Small business website designs that depend on uploading photographs for online stores or sites like real estate will be more effective with photograph optimization. Too often site owners upload original digital photos taken at high resolution, and then the load time is intolerable for visitors on dialup because of the file size. They won't stick around waiting for pix to load.

Fact: More than 50% of USA internet users are on dialup. This number dwindles as high speed options become more affordable. Why disappoint half your visitors with slow loading photographs and increase the chance of losing a potential sale?

For this tutorial you may want to read the IrfanView photo edit freeware review previously posted on this blog. The owner of the recently launched e-commerce website for Mainstream Memorabilia downloaded IrfanView and learned this lesson in about 15 minutes total, and was very pleased with the ease of use. The online store is easier to manage, and IrfanView will be used on the Mainstream Memorabilia advice blog, also.

You should consider downloading the free software for this photograph optimization tutorial from IrfanView if you don't already own it.

Once installed, go to any large photo in My Documents and right click on the file name and select "Open with..." and then select "IrfanView" from the menu list. Here's a sample photo and screenshot of the open window.



In the main window menu (see top arrow) select "Image" and then "Resize/Resample" or use the shortcut keys by holding the CTRL button and pressing the letter R. The next window as shown below summarizes the file information, shows the current photo width in pixels, and the resolution in dots per inch, or dpi. Enter the desired width to match what you want on your site, and then select "OK".



When you select "File" and then "Save as" a new window appears as shown below. The sliding bar controls the quality of the final photo, and may be adjusted from lowest to best with 100 being the highest quality. Experiment with the bar in this last step until you have the smallest file size which still displays well on your screen and use that on your website.



To summarize, the steps are as easy as 1-2-3 within IrfanView. Select image-resize/resample, enter the width before doing save-as jpg, and then experiment with the slide bar until the file size is reasonable. Anything less than 50Kb file size will display well on your small business website, so taking your 1 meg photos and reducing them may keep visitors on your site longer and help make more sales.



TAGS: advice small business advice software reviews photo tutorial photo edits website design

Labels: advice, photographs, reviews, software, tutorials, websites

                       

I finished another customized website and the launch took place today for Mainstream Memorabilia featuring current stars of film and television. The owner took over managing the site and is actively loading more great photographs including many autographed one of a kind.

The site features the animation shown below, and the effect was not done in flash, so the file size is small at 181Kb for a reasonable load time.:



Here's an excerpt from their home page describing their business:

Our industry connections began during many years doing production work on movies and in television, so we have the insider advantage. Our direct contact with movie and television stars, and their agents, provides sources for new inventory that you may find difficult or impossible to locate anywhere else.

Besides being a fun project, the Mainstream Memorabilia e-commerce website provides excellent quality, great selections, and value for money, so visit their site today to learn more.



TAGS: website launch custom website design small business services online store

Labels: launch, photographs, websites

                       

Here's a free testing resource for small business website owners that deserves your attention. In most cases the need for this test will arise rarely, or never. At times clients will contact me about their website after one of their customers phones them to report the site is not online. In most cases I can view the website and when asked, my client can, too, so what's going on? The internet is called the "web" for a reason.

Flawless site access depends on connected threads from numerous chains of computer systems and internet service providers that point visitors to pages on the hosting server. Sometimes a local thread can be broken. Before becoming alarmed that your website is missing in action, here's some advice for how to test for broken threads.

My choice is using a proxy server like www.megaproxy.com. These online services can confirm the presence of pages of a given www domain on the hosting server, so you can find out immediately if your small business website is truly online.

Visit www.megaproxy.com and look for the try it free option and follow the link. Type your www domain and select the surf button and the megaproxy server will keep you on their site yet present the target web pages IF they are accessible. If your pages show on megaproxy, the site is online and connected, so the customer who reported the site offline has a local problem. The best advice is apologize, explain that your site is confirmed online, and ask that they try again later in the day.

If your site cannot be viewed through the megaproxy site, contact your designer or internet service provider for answers.



TAGS: advice small business advice website design server problems

Labels: advice, tutorials, websites

                       

Last February I released free artwork of a 2007 business card calendar for the benefit of my small business clients. The 2008 version was released today.

This free 2008 business card size calendar artwork in 300 dpi JPG is yours to download with no obligation. The file is in a zip folder (336kb) and the artwork is 3.625 inch x 2.125 inch to allow for trimming to the US standard 3.50 x 2.00 business card. You do not have to register or reveal your email address and may download immediately from this link:



Right click on card and "save target as" to download now.

If you need 2007, the free 2007 calendar artwork download is still here.



TAGS: small business resources graphic artwork 2008 calendar free calendar

Labels: artwork, templates

                       

The coffee mug shown in the photograph below was in a surprise package received from Chris Knight of EzineArticles.com in recognition after they promoted me as a platinum author. I once mentioned this item to a client who said they'd love to see the mug and then suggested I post it on my website.

The customer is always right, so a smaller version of the photo is now featured on my Directory of Small Business Articles Published Online, and the graphic art tutorial that follows explains how the coffee mug was edited using Xara Xtreme to create the dynamic look and special effects.



By combining graphics and digital magic, this is how a photograph of a simple item like a coffee mug can be enhanced. The photo edit took less than an hour using Xara Xtreme which is perfect for creating professional illustrations for your small business website or advertising artwork for print.



The left photo (A) is just the mug held at arm's length outdoors, and the center photo (B) was a recent Florida sunset that I snapped and chose to use for the background. I took each photograph with a Canon PowerShot A80 digital camera in auto mode. The right photo (C) shows the 6 elements that were combined as layers in Xara Xtreme, and then placed on top of the golden sunset photograph for the finished illustration. Here's the tutorial showing how the 6 elements were created:

1. The coffee mug was precisely traced in Xara Xtreme and the background removed
2. The glass table top effect was done using a black rectangle overlay with 75% transparency
3. A clone of the coffee mug was cropped and flipped to create a partial mirror image
4. The shadow of the mug and handle was applied in Xara Xtreme at 38% black
5. The shadow under the mug was done as a black ellipse with 4.4px feathering
6. Part of the sunset photograph was cloned, cropped, and flipped to create the reflection

If you are interested in a cost effective vector graphics software program, Xara Xtreme is my choice for custom graphics and photo edits. Download a free 30 day trial of Xara Xtreme here.

UPDATE: Download this illustration as free desktop wallpaper here (250kb JPG zipped folder). Readers do not have to register or reveal their email address, so just right click the link and "save target as" for your copy.



TAGS: advice graphic artwork photo edit tutorial xara xtreme

Labels: advice, artwork, examples, photographs, tutorials

                       

Custom website design services have been expanded for clients interested in e-commerce websites, online stores, CMS Content Management Systems, and forums or message boards. Pricing for budgetary purposes for dynamic interactive sites are as follows:

$1000 for custom Forum or Message Board website design
$1500 for custom CMS Content Management System website design
$2000 for custom E-Commerce Online Store website design
$3000 for custom Main Site with Online Store website design

Price includes installation with a custom look and basic setup. The client will be given resources for learning how to load and manage their e-commerce website, content management system, or forum community message board.

These custom website packages allow customers to take over managing their website by adding or deleting content without knowing the details of HTML code. Most begin with a free open source template to save $1000's in design fees, and each is customized for a unique look including custom graphics.

Small business owners don't have to spend $5000 or more for an online store, forum, or CMS website when affordable options are available from the Small Business Resource Center.

In addition, a custom integrated blog may be added to the package which allows easy publishing of advice and news. The benefits of adding fresh content often may be realized with any of these custom package dynamic website designs.



TAGS: custom website design e-commerce small business services content management system cms forum online store

Labels: templates, websites

                       

Most small business websites have the company logo or a header graphic near the top of each page, and a simple link on these will improve usability. For example, my site is actually two sections, the blog and the main site, and if you click on the header from any page it will take you to the home page.

Improved navigation by linking from the header is easy to do by making the graphic a hyperlink with a border value of zero. This is common practice yet it's not universal, so if your website header or logo is not hyperlinked you may want to consider adding that feature to allow people the option to return quickly to your main page.

Every website has a learning curve for usability, so making your site navigation obvious could give you an edge over your competitors. Make a favorable first impression and then offer ease of navigation and you are more likely to keep visitors on your small business website longer.



TAGS: advice small business advice website design website navigation

Labels: advice, websites

                       

Here's some advice for do-it-yourself small business website design. Some search engine experts claim insider knowledge about how search engines work, and offer to reveal their secrets for a fee. Citing just one example, you may be surprised to learn that SEO optimized website file names are not really secret. Don't expect them to give away search algorithms, but the major search engines do reveal design strategy that may help your small business website. Here's more about website file names.

Website designers 10 years ago did not give much thought to file names, and most web page names were single words followed by the htm extension. More recently search engine optimization, seo, has evolved into a science with web developers forming opinions about right and wrong. Today techniques for file naming website pages and graphics allows multiple words, and these words are commonly run together or separated by a space, hyphen, or underscore. Which is best?

Truth: Literal file names for pages or graphics offer nominal value for search engine optimization.

Google can separate words run together and spaces are okay, yet they prefer hyhens to underscores. Until recently underscores linked words into nonsensical words while spaces or hyphens were harmless because they are ignored. Some experts insist you must use hyphens, but even that is changing.

File names are not a major factor for SEO. Content is still what determines the value and relevance of your pages, so do not agonize over your file naming method. Words connected by underscores can now be separated by Google and they do a good job separating words run together. While the other major search engines should eventually catch up to indexing by ignoring the underscore, my advice is naming with hyphens for new page or graphic names if you want to optimize for SEO.

It is not necessary to rename existing files. Your content is the key for attracting visitors and search engine results.

My preference has been underscores because they are easier to read. This has not affected my ability to attract quality traffic based on more important search engine optimization techniques like quality content added often. For website visitors who hover over links to view the file name in the lower status bar before following the hyperlink, underscore separated words are easier for them to read, also, so you decide.

Promoting your small business website can be accomplished without paying a consultant. To learn more about proven zero cost SEO methods, view the free SEO PDF reports here, or read about SEO Advice to Feed Search Engines here. The only investment will be your time.



TAGS: advice small business advice website design seo search engine optimization

Labels: advice, seo, websites

                       

A consistent look in all media advertising is important for establishing branding and a familiar corporate identity.

Besides custom website design, my services include custom matching graphic artwork for print. Below is an example of a half page full color magazine ad designed for Roll Screen Solutions of Orlando, Florida. The ad will target high end homeowners next month in a home renovation magazine.



The image is smaller than actual size, and low resolution. In addition, I've designed client advertising including phone book and newspaper advertisements in full color, black and white, or 2-color. The design artwork in this example was half the price of the magazine's art department rate, and matches the website, brochure, and business cards which I also created for Roll Screen Solutions.

A few years ago I created artwork for a highway billboard to match one client's color scheme. In their case the advertising agency would have done artwork for free. After having me do their website, custom mailers, trifold brochure, newspaper ads, and business cards, the client preferred paying for billboard artwork to keep the consistent corporate identity.



TAGS: graphic artwork custom artwork magazine ad advertising artwork

Labels: artwork, examples

                       

Small business owners joining the internet with a new website often end up fixated on numbers that are meaningless. As each website owner gains experience, some are eventually drawn into concepts of search engine optimization as they learn new terms like Google PageRank. If you have the Google toolbar for IE or FireFox installed with the pagerank status bar showing current pagerank, mouse over the scale and you may have noticed their "PageRank is Google's measure of the importance of this page" message.

Does that mean your website is unimportant if your pagerank is 1 or 2? Not necessarily.

In a reply to a request for advice a few months back I cautioned a website owner that his site needed a makeover. The first impression is critical to keeping visitors on any website, and having them eventually buy products or services. The text content he had was fine, yet the presentation looked like grade school graphics from 1995 which is inappropriate for a commercial site. Given a choice, most buyers will be drawn to an attractive website design.

In this case study, the person's question involved a recent pagerank drop of his home page from 3 to 2, and he was more worried about that number than his bottom line. His service is local within 100 miles of the location of his business, so he's not looking for worldwide clients. For key phrases that describe his services the website showed up on page one of Google results, so he should have been very happy.

Your small business website's success is not measured in "importance" to visitors other than paying customers. If the small business owner in this scenario had put time and energy into improving the first impression for visitors, more would be inclined to buy rather than click to the next site in the search results. Success online is not about traffic. It is about converting traffic to paying customers, so be careful about being distracted by Google pagerank misconceptions.

Quality content added often will draw and keep both types of visitors... people with money and search engines. You may want to read an article I wrote and published in 2006 entitled My 5 Second Rule for Small Business Owners to understand more about first impressions in print and online.



TAGS: advice small business advice search engine optimization seo google pagerank

Labels: advice, general, seo, websites

                       

The directory of royalty free stock photographs at the Small Business Resource Center has been updated to add four additional websites. Our directory rates sites from 5 star down to 1 star, and we now feature links to 22 sites. More than 150 websites were reviewed to save visitors time finding stock photos with limited restrictions for commercial use.

While many stock photo directories use "free" to describe their photographs, caution must be used. There is a subtle yet important difference between copyright, publicity rights, and privacy rights. The US Library of Congress provides an excellent comparison of rights: copyright, publicity, and privacy here.

A photo of a person, famous or otherwise, requires a model release to avoid infringement or violation of fair use. Photographs of famous places or product logos may be in violation of the law, also, even if you took the photograph.

Some stock photo sites may not explain copyright versus publicity or privacy rights, so please read the license of any photograph you are considering from these websites and then for reference review the Library of Congress legal notice to avoid violations.

Visit the Small Business Resource Center free stock photo directory here.



TAGS: advice small business advice photographs free stock photographs copyright privacy rights publicity rights

Labels: advice, photographs, websites

                       

If you are learning what I teach about the importance of backlinks for search engine optimization, or seo, don't overlook my advice to avoid link schemes or link farms. Lately it seems link exchange requests are gaining popularity with spammers.

The last few months link exchange requests are showing up almost daily in my email inbox. My advice for my small business clients is ignoring people who address you as "Dear Webmaster" and delete their message. If they offer an option to "opt out" to cease receiving their solicitations, don't do it. Some junk mailers will comply with your request to be removed from their mail list, and then give or sell your email address to someone else. The best choice is ignore the message because once you reply to make the opt-out request, you just confirmed they have a valid email address to pass on to cohorts.

Bonus tip: In Outlook, when you highlight an email message and press the delete button to get rid of it, that message is still held on your computer. Instead, highlight the offending message and then hold the shift key while you press the delete key once, and you get the warning "Are you sure you want to delete this message permanently?" which means that the junk is not only gone, it cannot be retrieved. Select "yes" to delete the email message forever.

In previous posts and in my series of free pdf seo reports for do-it-yourself website promotion, I've championed the value of backlinks to your site. Be careful. The most recent requests coming to me from junk mailers are three way link schemes. You link to us, and we have another third site that will link to you.

Their strategy is deceptive because they want to create the appearance of voluntary one-way links. Forget the fact that their inbound link will be from a totally unrelated site, and has zero value to you, they are conspiring to create false popularity of their websites. Any deceptive means for improving your standing with search engines will eventually be caught. You will be punished, so don't do it.



TAGS: advice small business advice search engine optimization seo junk mail spam

Labels: advice, general, seo

                       

My recent report for do-it-yourself small business website promotion introduced SubmitEaze for submitting your website to web directories. The strategy of listing your site in public directories that sort websites by category is one way to gain backlinks to your website.

Each link TO your site is like a vote when found by search engines, so small business website owners are encouraged to take 30 minutes a week to submit to 5 sites. For more natural linking over an extended period of time, pick one day a week to submit to 5 sites, and continue the weekly project for 6 months instead of spending 2-3 days of intensive submissions.

The free seo report Web Directory Top Resources listed my top 150 sites, and some may be outdated. The SubmitEaze software is preprogrammed with current sites and their future updates are free for life. This has been a great time saver because of the auto fill feature. As of August 2007 it is available in your choice of Pro License for $64.95 or Standard License at $39.95. View SubmitEaze features or download a trial copy here.

Here is the list of features and benefits displayed on the opening window of SubmitEaze version 4.0.

• Find directories that link to your website using Directory Detective.
• Full control over the auto-fill feature, so you can add your own fields.
• Sort directories on Google PageRank, Alexa Traffic Rank, or number of Incoming Backlinks to the directory.
• Setup rotating link title text and description text for each project.
• Full range of directories: Free, Reciprocal Link Required, and Payment Required.
• Project Briefcase so you can import / export projects between different computers.
• Full web browser navigation to display the current URL, move backwards, forwards, stop and refresh.

Pros: Ease of use, updated free for life, great time saver, excellent help files with video tutorials
Cons: A few outdated sites because directories changed from free to free with reciprocal link

This is software that I have purchased and use, and I recommend SubmitEaze for small business owners.



TAGS: advice small business advice software review submiteaze

Labels: advice, reviews, software, websites

                       

Hot topics for small business owners include solutions for taxes, insurance, and marketing. Most entrepreneurs are so busy with day to day details of running their business that priorities sometimes get overlooked. Time is the enemy, and finding a way to defeat the worst small business enemy is filled with distractions.

The strategy of locating new customers, attracting repeat customers, and contacting prospects is made more difficult for sole proprietors because delegating responsibility to the guy in the mirror will not save you any time. Tactical activities that generate revenue are a necessity. In order to grow, owners must identify non-essential tasks and avoid spending time on things that are fun to do, and utilize spare time for long term strategic goals like marketing.

The discipline to focus on planting seeds to harvest in the future while maintaining existing day to day momentum will make the difference between success and failure. Learn to question what you do, as you do it, and stop activities that are unnecessary which will allow you to stay focused on tasks to help your business grow.

My pet peeve time waster is research. How easy it becomes to go online looking for information, and realize an hour later you followed a path that was fun and interesting without having anything to do with the original goal. Learn to recognize ways that time becomes your worst small business enemy, and watch your productivity improve.



TAGS: advice small business advice productivity time management

Labels: advice, general

                       

Each page of the Small Business Resource Center main site and blog now includes a Google Custom Search box to enhance the usability and navigation for visitors. Previous lessons for web developers advised designers to include ease of use and navigation in layouts, and with the growth of this site to nearly 200 pages the search function was overdue.

The search boxes are located in the top right column of each page on the main site, and below the introduction and photo in the left column of each blog page. The article written in July 2007 entitled Tap the Seo Power of Google points to free resources for webmasters that are available, and you may find out more at About Google.

If your small business website has expanded to 50 or more pages, you should consider adding the search function to your site, as well. Blogs are different and tend to grow rapidly, so you may need the search function sooner than later. By posting to a blog twice per week you add over 100 pages to your website in just one year, so visitors are more likely to stay longer if you provide a search option.

Feel free to contact me for advice or suggestions to implement the Google Custom Search function to your website or blog.



TAGS: advice small business advice website design custom search blog blogger

Labels: advice, blogger, websites

                       

The next pdf download in my free series of search engine optimization reports is available. Unlike some free reports, visitors do not have to register or provide an email address to download any of these free SEO advice reports.



Visit my main site to download the "Web Directory Top Resources" PDF report and learn the process for submitting your site to website directories to gain backlinks. This is #4 in the series of 6 Do-It-Yourself Website Promotion reports for small business owners, so get the others if this is your first visit. Bonus information includes my list of Top 150 Web Directories.



TAGS: advice reports seo search engine optimization free download small business advice

Labels: advice, articles, seo, tutorials

                       

My oldest email account goes back to the last century, and sometimes it's tough giving up an old friend. The address gets so much spam that I don't use it and so it gets checked infrequently. I recommend small business owners check their email more often. Imagine the surprise with the following load of email since the last time I did Spring Cleaning when it really was Spring.



You have 1,842 unread messages with 155 in the inbox and 1,687 in the bulk folder. Those took 5-10 minutes to delete, and in the end my previously saved email was down to 5. One is a resource that my readers may enjoy. In February I recommended people take a typing course. From the 5 emails I had saved, here's a typing related message with a link to an online typing test that may be a resource worth a moment of your time.

TYPINGTEST.COM TEST RESULTS

Jim Degerstrom,

You have today completed TypingMaster's On-line
Typing Test with the following results:

Test Time: 1 min.
Typing Speed: 70 WPM
Accuracy: 100 %

NET SPEED: 70 WPM

Looking back at my last year in high school, the choice to take typing proved valuable for my career 20 years later hand coding XHTML for websites. Today's lesson is keep an eye on dormant email accounts, plus another reminder that it's never too late to learn how to type. Writing web content, advice articles, press releases, and everyday correspondence is much more efficient even at 35-40 words per minute if you've never learned touch typing before.



TAGS: small business advice email spam typing

Labels: advice, general