This guide belongs to 100 Ways To Be Being Remarkable Series, a special project that brings you business and self-development advice from The Success Manual.

A SIMPLE GUIDE TO WEBSITE DESIGN AND INTERNET MARKETING

1. KISS - "keep it simple, stupid" - people want information quickly, clearly, no-nonsense. Make your own website easy to use and to convey your important messages. Aim for simplicity and ease of use in all functionality.

2. Specialize in something - The internet and the website medium are ideally suited to specialized providers, suppliers, companies, etc., so try to specialize and be the best in what you offer within that specialization on the web.

3. Give as much as you can free online from your website - material that can be printed or downloaded, or information that can be read from the web page are all good worthy free things to offer.

4. A website should be as easy as a shop - think about it in the same way - ease of access to what you want - make browsing easy - layout clear and clean - the experience should be warm and welcoming. For more on the topic, read www.useit.com.

5. Remove obstacles like registrations and password requirements as far as possible - these are barriers to visitors - shops don't have barriers and registration requirements do they?...

6. Fancy graphics, visual effects and flash animation please designers but not customers - fancy complicated design puts people off.

7.Lots of text is good - if it's relevant search engines like lots of text too, but it must be relevant.

8. Keep information up-to-date - many search engines take account of update frequency, so update your website .

9. Offer what people are interested in - not what you want to push.

10. Good websites will be found by most search engines - don't pay for regular submissions services unless you have a very complicated and extensive internet and website strategy.

12. The big three search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google accounts for 60% of all searches. Google's listings are based on its unique Pagerank algorithm, which ranks websites and web pages based on number of links from other online sources they receive. The point being, if your content is useful, unique and up-todate, people will link to you.

13. Build a site that other sites will want to link to - it is far more beneficial than directing all that effort into expensive internet marketing campaigns. Relevant high quality links matter. Having hundreds of irrelevant links on tiny unpopular websites counts for very little. Basically it is about two things. Build a site that Search Engines can crawl and understand, and Users find useful.

14. Measure your traffic - there are lots of trackers and systems to use - www.statcounter.com and analytics.google.com are two great and free tracking services.

15. Keep yourself updated on internet marketing trends: Blogs to read are www.seomoz.org, www.seobook.com, and www.webmasterworld.com . To know about latest search and keyword trends, use www.google.com/trends, Google Adword selector tool, Google Search ensights, blog.compete.com, etc.

INTERNET TOOLS AND IDEAS FOR PROMOTING YOIR BUSINESS

1. Blogs - allow users to contribute with comments, ratings etc.
2. Bookmarking/Tagging - to save links that users like
3. Brand monitoring - using Google blogsearch (http://blogsearch.google.com), social bookmarking (http://del.icio.us, http://technorati.com)
4. Content aggregation - Like http://popurls.com
5. Crowdsourcing/Voting - Like Digg http://digg.com, Reddit http://reddit.com
6. Discussion boards and forums - Like Slashdot http://slashdot.org
7. Events and meetups - Using Meetup http://meetup.com
8. Mashups - using tools and ideas from Programmable web http://programmableweb.com
9. Microblogging - Using Twitter http://twitter.com, Jaiku http://jaiku.com, Tumblr http://tumblr.com, Create your own Twitter using Laconica http://laconi.ca
10. Online video - Using http://youtube.com, http://blip.tv, http://vimeo.com, http://ustream.com
11. Online Organization and staffing - Using Basecamp, Campfirenow, Linkedin http://linkedin.com
12. Blogger Outreach programs - Approach influential bloggers to see whether they are willing to spread your love. Best to approach mid-tier bloggers.
13. Photosharing - Using Flickr http://flickr.com
14. Podcasting - Create for free using Audacity and host on your site and spread the link love
15. Presentation sharing - Using Slideshare http://slideshare.net
16. Public Relations and Press Releases - Using PR 2.0 sites such as Pitchengine http://pitchengine.com and blogging about incidents as they happen.
17. Ratings and reviews - Post the article on your blog, and submit the item to Digg, Reddit and get people to share their views
18. Social networks - applications, fan pages, groups, personas and CEo/decision makers' pages on sites such as http:;/facebook.com, Linkedin http://linkedin.com
19. Sponsorships - Sponsor contests on social networking sites
20. Virtual worlds - on Secondlife http://secondlife.com
21. Widgets - so that people can share/publish data from your site on their own
22. Wikis - Using Mediawiki, pbWiki or Wetpaint.
-  Adapted from The Bighow Web 2.0 halloffame, http://bighow.com/halloffame

Read Part 1 of this guide here


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