Written by:
2009/05/11 09:58 AM 

1. Web design tip: Don’t design your website only appeal to you.

Don’t design your website to what only you like. Design your website to what appeals to your clients and customers. Many times I come across people who believe they have a fantastic website, but in reality, it is horrid. Obviously that would be my opinion. But in the customers eyes, his opinion matters.

You cannot always please everyone, but you must be able to please and attract the majority. Who cares if you like your site to be shocking pink and luminous green? If your clients and potential customers don’t like that, they will not come back, they will not invite their friends. Your site will die.

What is the purpose of your site? To appeal to you and your family, or to attract visitors? If it is to attract visitors, then design your site for them and not for you.

2. Web traffic tip: Give away free content.

Copyright is so rife on the internet now days. Everyone is trying to protect their content or intellectual property. This is not a bad thing, but it can be overdone. So many websites and bloggers have strict copyright attached to their content. You cannot use it or redistribute it.

We are not talking about trying to defraud someone, but we are talking about the ability to get your work out on the web by as many ways as you can. Allowing others to republish your content, with back links of course, is an excellent way to get the word out.

The point is, be prepared to give away free content. In fact be prepared to give away anything free. People like free stuff. They get the feeling that this blog or web site is all about them, and that you’re not just trying to sell them something.

Even though sales might be your primary motive, a freebie, will ultimately increase sales. Strange as it might sound, it works.

3. Blog Tip: Be aware you're traffic comes form different sources.

Traffic, traffic, traffic. Our websites and blogs thrive on traffic. There are so many tips on how to get traffic to your blog. But the problem is that many people tend to focus on trying to get that massive influx of traffic. They are looking for the goldmine.

But natural traffic comes slowly over time, and it comes from many different sources. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. A little traffic from here, and a little traffic from there all adds up to lots of traffic in the end.

Don’t be discouraged if you get 20 visits from one source and 18 visits from another, and 10 from yet another. If you have 100 different smaller traffic sources, all of a sudden you're looking at the region of 1000 visits.

It’s a lot easier to get 10 or 20 visits from smaller traffic sources than it is to get 1000 visits from a single big source. Once the traffic has been built up, the bigger sources will follow.

4. Blogging tip: Always be ultra friendly to other bloggers.

We can spend so much time on our own blogs and websites that we fail to see any one else's. Being friendly towards other bloggers is such an important tip, that I cannot express it any harder.

If you want comments and traffic on your site, then you’d better be prepared to give rather than receive.

Find  few blogs and websites in your niche, read their posts and then start commenting on the blogs and posts. But don’t spam. In other words, don’t comment just to create back links or invite traffic. Make the comment useful and to the topic of the post. You wouldn't want people to spam your comments, so don’t spam theirs.

You can leave a link to your site or blog post if the comment warrants it. By commenting on other posts and encouraging other bloggers, not only will they start to read your blog, but their readers will start as well.

Try it, you will be surprised.

5. IT Tip: Equip yourself with different skills.

So many people are really good at one thing. So much so, that they cannot do anything else. Then again, there are those who are so biased towards a particular skill set or product that to their own detriment they fail to see the importance of other products or skills.

Many PHP/MySQL developers hate Microsoft or anything to do with Microsoft. Then you find that the C# guys will not entertain PHP, even if it kills them.

Drupal guys will not touch Joomla. Wordpress is the king. Dotnetnuke is the only possible CMS to use. Programmers never touch hardware, and hardware guys can not program.

Now I am not saying that you should not major in any particular skill or product, Choose something that you’re good at and stick to that. But keep you options open. Use the right product for the right purpose.

Equip yourself with different skills. Learn about networks and how they work and are set up. Understand how to lay cables. Become familiar with the major programming languages, even if it is an alternative, or in competition to the one that you use. Don’t be shy to look at other CMS packages or blogging tools.

Why do I say this? Well, simply, because times change. What is popular today might not be popular or available tomorrow. You do not want to be caught unawares. The other reason is that you can reach a bigger and better audience.

If you cannot achieve what you want for your blog on Wordpress, don’t be scared to try something else. If PHP is not working for you, try another language. The point is be skilled at many things and be flexible.

What other tips might you have? Share them with us by leaving a comment. I am sure we will all benefit from it.

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