“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This maxim is true for many things in life, none more so than a website. While most law firms are professional in their day-to-day business operations, many still haven’t learned that a website that’s poorly designed can damage the firm’s credibility and impair its image.

If you’re part of a large organization, your website will probably have been started by a small group of evangelists. It will have grown in a very ad hoc manner. Gradually, senior management will have become more involved. Finally, the website will have been viewed as just another business tool, and managed as such.

Throughout my research, I’m always surprised when I stumble onto websites that seem to offer great products and services but lack or fail in certain important elements — elements that, with just a few short changes, can help multiply the results almost instantaneously. Generally, I have found that there are seven common mistakes that these sites make.

I often receive emails from people asking me where do I get my sources, statistics, news and information for my editorials in my newsletters. Some of these resources offer superb information as well as links to other pertinent sites — while I use them as editor these sites can be of tremendous help to any Internet marketer. So without further ado, here’s a partial list of the many sources and resources that I often visit:

When it comes to selling online, one thing is certain: a small focused website that features just one lead product will far outsell a big website that features lots of products and links.

Even with limited knowledge and experience, you can build and maintain websites for profit. Here are just some ways you can do so.

In-bound links from other web sites to yours provide two avenues to success for your site.

Are you frustrated with your website?

I’ve been there before. Everyday you check your visitor
statistics and every day you see the same poor results. A slow
trickle of visitors, no real leads – it gets pretty painful.
The good news is that this problem can be remedied very quickly
(and cheaply) with just a few minor tweaks to your website.

Dear Jim

I have a question regarding a e commerce site using PHP extensions vs. html. That is, I have seen at this SEO site that there might be an issue with search engines being able to crawl this kind of a site, since these are javascript sites I think there might be reason to worry, is it true? What should I do?

For over six years, Ross Dunn and StepForth Placement have provided search engine optimization and placement services to a wide array of businesses and organizations. The staff at StepForth are experts in the fields of search engine marketing, search engine friendly design and, of course, search engine placement. They also follow the business of search engines like sports fans follow the playoffs. They welcome questions relating to the search engine industry and articles they have written.

People are impatient on the Web. They are function and task orientated. They want to get things done as quickly as possible. The average person is still accessing the Web over a 56 KB modem. You should therefore have a major focus on ‘light’ webpages if you want to increase reader-satisfaction.

In part 2 of my introduction to accessible web text, I explore the issues surrounding text size; explain what all the fuss is about; and suggest some useful approaches you can adopt to ensure the text on your web pages will be readable to your visitors.

Several years ago, at the beginning of my Internet career, I asked someone if HTML was an abbreviation for Hotmail. Yes, I really was that naive. Since then, I’ve learned a fair bit about HTML coding. I had to.

As a writer, I needed an online presence for my web content services; and as an ornery, mule-headed, cheapskate writer, I was determined to build it myself in spite of those who said I should leave it to the experts.

Sure, making money online with tons of traffic is easy.

But what if you don’t have much traffic? Is it still possible to make a good income online?

An English-language site is fine for attracting Web visitors from English-speaking countries (only 5.6% of the world’s population), or from the sporadic English-speakers in the other countries. But the need for a second (and third) language on your site comes when it becomes obvious that you are missing out on sales to another country.

There’s a simple explanation for poor web site sales conversion. The biggest reason visitors don’t buy anything is because the site isn’t designed to sell – it’s designed to give information. Think of your web site as a Virtual Salesperson, like many sales people, it talks too much. Dazed and confused, the visitor floats around from section to section in the site with no set destination.

Lets face it. Marketing is a challenge. You wouldn’t be reading this article if promoting your business online was just an easy walk in the park under a warm afternoon sun. The reality of it is that marketing could be called a walk in the park, but the sky is filled with nasty looking storm clouds. While there are millions of “marketing methods,” only a few work. Of those few, one of the least known is the concept of seeking customers where they congregate. And customers congregate at Community Websites.

I bet you think building a business on the Internet using free web hosting is smart? I mean, after all, you save yourself $500-$1,000. You probably don’t understand why someone in their right mind would spend money for something they can easily get free. What I’m about to tell you isn’t actively publicized. So listen very closely. Very often there is a hugh price to pay when you totally rely on free stuff you find on the web. “FREE”, really isn’t so free. Especially when you use free web hosting to run your Internet business. There are several problems with free and budget website hosting that you probably aren’t aware of.

The process of updating your website may seem like a fun task at first. You may feel as though you’re really accomplishing a lot by working with your code and images everyday…getting things just right. But believe me, it’s gets old quick.