• you have a header,
• a footer,
• a content area, and
• navigation.

To make your life easier let us suggest that you put the content in the middle.  The navigation either goes down the left side or across at either the top or bottom.  If you get a really complex site, your navigation could be in both places.  If you choose to put it across, we usually recommend that you put it at the top under your header.

The header is where you put your logo.  Sometimes your phone number is good here as well.

The footer has your copyright notice and links to other places if you desire.  For instance, you can put in a link to us, we’d really like that.

While content continues to be king, the queen (graphics) has a lot to say.  Many people can read the words but don’t get the picture.  Some can see the picture but not understand its meaning.

By combining these elements, you stand the best chance of having your message delivered the way you intended.  For the best results, you should use graphics that are germane to your topic.

As far as how much material to put on a page, that is entirely up to you.  We recommend that each page be dedicated to one topic, product, or service.  So, if you have 5 primary services, you would have 5 services pages.  If you have more than 5 services/products within a topic/subject, you will probably need a menu page just for them.

The “Privacy Policy” page serves two purposes:

1. It gives the visitor a sense that you are concerned and will look out for them as best you can.
2. The search engines give you bennies if you have one, which only means that you might get your pages ranked higher than someone that does not have a privacy page.

A Site Map is like a picture of your site, however, usually done as a straight text linking tool.  This also serves two purposes:

1. If you are using graphics for your navigation, this page provides text links (which is what the search engines follow)
2. Your visitors might get lost in your system and this is their way to find out where they are and where they might really want to go.

If the depth of your site gets complex, the site map will be critical to providing clarity for your visitors.

There is another sitemap that you might consider adding to your site called sitemap.xml.  It is used entirely by the search engines to spider your site.  You can get your own sitemap file from a free source called http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/.  This tool will map your site and all you need to do is store it in your root directory on your web hosting server  Use this tool after you have launched your site with most of the content that you expect to use.

Having your structure design in mind will help you decide on your look and feel.  This is the graphics part of your page design.  Since the ‘look and feel’ is such an emotional issue, we are not attempting to go into much detail in this document, however, with that said, let’s look at some basic things to keep in mind:

1. Keep the look and feel consistent with your existing business plan.
2. If this is a startup, keep the design extremely simple.  Most of the time black or dark on white or light colored pages is best.  White on black works good if you have a lot of photos on your site.
3. Always keep your target audience in mind.  If they are young and your topic is say loud music, a busier site makes sense.
4. Research the available tools to determine which will work best for you.  If you need more graphics then look at those tools; words, then editors; a mixture, perhaps a more generic tool will suffice.

Above all else (including the almighty search engines), remember: Your visitors are the most important persons in your entire life at the moment that they choose to visit your site.  Treat them well and you will get your just reward.

The author, Bruce Tuggle, is the manager of houston-websites.com.  He has been building websites since 1992.  Before Al Gore invented the web.

It stated quite simply that you need to write and publish articles about the topic of your interest.

In fact, it stated that you need to put out about 120 articles each and every month with a projection of about 19 signups to your email list per article.

This means that for each month, you are projecting to get 2280 sign ups and of them, you will keep maybe 2000 of them.  This attrition happens when someone doesn’t continue the opt-in process or decides not to continue.

Now before we go any further, let me assure you that this signup rate is quite aggressive, so plan on less than that.

If you run this over a 6 month period, you will have retained 12,000 people on your list (using our example).  This would be a very daunting list to have.  And the main reason is that they have expressed an interest in the topic that you are discussing.  Hopefully, this means that they are prospects for your goods and services.

It is important that your articles are simple to read and understand and that each delivers value to your readers.

Your audience must be able to read your entire article in a very short period of time, which means in a couple of minutes or so.

About 500 words in your article can be read by most people in less than 2 minutes.  So, this would be a good target number of words for your article.

If you are using a professional ezine publisher, you are not allowed to make a sales pitch or promote your goods or services within your article.  You are imparting things like “how to do something” (like this article) or “how to use the XYZ” that you are really selling, but are not selling in the article.

What you really want to do is build your email list.  Then you can send promotional material to them to your heart’s content.

So, in your article (usually near the end) ask them to take some sort of action to get something back in return.

To get them to sign up can be as simple as “click here to learn more.”  The –click here– part would be a link to your “squeeze page”.

A squeeze page can be nothing more than a form on your website or on your list mangers site that captures the responders name and email address.

From this squeeze page, you can have a function that sends the responder an email telling them where to get the additional information or a page that tells them how it is going to be delivered to them.

You will need to have something prepared that will become your actual sales pitch or presentation, more detailed information (that leads to a sale), or something similar.

This could also be a free sample of your product.

I hope that we have delivered some meaningful information so that you can get started.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please visit our website articles section.

Thank you.

…..Bruce

No matter what business you are in, you have probably had a requirement to either write a sales letter or create some advertising copy to help get more folks to see your stuff.

So, by understanding the importance of being able to write “killer copy”, you can begin to see its value in increasing that visitor value.

Dr. Mani goes on to set the ground rules by providing you with: “4 Tips To Crafting Great Sales Letters That Convert More Prospects Into Buyers”.  With these basic rules in mind, he continues with concise examples of what to do to write better.

He provides you with specific locations (on the web and in the brick and mortar world) where you can find ideas that you can use to improve how you present your material to achieve your ultimate goal of selling something to someone.

Dr. Mani also explains how to communicate with your prospects by making sure that your copy is readable and to the point.

He points out the value of a great headline, how to set up your “pre-headline”, how to properly address your letter, organization of the body copy and, of course, how to drive your prospect to a course of action.

It does not matter if you are a beginning writer, an accomplished professional, or just the man on the street with a need to write a sales letter or ad, Dr. Mani’s “21 Copywriting Tips To Make You VERY Rich” has a solution for you.

I told my friend that I would help him.  So, we set up a website, put in a few basic pages including an introduction to his course materials, and created a membership only section and then…..stopped.

Since I wasn’t seeing any course materials, I asked him what he was doing.  He said that he was doing more research.

Now, let me assure you that this gentleman has more intimate knowledge of the topic he is working on then most people have about their chosen professions.  So, what is he doing research on?

He was doing advanced research in his somewhat complicated profession.  He was gathering material for his course, for when his students reached their advanced year status.  You know: the doctorate material.

Wait a minute, he doesn’t have any students.  And, if someone were to join right now, there are no materials from which to start learning.

So, I asked him if he still had his TOC  (table of contents) or outline available.  He said he had it somewhere around.

OK, so here is what happens next?

I suggested that he look at the topic title for the very first thing on his TOC.  Then, sit down and write a short article about that topic.  When I say short I mean in the range of 500 – 700 words.  This is about 3 or 4 minutes of reading for most folks.

Now, store this document in a folder named whatever the first chapter is called. But don’t call it the same name as the folder.

If that same subject needs more explanation, then write another short article about it.  Keep the number of words limited to 500 – 700 words.

And, so forth until that topic is exhausted.  You might have ten articles all related to the same topic but each detailing a specific point or thought.  You might only have one article, although this is rare.

Now start on the second chapter.  Repeat the same steps used in making chapter one.

OK, done with chapter two.

Go back to chapter one’s first article and re-read it.  Fill in the transitions, take out the BS.  Save it.  Go to article two.  Repeat these steps until you’ve reached the end of the chapter.

Once you have completely re-written every article in the first chapter, make a new file named the same as the chapter and create a new document where you combine these short articles.  Don’t lose those little articles

Now, print it out this newly created big document, edit it.  Make sure that the transitions from one article to the next are smooth.  Add whatever you need to make it flow from A to B to C etc.  Rearrange your articles to make them grow steadily towards the conclusion of the first chapter.

One more thing, at the very end of this big document, create a transition paragraph that leads the student into their next chapter.  Give them a little bit of what is to come.  In this way, you will have created a demand to keep going.

When you get done with that part, you can put it into a PDF document that will be ready for downloading.

Now, go do chapter 3.  Write your little articles.

Go back to chapter 2, repeat the actions of Chapter 1 where you re-edit each short article and finally combine them into one big document with the same name as Chapter 2.

And so on.

Pretty soon, you have enough material in your inventory to start signing up students.

Right about now, it is going to get a tad hairy.  You will start to get real students.  They ask the most interesting questions at the most unusual time.  You need to be ready to modify your materials as their demands dictate.

AND, you still have a number of chapters to get written, AND, you can also take the rest of your day to continue your own education to prepare for those advance students who will eat up your earlier materials really, really fast.

If you have a logical stopping point several chapters out, then perhaps you can wrap it up as a complete project.  If your subject allows you to keep going, then you can start your next course.

I will not go into the marketing aspect of this project since there is an abundant supply of sources already out there.  But, that will be your next step.

Good luck and have fun.

Whatever are we going to do? Will it ever stop?

Not likely. The reason is there are too many companies out there in the world with the same names. There are also so many ingenious people who can spot how to take advantage of a name. So, why not you too?

One of the really great things about having different extensions is that you can perform split testing easily. What does this mean? Well, let’s say that you have a widget that has a ton of competition and you want to run some ads to promote yours.

What you might do is create an ad and run it in all the traditional spots having a link that goes to your .com website. Then you create another ad with one or two measurable changes that have links going to your .co website.

Both websites would handle the inbound inquiry the same, but because they are different websites, you can compare the activity on each with the other.

If you are using any of the sophisticate tools, you will be able to measure impressions, clicks, and conversion rates as well.

But, for the more unsophisticated of us, just counting the number of inquiries that hit each website is easy to do.

We all know that there are a number of factors that go into driving traffic to a specific spot, but to keep it simple, just count the inquiries or orders.

Now, back to the issue of .com vs .co! What other reasons can be put forward for you to consider getting a .co website?

If you have not heard of back links, perhaps you should. These little devils have been helping search engine rankings for quite a spell. And, you can create a website with the .co extension that points to your .com extension and thus create a back link. It is one of the weakest ones, but a back link none the less.

Now, let’s look at those of you that needed to create an acronym for your domain name because it wasn’t available at the time. If you hurry, you might be able to have the xyz.co domain name that you’ve always wanted. And, as the .co name takes hold, you will be in a much better position to garner the successes of search engine placement, whahoo!

There is a rather notorious sports event scheduled to occur on the first Sunday of February of 2011. There is expected to be an announcement regarding the topic of ½ of this article. If you miss it, you might get a clue from: “.co”.

If you hurry, you, too, might be able to capitalize on the void that is currently in place between the number of .com and .co extensions.

Each of them cover a selected topic that we discuss related to types of websites people are building.

Perhaps you can find yours.

There is nothing wrong with any of them. It really matters what you want your site to do for you.  You can have several websites for each of your objectives or one massive one that says it all.  They can have similar names or be totally different.  It is really your call.

These discussions are to let you know about some of the kinds of websites that you can have and a generalization for their intended purpose. As long as you are informed about what you want to do, then it is easier to accomplish your goal.

Looking Good!

These are usually designed around the theme:  It’s All About Me!

Everybody’s Doing It!

You feel like everybody else has one, me too!

Leads, Leads, Leads!

I want your name and contact information, please!

Sell, Sell, Sell!

The daddy of them all, just give me your money!

Informational!

News, opinions, facts, and all that!