Are you ready to be in the limelight?

Press releases have the potential to create incredible exposure. Looking beyond the linking benefits, a well written press release may land you in newspapers, TV, and radio.

Quite often the top results are press releases or news articles feeding from those press releases. Some of these releases inspire me; others are empty promotion with nothing of interest to me or my site visitors. Here are some tips on the making of a great press release.

Know your reader.

Balance between writing for the target audience and writing for an editor, reporter or journalist who may take up your subject or even reprint the story.

Hooking both the media and the end consumer will result in a snowball of PR.

Remember that a journalist scanning a PR source will make decisions based on the first few words of each article. Pack the opening with the hot topic points.

Style.

A strong headline and intro is critical. It absolutely must capture the eye of someone skimming press releases and inspire further reading. Hit them with the news first. You can explain how and where it comes from later.

Keep it brief, accurate and readable.

The media is not looking for full blown articles to copy, but may have use of some filler content or extra information within a report, column or website.

Do not exaggerate.

If your PR is a success you will be getting phone calls and emails asking questions. It is possible to build or destroy credibility based on your accuracy. You may become a source for different reporters as you build on your record of knowledge and accuracy. If you use outside stats and facts, include the source. The press release should create confidence.

Grammar and spelling should be checked and rechecked.

Read it; edit and re-read; print it out; read again; email to friends for corrections; give yourself many chances to catch mistakes.

Do not rush to publish. Reading something again after a nights sleep is always an eye opener for me. Something about my focus during the writing process tunes out errors that jump off the page the next day. This is why an extra set of eyes, or waiting till your eyes are taking a fresh look can make a big difference in the writing quality. Printing a copy to read also helps you see it differently.

Attach images if the PR publisher allows it. If you have image rights or public domain images to publish then this is one more way to make your content usable by others. Permission regarding quotes is important as well within a press release since the exposure can be significant.

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Web Design

In today's market, it is essential for every business to have a presence on the web – and the web design of the site is a key factor to the site's success in boosting the visibility and profitability of the business. The Internet is often the first place that potential customers look when searching for a business to meet their needs, and a well designed, clearly presented and informative website will assure them of the expert service or products available from the business the site promotes. A web presence also means a global presence – the possibility of reaching customers from all corners of the world, and it also means that regular updates on new services or price specials can be posted to inform customers immediately and effectively. In this way, the web design of an inviting site can be one of business' biggest assets for success.

It is often the case that businesses fear that the cost of high quality web designs will be prohibitive. While more and more people are gaining a clearer understanding of web design and how it works, for many people it just seems too expensive and complicated an option. However, there are many simple and cost-effective web design solutions available that will create a quality site for as little as a few hundred dollars. Once a site is well designed, maintaining and updating it is often very easy – and most importantly, worth it in terms of the return on a little effort. For a fairly simple site that will feature only basic information, such as the nature of the business, location and perhaps some specials or coupons, it may be a case of investing in some software that will provide templates for creating a simple site-by-numbers. However, for a more vibrant, active site that will fully represent the business online – and possibly allow for an e-commerce capability – it is worth looking to a professional web design company. Many offer competitive deals and the cost will be unquestionably offset by the greater traffic to the site that a professional site can generate.

In addition to strong web design, a professional company will also be skilled in SEO – search engine optimization. Studies have shown that potential customers will rarely explore beyond the first page or two of results generated by a search engine, so it is important to ensure that the site promoting your business will be among the top results. The key here is well-structured web pages and an effective use of the keywords that customers use to search. In general, text-rich pages have been shown to perform better in search engine results, and it is important to hit the right balance between cultivating the optimum search engine results and designing web pages that are easy to read and navigate. A clear "call to action" button – such as a contact form or "for more information contact" – is important too. Online browsers tend to have very little patience for looking for hard-to-find contact information.

For a website to be the most effective marketing and selling tool possible, both the web design and how it is marketed to have a high visibility online presence are important factors to consider. Submitting to search engines, ensuring the site is designed for SEO, and cross linking with relevant sites are all factors that will help to ensure a high web presence for the site, and therefore business. A professional web design company has the design skills and online marketing experience and know-how to create a website that will be an optimum selling tool in the world's biggest sales market.

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How Important Is Website Design?

In this article I will be writing about Website Design, how it affects sales, and how it compares in importance to other aspects of Website Management. Lets list the different aspects of owning or managing a Website.
Domain Name: How important is the domain name you choose for your Website? Many people say it is not important at all, yet I have number one listings in Google, Yahoo, and MSN for the key phrases that exactly match my domain name. It matters a lot.
You need a domain name that matches keywords and phrases you will also use in your Website that people are searching for. Many people think their company name should be their domain name. If you have a lot of money for advertising to make your company name something people search for, I agree with you. If you do not have that ad budget, then you need a generic domain name that is a phrase people already search for.
Web Hosting: How important is choosing the right Web Hosting Service for your Website? Again, this is important in many ways. You need your Website to load fast. If your Website loads slow, people will leave without buying anything. You also need to choose a Web Hosting Service that gives good tech support. There are a lot more things to consider when choosing a good Web Hosting Service, but make sure you rate this high on your list of things that are important to your Website.
Web Design: How important is Website Design? Your Website needs to look professional and trustworthy in order to create buyer confidence. A poorly designed Website will cost you sales. However, and this is the part that web designers will hate me for, it is not as important as many of the other aspects of Website ownership and management.
Many web designers know nothing about search engine optimization, picking a good domain name, hosting, Website promotion, or other issues. They only know design. That is a good thing in my opinion, but they should let their customers know they are a designer and cannot help their Website be competitive in the marketplace. Yes, there are some designers that know more than just design, but many do not. Keep this in mind.
A beautiful Website that gets no traffic and makes no money might as well be an ugly Website. An ugly Website that has traffic and makes money gets more beautiful by the dollar.
Search Engine Optimization: How important is SEO to my Website? Extremely important! Again, many web designers do not know how to properly optimize a Website for the search engines. It is important to have someone who specializes in SEO to go over your Website and make sure it is ready to get crawled and indexed by the search engines.
There was a time when SEO was all-inclusive with link building, Website promotion, search engine marketing, etc. Times have changed somewhat and the search engines have become more complicated, so now many people specialize in certain aspects of SEO.
I define SEO as coding the Website properly, writing text that contains the proper amount and correct keywords and phrases, search engine submissions, and some link building techniques.
Search Engine Marketing: What is SEM and how important is this to my Website? Search Engine Marketing by my own definition is marketing your Website through Google Adwords, MSN AdCenter, and other keyword purchasing programs as well as purchasing links, ads, and sponsored listings.
Again, many people are specializing in an area they have success with these days. I am very good at SEO, but I have limited experience with SEM. Therefore, I can make your Website ready to be crawled, do link building, and write text that helps you attract good search engine rank and traffic, but I would not be the guy you would hire to manage your Adwords program.
Website Promotion: Yet another category with a relationship to SEO and SEM. How important is this category? In my opinion it tops the list. What is Website Promotion? This category includes Article Marketing, Press Releases, Link Popularity, Buying Traffic, Blogging, Forum Posting and more.
Why do I consider it more important? First, none of the things mentioned here can stand-alone. You need to consider all of the different aspects as important. However, search engines change constantly. Depending on search engines for all or most of your traffic and sales is putting your life in Google's hands basically since they account for 60% of all searches now.
If you are comfortable with one company having that much control over how well you do on the web, then ignore Website promotion and just do SEO and SEM. You need traffic from many different sources if you want to be successful. That way if one source dies out, you are not affected nearly as much as someone who only had one or a few sources of traffic would be.
Focus on getting traffic from every source you can. Post comments in Blogs and Forums related to your topic. That means actually join the forums or blogs and actually get involved in the conversations there and post quality comments. Be helpful to people at the forums and blogs. Ask questions. No one will mind that a link in your SIG line goes to your Website is you are a real participant. If they do object at that point, find a new place to join.
Start your own Blog. You can put up two if you really want to benefit from Blogging. A Blog within your domain name or on a subdomain can help you add fresh content to your website more often. That helps with the SEO. You can build a Blog on another domain name and promote links to pages within your Website and benefit from a little link popularity while also giving customers another way to find your Website. Doorway pages used to be the way to go. Blogs on their own domain name have replaced doorway pages as the way to go.
Article Marketing means writing articles and submitting them to article directories, writing quality articles and offering them to topic-relative high-traffic Websites as exclusive content, and press releases are a great source of traffic that builds link popularity as well. The traffic you get from people who read your article are many more times likely to convert to a sale than the traffic you get from search engines.
I will get new customers and signups due to this article you are reading right now. Article Marketing and Website Promotion work very well.
I hope this article has helped you to understand that owning or managing a Website is about a lot more than just getting a domain name, designing a Website, and picking a host. "If you build it, they will come" does not apply to Websites.

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Make Your Website Stand Out With an Icon Design

There are many web design icon sites that, with a price, help you design your own icon. These icon design sites have icon design groups that work from the look and feel of your web site or with any images; you give them, to design an icon compliant with multiple browsers. The icon design is available in different sizes like 256 color, 32x32 and 16x16 pixel designs.

Delivery of the custom made icon graphic design takes about three to four days. If there are any changes, you can make one set of revisions to the icon design at no additional cost. If at all you wish to design your own icon, all you have to do is to use any free design icon web site. Here you have to open the program, and select the icon size and color from its dropdown menu.

Your icon is created with your specifications. (Internet Explorer entertains icon designs of 16x16 pixels size only and ignores others). Now you can see a large window containing squares; this is your icon canvas. Each square represents a pixel, which you can edit to your requirements. Then you use the tools on the left-hand side of your screen to edit these pixels and to design the icon. If you cannot design your own icon, use an image that has to either be copied or pasted on the icon canvas or by pasting your image from a file.

In the case of design your own buddy icon, you have to go to a design buddy icon website. Here you have to right click the icon you like, and save it in the computer. Then, in instant messenger, you have to click on one of your buddy icons, which then take you to the buddy icon preferences page. You have to scroll to 'my buddy icon' and click that, and then select browse

and find where you saved your coolbuddy icon and select it from there. Your buddy icon is now set! You find that there are some of your favorite sites in the Internet Explorer 5 and above, having an icon displayed beside the link. This icon is a Favicon. Displaying a Favicon with a website makes the website stand out, and build brand awareness. This provides viewers with an instant recognition of your website.

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Why and How to Use Templates Effectively

In desktop publishing, templates are pre-designed documents that we can use to create business cards, brochures, greeting cards, or other desktop documents. Some types of templates include:
Mix and match elements using a Wizard or by choosing items from a list that the software assembles into our final product.

Pre-designed formats for documents where all we add are our own words in place of dummy or placeholder text. Graphics and typestyles are part of the template.

Pre-designed formats for documents that have placeholders (grid lines, boxes, dummy text) for key elements, text and graphics. We add our own text and graphics and choose the appropriate typefaces.
Many programs include their own set of designer templates for a variety of documents.

You can also design and save your own templates. Let's look at some of the ways that templates can work for you.

* Pros & Cons of Using Templates

You might have heard (or even thought it yourself) "Real designers don't use templates" or, "Templates are a substitute for real design." But there are times when using one is the most appropriate choice. Some times and ways that templates can work for you:

- Save time with templates.

- Offer your client a less expensive alternative to your original, made completely from scratch designs.

- Use templates for routine forms for your own use (invoices, etc.) so you can spend more time on client work.

- Maintain consistency with newsletters or between related marketing pieces.

- If you're a non-designer, use templates to give a more professional edge to your own marketing materials.

- Build your first Web page with templates until you become more comfortable with Web publishing.

- Maintain page-to-page consistency in a large Web site and simplify updates.

Remember, in many cases templates are designed by well-known designers. We often look at the work of others for inspiration, using templates is simply another way of borrowing from the talents of those around us. Starting with a template is a smart idea. However, there are still many ways to personalize them without sacrificing the benefits of speed, variety, and consistency.

* Tips for Using and Personalizing Templates

- Use some of these suggestions to make the most of the templates you use:

- Choose an Appropriate Template. Pick a template layout that is appropriate to the job. Selecting a design that is inappropriate or that requires too many alterations defeats the purpose of using a template in the first place.

- Change the Template Graphics. Add your own clip art and graphics in place of any pre-selected graphics used in the template. Graphics also include rules (lines). Change the size or placement to better fit your own text.

- Change the Template Fonts. Some templates come with font specifications. They are just suggestions. Be sure to choose a typeface that is appropriate to the design of the template. Some layouts and some typefaces have their own casual or formal tone. It's usually best to stay close to the type choices (if any) used in the original template if you're unsure.

- Change the Text Formating. Change the leading or alignment of the text. Add text embellishments such as initial caps or bullet lists.

- Change the Template Color Scheme & Paper. The layout is only one part of the overall design. Simply changing the paper or changing the colors used in your document can cause dramatic changes - even when the layout stays the same.

- Change the Template Layout. While one of the main reasons to use a template is to have an instant layout, a few simple changes can make that layout perfect. Flip the template or just move an element or two around.

- Save Your Modified or New Template. Whether it's a modified template design or one you've created from scratch - save it as a template. If it's right for one job, it may be right for another. If it is a newsletter or one of many pieces in a coordinated marketing package, you save yourself time down the line.

- Use Templates for Inspiration. Ever found yourself staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank screen, unsure of where to begin? Use templates as a starting point. Just browsing through the various templates - even ones unrelated to your current design project - can give you ideas and start you on the road to laying out your own original masterpiece.
In desktop publishing, templates are pre-designed documents that we can use to create business cards, brochures, greeting cards, or other desktop documents. Some types of templates include:
Mix and match elements using a Wizard or by choosing items from a list that the software assembles into our final product.
Pre-designed formats for documents where all we add are our own words in place of dummy or placeholder text. Graphics and typestyles are part of the template.
Pre-designed formats for documents that have placeholders (grid lines, boxes, dummy text) for key elements, text and graphics. We add our own text and graphics and choose the appropriate typefaces.
Many programs include their own set of designer templates for a variety of documents.
You can also design and save your own templates. Let's look at some of the ways that templates can work for you.

* Pros & Cons of Using Templates

You might have heard (or even thought it yourself) "Real designers don't use templates" or, "Templates are a substitute for real design." But there are times when using one is the most appropriate choice. Some times and ways that templates can work for you:

- Save time with templates.
- Offer your client a less expensive alternative to your original, made completely from scratch designs.
- Use templates for routine forms for your own use (invoices, etc.) so you can spend more time on client work.
- Maintain consistency with newsletters or between related marketing pieces.
- If you're a non-designer, use templates to give a more professional edge to your own marketing materials.
- Build your first Web page with templates until you become more comfortable with Web publishing.
- Maintain page-to-page consistency in a large Web site and simplify updates.

Remember, in many cases templates are designed by well-known designers. We often look at the work of others for inspiration, using templates is simply another way of borrowing from the talents of those around us. Starting with a template is a smart idea. However, there are still many ways to personalize them without sacrificing the benefits of speed, variety, and consistency.

* Tips for Using and Personalizing Templates
- Use some of these suggestions to make the most of the templates you use:
- Choose an Appropriate Template. Pick a template layout that is appropriate to the job. Selecting a design that is inappropriate or that requires too many alterations defeats the purpose of using a template in the first place.
- Change the Template Graphics. Add your own clip art and graphics in place of any pre-selected graphics used in the template. Graphics also include rules (lines). Change the size or placement to better fit your own text.
- Change the Template Fonts. Some templates come with font specifications. They are just suggestions. Be sure to choose a typeface that is appropriate to the design of the template. Some layouts and some typefaces have their own casual or formal tone. It's usually best to stay close to the type choices (if any) used in the original template if you're unsure.
- Change the Text Formating. Change the leading or alignment of the text. Add text embellishments such as initial caps or bullet lists.
- Change the Template Color Scheme & Paper. The layout is only one part of the overall design. Simply changing the paper or changing the colors used in your document can cause dramatic changes - even when the layout stays the same.
- Change the Template Layout. While one of the main reasons to use a template is to have an instant layout, a few simple changes can make that layout perfect. Flip the template or just move an element or two around.
- Save Your Modified or New Template. Whether it's a modified template design or one you've created from scratch - save it as a template. If it's right for one job, it may be right for another. If it is a newsletter or one of many pieces in a coordinated marketing package, you save yourself time down the line.
- Use Templates for Inspiration. Ever found yourself staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank screen, unsure of where to begin? Use templates as a starting point. Just browsing through the various templates - even ones unrelated to your current design project - can give you ideas and start you on the road to laying out your own original masterpiece.

»»  lanjuuut...

Online B2B Lead Generation

From the warm climbs of Mexico City, Mexico to the cooler lands of Calgary, Alberta businesses are using the Internet to advance their business models and successes. The Internet is a unique resource for creation of sales leads and connecting with customers, called B2C sales, and other businesses, B2B sales, all around the world. As an owner, or web developer, for a company there are many things that can be done on your website to help generate business leads and bring customers and business to your site and through the site to your company. Some of these methods are as follows:

• Use of auto responders
• Generation of free reports
• Offerings included in, or just after, registration forms
• Creation of opt in mailing lists
• Business to business referrals

Many of these methods tie closely together as can be seen by taking each in more detail.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are software packages that are created to automatically respond to input from any customer, fellow business owner or otherwise. The job of the autoresponder can be as simple as acknowledging receipt of information from the user and providing future contact information, or can be as complex as monthly mailings. Once a customer has show interest in your business it is critical that they are kept returning to the website, whether it is for information, offers or contests. An autoresponder can help you to keep track of leads automatically in a much more efficient way than manual tracking.

Free Reports

The offering of free services is a powerful marketing tool for bringing customers to your company website. Many sites use offerings of credit reports, personal profiles, horoscopes and such to encourage users to come to their site. The initial report is free, but then can be used to link into services and products that the company stands to make a profit on. In order to best use this type of lead generator you must determine what on your site can be appropriately connected to a free offer. What is your base product and therefore what branches can spring from it. Don't be tempted to use a free report that is completely unrelated to your product as this will more likely result in the user clicking away from the site once they have the report they want, instead of looking more deeply into your offerings.

Registration Offerings

These leads generally tie into a sign up or registration form. This form may be a registration for a forum or in order to receive a report, catalog or other company service. At the end of the registration form offerings can be made for other services or products that the user can opt in for, sometimes at a much decreased price, as part of registration. For example a site on photography might use a registration offering to give users a year's subscription to their photography magazine with a 15% discount if it is signed up for as part of the registration process. Like the free report these offerings need to tie into your company's product or services so that a connection between the product and the company is maintained, bringing the customer, no matter if it is an individual or a company, back for future references or purchases.

Opt In Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are a well prove and very valuable way to keep in touch with other businesses and customers and to quickly get word out to interested parties about promotions, sales, new product lines and changes in business. The temptation with such lists is to purchase lists from other businesses and flood businesses and individuals with your company information. This is a danger as such mailings are often classified as junk mail or spam mail and can result in your site being blocked by various ISPs at the request of their users. Better than purchasing unfocused lists is to allow for users to opt in to the mailing list. Provided a link where users can register for a newsletter or other company mailing list and then focus your efforts to these parties, who have already shown interest in you and your product.

Business to Business Referrals

Of all leads you can generate, none hold the sway as positive word of mouth and referrals from other trusted businesses in similar or related fields. Many businesses are willing to exchange referral links or articles in exchange for the same kind of reference from your site back to theirs. These links can create a powerful symbiotic relationship between companies in order to exchange goods and services both between businesses, and in bringing in outside customers to both. Often these referrals are not difficult to obtain, as other businesses are just as eager as you are. Be sure that any company you give a referral to is a company that is reputable and will keep your customers as happy as you keep them as your referral ties you to this alternate company in the mind of your customers and other businesses and you wish to keep the impression of your business as positive as possible.

While these methods are by far not the only ways to generate online leads they are some of the most frequently used, and, by far, the most effective in the current online community. The online market space is only going to increase and companies that wish to work strongly with other businesses and their consumer base must take advantage of this space if they wish to succeed!

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Server Side Programming Languages

Server-side programming languages are scripts that are executed on the server, and are then translated into HyperText Markup Language (HTML) which can be viewed by all web browsers. The two most popular server-side scripting languages are PHP: Hypertext Processor and Active Server Pages (ASP). Additionally, there are numerous other languages like AJAX and Coldfusion.

PHP can run on both Unix and Windows servers, which makes it more accessible than its Windows counterpart, Active Server Pages (ASP). Most full-service web design firms will have at least one PHP guru.
PHP uses are widespread, and can include any kind of server functionality that takes user's input and displays or manipulates the input. Some pertinent examples of such work are message boards, auction sites, shopping carts, and more. There are numerous free (open-source) scripts out there for PHP newbies to use. This synopsis is meant to serve only as a gateway to other works; although the main goal is to give a reader enough information so they can make educated decisions about what their web developer should do. For those looking to get into PHP, there are many free tutorials and primers out there: http://www.4webhelp.net/tutorials/php/basics.php is a pertinent example.
PHP generally uses the mySQL database system. MySQL is a server-side system that is included on many Unix, and some Windows servers.

On the other hand, Active Server Pages runs - for the most part - solely on Windows servers. This can cause some problems. Windows hosting or private servers generally cost more than Unix servers, making it less accessible than PHP. Like PHP, ASP can do just about anything. There are considerably fewer open-source scripts written in ASP, another testament to its inaccessibility.

ASP can use many different database systems. Many users prefer Microsoft Access. Access, unlike MySQL, offers a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor as part of Microsoft's Office suite. In fact, you may already have a copy of Microsoft Access on your computer and not even know it. Its uses aren't limited to databasing, it's also used as a basic spreadsheet application for those who need a more programmer-friendly environment than Excel. ASP can also work well with MSSQL or MySQL.

A third programming language with burgeoning popularity is Asynchronous Javascript and XML. AJAX, as it's commonly referred to, creates interactive web programs just like its cousins ASP and PHP. AJAX uses XHTML and CSS, along with the Javascript Document-Object Model to create interactive pages designed for speed and overall usability. Although AJAX hasn't gained the acclaim of PHP and ASP, its future is certainly bright.

It's difficult to say which of the three programming languages, or the numerous others for that matter, is the best. There will always be disputes, and no standard is set. With the varying interpretations of what a programming language should be, predilections to PHP or ASP arise. PHP is certainly more widely used, but isn't necessarily the best. When a site is being created to be interactive, a professional can give an educated opinion on which technology should be used.

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Know Blog

 Blog comes from two words, web log. Web can be interpreted as a site on the internet while logged here means personal record / diary. So a blog can be interpreted briefly as a site that contains a record / journal personal. The person conducting the blog are called bloggers while verbs or activities make your blog is called blogging. For a tool / software is used to make regular blog called blog tools. According to the source of the term weblog was first wikipedia used by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997 while the term blog was first introduced accidentally by Peter Merholz who separated the word weblog into the blog We in his blog in April 1999. Since that time the current rapid development of the blog with various sites and blog tools that provide facilities for the blog its users. Until now, this blog does not have spelling into Indonesian language. For activities we might create a blog already familiar with blogging, while calling for culprit is still known as a blogger. Activity blogging has been quite popular in our society. Some sites Indonesia has many speaking communities provide space or a special menu for its users to create a personal blog. A blog generally contains news and comments about various things / events, but not a little too blogs are more appropriately referred to as an online diary contains personal notes, vent and so on. Lately blogs can also easily display video files, pictures formats or other multimedia. The main function of a creator of the blog (blogger) create a blog is not to publicize the ideas that we have to a large party. In addition there are many different blog functions that can be utilized from the start just write up a hobby to make money Additional or to raise one's political career. On the other hand people who see your blog also get information, ideas or entertainment from your blog. At present the usefulness blogs not just share ideas and information enabling a to do file sharing (various files multimedia). However a blog is still not able to referred to as a professional medium for journalism a blog is widely open to anyone who wants in call a blogger without having to hold the title or specific skills. Along with the development of information technology, the use of blogs now can be classified into various forms depending on the content, the media used a blog or categories that provide search engine blog. The contents of a blogs can be very wide depending on the author's point of view while for the media in general contain text, pictures, video or a combination of these things. One of the Technorati blog search engine has been criticize there are at least 112 million blogs as of December 2007. They also average growth criticize blogs per day reaches 70 000 the blog. The number of blogs can be doubled each year. So while reading this book is very likely development of the blog so much more. Many analysts believe the development of the blog popular because of a reference material / reference contained in it as well as affiliates (merge) link primarily affiliated with any search engine like Google which can meroketkan popularity of a blog.

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For Automated Sites - PHP and MySQL Are A Perfect Match

You've decided to automate your website. Now what? Here are some ideas to help you choose how to automate your site.
A bit of programming is going to be necessary if you want to automate a site. There are many types of programs that can be used to automate a web site including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Java and more. So, which do you use? For many, it is a personal choice.
I prefer PHP for programming. PHP is a particularly useful programming language because it allows for advanced programming and is easy to integrate with web pages. Another plus of PHP is that the language interfaces very well with MySQL, a popular type of online database.
Yet another plus of PHP is that it is Open Source Code. The actual code that is PHP is available to the public for free, while the source code for products such as ASP are not. Because PHP is open source, there is a large community of PHP programmers that help each other with code. This means PHP programmers can rely on each other by using reusable pieces of code called functions and classes rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. This can dramatically cut down on production time.

Overall, PHP is flexible, cheaper than many alternatives, and built around a community. PHP and MySQL are excellent choice for webmasters looking to automate their web sites.
What Can PHP and MySQL do for me? Just about anything you can think of. That is the beauty of custom programming. A few ideas of what you can do with a PHP and MySQL driven site include:
1. E-commerce
2. User Polls
3. Keyword Tracking
4. Set User Preferences
5. Manage Password Protected Member's Areas
6. Lead Follow Up
7. Customer Relations
8. Content Management
9. Email Newsletters
10. Accounting
11. Invoicing
12. Scheduled Updates
The list is limited only by your imagination. Once you have decided to go with a PHP and MySQL site, you can either get a custom program created, use a prepackaged version or a combination of both. Many PHP and MySQL programs that come prepackaged are easy to customize and can save you a lot of time and money over starting from the ground up.

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Web design

When we review the sites of potential clients, there are 2 mistakes we see over and over. If you are having problems with your site, make sure these 2 problems aren't killing you.

traffic
Just because you think something is a good idea doesn't mean the general public agrees. A website should solve a problem that is common to some part of the population. If people have a problem, they will be compelled to find an answer to it. If they don't, they are not going to visit your site for anything other than browsing. Browsing doesn't pay the bills!

Do the research on Overture or your favorite tool. If there isn't a significant amount of monthly searches for your topic, move on to another one. If you think you can both alert people to a problem and solve it, you are in for a difficult time. It can be done, but your chances of success are pretty small.

Database Parameters

If you have a database driven site, you absolutely must get control of the sub-domains. Examples of database sites include sites selling products or providing some version of a listing service such as real estate or jobs. Programmers and designers have a bad habit of putting session ids in the sub-domains.
The problem with dynamic domains concerns search engine robots. A robot is designed to recognize the meta tags and content of a page. The robot will then include the page in the search database. Robots often refuse to index dynamic pages because the robot cannot predict the content on the page. From the robot's view, the page could show different things each time it is accessed. As a result, the search engines can't list it under any particular keyword with any confidence that the content will be relevant to the search. If you have dynamic pages, most of the pages of your site will never appear in Google, Yahoo and MSN. That's a disaster.

Planning is the key to setting up a profitable e-commerce site. Make sure you are solving a known problem and set your site up to be friendly to the search engine robots.

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