Free Web Hosting!

Domain name. Hosting. Content. These are the three essentials to putting your website on the Internet. With all the different domain name extensions, registration terms, hosting packages and techical jargons (ie. FTP, SMTP, PHP, etc.) - the simple vision of your own website online has now turned into something mind boggling, confusing and intimidating
. Let's help you break the entire process down into simple, easy-to-follow (and understandable) steps. 1. The purpose of your website The first thing you
need to do is make a list of why you want a website. Do you want a website because you want to share your writings or photos with friends or family? Or do you want to sell your products online? 2. Decide on a domain name When you've determined the purpose of your website then it'll be easy to come up with a suitable domain name (ie. name for the website). Don't fall into the "free" trap - many free web hosting service providers gives you a free website name. But what you don't realize is, your website name will be a derivative of "http://www.serviceprovider.com/ subfolder/.../yourMemberID" . Not exactly the most user-friendly nor professional name now. A common misunderstanding is that you can get a domain name for free. While completely free web hosting services exist, domain name registrations are not free. In order to use "http://www.yourname.com" , you need to pay the .COM Registry registration fee. This fee guarantees that your name will be yours to use for the duration of your registration term. If the .COM version of your desired name is not available, you have the option to get the .NET, .ORG, .BIZ, .US, .INFO or even .CA, .UK, etc. The list goes on and on... Most people usually go for the .NET version if the .COM is not available. It's completely up to you. If your website is about sharing information, then you should consider .INFO. If your website is for your business, then a .BIZ would be good, too. 3. Your needs Will you be expecting a lot of visitors a day? By a lot, we're talking about in the thousands. Do you have a lot of photos or files to share with your visitors? If yes, then ample bandwidth and disk space will be on your shopping list. If you're setting up an online store AND will be accepting credit card information from your customers, then you'll need to consider advanced security options (ie. SSL certificate). For more information on setting up an online store, click here (link to "Free Web Hosting and Ecommerce" article). If this is your first website and you're just experimenting, then your list will be shorter - all you need is a free web hosting plan. A free web hosting plan will offer you the basic necessities to have a website on the Internet without any of the fancy bells and whistles. 4. Find a reputable free web hosting service Once you have an idea of what you need, you need to find a reputable web hosting service. There are many places you can go to find a service provider. You can do a search for "free web hosting companies" on Google, but do keep in mind that just because a company is listed on the first page of Google doesn't mean it's 100% safe and legit. It's always best to shop around or ask people for referrals and references. Basic things to look for in a free web hosting service plan: It allows you to use your own domain name. Again, you don't want a website name that's "http://www.notyourcompany.com/ notyourfolder/.../yourMemberID" There are no forced ad banners It comes with web hosting storage (for beginners, 100MB is more than enough) It comes with bandwidth/data transfer (for beginners, 1000MB is ample) It comes with email services. With your own domain name, you'll want to be able to setup @ yourdomain.com accounts Once you've found the free web hosting service that best suits your needs, then you can go ahead and start designing your new website and enjoy the fun and joy that a website can bring.

Sources: http://www.doteasy.com/web-hosting-articles/free-web-hosting-getting-started.cfm

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Tips in Designing Your Website

Search engine optimization is affected by how you build your web ages.
Knowing the building blocks of websites is a crucial tool especially for
beginners. Knowing how sites are built will help anyone to know how websites will land on the top rankings of search engines.

Here are some things that you need to avoid when designing your website: 

1. Communicate Fast ­ The internet is not a domain where people have
long attention spans. Your website must give out what it wants to give
out at first glance. The first few seconds are very important, it will help
decide whether the reader will keep browsing your website or go
somewhere else.

2. Eye Friendly Format‐ When lay outing your pages, remember that you
are not designing a book. Let go of big blocks of text to keep your
readers. You web contents must be scannable.  Everyone is encouraged
to make use of subheadings, bullets, lists, etc. Make sure that
information can be found by the reader as easy as possible.

3. Readability of Fonts‐ Complicated and sophisticated fonts might look
your website good to your eye but it doesn't necessarily mean that these
fonts are readable from the perspective of internet users. Make things
as simple as you can.

4. No to Small Fonts‐ Web browsers can easily zoom in to enlarge small
fonts but from the beginning make sure that the fonts that your will use
will not cause any eye strains.

5. Avoid Opening New Windows ­ When clicking on links, most internet
users hate it whenever the website opens. Let the user take control of
the situation whether it will be a new tab or a new window. The Back
button is also there to get back to your site if the user wants to.

6. Never Resize The Browser Window‐ again the user should decide for the
settings of the browser. You might end up messing up the user's system
if you impose any configuration. 

7. As much as Possible, No to Registration ­ if registration is not a
necessity, then don't require any. Most internet users will veer away
from websites that require registration. The web users seek information
and they are hesitant to give theirs if it is not at all necessary.

8. No Automatic Subscription ­ Everyone hates spamming and make sure
you have the consent of the user before sending anything to his inbox.
Unsolicited emails may just tarnish your credibility.

9. Too Much Flash is Not the Way to Go ­ Too much flash movies will slow
down your web pages and may annoy some users who do not have all
the time in the world. You can utilize flash movies if there are features
that cannot be maximized with the use of the static pages.

10. Do not use music.

11. Let Users Decide to Play the Sounds ­ How the internet should be used
is up to the user. If there will be audio files on your website, let the user
decide if he will click play or not.

12. Badges ­ If your website received recognitions, the badges are best
placed in the About Us section. Badges may make the page look
cluttered and lose its over all appeal to the users.

13. Never Use a Website to Launch the Real Website ­ Remember the
fastest way to the information, the better.

14. Allow Venues for Feedback ­ It will be best if you leave your contact
information so your clients, subscribers, or readers can leave their
praises or comments. You can make use of these feedbacks so you can
further improve your website. 

15.
Never Use Blinking Text ­ This era is long gone.

16. Keywords in the URL ­ if you can make your URLs as simple and as
keyword rich as possible then do so. This will help search engines find
your web. Aside from developing your page ranking, it will help in brand
recall.

17. Opt for CSS Tables over HTML ‐  CSS tables are more reliable and faster
compared to HTML tables for lay out.

18. Let the readers See the Information ­ Avoid using drop down menus for
navigation. The more information you let your readers see, the better. 

19. Rely on Text Navigation ­ This is a lot faster compared to using images
for links. Aside from being search engine friendly, some users also turn
off the images when browsing the internet to maximize their connection
speed.

20. Let Them Know it's PDF ­ You don't want users to blow off their steams
when their computer freezes while browsing your website because it is
waiting for the Acrobat to open. Let them know that they are clicking on
a PDF.

21. Don't Confuse Users with Different Versions ­ Some sites may ask for
bandwidth preference or screen settings. See where they are, way below
the rankings. Just give the readers the contents that they want to see.

22. Do Not Mix Ads with Content ­ Blending an Adsense along the text body
might increase the chances of clicks and revenues. Short term wise, this
will earn your profits. Long term, imagine users who are annoyed of
being led to an advertisement which they do not need and do not want
to see.

23. Simple Navigations are Top‐notch ­ Simple navigation is an assurance
that the users will not be lost while browsing through your web pages. If
one gets lost while clicking Next or hopping to another link, you can say
goodbye to a potential subscription or sale.

24. Avoid Using GIFs ­ Advertisement banners may need GIF formatting but
if these are not necessary on your website, avoid them. A ton of GIFs
make the pages look cluttered and very unprofessional. 

25. Avoid Using FrontPage ­ Frontpage and other cheap HTML editors may
be easy to use but you are sacrificing the quality of the design. You can
often see problems with the codes or bugs when using different
browsers. Unless you have advance coding skills that you can avoid such
problems, FrontPage and other cheap HTML editors is not the way to
build your website.

26. Cross‐browser Capabilities ­ Different browsers have different sets of
capabilities. What you have to do is to make sure that your design is
compatible with the most used browsers by your target market.

27. Intelligent Clicking ­ Anchor text plays a vital role in your SEO plan. You
have to make good use of them to let the users know where they are
going if they click on a link. This gives them the freedom to choose
where they want to go.

28. No Link Cloaking‐ Hiding links is like telling the user to go jump in the
river. The links must be visible and must tell the users where they will be
going. Sending the users to affiliate links without them knowing will lead
to the drop in your credibility.

29. Format Links Properly ­ Formatting links properly make them more
visible. Highlight their colors and underline them so they look very
inviting to the users. Links are optimally colored with blue.

30. Content Formatting‐ The normal text should not be underline nor
should it use colored fonts. Making normal text look like links might
mislead users that they are also clickable.

31. Guide the Users with the Links‐ Alter the colors of clicked links so the
users will be guided. This will give the user an idea which pages were
visited and which ones remain to be unexplored. 

32. Avoid Using GIFs ­ Advertisement banners may need GIF formatting but
if these are not necessary on your website, avoid them. A ton of GIFs
make the pages look cluttered and very unprofessional. 

33. No to Pop Ups ­ Pop‐up windows have been very annoying ever since.
There are also chances that your pop up window will be blocked by
available free blockers in the market today.

34. There are Colors that cause Headaches‐ Color schemes may cause
headaches. If you think browsing through your website just for several
minutes strains your eyes, then you must reconsider checking for
another color on the palate.

35. ALT and TITLE attributes for Images­ These will help a lot with blind
users aside from being SEO friendly.

36. Functional Footer Links ­ Internet users are accustomed to finding
useful links at the bottom of the page. Usually you can find FAQs, Terms
of Agreement, Contact Us, and a lot more functional links. Users may
click on them especially if they can't find information on your pages.

37. Avoid Horizontal Scrolling ‐  People will tolerate scrolling down their
browsers to see the rest of the page. Do not give them the burden of
scrolling to the left, then going back to the right, then going back up,
then going down. Doesn't that sound tiring enough? The most
commonly used resolution today is 1024x768 pixels.

38. Refrain from Making Long Pages‐ Scrolling down a few times may be
okay to see information. Scrolling down forever to see what information
you can give the users may be annoying and impractical. Users may
decide to skip or just leave your website. A properly designed navigation
plan will avoid this problem.

39. Polish the Grammar and Avoid Typographical Errors‐ Errors in the text
will greatly affect the overall quality of your website. Before posting, you
must edit, re‐edit, and proofread your contents to make sure that there
are no spelling errors and grammar rules have been followed well all
through out. 

More to come here, Stay tuned....

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How Are Pages Ranked?

Search engines use algorithms to determine where a web page ranks for a particular keyword used in a search. Algorithms are programming systems that determine how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users.
Two
main factors search engines use to determine ranking is the content on a web page and “off- page-factors” (such as the text used along with links that point to a web page). The latter to our mind is very important and neglected by most companies.
The factors such as content ‘scored’ on a web page vary with differing weights given by different search engines. However, some things such as the positioning of keywords and frequency we consider universally important. For instance, keywords or phrases that occur in headings, page titles and other key places on the web page are more significant than keywords that appear in a more random fashion in the middle of a page.
When considering “offsite” factors, the number of quality pages linking to a web page is significant to a web page’s ranking. Good websites have many other sites that link to them. More recently, the advent of social networking and forums adds a new and very important dynamic – consumer buzz.
At the same time, the relevance of linking is important too and determines “link relevance” and weighting. In short, this means that a link to your page from a similar website or a page having the same keywords as the page linked to is more important than a link to your web page from an unrelated sight or page with different content. The text in the link itself is also important, known as “anchor text” or “link reputation”. We will cover link reputation later.
Link reputation is widely accepted as a main factor for Google’s PageRank system. Again, we will discuss this in more detail in Chapters 6 and 8.
In short, PageRank reflects the quality of a web page. The number of links pointing to that page has a direct influence on PageRank, but abuse forces Google to change its algorithm and thus we to modify our strategy to demonstrate our websites are deserving of our popularity. At the same time, the higher the importance of a website that links to a web page, the better it is the better that is for the linked pages rankings.
It is important to note that each web page has an assigned rank, which divides amongst the links going out from that page. The more links that point out from a web page the less important each link becomes. Therefore, PageRank is not only about a link coming from a popular site, it is also proportional to the number of links going out from that site.
Chapter 6 will discuss in more detail how to make the most of how PageRank flows within a site, which can help one control the profile of the most important pages on a website.

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