My 2¢ Worth

 think it was Mark Twain who once said that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. What was true in Twain's day is still true today except that in his day there were no Web stats.

t is very important that you check and learn how to interpret you Web Statistics, as they will help you make critical decisions regarding your site. Don't get hung up on the number of hits to your site. The term hits is very misleading. Every time a browser calls for a page it requests the page (one hit) and all the graphics on the page (one hit each). A page with 20 graphics, including buttons on your navigation bar, will log 20 hits!

 more accurate figure you want to know is Unique visitors or visits.

nother stat of vital importance is how long are users staying on the Web site or a specific page? If visitors are leaving your site after only 20 seconds, this may indicate that your site needs updating for content or perhaps a new design.

t is sometimes helpful to know site entry and exit pages. If you find one particular page being exited more than the others, that may be a sign of stale content on that page unless you are using a "cookie crumb" type of navigation and that is the "last page" of your site.

ost Web host offer some kind of web statistics analyzing software. You can learn a lot about your site by looking at your Web logs on a regular basis.

Feature Article

Myths Of Web Design Worth Uncovering

by: Mark Nenadic FifteenDegrees-North

If you've had a website for a while now, the odds are that some web designers somewhere with too much time on their hands have contacted you about this or that element of your website, telling you how they can repair it for you.

In fact, if you've been contacted by enough of them, and depending on your site, you may have discovered that a number of different points of view have begun to crop up regarding the proper changes that your site "requires". This article will help to discover the myths and the realities of what these "Website Design Police" have to say. Often, they're pushing myth more than anything else.

The first issue that the website design police often tell you is that content is the only thing a website requires, and there should never be any animation, sound, Java, or anything else "extra". It's true, the content is the most important part of your website, and it is true that the more you add graphics, Java applets, audio elements, and animations, the longer your website will take to load, however, this doesn't mean that they need to be cut out altogether.

If your website takes too long to load, a number of your visitors won't stick around to wait. They'll simply head over to the next site that doesn't take as long. Therefore, the trick to using additional bells and whistles on your website is knowing how much you can use, while still being appropriate for fast download speeds under reasonable circumstances.

So when are the additional features appropriate to your website design? It all depends on how your actual content will be complimented. What is your site about, and how will extra website design features make it better? For example, if your website is selling website design services - that is, you want people to buy your services to make their sites better - than having content alone isn't really going to impress anyone. Prospective customers will be looking at your site as an example of the potential of their own websites. If it's nothing much to look at, they won't be around very long. This type of site needs a reasonable amount of color, graphics, and other features that will make it very appealing, yet not so much that it takes too long to load.

The next myth that many website design police like to try to tell you about is that your site is only as good as the graphics it has. This is the exact other end of the spectrum from the first myth discussed in this article. There are other people who think that the more color, animations, graphics, sounds, and other features there are on your website, the better it is. However, these aren't people who have very much real world experience with web design, or are those who have only ever had a T1 or broadband connection and don't know the frustrations of waiting for a site to load.

This isn't to say that decorative graphics and animations don't have any value. Certainly they're a fine addition to the right webpage. It makes it much more appealing to look at, and may then be easier and more welcoming to read. However, graphics should be used sparingly, and should be as small as they can be without being difficult to make out.

To try to achieve a good balance, there are a few things that you can put into practice:

Break up your text. Spread out your paragraphs and don't make any paragraphs too big. Put some space between the paragraphs to make the text more pleasant to read.

If you want to have a colored background, try to make it subtle because readability works best on a white background with black text and the more you divert, the more challenging it will be.

As a final point, remember that when you must choose between your content and making your site beautiful, it should be the content that wins out. Sure, you can come to a good balance that will work, but when you do need to debate whether to add graphics or animations where it would sacrifice content, err to the side of content. No matter what your website is for, few people will be there only to admire your graphics. Those who will be motivated to return will do so because of your strong content.

**************

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North www.15dn.com , where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Glowing Text Links
(IE only)

This special effect will make your links appear to be glowing. Place the following code in your HTML document where you would like your link to appear.

<span style="position:relative; width:200; height:25; filter:glow(color=#f0701a,strength=4)"><a href="http://www.yourdomain.com">Glowing Text Link Example</a></span>

Change the text indicated in red for customization. All I can say is to play around with these values until you achieve the desired effect. The more you change these values, the better you'll understand what each value does.

This effect works in Internet Explorer only. Netscape will display the link in the blue default color. I suggest that you make limited use of this effect, as it tends to irritate visitors.

Glowing Text Link Example

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

Link Bait: SEO With Linky Love

by: Wayne Hurlbert Blog Business World

You may have heard the term link bait discussed in search engine optimization circles. In SEO speak, link bait is content that attracts natural incoming links from other blogs and websites. Link bait is content that people want to link to, and share with their own readers.

It all starts with your blog content. If you are serious about getting more links to your blog to gain more visitor traffic, and higher search engine rankings, it takes great posts. There is no other alternative as powerful for receiving inbound links than interesting and informative original content. Simply put, if no one finds your posts of value, no one is going to link to them. Of course, that's not you.

The question then becomes one of developing and writing great posts to attract those one way incoming links. The best course of action on your part is to stick to your main blogging niche. If your blog theme is crochet, then write about crochet topics for the vast majority of your postings. As a result, other craft blogs and sites in general, and crochet themed blogs and sites in particular, will link to many of your posts. Write material that no other bloggers provide, and your blog becomes an important information source.

Sidebar: I mention crochet blogs in the example because they are my Mom's favourite craft blog. She is a life long crochet practitioner.

Targeting your blog to the desired reading audience is the best course of action if you want to develop link bait. Along with the links to individual posts, your blog stands a very good chance of also being added to the blogger's blogroll, providing a permanent link to your blog. For SEO rankings, long term links from theme related are especially good value, as the search engines consider web pages receiving permanent links to be important sites for that theme. Staying power has its advantages.

If you are serious about receiving some linky love in the form of incoming links, it's essential that you create great posts. This is especially important if you are a new blogger who lacks a long term network of blogging friends and associates. The way to establish your reputation, as a good blogger within your blogging niche, is through your writing. Natural one way links to your blog won't happen any other way.

Great posts are link bait for other bloggers to find and follow.

**************

Wayne Hurlbert provides insigtful information about marketing, promotions, search engine optimization and public relations for websites and business blogs on the popular Blog Business World.

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