http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/interior-design/hook-the-website-visitor.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/interior-design/hook-the-website-visitor.html Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500 Good web design must be like a blockbuster movie where people engage themselves seriously in the lost world. Website design must make the visitors engage in a further process that leads to the visitor fulfilling the purpose from both ends: The goal of the firm, as well as the customer.We see these things, on many day-day sites that we bump into.

A registration form
This form contains the user id, password, residential and personal information. This can be used to study the person’s background, likes and dislikes. The information about email id, etc may also help you to forward newsletters and updates to the patrons. The information is to be kept personal and there must be a note on that.

Discussion forum
There must be a forum where customers can post their common questions and get answers to them. This must be a commonplace to inform visitors about the specifications about the websites offerings on a personal note. The people here must be able to have a communication platform where they read peoples feedback and queries and at the same time post their own questions.

A chat group
Several websites put a person for support services and he chats further with the visitors and customers. However, some others allow chat room facility on the website itself and users hook on to it, get information about their queries, network with people with all views, and have a mutual gain.

Feedback column
There must be forms or columns specially designed for people to sent their feedback about their expectations and their reviews about the product. The webmaster and the organisation must be considerable enough to genuinely look into matters of grievance to customers and solve them.

Lucky dips
There can be several competitions and throw away packages. This will hook up customers and advertisers to your website like moths to a flame and help your business to progress. You can also get important numbers and mail ids of people and get them to patronize your business through regular correspondence to them.

Announcements
There can be an announcement column for new launches and products. You can thus provide a medium to users for new launches that behave like an atrium of a multiplex. Ensure that you make the product information available to your customers. Announcements on special discounts and sale can also be put up here strategically.

Review columns
Food and movie business websites offer a review and rate their menus and flicks. You can also use a review and rating column and help customers to come back to view it. This will also help your customers to know the best offers. He will also get to know the most rated and liked products and launches.

Blogs
There can be a facility of making blogs provided by the website.

Classifieds
You can also put up links and advertisements for your users.




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David Hunt is a senior partner and experienced web developer with Blue
Light Labs Multimedia Inc. an
Atlanta web design firm and Atlanta Web Development
Agency Georgia


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/london-still-promising-capital-gains.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/london-still-promising-capital-gains.html Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500 London property prices comfortably outstripping the national average and soaring astronomically in the central areas, driven by high city bonuses and super rich buyers from overseas looking to buy homes, including individuals such as Roman Abramovic and Lakshmi Mittal, who bought a home in London for a then world record £70 million in 2004.

In contrast, the high prices, driving even the average house over the inheritance tax threshold, have brought complaints that the residential market is driving out families and pricing more and more people out of the city. It has also raised the question of whether buy-to-let investments are available at a good price.

For this reason, a Daily Telegraph property feature last week suggested buy-to-let investors would be best off looking in other parts of the country. Having stated that buy-to-let in the regions offered good returns without large investments, it noted the comments of Peter Holden of Assetz, who noted the potential of a number of locations, includingLiverpool Property with its "fantastic" regenaration, Ipswich - where the arrival of the university is an advantage, Swansea with its waterfront and, surprisingly as it may seem to some, south coast locations like Hastings, Littlehampton and Bognor, where Mr Holden advised, properties were certainly not too expensive.

With so many locations enjoying renewal, attractive cityscapes, university accommodation and good prices for investors, one might conclude that London can be written out of the script altogether.

Not so, according to the chief executive officer of London Central Portfolio, Naomi Heaton. There is one factor that will lead to many new opportunities for investors in the capital - the Olympic Games.

She said: "There will be an awful lot of new builds around the Olympic stadium and the Olympic village and the long term Government plan for the Olympic village is for it to become affordable housing for key workers."

Not that it is only the east of the capital around the Games Park in Stratford that will benefit, Ms Heaton added, noting that some 2012 events, such as the beach volleyball and the triathlon, will take place in central London, which, along with the general increase in tourism to its existing attractions, will boost the heart of the city as well, these benefits including a "face lift" of the area and the addition of new transport infrastructure such as crossrail.

However, Ms Heaton notes, there is "almost no new housing stock" in this part of London, with the scarcity bound to increase if demand rises still higher as a result of the games. The situation for the east end, however, will be very different, she said, noting that "near the Olympic stadium there may be maybe ten thousand units there. So you've got an area where there's going to be a massive stock availability whereas in central London it's going to become an even more scarce resource."

With such availability and prices lower than other parts of London, this could offer the capital bargain investors are looking for.

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Jim Barnaby is a real estate investment broker and successful property investment adviser delivering research and selected UK and overseas property investment solutions with experience in spanish properties, french property investment, German property, Cyprus holiday homes, Property Cape Verde, German property, German property investment, buy to let property

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/why-buy-to-let-is-a-long-term-business.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/why-buy-to-let-is-a-long-term-business.html Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500 UK property market . Despite the fact that rents are going up because more would-be buyers are opting to put off attempts to get on the housing ladder, a point demonstrated by the frequent 20 per cent plus rise in rents in mortgage renewals revealed by research from Hamptons International this week, many have still talked of a possible crash.

But this is not likely at all, least of all for large, professional investors, Ray Boulger of mortgage advisors John Charcol has stated.

He said: "From the point of view of buy-to-let investors, I would not recommend anyone enter that market with a short-term view." The problem, Mr Boulger explained, is that some smaller investors have done just that in the mistaken belief that a pot of gold awaited at the foot of every rainbow.

"Professional investors are aware that property prices don't just go up forever, but some of the amateurs have been sucked in on the basis that we've had 12 years of property prices rising and they perhaps haven't factored in that that's not going to happen forever," he said, adding that "as long as you expect the return to be good over the long-term, then you accept that".

On this basis, one may conclude that those cases reported in the press of buy-to-let investors who have seen their property market ventures end in tears have fallen into the former category. Those taking a longer-term view, however, with finances geared up to rise out occasional storms, can enjoy the benefits in the long-run.

Mr Boulger stated that house prices are likely to "flatline for a year or so", although in the light of the credit crunch and the wait-and-see approach to interest rates of the Bank of England monetary policy committee (MPC), which has spoken of uncertainty about how the economy will turn and expressed unanimity in holding rates for two successive months, this prediction may not be certain. However, one can hypothesise a situation where, as long as consumer prices index inflation remains below the government's two per cent target, interest rates will fall and the housing market pick up again as a result.

The possibility of such a cut taking place has now been hinted at by MPC member Andrew Sentance, who told the Guardian today that factors such as the credit market situation could exert "downward pressure on inflation", which the MPC would "take into account" when setting rates. Already, the paper notes, analysts are tipping a November rate cut, so such a move will not be a surprise.

Yet whatever happens to interest rates, the economy at large and the housing market in the coming months, the message about the long-term stability of the buy-to-let market is clear: those who are geared up for such an approach, Mr Boulger has stated, will sail into calmer waters in due course, while only those who have chased the quick buck have lost out.

Earlier this month, the Association of Residential Letting Agents published research showing that just 2.5 per cent of investment landlords were looking to make a short-term profit. On the basis of that research, it is only that small minority who may have their fingers burned. Most, it seems, have approached their investment in the right manner.

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Jim Barnaby is a real estate investment broker and successful property investment adviser delivering research and selected UK and overseas property investment solutions with experience in spanish properties, french property investment, German property, Cyprus holiday homes, Property Cape Verde, German property, German property investment, buy to let property

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/cape-verde-promises-long-seasons-in-the-sun.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/cape-verde-promises-long-seasons-in-the-sun.html Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500 /">Cape Verde holiday home is emerging as one of the most attractive. Much nearer than the Maldives and not prone to seasonal storms like the Caribbean, the archipelago off the coast of west Africa, a former Portuguese colony, has emerged as an increasingly popular place to go.

Yet it is still only just being discovered, according to Global Emerging Market Estates, a company specialising in property in Cape Verde new markets.

Spokesperson Carley Todd explained what a new market Cape Verde still is: "Cape Verde is an emerging market because it is largely undiscovered," she said, adding: "and still now most people didn't know it existed."

For those who do, she said, the benefits are "massive", noting that: "The investment is good because of the expected capital appreciation and rental yields."

There are a number of reasons for this, she states. Firstly, there is the ease of travel, being just five and a half hours from the UK by air and served by three airports. Then there is the climate, with year-round sunshine but no tropical storms, meaning a 40-week season rather than 25. "Cape Verde is on average 25 degrees all year round so max rental returns will be achieved," she advised.

In addition to this, she said, there were beautiful white sandy beaches, clear blue sea and plenty of tourist facilities, while the prices for properties varied between £53,000 for a studio property and £245,000 for a three-bed luxury villa overlooking the sea.

With such prices available, many investors will be keen to know more about the country. At present, the indicators are positive. Macauhub reported yesterday that this year, based on figures available from January to August, the Cape Verdean central bank has predicted gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 6.2 per cent this year.

The central bank adds that corporate investment is set to double to 25 per cent of GDP, fuelled by the greater availability of credit, "suggesting the continuity of monetary condition [is] favourable to the expansion of economic activity".

Furthermore, the report notes, the country has the largest service sector as a proportion of the economy in all Africa (74 per cent), which means that a growing tourist industry has a larger impact on the overall economy than might be the case elsewhere.

Compared with other African countries, Cape Verde certainly has many advantages. The BBC reported today that the nation came fourth in sub-Saharan Africa for good governance in the Ibrahim Index, run by Sudanese mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim. Two of the three countries above it, Mauritius and the Seychelles, are also island nations with stable governments and popularity with tourists. Cape Verde enjoys a peaceful democracy with a two-party system.

Thus a broad assessment of Cape Verde indicates that it is a stable, growing and attractive place. But as Carley Todd stated, many don't even know where it is. Given the prices of property on the island, investors may well be advised to find out before everyone else does.

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Jim Barnaby is a real estate investment broker and successful property investment adviser delivering research and selected UK and overseas property investment solutions with experience in spanish properties, french property investment, German property, Cyprus holiday homes, Property Cape Verde, German property, German property investment, buy to let property

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/web-design-advice.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/web-design-advice.html Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Test Your Website
When webmasters design a website, he must not be keyed up, to put it to public immediately. Do not forget to test the website first. Whether you have shaped it or someone else has, be cautious to look up to the website in an approach that a real visitor would. Empathize with the visitor and put yourself in his frame of mind. Look for the potential things that you have missed out or need modification.
Go through the resolution and lessen it if it is too big. Also, try to view the website using diverse versions of browsers, new as well as old. Look at it through the Netscape navigator, internet explorer and mozilla firefox. Mainstream users use browsers with frames. So, one can be relaxed with these browsers. Check out broken links that do not work anymore. Update the links that help the users to navigate across the site. This is an episodic thing and you must frequently look into it.

Change Your Video Mode
You ought to use the video display that most of the potential customers and habitual browsers employ. There must be lucidity of thinking and one must decide if he must employ 15 inches screen or 17 inches screen. Most users do not bring up to date their equipment features right away. So, one must be circumspect while adding a screen resolution to a website.

You must be vigilant about the video mode being used by customary browsers. You must not use high resolution if your target audience uses small screens. Several sites are almost not viable in VGA mode. Nonetheless, there are many webmasters using the latest resolution technology and by no means look at the page from the end view of a real visitor.

Get Off That Speedy Connection
Most of the web designers use high-speed connections where web pages unlock fast. This reflects in their work too where they design the site in accordance with the speed they have and not what their patrons use. Most of the consumers do not use broadband connections and are instead using dial-up connections. The dial up pace tends to be little and many users use services of small service providers (SSP). The designer ought to keep this in mind before designing websites in accordance with the quick speed that he gets.


Finish Before You Broadcast
Do not produce a single page and publicize it. Ensure that you have something worth circulating and only then do it. The visitors will otherwise shun it as soon as they visit it. The prejudice may continue in the end and they may not return to your website. Thus, you may loose important customers to your competitors.

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Rob Bertholf, CEO of Empowered Internet Solutions and inventor of the ZeppOS Total Site Management application, is an expert on Web Design and Content Management systems. Empowered provides ZeppOS Web Hosting and Web Design in the United States focusing on Hawaii Web Design, Florida Web Design, Oregon Web Design and California Web Design, Mississippi Web Design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/the-visitor-and-the-web-master.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/the-visitor-and-the-web-master.html Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500 web site content writing, keywords, navigability, user-friendliness, product and company information, newsletters, contact information, etc must be equally visible to the visitor. Hence, the web design and navigability should reflect the true hallmarks of a company and must behave like a mirror. These must be the starting points of a website. Infact the user webmaster must consider them before starting the website.

The main questions that a best web designer considers before the commencement of a website are:

1. How does this benefit the visitor?

He must retrospect in advance if the idea in his mind is parallel with the visitors needs. Am I offering, what the visitor is looking for? Will it be able to hook the visitor to the website and not drift him away? Have I considered all the needs of the visitor? Thus, the designer’s job is to think off all this in advance.

2. How does benefit the organisation or me?

A designer must think in advance abut the benefits the organisation is going to get through the website. He must then proceed with the most beneficial idea.

Conflicts in a Web Designer’s Mind

- The organization is trying to achieve something by bringing visitors to their website.

- The visitors to a website are trying to accomplish something by logging on to the organization’s website.

The perfect website satisfies the desires of both the parties: user gets what they are looking for; website owner gets what they want. This will ensure that both the parties are happy. However, if the needs of the customers’ are not met with you may see your revenues going down. They will not visit your site again and your needs too will be overlooked thereby. Therefore, when creating a website, you must deem what you want to get and what can you give to people in order to get them to patronize you business and help them use your website in the manner you want them to. Your goals are straightforward: get many people to the web site as repeatedly as possible and for a extensive duration as likely.

Navigability

If you are using a program that can exhibit a website map, you will be able to observe how everything fits mutually as you go along too. Make sure that the sites construction is coherent and that the guest can find the information they need without browsing though unnecessary pages. While allowing for your needs make the site as easy to navigate as possible. Moreover, do not forget to offer a way out of every page without any links reversely to the page from which you have connected the present one. Think of noticeable items that visitors want to find, and then assure you that they can find them effortlessly. In general, empathize with a visitor. You can also look up to the sites that have won web awards and ensure that your site is architectured in that manner.


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Rob Bertholf, CEO of Empowered Internet Solutions and inventor of the ZeppOS Total Site Management application, is an expert on Web Design and Content Management systems. Empowered provides ZeppOS Web Hosting and Web Design in the United States focusing on Hawaii Web Design, Florida Web Design, Oregon Web Design and California Web Design, Mississippi Web Design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/web-design--dos-and-donts.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/web-design--dos-and-donts.html Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500 Web design is an important part in advertising a business. Being important, the process of web designing can be really challenging to the webmaster or designer engaging in it. Apart from the content, keywords, SEO, design, navigability and search engine marketing there are certain things that many things that a webmaster must not overindulge. Doing more than what is needed can yield negative returns and create a business loss.

Empathizing with the needs of the patrons and stakeholders before designing a website is highly important for a best web designer. He must research up on website information and read books written by experts and finally apply the knowledge gained therein. He must remember the features and characteristics of a miserable website before starting up the new website.

1. These websites do not tell the users about their operations and business.
2. They do not provide any email address and contact information to correspond.
3. They use horrible, unmatching colors for their web pages.
4. They use ugly and unpresentable backgrounds.
5. They use ludicrous text that does not coincide with their background making the text unreadable.
6. They contain spelling and grammar errors.

Keeping these thumbnails in mind at the first instance is the key duty of any web designer. He must ensure that he does not indulge in any of the above faults.

Other Keep-In-Mind Points

1. Avoid Multimedia And Plug-Ins
A website is bound to loose customers if it uses pointless pug-ins and multimedia. These things can be a real nuisance.
A visitor will have to download the stuff put up by you and it will be a time consuming process. He may not get the information outright and this can tempt him to move on to other websites for more relevant content and information. You must hence, introspect if the website really needs these plug-ins. A music and entertainment website can use these things as it suits their business needs. However, in most cases plug-ins and viewers are not recommended. Also, be particular about the formats the viewers can use.
.HTML, .GIF, and .JPEG images can be fine. Sound formats like .WAV, .Au, .AIF can be handy. Do not provide PostScript document files unless you are sure that the user has a PostScript viewer.

2. Use Old Version HTML
A designer does not need to be too clever and use the latest version of HTML. Remember that most specific features do not go well with certain universal browsers. The latest versions and features can be highly attractive and useful. The may have several user-friendly interface technologies and may be far more sophisticated than the older versions. However, a webmaster needs to remember that most of the visitors do not use latest versions immediately. Therefore, he may need to use the previous version to see traffic and referrals remain good.

Two Versions Of A Website
However if a webmaster is confused about the technology to use, he may create two versions of a website: one for the new version and another for the old version browsers. This may however require a large amount of time. A webmaster must go ahead only if he has done enough research and is sure that this will be of use to the business.

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Rob Bertholf, CEO of Empowered Internet Solutions and inventor of the ZeppOS Total Site Management application, is an expert on Web Design and Content Management systems. Empowered provides ZeppOS Web Hosting and Web Design in the United States focusing on Hawaii Web Design, Florida Web Design, Oregon Web Design and California Web Design, Mississippi Web Design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/web-design.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/web-design.html Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0500 Best Web design is responsible for introducing catchy flashes, and smart punch lines, as well as, abstract layouts of graphics and many attracting images and animated tools.

Web designing can be very challenging, as the web designer is solely responsible or creating the first impression of a visitor logged on to a website. The visitor must find the work done in a simple manner, while still delivering a lot of information. CSS, HTML and XHTML are the basic designs the majority of Web designers use.

Recently, a relatively new modus operandi called Remote Scripting, has blended numerous forms of dynamic, interactive substance using E-Commerce, server-side languages such as PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) using Flash, Adobe or various specialized plug-ins.

A cheap web designer with expertise, experience and excellence keeps the following as his/her top priority while designing a website: information must be free to the extent possible; a user’s involvement is very necessary, (through clicks, etc.); frequent updates need to be made to site; provide a free email service; create a column that visitors can turn back to again and again; ensuring carefully written content with relevant keywords; user friendliness; and proper functioning of links, etc., provided by you.

Web designing has cemented itself as a concrete career path. Many students who have been active in the IT field are looking forward to promising careers. Various tools that web designers universally use are Adobe Flash, Corel draw, Photoshop and other vital software.

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Author Bio:

Rob Bertholf, CEO of Empowered Internet Solutions and inventor of the
ZeppOS Total Site Management application, is an expert on Web Design
and Content Management systems.  Empowered provides ZeppOS Web
Hosting and Web Design services for clients across the United States
focusing on Hawaii Web Design, Florida Web Design, Oregon Web Design
and California Web Design.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>