Archive for August, 2009

By Mike Marinaro

Everyone wants more people to visit their website. My clients are always asking me how to accomplish this. Well, I can answer that question in just one word — ARTICLES!

More and more people are using articles to generate traffic directly to their website and it works great! The secret is to provide something interesting and closely related to your website. For example, if you are selling insurance, you could write an article explaining the difference between term life and whole life insurance and the benefits of each.

Make sure your article is well-written, grammatically correct and free of spelling errors before you submit it. You should provide links in your article pointing to your website, and most importantly, there should be a resource box at the end of the article. A resource box tells people a little bit about you; directs them to your website; and gives others permission to reprint your article as long they include the resource box.

Okay, now you have a well written article; what’s next, where do you submit the article? There are many places to submit articles, just google “free articles” and you will get millions of links.

Here are just a few of the ones that I use:

http://www.isnare.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com

Another great place to submit articles is in your own newsletter. If you have a newsletter that is mailed or e-mailed you should also be writing articles there that link to your website. It’s a good idea to also archive your articles on your
website so they can be read over and over again. This also increases the chance of another publisher picking up your article for use on their own site.

Your own articles also make great fillers for your newsletters when you need to fill that white space. The best way to use articles in an e-newsletter is to just have the first paragraph or two as a teaser then include a link to your website where readers can get the full content of the article. What are you waiting for, start writing your articles and watch your website traffic begin to increase!

About the Author: You may copy this article and place it on your own website, as long as you do not change it and include the live links. This resource box must also be included. Mike Marinaro designs websites and e-zines, he specializes in
affordable Christian website design. You can visit his site at
www.webdesign4him.com

To contact Mike e-mail
mmarinaro@nc.rr.com.

Source: http://www.isnare.com

By: Mike Marinaro

Rule #1 – Make it Easy to Read

Your web site should be easy to read. Black text against a white background is my recommendation. You want contrasting colors that are easy to read. Another good combination is light yellow background with dark blue text. Graphics in the background may look nice; however, they usually make your site harder to read.

Font size and style must also be easy to read. Size  14-16 pt. is a good size to use. Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman or Veranda are easy styles to read. Fancy fonts and italics become harder to read.

Remember, if you use fancy fonts, your visitors may not have those same fonts installed on their computers, so they won’t be seeing what you intended. If you must use fancy fonts then you will have to put them in a graphic image to display properly on everyone’s computer.

Rule #2 – Graphics  Images Can Slow Your Download Time

Graphics are cool but if they are on your web site just because they look cool, you are making a big mistake. Remember, graphics slow down your download time.

Graphic images should serve a purpose. Here are the basic purpose of graphic images for your web site.

Navigation buttons – Used to help visitors navigate your site. Well designed buttons can be much easier to read and find than plain text links.

Logo – Used to establish brand name recognition for your corporate identity.

Bullet Points – Used to draw your visitors’ attention to the main points of your page.

Photos- Used to add a personal touch to your web page. Visitors’ eyes are naturally drawn to photos of people.

Rule #3 - Keep it Simple

I always use the KIS method (Keep it Simple). Things like Flash and animated graphics are cute; however, people are not visiting your website to see a show. They are coming there to get information. Keep your site fresh and clean and easy to navigate and you will see many more visitors!

Mike Marinaro is a web designer and published author.
Visit www.webdesign4him.com or www.womensempowerment.info for more articles.