Other Ways to Look at Things

Many people today are tired of the Microsoft software that came pre-packaged with their operating system. Some have switched over to Apple's Macintosh line, but for the most part we just put up with what we have. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) has come under a lot of fire as of late for several reasons. Hackers find IE easy to exploit.

These reasons, and many others, have sent Internet users searching for a new, less bug-prone browser. Several browsers have topped the market, and have become quite popular. So popular, in fact, that smart web designers use them in testing their new website functionality.

Opera (www.opera.com) has become my favorite of the 'other browser' market. With such subtle things such as mouse gestures, it won me over. The newest release works seamlessly with most plug-ins.

Mozilla (www.mozilla.org) and it's slimmed-down partner Mozilla Firebird are also very popular. The browser reminds me of the old Netscape 6.0 but works great for most all web applications and websites. It won Best of 2003, Web Browser in a recent PC World contest.

If you design websites, you should have all three of these on your desktop, and you should check all your sites with them. There are slight differences in the way each processes webpages, and you need to verify that they all display nicely.

Dont Make Your Website User-UNfriendly!

Web Design is a very subjective process. Your idea of what looks good may differ from the next person's. While wild backgrounds and flashing text were once considered 'cool', unwritten standards have evolved into every web designers inventory.

In the following examples I intend to convey a few of those user-unfriendly examples to you. My purpose is only to get you thinking about the layout and performance of your website. If you have one of these examples on your site, and you like it, by all means - leave it there! These are just examples.

1. Page Counters Five years ago, every site had a page counter. They proudly displayed how popular a site had become. The problem is, as many site owners started to find out, is that these counters can be easily manipulated. They can start at any number (not just 1), and they can produce vastly over-inflated numbers. On the other hand, if your site is not a high-traffic area, do you really want customers to know that?

2. Javascript Text Scrolling I remember when this first came out. In fact, I had it on my home page. Do you remember visiting a website and all the scrolling text across the bottom? These were usually put in your status bar along the bottom edge of your browser window. They have become a big no-no in web design. Users like to see their status bar, or, if they don't, they turn it off. Either way, this is a useless tool.

3. Excessive Animated .GIF's In the mid 90's when the Internet boom hit, everyone was getting a home page. Sites and ISP's would give you FREE space to put up your information. Soon, webmaster wannabe's everywhere were over populating the web with crazy animations and bright (obnoxious!) colors. Today very few sites use these files. They are now considered a waste of bandwidth. Since most companies pay for their hosting by how much bandwidth is used, animated GIF's went by the wayside.

4. Under Construction Signs There used to be (and probably still are) pages and pages of different 'under construction' graphics for webmasters to use. Why is this a problem? Well, isn't the Internet just a big construction site anyway? Are you and your friends, clients, and other businesses constantly updating and upgrading their information online? It also conveys a sense of incompleteness. No business wants their customers to think they are running on a low budget or producing an incomplete website. The construction graphic is extinct!

5. Page Fades We've all seen those fancy pages that fade in and out, from circles to spirals and even window-shades. They fall in the category with the scrolling text - obsolete! Most Internet users are looking for INFORMATION, not fancy graphics and page transitions.

When Good Computers Go Bad

Remember the day that you got your new computer (or the hand-me down from Uncle Larry) and you pulled that shiny case out of the box? Once you finally had all of the cables properly mangled into an unmanageable ball, you powered on, the screen lit up and off you went. The PC was fast, programs loaded in the blink of an eye, and Internet surfing was a breeze. Those were the days.

But now your PC seems to need a walker and a dozen car batteries just to get enough energy to start. Now you can turn the PC on, go get some coffee, walk the dog, and wave hello to your local waste management person who is throwing your trash cans around like a toy. When you come back inside, if the computer is ready to go, you're surprised. Then, once you click on something, the wait starts again.

So what happened? Where did you go wrong?

There are many things that contribute to your slowing PC. Perhaps you forgot to feed the little gerbil inside - the one that's running the wheel round and round that powers your PC. Maybe you've loaded one-too-many programs and now your hard drive is gasping for air. You may have a computer that is more than 2 years old, which may cause some newer programs to just not work. You may need more memory in your computer. And if you have teenagers, you're just out of luck. Between games, instant messaging programs, and tons of Internet history backlog, you should be looking for a professional psychiatrist.

But your PC is not dead on arrival. There is a way to resuscitate the old pile of metal into a once-again functional machine. Start by going into the Control Panel (START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL on most machines) and click on the Add/Remove Programs button. Look through the list for programs you no longer use. Make sure you recognize the name, and that you aren't deleting Aunt Mary's recipe book on accident. If you do, your wife will remind you daily for the next six years. Remove with care. For programs that show in duplicate, remove the oldest version. If you are not sure about a program, don't delete it. Call a professional - or your teenager.

You really should check your hard drive. In Windows, it's pretty easy. Double-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop. Your desktop is the main screen you see when the computer comes on, you know, the one with the cute puppy background or the picture of someone's kids. When the My Computer window comes up, right-click on your main hard drive, usually labeled as the C drive. You should get a menu with options, choose Properties. That will bring up a small window with a neat little pie chart. Note your used and free space amounts. If your pie has only 1 slice left worth of free space, you need to start cleaning the drive, or get a bigger one. Windows wants at least ten percent of your drive to be free just to run minimally. I suggest more like twenty percent. With hard drives in the 100 gigabyte range now, you shouldn't have to worry about space issues.

These are a few good ways to start reviving that PC back to its former self.

Moving Things Around

How often, men, have you come home to find the living room furniture in different places? Your wife said she was ready for something different, so she moved some things around. It may have been inconvenient at first, but deep inside it felt good to have things a little different at home. Maybe by moving the couch over there it made the room seem bigger. By moving the TV over on that wall gave the room a sense of coziness.

The same can be true for your website. If you are in a rut, and your website isn't bringing in the results you thought it should, maybe a little 'furniture moving' is what you need.

Recently I moved a few things around on my home page. Instead of hitting the customers with an immediate web design and hosting blurb, I put something that caught the user's eye. My newsletter. Now the first thing that a potential client sees on our home page is an offer for FREE tips and specials. Immediately the customer is 'given' something, instead of the same old here's why we are the best. Since moving the newsletter link to the top, we've had a surge of subscribers, more than we've had in the last 6 months.

Moving things around may be good for more than just you. Google watches home pages for stagnant, unchanging information. If your page is not updated regularly, Google (and others) actually figures that into it's vast algorithm that it uses to rank your site among the others. Moving things around can keep your page fresh, and importantly, keep you in the listings.

Be careful, though, that you don't move too much stuff. If you have a login link, moving it may confuse those customers of yours that are used to clicking in the upper right corner to log in. Move that, or change it's color, and some users may simply think you've discontinued that service, or have completely abandoned them. Move with caution.

So Much About META Tags!

I've written about META tags in the past, and I thought I'd help you expand your search engine optimization efforts and increase your web hits.

Rule #1: META tags always go in between the HEAD tags on your website. Rule #2: NEVER include any line breaks in any META tag!

Most everyone knows the two basic META tags: keywords and description.

Keywords should be in a descending order of importance. Move your most important keywords to the front, and don't repeat yourself (e.g. auto,parts,auto parts,Auto Parts). Keep the list short, to about 25 keywords. If you cater to more than one ethnic group of people, consider keywords in other languages. Lastly, eliminate spaces between the words. Make them "comma" instead of "comma space".

Descriptions should also be kept short and to the point. Around 100-125 characters is about the max usable length. Make sure you use a few important keywords in your description, be informative but brief.

Web designers should include these tags as well:

These three tags may change if you are the owner of the company/website but not the creator. In that case, the first two lines would be about the company owner, while the third should be the creator or the creator's web address.

For visiting robots, you may want to add this line:

Although most robots use the robots.txt file, Google in particular also pays attention to the third item - noarchive. This tells the search engine to index the page, but not to cache it. This comes in handy if you change your page often. Google will then always send the user to the latest version of the page, not one that it cached.

Latly, you may want to consider these two META tags for our wonderful Microsoft-controlled world:

The first turns off a feature in MS Internet Explorer which displays "smart tags", or dynamic links, to your website. These links can actually send the user to your competition's website. Not good!

The imagetoolbar tag prevents Internet Explorer 6+ users from swiping your custom-made graphics by disabling a toolbar. This toolbar is usually displayed by doing a right-click on a graphic and saving it to disk. While people can still swipe your graphics, at least they'll have to go through a little trouble to get it. Hopefully its enough of a deterrant to keep them away.

Turn Benefits Into Sales with Streaming Media

The "Wow" factor that accompanied the introduction of streaming media on the Web has long passed, and the technology now has to prove itself to marketers. Its' acceptance by advertisers, in conjunction with other rich media technologies, is on the upswing, but it's still not widely used to enhance commercial sites.

Companies trying to do business on the Internet are bombarded with marketing advice. Go to your target market. Promote your brand. Develop a web "community." Publish a Zine. All of it, good advice. But shopping carts are still being abandoned at an alarming rate, and conversion has become the most important web statistic.

In the absence of live salespeople, who know how to listen and focus in on the customers' desires, businesses on the Web must use the technological tools available to replicate that human experience. Streaming is one of those tools.*

Streaming Media is a natural way to motivate purchasing. It can be integrated into your website as a means to help people get over that "hump" when they haven't been able to see or touch a product. Use it to calm customers' nerves, build their trust in your company, and to keep their excitement about your service alive.

When would streaming media serve visitors' needs on a commercial or business site? Use it for:

*Product Demonstrations - Visuals are powerful and convey product features difficult to explain only in text. Medical devices are great candidates.

*Installation issues - especially for products geared to personal safety such as child car seats - are expertly handled with video.

* Human Resource professionals can use it to enhance corporate Intranets for remote sales forces and clients. Training programs can be stored and viewed by personnel at their convenience. Both audio and video can be used in conjunction with written materials to explain company policies and procedures.

*Streaming slideshows are an economical method of showcasing vacation facilities, business plants, and real estate properties.

*Demystify the shopping experience - use it to navigate the selling process.

*Teachers and coaches of dance, sports and gym activities can highlight their training methods with short demonstration clips.

Many businesses would like to use streaming media but are put off by high production costs. Keep in mind that existing materials might be perfectly suited for current needs. Your streaming provider should be able to assist you with preparing and, if needed, modifying your material.

Streaming media is a very effective and affordable marketing tool. In today's world, where consumers have more purchasing power and choices than ever before, it can be used to make your customers aware of benefits that can't be found elsewhere. And, benefits often turn into sales.

Streaming media should not be used arbitrarily, however. Unless your material is relevant to your visitors and adds perceived value to their purchase, don't waste your time or theirs. When designing your streaming media presentation, ask yourself what it will accomplish that your current content doesn't. Will it complement your existing material? Will it be utilized to enhance your offering? Will it provide additional incentive to make your visitor buy?

If you can answer yes to those questions, streaming media should be a strong candidate for your marketing dollars. Use streaming media technology wisely, and it will go a long way to making your business site stand out in a very crowded field.

*What IS streaming? Streaming promises quick access to crucial audio and video content without the aggravating wait for files to download. Downloading requires that files be sent to the user's PC in their entirety before they can be played; MP3 audio is a perfect example of this. The files then remain on the user's machine until they are deleted. Streaming continuously sends these same files, which have already been digitized, to the user's PC while the user is listening or watching. When the stream is ended, no data is left behind on the user's machine.

4 Things That Make A Web Site Great

First you need original content. Content is the heart beat of any exceptional Web site. The ability to take a common subject and give it some interest and originality is a rare talent,but necessary to keep visitors coming back. Add a dash of humor, be sure to update once or twice a month and look out, you're on your way.

Second you need, great graphics. If your graphics are properly used they can greatly enhance a web site and it's content. However, if you overuse or they take forever to load, you will drive visitors away before they even see the content. The irony here is that just about anyone can make decent graphics and expensive programs are not required.

Third, you need a good presentation. Good Web sites do not keep the user guessing. They make their purpose immediately evident and present an easy to follow navigation system. The content and graphics blend in perfectly with the presentation and following it is a simple matter. You will never find hyperbole or confusion caused by overuse of animated graphics,Java or anything else that will serve to mask the intent and content of the site. Most importantly, a great Web site is run by a competent and knowledgeable Webmaster. One who knows how to seamlessly move the visitors to each level of the site. A great Web site is not a side show, it's a simple (no-need-to-be flashy) library of content. It just does what it is supposed to do and leaves the hoopla behind.

Last, but not least your site needs to be both interactive and proactive. Good web sites are ones that are people conscience.While, yes, the Internet is the cutting edge of technology and all that, remember it's just regular people, like you and I that are using it and will make it what it is in the future. The great web sites are the ones with the developers who not only have all the techno skills, but the people skills to boot. Think about the sites you visit over and over. What keeps you coming back. Useful content. Yes. How about that feeling of belonging. Like someone is actually having a one on one conversation with you. The ability to provide the opportunity to express and contribute is the mark of a superior web developer and what makes a web site one of the great ones.