There have been various articles on how to create good interface designs and how to create website designs that will drive traffic to your business. But very little is there on the web on what drives people away from your website when compared to topics about what welcomes them. Learning the darker side of it gives you a better understanding on how you can create a successful website design and what are the main things you should avoid.

Here is a list of 5 things that will drive traffic away from your website and result in insane bounce rates.

1. Usage of extra-large and extra small text has to be minimized. When you always go by the design point of view, you sometime forget to think how the commercial users would feel about your website. Also see to it that you do not use creative and design based fonts that are hard for the people to understand. A good website design is not always about the graphics, colors and design. These minute details have to be well taken care of. These days there are options of letting the user choose between the font sizes for the website which is a good idea.

2. Right from the beginning, annoying pop-ups have been a big disturbance. These pop-ups immediately give a bad impression on the website. These days there are a lot of browsers that have pop-up blockers. Even then, it cannot be completely eradicated. Pop-ups hide a portion of the message on the whole which makes the users close the browser immediately or switch to another website.

3. There are certain other web designers that a lot of information needs to be shared. That of course is true. But too much information on a page is a bad idea. It is of no use to nobody. Is a user comes across excessive paragraphs, blocks of content, too much detail in a page; he would opt out of the website in an instance. Be wise enough to add content to your website. a few lines of text that explains the business services is sufficient. Also make sure the sentences are not too long.

4. Implementing flash based websites can be a great idea. But not when the design looks to be the center of attraction. Excessive usage of flash can slow down a website to a great extent. Business people do not prefer waiting for the flash content to load. All they want is information. Flash can be used just to enhance the look and feel of the pages. Make sure it does not dominate the website or the webpage.

5. Avoid using large images and high graphic materials on the website. A website is not a part of a picture gallery. It is the other way round. Make sure the image and graphic content you use are optimized and compressed for web usage. This again can slow down the loading of a page.

The above mentioned points clearly explain what you shouldn’t be doing when designing a killer website. This is one of the key reasons why companies practice the idea of staff augmentation to hire skilled developers. Be it PHP web development, ecommerce web development or a flash based one, these concepts apply to all.

Then one day as I was reviewing all of my articles, I realized that there was a structure and a formula behind each article I wrote. By recognizing these formulas I’m able to write an unlimited amount of articles – and write them in record time.

If you want to overcome writer’s block and start writing articles faster, then you want to model proven article writing formats, such as those found at “Complete Instant Article Writing Templates Kit”.

Here Are 10 Different Article Writing Templates That Will Help You Overcome Writer’s Block So You Can Write Articles Faster…

1. Myth Buster Article Template – With this template, you crush your prospects’ preconceived thoughts and notions about a subject. Take 3 myths people have about your industry. Explain to people why it’s a myth. And, then show them what can happen if they clear this myth from their mind.

2. Top 10 Article Template – Have you ever seen a Jay Leno, David Letterman or any other late night television show that doesn’t have a “Top 10” segment? Well, neither have I! It’s because people love top 10 lists. So give readers and prospects what they want.

3. How-To Article Template – It’s no secret that “how-to” articles and blog posts are some of the most sought after, linked to and bookmarked content online. People want useful information and they’ll reward you by promoting it to others when you provide it. It’s also one of the easiest articles to write.

4. Step-by-Step Article Template – If you think writing a how-to article is easy especially if you’re using article templates, then you’ll think the step-by-step article template is a cinch. In how-to articles I start off with the problem or pain that my prospects are experiencing. Then I give them a solution and end with the results. In a step-by-step article, I like to sell the dream. I want to instantly connect with my prospects’ desires, wishes and needs. So, I explain the results up front that can happen if you follow my advice that I give in the article.

5. Quiz Article Template – Why do you think magazines publish quizzes all the time? Why do you think the quizzes you find on Facebook are so popular? It’s because people love taking quizzes, unless it’s a pop quiz in school. So, why not use a quiz format for your articles that will enable you to do a soft, pre-sell for your products and services. When readers answer “NO” to your questions, you’re implanting thoughts of “Maybe, we should be doing this.”

6. 3 Mistakes Article Template – When you mention mistakes within your title and throughout your article, you will automatically grab attention. People will think in their minds, “Am I doing this right? I better find out!”

7. The Why Article Template – How-to articles are great. And, as I said before, it’s the most popular article template. But sometimes, when you give too much of the “HOW,” you give prospects no reason to go to your website for more information. So, why not write an article that focuses on the “WHY” and give prospects a reason to visit your website and join your list.

8. Differentiate Yourself Article Template – This template helped Article Marketing Experts make more than 10,000.00 in less than 2 months. I created an article entitled “How to Choose an Article Submission Service.” Within this article, I created 10 questions that prospects should ask. Now these questions were designed to show everything that my service includes that no one else offers. It educated prospects and at the same time, it pre-sold my article submission services.

9. Failure to Success Article Template – Did you ever notice how speakers (especially those who sell from the stage) would always tell you about their hardships? Why do speakers do this? Because we want you to connect with us. We want to show you that if we can achieve success, so can you. By opening up and revealing your failures or your scars, you add realness to your written words. People will look up to you and they will want your guidance.

10. What I Learned From Article Template – Through my years as the article marketing expert, I’ve learned that I can connect almost anything – no matter how unrelated it may seem – to various secrets that I teach my clients, subscribers and readers. For example, I’ve written articles such as “7 Article Marketing Lessons I Learned From Being a Martial Arts Champion,” 3 Lessons I Learned From the Mother of a Fearless PR LEADER,” and “5 Relationship Building Lessons I Learned From My Parents.”
These templates are guaranteed to help you write articles faster. In many cases, you’ll be able to write your articles in 30 minutes or less. Now, I invite you to check out 3 of my favorite instant article writing templates all fleshed out with article samples so you can see exactly how each template should be used.

As the popularity (and affordability) of internet-capable mobile devices grows, more and more webmasters are starting to optimize their sites for mobile browsers in order to reach this new generation of internet users. Optimizing your site for mobile browsers can make it easier for mobile users to find you, leading to increased traffic and revenue. Here are a few things to consider when optimizing your site.

How will mobile users access your site?

Deciding how you want mobile users to access your web pages is the first step in the process of optimizing your site for mobile browsers. You have several different options.

The first, and one of the most common ones, is to simply use the same URL for both the desktop and mobile versions of your website. There are many benefits to this option, the main one being that users don’t have to worry about imputing different URLs. They can follow any link or search result to your site. You’re only task here is to modify the design and content of your site so that it is as mobile-browser-friendly as possible. Of course, if the content of your page is rather complex, making your entire desktop site mobile friendly might be impossible.

The other option is to add a subdomain to your site specifically for use in mobile browsers, usually something like mobile.yoursitename.tld. This is a great way to deliver mobile-specific content to your users. You can adapt the design and content of your mobile site so that it caters specifically to the needs of mobile browsers, which will result in a smoother and faster browsing experience for mobile device users.

Optimizing content for mobile browsers

Mobile users tend to go online in search of specific information. Movie times, transit schedules, etc, so they can do without excess content. Here are some of the things you should take into account when optimizing your site content for mobile devices.

Remove all content that would not be relevant to people on the go. If you have a retail page, for example, your mobile users probably don’t need to know the full set of technical details and drawings of a product. Basic features and retail price are enough. You can also do away with most of the small print. You don’t need to include the fact that you’re an equal opportunity employer, for example. You can also leave out things like mission statements and detailed company history. Provide basic background information in your about page and way for users to contact you.

Content for mobile optimized sites should be succinct and to the point. If you think users would benefit from more information, instruct them to visit the desktop version of your site for further details on any given topic.

Try to avoid placing large advertisements on the mobile browser’s screen. Small mobile screens fill up very easily, and large banner ads will not only take away from the main content of the site but they will also increase loading time. For the fastest results, considers running your mobile optimized site entirely without online advertising displayed.

Finally, give all of your mobile optimized pages a MOBILEOPTIMIZED meta-tag, so that mobile browsers know that they don’t have to shrink down the content for that page.

I hear lots of people talk about how they want to make extra money and not be strapped down to a job. Owning your own website is a great way of earning money, and once it’s set up, you can just let it go to provide steady, no-worries income. Start within a niche, and expand. Who knows? Maybe you will start the next Amazon.com.

The following are the steps to take when starting a website or a blog:

1. Plan your site
2. Create your site
3. Get traffic
4. Make money

Plan Your Website or Blog:
Before you can build a site, you have to know how you’re going to monetize it. Do you have a product you can sell? Are you going to be ad driven? The following are monetization models which will help you decide what you want your site to do:

Hosting Pay-Per-Click Ads
How it works – You assign space on your website for someone to place ads. AdSense by Google is, by far, the easiest. Every time a customer clicks on an ad, Google gives you a percentage of what they make.

• Pros – Easy set up, install and management. No traffic requirements or minimums.
• Cons – Not a significant source of income unless you get a lot of visitors coming to your site. No pay unless customers click.

Selling Ad Space
How it works – Find a company who would like to place an ad on your site, and give them the space. This can be in the form of banner ads, or many others. You are usually paid on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model, so the more website visits, the more you make.

• Pros – More lucrative because it pays higher than AdSense.
• Cons – Unless you have a lot of traffic (or very targeted traffic), advertisers usually aren’t interested.

Affiliate Commissions
How it works – Find a product that you enjoy, and become an affiliate. Affiliates make a commission whenever they refer someone that makes a purchase. Getting the right people to your site to purchase is the goal.

• Pros – Get paid money for referring customers. Thousands of companies have affiliate setups in place.
• Cons – Market is pretty saturated and there are a lot of powerful affiliates.

Paid Reviews/Blog
How it works – Find companies that will pay you for your reviews/blogging about their products or services.

• Pros – You can get paid to do things you love, like eating or gaming.
• Cons – Constant need to find new sponsors and products creates a lot of management time.

Sell a Product
How it works – This is the traditional model, and it entails having a product or service to sell, and selling in on your website.

• Pros – Your website is your company’s salesman, and works 24/7 to make you money while you play and sleep.
• Cons – You need to have a product or service to sell.

Build Your Website or Blog
Once you have a plan for the type of site you want to build, now have it built! Torino Creative builds excellent websites and I highly recommend having them put one together for you. Otherwise, if you are a web guru, you can build it yourself.

For your site, you will need:

1. Your own domain name (yourbusinessname.com) for around $11 a year
2. Hosting (a server to serve your website) is usually around $6/mo. I recommend Hostmonster hosting which gives you a free domain name with hosting purchase.

Get Traffic
Once you have a website, now you need to get traffic to it. There is a variety of ways to get people to your site:

Paid Search (PPC) – Pay only when a visitor clicks on your ad. Paid search is highly measurable and a sure shot at getting traffic to your site. Depending on your keywords, expect to pay between $.50 and $2.00 per click.

Organic Search – Get traffic through Google, Yahoo, and Bing’s search engines through a process called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Get experts to help you out, and plan between 6 months to 2 years to get your site to the top of the search results. The great part about SEO is that all the traffic is free, and people trust your site more than if they clicked an ad.
Ads – Advertise on someone else’s site, or get them to link to you. You will get a portion of their traffic.

Get Paid
Enjoy getting paid for your ingenuity – you deserve it! Your internet business requires very little upkeep and money to sustain itself.

History
Back before Google worked popularity into the SEO equation, search engines worked off of relevancy in terms of content. This was way too easy to spam, because all I had to do was write the keyword on my webpage one more time than you to rank ahead. Google introduced PageRank on the belief that if a site provided valuable content, people would link to it. This is a system that revolutionized the Internet as we know it.

As Google’s algorithm matured, so did the algorithms of other search engines, and the premise behind PageRank turned out to be incredibly effective. SEOs are always trying to better understand how search engines rank pages in order to better drive traffic to their own sites. Once linking as a ranking factor caught on, it became the focus of SEOs everywhere.

Links as Currency
Search Engine Marketing’s job was to attempt to gain links from a wide variety of sources in order to achieve desired rankings. There arose an issue, though. Pagerank flows through links. If you decided not to link out to anyone, or place nofollows on your external links, your PageRank would pool up, resulting in higher PR, and better link for your pages.

Google understood that this was bad for their system. They were effectively incentivizing people to quit linking out. This did the same thing as getting people to stop spending money in economic terms. It puts a wrench in the entire system! They started prepping us for a change.

PageRank Sculpting Dies
Google began warning people early in 2009 not to rely too heavily on PageRank. Then, Matt Cutts reported on his blog on June 15, 2009, that Google reserved the right to respect or disrespect the nofollow tag on internal links. This was to invalidate methods of pooling PR artificially on the important pages of a website by placing nofollows on all the links to unimportant pages. Google began taking control of its currency again.

The Death of PageRank
By pooling your PR on important pages to get higher rank, Google was effectively incentivizing people not to link at all. Google realized this and finally put the last nail in the PR coffin on October 15, 2009,by removing the metric from Webmaster Tools. Questions arose, and Matt Cutts responded that PR was no longer taken into account in rankings. That means that PageRank as a multiplier for rankings no longer existed, but the links that made up PR were still taken into account.

Incentive to Link
For a while, SEOs lost their incentive to link out to other valuable resources. In order to get the currency flowing again, they tweaked the algorithm to reward people for linking out. All of a sudden, the strategy has changed, and linking out is great for rankings. Linking is economic policy that Google can influence quite strongly. Make sure you link out to authoritative sites like Wikipedia on your own sites. Stay tuned for more SEO game changers in the future!

Don’t have a website, but running a small business? How weird is that! Get a website right away, or forget about entrepreneurial stuff and get a job. Yes, that’s how it is these days, and that’s how, it seems, it’s gonna be for a long time to come.

If you are planning to start a small business, you need an online presence. Pure and simple!

Fine, so you have gone and got yourself a cool website, with movies, sounds, and the works. You think it’s the coolest thing on earth, and you spend your spare time working on it or just gazing at the cool fireworks. Nice, but guess what? You are still far from getting there. Your site may be cool, but probably nobody ever visits your site, and you don’t get a single call from prospective clients.

Now what?

There’s a whole new world called Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you want success online, you need to either learn SEO/SEM yourself, or hire someone (like us) to do your SEO for you. SEO is almost the only way to proactively market yourself online. SEO is the key to passive internet marketing.

WHAT IS SEO

You know what a search engine is, of course. So you are looking for something online, say, cruise booking for the wife to Jamaica. So you open up Google and type in cruise and Jamaica, and hit enter. Then what happens? Google produces page after page of websites for you that it thinks may be relevant to what you are looking for. You scroll through the list, and usually, in that first page itself, you find a cruise agent in your locality that you like. So you call them up and book a Jamaican vacation.

Cool, right?

Ok, so now, say, you are running a flower delivery biz in the locality. Say someone searches “flowers” in Google, just like you did for cruise. As a small biz owner, where would you want to be?

RIGHT ON THAT FIRST PAGE!

That’s what good SEO can do for you. It can optimize your website in such a way that it will appear on top of search engines whenever someone searches with keywords that are relevant to your business.

Relevance is the key. Google and other search engines like Bing, yahoo or msn use software to search millions of web pages. It’s like a quick glance through a book – how do you determine what a chapter is about, in a quick glance? Well, the title, the headings, the para headings, similar phrases occurring multiple times – these things tell you what a chapter is about, without reading (and understanding) the whole chapter.

It’s the same concept here. Google uses software (called robots) that glance through pages of your websites in milliseconds, looking for words that appear in certain important sections. When they find a word appearing to be the key to your webpage, they categorize your page under that keyword. Now, when someone searches for that keyword, Google brings up your website.

This is SEO; the technique of making Google see you as you want to be seen, making Google grab those keywords that you want to define your business with, and making you appear on page 1 whenever someone searches for those keywords. That, in a nutshell, and to be very simplistic really, is a snapshot of SEO and how to use it to market your business online.

Instant access has completely revolutionized web design. A few years ago you could get on the Internet from a wireless access point at a coffee shop or a hotel. Now, Wi-Fi exists practically everywhere, from burger joints and libraries to Amtrak trains and they barely scratch the surface of Internet availability. Many users shop on their smart phone for easy Internet access to mobile broadband, particularly on social media sites and news outlets. Ultimately, though, the best way to get web access across the country is with wireless broadband. Using a cell phone to pull in signal which is then sent to a laptop, you can connect to the Internet anywhere you can maintain a strong enough cell phone signal.

Due to these changes in the way we access the Internet, web design is being forced to change the way it handles the Internet. Rather than putting up page after page of text, writers post information in small short bursts (from the miniaturized article, the blog post, to the incredibly short burst of words that can be fit into a tweet). Instead of developing a complicated logo, designers develop a smooth, clean image that is easy to recognize and translates well to the small screen of a cell phone. Contests and sales are more interactive and involve pulling others to view the same site, increasing both page views and final purchases.

Each of these seemingly minor changes is an initial reaction to the constant availability of the Internet, but they are certainly not the end results. Over the next several years we will continue to see significant changes in the way we do things on the Internet, and most of these will be driven by the consumer’s desire for information and the individuals desire to be connected with their network of friends and family.

When designing, ask yourself, “Is this balanced? Do I need this? Is this necessary? It’s all about balance. If your visual talent, meaning; your eyes disagree, for even an instance, scratch the idea. A logo must make sense immediately.

Designing a logo is both an art and a science. However, in order to be a good designer you must master, certain elements, described further below. Unfortunately, nowadays anyone can whip up Photoshop, type some text, add an effect or two and claim to have designed a logo. It’s deeper than that. Many skills need to be mastered first, before even attempting. The master rule here is, don’t use Photoshop. Notice the name? “Photo” that means this program is for “Photo.” Instead, we prefer Illustrator, or any vector based program.

This article is not a tutorial, but is a guide to help you overcome the troubles in designing a logo. Here are a few good TorinoTips you can follow.

The key is balance. Size, weight, and kerning are the required steps, and on occasion color to be in balance. When in full design mode, it is important to follow these four steps, and in that order. Always design your logos in grayscale, using gray for a secondary colors that can always be replaced later. As logos must always have a black and white version regardless.

You must also be quick to realize type hazards, most important kerning. Always manually adjust kerning.

Guides are your friend, use them and use master them. With illustrator you have the best access to locking and unlocking of guides, making guides different sizes and shapes. These guides help when spacing out margins for words, letters or shapes. It is important to understand the concept of guides. When we say guides, the rulers and grid fall along the same lines.

One of the most important rules, or should we say “The Golden Rule,” and that is choosing the right font. Remember the more generic you go, the more appealing and important. Do your research, check out all the biggest companies worldwide, most of their logos are generic fonts, but uniquely arranged.

You can always portray different “moods” with different serif or san-serif styles. Stay close to most known font families, Helvetica, Arial, Times, etc. This also helps when in HTML based web design, your body copy must be in a font that is freely available on most machines.

When working with editable text, make your balance adjustments, then outline your fonts. This always gives you the freedom to manipulate your letters, or shall we say shapes now, into anything you can imagine.

To be flat, or not to be flat. Thank is the question. The answer, you can be both depending on the circumstances. Before even attempting a logo that has additional elements like reflections, glows, shadows, etc. you must first experiment with balance; size, weight, kerning and color. Remember flat logos save you money down the road, the less colors the more printer friendly.

Yes, we know un-flat logos are cool, but its an additional step that may not have to be performed necessarily. Your visual talent should tell you otherwise.

The less you distract the eye, the more you persuade the mind.

That’s it. We have just scratched the surface of elegant design, but the key concepts must always be applied and are the foundation of any successful design. Simplicity and balance.

Before we get too far into creating professionalism through a website, you need to have unity within your company and website. Unity comes from matching color schemes, using the same tone of voice, having good organization, and touching upon the most important pieces of information you want to provide to visitors right on the homepage of your website. Unity brings a sense of comfort and pre-existing reliability to the visitors, preventing them from feeling like your website is a scam, spam, or working indirectly to only benefit yourself or your company, and not benefiting your customers.

The second part to website design, which can make or break the success of the website, is professionalism. Providing a “Company History” page, mentioning partners working with you, providing statistics on the success of your website, explaining how the business works in an “About ’Your Company Name’” page, and providing key information to why your website/company is better than the others in your area of business can really help provide a sense of reliability and trustworthiness to the customer.

If you would really like to provide and portray reliability, you should consider implementing warranties or guarantees on the products or services you are looking to provide. Having warranties and guarantees help customers feel like you are backing up your product or service, and not just looking for their money. They also help add quality to your company, as many companies offering warranties and guarantees tend to care about customer satisfaction more, than those websites just looking to make the sale.

It’s important to have a website design containing unity and professionalism, in order to justify your business’s reliability, trustworthiness, and quality amongst your visitors. Without developing these through the words and pages on your website, you can easily miss many sales for goods or services to your competitors. If you cannot find a good website design on the internet or create one on your own, you should have it professionally made, as you will be able to get these qualities and a great design, working with a professional website designer.

The first tip is actually a direction towards a specific type of product. This product is an ebook, which are fairly easy to market and turn many sales. An ebook is basically a typed document, usually consisting of answers, tips, step by step processes, new knowledge, or some unique information, which people need, want, and have to have to help them in life or to perform a task. Ebooks are easy to market, because you can list bullet points of what the ebook contains, while also being able to target the ebook to certain consumers. Ebooks also cost the consumer between $5 to $25, so the cheaper price tag can lure some people into buying your product, to get their answers or help fast.

The second tip is to find “holes” in markets, then capitalize on the opportunity with a corresponding product. A “hole” can consist of a common question asked in the specific market, a new interested branched of an old market, or a new idea, which may not exists, yet is being researched and talked about on the internet. For example, a “hole” in a market can be a certain type of reptile cage being built by many people in their homes, yet not being sold in stores or on the internet. In that case, you can build or find a manufacturer for the cages, market them on the internet, and continuously perform research and checks, in order to further expand on the market, or lead into other markets.

Knowing these two tips should set you off on the right track to finding a good product to market on the internet. If you find the right “hole” and capitalize with a comprehensive ebook or product, you should be well on your way to an internet success.