Web page size has become a rather heated issue over the past year so I
wanted to take some time to clarify a few things.

Recently, we had a new client that wanted a new website built. Their
biggest concern was how it looked on their computer. The problem is that
their particular monitor belonged on a notebook computer with a 15” screen
running a rather strange resolution.

According to w3schools.com, as of January of 2008, 86% of ALL user are
using resolutions 1024 X  768 pixels or greater. After checking more
resources, I have seen numbers indicating that it could be actually more
than 90%. Only 8% are still using a monitor resolution size of 800 X 600
pixels.

The bottom line is that when having your website built you should build it
to fit the majority of your visitors computers, not your own. This
particular customer only wanted the website to look perfect on their own
system. The result is that the page size they wanted would look small and
dated on majority of the monitors in the world.

After doing more research, I found a great source for Display Resolution
Statistics
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Another great resource for this type of web information is:
http://www.thecounter.com

Red

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility, which is why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red. In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage. It is a color found in many national flags.

Red brings text and images to the foreground. Use it as an accent color to stimulate people to make quick decisions; it is a perfect color for ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Click Here’ buttons on Internet banners and websites. In advertising, red is often used to evoke erotic feelings (red lips, red nails, red-light districts, ‘Lady in Red’, etc). Red is widely used to indicate danger (high voltage signs, traffic lights). This color is also commonly associated with energy, so you can use it when promoting energy drinks, games, cars, items related to sports and high physical activity.

Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.
Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.
Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

Orange

Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.

To the human eye, orange is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat. Nevertheless, orange is not as aggressive as red. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain, produces an invigorating effect, and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people. As a citrus color, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. Orange is the color of fall and harvest. In heraldry, orange is symbolic of strength and endurance.

Orange has very high visibility, so you can use it to catch attention and highlight the most important elements of your design. Orange is very effective for promoting food products and toys.

Dark orange can mean deceit and distrust.
Red-orange corresponds to desire, sexual passion, pleasure, domination, aggression, and thirst for action.
Gold evokes the feeling of prestige. The meaning of gold is illumination, wisdom, and wealth. Gold often symbolizes high quality.

Yellow

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It’s associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.

Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Yellow is often associated with food. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is the reason taxicabs are painted this color. When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect; it is known that babies cry more in yellow rooms. Yellow is seen before other colors when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning. In heraldry, yellow indicates honor and loyalty. Later the meaning of yellow was connected with cowardice.

Use yellow to evoke pleasant, cheerful feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children’s products and items related to leisure. Yellow is very effective for attracting attention, so use it to highlight the most important elements of your design. Men usually perceive yellow as a very lighthearted, ‘childish’ color, so it is not recommended to use yellow when selling prestigious, expensive products to men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow Mercedes. Yellow is an unstable and spontaneous color, so avoid using yellow if you want to suggest stability and safety. Light yellow tends to disappear into white, so it usually needs a dark color to highlight it. Shades of yellow are visually unappealing because they loose cheerfulness and become dingy.

Dull (dingy) yellow represents caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy.
Light yellow is associated with intellect, freshness, and joy.

Green

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money.

Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Sometimes green denotes lack of experience; for example, a ‘greenhorn’ is a novice. In heraldry, green indicates growth and hope. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.

Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products. Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote ‘green’ products. Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, the financial world, banking, and Wall Street.

Dark green is associated with ambition, greed, and jealousy.
Yellow-green can indicate sickness, cowardice, discord, and jealousy.
Aqua is associated with emotional healing and protection.
Olive green is the traditional color of peace.

Blue

Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.

Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness. In heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity.

You can use blue to promote products and services related to cleanliness (water purification filters, cleaning liquids, vodka), air and sky (airlines, airports, air conditioners), water and sea (sea voyages, mineral water). As opposed to emotionally warm colors like red, orange, and yellow; blue is linked to consciousness and intellect. Use blue to suggest precision when promoting high-tech products.

Blue is a masculine color; according to studies, it is highly accepted among males. Dark blue is associated with depth, expertise, and stability; it is a preferred color for corporate America.

Avoid using blue when promoting food and cooking, because blue suppresses appetite. When used together with warm colors like yellow or red, blue can create high-impact, vibrant designs; for example, blue-yellow-red is a perfect color scheme for a superhero.

Light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness.
Dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.

Purple

Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Purple is associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

According to surveys, almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children prefer purple to all other colors. Purple is a very rare color in nature; some people consider it to be artificial.

Light purple is a good choice for a feminine design. You can use bright purple when promoting children’s products.

Light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings.
Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings. It can cause frustration.

White

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.

White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.

In advertising, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it’s the color of snow. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate color for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility, so you can use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products. White is often associated with low weight, low-fat food, and dairy products.

Black

Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery.

Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown (black holes). It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, ‘black death’). Black denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant, and prestigious color (black tie, black Mercedes). In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief.

Black gives the feeling of perspective and depth, but a black background diminishes readability. A black suit or dress can make you look thinner. When designing for a gallery of art or photography, you can use a black or gray background to make the other colors stand out. Black contrasts well with bright colors. Combined with red or orange – other very powerful colors – black gives a very aggressive color scheme.

Once you’ve chosen your business and purchased a domain name the next step is to find useful and relevant keywords. Without this step your Web site will get lost among the many Web sites that compete for your business.

How to Get Great Search Engine Rankings
By Brandon Leibowitz

1. Chose your Keywords Carefully

Once you’ve chosen your business and purchased a domain name the next step is to find useful and relevant keywords. Without this step your Web site will get lost among the many Web sites that compete for your business.

To begin keyword research you need to utilize some useful tools. The first Web site you should look at is Google Keywords which is a free tool that displays the amount of searches and competition for specific keywords. It also allows you to find more specific keywords that can better describe your site.

A better tool would be to purchase some type of software or service such as WordTracker which offers detailed information about keywords. Unfortunately it’s not free, but there are other services that are.

2. Find a Niche Market

This cannot be stressed enough as it’s much harder to receive top search engine rankings for a new site than an established site. A new site will have to compete with Web sites that have established high search engine rankings.

To compete with these Web sites is unwise. You first need to find a niche market, and then build up your Web site to a position as to where it can compete with these generic terms. For example let’s say you have a Web site geared towards weight loss. You would not use the keyword “weight loss” because there’s too much competition. You can use one of the keyword tools to find suggestions of related keywords that you will be able to compete against. You may find the keyword “weight loss surgery” or “weight loss techniques.” These phrases are much better keywords than generic terms like “weight loss.”

Use the list of a few keywords, check out the competition that word/ phrase has on Google. Look at the number of competitors. If this exceeds a few million, then you need look for a more specific keyword. The next step is to observe the top listed pages and see how well they are optimized. You can download the Google Toolbar and add Page Rank to your browser for free.

A low Page Rank between 0 – 3 means that you can easily compete with these Web pages. A Web site with a Page Rank of 4 – 6 is a bit tougher to compete with, but is manageable using my guided steps and expertise. You don’t want to compete with Web sites that have a Page Rank above 7. Check the domains homepage, not a sub-page to get an accurate Page Rank!

3. View Competitors Source Code

It’s important to view potential competitor’s source code to see if they have efficiently performed on page search engine optimization. To do this on your Brower click “view” and then click on the “source” option as displayed.”

This will bring up a page with all the html code on it. You don’t need to be an expert with html to understand what we’re looking for. We need to see if our competitor’s Web site is properly optimized. We look to see if they are using their keywords in the header tags, the title tags, and the image alt tags. These should all be located near the top of the source code.

If you cannot find these then go to the toolbar and chose “edit” and select “find” and type in h1 or title, etc. to see if there are being used for the keywords. If these don’t exist or aren’t being used to hold keywords, you have found an easily beaten page. This means that with some proper optimization you will be able to outrank this page. The last thing you want to look at is the body content and to see if the keyword is used a few times in the body content. A site lacking in keywords in the body context is a poorly optimized page. You should always make sure your Web page is keyword rich with relevant content.

4. Keyword Placement

After you’ve selected a few keywords to use we want to combine the ones that have like terms. For example, if you’ve selected three keywords such as: weight loss story; weight loss picture; safe weight loss, you see that all three keywords contain the words “weight loss.” We can combine the words to better optimize your page.

For the title tag the fewer the keywords used, the better the search engines will rank your page.

When we create the page it should NEVER have “Welcome to our Web site!” in the Title Tags.

It should NEVER have “weight loss story, weight loss picture, safe weight loss” in the Title Tags either.

The way the title tags should look is: “Weight Loss Story | Safe Weight Loss Picture” (Note: You can add this character | by holding the shift key on your keyboard and pressing the backslash key above the enter key.)

You should always remove prepositions such as “and” as this will only hurt your search engine optimization. The fewer, more relevant the words, the higher your search engine ranking will be.

Header 1 tags should be placed above your body content. This should contain your most relevant keyword in this tag. i.e. “Weight Loss Story” This main keyword placed in the H1 tag will substantially increase your page ranking! The Header 2 tag should contain your second most important keyword. The header 3 tag will have your least important keyword placed in it. These header tags are often overlooked, but make a significant difference in your on page search engine optimization.

The body content of your Web page should be rich with keywords and relevant content. You should have each keyword appear at least once for every 1-2 paragraphs. Do not stuff your body with keywords. You want to give your body a clean natural look, meaning do not over or under use keywords!

Image tags alt tags should also be keyword rich. Search engines often look at the alt tags of images on your Web site. If the alt tags don’t make use of your keywords then you will be ranked lower than if you had keywords in your alt tags.

5. Homepage Organization

We want the search engines to notice your keywords and index you accordingly. In order to do this you should start and end your body tags with your keywords. This gives the search engine spider information that your page is highly relevant to your keywords.

When the spider looks through your Web site it reads through your content from top left to bottom right. Below is an example of how the search engine reads your page starting with 1 then 2 then 3.

Rather than creating a table that looks like this:
navigational links
Your body text…

You should create a table that looks like this:
Your body text…
navigational links

Now, search engines will view your body content before it views your navigational menu. The search engine will see the top of your page then see a blank area and skip to your body content then move onto your navigational menu

6. Search Engine Submission

The best way to achieve high search engine rankings for new Web sites may not be what you expected. You should not submit your site directly to the search engines as this process can take weeks or even months to get your site listed. Instead you need to get listed on top ranking pages that are relevant to your Web site’s content. These high ranking pages are often optimized on a weekly or even daily basis. Every time the site is indexed your link will appear and the search engines will automatically list your site in its index.

To do this you need to search for Web sites indexed by search engines and get them to link to you. The incentive you need to give them is to write some sort of article relevant to your line of business. At the bottom of the article you include your web page URL to get picked up by the search engines. You submit the article to popular article directories on the Web and you will be indexed by the search engines in a matter of days.

Here’s a list of the most popular article directories:

1. GoArticles.com
2. Ezinearticles.com
3. ArticleCity.com
4. Certificate.net/wwio
5. Amazines.com
6. Articledashboard.com
7. Article-directory.com
8. Submityourarticle.com/articles
9. Magportal.com
10. Isnare.com
11. Pubs.acs.org/hotartcl
12. Article-hangout.com
13. Webarticles.com
14. Articlecube.com
15. Article-buzz.com

The other option is to perform a search of the most generic term that is related to your business. Click through these Web sites looking at the Page Ranks. Contact the Web site and ask them to link to your site and in return for linking back to their site. Always contact sites that are relevant to your line of work and always offer them something their visitors can benefit from once they add your link.

You can purchase a link in top Page Rank sites through link builders. A few of the good Web sites that can do this for you are: textbrokers.com or text-link-ads.com or linkadage.com.

Remember that you only need to purchase a link for one month, since it will take less than one month to get you indexed by the major search engines. Continuing to pay for the link after a month is a waste of your money.

7. Off page Optimization

Here, you need to study the linking strategies of the top 10 Web sites for your keyword. We want to copy their model, but do things slightly better to achieve the top rankings. First open up a spreadsheet in Excel and list the following columns: Linking Web site, Anchor Text, Page Rank, Link Popularity Page Title, and Number of Outbound Links. Then we search your keyword on Google and fill in the information for the top 10 Web sites.

To discover the linking Web sites go to Google and type in the websites URL “link:www.thewebsite.com.” Then count the number of sites that are listed to get the link popularity.

Anchor text is whatever follows the .com or .org of a website URL.

Page Rank is the rank Google gives to Web sites. You can download it for free at Google’s Web site.

Page Title is the title of the page that appears on the top left of the screen. If the title does not contain the keywords then the site is not well optimized and easy to surpass in rankings.

Number of Outbound Links is the number of links located on the webpage linking to the site you’re checking.

Once all this information has been collected you can see what needs to be done to your site to beat the top ranking sites.

8. Search Engines and Capitalization

Capitalizing different letters in keywords brings up different results in search engines. Search engines are case-sensitive so it is important how you use capitalization. The problem with listing every variation of a word results in the search engines thinking that you are spam and deleting your URL. This gets worse with singular and plural words!

The solution is to stick with lowercase listings rather than trying different variations. Studies have shown that most people search in all lowercase and this has the most relevant listings. Not using every other variation means you lose out on 18% of traffic. This is not worth the risk of being banned from the search engines.

9. Search Engine Spamming

Search engine spamming is attempting to achieve top ranks for extremely popular keywords. Search engines have discovered ways to fight keyword stuffing and other search engine tricks. Search engines can detect your spam and will act accordingly by penalizing or banning you from their listings. The risks aren’t worth the temporary rewards. Search engine spam should be considered the same as email spam.

10. Hire a Professional SEO

Hiring a professional search engine optimizer is a great idea if your business relies on Internet sales. Search engine optimization is something that is time consuming and requires lots of research. Most businesses don’t have time to optimize their Web sites. At SEO Optimizers we make sure everything is inline at your site and fix any problems that may be holding you back from reaching the top ranks. If you really want to be at the top of any searches you need professionals to help you solve the problem.

The 7 Most Common Web Site Mistakes
1) Where’s Your Phone Number?
2) Is Your Contact Email Visible?
3) Provide Clear Navigation
4) Keep the Layout Consistent
5) Flash Animation NO-NOs
6) How Big is Your Web Page?
7) How Fast Does Your Web Site Load?
************

The 7 Most Common Web Site Mistakes
By David Prescott

It still amazes me that after all of these years there are so many web sites just missing the mark. Some of the most important features to the site and related business are missing. The following is a list of most major mistakes businesses make. Are you making them too?

1) Where’s Your Phone Number?
If you want people to contact you, put your phone number where people can find it, on every page. Offering a phone number really adds to the credibility of your business.

2) Is Your Contact Email Visible?
This is just as important as showing your phone numbers. Of course, you should have a contact page, but by making an email address available on every page, you’ll enable those who are interested a quicker way to do so.

3) Provide Clear Navigation
There are a variety of things to consider when talking about navigation. Think about getting around your site. How many clicks does it take for you to get to your most popular page? (by the way, you should know what is the most popular page on your site). Whenever possible, make shortcuts to your popular destinations.

4) Keep the Layout Consistent
You also need to consider placement of your navigation system. Keep it in the same place on every page. The only acceptable exception to this rule is between the homepage and sub pages. Even then, you need to keep it as similar as possible, to help your visitors feel more comfortable.

5) Flash Animation NO-NOs
You should not have your entire homepage and navigation system designed using Flash. I know there are people that will disagree with me on this, but I have good reason. The simple fact is that in most cases it is more difficult to update a Flash site versus a HTML web site.

The exception is when you are big enough to have a dedicated web person who knows Flash and you are sure that you have all of the original Flash files. Even then, I personally don’t recommend it.

The problem is that if you hire someone to build a site for you using mostly Flash, you will either need to hire them again to make changes or hire someone else, as Flash is a learned skill. I hate to think about how many times we’ve heard stories about someone hiring a designer who builds a beautiful site entirely in flash. Six months later they need to make changes and the person who built it is gone… along with the original files. When this happens there is pretty much nothing you can do to save your site and it can cost thousands of dollars.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love Flash! In fact I suggest having some flash on every web site. I just believe that it should be used in small portions more how a video would be used. Think of Flash as an inexpensive way to create a small commercial. Keep the Flash on your site for a while and then understand that it can be replaced whenever you want easily. In fact, if your Flash designer disappears, you can always use an HTML editor and just delete the Flash and replace it with a static picture.

6) How Big is Your Web Page?
There are two different aspects of page size; height and width. When it comes to width things have changed over the last couple of years. Most people are using higher resolutions on their computers. This means that if your site was built several years ago, it may look skinny on most peoples monitors. It’s not that these sites don’t fit or work properly, it that they look outdated.

Most people are running their monitors at resolutions which require web pages to be closer to 900 pixels in width. This is a far cry from the 700 pixel sites that we were building just a year ago. When visitors go to a site that is narrow or skinny, it tells them instantly that the site is old. Let’s face it, people want the latest and greatest information on the web and if yours looks outdated it can hurt your chances capturing their business.

The other aspect of size is the length of the page. Pages shouldn’t be too long. I know that’s a rather general statement, but you need to consider the load times and navigation. In some cases a single long page may be appropriate when it’s a continued story. However, putting different items which should be on different pages can hurt your site.
For one, no one really likes to scroll. Secondly, search engines such as Google give credit for more content across more pages. In other words, if you’re trying to improve your ranking, more pages and content the better.

7) How Fast Does Your Web Site Load?
This isn’t as big of an issue as it used to be with most people being on some type of high speed connection these days. However, it still happens occasionally where you’ll get to a site and it will either load slowly or just hang all together.

If the site is just loading slow it can be due to graphics being improperly sized in the site, or bad coding or a number of other reasons. Your site should never take more than a few seconds to load. If you have any Flash, audio, or video elements, they should all load and run separately from the rest of the HTML part of the site.

HMG has been selected by Choices Consulting to provide e-marketing services through eConnectEmail.com. We have also been called on to design the e-marketing campaigns and deploy them on the behalf of Choices Consulting.

Choices Consulting is headquartered in San Diego, California with associates in Chicago, Phoenix, and Utah.

Their core competency is helping individuals develop skills and strategies that build success for their organizations and their customers through collaboration.

For more information visit www.choicesconsulting.net

HMG has been selected by HoneyMoon-Vacations.com to provide Website Development and E-Marketing services to it’s division in San Diego.

HoneyMoon-Vacations.com specializes in providing travel packages to honeymooners and families looking to travel within the continental United States or world wide.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out our Blog. We will be posting new information each week that will inform, educate and hopefully inspire! It would be great to hear back from you so post a message or comment. Just remember we are always one click and one phone call away!

Best,

HMG

We often get asked, “why does my website look so small when viewing it on my monitor?” The short answer for this can be explained by reviewing the below chart for the popular display resolution people are using. Note that around 1/5 of internet population are still using 800×600, this is the reason we develop using this screen resolution. Even though your website might look small on your screen doesn’t mean that it displays this way for everyone. We choose to build websites using this screen resolution so that we know for a fact visitors will not have to scroll horizontally to see your entire site.

I have obtained the information from the following site: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

The shotgun approach to direct mail will result in you mailing to a significant number of unqualified prospects.

But targeting your direct mail campaigns to very specific markets can reduce your direct mail costs by reducing the numbers of pieces you mail or generate higher response by delivering tailored messages to different market segments. Either way, your direct mail efforts will be more profitable. DM News reported recently that a Colorado travel company doubled their response rate since 9/11 by segmenting their mail list database and better targeting the packages, offers, and creative delivered to specific groups.

You can target different segments of your market better by getting more splits of your list. You can segment using demographic data such as income level, age, price of home. You can also get lists segmented on psychographic data. For example, a household with multiple luxury cars is going to respond to a different message than a household that only buys used cars or hasn’t purchased a new car in several years. The first will take more risks and the second is risk-averse. So, to convert these two different prospects into leads, they should receive different messages.

Response modeling is another way to reduce the number of pieces you mail but increase your response rate or overall ROI (Return on Investment). Response modeling looks at data from past direct marketing campaigns and creates statistical models based on responder characteristics. This model can be used to predict which prospects are likely to respond and which are not from future data sets. You can then mail to the prospects most likely to respond and drop those less likely to respond from your list. You send out fewer pieces but get more responses and better ROI for your efforts.

Making informed decisions about all aspects of your direct mail campaigns can increase your qualified leads, decrease your marketing costs, and increase your revenues and profits.