You’re faced with the challenge of selecting a Web marketing firm to build anew or enhance your current website, and the challenge seems daunting. As you begin your search you realize that there are untold numbers of SEO marketing firms competing for your attention and your dollar. So how do you narrow the field of seemingly unlimited choices to select a company that’s the right one for you?

Ideally, you will start by speaking with colleagues in your field about their experiences with marketing firms. From those conversations you will likely receive several referrals that can start you on your way toward selecting the best choice. Ask your peers pertinent questions about firms they have worked with. Were they satisfied with their work? Did they perform the appointed tasks on schedule? Was the price satisfactory, and did they feel that they got your money’s worth in the bargain? And most important of all, would you recommend the firm to others?

With several strong leads in hand, it’s time to figure out exactly what you hope the marketing firm you hire will accomplish. Without a clear idea of the work that must be done it’s difficult for a contractor to give you the solid time and price estimates that you need.

It’s most revealing to view and rate the marketing firm’s own Web sites, to see where their firm comes up when you use search engines. This is imperative if you’re hiring an SEO company to help you boost your profile by making a good showing in search engine results.

Analyze whether the marketing firm’s sites are well tailored to the functions that they are meant to perform. Do the sites have the look and feel of a sophisticated, well functioning package that gets the company’s point across effectively? You’ll want to explore these points to ensure that the firm is competent in landing page design.

Explore sites that these SEO marketers and page designers have created, and pay particular attention to whether or not the pages are individually crafted to fulfill the clients’ individual needs. Or do the sites have a one-size-fits-all feel. If the designer has stuffed clients into identical, cookie-cutter-like designs, then you probably should not expect much individualized attention to detail from that firm.

You must establish a budget, and in your case that process may be set in stone, or perhaps you have some flexibility. As you receive bids from various SEO marketing firms you’ll soon discover whether your initial goals can be paid for with the money allotted, or if you’ll need to pare back some of your more ambitious wish-list entries.

By all means ask each firm that you are considering for references. Since those companies have impressed your peers enough to earn a recommendation from them, you can assume that others will feel the same way. Be wary of marketing firms that decline to share references with you. Their reputation may have headed south in recent times, unbeknownst to your colleague who recommended them.

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Since there are a score of websites these days, there is no doubt that web design and writing good copy is something that has to be thoughtfully handled as this can result in the success or failure of a business.

While web marketing also plays an important role in this success or failure, there are some mistakes that can be made in website design or when writing copy that can annul the good work that has gone into making the website a success.

So here are a few mistakes that are commonly made when it comes to web design and copy:

Mistake #1:  Keeping your message short and simple which not extends to the website design but also the web copy as well. High-tech clutter can only chase your customers away because they don’t understand what your site is about, and can miss the product that you are trying to sell. The same goes for stuffing your site with plenty of unnecessary information in the text that is used.

Mistake #2: While using words that your targeted audience might not understand is an obvious NO-NO, the same applies for using several colors, font sizes and styles through the website. Regardless of whether it is website design or copy, you have to keep in mind what your audience will be able to understand or not before going ahead with the project.

Mistake #3: If you only mention your strongest selling point only once in the web copy that has been written while not highlighting your selling words and phrases, your message might not get through the customer when all you have to do is ensure that they know what you are selling and why it’s so good in different ways.

While most people who know what web hosting (due to their earlier experience) might have a firm grasp of the basics, there are those who are new, they will need to understand the basics that involve how much space and bandwidth they might need for their website and so on and so forth.

First and foremost, the term ‘space’ is the amount of hard disk space on the Web server, and most web hosting accounts come with a certain amount of space that ranges anywhere from 50 MB all the way to about 1000 MB.

The reason for you to need a certain amount of space depends on the type of website that you are hosting over the internet. While text might require very little space, flash animation and images often tend to occupy a lot of space.

So if you are just starting off with your website, you should try and keep the size of each page below 50 KB since there are many people who use slow dial-up connections, and so if you use a lot of images along with flash animation, this will take a long time to download.

On the other hand, bandwidth is the amount of data that you are allowed to transfer on a monthly basis, and where the factors of the number of visitors, the average size of the pages as well as the number of pages that they visit as well will be taken into account in order to arrive at an average bandwidth that you might need for your website.

Web designing is not as easy as it is made out to be. Since browser and operating system incompatibility remains one of the largest issues in this area for some time now, it has become obvious to the experienced and the rookie web designers that there are more challenges to this field than what is presented.

So here is a list of handy tips that a web designer must keep in mind in order to succeed in the field of web design:

#1: Images

While images can enhance the appeal of a webpage, it is no good trying to stuff your page with images since most users normally use a dial-up connection to surf the web.  If your page loads slowly, you can be sure they would be gone in no time. So, keep your page size to less than 30k per page.

#2: Navigation & Functionality

Regardless of whether you have created a masterpiece of a website, when the user reaches the main page, navigation and functionality can either work in your favor or not.

#3: Mystery Meat Navigation

One trick used commonly is to hide the link until the mouse hovers over it.  In applying this technique to your page, you can end up annoying your users since they will have to move their mouse all over the page to find the invisible link they are looking for.

#4: Browser-specific functions

Stay away from these as they might support one browser while not supporting the others.

#5: KISS

Just keep it simple, stupid.

If you have decided to become a retailer in the online world, there is no doubt that one has to open an e-store for a start. Since some of them might require a decent upfront investment, beginners might not necessarily be pleased with the way things turn out, so it is always advisable that one tries out a free e-store first before investing any money.

And if you have any doubts, here are some benefits that might help you to make that choice sooner rather later:

Benefit #1: First and foremost, the only expenditure when using a free e-store is that of your time, so it is always a good idea to get started this way.

Benefit #2: There won’t be any need for a developer as templates and freebies offered by the free e-store will avoid these costs as well.

Benefit #3: There will be no need to upgrade your website or even buy a hosting package in availing of e-stores.

Benefit #4: A community of e-tailers will be there to support you if you need any help.

Benefit #5: Depending on which sites you wish to use for this, one will get help indexing the products or services over the search engine for greater availability.

And while one might not be able to avail of the several options that are open to most e-tailers these days (with their own full-fledged e-store that is paid for), the truth is that in keeping your investment low, your chances of success can be that much greater.

Getting web hosting for your site is not as simple as signing up for a hosting account. There are various packages that go from under $10 a month to several hundred, and making the right choice now, could make all the difference a few months down the line.

First you get the most basic hosting package, which is usually for a single domain and limited resources such as disk space and bandwidth. This type of package is fine if you only plan on hosting one site in the short term and don’t expect it to grow rapidly. While a lot of the hosts advertise all of these packages as being unlimited, don’t expect to be able to run a heavy traffic website off the basic package. They usually use some condition in the fine print to suspend your site due to over usage of the server and insist that you upgrade to a dedicated server plan instead.

There is also the slightly higher spec version of the basic package, where the only difference is the ability to host more than one domain name. Once again, this package is good if it fits in with your short term plan. Remember that both the basic packages and even the reseller package described below, are all shared hosting packages which mean that several accounts will share the resources on a single server.

One step higher is reseller hosting, this package allows you to rebrand the hosting account and sell web hosting as if it were your own. You can brand it in every way, from the domain name, to the logo and telephone numbers within the control panel. This is only if you’re interested in reselling and is not something you should bother with if all you want to do is host your own websites.

Finally we have dedicated hosting, which is effectively renting out an entire server for your use. Use this if and only if you either plan on your site growing rapidly and serving thousands of customers a day. These packages are usually expensive, sometimes hundreds of dollars a month, but are well worth the cost.

This year’s “Design Agency of the Year” award winner is none other than internationally acclaimed web design and development company Happy Cog. Being presented the award by organizer .net Awards in London last November 18, Happy Cog Founder and Executive Creative Director Jeffrey Zeldman proudly accepted the honor along with Happy Cog presidents Greg Hoy and Grey Storey. Their company was voted for online by their fellow members of the web design and development industry, and topped the list of candidates as Design Agency of the Year passing scrutiny by a panel of experts.

The panel of judges includes web design and development experts from top firms such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe, Opera, and AKQA. Zeldman gives immense credit to his team of highly talented creative designers and design experts, as well as his company’s customers who put into high priority users’ demands and needs, for winning the award. Apart from the top award, the founder was also awarded the Standards Champion award for his continued advocacy of accessible design, his third in a row, and the Video Podcast of the Year award along with his co-host Dan Benjamin.

The company also won four Interactive Media Awards in December for having worked on projects with Zappos.com and VisitPhilly.com. The awarding body, .net Awards, recognizes the best and brightest in the web design and development industry. Candidates are judged based on a mix of public opinions as well as ideas from none other than the industry’s leading experts throughout the field of design.

There are various web development tools out there that are available for business looking to build online. One such software that offers a lot of versatility is Dreamweaver by Adobe. Using the program does not require excessive attention to HTML source code. However, it is an advantage for web developers to have anywhere from basic to in-depth knowledge to make full use of the program to build websites. Therefore, basic understanding of HTML tags is necessary to facilitate troubleshooting of websites during post production.

HTML tags are simply a matter of opening and closing HTML commands. For example, to apply a font type to a specific stretch of copy, the tags <font> and </font> are used at the beginning and end of the copy respectively. Absence of either tag will render the HTML command incomplete, and thus cause errors in the HTML source code. While errors in tagging may not prevent a HTML from running, it will result in unintended results that will cause a web page to appear broken.

It is possible to use several HTML tags in a single portion of copy using the technique called “nesting”. Nesting tags simply means putting a set of tags within a set of tags. For example, bold tags <b> and </b> can be placed inside the copy that uses an earlier font tag. Just as long the order of tagging follows the right pattern, then the resultant HTML source code should not show any error. Thus, the web designer has to ensure all open tags are closed throughout the entire source code.

Correct HTML coding is also important for SEO and Google may penalize your rankings slightly if you do not use correct HTML tags.

The web is a wonderful place with lots of opportunities for development, especially if you have a little bit of knowledge and know how to apply it properly. The ability to write web applications can be a great skill that will make your computer related tasks so much easier, and may even lead to you sharing it with others who have the same needs.

The first basic step to writing a good web application, is to find a free template. The reason you are looking for a free one is because in the beginning you may not have mapped out all the details of what you want yet, and this gives you plenty of wiggle room. Even if the template you use isn’t perfect, and it probably won’t be, you have the option of modifying the code to your specifications. This can take some time depending on how familiar you are with the language that the template was written in.

There are many different web languages for designing applications, but by limiting yourself to editing and modifying basic code that others have written, you will be learning the language without burning yourself out and getting engulfed in the complexities. 

Some form of visual software will come in handy as well, these can be downloaded for free if you look for a highly rated one. Your purpose is not to be a graphic designer, but you will still find yourself having to deal with the visual aspect of the app nonetheless.

Working as freelance web designer can be rewarding and frustrating at the same time. And most of this depends on the clients that you have, and how your working relationships with them are. And so, as most folks will know that the ones you enjoy working with can be broadly classified as ‘good clients’ while the others, are well, unfortunately ‘bad clients’ that you wish you hadn’t met.

So, here are some early signs that can help you determine whether a client will be easy to work with or now:

1. No Supplies

If a client does not supply you with images, content and hosting among other things, then it’s most probable that you will not meet the agreed timeline, leading to other issues, particularly financial. After all, time is money… and your time is valuable too!

1. Too picky

If a client complains about your initial mock ups by saying that they hate, it’s probable that a line has been crossed and it’s time to call it quits.

1. Delays in Payments or is looking for someone who will work for low wages

If your client is looking for a bargain or doesn’t pay on time after several repeated requests, then it’s time to say good bye because as the ‘bargaining’ part, you will be working for lesser and feel ‘cheated’ in a way and as for the non-payment part, it’s like working for free.

1. Doesn’t stick to the contract

Some clients who want to get the most out of you will continue to add new things as they go, and therefore it’s advisable that one gets a contract in place. If this happens despite a clear contract, then it’s time to go.