Hightide Web Resources Articles, News, and Reviews

Even though more and more Internet users switch to broadband every year, a large portion of the web’s population is still running on good old dialup connections. It is therefore unwise to count them out of the equation when you’re designing your website, and a very major consideration we have to make for dialup users is the loading time of your website.

Generally, all the text on your website will be loaded in a very short time even on a dialup connection. The culprit of slow-loading sites is mainly large images on your website, and it is very important to strike a delicate balance between using just enough images to attract your users and not to bog down the overall loading time of your site.

You should also go to a greater length and optimize every image on your site to make sure it loads in the least time possible. What I really mean is to use image editing software to remove unnecessary information on your images, and thereby effectively reducing the file size of your image without affecting its appearance.

If you own Photoshop, it will be obvious to you that when you save an image as a JPEG file, a dialog box appears and lets you choose the “quality” of the JPEG image — normally a setting of 8 to 10 is good enough as it will preserve the quality of your image while saving it at a small file size. If you do not have Photoshop, there are many free image compressors online that you can download and use to reduce your image’s file size.

On the other hand, you can opt to save your images in PNG format to get the best quality at the least file size. You can also save your images in GIF format — the image editing software clips away all the color information not used in your image, hence giving you the smallest file size possible. However, saving in GIF format will often compromise the appearance of your image, so make your choice wisely!

About the Author:
BR Web Marketing www.bosandkvist.com

by Joanna Gadel

User friendliness, good look & feel and fast & easy communication are some of the features of any successful and cheap website design to target the prospects.

Only pretty images would not satisfy their quests. A site that is not visually appealing can drive a user away before he completes his task. Certain other things are also necessary here to make the website usable.

Creative Design, Usability, Accessibility and some Basic Browser Design guidelines are of great importance to decide the fate of any website to look visually appealing and stunning as well.

Creative website design:

The design of any visually appealing website is such that the prospects would find the site to be interesting to stay long in the website and get the required info perfectly. Provided, the website has to be easy to read and easy to navigate also.

Just by following some basic design standards this creative standard can be established easily.

Colors: The true cross-platform color palette is 216 colors.
Fonts: Just try using the common user fonts so that he site would open in any computer. In this regard, it is necessary to point that some usual fonts can make this happen. Times New Roman, Arial, and Helvetica are the most commonly used fonts. These fonts are easy to read on a computer screen.

Screen Resolutions: a resolution of 1024×768 is the most prevalent in the web design industry. The second most common is 800×600 designs. It is wise to make a liquid layout that fits automatically in any computer without any break-up of images and info. Rigid layout, in this case, would obviously upset a user who is seeing a 1024×768 layout in his 800×600 compatible screen. Which resolution used must be carefully considered.

Images: Nearly every website uses images. Images are of great use for selling products and for displaying company branding. Unnecessary use of images here would have no purpose at all, but those are used to please the viewers. This would unnecessarily make the page size bigger. Using ALT tags with images for accessibility are of high note.

Brower Compatibility

There is more than one browser that is used on the web. Designing one such site for a specific browser would simply lose the real purpose of the website. It is better to test them all. The most popular are Internet Explorer (5-7), Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape 7/8.

Usability:

“Put usability first. Practice simplicity”. Jakob Nielsen, usability Design Expert, “Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity”

Not only for completing the information architecture for a site, but also for the creative design usability of any large or small professional website design matters largely. The users should not face any difficulty in finding what they want actually.

Following are some of the basic rules of usability:

• The same basic style should prevail in all pages on the site.
• Other than having a basic style maintained with rest of the pages, the Home Page should have a different design from the rest of the site.
• The brand (logo) and/or company name must generally be placed in the upper left-hand corner (sometimes it is located elsewhere for the Home Page and is larger).
• Only 20% of a page should be occupied for the navigation, though for home page it is something different. It actually varies from site to site as per the reach of the topics.
• Generally, the top horizontal of the page and the left-hand vertical of the page are two most common locations for navigation.
• Please do not display the same links in the footer as you do in the main level navigation. Footers usually contain links namely, Help, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Feedback, etc…
• You can have the printer friendly options if the site content displayed is suitable for printing.
• For any site that has a lot of content, consider creating ‘sub sites’. Breaking the site down into sections (similar to chapters in a book) with each section having its own landing page would simply make the site look orderly. Often the users can easily remember what specific info they want to see in which sub site.
• Please use percentages (%) instead of pixels to define widths on table definitions and backgrounds/borders for the sake of Resolution Independent Design. the users screen resolution can get an unaffected display quality using percentage (%). This can be a long process and requires testing the site in different screen resolutions, but it would pay off in the long run.

Accessibility:

Thinking about the disable users as well while making any website is the best option. If it is not for the humanity, then at least for the chance of not missing any such possible prospect that can be disable, the accessible website design issues should be dealt in with care and concern. Those persons use different technologies to browse the web (such as screen readers). Colors, fonts, use of certain development technologies, images; all these things need to be carefully selected for a web site to be accessible.

Also the W3C has defined Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It is not expected that all the sites should follow that rules, but the web design professionals can at least review them and decide what can be done to make the site accessible.

About the Author:
Joanna Gadel is from an Australian website design (http://www.websites4u.com.au) company which creates cheap Sydney web site design(http://www.vnsinfo.com.au/). His writings on web design principles and issues are of great importance to the budding web designers.

by Daryl Campbell

As you surf the internet, you cannot help but be impressed by the sheer variety of the different websites. People can be very creative. A good web site design draws the visitor in, puts a stamp of individuality on that particular site and raises your online profile.

Then, there is the other side of the coin. A web site page that looks as if not much thought or planning went into the design. It is a mess from the word go; however beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and web visitors maybe willing to overlook the fact that the site was not designed by Picasso. What they will not overlook is a web site page that just flat out annoys them.

There are some things you can do in the designing of your website that will not get under the skin of your visitors.

1. Where Are They Going? You go to a web site page that looks nice and has good content on it. You decide to explore further but you cannot. Why? Because you are having a hard time finding the navigation bar. When you do find it, you are taking to a page in which you have to hunt for the right link to take you to the desired information. By the time you do figure out the navigation scheme, you forgot what you were looking for.

Nobody comes online to get trapped in the Matrix. People want information and they want it quickly. Give them a simple clear easily accessible menu panel, which takes them immediately to the information they want. Also make sure no matter how deeply people explore your website, there are clearly defined guidepost on each page which can take them back to where they started.

This is also a good place to talk about over clicking. Having your visitors click multiple times to get where they want to go is an excellent way to tick people off. Do everything in your power to get them to the information they want in one click; three at the most. Anything after that is just inviting them to click away from your site.

2. The Multimedia Show. People love video and quality graphics but their first priority is to get information. If your graphics are not an integral and necessary part of your web page display, get rid of them. Keep in mind not everyone has a high speed internet connection. Excessive graphics and multimedia presentations can slow down the load time of your website substantially. People will just go to another site instead of being inconvenienced. Dazzle visitors with the content on your site first and foremost.

3. Fonts and Colors. There are few things online tougher on the eyes than a poorly thought out font style and color scheme. The number one goal of your web design is to get visitors to read the information. If people have to constantly decipher your web content then they will not bother. Stick with a basic design. Your color and font style should compliment each other while affording maximum readability to your visitors.

There will never be a time when your website pleases everyone. That is just the way it is so do not waste your time trying to create the perfect internet web site design. It does not exist. Instead focus on a site with easy navigation, which is readable, fast loading and above all contains good content. You may not satisfy everyone who visits your website but the majority will no doubt like what they see and read.

About the Author:
Daryl Campbell invites you to get more free tips, video, step by step coaching and up to the minute information to help you grow your business into a long term success at Internet Marketing Guide

You’ve heard how fun (and financially rewarding) a website and/or can be. Your only problem is that, like most people, you don’t know how to build one.

…or register a domain…

…or make the graphics…

…or submit it to search engines…

…or add pictures…

…or add Google ads…

…..etc. after discouraging etc…..

To cut to the chase, you need a little help!

Your options? If you want a blog and you want one as fast as possible - Blogger.com is a pretty good place to start. It’s absolutely free and you can actually be blogging in a matter of hours. Less if you don’t do any customizing to the template. With Bloggger you don’t even have to worry about registering a domain.

Even though I run a Web Publishing business and a great deal of my income is based on creating blogs and websites for people, I wholeheartedly give Blogger.com two thumbs up. It’s a great place to start.

However, if you are serious about making money online and doing so in a professional manner - you need a domain as well as a professionally-done website and/or blog.

My suggestions are as follows:

1. Hightide-Web Pubishing specializes in the kind of service you need. If you’re new to the arena of websites or blogging, you need someone who will take the time to help you each step of the way. When our clients hire us, we rally around them to create just the sort of online presence they need and want. E-mail me today ( joisigers @ aim . com ) and tell me exactly what it is you’re thinking about. We’ll get back to you asap with your best course of action, as well as what this course would cost!

2. Another excellent place to start would be www.GoDaddy.com. Known for being the number one Domain Name Registrar, Go Daddy has a reputation that simply can’t be topped. However, they do a lot more than that - Did you know that Go Daddy also offers professional website design and hosting. You could, literally go to www.GoDaddy.com and get everything you could possibly need to create your online presence!

Whichever route you go - your worries and headaches are only a click or two away!

by Noah Ulrich

Creating a website can and should be a fun and profitable endeavor. If done correctly, the entire process of establishing your web presence can be done in as little as 48 hours. In this article, I will establish some basic guidelines any newbie webmaster will want to know in order to make this process as smooth as possible.

The first and most important step is the Planning Stage. This stage is so critical; I could easily devote an entire separate article on this step alone. For this however, I will summarize the important steps and try not to go into too much detail. You will need to decide what you intend to sell or promote. Once this done, you will need to determine your target market. Then you will want to decide on your domain name and targeting keywords. Be sure your domain name is as relevant to what you are selling as possible and try to make it contain that keyword. Now you want to determine the overall layout of your site. Be sure to choose your words and graphics carefully, and try to optimize your site as best you can.

This brings us to our next step, properly designing your website. It is always a good idea to design with both search engines and customers in mind. Proper search engine optimization can provide your site with many free visitors and potential profits. For those looking to do it themselves, proper education should be their number one priority. The best part about this education is most of it can be received free of charge. You have hundreds of resources in article websites such as Goarticles.com and Ezinearticles.com. Plus with hundreds of good webmaster forums also available, the extent of your education is only limited by the amount of time and effort you are willing to commit.

With this knowledge of how to design a site, you will now want to create it. Using HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, you will find that the actual task of creating your site is quite easy. You can also find other free HTML Editors online by doing a search at www.download.com. Other ways of creating your website can be done using templates, or pre-built sites where all you change is the payment link, or web site generators, where you would enter some basic criteria of what you are looking for in your site, and it will create the code for you. You would then use this code for your site.

Of course, you could always hire a programmer. I do not really recommend this because it is good to know how to do things yourself. Plus, programmers can get quite expensive. In the end, the money used to hire a programmer is usually better spent adding to your own product line, or advertising your site.

Now that we have our website design complete, we need to put it on the web to reach our target audience. You will now need to purchase your domain name. Your domain name needs to be planned out in advance and should contain a keyword you are targeting. It is also a good idea to purchase your domain name from a well known and reputable company. Sites such as Yahoo!, GoDaddy, and Network Solutions offer domain names and the support and reliability you are looking for in your web business. Once you have your domain name set up, you will need to set your Name Servers that you will receive from your hosting company.

Which brings us to our next step, “Hosting”. Web hosting is a necessary component of your business; however it does not need to necessarily be a large portion of your budget. I have found excellent deals on hosting packaging just by knowing how to do my homework. First you will need to evaluate your hosting requirements and your budget. Determine the disk space and bandwidth necessary to properly operate your business. Disk space is the amount of room, or how big, your site is. The bandwidth needed is the size of your site multiplied by the number of visitors you anticipate on receiving. If your site is rather small, 10 pages or less and does not have too many graphics or flashy animations, your required disk space may only be a few megabytes. However if you selling many items, or if you are selling downloadable items or software, your disk space may need to be a few gigs or higher.

Compare plans and do your homework. Consider using sites such as Findmyhost.com or Ratemyhost.com to help you with your comparison shopping. There are a few things I would suggest you look for while searching for your host. The servers’ uptime or how long it has been up and running is important. When your server is up, you are able to conduct business. If you server is down however, your sites’ “doors” are closed and you could be losing potential customers and sales. It is also a good idea to look at the customer reviews of the host you are considering. If you spot a trend of poor reviews, you may want to reconsider your choice. Does your host offer you real time site statistics and the ability to analyze this info? I have found many more hosts offering CPanel, Fantastico, and AwStats because of the many features of these valuable software programs. Bandwidth and Disk Space limits should also come into consideration along with an email client. Most good hosts offer step by step instructions on integrating your Microsoft Outlook to receive your sites emails.

Now that we have our store up and running, how are we going to accept payments? Enter the payment processor. A payment processor allows you to accept most major credit cards, checks, and sometimes cash for a small fee. Not only do they allow a smooth and secure transaction, they also help protect you and your rights should a dispute arise. Popular payment processors include Paypal, Clickbank, and 2CheckOut.

You now have a complete site, and have tested every link to be sure they all work properly. Now we need to get this site from your computer to your web hosts computer. Piece of cake with an FTP program. FTP, or file transfer protocol allows you to transfer your files from your computer to another computer. You can find free FTP software by doing a search on www.download.com. I have had good results with FTP Commander and CoreFTP, as they have easy to use interfaces. Once you have your FTP software, you will need to open the folder that contains your site and send it to the correct folder on your sites servers. This information is obtained from the confirmation email you have received from your hosting company.

Finally, we come to my personal favorite stage, promotion. Good promotion is very important because if no one knows you exist, your product will not sell no matter how good it is. Quite possibly the best type of promotion is search engine optimization. This traffic is so coveted because not only is it highly targeted, it is also FREE! Sites with high search engine rankings on even moderately searched keywords can get hundreds or thousands of visitors each month. This can lead to dozens of free sales. However, keep in mind, search engines algorithms can change at any time. This could devastate your rankings and your traffic if you depend entirely on search engines to bring you visitors. Of course if you cannot earn your way to the top of search engine rankings, you could always buy your way to the top. Using PPC or Pay-per-Click, marketing you pay only for each visitor that comes to your site through that search query. This is a great way to gain customers, but can become very costly; with some keywords receiving bids in excess of 5 dollars per click. Some popular PPC networks are Google Adwords, GoClick, and Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture.

There are also some free ways to earn traffic to your site. Exchange Networks usually work on a “you view my site or ad for X seconds, and I will view your site or ad” or similar method. This can bring you lots of free traffic fairly quickly. You will generally see these services listed under Traffic Exchanges, Banner Exchanges, or Link Exchanges.

Message Boards, Forums, and Safelists are also excellent ways of promoting your site with minimal investment. Sites such as Yahoo! Groups and Herculist allow you to email messages to other members with similar interests. PTC, or Paid to Click marketing is similar to the search engines PPC but instead of search queries, you are targeting a user database. This can bring you a ton of visitors to your site in a short amount of time, but sometimes this traffic is low converting due to the visitors are paid to visit your site. They are just after the incentive and really do not care so much about the actual product being promoted.

The last topic of promotion is article marketing. This is perhaps some to the best marketing you can do. When you write an article, you place your signature or brief bio about yourself at the bottom. You then submit it to article directories. These article directories give you a free link to your site, helping your search engine rankings. These directories also allow other webmasters to use your article on their site, thus providing you another link and further increasing your search engine rankings. Another great feature of article marketing is based on the quality of your article, you could become an authority on your subject; thus building trust in what you have to say, which usually leads to more sales.

As you can see, creating a website is much easier than you probably first imagined. With just a little time and effort, and even less cash, you can create your own web store open 24 hours a day. Using these tips will provide you a solid foundation to build upon when fashioning your new site. Please note that this article is not meant to be all inclusive, but more like a beginning of your webmaster career. And always keep in mind as with any endeavor, your sites’ success is largely dependent on your commitment to get it done.

Noah Ulrich is webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com, http://www.sterlingwebtraffic.com, and http://www.realsitetraffic.com. His sites offer a variety of webmaster tools and resources, master resale rights, guaranteed USA and International signups, real web traffic, and a new premier traffic exchange.

About the Author:
Noah Ulrich is webmaster of http://www.informativeresources.com, http://www.sterlingwebtraffic.com, and http://www.realsitetraffic.com. His sites offer a variety of webmaster tools and resources, master resale rights, guaranteed USA and International signups, real website visitors, and a new premier traffic exchange.

Who says you can’t get anything for free anymore?

I was researching html validation, search engine spiders, and search engine performance today and came across a few websites that made my job SO MUCH easier. I’ve linked them below, so give them a look when you get a chance. On second thought - make a chance, the information’s THAT important.

Free Internet Marketing and SEO Tools - I was particularly impressed with #17, the Spider Viewer. It allows you to see your page as a Search Engine Spider would. I ran some of my websites through and was amazed at the lack of some keywords as well as the abundance of some nonesense! I have a little work to do.

Dr. Watson’s HTML Validator - Again, you enter your url, then you’re presented with a list of “errors” found in your html. Rest assured, there’ll be errors. I read an article on About.com and the author said that their own website had lots of errors. It does, however, point out some basic html validating errors that could be causing problems in other browsers and/or in search engine performance.

Below the list of errors found, you’ll be able to see your html code with numbers before each line - it makes it a cinch to find exactly where the problems lie. Did I find any errors on my websites? Again… I have work to do!

I’m actually smack right in the middle of a web design project at the moment, but I just found a website I wanted to let others know about asap.

Have you ever wondered what a certain font was…..maybe you wanted to use the same font on something you were designing…..but you didn’t really want to spend 30 minutes or more in Paintbrush or Photoshop trying to unlock the mystery?

I’ve been there so many times I can’t even tell you! Today was one of those days. I was googling a few different fonts that I didn’t have downloaded onto my computer - trying to determine which was used on a particular business card. I found a really slick website that helped me out in less than 3 minutes.

What The Font is a free resource on My Fonts.com. It’s an online tool that honest to goodness will solve the mystery for you. I scanned in the card, saved it as a .jpg, uploaded it to their site (you could use an image’s url instead), then watched as they solved the mystery for me!

There’s a forum on the site, as well. Apparently if you can’t get a result using the above technique, they have experts that’ll tell you what font you’re looking at.

Needless to say, I bookmarked this baby and will put it to very good use.

by Leva Duell

What if someone told you that if you made one simple change to your web site you could dramatically increase your sales, perhaps as much as 200 or even 300 percent, would you do it?

In fact, just adding a quality header image to your web site can accomplish that kind of sales increase.

Because it sits at the top of the web page, the header is the very first thing visitors will see when they arrive at your site. It is your first opportunity to make a positive impression, to let them know what your site is about, and to invite your visitor to go beyond the top of the page.

Your header has to clearly communicate what your web site is about. To have a positive impact, your header images must be relevant to the topic of your web site and the products you are selling. Your images must also be high quality to convey professionalism and trust.

Just like an effective headline, a header must catch the attention of your targeted audience immediately and invite them to explore the rest of the site.

A poorly designed header graphic will suggest to your visitors that you are not professional. If your visitors are turned off by your header graphic, it’s unlikely that they’ll continue reading your home page, view the rest of your site or buy your products.

Conversely, if your header gives them a positive impression, it will help to instill a sense of trust and confidence that your visitors will take with them as they read and explore more of your site. This, in turn, usually translates into an increase in sales.

Here are some options to get a quality, professional header:

1. Design a header graphic yourself. Creating a credible header on your own requires time, skill and software.

2. Purchase header templates. The better header sets include a variety of professionally-designed, quality header graphics. Some come as Photoshop files that you can change to suit your needs.

3. Use specialized header software such as Header Generator that makes it easy to create good-looking headers for your web sites without graphic design experience.

4. Hire a professional graphic designer who has experience in creating web graphics. This option allows you to focus your time and energy on generating your web content and marketing your site.

Revamp your web site with a stunning header image in just minutes and get the winning edge over your competition. It’s an easy change that will have a huge effect on your credibility and sales.

About the Author:
Boost Credibility with Images! Header templates - FREE 34+ clipart resources http://www.QualityHeaderTemplates.com - Copyright Leva Duell 2007

by Brian McGregor

I wonder if you knew that visitors to your website form an instant opinion? And they form it about you and your offer. The opinion that is formed in this instantaneous way is done so subconsciously. This happens automatically, and you might wonder why. It matters not a jot how clever the text is on your page. You can have paid an expensive professional to produce your copy for you. And yet your visitor will still form their instant opinion without even reading a single word of your costly copy.

You might also have invested in some really great pictures or images on your site. I’m afraid this will carry zero influence on your visitor’s instant opinion. Nor does your offer matter. You could be promoting a sensational deal, like selling dollars for dimes. But this too, will be overlooked by the site visitor. This is because the second your page is displayed your subconscious mind goes to work, and the instant opinion begins to form. By now, you are probably wondering just what it is that has this power. Exactly what can have an immediate reaction in your site visitors. You may have already worked out that the answer is colors. When your web page appears to your visitor, the colors you’ve used go to work on the subconscious of your visitors.

The spooky thing about this is that as a web page viewer we can do nothing about this. Colors evoke an intuitive reaction which we have no control over.’ The feelings evoked by colors are automatic, and there’s no way we can avoid them. As you will know, millions are spent by big companies in deciding the correct colors of new products and in their marketing campaigns. They invest this money as they know how the psychology of color works. The right colors can be the critical factor in the success of big company products. What webmasters have to realize, and this can be very important, is that the same color psychology applies to our web pages.

The fact is, the color scheme you use on your web pages can have the effect of causing your visitors to very quickly click away from your website. If you’re selling a product from your web page, it wouldn’t matter how smart your sales messages are, it’s possible that they won’t be read anyway. The good news, however, is that you can use colors to engender a really positive reaction. This color psychology is nothing new. This has been with us for generations. It doesn’t make any difference whether you know about color power, your subconscious mind is affected.

For example, a particular color scheme could convey a good feeling in each of us. However, a different color scheme might convey not so good feelings. In essence, you might send a sense trust, warmth and belonging. Conversely, the feeling sent may be one of distrust, coolness and rejection. The following list gives an idea of the emotions associated with their respective colors:

RED Excitement, sense of power, energy, strength, love, leadership, danger etc

ORANGE Comfort, steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, cheerfulness, playfulness etc

YELLOW Cheerfulness, caution, brightness, intelligence, curiosity, playfulness etc

GREEN Harmony, money, health, healing, food, nature, life etc

BLUE Stability, tranquility, peace, harmony, love, acceptance, trustworthiness etc

PURPLE Ambition, royalty, nobility, wisdom, dignity, independence etc

BROWN Reliability, earthiness, nature, tribal, comfort, durability etc

BLACK Style, dramatic, power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth etc

WHITE Cleanliness, purity, innocence, fresh, easy, simplicity etc In summary, the color scheme you use on your web pages need to be reflected by the product or offering you make. What happens is that the subconscious mind of your visitor will attempt to reconcile the colors with the message. If it can’t, it will lose interest. Which means, your visitor will be lost. You should spend time in determining what are the right colors for your web pages. Try and make sure your colors and message are in harmony. If you can achieve this, you will produce better results from your website. Be aware, your color scheme can cause your website to make a profit or a loss.

About the Author:
Brian McGregor is an internet entrepreneur and business consultant, and author of the ebook CASH COLORS. If the subject of designing my own web site is of relevance to you, CASH COLORS shows how to make your web page colors work for you. http://www.cash-colors.com

by Francois du Toit

It is clear that web audio and web video are taking the Internet by storm. Many webmasters are realizing that although it is very important to get more traffic to their websites that it is even more important to convert traffic into sales.

Many internet marketers agree that a conversion ratio, between website traffic and website sales, of between 1% and 3% seems to be the industry norm and that 2% is a good average ratio. What this means is that, on average, only 2 out of every 100 visitors will actually become a customer.

Webmasters often make the mistake of only focusing on ways to attract more traffic instead of also finding ways of converting more visitors into customers. However, more and more webmasters are realizing that website success is a two tier approach, namely:

1) Getting Traffic, and
2) Converting Traffic into sales.

In the case of paid advertising, very often website traffic can only be increased by spending more on advertising. It is common for the ratio between traffic and advertising to be 1:1, meaning that if you are currently spending USD 100 to get 500 website visitors you will need to spend USD 200 to get 1000 website visitors.

With the cost of paid advertising becoming more expensive, many webmasters are now looking for ways to rather increase the conversion ratio between traffic and sales instead of spending more money to attract more visitors.

A 2% traffic versus sales conversion ratio leaves a lot of room for improvement and by only increasing the ratio by 1% to 3% sales would in fact increase by 50%. Talk about powerful leverage, and without spending extra money!

Sounds great but seems like a daunting task? The advent of web audio and web video have given webmasters access to a great tool for breaking the silence of the world-wide-web.

Instead of visitors coming across a “silent movie” type of website (actually even worse than an old black-and-white silent movie) they can now be greeted by a warm and friendly voice that make the website seem a lot more human and customer friendly, thanks to web audio.

By using web audio, a webmaster can tell his visitors more about the site, the products or services being offered and let them know exactly what to do when they are ready to place an order.

It has also been proven that web audio can significantly increase ezine opt-in rates by simply explaining to visitors the benefits of signing up for a free newsletter in a couple of sentences.

Research have shown that by adding web audio, it is not uncommon for website performance to increase by up to 312% This is equal to increasing a 2% traffic versus sales conversion ratio to over 8% without spending any additional money on advertising.

A common concern for webmasters, that have no prior experience using web audio as a marketing tool, is that they think it is difficult to install web audio buttons on their web pages. In fact, nothing can be further away from the truth.

A good flash audio software program should allow you to add web audio to any web page in less than 3 minutes.

It is clear that web audio has had a dramatic impact on internet marketing and we can safely assume that it will continue to grow in importance as more and more webmasters realize the importance of converting more traffic to customers instead of only focusing on ways of getting more traffic.

About the Author:
Francois du Toit is the owner of http://www.FlashAudioSofware.com, a site dedicated to providing webmasters with easy and affordable solutions for adding web audio to their websites. Sign up at http://www.FlashAudioSoftware.com for our FREE 7 part “Audio Secrets” course and receive great tips for maximizing web audio.