Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.
The good:
Interactivity
Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.
A standardized site
With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.
Better expression through animation
In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real "movie files" that are raster based and hence much larger in size.
The bad and the ugly:
The Flash player
People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed.
Site optimization
If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.
Loading time
Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.
The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.
Website templates are very affordable and they save you a lot of effort and time when you want to create a new layout for your website. However, a lot of people make mistakes in the process of choosing and using a web template and end up with something that was unlike the image they had in mind. Here are some guidelines to help you avoid those mistakes.
The first obvious mistake you should be aware of is using a template that is very popular. If many people use the same template, your website will not appear unique at all and your credibility as a solid, different website will be tarnished. In other words, you will appear generic just like your next-door neighbours.
To whole point of using a web template is to save time and effort. You just change the title and appropriate details and you’re done. The biggest mistake one makes is to customize the template beyond recognisation. While that may be good in the sense that you’re creating a unique graphic, you’re defying the very purpose of using a web template — saving time and effort.
However, on the opposite side, if a template you purchase is suitable but some changes must be made to suit your site’s theme, then you will have to take some time to make the changes. For example, you can find a very nice template that suits your hobby site except the original designer has put an image of stamps in the header. You can find images of garden plants and spades to replace the stamps for your gardening hobby site. However, do only make the necessary changes and don’t redesign the whole template.
In some circumstances, some people simply make the wrong choice of templates. This is a very subjective issue but you have to be careful in selecting templates to suit your audience. Do not choose templates just because they are pretty, choose them because they serve your purpose.
Archive for the ‘using’ category
Pros and Cons of Flash-based Sites and Web Templates
October 25th, 2009Submitting Your Website To Authority Directories
September 24th, 2009Search engines have come to dominate the internet as the ultimate portal for information retrieval. However, even before directories came to existence people used to rely on link directories to get them to the website they needed to view. When search engines first surged in popularity a lot of people thought that they would eventually fade into existence as they would no longer be relevant. Contrary to that expectation though link directories have been making a come back and are in fact gaining popularity again. The reason behind this, however, is ironically linked to search engines.
When people look for information using search engines the search engines actually use an algorithm to calculate or come up with a list of web pages most relevant to the search string the user has entered. Though the algorithm of each search engine is unknown to the general public, website designers or engineers still try to find ways to quantify the factors that affect the algorithm?s calculations. This is of course in hopes if being able to boost their website or their clients? websites page rank. The techniques used by website designers to optimize the websites are called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
A common SEO practice is called link building. Link building is a process of creating relevant and quality inbound links to a website with the intention of increasing the website?s importance resulting to an increase in page rank and thus generating more traffic. However, those who have tried to build links the ?organic? or natural way have found it a very difficult thing indeed. It does take much effort after all to create a very good site that people will want to link to much less get the people to notice your site if your page rank is still quite low. Although some websites have succeeded in link building using organic means it makes much more sense to employ SEO techniques to hasten one?s link building efforts.
A very common way to build links is by submitting in link directories. By being listed in a reputable link directory a website can be sure to gain a huge number of reciprocal and inbound links in a way faster time than you can ever hope to by trying to build links organically. Furthermore if you are part of a very good link directory then you can be sure that the other websites listed in that directory quality sites to and are bound to give you quality links. With the way link directories help in SEO efforts people are noticing directories again and this is the very reason why link directories are thriving.
The only down part in submitting to link directories is that some website owners fall for the more unsavory link directories, which are actually called link farms. Make sure that if you plan to do link building this way submit only to directories that accept quality websites like your own. Being listed in a link farm will only do your SEO efforts harm instead of good since search engines are biased against them.
Where Are the Leaders In Your Home Business?
August 28th, 2009Maybe I?m in a bad mood, but it seems to me that their are very few true leaders in home businesses. What do you think? It seems like so many people are out there shouting: “Follow me I can make you $30,000 by next week, I have a system.” Then when you look deeper into their “system” it turns out to be the same crap everyone else is using. Look at it this way, there are only so many ways you can market effectively on the Internet. Which techniques work and which ones don?t. A leader in a home business, someone who has people who look to them for guidance (someone people have joined in business because that promised to help make them money) should be able to guarantee some level of success to the people who follow them in business, don?t you think? Obviously I do.
It has been said that leaders are born not made. I agree and disagree. There are born leaders and there are made leaders; there are people who lead that have no business leading, and there are also those who follow who could lead. What I?m trying to say is, you can develop into a leader if you have a burning desire for success and a roadmap to follow. If you have been involved with Internet, multi level, or network marketing for any amount of time, you have probably been deserted by the person who brought you into their business. What does it feel like to be mislead by people who were only after you for your money? For me, when I started my home business, being deserted by my upline stunk and this desertion made me angry and I quickly quit my business too–deserting those people I had brought into the company . At the time, I told myself the whole thing was a scam and I was stupid for getting involved.
After some reflection, I realized my failure in my home business was not my upline?s, my company?s, or the Internet marketing industry?s fault, it was my own. The first step in leadership is taking ownership for what you are responsible for. There are too many people in the home business industry who want to blame everyone except themselves for their hardships and failures in business. Running a business is hard and sometimes frustrating work, it pays to follow someone who can pave the way for us to follow. So that is what I did, I found someone I felt I could trust, someone who I liked, and someone who had achieved a level of success I wanted and I followed them. They led and I followed. He said “jump” I said “how high”?
Well, guess what, his leadership rubbed off on me. By following a leader you acquire their traits because following is 60% dedication 40% duplication. If you do what your leader tells you enough times those things you do become how you do things too. If you can emulate and learn enough money making habits and knowledge not only will you make a lot of money in your home business, but you will teach others to do the same. You will be a leader and you will teach others to be leaders as well.
In America, We Are Really Silly About Our Instant Gratification
August 1st, 2009There is no lack of silliness in America. Many of us remember The Three Stooges: Larry, Moe and Curly, and their slapstick brand of humor.
The key to their silliness, according to Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia), “was that no matter how hard anyone was poked, slapped, punched or prodded, the pain immediately went away, and no one was ever really hurt by it.”
And so it is with so many Internet Marketing offers today. We are obsessed with instant gratification. We want everything now. Why wait? This is America.
“Somebody owes me a job and a fat paycheck, and success, because, well because, I was planted here. Just because I do not understand how the offer and opportunity could possibly work in reality, why won?t it work? It says right here, it will work. Read it yourself.”
You can hear the refrain over and over: “Play it again, Slappy, I like that tune.” And the accommodating answer: “Don?t mind if I do.” (Sorry, I could not resist using slappy, even though you will not find it even in a dictionary of slang, much less The New Oxford American Dictionary.)
Anxious, na?ve newbies hang on every word of a sales page offering, hoping that this opportunity, among all of the other opportunities they have tried, will be the one that works.
I can still hear Curly saying (when it is all said and done, and on to another opportunity), “I?m a victim of soicumstance!” (circumstance, in Curly speak).
Do not despair, anxious, na?ve newbies, there is no shortage of peddlers to take advantage of your misguided, good intentions.
I was reminded of this the other day when I came upon a sales page inviting me to join “The Golden Circle,” which said “Join Us Now And Collect Your $1,750,000″ (pardon me for thinking this could be my lucky day!). I had been invited to join “one of the world?s most rewarding financial associations.”
I would be told “how to collect $1,750,000 so we don?t really need any fancy tricks” (naturally I was wondering how this could be). Simple answer: “Being open and straightforward in these matters we have to explain here that your money comes from a commission paid to you on sales made by other Golden Circle members.”
And what are we selling? Why, “thousands of copies of a certain Product from YOU over the Internet for $16 each.” (I guess the P in product makes it more important, and I love the word YOU, it is my next favorite word after my name.) Gee, I wonder if the Product we will be selling will be what I am reading here?
No matter, as apparently the “information-based product which you are ?selling? will be produced and distributed to your clients automatically FOR YOU by the Golden Circle Server ? Computer. So you don?t need to know how to do this ? or indeed anything technical about computers at all. It is all done automatically: You need to do NOTHING.” (Man, this is great, I do nothing and get $1,750,000.)
Well, not exactly, I do need to pony up $16 to “buy ONE product from ONE of our members for $16. That is all” (the author?s italics, not mine). And, of course, there is a “Full Money Back Guarantee.”
And get this: “After you make your single $16 purchase from another Member, YOU can first receive $7,000 Front Money and then move immediately to the Team Leader Position to receive your $1,750,000″ (the author of this sales pitch does not mention if the $7,000 will be received during my liftetime).
It made me wonder what would happen if the creator of this opportunity were hauled into court and forced to exhibit even one example of a newbie?s $16 investment generating a $1,750,000 payout.
Does the expression from the sublime to the ridiculous ring a bell? As in the sublime (of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe-kind of like guru worship) to the ridiculous (as in deserving or inviting derision or mockery).
You may or may not be interested to know that the first FREE (there is that pesky word again) report you receive in this “open and straightforward” explanation (their words, not mine) is titled “How You Can Avoid The Wage Slave Trap,” (please do not laugh, I am being accurate here).
Who says you need to go school to get an education? Surfing the Internet may prove more valuable than nailing your MBA degree (Master of Business Administration).
Mark Twain said “I never let schooling interfere with my education.” Somehow, it is so much easier to like Mark Twain than the author of this Golden Circle opportunity advertisement (and more sensible too, I might add).
The Old But Reliable Ways of Attracting Free Online Traffics
May 12th, 2009By ? Arthur, The Online Internet Home Business Opportunity
Every home business owner should know that your WEBSITE TRAFFICS will determine the life span of your work at home online business. As suggested by many motivation expert, your best bet to be successful in ANYTHING you do will be to study and learn from those WHO are already successful.
What are these online experts doing to attract the necessary traffics to their work at home online business?
What online strategy are they using and what can you learn from them?
One of the most frequently used online strategy is writing and submitting free articles to ezine. Over the years, as I read over many website marketing strategy, it seems that article writing remains the TOP method that webmaster has been using for many years. The only problem is that there are so many free articles floating around these days that you need to build a solid reputation before you can GAIN any reasonable click through to your site via your free articles.
Reciprocal links is another popular method which you can used to gain traffics to your home business website. Before starting your reciprocal links strategy, make sure you determine the keywords you want to used for your main index page. During the link exchange make sure you put your KEYWORDS in your hyper text link. Search Engine will recognize them as your site keywords. Remember also to include them in your title and the first 80-120 words of the index content page. Please do not just reciprocal links, SEO experts recommend that you should add at least 60-70 pages of contents in your NEW site so that your site will not just be a LINKS only website which score a LOW RANK in the algorithm of Search Engine.
Finally, have you noticed that successful online master also make used of discussion forum wisely. Discussion forum are a great online marketing tools that you should not ignore. It can bring IMMEDIATELY an increase in your website TRAFFICS which can result in increase revenue for you. Forums allows you to create your own signature file which you can write a few lines of your own business information including your URL. Each posting you made will automatically include your signature file. However, you have to show your expert knowledge when answering questions as people who read your
postings will associate it with you. Frequent forums that get lots of online traffics so that each posting by you will get the maximum exposure.
In whatever business, the initial learning may be tough, but if you believe in yourself and persist in LEARNING and taking the necessary ACTION to apply what you learn, one day, you too will become an Online Expert and SUCCESS will follow YOU.
Wishing you success in running a Successful Work At Home Online Business.