Set your sites higher: 5 tips to update your website for success

When it comes to the internet, your website is your front door, your waiting room, your store and your office. The impression you make with a clean, professional-looking and functional website will carry over to your business dealings with customers and clients. A little common sense and care can go a long way. Try to view your site from a user's perspective, and don't be afraid to get feedback on improving the web experience. Here are some tips to help you spruce up your site design.

1) Mind the basics.

A visitor should be able to tell what your business does right from your main web page. Most web suffers don't have much patience, so you have only a few seconds to make a good impression. Keep your site updated regularly with new content, products or information, and your customers will have a reason to stick around as well as come back later. Proofread your entire website to catch spelling and grammatical errors before your customers do. Make sure your contact information is easily accessible.

2) Keep your site structure well-organized.

Be sure your website navigation is clear, simple and consistent from page to page. Overall, page sizes should be reasonably compact and blocks of text streamlined to a manageable size. Try to place the most important information toward the top of the page so that you minimize the amount of scrolling your customer needs to do to view important content or product information. In particular, watch your graphics placement, and avoid horizontal scrolling--it's an annoyance that does not generally sit well with suffers. A site map or search function can also be a handy tool to help visitors Locate the exact content they're Looking for, especially for large, elaborate websites. Good site structure translates into ease of use and satisfied customers who will want to return to your website.

3) Flashy websites with tots of spinning video, animated splash pages and automatic music may be appropriate for some businesses, but not most.

Elaborate web design can stow down the user experience and be a turnoff for potential customers. Keep the took of your website clean, and always consider the impression you're making on a first-time visitor. Do you really want them waiting around for a page to Load or frantically reaching to turn down their speakers? On a more basic level, be aware of the size of your graphics files. Keep them slimmed down so they will load fast.

4) Pay attention to the impact of different colors.

If you wouldn't print a business card with hot pink text on a black background, you shouldn't have a website that looks like that, either. Be sure to check that all text is easily readable and that your overall use of color is easy on the eyes. Businesses that already have a color scheme associated with their branding can carry that over to their websites for a consistent experience both online and off.

5) Go to a professional when you need to.

Most busy entrepreneurs don't have the time or expertise to build and maintain an elaborate website. For simpler sites, web design templates like those Network Solutions offers to its customers can be a quick and painless way to get up and running on the web. If your needs are more complex, it may be a good time to check in with a designer who can specifically tailor a site to fit your business and your budget. Network Solutions, for example, has professional web designers on staff to build your business site to meet your specific needs. A service like that is not only affordable, but can also get your site up quickly while providing the added benefit of monthly maintenance. Busy entrepreneurs will appreciate the one-stop shopping that Network Solutions offers for hosting, design and e-mail

For more information on growing your business online, go to www.entrepreneur.com/etips.

Why You Must Absolutely Have A Website?

by: Mark Gerrard

In today’s culture, a website represents your business card – even if you don’t have a business! Your child may have a website, your neighbour may have a website and even your local place of worship has a website.

A website allows you to communicate – keep in touch with as many people as possible while at the same time minimising the cost of doing so. Can you imagine the cost of consistently printing and mailing to 2000 loyal customers every month?

A website cuts down on your total cost of postage and your everyday word processing software cuts down on physically writing out every greeting or piece of correspondence.

However, a website does the one thing that you’re always looking for: a website helps to free your time.

Your time is the most precious commodity that you’ll never be able to get back. You’ll never be able to play that magnificent round of golf, go vacationing with the family or watching your child perform in their school play if you’re constantly trying to free yourself of responsibilities.

A website is a lot of work to start. That’s the truth. The best way to look at your website is to view it as your own body. When you put the right fuel (food) in your system your body runs efficiently. You aren’t constipated, you have lots of energy and you feel great. Combine this with a little exercise and you’ll live a fairly long life. When you start feeding yourself bad food, you start to feel tired and irritable. You may gain weight and start outgrowing your favourite clothing.

That’s the same thing that could happen to your website if it gets neglected. Just like your body, a website starts to deteriorate. The pride that you showed at having a website disappears and your website suffers.

If you still have doubts about having a website, think of it as your on-line sales centre. Imagine having a system that can take your orders when you are asleep. Or a system that will allow you to take a holiday and monitor your sales if you like without asking a sales manager? Maybe you don’t want to hire and train a new employee to take your orders and to know your sales process. A website helps you be better at what you do, not what you shouldn’t.

How to maximize your ad space?

wMaximize ad space with multiple ad units

Multiple ad units can help optimize your performance by leveraging our large inventory of ads. You can place up to three ad units per page (in addition to three link units and three referral units). Remember that the best way to measure the effect of multiple ad units is to examine the impact on your overall earnings. Multiple ad units may prove particularly successful for:

• Pages with lots of text, requiring users to scroll down the page.
• Forum or message board pages, particularly within threads.
• Pages where only smaller ad formats (such as the 125 x125 button) will fit.

Tip for maximizing multiple ad units:

Make sure that the ad unit with the best placement on the page is the ad unit that appears first in your HTML code. This will help ensure that your prime ad real estate is occupied by the ads that place highest in the auction and will generate the most revenue for you.

6 Tips to Earn More Money with Google Adsense

Are you one of those millions of people who are struggling just to earn a few dollars on Google AdSense? Do you want to know some simple yet effective tips on how you can maximize your AdSense earnings? Then read on. Below are 7 tips which will explode your AdSense earnings instantly.

1. Blending the Ads with Your Website

This is probably the most important tip when putting your google ads on your website. You must blend in your ads with your website. So if you have a white background for your website, use white background for your google ads. You need to steer away from using the standard formats, as they result in a low number of clicks. If you do that, you will find your click through rate jump instantly. This is due to the fact that you will make the visitors think that your ads are part of your content, and don't seem to look like ads, so they will most likely to click on the ads.

2. Use the full quota of your ads.

It's as simple as that. Use the full quota of your ads. Put as much ads on your website as you can, without breaking Google's terms.

3. Put your ads near the top of the page Put your ads near the top of the page.

Why? So that when people come to your site, they will be able to see the ads. Not all of them will be willing to scroll down to the bottom of the page. Also, put your ads on the left hand side, rather on the right hand side, because we read from left to right. Simple? Yes, it's that simple.

4. Use Text Links Ads, they generate a higher income.

I don't know why, but somehow, text links ads, especially the horizontal ones, generate a very high click through rate and revenue. I have experimented on many sites and text links ads usually perform very well.

5. Read Newspapers.

Newspaper? You may be wondering how newspapers relate to AdSense, but in fact, newspaper is the best place to learn ad positioning. Just by copying the ad positioning of newspaper, you will realise that your AdSense revenue will dramatically jump.

6. My Adsense Revenue almost tripled when I applied this technique

What is it? It is very simple. Put pictures on top or very close to your ads. By doing that, you will attract more attention and people will be more likely to click on your ads. However, please do be careful that you don't get random pictures off Google, as many pictures are protected by copyright laws. Please use only pictures that are royalty free. While many people may tell you that they knew these tips long time ago, you will realize that only 0.1% of the people apply these techniques to their website.

by Stanley Tang