Choosing a website template will be critical to your long term success online. You need to choose a web design which will help you to build your website quickly and easily. Follow these tips when looking for a website template for your business, and create a website that visitors drool over. You want a website that people will remember.

Do it right, and you will have a site that people will remember, and cannot wait to come running back. If you do it right, you will find cool website templates, which are professional and will enhance your site rather than make it look boring.
1) Find something unique. You don’t want a template that everyone else is using. Instead, find something that nobody else has. There are hundreds of templates out there, and most of them are so over used that you will find 100 sites all looking exactly the same.

2) Choose a template that you can easily edit. There are many templates that are set up to only work with certain HTML editors. Look for one that is easy to edit, no matter what web editor you are using. If you change programs, you should still be able to edit your website.

If you are using a graphics heavy template, you should make sure that the graphics are easy to edit. Use graphics that are saved as .jpg files. This will make them easy to edit in almost any graphics program.

3) Make sure that it catches the eye, but is not too distracting to your readers. Remember, your visitor’s focus should be on your content not on your template. You want it to stand out and look good. There are some that look like the graphics were made by a 2 year old. They are not well formed, and they look unprofessional. Make sure you choose one with great images that look clean and well formed.

4) Stay away from flash templates. Flash takes too long to load, and are going to distract your readers. If your website takes too long to load, people will want to leave fast. Many flash sites take about 20-30 seconds to load. This will have people leaving your site lightning fast.

5) Make sure it is easy to read. Many flashy templates create bad combinations of colors in the main text area. You want a light, easy to read color for your site. If you make your site colorfull, it will be hard to read, and people will leave, never seeing your content.

6) Choose a Template targeted to your niche. Sounds simple doesn’t it? After all, if you choose a template with a lot of fancy alien graphics, for a site on camping and hiking, You will lose your visitors. You can find many templates that are targeted, or that are plain.

7) Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

9) Try to find a template package. If you can find a package with multiple templates, you can mix and match different pieces and really create an amazing websites. You can use different parts of the templates for different sites, and make each one unique. Just pay attention to the color schemes when you choose your templates. you want to ensure that it will look clean and professional. you can accomplish this with  a little time and effort.

10) Know what your plan is before buying a template. SOme templates come with easy navigation, and are great for setting up an article site, or adsense site. However, some templates are better suited for your sales page, where you do not want a lot of links to the other pages on your site. For best results, find one that can do both, However, if you cannot find one, Make sure you know how to add the navigation into your site when you need to.

Take your time when choosing cool website templates. You want to make sure you invest in a template that you can use for years to come. Whatever you do, you need to choose a template that you can use for any website you build. Choosing your template is one of the most critical things that you will do for your site.

If you want a cool website template, which is easy to edit, looks professional and makes your visitor’s eyes POP, I recommend you get WebsiteSplash today.

Do you ever find yourself lacking the motivation you need to work on your business? I get that way and I want to share with you what I have done to help.

One of the first things you can do is to write a list of all the things you want in life. Write the things that money can buy and the things that money cannot buy. Just write it all out. Now take that list and post it on the wall in your office.

What to include in your list:

• What trips do you want to take?
• Do you want a new car?
• Where do you want to live?
• What do you want that you do not have right now?
• What do you want for your business?

When you feel the lack of motivation, read the list aloud. Ask yourself what you are doing to get the things you want. Sometimes you have to push yourself to get the work done.

That is OK. It happens to everyone. The people who succeed are the ones who can still get things done, even when they are not highly motivated.

Having a mantra helps. Mine is “Nothing worthwhile is easy. You can do this.” You will see it in my signature file on every forum.

Repeat that to yourself every day. It will help to remind you that all the best things in life take work to achieve. If you work hard, you can have it all.

Go and write your list today. Start finding your motivation to get what you want.

Building a web business is a great way to make money. You can make as little or as much as you want. You can use it to make a little extra cash, or you can build it up to replace your full time job. However, whatever you do, you need to host your own site.

There are many sites, such as Blogger.com or Squidoo, where you can build your site with no costs. However, these sites change their rules often, and you can be out of business overnight.  If you want to avoid these hassles, you need to build your own site, and own your own domain. By doing this, you will have control over what happens to your business.
When you decide to buy your own webhosting, you there are many things which you need to look for. Not all web hosting companies are the same, after all.

One thing that you need to look for is a web host with Cpanel. Cpanel is simply a admin area that is user friendly.

You also need to decide how many websites you are planning to run. Many hosts will allow you to host multiple domains. The problem is that they do this through creating a subdomain. Everything is run under one site.
When I first started out I took this option. After all, you should do anything to save a buck, right? Well, not really. It was a HUGE mistake.
Now, I have had to spend a week sorting out the mess that I have made.
You see, addon domains is one of the worst ideas anyone has come up with. It is great to save a buck. However, that is where the good idea stops.

Addon domains cause more problems than they are worth. I don’t understand all the coding, and how everything looks under the hood. But, I do recognize that my sites often do not work, are slow to load, and it causes all kinds of errors when you try to do something fancy, like say, launching your own Facebook application.
Facebook HATES add-on domains.

So, how do you get around this problem. I recommend that you sign up with HostGator. Get their reseller package. It only costs $15/month more, and you will make it up in the end. One of the great things about the reseller account is that you can run your own hosting service.

You can offer webhosting as a bonus for your membership site, or perhaps offer 2 months free hosting as a bonus for one of your products. Then, you can charge a low fee, say $7/month. With the price of the hosting, you only need 3 people to buy your hosting, and it pays for the reseller account.

If you get more than you can handle with the bandwidth allowed, simply upgrade your account. You should be making enough o pay for it, and you can host unlimited domains, with little to no cost out of your own pocket. Think about it, you could sell your own web hosting, make money from that, and have your customers paying for your hosting as well.

Personally, I cannot think of a better way to go. Get started with the right web hosting today.

Have you been writing articles and cannot decide whether to start by selecting a title first or writing the content first? Does it really matter?

Some claim that when writing articles you should begin by selecting the title first.  The title should grab your potential reader and customer. Advocates of starting an article by thinking of a title first, argue that unless you have a good title in mind, the body of the text will not flow naturally.

They believe that your focus will ramble and so will the body of the article. They argue that without a title to guide you your content will skip from topic to topic without a logical flow. Consequently, your readers will loose interest and leave.

The title must be SEO sensitive and therefore keywords and keyword phrases are the first things one should focus on.  Search for keywords and phrases that a customer will likely type in a search. Only after you have found good keywords, do you formulate the title. After that you can create the content and populate the content with keywords and phrases.

Others suggest that in writing articles you should create content first. They argue that you can be walking down a park lane and see a worm.  Out of the blue or maybe out of the dirt, you get this crazy idea about the possibility of selling something to do with worm farming.  Ideas come from everywhere and anywhere.

If you carry a notebook, you jot down some ideas. If you don’t carry a notebook, you promise yourself that you will remember the great ideas that came to you.

You rush to your computer and the words come pouring out. Now you have several hundred words of wonderful sales worthy content. You find keywords and a product that fits your content. Still, you have no title.

After you have the content and said all that you have to say, you select the title based on keywords or long tailed keywords.

Which method is better? Does the method you choose matter?  No.  So long as you ultimately submit an article with good content and SEO optimized, you have done the work.

I prefer to concentrate on the content first, and then I select an appropriate keyword title. My logic is that I choose a topic I want to promote, do the research (dig in the dirt, so to speak) and while fresh in my brain, I write the content. I then do keyword research and modify my content to accommodate the keywords. Only then do I give my article a title. Others do it differently.

No one way is the right way. What matters is that you complete the task of article writing in whatever way works for you.

Just do it!

C.A. Perez is a free-lance writer. He retired after twenty-five years experience in the telecommunications industry. He is currently developing an internet marketing company. Visit his informative and candid blog for new and seasoned internet marketers at http://NewbieAffiliatesBlog.com.

A potential customer recently contacted me regarding my Traffic Formula Link Building Service. Now, I am always saying that you should provide value to your online customers. I want to share with you what I did to provide value for this potential customer.

The service I was asked about was to build links to her site. She had paid for a link building service before, and had been scammed. From what I can see, the links she paid for where never done.

Upon receiving her e-mail, I went ahead and did a brief review of the site that they wanted to target with the links. Instead of just focusing on the links, I looked at what would cause her site not to have the rankings she wants. Here is the reply I sent her. I do not normally do consulting, but I felt that it would help to build the trust, and show them that I am knowledgeable in the services that I provide.

Hi Nat,

Thank you for your interest in our services. The Traffic Formula service
is a little pricey, however you receive a lot of links for your money. We
charge $50 per url, and it takes approximately 3 days to do the
submissions for each URL.

What all you get

I will write and submit 3 articles to our blog network. This will give you
over 100 back links by itself. I also will rewrite to more than 75% unique
each article and submit them to at least 20 article directories. I then
submit articles to social sites. These sites have high page rank and more
importantly, they get a lot of traffic themselves.

All of these will be bookmarked to 100+ bookmarking accounts. We have
over 400 bookmarking accounts that we choose from in order to provide
relevant links to many different niches.

We then go to blogs and leave relevant comments with links to your site.
Now, many of these are no-follow, although we attempt to find blogs with
follow tags first. However, contrary to popular belief, no-follow links
still give you credit in the search rankings.

All of this takes 3 days of work to complete. Yet, I only charge $50 per
page to do them.

The page rank of each site I submit to varies. However, page rank is not
as important as most people think. If you only focus on high page rank
sites, you limit yourself to the massive traffic you could be getting.

Our guarantee is that the links will be built, not traffic numbers, or
search rankings. There are too many factors outside of our control to
guarantee rankings. It can take months of work and hundreds if not
thousands of back links to get high rankings. It all depends on the
keywords you are targeting. If you want a service that will guarantee
rankings, it would take a lot more time, effort and therefore would have
to be a lot more expensive.

That being said, I have seen many sites get first page rankings by using
this traffic strategy. I will all depend upon the competition level of the
keywords that you want to target.

A quick analysis shows me many things that
could easily boost your rankings. For my analysis, I looked at your page,
and see that the keyword you are targeting is Party Games.

Using that keyword I see that you only have 35 back links to your home
page, and 40 back links to your total site.

looking at the top 10 pages, the lowest number of back links for the top
10 sites is 500.

Also, the age of your site is a major downside. The newest page on the top
rankings is age of 5 years.

Every single page on the top 10 have all the
on- page SEO in place. I see that you have this all in place as well. This
will be a great boost for you.

Now, looking at your description, I would recommend that you change it
slightly. You ask a question which is good, however, there is no call to
action telling them to see your site.

I would recommend changing the the question to a call to action.

“Want everyone to wonder how you’ve managed to come up with such great
ideas ?” is what you have now.

Try rewording it to something such as “If you want to amaze your friends
with your ideas, check out the Party games we have to offer today.”
this will be more compelling to get people to click to your site.

You will receive a complete report at the conclusion giving you all the
URL’s where your links are built, so that you can check them for yourself.
The only exception is the blog network. The blog network is set up on a
drip feed, and takes 3 months to distribute to all the blogs.

If you chose to use our services, you will need to provide the URL, the
Keywords you want ,and if you chose a service that is over $100, we
require a 25% deposit up front. this is fully refundable if we fail to
provide the promised services. However, We have been burned before by
building hundreds of links to someones site and not being paid for our
work.

No matter what you choose to do, I wish you luck with your website. You
have put a lot of work into it, and it looks great.

Kind Regards

James Pruitt,
IMRelations Freelancing Services

After this email, we sent several back and forth discussing things to improve her chances of ranking well. Now, I could have charged for this service, but why? It helped her become a better marketer. It helped me establish that I knew what I was doing. And, on top of all that, I got the job the initial email was concerning.

What ever you do, make sure that you take the time to provide value to a potential customer. You don’t have to completely solve their problem, but at least attempt to show them that you can help them. Be willing to give, without expecting payment or anything in return. When I did this, I hoped that I would get the job. However, even if I did not, I would still do the same thing again.  Online customers want value. They also need to be shown that you can give them what they ask for.

Writing a masterful marketing call to action makes sense. After all, how else do you expect to get your readers to do what you want? You need to master the art of writing a persuasive call to action that will hypnotize your readers, and leave them dying with curiosity about what you have to offer.

what is a marketing call to action?

A call to action is a compelling statement that persuades your reader to buy or visit your offer. Now a very plain and simple call to action would be “buy my dating book today”. Although it tells the reader what to do, look at it from their point of view. There is nothing there to tell them why they should. What is in it for them?

Don’t make it about You

“Buy from me now”, tells your reader that you do not care about them. It clearly shows that all you care about is making money. This will turn people away, and they will not come back to see you again.

Instead, you need to write it from the visitor’s perspective. Write something that tells them to help themselves, rather than saying to buy from me. It is all about focusing on helping people rather than the focus on making money.

How does it help them?

Make sure that your call to action is relevant to the topic of the article. A good way to do this is to use the keywords in your call to action. Think about it for as second. If someone found your page by a certain keyword, and you offer a product using those keywords, they will see that it is relevant to solving their problem.

For example, if you were promoting a book to heal a relationship, you would want the call to action to target the specific problem that you are talking about within the article.

Let us say that your article is about jealousy. Your call to action could say, “Stop jealousy from destroying your marriage with this great guide to healing your marriage.” This will show that the book you want them to see is relevant to the topic.

The keywords “stop jealousy” connects the product to the topic, and you compel them that they can stop destroying their marriage if they get this book. It puts thing into perspective of how the product will help them.

Now, my problem with this call to action is that it is still too long. You want to draw the reader in, but you want to keep it as short as possible.

Try this instead:

“Discover How to Stop Jealousy from DESTROYING your marriage Today!”

This is a little better. It is short and to the point. It uses compelling language, and emphasizes the problem that they need to solve. Whenever you use a call to action within your articles, make sure that it focuses on solving the problem.

Let me know how you write your marketing call to action. What other criteria do you use to persuade people to buy your products?

A lot of people have been asking how to start making some quick cash while they try to get their websites successful. The best way to do this is to start freelancing all the things you are doing for your own business.

I spent some time looking for different ways to make money while waiting for things to take off.

Do you enjoy writing? Would you like to earn money to write in your free time?  You can also do it full time and earn a living. There are many people making a living by building websites, just like this one. Often, these people do not have the time, or skill, to write all the content they need. They could either hire a full time writer, but many choose to outsource to a freelancer.

Another way to get started is to join forums where other webmasters hang out. Warrior Forum and Articles Productions Forum are 2 great places to get yourself started. Put a message in your signature file letting people know about your offer.

Also, go to places like Craigslist, and put up free adds for people. You can find local people looking for writers, or broaden your search for a more diversified audience.

Many people believe you have to have a high education, or be highly prolific in order to be a good writer. This is not the case.  You can start working as a freelance writer with as little as a ninth grade level of education. Actually great writing is usually not great grammatically.  Some of the best copywriters actually failed high school English. What a great writer needs to do is write conversationally. If you can learn to write, as you would speak, then you can be a writer.

It is easy to get started. All you need to do is find a writing service and apply as a writer. You bid on the jobs that you are interested in, and then write the content needed. This can be a very lucrative business. If the people like your writing, they are likely to come back and ask for your services again in the future.

One key to getting started is to put together a portfolio of your best samples. You want at least 5-8 well written articles that you can use to show people your writing style.

Understand that part of the agreement for freelance writing is that you give away copywrite for your work. You do not have the right to reuse the article once you have sold it to someone else.

If you are new, and do not have any, simply do a little research online, and write a few articles to show people your writing skill. I recommend you pick a topic that you know a lot about. Write several articles that you can use to show people how well you write. These articles are more to show off your skill to potential customers rather than to help people.

You can write in many different levels. To start you should try writing articles. These are usually between 500-1000 words on a given subject. If you study your topic and write a good article, you can sometimes earn $15-20 USD per hour of work. You may find you have so much work that you quit your job and do it full time. As your skill and reputation increase, you can start doing larger projects. Many projects, such as ghost writing an eBook will pay you much more than just writing articles.

One of the great benefits of writing large projects is that a lot of the time the research is done for you. The person offering the job will often pay someone to do the research, and then give you the research to write the content. This will save you a lot of time and you can focus on what you are best at doing. Another option is that you can simply outsource the research yourself, if they do not provide it for you.

As you grow in your writing career, start to study the art of copywriting. There are many great books on the subject. As your skill in copywriting improves, you can start doing projects such as writing sales letters. These are the long page sales copy you will find on most product pages. A good sales page copywriter can make hundreds of dollars for one good sales page. If you do good work, and market yourself well, you can make a great living as a copywriter.

There are many great opportunities to make money as a freelance writer. This only leaves one question to ask. Why haven’t you started yet? Take action and start your new hobbie today. It may turn into a new career.

by Becoming the Master of Innovation

The master of customer satisfaction online knows when to be innovative and when to follow the crowd. This is a difficult balance to find. Especially if you are new.

You have to know when to follow the crowd and when to be unique. Customers will remember you if you create a new and memorable experience. However, a bad experience will leave you dead in the water.

Be Remarkable

Innovation is simply doing something remarkable that no one else is doing. When do you do this in your business?  When should you follow what works for others?  This paradox keeps many great marketers from ever seeing the success that they deserve. You are fixing to learn the secret.

When you are new, follow a proven system to find your success. This will teach you the basics. If you do not know how to do the basics, your innovations may cost you too much. In the early stages of your business, you will find that following someone else will get you known faster. Once you start to build some trust, then you can be innovative.

Follow What Works

I recommend to people to make their first website following a proven system. Learn everything you can about the business. Research and know your niche well. Learn how you create customer satisfaction online with the basics.

Once you have been successful for about 3 months, and you have a following started, then you can start to be innovative. Judge for yourself when you are ready.

When you think you are ready, and you have an innovative idea, start working on it. It will take you time to create the product or book. As you work on your project, let people know what you are doing. Don’t give away all your secrets, but get some feedback. This will help you know if you are wasting your time. Remember, you are working for your customers, not your own ego.

Listen to what they want. If you get little response, consider whether you are doing what they need, or if they understand how it will help them. Innovation in your business could launch you into success fast, or it could leave you in total failure.

Don’t be Afraid to FAIL

Failure and success are too closely related. If you talk to any successful person, they will tell you a story of all the failures they went through. Most of the successful people don’t even look at themselves that way.

Many of the biggest innovations in history came from making a mistake. Look at 3M and Post-it notes. The glue they used was meant to be a super adhesive that would never let go. They figured out an innovative way to make a failure into a success by putting the glue on pieces of paper.

By this point you are probably wondering how this relates to creating customer satisfaction. The fact is, by creating something unique for your business, you will create more customer satisfaction. You will also find that anyone who wants what you have must come to you. This is the power of innovation. When you have something unique, everyone else has to come to you.

Use your knowledge of what your customers want. Create something that nobody else is giving them. Find a gap that people have questions about with no product to answer the problem. That is the product you need to create.

Article Marketing is still the best way to get traffic to your site. Here is an article from my friend James Stein, a web developer. and the owner of Article Productions.

I know this is way off the topic of your business. However, You need take some time away every once in a while.

Take a few minutes and enjoy the spirit of the season. Hope you enjoy these.

I used to live about 15 minutes away from this house. This video is a few years old. they have added to it since then

I found this awesome video as well. Hope you enjoy it

And finally, this one is one of my favorite holiday videos. Remember, you do not have to be religious to enjoy the spirit of the season. Bring some hope and joy into someone Else’s life. It will help you with everything else you do.