Reciprocal link exchange tutorial

March 26th, 2007

With so many bleeding edge marketing and promotion methods coming into practice these days, it’s easy to forget the basics – this tutorial will assist you in developing a link exchange campaign that will get noticed. A few good manners go a long, long way – an old concept but very applicable to modern Internet marketing and web site promotion strategies.

Starting out in web site promotion?

When you first launch your site, the chances are that traffic will not start flowing immediately, and perhaps never – it’s not just how your site looks or operates that will ensure it’s success or failure. According to numerous sources I’ve come across during my research, the average web site only receives around 3 unique visitors a day!

So how do you get well above this average? A lot of begging and pleading to begin with! Many web masters and site owners leave a lot to be desired in their approaches to marketing and promoting their sites -especially in terms of reciprocal link exchanges.

Reciprocal link requests

Most of us realize that the best way to get traffic while waiting to be listed by search engines is through being linked to by other quality sites. This also assists with increasing SE rankings when search engine spiders do pay a visit. Depending on the search engine, the *only* way to have a chance at a decent ranking is to have other sites linking to yours.

What many new web masters don’t realize is that a request for a link exchange will probably meet with a negative or no response. The reason why is simple – it’s back to the WIIFM principle – What’s In It For Me – the most basic of motivators in the human psyche.

If you approach a well established site to exchange links, there has to be a good reason for them to do so. I have received a number of emails simply stating “link to me – http://www.54534hgg.com”. That kind of promotional strategy gets you nowhere.

Here are a few hints and tips for beginners through to more experienced site owners as to how you can persuade an established site to exchange links with you.

Polite way of reciprocal link requests.

When you send your email for a reciprocal linking exchange, ensure that the tone of it is extremely courteous and not demanding. If English is your second language, run your promotional note by someone who is familiar with the complexities of the language. The way you word your note is the most important factor as to whether another web master will even bother with taking the time to take a look at your site.

Grammar and Spelling

Also very important. Your canvassing note is your official representation – if you don’t take the time to spell correctly, other web masters may believe that your site will be of the same quality, and discard your request immediately.

Webmasters are busy people

Don’t expect an answer straight away and harass the site owner with countless follow up emails. Leave it for at least 2 weeks before second contact and ensure that the second note is equally as polite as the first.

Read the site

Ensure you take a good look over the site you wish to link to you, be familiar with it’s content and mention some of the content in your request for a reciprocal link exchange. Identify the common theme between the sites. If the site has a “Submit your URL” page, ensure that you use it and read the guidelines for submission carefully.

Appeal to the web masters WIIFM motivator

Experienced site owners can pick a new web master or site a mile off, so don’t misrepresent your site or its traffic levels if you propose a reciprocal links exchange. Point the web master to a section of your site where you provide content or tools that are original and would be of use to their site’s visitors.

If you have a banner rotator, you could also offer the site owner an extra few thousand impressions as a sweetener for him in linking to you. Very few web masters will give you a link if they receive nothing in return, especially if they are earning money or gaining traffic from the links they already have in place.

Even just making an offer of extra services, no matter how small, will motivate the web master to at least consider a link exchange – they may not even take you up on the offer.

The best way to encourage other webmasters to link to you is to *already* have their link and a thoughtful description already present on your site – on a search engine friendly page.

The reciprocal link request note

There are a number of template examples of reciprocal link request emails on the Internet, but my advice is that if you are going to use them, ensure you modify them each time they are sent to different sites so they at least appear original.

I receive a certain template note regularly and disregard it as it appears to me that the person sending it has not reviewed my site properly and really doesn’t take the process seriously. If another web master points towards a certain article or section of Taming the Beast.net, it motivates me to review what the web master has to offer my site visitors.

Bearing that in mind, here’s a sample note that you can base your approaches on:

Greetings [Name],

I visited your web site, [Web Site Name Here] and found some great information regarding [Insert Subject Here].

[If you have linked to the other site already, mention it here and give the URL of the link - ask them to approve your link to them or to recommend editing suggestions - DO NOT threaten to remove their link if they don't respond in x days - these kinds of notes usually end up being deleted]

I thought you might be interested to know that we have a web site dedicated to [Your Site Topic - special points of interest].

We were hoping that you might consider linking to us and invite you to review our site at your convenience.

[Depending on situation, insert further offer of reciprocal linking, banner impressions or exchange of services here]

If you determine that a link to our site is appropriate, please add it at your your discretion, or might we suggest the following link and description:

[Your site name and URL] – [Your site description - keep it brief, focused and not too much hype]

If you’d like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact us at [Your contact details].

Thanks!

[Full official signature lines here]

This example is personal and courteous. It respects the other site owners time and intelligence. Remember to modify each note slightly to avoid the “template” stigma.

If you are providing linking code to the webmaster, which is recommended, ensure that your code contains suitable anchor text.

Be prepared for rejection

If you are officially denied a reciprocal link exchange, don’t get too upset – even if the response is rude, as they sometimes can be. If you do receive a nasty email back, be happy in the fact that you went about promotion in the right way, and perhaps that web master was having a really bad day as we all do at times. Leave it for a few months, then try again, outlining some of the improvements you have made in your site that are relevant.

The promotion strategies you put into action from the outset define your standing in the online community in the time ahead – don’t blow it. Be careful in using the hypey marketing techniques offered by some – they may have worked for them, but they may not work for you.

Don’t let dollar signs get in the way of basic human consideration.

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7 ways to increase your traffic

January 7th, 2007

Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful internet based business company. Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company’s internal organization well taken core of, it would be time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a site and you want think that you’re not getting the traffic that you’re supposed to be getting, then its time to reconsider. If you are contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone. Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been yesterday.

To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your traffic starting from yesterday.

1). Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Publisher Network provide great advertising schemes that are very truly popular and assures great traffic. Although with this surefire way to increase your traffic would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is the top surefire way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of site feature these advertising system and many have signed on to reap the benefits. Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or if ever low costs only. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people.

4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

7) Lastly, Offer newsletters

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic.

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Search Engine Optimization and you should use it

January 7th, 2007

E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.

So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to SEO optimization.

You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.

Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.

If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.

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Candle.com sells for $390.000 on Afternic

December 22nd, 2006

Candle.com sold for that amount today on Afternic. It’s a strong generic in a good-sized market (surely an end-user sale.) The whois shows IBM, who purchased Candle, a software company, in February of 2005, so they are likely the seller.

Note: The sale showed up this morning on Afternic, but has since been taken down (perhaps at the request of the buyer…)

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Google Reaches Far Out For Users

December 20th, 2006

Google is taking more than one small step in formalizing its relationship with a NASA research facility. This week, the search giant announced it signed a Space Act agreement with NASA Ames Research Center.

The two groups said they plan to work jointly on a range of technical problems from large-scale data management and massively distributed computing to human-computer interface. The collaboration will focus on helping NASA put more of its vast store of information on the Internet.

“NASA has collected and processed more information about our planet and universe than any other entity in the history of humanity,” said Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames.

“Even though this information was collected for the benefit of everyone, and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts to access and to understand.”

The joint areas of research that could become accessible to the public in the next several years include real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle.

In an optimistic, if not tongue-in-cheek, statement at the Google Moon site, the company states that by July 20th, 2069, it plans to fully integrate Google Local search capabilities into Google Moon, in honor of the 100th anniversary of mankind’s first manned lunar landing. Google predicts the new service will let users quickly find lunar business addresses, numbers and hours of operation.

“This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in a statement. “This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA’s space exploration work accessible to everyone.”

The alliance is not a surprise to Forrester analyst Charlene Li. “Google is always looking for the best brains and the best data, and what NASA has is unique. Google doesn’t own any satellites,” said Li.

She notes Google often does things that don’t have obvious or immediate revenue potential. “What they do is win users, and that’s what the battle is all about.”

One example is the Google Moon site, which features maps of the moon’s surface. “There’s not so much a need but it’s cool from an educational point of view and just to explore,” said Li.

In the broader area of mapping where Google Maps competes with Mapquest, and Microsoft Virtual Earth, among others, Li said there is significant revenue potential. “If you’re looking for directions to your cousin’s house, an ad may not be effective, but if you’re looking for directions to a furniture store, that’s where a competitor might well want to place an ad, with, for example, a discount coupon to check them out.”

Illuminata analyst Wayne Kernochan said the prevalence of online maps represents a huge market opportunity similar to cell phones. “Once cell phones started to have hundreds of millions of users, software companies realized that was a great new market for them to attack,” Kernochan told internetnews.com. “Now maps have reached that point.”

Google and NASA Ames Research first announced their intent to collaborate in September 2005. Company officials said at the time they planned to develop up to a million square feet of office and lab space within NASA’s facility.

Now NASA and Google said they are finalizing details for additional collaborations that include joint research, products, facilities, education and missions.

A year ago, the company hired one of the founding fathers of the Internet, Vint Cerf, to be its chief Internet evangelist. One of Cerf’s pet projects is the NASA-supported Interplanetary Network, which aims to create an Internet that reaches into space.

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Vodka.com sells for cool 3 million USD

December 19th, 2006

Russian firm, which sells the Imperia brand, purchases Web site, making it one of the highest prices ever paid for generic domain.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — The billionaire Russian entrepreneur behind ’s biggest vodka maker has paid $3 million to acquire the vodka.com domain, part of a bid to expand into the market, a broker said Thursday.

Sedo.com, the Web domain brokering unit that is part of ’s United Internet AG, said it had acted as the sales agent in the deal.

Conglomerate Russian Standard Co., controlled by Roustam Tariko, paid $3 million to an undisclosed seller in a deal completed Dec. 4, according to a Sedo.com spokesman. A New York-based spokeswoman for Russian Standard confirmed the $3 million price tag.

Russian Standard entered the U.S. market in September 2005 with its Imperia brand. The recipe for Imperia is said to have been discovered by 19th century Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev, inventor of chemistry’s periodic table of elements.

Russian Standard Co. controls not only two-thirds of the sales of premium vodka in , but also owns Russian Standard Bank, the
country’s largest private bank.

Vodka.com’s price tag is among the highest ever revealed for a generic Web domain. In May, diamond.com reportedly sold for $7.5 million to jewelry retailer Ice.com. Business.com sold for $7.5 million in 1999.

Earlier this year, a source told Reuters that Sex.com had sold for around $12 million to a Boston-based company called Escom LLC, although the exact figure has never been disclosed.

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How to monetize your domain

December 16th, 2006

Few steps about how to Monetize your domain name that you thought you should let it drop because you thought you don’t have time to dedicate to it. It is true, developing a domain name it takes time and dedication, but a good domain name left just like that but thats not the only case how to make revenue from a domain.

The ‘best’ way would be to grab a expired domain name that is already listed in search engines, but, are you lucky enough to grab such a domain to yourself now days? Similar domains, in most of the cases you will find them listed on auction sites as SnapNames.
But lets presume you got a expired domain name, nice words, very well listed on major search engines, what next? There are two options you could go for

  1. Domain name parking programs (NameDrive, Sedo, iMonetize, Afternic and many others). The traffic of your domain will constantly decrease with the time as it is passing, your best move would be to keep the domain while the traffic is still high, once you notice the traffic and clicks on the ads are decreasing sell the domain unless you plan to follow the example 2).
  2. Check the history of the domain from aboutus.org ex. www.aboutus.org/yourdomain.tld , read more what the domains content used to be, view the cashed version of the content, then dedicate some time and develop a site with a similar content, make sure there are no broken links in your site then sign up for AdSense (Google advertising publisher program) or Yahoo Publisher, now you are done, your next step would be to check your advertising panel and see your revenue growing.

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iMonetize.com Interview with Jerry Nolte

December 12th, 2006

“I would like to invite you to try the HOTTEST new Domain Monetization/Tracking/Escrow/Sales & Auctioning system designed by Domainers for Domainers.” said iMonetize.com’s CEO in their post on NamePros forums.

“iMonetize.com utilizes a unique and exclusive technology to find and generate the most profits from your domain names. With an ever-growing list of features, iMonetize.com is your first and only stop for DOMAIN PORTFOLIO MONETIZATION, MANAGEMENT, ESCROW, AND SALES” he continued. Read the complete post

So, we at NameNexus decided to interview this promising company and see what they can offer to the now day domainers. Jerry N. was more then pleased to have this interview with us, here is what we discussed about.

Start of Interview

Hello Jerry N. and thanks for accepting the
interview with us at Webmaster Blog.

Q1). What is your position with iMonetize.com ?
A1). Managing Partner

Q2). How does iMonetize.com work?
A2). This is not just another PPC company. iMonetize uses technology to fully automate the process of monitoring each Domainer’s portfolio. The domains are monitored for a 30 day period. After that time, each domain is placed where it makes the most money on each given day. For example if one domain makes more money with a particular provider on Monday, but makes more at a different on Tuesday, it would be placed at the prospective companies on each given day to maximize revenue. Should money drop after optimization is complete they have several checks in place to automatically re-optimize the names should it be necessary for whatever reason. With this method on our own portfolio we have seen an increase of over 250% as opposed to just sending it to 1 or 2 providers manually.

Q3). How can iMonetize.com help domainers to raise their incoming revenue of their parked domains?
A3). Through the process explained above, it allows domainers to maximize their revenues by choosing the best PPC partner on a given day rather than just sending all of your traffic to one site and hoping for the best. In addition to this unique process the site has many features which can both make and save money for a Domainer. It displays a domain escrow portion which is a lower cost solution than all of our competitors, the use of our own in-house Icann Accredited Registrar to house both the domain name and a full blown US based non-interest bearing escrow bank account to hold the finances can let the affiliates know that their domains and money are secure. One of the best new free features is the domain management portion of the site. At a glance one can tell how many domains they own, where they are pointing, locked or active, date they are expiring, optimizing, expiring by month/day/year, registrar they are with, name servers, and how many of each TLD are owned thus saving the domainer a ton of time in management costs if they have large portfolios. One of the most valuable features is called “domain alarm”. “Domain alarm” alerts people if any changes are made to the whois on any part of their portfolio. This can help to protect a Domainer from hijacking. The last feature offered is a very unique type of sales site available to our affiliates free of charge. It allows for offer type sales, auctions, and simple “You Price it Sales” allowing our affiliates to market their names to a large audience free of charge.

Q4). Why should domainers park their domain with iMonetize.com instead of going directly to the domain name parking?
A4). Aside from the optimization process described above,we have contracts with ALL the Larger PPC providers, and with the Sheer BULK of traffic we control we get better revenue share with each provider than most can get on there own. Simply put even with taking our small share, you still get more Money in your pocket!

Q5). Domainers with big portfolio get a higher revenue share?
A5). Domainers with HIGH traffic can enjoy as high as 95% REV SHARE, but even the smallest will receive 85% REV SHARE. Large or small, all of our affiliates are able to benefit from our sites many features.

Q6). iMonetize.com guarantee’s highest payouts, higher even then going directly with the parking company, how can you manage that?
A6). First we do not guarantee anything. And I would be suspicious of anyone who did. We merely state that 90% of the people that try us see anywhere from a 20% to 300% rev. increase.

Q7). Is there something that you have not stated on iMonetize.com website that you would like to share with NameNexus.net visitors?
A7). We plan on working on the site and adding many new features over the next few months and making the site A LOT more user friendly. We are always looking for new ideas and welcome constructive criticism. Please have your readers post any ideas or questions they have to us via our contact us form.

Thanks for the interview…
Jerry Nolte
iMonetize.com Managing Partner

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Storm on Google Italy srl

November 25th, 2006

Milano – Two legal Representatives of Google Italia SRL. are under investigations about the video of a student (suffering of Dawn) molested by his friends in the class in a college in Torino. Later evening the Financial Guards perquisites the offices in piazza Biancamano in Milano.

The investigation began after the report in the police office from the legal of the association Vividown.

All this situation has buffered a bit of noise in Italy, the biggest media network Mediaset had this on its daily news schedule, big journals like LaStampa, LaRepubblica and many other big media news. On the issue the minister of the Instruction Giuseppe Fioroni is taken part also: “I think – Fioroni has asserted – that the decision of the power of attorney is a reason more why the Parlament should see again the normative order in matter. As I have more times supported – it has added – there cannot be two weights and two measures, one for printed publication paper and tv and one for the Internet. The respect of the human dignity is one single “.

Is really Google’s responsability really? Can Google manager’s and staff check one by one the billion of sites that are on internet and select which ones can be crawled into their database? The fact is, that this video was found by using the keywords “Video divertenti – Funny videos” … some people have a strange sense of humor. But the real question (something that was not even specified on the news in Italy) was this video HOSTED by/on Google servers, or the site (hosted elsewhere) was crawled by Google? This is a big interrogative for us, such information should of been specified in the news on the Italian medias.

We (at the namenexus staff) cannot still understand why should Google be sued for crawling a site that uses keywords “Funny videos” ? What is the responsability of Google for that? With all the technology implement that Google has performed about it’s crawling preformance and banning similar sites as the one that has diffused this kind of video and created a real “Storm” in the offices of Google Italia srl in Milano, it is still impossible to block all these kind of informations, especially when generic keywords have been used for that video.

We could understand if Google would be sued for crawling a site under keywords “private violent torturing videos”…but this case is not about those keywords.

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Web2.0 style design

November 18th, 2006

Preface:
Please, whenever I am refering to Web2.0/Ajax ?I am NOT talking about the technology itself. Apparently I wasn’t able to find a proper term for that very popular design scheme appearing quite often lately in TechCrunch entries or similar reviews. It’s due to the fact that most of these “web applications” are using Ajax technology and benefit from the interconnection of web services (Web 2.0) ?so that’s why I tend to call them “Web2.0/Ajax”. I think I’ll name it ”2.0Culture” for now. Right. So let’s stick to that.

In order to get attention to your brand-new 2.0Culture backed website, you need to bring up some decent “up-to-date” design with it. No, I am not talking about CSS instead of tables or suchlike. I am talking about simplicity combined with big fonts, shiny shaders and very, very strange brand names. Despite the fact that you need to do your homework learning about tags, clouds and plenty more of these catchy words? You can still be a great “new wave” designer? Without being a pro 2.0Culture technology geek.

Right, let’s get it started while it’s hot.

First of all, check out these sites for a basic overview. Try to identify the major similarities between the various concepts. All of them seem to origin from the very same developer. Even though there’s no guideline (except this one here, wooho!) on that kind of design ?it seems that the Bay Area is handing around some secret guide for that particular design scheme. Look here:

As you might notice, these designs are pretty similar. But wait, the 2.0Culture has much more to show than that. This is just a small excerpt and we are going to put a particular focus on that kind of design for this article. There are millions of other sites, looking totally different while still being recognized as a “hmm, this looks like 2.0Culture” design. If you want to learn about the technology behind it, use our SanFran friend, Google.

Major MUST-DO’s:

* Rounded Shapes
* Shades
* Sans Serif
* Pastell v2.0
* Footers
* Buttons
* Font-Size: Oversized
* Descriptive HTML (XML style)

Major DO NOT’s:

* Java Applets (Script is fine though)
* Animated GIFs (the blinky ones)
* 100% Flash Websites
* Visible tables

Right, let’s get our feet wet and start right off with:

Rounded Shapes

Ok, this sort of break-boring-html-rules trend seems to have got quite a must-have nowadays. Frankly, I also prefer rounded shapes over tight rectangles. Same with women, I guess. Nevertheless, some 2.0Culture providers do still stick to the rectangle design schemes. No problem at all, have a look at writeboard.com ?their editor is a rectangled interface. Nice as well. To try a “psychological” approach to this difference, I might point out these facts:

  • Rounded shapes look more inventive, younger, flexible and experimental
  • Rectangles do impress with professionality, big-business, trustworthy

So, this is my personal interpretation. Flames welcome. But take your time and think about it yourself. Check out some different designs and make your decision on what’s happening “inside yourself” while looking at them. I guess a decent interconnection between professionality and a fresh young breeze of inventive Bay Area mushrooms might be our perfect fit for this project. How do we achieve that? Simple: Combine. We got 2 solutions:

  • Use a rectangled website container and rounded shapes for interface boxes like content divs and navigation.
  • Use a rounded-shape website container and keep the content divs and navigation very straight.

It’s up to you what you prefer for your project. I do indeed like both. Though I got to say that using the second approach might be a bit easier to implement for the average web designer. You can do a simple Photoshop design for that purpose. Might take you some 15 minutes to get it done. To be honest, I think the trend is going towards a non-bordered website including lots of rounded shapes (which is the first approach then). So get ready to step up a gear and dig some more CSS guides.

I have put together a list of websites that go into detail on how to implement a rounded-shape design:

So get some coffee or tea and open up the virtual books. This might take you some 30 minutes to an hour if you are new on that. But it’s worth the effort. Think of browser compatibility, it’s a tough one.

Shades

Don’t overdo with shades, but think of using them. It’s not obvious for a web designer to think of them, but users feel the difference having them around on a website. It’s not about trying to make a 3D look, but more about pushing the plain, flat designed boxes into a new dimension of visual recognizeability (is this a word?). Mostly used as a nice background for a top heading or around content boxes. Examples do the talking here:

Sans Serif (Arial, Helvetica, …)

I had to update this part of the guide due to heavy complaints about only refering to the Arial font, while Helvetica and other sans-serif fonts just do perfect as well (or better!). It’s that particular font style that’s been around for ages now. I remember a time when it was absolutely out and “nerdy” to use Arial for anything you wrote. Simply because geeks tried to seperate themselves from the every day Word Processor user, who were choosing Arial as most easily readable, besides Times New Roman. And now, wohoo, major come back. Literally Arial (and Helvetica, and similar…) has become a rule for simple, yet great looking web design. Font-Size 8 to 10 was a cool thing to do recently. Now we talking about sizes 14 and up. Not kidding. If someone asked me to design a webpage for impaired visitors I would most likely set up a 2.0Culture website. Even though it was not very popular to stick to “easy navigation and readable content” in recent days, things have changed big time by today. No more Font-Size 8 100% Flash ?Please wait while pre-loading 1% ?websites. I welcome that. Webdesign tends to become easy with that approach. Assuming CSS3 is really going to make things easier, of course. Remember to mark all your content with relevant terms like “headings”, “lists”, “links”, “paragraphs”. More on that further down then. Just a quick summary of this Arial rule:

  • Use a base font size for your website. And make all other fonts relative to that one (e.g. font-size: 115%). This allows users to get foxy with their mouse wheel to rotate through font-sizes ?while your website still looks cool.
  • Do ALWAYS define your font-relevant settings inside a CSS file.
  • As usual: ONE FONT PER WEBPAGE is totally fine, trust me.
  • Never use more than 3 different font-sizes.

Pastell v2.0

This has been known for quite a long time now. The only addition to that is a combination of pastell colors with 100% Green, Blue or Red. Keep your website backgrounds and interface elements in Gray, White or some very light pastell colors. And now, you might be able to use a 100% Green header bar. Or (please, notice the OR, not AND) use a red navigation with white links. Go ahead and Make your download links sky-blue. It’s going to rule. But again, look around and get some first impression on how this looks at professional 2.0Culturals. This should get your started pretty quick. Just don’t overdo, that’s why you should really mind the “OR”. I think you’ll find your way through.
Check out freaky Skype on that: http://www.skype.com

Footers

It has become a must have. Footers. Most users don’t even notice them. You might have never clicked on one as well. But still, they need to be there to make a site look professional. Without them, everyone assumes you run a personal website. Believe or not, try and see yourself. Oh yes, and please, don’t ever think of making your footer stick to the bottom of the screen, behaving totally unimpressed of scrolling. That’s a no no. That’s too much geek, I’m afraid. There are two major sorts of footers, you need to decide yourself, which one is more suitable for your particular design. I have prepared two links with those two major implementations for you:

The difference:
Friendster: A centered approach, containing well aligned elements.
Del.icio.us: Gray horizontal line, left(or right)-aligned links underneath.

Buttons

Within the major trend of moving from a home-computer application interface to a hosted worldwide web based application design, also lies the origin of recent sightings of button-like navigational elements. No, I am not talking about those -go to hell- Java applet buttons. Brrr, freezing. I am talking about “image buttons”. Either rounded or stricly rectangle shaped. And mostly quite large ones as well. The number one usage of these buttons is the must-have: DOWNLOAD button. When used in site navigation, the buttons appear to be a bit smaller. And don’t forget to use Arial for captioning, I told you.
Proof-of-concept:

Font-Size: Oversized

Mhm. Right. Huge fonts. A no no no back in the days of Frontpage heros and free webspace fans a la “Look ma, I got a website!”. But times do change. Johnny Cash is dead and big fonts are back. I wish it was the other way round, but let’s get ourselves updated to 2.0 and accept oversized fonts. No big deal with that, simply remember to set up all your font settings inside your CSS file and define a base font and size, while using relative sizes after that. That’s common procedure. If you are totally uncomfortable with that, I might point you to a 2.0Culture compatible work-around:

* Use large headings, make them stand out
* Use medium sub-headings as a fade from large headings to normal content.
* Use normal sized content.
* Avoid long blocks of text then, this is crucial.
* Try to seperate your content into medium boxes

See here: http://clipmarks.com/ or http://www.banshee-project.org/Main_Page

And for everyone comfortable with fancy oversized design:

* http://extend.flock.com/details/flashgot
* http://www.flickr.com/
* http://www.noodly.com/

Descriptive HTML (XML style)

Last but never least ?boring rules. Stop! Not this time. This is a must must must. Leave them out and allow your website to drown in browser-compatibility wars. I hate the term, but it’s a best-fit here: KISS. Yes, keep it small and simple. If you try to get one of those very, VERY old webdesign books, teaching you on how to implement “a href” and paragraphs, lists, headings ?take it serious. I remember when I read through those articles back then, thinking that this might be ok for “University professor webdesign” but not for cool ?i am a geek ?design issues. How wrong I was. Retro style is hot again. Not because it looks cool, but much more because it’s perfectly descriptive. Ok, in order to understand this, you might need to have done some first steps in XML to get an idea. As Jeff Bezos put it recently: Web 2.0 is making the web more readable for computers. That’s the actual reason behind. Consideration of APIs for your website HAVE TO be connected to that descriptive approach. Just imagine you were using a Web 2.0 API while having to adjust your overall design to that particular content. Uhw, ugly. Simple Web 2.0 content is made out of lists, paragraphs, HEADINGS (very important) and non-javascript links. Very simple, isn’t it. Another benefit of using this approach is a better integration into search engines. Check out SEO forums and you’ll find truth. Google loves basic websites. You are a Google hero if your website starts with simple H1-like headings. Try yourself. Don’t overdo with tables or similar. Keep it simple if you want to have 2.0Culture.

View sources of:

Great so far. I will not go into any details concerning the DONTs here. You might be able to figure it out yourself.

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