About a year ago, I came across a script that allowed you to run your own Digg style website. It had all the features of submitting content, voting, commenting and more. Since then other features have been added such as “Burying”, a key part of Digg.

The script, Pligg, continues to evolve daily with a fantastic base of members adding, modifying and suggesting new features constantly. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of websites running on Pligg in as many subjects. Some news others shopping deals, scripts and the list goes on.

A built in messengar makes it easy for your members to communicate and it provides interactivity which is key to a web 2.0 website. A built in RSS importer also makes it simple to import feeds from other websites to help get your site built up, also, members can provide their Digg ID during registration, and the RSS importer will import all of their Digg submissions on to your website automatically.

Some great modules have been written for Pligg including, Thickbox, video/photo uploading, AJAX style logins, category suggestion script, featured story, and a banner script and pages of others. There are also integration scripts with other popular sripts, for example, phpBB, vBulletin. Some members have successfully integrated other scripts such as Joomla, but this would be for advanced scripters.

To see examples of how Pligg has been used, you can visit http://www.pliggs.com

Heres how I implemented mine: http://www.newsdots.com

Darrell is the owner of Utopian Productions and Pliggs.

One of the major turn-offs is a sloooow loading site. There can be a number of contributing factors to this:

* Large graphics files (meaning the file size in bytes). Graphics files need to be optimised to reduce the file size to a minimum to enable them to travel through the Internet in minimum time.

* Splash Screens. These are often Flash graphics and can take a long time to ‘load’, especially where there is limited bandwidth. Bandwidth is the carry capacity of the Internet, the bigger the faster - a bit like comparing a fire hose and a garden hose. Unfortunately in Australia bandwidth tends to be at the smaller end of the scale. Splash screens also annoy repeat visitors, as they revisit the site and have to wait for the screen to load (not everyone knows how to properly Bookmark).

* Excessively long pages. Pages should generally be no longer than three screen-fulls (scrolls). Also, bear in mind that most people scan web pages rather that read in detail (until they find the specific page they seek).

Other turn-offs include:

* Background music that automatically starts as the page loads. As well as slooowing the page loading down, your choice of music is unlikely to please everyone.

* Set a screen resolution too wide for the majority of computers in use. You would be surprised how many computers with 640 pixel x 480 pixel screens are still in use. So, set Table widths as a percentage of screen width, otherwise many of your visitors will be annoyed by needing to utilise the horizontal scroll bar.

* Requiring obscure ‘Plug-Ins’ as essentials to effectively use your site. A Plug-In is a piece of software that works in conjunction with a browser to display specific material, e.g. a movie clip, sound, etc. As your visitor probably won’t have them, they then need to download the Plug-In and install it before they can continue using your site. Often people do not know how to do this.

* Endless little ‘Pop-Up’ screens that appear on top of the web page, particularly if they contain advertisements. Incidentally, if you are annoyed by these as a user of the Internet there are a number of pieces of software that can eliminate these, as well as banner advertisements when pages are viewed.

* On subscription and order forms ask for excessive information. Research indicates that response drops off almost proportionally to the amount of information required.

Copyright David Berghouse 2007 -
Helping Small Business use the Internet since 1995.
http://www.microbiz.com.au/

Whole novels can be (and have been) written on how to do this, I can’t go that far into detail here so I’ll just offer a few tips that I’ve learned over time and have all worked for me in raising conversion rates.

Lose the “Add to Cart” buttons (if you have them). A button that says “Buy Now!” or even “Order Now!” can make a huge difference. First, it’s a call to action that some impulse shoppers need. Second, it partially addresses those lost sales at checkout. Everyone selling online knows that lots of visitors stop short of completing the transaction at the checkout page. For some consumers, the notion of an online shopping cart is sort of wishy-washy, by “adding items to their cart” they lack a sense of commitment to ultimately make the purchase. They’re just ‘window shopping’ so-to-speak. Terms like “Buy Now!” and “Order Now!” add that sense of commitment. It may seem trivial, but I’ve seen this simple change lower the number of lost sales at the checkout page and raise a site’s conversion rate drastically.

Have “Best/Top Sellers” and “Recommended Products” lists that link to the product pages. It shows that you have a customer base which makes some shoppers feel more comfortable doing business with you. It’s also good for suggestive sales because people naturally like to know (and buy) what other’s are buying. This is how and why trends exist.

Do everything you can to make your visitors feel safe purchasing from you. This goes beyond having your checkout pages secured, have a Privacy Policy and make sure every visitor sees the link to it–don’t hide it at the bottom of pages. Have a FAQ page and be sure to include clear details on your shipping methods and procedures. Shoppers often want to know when to reasonably expect their purchases and can be “put off” if they have to wait until your checkout page to find out.

Make contacting you as easy as possible. This is huge. Don’t just have a “contact us” page, have your email or better still, your toll-free phone number displayed on every page. There are services that provide toll-free phone numbers that forward to your home or office line for just a couple dollars per month now, if you’re doing business online and asking people to give you their credit card information there’s absolutely no excuse for not providing them with an easy way to contact you.

Repeat after me, “suggested sales”. Every product information page on your site should display a small listing of related/similar/peripheral items that you offer too. It’s the equivalent of the fast-food window clerk asking “would you like fries with that?”

If you’re visitor is looking at Designer Sunglasses you’ve been promoting they should also know that you offer hard and soft-cover storage cases that will protect their expensive shades when not being worn. If your site doesn’t do this then trust me, you’re losing sales.

Still, there are a few common buzz-words and items that appear on every webmaster forum and can give the newbie an impression that they’re “must do” or “must have’s”… they’re not.

Here’s a secret, if you build a good site with lots of original content that’s attractive to visitors your pages will climb up through the search engines all by themselves. No need to waste tons of time or money trying to ‘force’ yourself into search engine indexes or higher up in rankings. Devote your time to producing quality content and your money (if you have it to spend) to targeted marketing that just gets the word out about your site to the right people–create brand awareness.

PR, or Page Rank is a Google created zero-to-ten rating system that’s supposed to measure how valuable your site is in it’s niche. New sites begin at Zero and every few months Google updates it’s PR ratings and sites begin to rise up. Nobody outside of Google really knows the exact formula for how pages are rated–though thousands will say they do–but a common understanding is that the number of backlinks (links to your site from another site) you have plays some role. It’s also generally believed that backlinks from sites with higher PR’s themselves will carry more weight than links from other low-or-Zero PR sites.

This gets discussed to no end on webmaster forums and the result is site owners are spending tons of time (and even money) trying to get other sites to link to theirs.

Guess what? All that time and/or money could have been spent developing good content for your site that visitors would appreciate and… you got it, linked to from their own sites or blogs. Free backlinks and more content of your own for the search engines to index. That’s time and money well spent.

I’m not saying that advertising or requesting a link from another site is ever a bad idea, it just depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. In many cases, these webmasters who are trying to acquire high PR backlinks strictly because they’re high PR are wasting their time and money. They aren’t looking ahead to see if gaining the high PR backlinks will ultimately benefit them or not–unless their own goal is to raise their site’s PR and then sell links to other webmasters; and the wheels go round-and-round…

If your goal is just to get large numbers of untargeted or semi-targeted visitors then links on sites with high PR ratings will often help you, they tend to have traffic. But, if your goal is to offer a specific product or service to a targeted market then your time and money might be better spent doing things that will attract those targeted web surfers.

Another pit that I’ve seen people fall into is trying to optimize their sites for a specific search engine. All of the search engines have their own way of indexing and rating your site and pages, so what might get you a good placement with one won’t help–and might hurt–you with another.

I’ve watched site owners spin themselves into circles as they tweak their site for Google, climb up in the index and then realize they’ve dropped in Yahoo, so they begin tweaking for Yahoo and guess what… yep, they start dropping in Google or MSN. It’s like watching my puppy chase her tail, I enjoy the show while at the same time feeling a little bit sad for her.

Here’s my take on working to get to the top of one search engine, they can drop you without notice at any time! It’s the old ‘all your eggs in one basket’ story.

If you build a quality site, validate your HTML/XHTML coding as best you can and develop content for people (not search engines) you’ll find yourself pulling good traffic from all the major search engines soon enough.

Here’s the thing to remember, search engines will bring you great traffic, it’s what they’re designed to do but they do it on their own terms. They (especially Google, Yahoo and MSN) are constantly trying to filter and stop site owners from ‘forcing’ their way into and up their indexes anyway. So don’t bother, let the search engines do their own work. If your site and content are of value to your visitors the search engines will find it and recognize that. Spend your efforts on improving your site for the people who’ll visit it, either with better and more content or by just tweaking it to improve your conversion/sales ratios and you’ll be better off in the long run.

As the name suggests, they’re small sites that are intended to be content rich and informative, ideally catering to a niche market that not many other sites do. This suggests there will be less competition to aid search engine rankings and turnover.

Since they’re very content oriented, it’s ideal to monetise them using the obvious Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network. Their targetted ads compliment the usefulness of the site for providing information.

Once created they normally require very little or no maintenance, and could theoretically sit in cyberspace forever generating a little income. Eventually with several of these up and running, a surprising amount of profit could be made. Interlinking these sites also has obvious search engine optimisation and traffic advantages.

It’s not unheard of for developers of these mini sites to republish other people’s relevant articles that they can get from well known article databases. Providing they have permission from the original author, this is not an illegal practice, but does not aid the credibility of the site itself.

The strategy for these mini sites can go either two ways. You can choose to develop a site based on a high payout keyword, but the problem with this is, there are normally hundreds of other ones doing the same thing. Instead you can choose to target a lower payout keyword but hopefully rank higher in search engines and have less competition.

Advantages:
Arguably make more money than parked pages.
Take up little bandwidth.
Indexed pages in search engines and possible pagerank increase domain value.
Content is readily available to use.

Disadvantages:
Have to pay for hosting, which is often more than you need.
Requires time and effort to develop.
May not rank well in search engines and therefore get no traffic.

Thomas White owns and runs TycoonForum.com.

Let’s work with the example of “Lake Tahoe”. For those of you unfamiliar with Lake Tahoe, it is a Lake and surrounding area on the boarder of California and Nevada between Sacramento and Reno. With the wide variety of activities, this will be a perfect example of how to narrow your target down. It could range from looking to make travel/hotel arrangements, boating research, camping/hiking trails, wedding locations, casinos and more. And unless you are already leaning strongly towards one area or another (due to experience, product, etc), it should be your keyword research that guides your path.

First, you’ll want to determine the size of your overall market. By going to your Keyword Selector Tool, you can determine how many searches a month are devoted to Lake Tahoe and subcategories there within. Many people stop here and see that one particular keyword is researched more than another, so that is the one they will go after - more potential customers. But what they fail to realize is that these more popular searches usually have exponentially more competition. What you want to do is find keywords with a good ratio of searches per results. There are many tools (software programs) available on the Internet that will do this type of research for you, or you can do it the old-fashioned way and research results for every potential keyword through the various search engines and run the numbers against your total searches.

Now let’s say you have narrowed your market down to “Lake Tahoe Casinos” and “Lake Tahoe camping”. Unless you are just making this site as a hobby, you will want to monetize those visitors that you get. You’ll need to find out what people are paying to advertise on the search engines as well as look at affiliate programs of product you can sell. There are much more opportunities with higher dollar value involved with casinos than with hiking, so if it was a dead heat between the two, product here should lean you towards “Lake Tahoe Casino”.

About Greg Mauro:
http://www.askafriend.com is an Internet business resource specializing in keyword research, helping you to find and exploit the niche markets that can maximize your profits. For more information on Lake Tahoe keyword Research, visit http://www.askafriend.com/reports

There are many different specializations in writing. You can write prose, news, fiction, etc. Each one of these specializations has its own unique set of rules.

With the rising popularity of the internet, another new specialization in writing has emerged - web writing. Understand the particular style it demands, and you can be assured that the articles you write are optimized for the unique requirements of the Internet. .

Here are some tips you should follow for writing on the web:

Be short and direct. Don’t meander when you write. Go right to the point. It is more powerful to use simple and direct words than try to impress with four-syllable words that only bog down your article.

Always use the active voice. A passive voice is wordy and awkward. An active voice seems more dynamic and concrete.

Use strong verbs. The stronger the verbs you use, the better you can convey the action in your sentences. Always be aware if you are beginning to use weak verbs and rewrite it using stronger verbs. It will make your sentences more engaging.

Try to use the inverted pyramid style. Online readers usually don’t read; they skim or browse. Take note of this reading behavior and consider using the inverted pyramid style usually used for writing news. This style means that you bring all of the important and necessary information in the first couple of paragraphs.

If possible, include your sources. Some readers are a cynical bunch, they will be more skeptical about your article if you do not cite where you got your information. Attributing sources also brings another benefit to your writing: it gives you additional credibility because readers will realize that you are not hiding anything from them.

Use contextual hyperlinking. The structure of articles published on the web is quite unique. An online article must be able to let readers branch off and click their way to different articles that are more detailed and has more content. Another unique quality of writing for the web is that your hyperlinks can point readers to the actual sources of information. Take advantage of this “power” over your content by using contextual hyperlinks. Link the URLs to the appropriate keywords, proper names, and phrases.

Break it into readable blocks. A big text block turns off readers. You also have to remember that reading on a monitor is different from reading a book because you scroll down the screen instead of turning a page. Make it easier to read by breaking it into more manageable blocks. Don’t forget to format the text properly too. Use bold headers, block quotes and lists as aids in making your text more reader-friendly.

Check your spelling. Text that is full of grammatical and typographical errors look unprofessional and amateurish. Use your word processor’s spell checker to find these errors. But don’t rely solely on the spell checker. You should double check your work and look for these errors manually.

Jeff Hendrickson operates nuvru.com which designs and sells turnkey websites
Copyright 2006 - nuvru.com - Freely publish this article with copyright intact.

Tip #1 -The most important rule to remember is that writing for the web is not like writing for print. Tip #2 - Brochures contain a tremendous amount of information in a small amount of space. You can’t successfully post the wording from a brochure on your website - that is too much text. Tip #3 - As a rule, cut print copy 50 percent before posting it on your website. If all the information is necessary, reformat it. Keep the content short and simple. People tend to scan websites, seldom reading through long blocks of text.

Tip #4 - Headings are an effective tool in letting people see your message as they scan through your website. To break up copy, consider using subheadings. Make it easy for your visitor to jump around your website and get key information. Additionally, as search engines often use headings to find your page, use keywords.

Tip #5 - Get used to counting words. Headings should be under eight words. Sentences should range from 15 to 20 words and paragraphs from 40 to 70 words.

Tip #6 - Bullets are an excellent way to quickly present information to someone scanning your website. Consider using bulleted information as links to more detailed descriptions, rather than trying to put all the information on one page.

For instance, if you are writing Web content for a restaurant and want to offer potential customers suggestions on dining occasions, you might try:

The Lost in The 60’s Restaurant is a fun place to celebrate: *Birthdays *Anniversaries *Group Events *Corporate Events and Parties *Company Parties

Now all the information is only a click away. And it’s easy to search, thereby saving patrons time and you a cluttered Web space.

Tip #7 - Another rule of thumb is to avoid industry jargon. Be considerate of your website visitor and don’t assume they know what you know. Using unfamiliar words could confuse visitors and influence them to leave your site. Also, make sure your phrasing is easy-to-understand. Consider asking someone outside your industry to review your writing.

Tip #8 - Remember, people use the Internet to find information. You need to be direct and to the point to attract attention immediately. Always begin paragraphs with the most important information and then provide other relevant details.

Tip #9 - Use a conversational style. Write as though you were speaking with someone, not at them.

In a face-to-face encounter, a salesperson tries to immediately establish a rapport with a customer. It is much easier to make a sale if someone feels comfortable and trusts you. With the Internet, you have to establish that same rapport with words.

Tip #10 - The best way to converse with your reader is to write from their point of view, not yours. Don’t simply write, “The XY2 Widget is the best product on the market.” Rather, explain the benefits of the XY2 Widget; ” By purchasing the XY2 Widget you will save time and money.” Then, illustrate how the widget saves time and money.

Tip #11 - Finally, show some enthusiasm in your writing! People want to be entertained. Corporate-speak is not going to do it. Have some personality and create a voice for your company that people recognize. It truly is OK to entertain and inform on the Web.

Michelle Howe, MBA, is an expert in online copywriting. Visit her Web site at http://www.internetwordmagic.com for a FREE audio download of “Pay-Per-Click Success: Attract More Customers in 30 Days or Less” and FREE report, “The Five-Step Plan to Article Success.”

You need a website name that is memorable. You can do all the work on the website you want but if people don’t remember your name it will be hard to get them to come back. You also need a name that is somewhat relevant to the content of your site. Here is where you begin to run into some roadblocks however. With the amount of websites being created (it is estimated there will be 500 million sites created by the end of the decade) the availability of the real popular names is limited. Now you need to consider multiple word names and this is where it becomes even more tricky.

To make things a bit easier to understand I will use my own domain name as an example, because I learned the hard way. With any website you need to concern yourself with SEO (search engine optimization). This is basically a formula of what the search engines use to look up websites when someone punches in a keyword. The sites that play this game right will find themselves on the first couple of pages for their given keyword. When I first chose my domain name I went with www.bestinternetbargains.com. Not a bad name, so I thought. Pretty straightforward on what I would be focusing my site on, right? When I picked the name I knew nothing of SEO. I thought you created a site and BAM, it appeared on Google in the number one spot.

A major part of SEO is links to other sites. The actual wording you use in the link that appears on other sites is called the “anchor text”. This is one of the major things searches engines use in ranking the pages. In most cases you get to determine what your anchor text will be. But, if you write articles like this one, and you put your website in the signature and people post your articles that counts as a link with anchor text. So, in my case I have had many people publish my articles, which is great, but the anchor text appeared as bestinternetbargains. Not many people are doing searches in Google or any of the search engines for that word. This was hurting my SEO. I was the only site found for that search word so that was great, but I was the only one doing that search. Recently I changed my name to www.best-internet-bargains.com. Same name but the dashes make all the difference. It separates all the words. Now if someone publishes one of my articles my anchor text would be those three different words. With the combination of articles being published and any links I exchange with other sites I can now make my anchor text internet bargains and increase my chances of appearing high in the rankings for those search words.

As you can see, something as simple as some dashes in the name can make a huge difference. If you are lucky enough to find a one word domain to be available that is related to your site content then you do not need to worry about the dashes obviously. As I mentioned before, this is unlikely to happen. If you have read my other articles about starting your own website you will see that I have mentioned SEOelite (http://hop.clickbank.net/sbianchi/bryxen1). This is the tool I used to help me with the anchor text breakdown. It does many important things in addition to breaking down your anchor text such as, allowing you to examine your competition’s website so you know what you need to beat to take the top ranking for your keyword search. For example, let’s say I am the number one site for the keywords internet bargains. If my anchor text uses these words 90% of the time then you will know you need to be at 91# to take the top spot for those keywords. It will allow you to breakdown the sites your competition is linked to, which is important in the SEO formula as well. This tool was the best $167 I have spent on my website. I highly recommend it if you want your site to be ranked highly.

Building a website is probably the easiest part of having a site. You need to pick the right domain name, created the right content (which SEOelite will also teach you how to do), write effective meta tags, and find quality linking partners. Now that you have read this, and hopefully found it useful, get to picking that domain name. I hope to see your site on the internet soon.

Scott Bianchi operates www.best-internet-bargains.com. He writes on a variety of topics. If you would like to be added to his distribution list for his new articles when they are published just send an email to articles@bestinternetbargains.com.

Then there is Royalty Free stock photography. These images may not be the same quality but are much less expensive. They may or may not have restrictions on use. They could have no restrictions to use on a web site but there may be a fee if you wanted to use it in a print ad or package design.

License free means there are no restrictions on where you can use the images. Usually these are low resolution images suitable only for the web.

You can find images at any number of stock photography websites. Some individual photographers have their own websites where they sell only their photos. There are a number of large stock photography websites that handle images from many sources. You will also find collections of stock photography on cd’s, often themed based. There are also a number of free stock photography and clipart websites and specialty sites that deal in different themes such as vintage photos.

The costs for stock photography will vary from site to site. Some sites offer different sizes of the image at different resolutions. The higher the resolution and the larger the image, the higher the cost. These images are usually for print use. At the low end are images suitable for a website. You can pay per image or buy a subscription that will allow you to download many images over time. All sites have a search feature so you can find the perfect image for your project. Some sites specialize in certain types of image, while others have images in many different categories.

Some sites will allow you to download a comp or sample of the image you are interested in so that you can try it out in your layout or design. They will have a watermark of the stock photo agency across the image, so it is only suitable for testing and not the final layout.

Remember, images you find on the internet are not free for the taking. Many images are copywrited so when you find a great image in a Google image search, that doesn’t mean you are free to use it in your project. If you find an image you like, then buy it. It is the right thing to do.

Great images will give your next design project a fresh new look so give stock photography a try.

Find free stock photography images at http://www.keystockphoto.com and vintage stock photography at http://www.vintagephotocafe.com