1998. The most widely used schema language is the one defined by the W3C in 2001: W3C XML Schema. However, there are alternatives, such as RELAX NG and Schematron.

XML Schema documents are the successors to DTDs and overcome some key limitations associated with them. Firstly, DTDs do not support data types. Secondly, DTDs do not support namespaces. Thirdly, DTDs do not allow developers to accurately define the number of permitted occurrences of elements within their parent element.

An XML schema describes the structure of an XML instance document by defining what each element must or may contain. An element is limited by its type. For example, an element of complex type can contain child elements and attributes, whereas a simple-type element can only contain text. The diagram below gives a first look at the types of XML Schema elements. Read the rest of this entry »

We all tend to forget things. Bloggers are no exceptions. I hope this list will serve as a good reminder to complete tasks that are important, and should not be left forgotten.

1. Backup your blog regularly – I don’t think I can stress this enough. If there is one thing you should take from the tips listed here, it’s this one. And I speak from experience. Waking up early in the morning only to find your blog crashed and you have no backup data, is like having your soul mate killed right in front of you, and there is nothing you could do about it.

2. Link to older posts – There several benefits from linking to your older posts that you don’t want to miss. Apart from increasing your traffic, search engine rankings and providing more information for your readers to go deeper into certain subjects, it also increase visitors’ time spent, which in turn will increase your chances of gaining subscriptions. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Official. Google hates affiliate marketing and has decided to ban every marketer that it claims is not following it’s policies for life. For many marketers this has been a death knell as with 80% of the market, Google has been the most obvious, and easiest source of traffic to get into. But now that the Google wells are running dry it’s becoming important to find new traffic as quickly as possible. And this is where Jonathan Mizel’s new Traffic Evolution comes in.

Enter Jonathan Mizel’s Traffic Evolution.

How Traffic Evolution works Read the rest of this entry »