You just finish your website, and you are excited to see it “live”. But first you should test if everything on your website works correct. Remember that the website is your corporate identity on Internet. Testing your website gives you a chance to fix errors before they destroy your business reputation.

Now, what you should check first? I would start from the basic.

Spell Check & Grammar Errors

Proof read your site … no meter how careful content creator was, you will always find few misspelled words or grammar errors. If you don’t, be sure that your customers will.

Check Links

Next thing is to check if all your links on all your pages works. You can do it manually if you want, but on larger sites, it can be teddy task. For large projects, you can use Xenu’s Link checker. The good news is that it’s free and better than most other link checking software.

Forms – E-Mail

We all want feedback from our website visitors, right? To ensure that you will get some, check if forms on your website work as expected. Make a habit to test forms on your website from time to time.

Web site visitors many times enter wrong input in form fields. If you use Java Script to validate form input, check your scripts in IE and Firefox at least. Not all scripts works in all browsers.

Page Titles - Meta Tags

Web developers use different software to create web pages. If your webmaster forget to add Meta tags on your website, in the title will write: Untitled Document.

How can anyone forget to add Meta tags, I am hearing you asking.

Well, search on Google for: Untitled Document and 35.000.000 results will be returned. For the search term Untitled Document 1, there is much less competition. Google return “only” 1.650.000. I guess that you will agree that your company name is better title than “Untitled Document”.

Meta tags are useful (especially title and description) for both, your website visitors and for search engines. So do the check.

Screen Resolution

You are looking your website on your monitor, and it looks great, right? How it will looks on other monitors and other screen resolutions? You website should look acceptable and on 800 x 600 and great on 1024 x 768 and higher.

How your website look in different browsers?

It is easier than you think, so continue reading. One of the things that you should definitely test is how your website looks in different browsers. The reason is: Each browser can display Web pages slightly differently, and you want to make sure your pages look good in the most popular browsers.

I have only one browser installed, how I can do this, I hear you asking. Search on Google for “view your website in different browsers”, and you will find different websites which allow you to preview your website in almost all known browsers. And yes. It’s free.

Usability – Can your website visitors find what they are looking for?

Ask few people to visit your website. Your friends or relatives, doesn’t mater. Ask them what they think about your website. Let me clarify. It is not important did they like the colors or the layout of the site. Important thing here is: Can visitors find what they are looking for on your website within few clicks?

And the most important: When they look at your home page can they understand what your company is about? How comfortable they feel your navigation, did they understand the terms that you use on your website? Can they reach your contact page?

Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of WebGoto.Gr from Thessaloniki, Greece We have over 10 years experience in Web Development. Our database driven websites will help you succeed in your online business.

You might have heard of Web directories before. Web directories are usually sites dedicated to links. Depending on the site, they might be dedicated to a particular category or they maybe general and contain listings for a variety of different categories.

When you are looking for ways to optimize your website so that it gets the most exposure possible, often times webmasters overlook internet or web directory submissions. This can be a major oversight. Web directories are usually human edited and can therefore gain rank of their own. The link to your website once it is submitted is reviewed and then placed where it is believed to be of most benefit to those looking at the directory. Search engines also use human edited web directories in their page ranking criteria.

This is why submitting your site to a web directory can help you when you are optimizing your website in order to gain more viable traffic for your site.

That is the major benefit of web directory submission. It can be a difficult and timely task to submit your website to various directories however, it is definitely worthwhile to do so.

When considering the myriad of options available to you in search engine optimization, be sure not to pass web directory submission by. Doing so could seriously hinder your optimization process.

Consider carefully the web directories that you are looking to submit to and make sure to follow all guidelines. It is also a good idea to make sure that your site is complete and has a professional look. Take the time also to make sure all keywords and information is in place correctly since reviews use this information to locate your site on the directory. Following these steps, and submitting to a web directory is one way of making sure your site is a web success.

Written by George Anderson. Be sure to submit your website to the true search engine optimized directory, Netizens Page. Powered by Wordpress, we offer the best SEO benefits out of any SEo Directory on the net.

Flash on a website can really enhance a site and entertain with visual movement and dynamics. But I’m still surprised to see complete Flash sites that seem to be more informational type sites. For music, design or multi-media type sites this may be very appropriate and even expected by your visitors. But if a site is primarily there to provide information, sell products or services, why would a visitor want to wait for flashy intros? Some Flash can enhance, but too much Flash can hurt a site (sometimes without the site owner being aware of it) and frustrate visitors. Here’s a list to consider when using Flash:

• Some visitors may still have a slow Internet connection which can cause animations or movies to pause, stutter and generally slow down load times.
• Some visitors may not have the required Flash player plug-in or the latest version, which means they’ll have to download software. Example: I was looking for examples of great Flash sites and went to www.Disney.com and couldn’t get into their site until I download Flash Player 9. I currently have Flash Player 8, so I’ll need to upgrade before revisiting their site.
• Once I’ve seen the Flash animation once I usually don’t need to see it again and again each time I visit a site. Always provide a skip intro link for Flash intros. Some sites will play the Flash animation only the first time that you’ve visited a page. This is a nice feature especially for repeat visitors.
• Depending on how it’s used, Flash can hurt Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and possibly lower search results, which is becoming more and more important to site owners, marketers and web designers. In some situations, where Flash isn’t necessary, try replacing Flash with images or even styled text. For images, alt and title tags can have associated descriptive keyword text that can be seen and used by search engines.
• Obviously the visually impaired will not be able to enjoy your Flash animations, and screen readers used by the visually impaired may not get your message at all since there may be little or no text to read. For more information on website usability, visit usability.gov or check out usability expert Jakob Nielsen at useit.com.
• Offer an HTML version of your Flash website.
• Flash may be more difficult to modify later. Of course this is dependent on who created and is maintaining your site.

Here are some questions to ask if you’re thinking of integrating Flash.

Is Flash going to help me communicate to my audience?
Will the majority of visitors have the Flash plug-in?
Is slower download time acceptable?
Do I rely on search engines for traffic, and will I still have good search engine results?

As you can see, Flash is not always the right option. Carefully research and choose the right tools that work best for your project. Be sure that your website is focused and appeals to your target audience.

Norm Euker is the owner of NJE Design (http://www.njedesign.com), a Michigan web design company specializing in website design, search engine optimization and graphic design.

When it comes to Web 2.0 and mortgage website design it is very important for companies to realize that we aren’t living in the Web 1.0 world anymore. A lot of things have changed, for the better, and they should be taken advantage of. If you have a mortgage website and are wondering about the design then you should take a look at some of your competition and see how their sites are designed. More than likely you will notice that the sites are laid out in an easy to read format, that they are interactive, and have answers to all the questions. One important aspect of mortgage websites is that they have a calculator, or multiple calculators, to help individuals determine their mortgage based on a variety of interest rates and years. While this was available with Web 1.0 it is even better with Web 2.0 if you know how to implement it correctly and take advantage of everything the new generation of the web has to offer.

Another important aspect of the mortgage website design in the web 2.0 world is that there be plenty of original content. The reason websites should be designed with original content pages is that it will help the mortgage broker websites get a higher ranking in the search engines. This original content should be updated on a regular basis in order to keep the rankings high. A blog is a wonderful aspect to include in the website design as it helps the website stay up to date in the search engines with new content and even attracts users to return time and again for answers to all their mortgage questions. Blogs are a big part of the web 2.0 world and have almost completely replaced the personal websites of web 1.0. The result is wonderful for individuals as well as businesses like mortgage websites that want to keep users coming back and reading more. Traffic is key and blogs that become like a favorite sitcom or newspaper article mean return traffic and more business.

These are just some of the important aspects of mortgage website design in the Web 2.0 world. Of course, things keep changing daily and the Internet may even enter another generation at some point. All we know is what we have at the moment and that is web 2.0 and as long as we have it mortgage websites should take advantage of the design options available to them.

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. Another important aspect of the mortgage website design in the web 2.0 world is that there be plenty of original content. The reason websites should be designed with original content pages is that it will help the mortgage broker websites get a higher ranking in the search engines. This original content should be updated on a regular basis in order to keep the rankings high.

The idea of Web 2.0 has really caught on although it was unheard of just a few short years ago. Today, Web 2.0 is known as the second generation of the web and since Web 1.0 lots of changes have taken place that can make small business web design a challenge. It’s certainly not impossible, it’s just that in the new Web there are different things that work than before and it is important for small business websites to be aware of the important features of their website in the new generation of the web.

For example, if you are using a Utah web design company to update your website or even design you a new one you want to know they are competent with the features that work best in Web 2.0. A great example is Google Adsense, which basically replaced DoubleClick in the new generation of the web. If you are working with a Utah Internet marketing firm and they are working with DoubleClick still instead of Google Adsense you will want to find someone else to work with. That’s because today Google Adsense is a great way to make money on your website and any web design company should know what Adsense is as well as its importance on the web. Another great example of the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is Britannica Online to Wikipedia. The first was just a regular old encyclopedia website where basic information could be found. Wikipidia however is a super encyclopedia that has information on anything and everything imaginable and that users can add information to in order to make the entry more complete. These are just some of the ways the web has changed and small business websites need to keep up with the changes to stay competitive.

That means things like blogging, RSS, keyword articles, backlinks, and more should be part of a small business’s vocabulary in order to truly understand how a website should be designed. And, if the small business is not aware of the importance of these features on Web 2.0 then Utah web design company should certainly know what they are and how to utilize them. Small businesses find it hard to keep up with rapid changes because these businesses focus on just that, their business, and knowing what’s going on web wide can be a major challenge. Nevertheless, it is very important for small businesses to pay attention and stay abreast of Web 2.0 and its changes so they can keep their website up to date and going strong.

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. For example, if you are using a Utah web design company to update your website or even design you a new one you want to know they are competent with the features that work best in Web 2.0. A great example is Google Adsense, which basically replaced DoubleClick in the new generation of the web. If you are working with a Utah Internet marketing firm and they are working with DoubleClick still instead of Google Adsense you will want to find someone else to work with.

Web design companies have new responsibilities in the Web 2.0 world and some of those core competencies include database management as well as others. The important thing to know about Web 2.0 is that it is the second generation of the web. It became known as Web 2.0 after the dot com crash in the early 2000s and the Internet rebounded and continued growing like nobody had imagined. Now, in the second generation of the Internet there are some core responsibilities that web development companies should be competent in. Database management, web design, website marketing, and the like are just a few of them. The Internet has grown and changed in many ways since the first generation so you want to make sure the Utah web design company you go with is competent in all areas of the new web.

Most Utah web development companies will be well aware what needs to be done and how to do it, but some of them may still be working with pre- Web 2.0 designs and features that you aren’t interested in. So, it is important to discuss how your website will be designed, formatted, marketed, and more before you sign up with a particular Utah web design company.

A great way to see if the web design firm you are considering is up to date on the Web 2.0 world is to check out some of their other designs. This is a great way to see what they company is capable of, what they have done, and how it works in the second generation of the web. If you aren’t sure what you should be looking for then it is important to do a little research on exactly what Web 2.0 really is and how web design has changed as a result. When you know what to expect you will have a much better chance of getting what you are looking for. Remember this, however, and that is as far as core competencies are concerned web design, database management, interfaces, and even marketing are areas where your web design company should be very competent in the new generation of the Internet.

Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. The Internet has grown and changed in many ways since the first generation so you want to make sure the Utah web design company you go with is competent in all areas of the new web. Most Utah web development companies will be well aware what needs to be done and how to do it, but some of them may still be working with pre- Web 2.0 designs and features that you aren’t interested in.

Do you know that most visitors leave a website within 10 seconds of landing on the home page? And they may never return to the same site. To keep your website visitors stay longer, you need to engage them. Follow these 10 simple rules to build a set of core loyal visitors who will return to your site frequently.

1. If you have a brick-and-mortar business and you want an online presence, don’t just hand over your printed brochure to the web developer for your site’s contents.

2. Get good text, picture, and video contents related to your products or services and organize them into categories for your website publication. How do you get contents? You can ask your kids to write contents for you. Today’s kids are information savvy and know how to do research on right topics. They can help take pictures and videos of your products and provide narrations. If you cannot leverage your kids talents and you don’t have time to develop contents, buy them from online sources, like distributors of private level rights to articles and stock photographs. You need a small content set to launch your web site.

3. Ask your developer for some sample websites he has developed in the past and review them. If you find clutter, music, unprofessional graphics, etc. in those sites, run away from the developer. Tell your web developer to use basic search engine optimization techniques for your web site. Use a developer who uses content management systems (CMS) to develop websites. You or your kids and spouse will be able to maintain and add contents regularly to an CMS without much efforts.

4. You must have an About US page in your website that explains the expertise of your company and your unique selling proposition. Also, you should provide a phone number and an e-mail address for contact.

5. Publish a weekly tips section in your website. If you are in a business for a long time, you have a wealth of knowledge about your business, market, and technologies involved in your business. Make it a habit of jotting down one tip every day. You will have plenty of tips for your weekly publication.

6. Don’t use guest books, testimonials etc. These are so Web 1.0 concepts. Use a forum. Let your customers interact among themselves. Develop a value network. You get into the insights of your customers’ minds by reading their posts and your visitors know your products and services by talking to each other. As a result, you will be able to provide improved products and services and ask for a premium price.

7. Promptly answer all your visitor’s e-mail. This is one thing you should never delay. Use your visitors comments, e-mail, and other form of communications to generate ideas for new articles and tips.

8. Tell your web developer to include an RSS feed on your site and publish a filtered news related to the market you serve and emerging technologies in that market. Don’t use a weather report. Nobody comes to your site to check the weather.

9. Publish a frequently asked questions related to your products and services. It helps save your visitors’ time and efforts when they are looking for information on a particular topic related to your website.

10. Did you know that the average person must be exposed to an offer around seven times before they will make a purchase? Make your website an advertising platform for your most popular items. Advertise them through out your site but don’t use any ‘in-your face advertising’ techniques. You can use side bars for this type of advertising with interesting anecdotes, pictures, etc. Be creative and use your imagination.

Your website is your publishing medium. It is not your online catalog. You want repeat visitors who spend their time at your site for valuable information. The possibility of visitors turning into a paying customers improves when they stick around your site longer.

Dr. Deepak Dutta is the creator of semanticbay.com - an interactive social network website based on user shared text and picture. His other website classifiedsforfree.com - is one of the oldest free online classifieds site where users can post ads in more than 600 US cities and 60 countries.

The topic of website security is seldom brought up among non-programmers and those who may not be technically inclined, yet if you operate a website, it is an issue of substantial concern to you.

Addressed in this article is a nearly universal problem, it affects almost every single PHP or CGI script I’ve ever seen. We won’t delve into the technical issues too far, this is intended for the web site owner, someone who might install the occasional PHP file or CGI script. I will assume you are not a software developer.

A general rule I like to follow when installing php scripts or web applications is this: If it doesn’t need to be on the web, it shouldn’t be there. This is obvious, but it has implications that are not always clear.

What we are mainly referring to is configuration and to a lesser extent, program libraries and source code. It may also apply to files and other resources that are controlled through a script interface. An example of this would be scripts that charge money for downloading files or set up newsletters.

Lets start with an example, we’ll call it program.php. In our example, program.php is a database application using mysql to store information.

For our script to do it’s job, it will need access to your mysql password and user-name. It may also need access to many other program files and so-forth.

During installation, a control panel probably asked for your mysql credentials, it may even have asked you to change the file permissions on a configuration file of some sort. You’ve probably been through this type of install process at one time or another.

What it will do next, is write your database password and other private information to a configuration file. This usually happens without your knowledge, it is also where our problems begin.

Most people don’t catch this right away, if the configuration file is in the same directory (or sub-directory) it is web accessible. Quite often it is a php file, usually with write permissions turned on.

The extension “.php” does afford some degree of protection, under normal circumstances these files aren’t sent to a visitors browser but it is still unsafe.

If someone makes a slight mistake in the configuration or .htaccess file, it will dump the actual contents of “conf.php” to the users web browser, complete with your database password and other private information.

As anyone who has been around web servers very long can tell you, this is a common occurrence. I’ve personally seen it happen on several occasions.

Furthermore, many other web editing tools need to create backup files, resulting in something like config.php.BAK or perhaps config.php.tmp.

We now have a file ripe for hackers and other would-be intruders to gain access to your mysql database passwords as well as any other private information kept there.

What is most alarming is that almost every single off the shelf web based program exhibits this very problem in some form or another.

You may ask yourself why a competent software designer would do such a thing? Why is it so common?

The answer is simplicity and market value. Customers demand software that is easy to install. It is actually done this way for your convenience.

Scripts that store everything in one directory make it easy for you, the website owner, to install and manage. Web software customers have come to demand this sort of thing.

Most software designers are aware of this problem, this is why they often choose to write configuration into a .php file, it gives you some protection at the expense of introducing other potentially security problems we won’t cover here.

While java servlet technology provides WEB-INF/ (a secure place to store this type of information) most PHP or CGI environments do not offer such an environment.

Furthermore some web servers use something called “safe mode” which is a misguided attempt to make PHP “secure”, operating in this mode forces a software developer to write insecure programs in the manner I’ve just outlined.

For those of you who have inspected your website, good job! you’ve probably discovered you do have this problem. The next question is “What can be done”?

The correct approach is to relocate your configuration files (and any other information that shouldn’t be web accessible) to a place safely outside your document root (sometimes called your “web folder”) after you have done this, you shouldn’t be able to access the files with a web browser, not even with a password.

I generally like to use the HOME directory, but it doesn’t matter as long as it’s safely kept well away from the prying eyes of would-be hackers.

With many scripts, this is not very practical, particularly if you have already installed them. At this point, damage control may be your only option.

If you’re using apache, you can give yourself some added protection in the form of an .htaccess file, this is still not not secure, but it’s certainly better than nothing at all. In “safe” mode, this may be your only option.

There are also things you can do via the language itself, but I won’t cover them here.

After you have done this, it is important to make a note to yourself about it. When backing up your website, you will need to include not only the web pages, but these other files that you now have safely tucked outside your web directory.

If you are unable to solve the problem, (for example the web script won’t allow you to locate these files elsewhere) Simply being aware of it can go a long way toward protecting your website from future attackers. Now that you know, you can keep an eye out for any backup files that may have been created by other tools.

Try not to be too tough on whoever wrote the program, chances are they chose to do it this way for the convenience of their users. I can attest from first hand experience, if you don’t store configuration data this way, customers can become annoyed and rarely understand your reasoning.

Jamie is an entrepreneur with GenieGate.com, specializing in UNIX based web technology for small to mid-size companies offering custom consulting services.

Web design is an ongoing process. For some it comes easier than to others. I have been working in web design for over 12 years and am still learning new things. I have mainly used Dreamweaver and Go Live for web design. But I am always looking for an easier and faster way to do it.

There are many options available. Some web hosts offer an online webpage creator. On the pc there are programs such as Frontpage. Xsite Pro is becoming a favorite of many for creating sites quickly and easily. From what I have seen, while it seems to work it creates some pretty ugly html code. I don’t know if that is causing any problems or not. Also check out a free program offered by nvu.com. Link on the resource page.

For those not well versed in web design you may be tempted to buy pre-made templates. They can work but you still need to know enough to be able to go in and make changes to customize it to your site. Don’t be fooled into “push button web design” Once you are locked into someone else’s design it makes it harder to customize it to your liking and all of a sudden your sites look like a hundred of others. Spend some time getting to know at least the basics, take apart other web pages to see how they are built. Every web designer has done this at one time or another to learn new tricks and techniques.

There are a number of software programs that will automatically create pages and pages of content for you. The problem with these programs is they create hundreds if not thousands of pages of duplicate content. They leave fingerprints that tell the search engines this page was machine generated which make it easy for the search engine to locate these pages and ban them.

Most of my websites tend to be pretty basic so they don’t take hundreds of hours to create. I almost always start with creating graphics for my site. I highly recommend Photoshop Elements for creating your graphics. The higher priced version of Photoshop is an graphic industry standard. Photoshop Elements gives you many of the same features for a much lower cost.

Make sure you web pages have correct meta tags, and titles. With out a title your page will not get indexed and relevant Adsense ads won’t be generated. There is much theory as to relevance of meta tags, titles etc. There is a need for h1 tags and where they are placed. As search engines spider you site your most important keywords should be set in h1 tags. These are the first steps to search engine optimization.

Once you have your website created, you need to test the hell out of it. Make sure all your links are working. Make sure your forms and email work the way you want them to. Check it out in a couple different browsers to make sure it is as cross platform compatible as possible.

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Serge Daudelin is a Internet Marketing Consultant & SEO Specialist who has written over 300 articles in print and 5 published ebooks. Serge is dedicated to helping others and offering the best information on how to make more money online.

Just before Christmas, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia announced he was going to create a new search engine for the web - Wikiasari. This piece of news might have slipped under the radar for many people, but people working in the search engine optimisation industry probably didn’t sleep well that night.

The end of search engine optimisation?

Wikiasari is a search engine with a twist. It plans to display results based on what humans think are the most important. Yes, that’s right, real people!

At the moment, search results are based on complex algorithms. These formulae are closely guarded secrets (or they’d soon be copied) - a bit like the recipe for Coca-Cola. Over the past decade a whole SEO industry has spawned out of the need to skim the tiniest advantage to allow businesses to appear higher up the search results than their competitors. More people finding your website means increased leads and hopefully increased sales. As the saying goes, “If they can’t find you on Google, then you might as well not exist”.

The way to get to the top of the search rankings has been to optimise your content around keywords (the phrases users type into the Google box to find you) to ensure the ‘machines’ associate your site with those words.

But if Wikiasari are proposing that humans and not algorithms will decide, then does the whole SEO strategy become moot? After all, why bother optimising your site if ultimately a real person will decide your web ranking? Hmmm… Images of tumbleweeds blowing across a deserted SEO industry…

But SEO already incorporates usability and users’ opinions!

So is this the end of SEO? Well, probably not. For years now search engines have understood the importance of getting users’ opinions factored in and Wikiasari is just a natural progression of this. Search engines have basically always tried to mimic what users want. For example:

- The number of inbound links a site has plays a major part in its search engine ranking. Every link to your site essentially represents a vote for your website - the more votes (especially from quality sites) the higher in the rankings your site will appear.

- All other things being equal, search engines rank sites with good spelling and grammar higher than those without. This holds true in the real world too - who wouldn’t prefer a well written site!?

- Google has its free analytics package, which allows them to take an inside peek to see which sites have the most conversions. It could figure that sites with more conversions are effectively votes for that site by users and should be ranked higher.

- Bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg) are all about user powered content. The community votes for the best sites, with the best ones being promoted to the front page.

Good usability is the key to SEO

Perhaps the search engine algorithms will die a death, perhaps not. Either way, usability is becoming more and more important in sending your site to the top of the search results page. Users’ opinions have always been important so the new Wikiasari search engine is just further acknowledgment and Darwinistic evolution.

Ultimately, usability is key to ensuring a good ranking. Concentrate on delivering good usability, employ some basic SEO tactics (such as placing keywords in the page title, headings and links) and the rest will follow naturally. Usability and SEO go hand in hand.

This article was written by Lisa Halabi. She’s crazy about usability - so crazy that she’s head of usability at usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ).