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Q&A: How do you get your website to appear on the first page, at the top, of a Google search?

April 3, 2009 // Posted in browser, business, computers, development, forum, marketing, web, website  |  No Comments

Q&A: How do you get your website to appear on the first page, at the top, of a Google search?

Question:
How do you get your website to appear on the first page, at the top, of a Google search?

Answer:
Short answer, you don’t. Most people when they think of searching will type in something very broad and very generic like “karate” or “training” or even a little more precise like “self defense” and see millions of results. Trying to tackle that amount of competition for the top spot is really a losing battle, unless you have very deep pockets. A better approach, and one that has a better chance of being successful for you is to focus your attention on specific search phrases.

For example, many of my martial arts clients are in the Western New York area. They aren’t looking for someone in London England to hit their site, but for someone in the WNY area. So, a smart searcher will type in something like “Buffalo martial arts” (which results in 3 of my clients, and 5 of my sites on the 1st page) or “wny martial arts” (4 sites, 1 client on page 1), or “wny karate” (3 sites 1st page). Typing in something like “modern arnis seminar training” has 2 of my clients on the 1st page. Another example is “natural resource consulting” which has 1 of my clients on the 1st page of results.

It’s important to think in terms of search phrases when you optimize your site, and focus on those. A combination of proper key words, solid descriptions, and appropriate text will greatly enhance your chances for high placement. Also, be certain all of your images are captioned using ALT tags. Those are an often overlooked place for extra optimization.

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Bob Hubbard, is the CEO of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc. and an Administrator at MartialTalk.com and KenpoTalk.com. He can be reached through those sites.

Q&A: How do you get people to volunteer work for your money-making on-line business without complaint and with consistent, quality performance?

March 27, 2009 // Posted in advertising, business, development, forum, internet, marketing, promotion, web, website  |  No Comments

Q&A: How do you get people to volunteer work for your money-making on-line business without complaint and with consistent, quality performance?

Question:
How do you get people to volunteer work for your money-making on-line business without complaint and with consistent, quality performance?

Answer:
My experience has shown that when people care about something, they will often put in the time to make it a success. Convention presenters have known this for years, and are often run by volunteer staffs in the hundreds, all working towards a common goal of a successful and entertaining event. Many of the same reasons apply when looking for staff for online communities. Treat your people right, stand behind them, give them guidance so that they know what is expected of them, and train them in how to do their job well. Don’t treat them like slaves, or free help. Let them know when they are doing well, and show the your gratitude. A little appreciation shown can go a long way towards keeping god people happy. All of that however is useless, unless you have a purpose for which they will put in the time and effort. Make your enterprise one that people can feel a part of, that they can feel ownership of, and a part of, and you will find good people willing to help you build your dreams, together.

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Bob Hubbard, is the CEO of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc. and an Administrator at MartialTalk.com and KenpoTalk.com. He can be reached through those sites.

Q&A: How fancy and how big should your opening page be?

March 20, 2009 // Posted in browser, business, computers, development, internet, marketing, web, website  |  No Comments

Q&A: How fancy and how big should your opening page be?

Question:
How fancy and how big should your opening page be?

Answer:
There are several different views on this. Some will recommend long and wordy, others hort an terse, others flashy, others simple. My suggestion is to tailor the page toward your goals for the site.

I recomend using a couple of graphics, 2-3 paragraphs of good descriptive text, loaded with strong keywords for the search engines to latch onto. This gives you a good starting point. You can add more paragraphs, but be mindful of how many graphics you place. Each one adds to the overall size of your main page, and slows down it’s loading, especially for dialup users. A slow page detracts from the user experience.

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Bob Hubbard, is the CEO of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc. and an Administrator at MartialTalk.com and KenpoTalk.com. He can be reached through those sites.

Q&A: How many different colors should you use on a webpage?

March 13, 2009 // Posted in browser, development, internet, web, website  |  No Comments

Q&A: How many different colors should you use on a webpage?

Question:
How many different colors should you use on a webpage?

Answer:
Finding proper color balance for a website is crucial to having a pleasing look. To many clashing colors makes your site look amateurish and often childish. I usually recommend using a minimum of different colors, looking instead for an easy on the eyes background, with a clearly contrasting color for fonts. Black text on a white or off white background for example. I then use other colors to compliment the design. Red on Blue gives a weird 3D like effect and is very hard on most peoples eyes. Shades of blue, green and brown, as well as darker reds seem to work the best. For cues on what colors compliment, I refer to traditional graphics tools like color charts.

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Bob Hubbard, is the CEO of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc. and an Administrator at MartialTalk.com and KenpoTalk.com. He can be reached through those sites.

3 Basic Features Every Web Site Should Have By Bob Hubbard

March 9, 2009 // Posted in advertising, business, development, marketing, promotion, web, website  |  No Comments

3 Basic Features Every Web Site Should Have
By Bob Hubbard

Look around the Internet, look at 100 different websites, and you’ll find 100 different mixes of features. No two sites are exactly alike. Nor should they be, for each site has a unique purpose. But there are some features that every site should have. In this article, I will introduce you to XX of them.

#1 Every site should have a copyright statement.
While US Law states that a work is copyrighted at creation, there are a significant number of people online today who are sadly ignorant of the law, and who believe if it isn’t marked, it’s free to use as they wish. By including a well formatted copyright statement, you will stop some people, and have better chances should you ever need to go the legal route.

At the minimum, use something like this : “Copyright © YEAR – NAME – All Rights Reserved.” Where YEAR is the current year, and NAME is your name, or the name of your organization.

#2 Make sure there is a complete address, and phone number.
Too often I’ll run into a site that assumes that the visitor knows where they are. They list a street address, but no city, or no state. They say things like “We’re located in the Widget Mall”, yet Google shows 15 different “Widget Malls” around the world. They list a phone number, but no area code, forcing you to guess, or do more research and hope for the best. Use a complete address and phone number to maximize contact.

#3 Check all your pages for a working TITLE Tag.
Ever been to “Unknown”? It’s a common website. Estimates are that anywhere from a third to half the web page out there re using the default title tag. Make sure yours identifies your site, and gives a little bit of a description on what’s on that page. Don’t just say “About Bob”. Bob who? Where am I? Why should I care about Bob? “About Bob Hubbard, Owner of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc., a web site design and hosting company specializing in affordable solutions for martial artists.” Is a much better title tag.

There are a lot more features that a web site should have, but to me these are 3 of the most important ones. Of course, proper proof reading of all of your site’s content and testing of email addresses and links, while not specifically features, are also crucial.

Use these tips, and you’ll see a better return on your web site investment.

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Bob Hubbard is an administrator of the popular martial arts portal site MartialTalk.com and president of SilverStar WebDesigns inc., a web site design and hosting company specializing in affordable solutions for martial artists. Bob can be reached at webmaster@martialtalk.com
Article Copyright © 2009 – Bob Hubbard – All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced provided all text, the author bio and these terms are kept intact.

Q&A: How many different fonts should you use on a webpage?

March 6, 2009 // Posted in business, computers, development, web, website  |  No Comments

Q&A: How many different fonts should you use on a webpage?

Question:
How many different fonts should you use on a webpage?

Answer:
Using too many different fonts can make your website look amateurish and random. For best effect, I would suggest sticking with no more than two or three at most. You can use one easily read font for the body which is where most time will be spent reading, and a more stylish one for headers, headlines and menus.

Follow up question #1 “How Big should I make my fonts”?

Common practices would use a 10-13 point font, usually a 12 point for the body, with a couple points larger for headers, headlines and menus, and a couple points smaller for footer and foot notes.

Follow up question #2 “What fonts would you recommend?”

There are 2 main types of fonts, Sans Serif and Serif. Sans Serif fonts like Arial and Helvetica are recommended due to their being easier to read on computer screens. My personal favorite is Verdana. Avoid Serif fonts like Times Roman or Courier, which work much better in print form.

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Bob Hubbard, is the CEO of SilverStar WebDesigns Inc. and an Administrator at MartialTalk.com and KenpoTalk.com. He can be reached through those sites.

What is Virtual Hosting? By Bob Hubbard

March 2, 2009 // Posted in development, hosting, internet, sales, security, server, shared, virtual, website  |  No Comments

What is Virtual Hosting?
By Bob Hubbard

Look everywhere on the Internet and you will see thousands of web hosts offering incredible hosting deals, for peanuts. How can anyone make money selling 20 gigabytes of space for $5 a month? Doesn’t it cost more than that for all the equipment and staff and whatnot? It sure does. Web hosts can offer this through a system called Virtual Hosting.

Virtual Hosting, also called “Shared Hosting” is where multiple web sites (www.anyname.com) are served off the same physical server. This saves each customer from purchasing their own expensive server, performing the setup, hiring support staff and providing the appropriate environment. The great majority of web sites are set up this way.

Virtual Hosting allows someone to run a website without having to buy equipment, maintain that same equipment, pay for expensive maintenance agreements, keep trained technicians on staff, install and maintain expensive high speed data connections, and provide expensive on site security for all of this expensive equipment.

It allows a web hosting company to divide the costs among many different clients who share part of the same physical server, at a great savings to their clients.

The pluses of virtual hosting are the lower costs and easy setup. You often don’t need to know more than how to use a free web page design tool to use it.

The minuses include poor support, too many shared hosting companies going under due to under charging, as well as all the problems one could expect if they were to live in an over crowded apartment complex due to a condition called “over selling.”

“OverSelling” is where your host sells more space than the server can physically provide. If your host is selling an “unlimited” space plan, or even hundreds of gigabytes of space, you can be certain they are “Over Selling”.

Budget hosts will cram hundreds of accounts onto a single server. Each account uses X% of the servers memory, processor and physical hard drive space. If a single account uses too much, you start to see server slow downs, connection problems, and errors.

Reliable hosts carefully monitor these issues, and will sometimes move accounts between servers to balance the loads and keep things working smoothly for all their customers. Sometimes that’s not enough, and hosts will recommend upgrading to a “Virtual Server”, or a real server, depending on the situation.

A “Virtual Server” is exactly what is sounds like. It’s a server, which is entirely in a larger servers memory. It functions like it’s physical counterpart, in that it has a limited amount of memory, and drive space, but it differs from conventional Virtual Hosting in that rather than share space, processor and memory, it’s all yours. Virtual hosting can be a short-term answer when you have out grown a shared environment, but can’t afford a full dedicated server of your own.

In most cases however, the great majority of websites will work fine in a Shared environment, as long as you choose a reliable hosting company that won’t overload their servers, and who doesn’t offer the unattainable.

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Bob Hubbard is an administrator of the popular martial arts portal site MartialTalk.com and president of SilverStar WebDesigns inc., a web site design and hosting company specializing in affordable solutions for martial artists. Bob can be reached at webmaster@martialtalk.com
Article Copyright © 2009 – Bob Hubbard – All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced provided all text, the author bio and these terms are kept intact.

Tip Of The Week : Your Website Doesn’t Close The Sale, You Do!

December 31, 2008 // Posted in advertising, development, internet, marketing, website  |  No Comments

Your Website Doesn’t Close The Sale, You Do!

People send hundreds of thousands of dollars on fancy, feature rich, deep content websites, then wonder why they are poor. The truth is, while a website can do a lot of things, it can’t close the sale.

People still prefer to deal with other people, and a website is no substitute for the human touch. Prompt follow up and follow through by live people still is what makes a business a success.

Use your website as one of the tools in your sales kit, but make sure you add the human touch. Prompt reply, good service, and great communications are what’s needed to succeed today.

- Bob

Why is it called "The Internet"?

December 22, 2008 // Posted in browser, development, internet, web, website  |  No Comments

Why is it called “The Internet”?
By Bob Hubbard

Ever wonder why this huge international maze of computers, servers, and sites is called “The Internet”?

Internet means inter-connected networks. Developed during the 1960′s and 1970′s, what we refer to today as “The Internet” grew from small localized networks running on colleges, universities and military bases, to larger networks connecting smaller ones, to a huge world wide network of networks.

Most people today only think of the Internet as email and websites, but in fact it is a combination of many different services.

Email consists of several different systems, including POP (Post Office Protocol) which is responsible for getting your email from your electrnic mail box, and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) which is used to send email to the world.

Web sites run on Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. When you type in a web address in your browser, that http:// you enter in tells the server on the other end to use the HTTP system to transfer the page to you. Modern browsers use it by default, but older browsers would fail to find a site if you forgot it.

FTP, or “File Transfer Protocol” is a means for transferring files between your system and a remote one.

IRC, or “Internet Relay Chat”, also called “Chat Rooms” are the precursor to today’s instant messaging and text message systems. Still in operation today, they aren’t well known to most people. IRC requires special software to access.

A forgotten part of our net history is Gopher. Gopher is a combination web and ftp system for organized document retrieval. Text only, there are less than 200 Gopher servers currently online, with most neglected, however some universities still use them.

Then there is the Network News Transfer Protocol or NNTP which is an Internet application protocol used primarily for reading and posting Usenet articles, as well as transferring news among news servers. USENET is a huge world wide distributed electronic discussion system. What this means is, it is like having a global forum, spread over many systems. There are currently well over 100,000 different topics ranging from the boring to the profane. Accessing USENET requires special software called a NewsReader, as well as an account with a news provider.

As you can see, the Internet is a pretty complex thing, made simple and accessible by modern software, allowing us to communicate around the world at whim.

Additional Resources at Wikipedia
USENET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
NNTP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol
FTP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC
POP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol
SMTP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smtp
Email http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail
IRC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC
HTTP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http
Gopher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)

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Bob Hubbard is an administrator of the popular martial arts portal site MartialTalk.com and president of SilverStar WebDesigns inc., a web site design and hosting company specializing in affordable solutions for martial artists. Bob can be reached at webmaster@martialtalk.com
Article Copyright © 2008 – Bob Hubbard – All Rights Reserved.
This article may be reproduced provided all text, the author bio and these terms are kept intact.

Staying On Top of your Website for a Successful Site.

December 15, 2008 // Posted in development, internet, marketing, promotion, website  |  No Comments

Staying On Top of your Website for a Successful Site.
By Bob Hubbard

Business websites can be both complex and simple. Managing one, is both easy and hard, depending on what you are doing with it.

A simple, flyer site requires little regular upkeep. Pop in every couple of months, make sure everything is up to date, and forget about it until next time. But treating your website like it’s merely a big phone book ad, ignores the great potential and benefits it can provide your business. The ability to change it on the fly, to update it at will, offers you a great deal more potential and greater rewards than a “update once a year” solution like the phone book.

When I talk to my clients about keeping their websites updated, I often suggest they keep a running “to do” list on their computer, and add things to it as they think of them. This is sent to me monthly for me to schedule and perform. Other times, I recommend they simply email me their changes, and I’ll queue them up for once a week or once a month to maximize my efficiency and minimize their costs.

You need to take time to look at your competitions web sites. After all, you check out their locations, their offerings, their phone book ads and other advertising. Be sure to look at what they are doing on the Internet as well. Take careful note of when they were last updated, what features they have, and how easy or hard it is to navigate through their site.

Schedule time each month, or week, to look at your own site. If you list contact information, is it current? Hours of Operation? Are they accurate? Do you list specials or events or other time-sensitive information? Be sure to update that as well. How many times do you come across a site that is listing things from years ago as happening in the future? Does that give you confidence that they are on the ball in other areas of their business?

To do this, you need a reliable web master to help keep you running at peak performance. All the plans, organization or ideas are useless if they never get to your website. Webmasters aren’t created equally.There are good and there are bad ones.

If you can never get in touch with them, if updates are always days or weeks late, never done, or regularly done wrong, you need to find a new webmaster.

A good webmaster will keep you posted on your sites update status, inform you of when updates are performed, notify you of any delays, as well as offer suggestions to improve the site and it’s performance.

To ensure you are getting the best, you have to check your site. If you send in your updates on Monday, and the following Monday you have heard nothing and nothing has been done to the site, you may want to pick up the phone and call them. Reviewing the timelyess and qualty of your webmaster is vital. Provide them feedback so that they can help you better. Be clear in indicating when you need work done, if anything is a rush job, if certain things should be emphasized or changed. Clarity of communications is vital in having a successful working relationship with your web expert.

Regularly checking other sites an your own, working with your web master, and being clear on what you expect and when you expect it done is vital to success online today.

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Bob Hubbard is an administrator of the popular martial arts portal site MartialTalk.com and president of SilverStar WebDesigns inc., a web site design and hosting company specializing in affordable solutions for martial artists. Bob can be reached at webmaster@martialtalk.com
Article Copyright © 2008 – Bob Hubbard – All Rights Reserved.
This article may be reproduced provided all text, the author bio and these terms are kept intact.

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