The Degerstrom Family Genealogy Websites

A recently launched website on my Degerstrom family genealogy has been launched along with a matching blog and family tree page. This website documents one branch of the Degerstrom family name from Maine with the help from my father, Jim Degerstrom, his brother Ed Degerstrom, and Leif Persson in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Degerstrom Genealogy website features the Swedish branch and history of the Degerstrom family from Maine. The other branches are covered in Degerstrom.org, known as the Degerstrom International Family Page including Peder, Petter, Gabriel, Carl, Fredrik, Jacob and Per Degerstrom. Myself and my father are descendants of our root ancestor Peder Danielsson born in Ranea, Sweden in 1560.

Genealogy is a great way to see the history of your family and understand where you come from. Some great genealogy websites include RootsWeb, My Heritage, US Gen Web Project, FamilySearch, and also very useful for research would be The 50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites for 2009 and Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet.

Tags: degerstrom, genealogy, genealogy website, website

Spell Check Your Website

Spell check your website because when your readers do not find mistakes in your spelling, chances are they will trust your online content more than if they had. Besides using the automatic spell checker in your blog dashboard or on the Wordpad you use to prepare website pages, you could utilize TextTrust’s online web page spellchecker to find your spelling errors on your website and blog.

TextTrust is a free trial that scans your entire website for spelling errors, therefore preventing you from overlooking embarrassing mistakes. This tool is free, fast, automated, easy to use, and may be the key to a website that is free from inaccurate spelling. TextTrust could be especially helpful if you have a large 100+ page website. Simply visit TextTrust for a free trial spell check of your website and you will receive the results by email.

Keep your website free from errors so your visitors will know you pay attention to details. Don't be embarrassed by simple spelling mistakes anymore. Have your website scanned for spelling errors today, and have a look at my website page about Spell checking Your Website.

Tags: automatic spellcheck automatic spell check mistake spell spellcheck spell check spellchecker spell checker spelling

Calculating the Distance Between Cities

Finding the distance between cities is rather easy with the resources that are online now. Free distance calculator websites can be used anytime you would like to plan long trips or just calculate the distance between cities.

Simply choose a starting city and destination city and these distance calculator websites estimate the distance between the two either in kilometers or miles. In some cases these sites can even calculate the distance between cities either driving or as a straight line.

Most of these distance calculators now support locations worldwide, not just within the US. These services are provided for free with unlimited access. TravelMath Flight Distance Calculator also offers other options such as flight time, closest airport, driving or flight distance, drive time, hotels in the area, major cities, time difference, fuel costs of driving, flight emissions and latitude/longitude.

Here are a few popular distance calculator websites:

ConvertIt Driving Distance Calculator
Infoplease Distance Calculator
GeoBytes City Distance Tool
MapCrow
Symsys Mileage Calculator
TravelMath Flight Distance Calculator
World Atlas Travel Distance Calculator

Tags: distance between cities distance distance calculator

Internet Uses for Your Cell Phone

There are so many websites online that allow you to do things with your cellular mobile phone. Some of the things I have found that you can do with your cell phone through the internet include scheduling free text message reminders, finding the answers to difficult questions, converting MP3's to ringtones, and downloading pictures, music, books, videos, ringtones and games.

View these mobile phone related websites for things you can do right from your mobile phone.

Try out BeamIt to download pictures, music, videos, docs and any other file to your cellphone/iPhone. Bitbom is a useful tool that lets you schedule free text message reminders to your mobile phone either online or using mobile. CallTheFuture allows you to Schedule text messages to be delivered as a voicemail on any desired date in the future. GameJump is a mobile phone website that has loads of free games for mobile phones. To forward anything you find on the web to any mobile phone for free, use GoogleSendToPhone. Jott is a simple and convenient service for leaving yourself notes and todo reminders using your mobile phone. Text questions from your mobile phone and receive answers with Mosio. You can download ringtones, games and wallpapers for your mobile phone with Sendme Mobile. Soonr allows you to access your PC or any other PC remotely with your mobile phone. Schedule and receive wake up phone calls, weather forcasts, reminders, jokes, and more with TelePixie. TellMe is a free local directory service for maps and directions of business listings sent to your mobile phone.

Have a look at many more mobile phone related websites in my resources section of this website.

Tags: cell phone phone mobile phone mobile phone related mobile phone related phone related phone related website website

Identify Foreign Languages Online

Sometimes translating a language online could be difficult if you don't know what language you are trying to translate. These language detecting tools make the task much easier by telling you the name of that foreign language. Then once you identify what language you are trying to translate from, you could use these tools to translate text and website pages.

Simply copy and paste the text into the search box of these language identifiers in order to be on your way to translating unidentified foreign languages. Some of the most popular tools I have found online include Google Translate, Whatlanguageisthis.com, and Polyglot 3000.

Of these three tools for translating text, Polyglot 3000 can recognize the most languages overall, about 400. This is the only downloadable desktop tool of the three, so you don't need to be online to use it. All three of these foreign language detectors are free to use for an unlimited amount of time.

Tags: foreign foreign language language language identifier translate

RapidShare's Online File Transfer

RapidShare's online file transfer system is both free and easy to use. Ususally trying to send large files via email could be a problem because most services only allow files of about 10 megabytes at a time to be attached to an email. RapidShare makes it possible to send up to 200 megabytes at a time to anyone you want to online.

Instead of sending a large amount of files in multiple emails to someone, RapidShare makes it easy to send the entire group at once. This free service is easy to use and even has an online video tutorial that makes it even easier.

Simply upload a file and send the link to the person you want to send the file to, and you can delete your files any time you like. Read more about RapidShare in the resources section of Coderepair. Take advantage of this easy and free way to transfer files online.

Tags: file file transfer free rapidshare

Write Articles to Promote Your Business

Besides writing blog posts, adding website pages and submitting to directories for inbound links, it could be to your advantage to write articles to promote your website. By writing articles about your business niche you can get more backlinks to your website, increase visitor traffic, and receive more exposure for free.

Write often to increase traffic and keep it interesting for your readers. Give your website visitors a reason to visit regularly. When you constantly offer new content, your website growth shows. When you write articles to be published by online article publishing companies, your website gets more exposure, more links to you are avaliable online, and you may find you get more traffic than usual. Growth in online traffic is to your advantage because chances are that with more exposure, you could get more business by potential customers.

I've been writing more articles lately because I notice the backlinks I get from it is growing more and more. It's important to write within your business niche about things your potential customers would like to learn about. Keeping them interested in your website could get you referrals to other potential clients as well. The more you write, the more exposure you could get.

Here are a few sites I have recently been published on:

Acme Articles
Articlebliss
Articleclick
Articledashboard
Articlefeeder
Articleland
Articlerich
Articlesbase
Articlesnatch
Articlesrightnow
Amazines
Earticlesonline
Ezinearticles
Ezineseeker
Ideamarketers
Upublish Articles

Tags: article article publish increased traffic publish strategy website website design

Checking Your Inbound Links

You can check your website's inbound links online with a domain inbound links checker. By finding out what other websites are linking to your website, you can figure out which methods of establishing backlinks that you are using are actually yielding results.

Backlinks, or inbound links, are incoming links to a website that are an indication of the popularity of your website page. More websites that link to you is an indication of approval online, and can lead to increased traffic to your website.

I have compiled a list of free directories to submit your website for inbound links, it's free and easy to do. You could also have a look at my blog post on how to submit to free directories for inbound links.

Simply go through each directory link one at a time and find the niche that your website would fit into. Once you navigate there, on each website, you can click on "submit url", "submit links" or "suggest a site" either at the top or bottom of the webpage. Then there will be a form to fill out including your name and email, the URL, title, description and keywords of your website, and perhaps a category your business fits into. Submit the form after filling in captchas, choosing "free regular link" and making sure it is complete. By tracking your stats as well, you can see how much your website visitor count goes up.

Check the inbound links to your website and find out what other websites are linking to you. Backlink Watch is a free tool to find out exactly what websites are giving your site inbound links.

Tags: backlink inbound link website

Mistakes That Make Your Website Hard to Read

This post is dedicated to some common mistakes that may make your website hard to read. A hard to read website can send your website visitors away to other pages listed in their index of search results. The idea of having a website is keeping your visitors on your page and getting them interested enough in your products or services to contact you. Avoiding these common mistakes that make your website hard to read may help.

Appropriate contrast between text and background is important so your content can be read easily. You don't want your website visitors squinting to see what you write, so make text as readable as possible with high contrast against the background.

Don't tire out your reader by writing long paragraphs. By breaking up the text into shorter paragraphs and using headings to break up the page, you give your reader the ability to scan your website page much easier.

Avoid using wide columns so your reader's eye doesn't get lost following a long line of text. Divide your text into multiple columns or use right and left margins to fit everything on the screen.

Highlighting with bold, italics, bullet points and hyperlinks can break up your paragraphs as well. Draw your readers into your website by linking to other pages that have a common theme with what you are writing about.

Avoid long website pages and using too many navigation links because this is just too much for the reader to take in. Keeping a minimum of links could keep your readers from being overwhelmed by so much to choose from.

Avoid these mistakes that make your website hard to read and you may find that your visitors will stay on your website longer when you track your stats. Visitors that stay on your website longer are more likely to use your products and services because they are impressed with how comfortable your website makes them feel.

Read more on related subjects on my blog:

Benefits of Blog Tags and Labels
Small Business Website Navigation
Stickiness for Effective Websites
Small Business Website Home Page Advice
The 7 Best Website Optimization Techniques
Tracking Website Statistics
10 Ways to Come Up With Blog Post Ideas
Networking to Boost Business
Choosing Proper Keywords and Key Phrases

Tags: mistakes text visitors website

Using Websites to Answer Questions

When you have a question on a topic, a question/answer website could come in useful to answer that question. Knowing where to look for answers could make the search for that question much shorter. Yahoo Answers is one of many question/answer websites that can help you when Google or other search engines can't.

Yahoo Answers is where people ask questions on any topic and share opinions, facts and personal experiences to get answers. You can search for answers to questions by most popular, categories, and even do an advanced search for your topic. When the search for the answer to your question is made simple, you can get back to your projects swiftly.

Have a look at my website page in the resources section entitled Use Yahoo Answers for Any Questions You Have.

Try Yahoo Answers now

Some other question/answer websites:

Answerbag.com
Answers.com
Blurtit.com
LinkedIn Answers

Tags: answer question website

Personal Information Search Resource

Just recently added to my resources section of my website is this Resources for Searching Personal Information website page. Whether looking for someone you haven't talked to in a while or searching to find a business you're trying to get a hold of, online information can be easy to obtain if you know where to look.

These useful tools can be helpful finding people by name, address, phone number, email, social security, area code, IP address and check criminal, death, divorce background or property records. When you want to trace someone online, these useful Resources for Searching Personal Information can come in handy.

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Webmaster Tools
Website Design Tools
Tools For Search Engine Optimization
Useful Web Design Resources
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools
Web Browser Add Ons

Tags: information online information personal personal info resource search website

SEO Tools For Webdesign's Cutting Edge

Using SEO tools for website design can give you the cutting edge over your competition. When you keep track of these properties of your website, you may be indexed more often with search engines. When your website is indexed better by search engines, the amount of your website visitors may increase in turn creating a greater number or potential customers.

SEO Tools from Tools For Search Engine Optimization:

Alexa Ranking Tool
Backlink Builder
Backlink Anchor Text Analysis
Backlink Summary
Check Yahoo WebRank
Domain Age Tool
Domain Stats Tool
Keyword Density Checker
Keyword Playground
Keyword-Rich Domain Suggestion Tool
Link Price Calculator
Reciprocal Link Check
Redirect Check
Search Engine Spider Simulator
Similar Page Checker
URL Rewriting Tool
Website Keyword Suggestions
Website to Country

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Webmaster Tools
Website Design Tools
Useful Web Design Resources
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools
Web Browser Add Ons

Tags: backlink domain keyword keyword density link rank stats tool website

Tips on Analyzing and Evaluating Websites

To use a website, sometimes you need to evaluate and make sure that the website is worth using. The following are some of the ways to evaluate a website quickly and easily so you can feel confident about trusting them.

Consider the website's first impressions, that it looks good and catches your attention. The purpose for the website should be clear whether it's for goods or services.

The pages of the website should be clear, easy to comprehend, and not too cluttered with text and images. Colors that clash should be avoided and the font size should be clear and readable.

The content should be current and up-to-date. Check whether the website's blog has been written on recently, and that all information is recent and accurate. Checking the information given can give you a clear concept of the owner's level of expertise.

Have a look at the navigation of the website you are evaluating. When you roll over the links at the top or left hand side, you should see the landing page at the bottom of your browser.

The website should have contact details on the home page such as phone numbers, email address, and business address, giving a personal feel for the website you are evaluating.

In the search engine you use, change the keywords a few times to see if you can still find that company with just a small amount of information.

By checking when the domain was registered, you can see how legitimate the website is. The age of the domain is an indicator of a trustable website because generally, a legitimate website should be registered for at least a year or two.

Checking the traffic rank of the website could indicate it's value. These websites are useful to check traffic rank:
Alexa.com
Compete.com
Quantcast.com

By evaluating websites for online value, you can feel more comfortable online by knowing who to trust. You can analyze a website with “Who Is” from GoDaddy.com.

Check the Page Rank for a Website

Tags: evaluate online trust website

Webmaster Tools for a Leading Edge

Use these Webmaster Tools on your website to monitor your pagerank, paid links, competition's keywords and much more to keep the leading edge in website design.

Here's a list of Website Design Webmaster Tools:

Adsense Preview Tool- Find adsense ads connected with a website
Browser Checker- Check info passed to the server by your browser
DoFollow Blogs Search Engine- Find blogs without a nofollow tag in comments
Google Pagerank Checker- Bulk check of Googlerank
HTML Code Obfuscator- Encode your mailto links
HTML Encoder- Encode your HTML
Keyword Density Analyzer- Find the keywords used by your competitors
Online .htpasswd Generator- Generate a password restricting file and folder access
Paid Links Detector- Detect if paid links are in a website
Search Engine Update Monitor- Find out when search engines change algorithms
Site Information Tool- View pagerank and whois info

Find out more about Website Design Webmaster Tools

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Tools
Tools For Search Engine Optimization
Useful Web Design Resources
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools
Web Browser Add Ons

Tags: tool webmaster tools website website design

Over a Hundred Website Design Glossaries

By having multiple glossaries to reference for terms you may not be comfortable with in website design, you may better comprehend when reading up on subjects your competition won't bother to. Use my Enormous Glossary Reference to stay on the leading edge in website design terms in a multitude of categories.

The categories of terms covered by my Enormous Glossary Reference include:
CMS Glossaries
CSS, (X)HTML, DOM and JavaScript Glossaries
Graphic Design Glossaries
Marketing Glossaries
Print Design Glossaries
SEO Glossaries
Social Media Glossaries
Software Development Glossaries
Twitter Glossaries
Typography Glossaries
Usability, UX and IA Glossaries
Web Design Glossaries

Under each category is an entire list of subcategories as well. Use this as a reference or bookmark my Enormous Glossary Reference as a favorite for your researching endeavors in website design.

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Webmaster Tools
Tools For Search Engine Optimization
Website Design Tools
Useful Web Design Resources
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools
Web Browser Add Ons

Tags: cms css glossary graphic html marketing print seo social media typography usability web design

Use Different Browsers for Cross-Compatibility

Use different website browsers for cross-compatibility to see how a website will display differently in each. Have a look in my resources section at Different Website Browsers for Cross-Compatibility for options to download multiple browsers whether you use a Mac or a PC.

By using different website browsers surfing the internet you may find that certain features give you a more positive experience in certain website browsers.

Webdesigners utilize multiple website browsers to find out whether a site is cross-compatible, meaning it displays properly in each website browser. When your website displays properly in different website browsers, your visitor gets to see your site in the way you intended:

Downloadable website browsers for PC:
Internet Explorer 8
Google Chrome
Opera
Firefox
Safari

Visit Different Website Browsers for Cross-Compatibility for a list of alternate downloadable browsers including those for the Mac.

Have a look at these other Resources for Web Design:

Website Design Webmaster Tools
Website Design Tools
Useful Web Design Resources
Other Free Useful Resources Online
Useful Computer Maintenance Tools
Web Browser Add Ons

Tags: browser internet mac website browser website

Submit to Free Directories for Inbound Links

I have compiled a list of Free Directories to Submit Your Website for Inbound Links which could be useful to get more traffic to your website. Inbound links are an important measure for ranking a website and is just like free advertising.

Simply go through each directory link one at a time and find the niche that your website would fit into. Once you navigate there, on each website, you can click on "submit url", "submit links" or "suggest a site" either at the top or bottom of the webpage. Then there will be a form to fill out including your name and email, the URL, title, description and keywords of your website, and perhaps a category your business fits into. Submit the form after filling in captchas, choosing "free regular link" and making sure it is complete. If you want to put a reciprocal link on your website to them you can, and it may expedite the process of being listed in each directory. Some add your website immediately and others may take longer, but getting free inbound links without using deceitful means for SEO is the proper way of going about it.

Submit to these free directories for inbound links to get more traffic to your website. By tracking your stats as well, you can see how much your website visitor count goes up. Also try this Domain Inbound Links Checker which is a free website that analyzes inbound links and shows the domains of backlinks.

Have a look on my webpage on this inbound links checker.

Tags: directory free directories inbound link website

Shorten URLs for Social Media

To shorten URLs for social media, my choice is Tinyurl.com. There are many websites that offer URL shortening options, and many people don't realize that URLs can be shortened.

Sometimes when you post URL's in an email it will break up forcing the recipient to cut and paste it back together. By using tinyurl.com this won't be a problem anymore and the shortened URLs never expire.

Of course Twitter has automatic URL shortening options if you use Tweetdeck, but when not using that application, shortening URL's can be rather easy when you know where to go.

Here are 10 more URL shortening websites to choose from:
Cligs Zima Bitly Twurl Is.gd Snipurl Poprl Adjix Trim Budurl

More on TinyURLs in my Resources Section:
Shorten URL's With Tinyurl.com

Tags: short url social media tinyurl url

Free Video Conversion Software Download

Converting video to formats intended for other video devices is easy with DVD Videosoft Free Studio. This single package free download bundles all free software from DVDVideoSoft to work with DVD, video and audio files.

By converting video from Youtube and your computer to your iPod, iPhone, PSP, and other devices, it's easier to bring with you wherever you go. This single download from DVD Videosoft makes it possible to change from different formats to different devices, including audio, cd, dvd, iPhone, iPod, PSP, video and Youtube.

With this free software you can convert:

•Youtube to iPod
•Youtube to PSP
•Youtube to MP3
•Video to Flash
•Video to iPod
•Video to PSP
•Video to iPhone
•Youtube to iPhone
•Video to MP3
•3GP Video to Computer

Also Free:

•Video and Audio dubs
•Youtube Uploader
•Video Flip/Rotate Function
•Audio Converter
•Audio CD burner
•Disc Burner
•Video to JPG Converter
•Video to DVD Converter
•DVD Video Burner
•DVD Decrypter

Find more about DVD Videosoft Free Studio in my resource pages.

Tags: audio cd dvd dvdvideosoft iphone ipod video youtube

Translate Text and Website Pages

Whether you have a single word, entire document or an entire website page to translate, Babelfish and Dictionary.com’s online translator can come in handy with your translation needs. Translate single words or full text and website pages into 43 languages from or into English with the Babelfish Online Text and Web Page Translator and Dictionary.com Translator.

Babelfish Online Translator
Babelfish can translate English from and to Chinese, French, Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish or Portuguese.

Dictionary.com’s Online Translator
With Dictionary.com’s online translator, you can translate over 50 languages including Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Japanese and Spanish available for free online translation. Translate up to 2,000 characters at once with this free website.

Read my website page on Translating Text and Website Pages

Also try these other free resources:

Dictionary.com online dictionary
Thesaurus.com, the largest and most trusted free thesaurus online
Full Text Translator from Reference.com
Encyclopedia from Reference.com

Other References:
Glossary of Internet and Computer Terms
Saugus Glossary of Computer Terms
Glossary of Internet and Computer Terms
Matisse's Glossary of Internet Terms
BABEL: A Glossary of Computer Oriented Acronyms
Every File Extension in the World
Enormous Website Design Glossary Reference

Tags: online translator translate translate text translator

Benefits of Using a Custom 404 Error Default Page

It's helpful to have a custom 404 error default page that allows the visitor to continue navigation on your small business website. Rather than having the default error page come up when a visitor types the address improperly, a custom error default page allows the visitor to continue navigation within your website instead of having them continue to the next site in search results. This may aid your website visitors by giving them the option to continue on to other sections of your website instead of continuing on to another site indexed in search results.

A custom 404 error default page can have the same look as the other pages of your website to keep visitors from exiting right away. By using a custom error default page that has the same links across the top, your visitor can continue naviation within your website. It's always better to have one more potential customer staying on your small business website instead of losing them.

By making a custom 404 error default page you'll increase stickiness, aid potential customers in navigation on your website on improper links, and hold the interest of your visitor with your own custom website page. This can keep small business website owners from losing visitors, and turn them into potential customers instead.

See My Custom 404 Error Default Page

Tags: business website custom custom 404 custom 404 error default page default page error default page error default potential customer small business small business website website

Color Reference Tools for Website Design

Color reference tools for website design can be useful to come up with color schemes for a website, names for hexadecimal values and vice versa.

Finding out HTML color values in hexadecimal notation, putting together color themes and identifying color names is necessary for coming up with website templates. With these free tools for website design you can easily pick and choose the hues that suit the color palette for your small business website.

By using color generators, schemers and color value identifiers you'll find coming up with an aesthetically pleasing website design can be fast and easy.

Have a look at the Color Finder page on this website for these and other color reference tools for website design.

Tags: color color generator color reference color reference tool color scheme color value website website design

Add a Google Search Function to Your Website

Adding a Google search function to your website can be useful because finding something on a site that's large can sometimes be difficult. Google search functions give your visitor the ability to find exactly what they are looking for on your website without being discouraged by having to hunt for it.

Adding a Google searchbox to your website can make it easier to navigate your small business website. Visitors will tend to stay longer on your site if they can find what they are looking for easily. Adding a Google searchbox is as easy as copying and pasting the code into your HTML. If you don't feel comfortable with doing it yourself, just have your webdesigner do this for you.

By adding a Google search function to your website, visitors may stay longer, therefore giving you a better chance of turning them into potential customers, and perhaps even clients. Adding a Google searchbox may be the touch your website needs to keep the traffic that lands on your website coming back.

Let your users search your website with Google Site Search
Add a Google Map to your business
Learn how to Add a Google Searchbox to your website
More about Adding a Google Searchbox to Your Website

Also read my blog post on Site Maps for Your Website and Add a Google Map To Your Website

Tags: google search google searchbox searchbox search function website

Announcing New Website Design Launches

By announcing new website design launches or projects for your small business, you can drive more traffic to your website. This approach could get you more customers because another post adds one more page you can be indexed by search engines.

Every time I launch a new website I announce it on my small business website blog in order to advertise what projects have been recently completed. The advantage is that people either in that business or looking for related topics may land on my website and see what I can do for them. In some rare cases I've found my site even ranked higher for a post I've written than the website I designed for my customer. My post then links to the customer that it was originally written to promote.

By announcing new projects for your small business website, you can promote yourself more, get more visitors to your website and eventually turn those visitors into paying customers.

Blog Post Launch Announcements:

Custom CMS Redesign Project Launch-CDA Alliance
Florida Aluminum Awnings Website Launch-Haggetts Aluminum
Custom CMS Design LLC Family Sites

Tags: announcing new website new website small business small business website website design website design launch

Analyze Website Info With "Who Is"

It's useful to analyze website registration information with Who-Is to find out who owns the site and which domain servers are being used. When potential customers have an existing website created by another company, I like to see whether it was put in the customer's registration information or if it's being withheld by the company they had make the site for them.

Whois.com can be used to find out:

•The Registrant-the person owning the website
•The company the website is registered through
•Domain Servers in listed order

Many companies who create websites don't give control to the owner for the website, so then the customer becomes obligated to pay the monthly fee that the company charges. This doesn't let the so-called "owner" have control of the website, and they end up having to pay for changes each time.

The difference with my system is that when I make a website for you, the registration becomes yours, so you own it. And even better, with a CMS (Content Management System) you can add and change content without paying a web designer each time you want edits done. Investing time instead of money is a great advantage of Content Management.

Useful Resources:

Find the Value of a Website With Website Outlook
Analyze a Website With Website Grader

Other Website Evaluation sites:

Sootle Directory for checking a website's value

Written Posts:

Review of Website Grader
Find the Value of Your Website
Custom CMS Website Design Advantages

Tags: content management registration website whois

Website Advertising to Attract Customers

When you advertise your website, you'll find more people will find you, giving you more potential customers for your small business. Sometimes small business owners will launch a site and forget that putting it on their printed material and company vehicle is necessary to attract business.

When you get a new website, the address needs to be added to business cards, printed material and perhaps even on company vehiicles. If you have a new website for your small business and don't advertise it's address, it's almost like having no website at all. Chances are your website traffic will not be very high until you add it's address to your business cards and pass them out as often as possible.

When you add a new website for your small business, adding the address to printed material is necessary to attract business. Soon you could soon have more visitors, potential customers, and income by advertising your small business website as many ways as possible.

Another post about promoting your small business website:

Networking to Boost Business

Tags: business small business small business website website

Find the Value of Your Website

Find the value of your website or any others with Website Outlook. Website outlook is good to evaluate the value for a website whether you're buying or selling a website. It's free and gives you unlimited access for finding the monetary value of any website you would like to research.

Find out some more information for researching websites with these pages on CodeRepair:

Find the Value of a Website With Website Outlook
Analyze a Website With Who-Is From GoDaddy.com
Analyze a Website With Website Grader

Tags: who is website outlook website grader website

Custom CMS Website Design Advantages

The custom CMS website design advantages offered by CodeRepair make us the obvious choice for website design. By choosing CodeRepair to handle your website design, you'll find the advantages far outweigh our competition. By using a custom CMS website design, you'll have more control over the look and content of your website.

CMS Website Design is short for Content Management System. Content management systems have many advantages over static web pages, and CodeRepair can make it a reality for your business.

Adding content often is important to have a well functional small business website. The idea is to be indexed by search engines, attract traffic to your website, and turn that traffic into paying customers. That's what custom CMS website design with CodeRepair is all about.

A custom CMS website design gives the small business website owner the option of adding pages without hiring a webdesigner, so you invest your time, not your money. Even if you don't have the time to write content, the option is still there for you to hire someone else to do so.

Custom CMS website design systems create web pages in perfect or near perfect HTML code, therefore enhancing your load time and search engine indexing. This can help you receive more traffic, and more potential customers.

By letting the experts at Coderepair handle your webdesign, you'll find you're getting a website worth $5,000 to $10,000 for a fraction of the cost. For more about our package options, visit our custom website design pages on this site.

Tags: cms content management system custom cms search engine small business small business website webdesign web page website website design

Benefits of Valid Code

The benefits and importance of valid code may seem insignificant to websites that are in the top rankings, but think of how much better these websites would be indexed with perfect (X)HTML valid code.

Having valid code with no errors prevents browsers from auto-correcting your code, so you don't end up with a broken layout. Pages will load faster when a website has valid code because the browser doesn't have to think as much. Valid code ensures your website will display properly today and on future devices as well. Also, Google and other search engines tend to put websites with valid code higher in the rankings, above those that do not. Finally, websites with valid code are considered accessible to most types of platforms, browsers and screen readers.

There is no replacement for having perfect (X)HTML code in your website. When you run a check for validation and get that green bar, you know it's a job well done. Also, having valid code in (X)HTML on your website can give you that edge needed to place higher in the rankings of search engines. Giving my customers websites with perfect code is a practice I base my reputation upon.

Validate HTML and CSS with these websites:
CSS Validator
HTML Validator
W3 HTML Validator

For more on this subject read my article
"The Benefits of Perfect XHTML Code"

Tags: code html valid code website

Keyword Tracking For SEO

Keyword tracking for SEO helps regulate which keywords should be used to gain traffic for your website. By thinking about what potential clients would search to find your products and services, small business website owners can direct more traffic to their website. Keyword tracking tools can aid in the research necessary to drive more traffic to a website.

Some Keyword Tracking Tools for SEO Include:

•Wordtracker
•Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
•Google AdWords Keyword Tool
•NicheBot
•Overture Keyword Popularity Tool
•Free Google Suggest Tool
•Good Keywords

Some Related Blog Posts on SEO:

Benefits of Blog Tags and Labels
Keyword Optimization Tips
Stickiness for Effective Websites
Natural Methods for SEO
The 7 Best Website Optimization Techniques
Choosing Proper Keywords and Key Phrases

Read more about Search Engine Optimization and view these Keyword Research Resources

Tags: keyword keyword tracking keyword tools seo tracking tools

The Benefits and Importance of Code Validation

Realizing the importance of code validation for website pages is very important for web designers. By realizing the reasons behind having perfect code, small business website owners can take advantage of the rewards of having perfect code in the HTML and CSS of their web pages.

Validation checks your documents for code errors from standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. Browsers auto-correct website code, but each one does it in a different way, so web designers need to keep this in mind to avoid broken layouts in certain browsers. Pages render faster for websites with valid code, therefore the website pages tend to load faster, and websites with valid code are more accessible to all types of browsers, screen readers and platforms. Google tends index pages with valid HTML and CSS, so valid code is a good way to be higher in search engine rankings. Finally, having valid code today helps insure that your website will work with technologies that haven't even been invented yet.

Realizing the importance of code validation in webdesign can help small business website owners' websites load faster, be more accessible, get indexed more often, and work on devices invented in the future. Web design with proper code validation may help your website reap the rewards that could bring the traffic you need to succeed.

Validate HTML and CSS with these websites:
CSS Validator
HTML Validator
W3 HTML Validator

For more on this subject see "The Benefits of Perfect XHTML Code"

Tags: code code validation css html small business small business website valid code webdesign website website owner web page

Visitors Into Customers-A Call To Action

The idea of driving traffic to a website is not only to get them there. What do you want them to do once they are there? The plan should be to give your potential customer a "Call to Action" and answer the question: "What can this company do for me?"

Your website has to be there to help solve a problem for your potential customer. They have to think that your product or service can undoubtedly make their life easier. Lay out the benefits of your company, and the disadvantages of being without your product or service. Make plans in your writing and marketing strategies to draw your traffic in and make them interested in what you are all about.

Stickiness and natural methods of SEO should be used to drive traffic to your website, and turn them into return customers. By giving your website visitors benefits of your product or service, the chance of having more return customers could be greater.

Related Articles:
Key Fundamentals of Website Content
Small Business Website Home Page Advice
Obtaining a Winning Website
The Importance of Market Branding
The Best 7 Website Optimization Techniques

Tags: customer website

Website Design Choices for Small Business

Website design choices for small business are very important to begin an online relationship with potential customers and clients. Using a large company for your website design project may not always be the way to go. I can't count how many times I've seen these corporates use bad SEO strategies to design websites for their customers. Sometimes they put the administrative contact in their own name instead of the website owner's and have multiple errors on webpages such as missing keywords, descriptions and titles. I've even noticed these company sites with errors and warnings on their own main page, something a common visitor wouldn't notice.

People get charged exorbitant amounts for monthly hosting, like $40 to $100, when it should that much should be for a YEAR of hosting. They see a website online and think it's the best thing since sliced bread, not realizing that it may not bring any traffic at all, and in Google's eyes is like a blank sheet of paper. People think "I got a big name company doing my work and they are in the top ten, they must know what they're doing", when in actuality, it's the small webdesign companies like myself who are going to take the time and effort to make sure your projects are done correctly.

Your website design choice for small business is not one you want to make more than once. In conclusion, be careful who you pick and don't be afraid to ask questions to your website designer. If they don't want to make you the administrative contact or discuss SEO value for your website, you may want to find someone else.

Tags: design small business website design website

Advantages of CMS In Website Design

The advantages of CMS in website design revolves around the option for a small business website owner to add content as often as desired. Unfortuantely, I find about 9 of 10 small business website owners do not add content even when given this opportunity, due to the busy schedule of running a business.

By using a CMS system to give small business website owners access to add original content as often as needed, the website owner can add or edit existing content to keep their website up-to-date. Adding content means more pages are added to the site, whether it's in a blog or main site content, and more pages helps a website rise up in the rankings of search engines. This feature of CMS can then only become a positive feature for a website owner is if it is taken advantage of.

By giving the small business website owner the option to add content as often as possible, new pages are added to the site. New pages means more indexing by search engines and therefore a better chance of rising up in search rankings.

Tags: cms content small business website small business website owner website website owner

Whitehat SEO and Blackhat SEO Methods

Comparing whitehat SEO and blackhat SEO methods involves understanding of the terms. Picture the good guy and the villain in old western film. The difference in whitehat and blackhat SEO are comparatively the same.

Whitehat techniques use usability to give a website page better standings in search engines by keeping the user in mind with no tricks for deceptive means of rank boosting. Whitehat SEO methods are more favored and usually have longer lasting effects than other methods.

Blackhat methods use tricks to get SEO results, such as buying backlinks to a website. Google's algorithm's can detect whether linked sites are relevant to each other, and may ban websites that use these practices. Websites that use Blackhat SEO methods usually don't last very long, and aren't good for long-term SEO results.

In comparing whitehat and blackhat methods for SEO, obviously whitehat methods outweigh blackhat ones. It may take more time to use proper actions to help your website's SEO, but in the long run it will be well worth it. Don't let the end justify the means because Google punishes deceptive promotion practices and can ban a website for it.

Tags: blackhat google seo website whitehat

Tracking Website Statistics

Tracking website statistics is important research for any small business website owner to make choices about the interests of the buyer. By analyzing traffic data such as how people arrive on your website, how long they spent on your page, the volume of traffic and trends for your visitors, small business website owners can adjust their online marketing strategies.

If visitors tend to "bounce" quickly from your site, the reason may be because your website doesn't have enough ."Stickiness". This could mean the website doesn't answer the question, "What can this website offer me?" The website needs to fulfill a need for the visitor, and give them a reason to inquire in your services.

If you see that most people arrive on your website on Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps it would be a good idea to write posts on those days, or just before, and link those posts into your site. This could draw more of your traffic in, and give you more of the edge against your competition through proper online marketing for your website.

Use Statcounter to track website stats, visitors, traffic, time spent on each page, where visitors are referred from, and use this data to adjust marketing strategies. Your results could include more traffic, potential customers, and clients being lead to your website.

For more on tracking website statistics, this article could be helpful:
"The Importance of Tracking Stats"

Statcounter Visitor Traffic Tracking Site

Tags: online marketing small business website traffic visitor website

Benefits of Perfect XHTML Code

The benefits of perfect code in XHTML are an unparalleled strategy in web design for small business website owners. By incorporating SEO strategies for improved page ranking, top search results and accessibility, a small business website can attain more business online.

Flash videos that have no video titles online cannot be read by search engines, therefore resulting in code errors. The same applies for pictures without titles associated with them because they aren't indexed with Google and show up as errors when you validate the code. When a website is written in XHTML with perfect code, the chance to receive more traffic increases, and potential customers can grow in number. Coding for the future to avoid deprecated code should decrease the amount of errors that show up on a website both today and tomorrow.

The benefits of perfect code in XHTML can increase traffic, page ranking, number of indexed pages in search results and decrease loading time. Since there is no substitute for writing websites in XHTML with perfect code, this practice can be deemed as very valuable.

Tags: perfect code small business website website xhtml

Getting A Website to Google Page One

Getting a website to Google page one is not something I would ever promise a client because it is something that takes time, hard work and patience. Small business website owners should realize you can't launch a website, kick back, and expect the money to roll in. By using the appropriate techniques, appearing on Google page one really is achievable.

Several factors are taken into consideration by search engines in order to decide what pages are indexed in the top rankings. A high number of pages and inbound links, appropriate keyword density, a blog, an RSS feed, and an appropriate length title, description and number of keywords are important factors. Using non-deceptive means of enhancing my own website, this site ranked on Google page one for over 30 searched key phrases, and THIS POST for position #8 out of 571,000,000 hits, the moment I published it.

Getting a website to Google page one by using non-deceptive tactics for page ranking is a key in attaining more traffic for small business website owners. Attaining more traffic leads to more potential clients, which leads to return customers, and soon your business can grow through your website.

Add a Blog to Your Website

Tags: google keyword density page ranking website

The 7 Best Website Optimization Techniques

The 7 best website optimization techniques for good search results involves many attributes of your website design. Marketing strategies for small business website owners begins with good writing techniques. Gain traffic and return customers by incorporating tips from professionals who have had good results.

Having good content that keeps readers interested gets people involved in what you write about. Getting your website bookmarked is a compliment that comes with fresh content.

Getting quality links from other related sites helps small business website owners gain popularity. Let other sites know you are there by linking to them and hope for reciprocation.

Appropriate website title, keywords and heading tags are heavily weighed by search engines. These should always relate to the on page content and be general enough to draw traffic for a wide variety of phrases.

Keyword Density is important for ranking better in search engines. Keep it an appropriate percentage and make sure your website uses relevant content as related to your keywords.

For larger sites, a sitemap is a good idea to help both visitors and robots find and index content on your website. Name it "sitemap.xml" and search robots will be able to find your files efficiently.

Meta tags do matter to rank well, get indexed, and for visitors to find your website. With appropriate page and post titles, small business website owners can get visitors to click on their search listings more often.

Age of a domain and keywords included within it matter as well. Having a domain that includes keywords you're interested in ranking for lets search engines know your content is relative enough for search engines to index often.

Some of the best website optimization techniques can help a small business website owner obtain a winning website to get more visitors and customers for their business. By incorporating these techniques, a website may rise in the rankings to be found by more people online.

Read more about Search Engine Optimization and read my entire article on Natural Methods Of Search Engine Optimization at Earticles Online.

Also have a look at these other tips on my blog:

Tips Designing a Fast Loading Website
Tips on Writing Blog Posts
Tips on Using Twitter for Business

Tags: keyword optimization search engine sitemap website website

Understanding "Bounce Rate"

Why visitors "Bounce" from your website involves understanding the term first. Bounce rate percentage represents initial visitors that "bounce off" to another website rather than continue to other pages within the website. Bounce rate means the number of people who land on a website and didn't give it one single click.

Bounce rate helps understand how and where to change your website to improve stickiness. By lowering your bounce rate and increasing stickiness of your small business website, you can turn visitors into return customers. The higher the "bounce rate" is determines that visitors come to your website, see nothing of value and move on, probably to your competition's websites.

Keep your bounce rate low by strategizing what needs to be improved with your website to increase stickiness, and most likely find that more of your potential customers may contact you for your products and services on your small business website.

Stop Bouncing Tips For Website Success

What is Bounce Rate and Why it Matters

Tags: bounce bounce rate small business small business website stickiness website

Sitemaps For Your Website

A sitemap is a webpage list overview to aid in website navigation for visitors and search engine bots, usually for larger websites. It can be a webpage that lists the pages on a website, organized by importance or navigation order, rather than an alphabetical order list index which is known as a "site index".

Sitemaps improve SEO ensuring every webpage can be located, and provide content overview in a glance which helps visitors navigate around your website. They are particularly useful for stickiness because instead of a visitor arriving and "bouncing" from your website, a sitemap may help engage your visitor and interest them into other pages of your site.

Sitemaps for your website offer easier navigation, more stickiness, increased SEO, and a clear layout of what your website contains. Once a website reaches 50 to 100 pages, it is recommended to add a sitemap in order to give it effective navigation.

Have a look at my Webdesign Resources Sitemap for this website.

Related Resource:
"Add a Google Searchbox to Your Website

Tags: navigation seo sitemap website

The Top Websites Indexed by Google

I recently did a project analyzing and comparing some of the top 10 websites indexed by Google with certain key phrases. The purpose of this study was to figure what key factors affected a high page ranking in Google, and how to tweak my own website to gain a competitive edge over the competition.

In taking each website, running it through Website Grader, validating the code, and reviewing the results, a few factors were consistent. The top sites had hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of pages and inbound links, and maintained top positions in Google despite of missing or too many keywords and descriptions. Also noted were sites with an older domain age and longer time until expiration were given higher priority in Google indexing. These factors seemed to affect a website in a positive manner, despite imperfections in code.

Regardless, my theory is that optimizing the source code for as few errors as possible and correct numbers of characters and keywords contained is important to obtain a winning website. Combining this with a pleasant layout, color scheme, and effective business strategy can turn more of your visitors into repeat customers.

Tags: code google keyword website

Custom CMS Redesign Project Launch

Recently I helped in the launch of a custom CMS (Content Management System) website redesign for CDAAlliance by collaborating on this rather large project with my father, Jim Degerstrom. This website contained almost 100 pages, and their direction of business had also recently changed. As a result, a major overhaul of the site was required to reflect their new business model and their new future direction.

CDAAlliance's redesign collaboration between myself and my father had text content that had to be edited and updated. From Joomla we converted it to a less complicated custom CMS package by doing text rewrites and seo revisions to this site prior to launch, and then 301 redirects from the old page names to new ones.

Now that the site has been converted to a custom CMS system, it's usability is enhanced, page load time is faster, and the website owner can easily take it over to add and edit content.

Update Aug 2009: This redesign in a green color scheme has been transferred back to JimDegerstrom.com and changed again. He will manage a family of 3 websites created by him and redesigned for the client with a new matching look similar for each one.

Related Posts:
Custom CMS Website Conversion of CodeRepair
Florida Aluminum Awnings Website Launch
Custom CMS Design LLC Family Sites

Tags: cms custom cms content management system website

How I Hit Google Page One in Two Months

Getting to Google page one in two months for over 30 key phrases was a surprise to me. Although I'd never promise a client the same results, I could touch on some points that are rather important to achieve a similar outcome.

Having an aged domain aided in reaching Google page one because it established seniority, even though nothing was posted for a while. Using appropriate methods for search engine optimization helped this website too. By using appropriate keyword density, adding content often and writing to solve a problem, my website has reached excellent rankings with Google.

Some things I didn't do helped page rankings as well. By not using deceptive methods to attract traffic such as stuffing keywords or buying inbound links, Google doesn't punish my website for deceptive practices. In doing research of the top 10 sites for given keywords, I've noticed a couple things in common, including a high number of site pages and inbound links, but Google rewards those who don't try to deceive.

By using appropriate methods of search engine optimization to reach page one rankings in Google in only one month of effort, I've received more traffic, which translates into more potential customers and clients.

Add a Blog to Your Website

Tags: google search engine optimization keyword density page ranking keyword website traffic

Web Design and Website Design

"Web Design" and "Website Design" key phrases come up as 2 different indexes in a Google Search. Deciding on which website key phrase to use depends on what traffic you want it geared for, and can affect how much traffic your website receives. The same is true for any business niche. By using a more popular key phrase, your small business website can get more traffic and most likely receive more potential customers.

Since more people search on Google for "Web Design" rather than "Website Design", it would make more sense to use the shorter version (if your small business website was geared around this type of business). The reason for this is because those searching for this type of business are more likely to use the shorter key phrase, rather than the longer one. This factor can help decide what key words and phrases to incorporate on your small business website design. Strategize key words and key phrases for your website, search them, and see what keywords are used by your competition.

For small business website owners to understand which keywords and key phrases to use, it makes sense to choose some of the most common searches done in Google within one's niche. By using more popular keywords and key phrases, a small business website owner can drive more traffic to their website.

Tags: business website keywords key phrases niche small business small business website traffic web design website design website

The Importance of Market Branding

The importance of market branding revolves around understanding, choosing, and marketing your business logo and motto, or your "market brand". Market Branding is a name, term, symbol, sign and/or design to differentiate and identify goods and services of a seller or group of sellers.

Market branding is about getting your potential clients to think you are the only one with a solution to their problem. Your logo's colors should convey the nature of your business. Using a matching design and color scheme on your website, business card and printed materials can make your company's market branding more effective and increase it's market value. Your business logo design should give a positive first impression to attract new customers with a unique look that is simple and makes a statement. Your market branding should deliver your message clearly, confirm credibility, motivate the buyer, and establish user loyalty. Your market brand is your source of promise to the consumer, and the foundation of marketing communication that business should not be without.

The importance of market branding involves multiple considerations. By choosing appropriate designs, colors and logos, a small busniess owner can effectively portray the business they are in. Consider what the customer is going to see, because when you have a positive first impression, you may find that potential customers may become clients.

Tags: design market branding small business website

The Difference Between HTML and CSS

Understanding the difference between HTML and CSS may be complicated to most people, but a standard for website programmers. The following will outline differences for small business website owners, to be comfortable with the terms when discussing HTML and CSS.

HTML handles the structure, or construction and output of webpages, and CSS decorates, aligns and positions the elements in HTML, taking the normal HTML output adding display rules. The three sections of HTML source code include inline, internal and external markup.

HTML inline markup defines the webpage layout and structures the output for tables, divisions, forms, links, buttons, text and images, such as video and flash documents.

Internal markup, unseen by visitors, declares character set and document declarations and keywords. It links languages such as CSS or Javascript used for decorating, aligning and inserting dynamic items.

External markup isn't contained in the HTML, but is in a different file affecting the webpage a variety of ways. It's contents are called up by the internal markup section.

CSS, on the other hand, doesn't "create" anything. CSS takes HTML output and adds display rules by editing element height and width, background color, border, visibility and alignment. HTML does some of these things, but the methods are usually "deprecated", or soon to be. Deprecated code refers to features of software which are superseded and can be avoided, because their use causes warnings that recommend alternate practices, indicating the feature's future removal. Labeled as deprecated instead of removing this code gives programmers time for bringing the code into compliance with new standards, and provides backward compatibility.

By understanding the difference between HTML and CSS, and how they interact, may simplify discussion of small business website design projects. HTML and CSS, when used in conjunction, can aid small business websites in keeping up with today's standards for website design.

Tags: css deprecated html small business website website