• Navigation bar look & feel
• Dimensions and margins of the various sections of a web page
• Background and text colors
• Headers and footers

CSS techniques have developed rapidly over the years, nowadays it is quite common for web designers to minimize graphic files and use CSS to create things such as rounded corners, lines, shades and image transparencies. Image bubbles such as the one below is an example.

CSS and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
CSS allows you to place code-heavy elements in a single file. To include those elements in your web pages, you can simply reference to the CSS file with a single line of code.

By doing this, your web content is cleaner and this helps search engines crawl your site more easily.

WordPress (the world’s most popular blogging application) uses CSS substantially. This is probably one of the reasons why it is very search engine friendly.

More Reading…
CSS Galleries: a showcase of beautiful CSS driven websites….nice place to see what CSS can do.

Noupe.com: a showcase of CSS techniques.

CSS Menu Tab Designer: lets you produce CSS menu tabs and buttons easily.

Last year we were involved in an ecommerce website where our client sought to introduce a horizontal scrolling concept to its product range.

Truly something different! Just think about it….out of fifty websites you visit, how many horizontal scrolling websites do you come across?

We were at a loss as to why we had to do this, apart from the novelty factor of course!

Anyway just a couple of days ago, we came across The Horizontal Way – a collection of websites which use the horizontal scrolling concept.

Eminence Suit is what we would call a partially Horizontal Scrolling site. In comparison, the sites featured in The Horizontal Way are more hard-core and take horizontal scrolling to a new level. If you ever wanted to design such a site, it’s a good reference point.

Well, you can save it page by page (using File – Save As in your browser) and then rebuild it by changing the navigation links so that all the web pages are correctly linked. Those of you who have tried this will know how hard it is!

Or you can make life easy for yourself and use HT Track, a really cool software which has been around for a couple of years now.

HTTrack works on most websites and can even download Flash SWF files. It is able to follow web links and hence create a correct path for navigating the site after downloading it to your PC.

There are some limitations though…. links which are embedded in a Flash file may not work properly. And the same goes with Javascripts and Form Submission pages.

Last week one of our clients requested us to burn their website on a CD so they can use it for a presentation. The website was coded in PHP script which means you can’t run it normally in your PC unless you use a server-side application such as Apache server.

It was quite a large website and recreating it would blow the client’s cost unnecessarily.

So out came HTTrack and the task was completed with minimum fuss. That’s the beauty of this software… it doesn’t matter whether a website has been coded in HTML, PHP or ASP. HTTrack just follows the links and creates the path for you.

HTTrack is a free download under the GPL license.

For almost as long as there’s been a World Wide Web, there’s been Yahoo.com.

And for those of you who have been surfing the web long enough, you might remember that the first generation Yahoo looked like a website with lots of links and cartoon icons at the top.

Of course today the website has since evolved into something more serious.

Unlike Google, Yahoo’s look and feel does evolve. The last time we saw a major overhaul was in May 2006 and the left navigation bar feature appeared prominently to give us quick access to all major features.

Now a minor redesign sees the logo being moved from the left to the middle… which is interesting because middle was where it started out a long time ago. Is Yahoo into Feng Shui as well?

The above shows an American Express banner ad that was displayed on AOL recently.What a great idea! If almost every business out there is asking for feedback, why not advertisers?

If this happened, we hopefully won’t see any more of those annoying flash ads which are forced on our face when we visit TheStar homepage!

For advertisers, just think of the possibilities here…. true interactivity can be taken to a new level as web surfers are encouraged to click on the feedback to voice their opinion.

Take a look for example at how CNET asks for ad feedback on their website.

Of course whether this will happen or not is an entirely different thing. Even with the advent of the Internet, many traditional advertising companies have been comfortably sitting in their comfort zone, just like the music label companies before Steve Jobs came along.

Sadly, one-way communication is pretty much still the norm in advertising.

Your SmarterMail web mail system has one of the most advanced anti-spam control features on the market.

SmarterMail allows you to be as aggressive as you want when combating spam. This article is rather technical but we hope it helps you fine-tune your spam settings to minimize spam.

HOW IT WORKS
When an email comes in, several spam checks are run based on preset criteria. The checks that fail add points to the email. A final score is calculated after which the system assigns a “spam probability” to the email.

Spam checks include the following:

Bayesian Filtering
Bayesian Filtering applies statistical analysis to determine whether or not an email appears to be spam. Together with blacklists and SPF (Sender Policy Framework), this allows you to be quite sure whether or not an email is spam. Bayesian Filtering can be memory intensive so SmarterMail allows you to set the maximum resources that will be dedicated to this.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF is a method of verifying that the sender of an email message went through the appropriate email server when sending. More and more companies are now adding SPF information to their domain DNS records and this will prevent spoofing at an increasing rate.

Pass – this indicates that the email was sent from the server specified by the SPF record (probably a good email). Set the weight to zero (for no effect) or a negative number (to reducing the spam rating).

Fail – this indicates that the email was sent from a server prohibited by the SPF record (probably a spam email). Set this to a high number such as 30 or above to add to the spam weighting.

SoftFail – this indicates that the email was sent from a server that is questionable in the SPF record. Set this to zero or a low spam weight.

Neutral – this indicates that the SPF record makes no statement for or against the server that sent the email. Usually just leave this set to zero.

None – this indicates that the domain has no published SPF record. SPF is a relatively new concept and many legitimate domains do not have SPF records. Leave this at zero for the time being.

Reverse DNS
This checks to make sure that the IP address used to send the email has a friendly name associated with it.

RBL Lists
RBL Lists (or IP4R Lists) are public lists of known spammer IP addresses. To attach to a list, click on Add List. To add a new RBL list or edit existing ones, click on the Edit RBL Lists button. Popular Spam Lists include:
 
SpamHaus  http://www.spamhaus.org
SpamCop http://www.spamcop.net

Weights
On the right side you will see default weights for thespam check. If an email has a high probability of being spam based on its content, this is the value that will be added to the message’s total spam weight.

Filtering
From the above spam checks, emails are then filtered into one of four categories (ie. zero, low, medium, high probability of spam) based on the total weight score. You can set your action so that the email automatically gets deleted or moved to a junk folder if it fits into any of these categories.

Skipping Spam Filters for Intra-domain email
You can skip spam checking for your internal company emails by checking this option.

Conclusion
I am currently using the default settings in SmarterMail together with the standard Windows Mail (junk filter set to Low) found in Windows Vista. I typically receive 150+ spam messages without filters but after going through the Smarter Mail and Windows Mail filters end up with around 10-20 spam emails per day.

Author: Larry Lam

SCAN & CLICK

Basically user habits on the web are akin to customer habits in a shop.

Most people will glance at each new page, scan some of the text then click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles what they are looking for.

In fact, large parts of a web page often go unnoticed.

Most users search for something interesting, useful or clickable. As soon as some promising candidates are found, they click. That is why Google Adsense has worked so well over the years!

If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the scanning process continues.

Conclusion:
Users don’t read…. they scan. In your web page design, you will need to capture user attention with certain images, font types and so on.

THE ANCHOR

When looking at a web page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.

Besides your main navigation bar, well-placed links near focal areas can also be effective to bring users to another page.

The human eye is non-linear, so humans can instantly recognize edges, patterns and motions. That is why video ads and flash are extremely annoying and distracting, but from the marketing perspective they fit the job of capturing user attention.

If users do not scan a web page in a linear fashion, then how do they do it?

Answer: They go sequentially from a page section to another one.

Conclusion:
Think of some good anchors to use (eg well-placed links and catch phrases) and position them at each page fold. A page fold is basically that part of the web page that appears at each scroll interval.

NO PATIENCE

Sad to say, web users are mostly an impatient bunch and insist on instant gratification.

Therefore your website should be obvious and self-explanatory.

A clear structure aided by visual cues and easily recognizable links can help users to find their way.

The less intuitive your website navigation, the more likely your users will search for alternatives elsewhere.

Unlike economic theory, web users do not make optimum choices – seldom do they search for the quickest way to find the information they need.  Instead users choose the FIRST REASONABLE OPTION. As soon as they see a link that may lead to their goal, there is a good chance that the link will be clicked.

Conclusion:
Make your website intuitive, target your audience and provide them with plenty of signs to reach their goals.

TEST THE TRUTH OF THIS ARTICLE – It is simple…. the next web page you surf, just analyze your own behavior and see if the above holds true

A previous post on how to make your website user friendly can be found here.

If you send out bulk emails on a regular basis, you may find that your emails do not get sent properly or ends up in the recipient’s junk box from time to time.This usually happens when your email list builds up to 1,000+ people.

Even if you broke down your huge list into groups, perhaps each group in your list exceeds 200 people.

As you know, sending emails to more than 200 people at any one time is a challenging affair!

Poor email deliverability can occur due to the following:

• Your web hosting company’s server IP address is blacklisted by a spam organization such as Spam Cop.
• Your Streamyx IP address is blacklisted.
• You have EXCEEDED the EMAIL QUOTA set by your web hosting company. This is probably the most common reason that you experience such “unreliable” service.

The reality us that good web hosting companies need to set a quota on email usage in a shared hosting environment.

This ensures that all customers are treated fairly and no single customer is allowed to abuse the server through excessive email usage.

If you rely on bulk emailing to keep in touch with your contacts and customers, a better option to consider is to use a Bulk Emailing service to send your emails.

For example, GET RESPONSE is one of the top Bulk Emailing service worldwide. For a minimal fee, you can use their system to:

• Maintain large email lists (even 50,000 or more names!)
• Import your existing email list without much manual work
• Create HTML email templates with just a few clicks
• Broadcast your email to groups
• Send out personalized email messages using powerful mail merge features
• Set auto-responders to do follow-up email marketing

Use your own domain name to send

Your emails are actually sent from GetReponse servers, however the return path is masked so that if you wish, your recipient can actually reply to your domain.

Besides Get Response, other solutions include:

1) Rent a Dedicated Server. This could set you back RM750 per month or more, so it is not practical for most people.

2) Use a Semi-Dedicated service. This type of hosting limits the number of domains hosted on each server. Therefore each domain is given a higher resource allocation as compared with Shared Hosting. Some companies are offering hosting of around 30-50 domains per server for RM3,000+ per year.

Guaranteed Delivery

This is the best part.

Get Response has strong relationships with major ISPs such as Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail.  They strongly support permission-based email marketing and adopt strict anti-spam policies.

So your emails are more or less guaranteed 99% delivery!

If you are a spammer, forget about this service.

If you have a bona fide contact list and your recipients consent to receive emails, then this service is for you.

GetResponse sets you back around RM60 or so per month. You can try it here.

Since this is a special “leap day” and if you like this article, please digg it below

Microsoft is pursuing Yahoo to challenge Google in online ad sales, a market that may reach US$80 billion worldwide by 2011.

Google is currently the market leader in online advertising although it relies on its Google Adwords / Adsense program for a huge chunk of its US$16.6 billion revenue in 2007.

With growth slowing in the market for such ads, Google is said to be setting its sights on Display and Multimedia ads. These are the colourful banner and flashing ads that you see on Yahoo, MSN and other online newspapers.

Sales for Display and Multimedia ads are projected to grow by 60 percent to US$13.7 billion in 2011, according to research company eMarketer.

Currently Yahoo has the biggest share of the Display Ad market in the US with 19%. Microsoft was in third position with 7% (behind News Corporation). Google had just 1% of this market.

Internet Advertising continues to Grow

The Microsoft bid for Yahoo underscores the strength of online advertising and its potential going forward, despite the looming economic downturn in the US.

For the first time ever Google is feeling some heat.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal if successful may slam a door in Google’s attempt to expand beyond its text link ad business. Together Microsoft and Yahoo would control more than 25% of the market for Display & Multimedia ad segment.

Even though Google is looking forward to a world where they own online advertising, at this point they’re really only owning “one flavour”, says Jon Gibs Vice President of Nielsen Online in New York.

Google’s moves into display and multimedia ads include the US$1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006.

Almost a third of all US online video clips are viewed on YouTube. Google sells ads in some videos… advertisers such as retailing group Neiman Marcus and TV maker Royal Philips Electronics have rented out the YouTube homepage for a day.

Google followed through in April 2007 by offering US$3.1 billion for display ad company DoubleClick. This transaction is under review by European regulators.

Credit Suisse (New York) analyst Heath Terry says display ads and YouTube will contribute some US$323 million in sales this year, rising to $705 million in 2009.

And there’s room for a lot more growth.

In the US, the Internet accounts for less than 10% of total ad spend (half its consumption time of 20%).

In contrast ad spend on television comprises some 40% of total ad spend (similar to its consumption time), while ad spend on newspapers and magazines exceeds their consumption time.

It is therefore likely that the Internet will continue to take dollars from newspapers and magazines, even more so if an economic downturn reduces overall ad spending.

Online Advertising in Malaysia and other Non-US Markets

Personally I believe Google is still at the tip of an iceberg with its Adwords and Adsense programs in Malaysia. We service many clients and only a handful of them is using Adwords or indeed any form of online advertising.

The so-called Display and Multimedia Ad segment is mostly a US game currently and mainly for large companies. Ad cost is quite prohibitive for many small companies.

With a couple of hundred dollars, you can run a decent ad campaign using Google Adwords which will be very profitable.

In contrast there is no Yahoo or MSN ad product which we believe can appeal to the mass market in Malaysia.

In addition Google has put money into our pockets and those of many other smaller players. Its Adsense program is truly a program for the masses.

Therefore Google will continue to dominate this segment and would do well to protect its territory here.

After all it is a better search engine and is the most likable Internet company

1. Use SHORT paragraphs & words.

2. Make your sentences FLOW like a breeze…. ignore good grammar when you have a good reason – start your sentences with And, But, So you see.

3. Use BUZZ WORDS: profit, secret, easy, save, guarantee, today… and the hottest word of all: YOU!

4. Use lots of BULLETS – this will help you break long sentences.

5. Write HEADLINES …. lots of them. Think of you product benefits and those should generally be your headlines.

6. STAND OUT.  Discover, isolate and dramatize the reasons for doing business with you. What are your competitive advantages? Throw some punches here.

7. GIVE…. All your readers are in your website to “get” something. They are looking to solve a problem, obtain information, get a discount or whatever. So to succeed, you must learn to give… free information, valuable tips, special deals and freebies.

8. Include TESTIMONIALS – your story would be a lot more credible if it comes from an independent source.

9. ASK FOR ACTION.