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Anatomy Of A Website Development Project
2008-06-01 23:56:00
IntroductionA website development project has many component parts. Some are well understood, some are misunderstood and some come as a complete surprise. This document outlines the many aspects of a web development project and demystifies them.We need a websiteNot surprisingly web development projects often start with this premise. A variation on this theme might be 'Our website is looking dated, we need a new one...' To many, the first stage, having established the need is to embark on the design. This is wrong.KEY POINT Starting a web project by looking at the design is wrongThe first stage of a website development project is to establish the need. This however does not mean simply deciding you need a website. Establishing the need means understanding the needs of your business and the needs of your customers and how a website might address those needs. For example:- Our clients need access to support documentation for our products 24/7- Our clients need to be able to view our ...
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Is Your Website Working for Your Busines
2008-05-18 04:11:00
The power of a website for small businesses cannot be emphasized enough. It is a must have marketing tool for small business owners.Your website is a gateway to a worldwide group of customers and prospects; it markets and sells your products and services; it attracts and converts sales leads; it establishes your credibility and expertise, and much more.And as a bonus, a website can do all this at a relatively low cost to build, maintain and update.However, just because you have a website up and running, doesn't mean that it's doing what it's supposed to do in terms of marketing and sales.First you need to be really clear on what the purpose of your website is. For most small business owners and independent professionals, your website should do the following:* Attract qualified prospects* Convert prospects to customers* Convert customers to repeat, profitable clients* Collect the names of people who are interested in your business offerings* Act as a 24/7 sales person - taking and...
More About: Website , Working

Why Every Local Business Needs a Website
2008-04-30 08:01:00
As more and more consumers are turning to the internet to research local buying opportunities, small, locally-based businesses without an internet presence are really losing out on one of the most cost-efficient, effective forms of advertising for their business. Even entrepreneur.com published a lengthy article discussing why every small business needs a website.The old way of thinking that you need to shell out thousands of dollars to a designer and have a big, complicated site for your business is, in my opinion, outdated. Since you conduct your business offline, your website only needs to serve as an advertisement for your business, not a method of doing business. By having a site that is optimized to show up for local searchers and combining that with an effective, direct-response message to get those visitors into your business, you can have an advertising medium that is out working for you and your business 24/7!WHAT TO THINK ABOUT BEFORE YOU HIRE A DESIGNERBefore you rush ou...
More About: Business , Website , Local

The Importance of Web Design
2008-04-30 07:57:00
One of the most important strategies in the world of internet marketing and business is the fact that you have to come up with ways of attracting potential customers. In the world of Internet marketing, one of the sure ways to keep the customers coming up is when you have an effective and at the same time an attractive website.Web design is nothing more than a conceptualization of various electronic media content delivery through the Internet in the form of technologies. This requires planning and modeling so that such data will be suitable for interpretation and display by a web browser or other web-based graphical user interfaces (GUI's). In other words, it must be suitable for viewing and very much understandable by the clients.The rationale behind a web design is to create a website that has a content presentation for the benefit of the end user. The elements used in making a website are text, bit-mapped images, forms that are placed on the page by using HTML, XML, or XTML tags...
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Defining a Target Market For Your Online
2008-03-25 00:14:00
Any seasoned Internet entrepreneur will tell you that without a target market, your online marketing business will have a difficulty getting off the ground. Market ing and selling your products or services without a well-defined market is like entering unknown territory - you never know what you'll get. You could, for example, sell cookware to a group of hardcore bikers or market high-end skin care to lower-income housewives and not be aware of it. With a target market, your products or services are more likely to sell and you'll also have access to the right reviews and feedback later on.Advantages of defining a marketThere are several benefits for knowing which among the segments that make up the market is truly your target area. Here's why:- Your product or service will find the right audience. Think about it: would you sell a work-at-home business solution to a home-based mom or to a busy executive?- A targeted market is much more likely to convert than a general-interest mark...
More About: Online , Target , Target market

How to Convert Website Visitors to Clien
2008-02-18 07:14:00
It's great that you have worked hard on your SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) knowledge and skills and have achieved decent, or even first page placement in the search engine results.It's even better that when the visitor arrives at your site, they are greeted with a beautifully designed website. Afterall, you've worked hard at developing your design knowledge and skills.The problem is though, they stay for about 5 seconds and then hit the back button to go to another site because they didn't immediately see anything to tell them that this site is different and has what they're looking for.Bounce RateMy first recommendation would be to use Google analytics. You can do this by clicking on the Business Solutions on Google's home page. Then go to "Analytics" and follow the instructions. This is a free service and will give you an enormous amount of valuable information.Pay attention to your reported Bounce Rate percentage. If your bounce rate is 80%, this means that 80...
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Forum Marketing - Part 2 - Your First Po
2008-02-18 07:09:00
In part 1 we touched on your Username and Profile.Now I wanted to get into the meat. Posting. You want to have a good look around the forum first before you post. Get a feel for it. Is it a forum that genuinely helps people solve a problem or are most of the posts just blatant attempts to advertise?You want to align your self with a reputable forum. I usually wait 3-5 days from joining before I post. ( Keep in mind we are joining here to brand ourselves, not to get an issue resolved, so we are not in a hurry to post.)As an addition to this, your joining date is usually displayed and if people see you have just joined and made a number of posts they will presume your intentions for joining are not valid.YOUR FIRST POSTI always structure my first post on a forum in this way.Hi Guys, my name is Craig. This forum was recommended to me by a friend and I must say that after reading over it for a few days [Remember, they can check your joining date] it is a wealth of knowledge.I have a que...
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Forum Marketing - How To Brand Yourself
2008-02-18 07:07:00
Forum Marketing works. Of that, there is no doubt.Many successful internet marketers credit their rise through the ranks from the fact that they used forum marketing as one of their main tools. To get the most out of forum marketing you have to have a handle on the following points. Each one of these points is vital and compliments each other.Keep in mind that we are using forum marketing to develop and brand an online business with the end result being an ongoing online income.1. Forum Log In or Username NameYour login or username are of the utmost importance. I register, for the majority of forums, under my real name. Remember, we are building a business here and not doing this for fun. Using your real name tells the other forum members that you have nothing to hide. You are being upfront about who you are. Given time and your valuable contribution to the forum, you will become known as a person with a great deal to offer that chosen niche. Even if your niche forum is about Dogs, ...
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Website Graphics vs Text - Why Can't The
2008-01-21 05:21:00
It's no secret that words sell products, not pictures. The debate continues over what is better to use when filling in your Website homepage. If you're a visual person, you'll lean towards more product pictures. If you're a technical person, you'll probably lean to more text. However, a rule most people forget when designing the look of their websites, is that you're not designing it for you. You're designing it for your customers.Because so many small business owners have a long standing dream of what they want their websites to look like, they forget about what is fruitful for business. If your aim is to make sales, you must design for the customer. That means following the Research.It's all about the Research, People!Research has shown that people are more inclined to purchase a product when they are sold on it with good writing. People want details, and they want them fast. The Stanford Poytner Project conducted a study on how people use the internet. It showed that 92% ...
More About: Graphics , Text

Your Old Website on the New Web – or Why
2007-12-25 07:00:00
This summer, JV Media Design relocated from the bustling metropolis known as Southern California to the more rural and peaceful surroundings of Southern Oregon. I’ve spent the last couple months creating a marketing plan for our new local area and in so doing have met some wonderful business owners – with some not-so-wonderful websites.Seeing some of these “retro” sites on the web of today made me a little nostalgic but it also got me thinking that many businesses, no matter where they are located, have a, “build it once” attitude with their websites. Many believe they were innovators by having a website built in 1998 and have held on to that while the internet has evolved around them. Of course, these are extreme examples; websites that have not changed in 10 years, but what about those websites that have not changed in 2 years? I find the large majority of clients who engage us to redesign their company website have not touched their old one in at least two years. Many factors go ...
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Hey, What's Included in that Design Fee?
2007-12-12 23:16:00
A recent thread in one of the professional design forums I frequent raised an interesting discussion about how designers justify their rates. I find it endlessly fascinating that design buyers—everyone from corporate ventures to mom and pop shops—have such a hard time understanding what it is they are actually paying for.It's not uncommon to get questions like why so expensive; it's just a five-page website? and It can't possibly take that long to design a logo, can it? and even the old But there's no way to know if it's even going to work or not, so why should I have to pay premium prices?The problem with this line of questioning is not that the client wants to know why they're paying what they're paying. We all have a right to know what we're spending our money on. The real problem lies in what it reveals: the client who asks these questions has no idea what they are actually purchasing.When you buy a car, you expect to know the gas mileage, the type of engine, the horsepo...
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Working Effectively and Efficiently With
2007-12-12 23:10:00
By Aazdak Alisimo A good, organized relationship with your graphic designer is crucial to the whole graphic design process, even in the age of computer generated graphics.The purpose of the graphic designer has always been to use words and pictures to convey information. The graphic designer is an artist, but his or her artistry is directed toward a specific purpose. In the world of fine arts, the artist may create something that serves no purpose. Art can exist just for the sake of art or for the sake of beauty. Graphic design implies purpose, however, and the graphic artist has the responsibility to use his talent to accomplish that purpose.The graphic designer today is usually going to be working for a client. This is true even if the designer is his own client. The point is that someone has an objective that they want to be accomplished and the graphic designer needs to direct his talent to achieving the object. In some ways, this limits the graphic designer, but it is necessary...
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Considering Graphic or Web Design for a
2007-11-09 02:52:00
New graphic artists and web developers are always faced with a challenge of where to start - then once they have the skills, where to get employed!Where to Start?School is definitely the best place to begin training for your new design career. Hopefully, the school you choose is up on all the latest technology and software. The universal standard is the Adobe software, namely, Photoshop and Dreamweaver for graphic and web design, Photoshop, InDesign , & Illustrator for graphics, and Flash for animation. So learning which software you will be using most is key. Without those skills, you're not very "hire-able" in the marketplace. Adobe also offers many regional seminars and training courses that can be a compliment (or even an alternate in some cases) for traditional schooling. But never discount the fact that an actual degree goes a long way on a resume.An Eye for Design ...Another important thing is actually an aptitude for design. Some folks have a natural sense of p...
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Small Actions Have An Effect on Search E
2007-10-25 09:00:00
JV Media Design was recently engaged to do a redesign of an informational website that offered Botox injection training to doctors. One of the things that differentiate our design services from other studios is our attention to detail, experience, and knowledge of how search engine optimization works.While we were putting together the new site pages we were also adding in special code to help with the optimization. Because of the initial research we do into a client's specific industry, we are usually better educated on their target market. This helps to create more effective title and description tags to embed into the page code. It also helps us understand what the best key words or phrases might be to encode into "alt" tags (alternate text for an image) on the page. Often we will use < h1 > or < h2 > tags for headlines on web pages as well. We also add some additional < meta > tags that the search engine robots can read.In simple terms, all this "...
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Can You Trademark Your Business Name?
2007-10-19 01:25:00
By Richard ChapoA trademark is a distinctive image, word or other thing that associates with a product or service. So, can you trademark your business name?Most people think trademarks are logo oriented. In some ways, this is true. The Nike Swoosh is clearly a logo trademark that stands out in peoples minds. When you see it, you immediately think of Nike and its products. While logos can clearly be trademarked, what about a business name? The answer is both yes and no.A trademark is a consumer oriented thing. While it protects the intellectual property of businesses, it is a legal step designed to protect consumers. The basic idea is a trademark should point to a particular product or service and only be used by the company backing those items. This helps consumers in two ways. First, it represents an assurance of a particular type of quality associated with the products or services provided by the company. Second, it precludes other companies from causing consumer confusion by infr...
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A Few Thoughts on Google's AdWords
2007-10-03 21:00:00
(by Sherry Holub)I recently read that some key phrases have jumped up in price lately in the Google AdWords system which has made many an online marketer take note and get a little nervous. With AdWords it's very important to pay close attention to what your ads are doing - how many clicks or conversions are you getting with each key phrase? Have you tried different wording on your ads to see which brings in more clicks? Are you generating weekly reports? Google provides all the tools you need to track your campaigns, it's just a matter of spending an hour or two a week going over everything, doing your own research into what key phrases and ad test might work best for your business and potential customers, and determining how much per click you're willing to pay.If you're in a very competitive business then you might want to run your campaigns a little differently. Try to target more specific things rather than a broad key phrase. Another thing to consider is the average cost o...
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Website Advertising ...
2007-09-27 05:20:00
& Questions to Ask Yourself After Your LaunchYou've done your homework, researched your target market, researched your competitors, got a professionally designed website and just started promoting it. You've submitted your URL to Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/, set up an AdWords Campaign (http://www.google.com/intl/en/ads/), installed a blog, submitted your URL to relevant free directories, sent out a press release to newspaper and print magazines, and made sure to print your URL on all your business cards, letterhead, etc. So now you just sit back and wait for the business to start rolling in, right? Not exactly... Online advertising for your website is an on-going process that should be reviewed on a month-to-month basis. Don't rely just on one avenue of promotion to skyrocket your site up the search engine rankings or dramatically increase your sales. A diversified plan monitored on a regular basis is your best bet for long-term success. Blogs:You've got your blog ...
More About: Website , Advertising , Vert

Internet Website Marketing ...
2007-09-21 05:24:00
...3 Powerful Tools to Find Your Target AudienceBy Daryl CampbellWho is your target audience? That is the one question you need to answer before choosing the internet website marketing techniques you will use to promote your business. Everyday, thousands of people join the online revolution. That number is only going to increase. This is where you have to do some good old fashioned market research.Internet marketing research can tell you where to target your internet marketing promotion and to a degree exactly how much you should invest. You can always hire a consulting firm that specializes in this area but what if you don't have the money to outsource this very critical step?1. Search EnginesBesides the fact that over to 80% of your website traffic will come from search engines, they are also a great place to do research. Think about the product you are interested in selling, type some keyword search terms into your browser and hit enter. You can do this with any number of search...
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Internet Marketing Requires An Effective
2007-08-17 05:22:00
By Juhani TonttiIf it has been written in a right way, the reader is more than willing to click the link in the About The Author Box. That is the real internet marketing part of the article.It is quite simple to put together an effective About The Author Box to make money on the internet. It needs some planned, tiny tricks, which I go through in this article.1.The HTML Or The Plain Text Version.Normally the article submission service requires a certain version or both versions and the requirement depends on the rules of the article directories. All accept the plain text version. Some submitters want both versions, but all in all, if you use an article submission service or software you don't have to worry about this issue.Those internet marketing article directories, which accept HTML content, accept HTML About The Author Box. The HTML Box is a grand way to make the reader quickly click the link and is surely more effective than the plain text version.Small things matter in the int...
More About: Marketing , Internet , Internet Marketing , Effective

Viral Marketing Online - Why it Works
2007-08-02 20:55:00
The dawn of Web 2.0 and the flourishing social networks and online communities it has spawned has, for many, upped the stakes in the marketing and advertising world. More than anything, online social networks make it possible for people to communicate - whether this is on a social or a business level. In particular, the technique of viral marketing benefits from using social networks as a platform, as is made clear from the success of the world's most popular social sites.From the early days of Friends Reunited to the modern success of the likes of MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, social networks have always presented advertisers and marketers with a burgeoning audience. However, using the internet to market a product isn't something that began with Web 2.0, strictly speaking: the late 1990s show clear evidence of people using the internet as an effective tool of social marketing.In 1999, for instance, the independent horror film "The Blair Witch Project" used the unprecedent...
More About: Marketing , Viral , Viral Marketing , Online , Works

What Makes a Great Website?
2007-07-15 09:47:00
There are several things that, when combined together correctly, can distinguish a great website from a mediocre one. Some of these things are a little more important then others. An example of this would be fonts. The type font being used is not as important as the scalability of the text. The text needs to be readable by the user. Notice that you can use the terms user, client, surfer, reader, and customer, interchangeably throughout this article. Concentrating on the appearance and usability, not the mechanics of a website, here are some of the main components that make up a great website.Let’s begin with text. You want users to be able to read your text or you would not have wanted it published on the internet. The human eye is used to black or dark colored text on a white or light colored background. That is one of the simplest ways for your text to be read quickly and easily. Dark colored text on a dark background or light colored text on a light colored background make text h...
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Don't Get Caught Out- What to Expect ...
2007-07-15 09:44:00
From a Web Site Design CompanyTo have a professional appearance in the online world, hiring a web site design company is your best option. They have the experience and the expert skills needed to create a fun and imaginative website that will attract a large number of prospective clients. A web site design company will think of ways to make your website design stand out from the rest, too. You can also hire a web site design company to create a personal website for you, without a business purpose at all. With their expertise and flexibility, a web site design company will create any type of website that you need.It is not hard to develop web site materials by yourself. With the many software programs available, creating custom web site designs are not impossible. If you want to create your own website, a software program is the easiest way to go. Many of them are affordable and easy-to-use, but they do not provide a unique quality or a chance to insert your individual personality in...
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Web Design - Even Error Pages Can Bring
2007-07-05 01:23:00
by Andrew GrantI was talking recently to a friend of mine who is a bit of a web guru. Now I thought that I knew quite a bit about web design and usage, but maybe I'm not as smart as I thought.We were talking about error pages and he told me something that I had never heard before. "Of course you can customize your error pages".I was amazed. He nearly fell off his chair laughing at me when I said that I always thought those 404 error pages came from some central internet point beyond my reach and that they all looked exactly the same.When he had calmed down a little, he patiently explained that an there are scores of error codes covering many different situations. They are all three digits, such as 500 – Server Error , 408 – Request Timeout and of course the familiar 404 – Not found, which most of us see fairly regularly.He went on to say that 404 errors are sometimes caused by users incorrectly typing in a page name, but quite often it can be just a communication glitch be...
More About: Web Design , Design , Pages , Ages

Does Your "Old" Site Work on the "New" W
2007-06-20 06:19:00
By Lauren Hobson Well, apparently there IS something new under the sun...and it's happening all over the web. New technologies, new applications, and new features are making all kinds of web sites more useful than ever before, including business web sites. You may have heard it described as "web 2.0," the "interactive web," or the "content-driven web," but all of these terms reinforce the same basic idea – the web has changed!It used to be that small businesses could simply use their existing brochures and product sheets as content for their web sites, add a few keywords, and maybe add a contact form to create a pretty good small business web site. But now, there's a new web environment for business that's based on multimedia, interactivity, and creative presentation techniques that make these old-school web tactics seem positively outdated.So what's a small business to do?Content DeliveryFor starters, you're going to have to actively communicate w...
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Building Your Brand Interactively
2007-06-03 05:49:00
By Jon BerganWelcome to the world of touch screens, mobile phones and online shopping. It seems interacting with businesses via technology is becoming increasingly popular each year and the horizon indicates that this isn’t going to change. Interact ive marketing is undoubtedly the future of advertising and is a cost effective means of attracting new audiences from just about any location in the world. With over 34 million users online in the Oceania/Australia region and approximately 15 million mobile users in Australia, the people are there and willing to indulge and interact with any content you can throw at them.In order to determine whether interactive marketing could assist you and your business, we must first define such a technology. To put it simply, Interactive marketing is the method of advertising interactively utilising technologies such as the World Wide Web, DVD-ROM’s, mobile devices and online gaming. Users are able to stumble upon products and/or services you offer a...
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Grade Your Website: 31 Free Online Tests
2007-05-25 18:32:00
If someone asked you at what grade level your site’s content was written, could you tell them? What about whether it was fully compatible with every major browser? How many seconds it took to load? Can you confidently state that there are no broken links on your site right now?Although it may seem unimportant to replace an Rich Text apostrophe with the HTML equivalent or to make sure your WHOIS record is perfect, the reality is that the more accessible and polished your website is, the greater chance you have to secure more readership, and, most importantly, more revenue.If you're serious about maintaining a well-rounded, efficient website, the cheapest (and perhaps best) way to make sure you’re on the right track is self-evaluation. To get you started, we’ve put together a list containing 31 of our favorite tools for “grading” your website.Code ValidationThe foundation for every website is fundamentally sound source code. Unfortunately programmers aren’t always the most meticulous...
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Grade Your Website: 31 Free Online Tests
2007-05-25 18:32:00
If someone asked you at what grade level your site’s content was written, could you tell them? What about whether it was fully compatible with every major browser? How many seconds it took to load? Can you confidently state that there are no broken links on your site right now?Although it may seem unimportant to replace an Rich Text apostrophe with the HTML equivalent or to make sure your WHOIS record is perfect, the reality is that the more accessible and polished your website is, the greater chance you have to secure more readership, and, most importantly, more revenue.If you're serious about maintaining a well-rounded, efficient website, the cheapest (and perhaps best) way to make sure you’re on the right track is self-evaluation. To get you started, we’ve put together a list containing 31 of our favorite tools for “grading” your website.Code ValidationThe foundation for every website is fundamentally sound source code. Unfortunately programmers aren’t always the most meticulous...
More About: Website , Free , Online , Tests

Grade Your Website: 31 Free Online Tests
2007-05-25 18:32:00
If someone asked you at what grade level your site’s content was written, could you tell them? What about whether it was fully compatible with every major browser? How many seconds it took to load? Can you confidently state that there are no broken links on your site right now?Although it may seem unimportant to replace an Rich Text apostrophe with the HTML equivalent or to make sure your WHOIS record is perfect, the reality is that the more accessible and polished your website is, the greater chance you have to secure more readership, and, most importantly, more revenue.If you're serious about maintaining a well-rounded, efficient website, the cheapest (and perhaps best) way to make sure you’re on the right track is self-evaluation. To get you started, we’ve put together a list containing 31 of our favorite tools for “grading” your website.Code ValidationThe foundation for every website is fundamentally sound source code. Unfortunately programmers aren’t always the most meticulous...
More About: Website , Free , Online , Tests

How To Waste Money Advertising
2007-05-12 03:59:00
They say that fifty percent of your Ad budget is wasted. The only problem is, nobody knows which fifty!Well it's your lucky day, because over the years, I've uncovered many key areas where advertising dollars are squandered, misspent, misdirected and misused.But first, I think it's important to define which advertisers are likely to be the most wasteful.1. Companies that don't use professional media-buying services.2. Companies with in-house agencies that lack the expertise to buy media correctly. They save the standard 15% agency fees, but waste way more in weak creative, poor media planning and overbuying (it impresses the boss to hear or see his company name every 3 minutes).3. Businesses that simply don't use the proper media to reach their target market.4. Businesses that rely solely on their Agency. Although Agencies are usually very adept, honest and have the company's interests at heart, they may not be quite as frugal with their client's money. It is wise to hire an ...
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How To Put Your Website To Work
2007-04-30 06:48:00
By Helen GravesWe have definitely entered the Age of the URL. You practically can’t walk down the street these days without tripping on a website. It seems like everyone from LL Bean to Oprah to your dentist has one. And the fact is, as a solo entrepreneur, you could most likely benefit from having one too – if you know how.So the question becomes, how do you do it right?I look at a lot of websites (being a web copywriter, it's kind of an occupational hazard) and far too often what I see are "online brochures." Aside from the typos and grammatical blunders, these are sites weighed down with limp features, dry explanations and wordy paragraphs that start with "I..." or "My..." They talk about themselves and what they offer. But they're missing the essential element of connecting with potential or current clients.Your website needs to stir up a reaction, build a sense of connection and rapport with your visitor, and identify you as special. A website th...
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