The following are beginner pointers for those researching efficient web design and marketing:
- Use Freelances For Jobs You Lack The Skills For. Is money tight? Try scriptlance.com or rentacoder.com. The key to getting the best work is to a) be as specific as possible as to what you require and b) write your specification in simple, concise terms. Your project will probably be done by someone who's first language is not English. Most people give an inexact specification and receive work they're not happy with. Pick somebody who's had a lot of positive reviews recently. Pay in increments. Use the freelance site's escrow facility. Don't expect to acquire more than you stumped up for, and don't be a cheapskate; if somebody does a good job, they deserve a bonus, not carping.
- Make A Better, Faster, Cheaper Version Of A Popular Product. You can walk a trail someone else has blazed. You can learn from their mistakes. The only downside is that the competition will have first-mover advantage and brand-recognition. However, you can also use them to publicise your stuff e.g. "My SnarkWodger 2.1 is faster and cheaper than Big_Name_Brand"; cue controversy, which equals publicity.
- Do A Press Release, and consider beforehand how you could make it interesting to journalists. Spammers have recently taken to releasing poor-quality news items to just get backlinks. A better notion would be to research how to write a professional release and then consider what would be truly interesting to put in it.
- Automate, Automate, Automate! The work involved in internet marketing can be soul destroying. Before you get involved in some lengthy submission or promotion process, consider whether you could get a software or a freelancer to do it for you. Or whether it ought to be done that way at all.
- Clean Up Your HTML. Dreamweaver adds lots of extra blank space to HTML code, and breaks lines. This is especially irritating in meta tags. Use EditPad's 'Find and Replace' function to delete newlines and double blank spaces in your webpages.
- Install A Blogging Software Easily. Wordpress can be installed in moments from the Fantastico section of Cpanel. It allows a non-pro to put their thoughts on the net easily. You ought to get a search-engine optimised theme for it; this will make Google index it properly. Such softwares are free; you needn't pay for them.
- Submit To The Top Web Directories, like Yahoo and DMOZ, but don't spend much time or money. Only a few are worth a damn for SEO purposes. You'll only get an occasional visitor from these.
- Come Up For Air Occasionally. It's very easy to get mired in the minutiae of this or that web project. There are people whose _lives_ revolve around tweaking addons to open-source software. You need to keep your eyes on the prize; what do you desire and what's the most direct, legal way of acquiring it?
I hope these few basic tips will help you in getting useful web design and marketing done quickly. - 15790
- Use Freelances For Jobs You Lack The Skills For. Is money tight? Try scriptlance.com or rentacoder.com. The key to getting the best work is to a) be as specific as possible as to what you require and b) write your specification in simple, concise terms. Your project will probably be done by someone who's first language is not English. Most people give an inexact specification and receive work they're not happy with. Pick somebody who's had a lot of positive reviews recently. Pay in increments. Use the freelance site's escrow facility. Don't expect to acquire more than you stumped up for, and don't be a cheapskate; if somebody does a good job, they deserve a bonus, not carping.
- Make A Better, Faster, Cheaper Version Of A Popular Product. You can walk a trail someone else has blazed. You can learn from their mistakes. The only downside is that the competition will have first-mover advantage and brand-recognition. However, you can also use them to publicise your stuff e.g. "My SnarkWodger 2.1 is faster and cheaper than Big_Name_Brand"; cue controversy, which equals publicity.
- Do A Press Release, and consider beforehand how you could make it interesting to journalists. Spammers have recently taken to releasing poor-quality news items to just get backlinks. A better notion would be to research how to write a professional release and then consider what would be truly interesting to put in it.
- Automate, Automate, Automate! The work involved in internet marketing can be soul destroying. Before you get involved in some lengthy submission or promotion process, consider whether you could get a software or a freelancer to do it for you. Or whether it ought to be done that way at all.
- Clean Up Your HTML. Dreamweaver adds lots of extra blank space to HTML code, and breaks lines. This is especially irritating in meta tags. Use EditPad's 'Find and Replace' function to delete newlines and double blank spaces in your webpages.
- Install A Blogging Software Easily. Wordpress can be installed in moments from the Fantastico section of Cpanel. It allows a non-pro to put their thoughts on the net easily. You ought to get a search-engine optimised theme for it; this will make Google index it properly. Such softwares are free; you needn't pay for them.
- Submit To The Top Web Directories, like Yahoo and DMOZ, but don't spend much time or money. Only a few are worth a damn for SEO purposes. You'll only get an occasional visitor from these.
- Come Up For Air Occasionally. It's very easy to get mired in the minutiae of this or that web project. There are people whose _lives_ revolve around tweaking addons to open-source software. You need to keep your eyes on the prize; what do you desire and what's the most direct, legal way of acquiring it?
I hope these few basic tips will help you in getting useful web design and marketing done quickly. - 15790
About the Author:
Nicky Svengali is an author for web site design consultant UK and UK adverse credit loans web sites in London, UK.