Introduction:

Presently, website has become an integral part of a company, irrespective of its size or volume. It has been felt, all through the recent past the need to make a change in the process of advertisement. A need was also felt to completely renovate the presentation procedure in order to get more pubic attention. This is perhaps the reason why people are increasingly becoming interested for use of Internet and no wonder this is the main reason for its popularity.

Functions of the Website:

The main function of the website is to display the company with its logo and aim. In the website there is a homepage and subpages in which all the activities of the company, workforce, recruitment procedure as well as personal comments of the workers are posted. The website is also a compilation of client’s comments making it a richer source of knowledge for the outsiders who are interested in the company for some reason or the other.

Images are also inserted in the website in relevant places for enriching the look and feel of it. There is also a contact us page in which all the contacts of the relevant people are given. The contacts are given in the form of address and phone numbers. They are an integral part of the website decoration and ensure a medium to communicate with the respective members of the company when required.

When do you need to prepare a custom website?

Why custom website development? The basic requirement for custom website development is mainly for the purpose of making a medium of advertisement. Raking in the search engines is an added advantage. The search engine ranking ensures more visitors and therefore the publicity of the website. As more and more visitors are attracted to the website, the popularity of the company rises on a constant basis.

Functions of Custom Website Development:

a) Making numerous web applications: Web applications by which people can log in and log out, make salary structures for every month and maintain a record of the absentees and present members is called project management system. It is an integral part of custom website development.

b) Content Management System: With content management system the entire content of the website can be managed. The content management system is an essential part of website development.  

One of the most popular customized web solutions come with the ‘do it yourself’ packages. These packages come with web hosting facilities. These ‘do it yourself’ kits pack in a series of web layouts and templates which the users can make use of in designing the pages of their website. These kits also allow the website owners or the users to update their website’s content from time to time, using an administrator control panel.

c) The best thing about these customized web solution kits is that these do not require you to be a master in web designing. You may not have any idea about HTML and yet you can create a website on your own using these ‘easy to use’ custom web design packages. Apart from these packages, there are several competitive web solution providers in the market, who promise to build you a website with a visually appealing interface complete with the latest e-commerce functionalities.

d) The custom web solution providers, presents your business or organization with a well tailored and effective web presence. These web service companies are perfect for businesses which are looking forward to extend online services to their members, clients and employees. The web solutions also come handy for organizations which wish to sell their products and services through the online medium. Also, owners who wish to offer their website visitors with a satisfying experience can use these customized web solutions.  

Custom web solutions is therefore a comprehensive set of solutions for building a website where in your web service provider packs in all the indispensable ingredients to customize your website as per your needs. In other words, with custom website development solutions you can build a completely useful website which will not only be perfectly user friendly with all the control panels but will permit you to reach out to your customers worldwide.

Before it ever became a named methodology, what we now call SEO (in its most basic form) was initially used to categorize web sites. Metadata was the primary tool used to define a sites content so when a search was performed, results were returned that were relevant to the search criteria. As the World Wide Web became inundated with more and more content, individuals as well as businesses struggled for position in search results which led to unscrupulous behavior on the part of some who learned how to manipulate metadata and other search engine standards to advance their sites in search results (commonly referred to Black Hat SEO). This led to a dilemma that still rages today; with the focus of search engines being to provide relevant search results and those who continue to try to manipulate the search results.

Where does the madness end? Well, I don’t think we will ever be rid of bad behavior but arming yourself with knowledge would be the first step in initiating any SEO campaign and believe it or not, search engines want to help you.

Webmaster Standards

A great place to start learning about search engine optimization is with the search engines themselves. Google, Yahoo, MSN and other major search providers offer webmaster guidelines that can assist you in learning some of the general do’s and don’ts of good web mastering practices. After all it’s to their benefit to do so – what good would it be to have a search engine that did not return relevant results? So let’s explore some of the general guidelines…

General Design and Content Guidelines

Google = (G) Able Web Professionals = (A)

(G): Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

(A): Design navigation for human use. If your link structure is hard for a human to follow, how much harder will it be for the search engine crawlers to follow? Link structures (menus) should have a logical order. As alluded to in Part 1 of the Web Fundamentals Series “Building an Effective Web Site – The Foundation,” when formulating the structure for your site, think of your web site as a document with main headings and sub-headings. Keep menus consistent from page to page; the exception would be a “mega site” that offers several services under the same brand but even these generally have a static top navigation with links back to a home page and/or site map.

(G): Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

(A): A site map offers users an easy way to navigate to topics or items of interest without trying to figure out menu structure. The use of site map is also important for the search engine crawlers who read links and follow the path of the link to the particular page therefore allowing more of your pages to be indexed in search results. The more of your pages listed on a search engine, the more likely your site will be found by searches being performed.

(G): Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

(A): Content is king. Relevant, updated and fresh content is what a search engines look for and although metadata is not as heavily used to determine a site’s content, it is still a factor some search engines take into consideration. Keyword and key phrase research is probably one of the more time consuming efforts you’ll undertake in the quest to optimize your site. However, the importance of strategic placement of such terms within your text and metadata can dramatically increase the prominence or positioning of your site in search results. Web CEO is one of many free tools available to help you research keywords and phrases.

(G): Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

(A): Keywords or phrases used within the body of your site should be used in the title tags as well. A general rule of thumb, ALL CAPS, symbols including punctuation should not be used in the title of your web site. The title should not be excessive, a good practice is to try to keep it at seven (7) words or less.

ALT attributes are used to describe graphics or images within your site. As search engines can not read images, naming your graphics or images appropriately can assist end-users navigating the site or explain their purpose (also see W3C standards).

(G): Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.

(A) As described above, ALT tags can help alleviate some of the confusion surrounding images and their use within a site. Another factor you’ll want to consider is optimizing your images. Images come in all sizes and forms; slow page load time can deter visitors and crawlers alike. Use a high powered graphic program to convert images to their best quality, lowest file size before uploading them to your site. Generally .gif and .jpg formats work best however, .png (Portable Network Graphics) formats are quickly becoming popular although they are not compatible with all browsers yet.

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an integral part in the development of a web site and as we progress in this series, you will see how it plays an integral part in almost all web-based activities. Stay tuned for next month’s featured article as we begin to uncover the use of local and community directories to build an online reputation.

 

Search Engine Optimization and link building are about synonymous to each other no SEO is complete without link building. By building links for a web site we make sure that the site is being popular on the web and gaining the trust of search engines.

In our general life as we see the reputation of a person depends on his/her social network, in the same way the reputation of a website depends on its social network on the web. As in our general life we build relation with others in the same way we build links for the website to increase its relation and hence the reputation. As a person is known by his social networks, a website is known by the link pointing to that.

Since the search engines love more the sites with more links so if your website have more good quality inbound links the chances are high that they appear high in search engine result placements. So this is the single most important thing that can do magic for your website in gaining a good position in SERPs.

As a good neighborhood or good relation gives good reputation in the same way a good incoming link gives a good reputation to a website. Now the question is What can you do for Link Building? The answer is very simple; you can do the following for link building:

1: Directory Submission.
2: Article Submission.
3: Press Release.
4: Social Bookmarking.
5: Blogging.
6: Participation in Forum.
7: Link Swapping.

There are a number of things must be keep in mind while exchanging links with a web site.
The site with which you are linking:

* Must be relevant to you site.
* Should have a good position in search engines.
* Should not be linking to irrelevant sites.
* Must not have nofollow tag.
* Should not have more than 30 outgoing links from a page.

When the Internet first began its boom, the technologies used in design were forgiving. W3-Compliance wasn’t as necessary because there were fewer browsers, fewer users, and overall fewer technologies in use. With the burgeoning popularity of the internet, new developmental tools are created daily. With these tools come new challenges – marketing, design, cross-browser transitions, etc. All of these can be a daunting task for those web gurus who aren’t well-versed in the W3 Standards. W3 (http://w3schools.com) is a resource for webmasters and programmers who want the most for their viewing public. There are numerous technologies used by programmers (ASP, PHP, and Javascript to name a few), but this article will focus solely on XHTML and CSS. W3 has a set of standards for both of these technologies, and making a website W3-compliant ensures that most all viewers will see the site exactly the same way (no matter what browser they’re using). Validation also helps with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because clean code means easier search-engine spidering.

Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, is a technology often used in sites with many pages to make aesthetic changes easier. The style sheet is an exterior file that runs interdependently with the HTML (or outputted HTML) of a site. The style sheet serves as a template for the entire site’s color and font schemes, while also controlling borders, sizes, and more. Being able to edit a single file, instead of 100s of changes in many files saves time and precious web design dollars. Validation is imperative to get the most out of a website. That is, a user can upload or copy-and-paste their CSS file to the W3 site, and they’ll be given a list of any errors it contains.

Another of the technologies becoming more popular is Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, or XHTML. XHTML is an extension of HTML 4.0, and, while in its infancy, has become quite prevalent. XHTML conforms to standards moreso than HTML. As such, it is more search-engine and user-friendly:

XHTML documents conform to XML. XML Tools can double as XHTML tools.

XHTML is an extension of HTML 4.0. It is more user-friendly and streamlined than HTML.

XHTML is a combination of HTML and XML in that it can run scripts and applets that use both the HTML and XML DOM (Document Object Model)

As XHTML grows, XHTML 1.0 documents will be able to interoperate among other XHTML documents making it a more browser transitional language.

To conclude, using the standards of web development lined out by the W3 is imperative for users to get the most out of a site. Often, making a webpage W3-compliant is the first step of SEO, a marketing tool to get the most out of your advertising dollar. Validation is easy, and can be completed if a user has a basic knowledge of HTML-editing and FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Using these tools, coupled with the set of W3 standards can save a lot of money and help the site’s overall functionality.

It has been announced just recently that as Google moves towards the future, more stringent measures will be used to measure a website’s value and therefore ranking. Most web developers are completely at peace with creating web pages that may look good without giving any importance to how the page code is written. This can cause different browsers to have different problems displaying the page properly.

This has usually never caused ranking problems, as Search Engines simply where not concerned with such page details. That is going to change. Google points out the following: A page that does not follow the rules will cause some browsers and therefore some visitors to experience some sort of problems down the road. In essence the best way to guarantee your best chance at good Google SEO rankings is to make sure your code is clean. Double check your code twice, make sure you close a table before starting another one and most importantly use the validator tools created by the World Wide Web Consortium, which is the world organization in charge of creating web standards.

Most people get lazy, right around this point, after having spent weeks researching keywords, mapping an SEO strategy, and creating great content. It is like having a 3 year old child try to communicate chemistry or calculus. Your web site optimization strategy is only as good as your weakest link.

Getting used to checking your pages for validation often only makes you a better web developer and in the end you will know what things to avoid instinctively. We usually create a simple page, make sure it validates, and the use it as a framework for other pages. Also, we add the validation logo on every page during development, so as we code a web site, we can simply click on the validation icon after uploading the page and find out if there are any validation errors.

Keep in mind that in the future, it is very likely that if your pages don’t validate, you will never see any of your pages reach top-10 status on Google Search Engine Result Pages.

This guide should give you a good starting point to help with your Google SEO efforts. Keep an eye of the next guide, which will help expand on the topic of Search Engine Optimization.

Take a look at our site which contains detailed information on Google SEO topics to help you get your site’s ranking in the top 10 Google Search Engine Results.

The Internet has grown into a foremost player on the global economic front, so did the measure of people who are interested in its development.Web applications are used as the business strategies and policies implemented on the Web to meet the competitive business entities.

Choosing the right platform to develop a web based application to work on is an extremely important part of the web application development plan. A typical web application development process consists of five phases:

1. Requirement gathering and analysis
2. Planning the project
3. Development
4. Testing, support and stability
5. Maintenance and Support

Quality web application development services are needed by the organization to give a necessary boost to their business objectives, as it not only leads to increase in qualified web traffic, but also provides a competitive edge to the websites in question. These services are needed specifically for those websites that indulge in frequent interactions with their audience, like the news portals, the e-magazines etc. The application development ensures a simple process for direct interaction with the clients, facilitation of online monetary transactions and better understanding of the user’s needs.

The other features of these dynamic web applications are:

• Improved usability
• Faster accessibility
• Quick uploading
• Immediate updates

Scope of Web Development

The entire scope and usability of the web application development depends upon the strength of the products users and the intensity of advantageous nature of the products. It includes strategic planning for the development of the project. Better scope means impressive outlook, upgraded functioning and technical soundness. Thus the goal setting of the project should include

• Chalking the limitations
• Scheduling
• Application versioning
• The clear aims of the application should be well documented.

Development and practical solutions

After the finalisation of the functional specification and project plan, the programmers and web developers should begin with coding, testing and appropriate publishing of the application. The process also establishes the codes, entities, procedures and data variables which would be used for the remaining part. The entire process should not be done in haste but should be accompanied by practical solutions and working methods.

Quality Assurance and Testing

The most important phase of the development procedure includes the removal of discrepancies and bugs, which might hinder the functioning of the application. A team of dedicated testers with experience in automation tools can help the developers to conclude the project on time with quality.

Thousands of websites have already cluttered the web space. With SEO optimisation, one keyword provides links to hundreds of websites. Thus, developing a website in such a cut throat competition needs a deep examination of the various features of the applications functioning in the competitor’s website. The web application development adopted by the competitor should be researched in detail. The same gives a better understanding of the applications one would upload. It also sets a baseline for the development of the respective projects.

Search engines don’t care about web design. People do. While search engines will not index a website for its great layout, but for the content, people will forget the website that has nothing distinctive about it. No visual impact, no interest! Now, if you are a serious online entrepreneur and want to have a website that sends the right message to the visitors, you must know that there are some web design techniques simply inappropriate for a business website.

Many web design companies promise websites that respect the web standards, are usable and search engine friendly. Yes, that’s how any website should be. But these are simple tools. A professional company will mention them, but it will also let you know how a website will increase revenue, reduce expenses, bring more customers and so on. A professional web design firm will not fashion a website “out of the blue”, but conceive a design after understanding your corporate values, after analyzing the target market and respecting your brand image. That’s what you should care about when you choose a web design company.

There are many elements of web design that screw up a business website. Many are simple bad practices, other purely ugly and useless. For an unknown reason business websites with really bad web design are still fashioned every day.

One of the worst web design techniques is to use Flash instead of text. Web designers have fallen in love with Flash, but that will do a website no good: it increases the size of the page and it is not search engine friendly. Flash is great for music bands, movie sites and other sites that need to make a “cool” impression. Business websites need to send other messages: reliability, customer support, experience and so on. There are some astonishing Flash creations on the web, but the most are simply annoying, useless and visitors just hate them. Flash is exceptionally bad when the designer forgets to put a “Skip Intro” button. On a second thought, a “Skip Intro” button will suggest that the content on that page is insignificant. So far is clear: Flash pages send out mixed messages. However, if you are really in love with flash and simply must have it on your website, create a non-Flash version.

Small text could also be really annoying. If people can’t see your message, they’ll just go away, eventually to your competitors. Another bad web design practice is using too many images and animated buttons. There’s nothing worse than a website that twinkles and gets you dizzy while you try to find your way to the information through a bunch of flashy banners, buttons and useless pictures. Many web designers still use background images.

Seriously, have you ever see a global business website that has employed such a web design technique? Most of them have a standard, classic design, with simple navigation and plain text on a white background. The graphics are in perfect harmony with the content, they are not misleading and do have proper ALT attributes. There is a reason for simplicity in web design: creating websites that are simple, logical and easy to use, creating websites that sell.

It takes a real web designer to develop simple web pages that are both appealing and simple. Simplicity in web design should not by synonym with ugliness. Simple websites could be well-designed, elegant and bring other important benefits: they load faster, they are easier to scan and easier to navigate, they are quicker to design, build, redesign, maintain and they require less server space and bandwidth. Best of all: a simple web design will cost less and bring more!

Whether it is a simple website or a dazzling one, gradient backgrounds provide eye-catching, colorful backgrounds for any web page. A gradient is nothing but a variation of colors arranged from the darkest color to the lightest or vice-versa. It can be best described as a blend of colors consisting of a light color and a dark color. It is mostly used to create dazzling backgrounds on a web page of even on div cells or div boxes. The technique of applying gradient is usually available in Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks program, two of the leading web designing software available worldwide.

Gradient backgrounds are very important in corporate graphic design field. Professional graphic design companies have the best knowledge of gradient schemes for different corporate websites. These firms employ Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks to get the best results.

When creating an attractive gradient background from the web page a corporate graphic design expert ensures that the height of the background image is 5 pixels. While creating an 800 resolution page, the experts make the image 760 pixels wide and for 1024 resolution pages, the image resolution is set to 984 pixels wide.

The next step challenges a professional graphic designer to decide on the colors. Designers do not use darkest shades on the background in case of black colored text or lightest shaded backgrounds in case of light colored texts. In short, a well-balanced gradient effect is used to ensure the text, whether light-colored or dark, is visible.

Graphic designers ensure that the gradient backgrounds should match with the borders of a web page. To accomplish this, horizontal and vertical gradient bars are created to frame the borders of the web page.

While planning to add a gradient background it is necessary to make sure that it does not takes up memory. Although the image comprises of low kilobytes, still it repeats many times and is not good for websites that boast lots of pictures and videos.

Now days everyone has their own personal web page, business website or website for some or the other purpose. Everyone wants their website to appear in search engines – infact on FIRST page of every search engine. Suppose your website is not in any search engines, then how many of us would know that there is any such website present on internet? For that purpose, proper search engine optimization should be done to get online presence in major search engines.

Search Engine Optimization is also known as SEO. SEO is the process of increasing the volume of web traffic to any website. It’s an Internet marketing method that increases organic search engine web traffic. SEO process is increasing not only the volume of web traffic but the quality of it as well. SEO (search engine optimization) brings good search engine rankings of your website. Now days, most of people turn to the Internet to find anything and everything.

Internet is the simple and convenient place for searching anything. The reason behind this is search engines. Google is most used search engine and it is widely used world wide. Most of people use Google search engine to find or search anything like information, services or any products. Suppose your site is not listed in Google search engine then how your website will get visitors. From Google to Yahoo, from AOL to MSN, the search engines are a simple and convenient tool for finding or searching anything on the Internet.

As a business owner, major search engines like Google, msn and yahoo are also essential: if your company website or business website doesn’t appear on major search engines, so it’s hard for visitors to find you. They may just find your competitor instead. SEO helps to your website to get better search engine rankings in major search engines.

Finally, the conclusion is that search engine optimization (SEO) service/ Search Engine Marketing is to send traffic to your website. No matter what kind of business you have, search engine optimization is one of the most important and essential process you should implement for your website.