Today’s Internet is a lot different than it used to be. With new developments such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and web standards, building websites the same old way just won’t cut it anymore. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) creates guidelines and regulations that designers strive to follow to make their sites as accessible and functional as possible. Compliance with W3C standards ensures that your site achieves its full potential across a range of systems. However, the W3C regulations continue to change everyday. Do these new rules and regulations on the Internet mean that your website has to suffer aesthetically? The answer is NO. With CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), web designers have the ability to do anything on the web, from browser compatibility to full control of all the aesthetics of any web page. CSS also gives a more solid foundation for SEO, usability, and compliance with web standards.

From a development aspect of web design, the first great advantage of CSS is cross browser compatibility. Every web designer has sat down at a foreign computer and opened one of their websites only to find that the layout is mangled. Everything is either in a different spot or not present at all. This happens because different Internet browsers, and even different versions of the same Internet browser, display websites slightly differently. Web designers are forced to test their builds on as many browsers as possible to minimize this problem. However, users constantly upgrade their computers and download new features to enhance their experience on the Internet. As a developer, you can never control all the variables, but you can eliminate the majority of the problems by using CSS – an extreme advantage when one considers that everything on the Internet is about usability. If the user is at ease and comfortable then they are more likely to return to your site, purchase your product, recommend your service to others, etc. If they get confused because the navigation moves or doesn’t function properly, they are more likely to move on to another site.

Web designers know that the power of CSS gives them many options, but a great deal of designers do not use CSS to its full capabilities. By learning about this language, you can develop it to do more. The cascading part of CSS is the most important feature and yet it is still the most over-looked. CSS makes it possible for the designer to alter one file and, in doing so; make modifications to the entire site. For example, rather than adjusting every font tag individually, this programming technique allows the designer to alter every font in the entire site by changing a single tag in the CSS file. CSS also creates code that is cleaner and less bulky than other scripting languages. Less code means that the search engine “bots” will have enhanced access to the content on your website. In turn, your website will be indexed more effectively, matching your site with appropriate inquiries from users looking for your services. Older development techniques like frames and tables limit the search engines’ ability to crawl your website, so the bot will leave without registering the content. This significantly limits the search engines’ ability to view and catalogue all of your information, and ultimately limits your presence online.

Increased ease and efficiency is another great benefit of CSS. Once you have obtained a decent knowledge of the programming technique, however, it is very easy to let the styles of the CSS control the way you design. CSS functions much like building blocks. At the bottom levels, building is very easy to accomplish, but the larger you go the more advanced and detailed the work becomes. I see many websites that boast about the designer’s ability to utilize CSS, but the site is rather plain and boring. I am a big fan of minimalism but not when it results from a lack of creativity. Which brings me to the question, has the ease of CSS made designers lazy? For some, the answer is yes, but others use the many advantages of CSS to connect creative design with utility and performance. As a full-time designer, I devote all of my energy to creating graphic-focused, visually stimulating websites with CSS as the structure everything is built on.

A website doesn’t have to be simple or boring to work properly. CSS does not limit the design graphically but instead gives the designer the power to create an aesthetically pleasing and fully functional website. If you took two identical designs and built one with tables and one table-less (CSS), the CSS site would have a higher usability across more platforms, it would rank better with the search engines, and the overall performance of the website would be better. Graphically intense CSS layouts do take more time to think through and build out, but that is why I make custom websites. In the ever-changing online world, CSS-based sites are the most up-to-date and effective way to build W3C compliant websites that push the limits of design and function.

So, you think you’re off to a good start because you finally got your new Web site up and running. You even have one of those counters at the bottom of your homepage so you know exactly how many people visit your site. Done patting yourself on the back yet? When you are, it’s time to move your site to the next level. It’s time for Web Analytics.

Web Analytics may sound like some sort of complex configuration for your web site, but for amateur Web page developer and internet retailers, Web Analytics is actually an incredibly useful, and easy, tool. In one fell swoop, Web analytics can help you figure out all the important information about people who visit your site. Put simply, it’s a way to study who visits your site, what they do while they are there, and why they leave. We’re talking about, all the Whos, Whats, Wheres, Whens, and Whys.

If you’re looking to sell something on your site, Web analytics can tell you what product pages are attracting the most viewers, which ones the least. The tool can even tell you what parts of your site are confusing to your visitors. And it can tell you where your biggest customers are coming from.

If you’re looking to market yourself on search engines, there’s no better way than Web Analytics. The tool allows you to figure out which keywords work best to drive traffic to your site. It can help you figure out how many hits you’re receiving from your advertising campaigns. That way, you can build your Web content to focus on those keywords and campaigns, and to drive even more traffic to your site.

The benefits of Web analytics are many, so here is just a short list of the main ones.
Web Analytics can:

• provide a traffic count. But unlike those basic counters on the bottom of a homepage, Web Analytics can breakdown your visitors by how many are new, or “unique,” visitors, and how many are repeat visitors, along with what pages, and how many pages, they viewed.

• track down the IP address of your visitors, which is like their numerical address on the Web where the visitors are coming from. Not only that, you can track them down to their geographical, real-world location, too, as well as the time of day that they came.

• breakdown individual visits by the entry page, where the person first landed at your site, and the exit page, the last page they visited before they left. Entry pages generally show that the visitor may have bookmarked your site on that page, probably because of its valuable content. Exit pages, on the other hand, could be your site’s most boring content.

• count the total time that visitors spent on your site, and exactly what path they took through the site. This can give you the better idea about how well-designed your Web page is, so you can learn how to better design your site’s navigation to direct visitors where you want them to go, and get them to stick around your site longer.

• trace your visitors back to the links that brought them to your site. The more links other Web sites have to your pages, the better. On the other hand, visitors may have come straight to your site, which is also not too shabby. It could mean that word-of-mouth on your site is working.

• weigh the value of search engine keywords in your Web content. You could find out what search terms visitors are using at your site. And you could also analyze which terms people are using at search engines to find your site. Either way, it’s a great way to optimize your content to what your visitors are looking for.

The ultimate benefit of Web Analytics is to make your site more worthwhile to its visitors. But of course, you want to make it more worthwhile to you too.

There is not the slightest doubt that Reciprocal Links have a major role to play in increasing your link popularity, securing a high page rank and bringing in traffic. Though Search Engines consider one way links superior to reciprocal links, the fact remains that we do need them. The biggest problem faced by new webmasters is that their request for reciprocal link exchange is often turned down by webmasters with high page rank websites because the new site often is PR0.

This often causes disillusionment and disappointment in the ranks of new webmasters who had spent many hours researching the internet and identifying the related high PR websites.

By following these steps systematically you will soon be on your way to achieving your objective and be happy enjoying your work.

Step 1. Complete Construction of Website:

First and foremost your website should be complete. Your website should have excellent content and be related to the theme of your website. The site should be optimized for your chosen keyword or keywords. Remember content is king. Search Engines love them, so too will your website visitors.

Step 2. Submit to Search Engines:

Submit your website to Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista and to all the leading Search Engines. Do not submit “under construction” websites as they will never be indexed and could further delay future indexing.

Step 3. Submit to Directories:

Submit your website to Directories such as Open Directory, Yahoo, JoeAnt and to other leading directories. There are three types of directories. (a) Those that accept free listing without reciprocal linking. (b) Those that accept free listing but require reciprocal linking. (c) Those that have only paid listing. Some do have a combination of all these. Since submitting to the paid directories could be too costly to the newbie, the best option would be to start submitting to the free submission directories that have a high PR. This will make your site visible in the internet world, increase its overall importance and bring you several one way links and reciprocal links.

Step 4. Writing and submitting Articles to Article Directories:

While you are in the process of submitting your site to the directories you should commence writing articles on the theme of your website or related themes and submit them to article banks, article directories, and article distributors and to related high PR websites that accept articles. Your articles should be of good quality, helpful to the audience and display to the internet world your knowledge and expertise. If you don’t have the ability to write articles the other option is to obtain the services of a ghost writer to write a few articles for you.

The purpose of writing these articles is to obtain one way links and also traffic to your website. Hence it is important that you have a resource box at the end of your articles with your website link embedded in them. Article writing is one of the best ways of obtaining one way links and you are bound to get dozens in quick time. The more number of relevant one way links you obtain, the greater will be your chances of improving your link popularity and climbing up the Page Rank ladder.
If in the meantime you get requests for Reciprocal Link exchange from good relevant sites you may accept them.

Step 5. Posting at Forums and Writing Testimonials:

Post your expert comments and advice at related discussion forums with your signature file and URL
Write testimonials about the products that you have used and request the webmaster or vendor publishing your testimonials to display your site URL when he publishes the testimonials. These can all bring you one way links to boost up your link popularity.

Step 6. Request for Reciprocal Links:

The above systematic approach will propel your website to PR2, PR3 or even PR4. You are now beginning to be recognized by the search engines, and also by other webmasters who have read your articles and forum posts.

The time is now ripe for you to request for reciprocal links seriously not only from sites of equal page rank but also from PR5 a PR6 websites as well.

Your reciprocal link exchange requests are now not going to fall on deaf ears and will receive serious consideration because: (a) You have a reasonable page rank. (b)You are beginning to be recognized as an expert in your field. (c) Your website is being identified as one that has good content and potential of achieving higher page rank.

Wise and experienced webmasters can identify such websites and will find it hard to reject your reciprocal link exchange request. In fact you will find quite a few webmasters who would like to be associated with you by either publishing your articles or accepting your reciprocal link request.

Conclusion:

The rejection, the consequent pain of mind and disappointment unfortunately kills the enthusiasm of some of the newbies. Though it might appear difficult initially but writing articles and posting in forums are much easier than obtaining a reciprocal link from high Page Rank webmasters.

By following the above method systematically, Link Exchange becomes a more enjoyable and rewarding experience. bringing in its wake heaps of Reciprocal Links, One way links, high Page Rank, increased Link Popularity and Targeted Traffic. What more do you want?