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Public domain gives you a head start creating ebooks, ecourses, newsletters, teleconferences, website content and email registration incentives you need to keep in constant touch with clients and prospects.

Public domain refers to information free from copyright protection. The two most important sources of public domain content are:

1. Books with expired copyrights. Copyright protection for many books written early during the previous century has expired. In addition, millions of other books, published later, have lost their protection because their publishers did not renew their copyrights in time.

2. The second source is Government created materials. In addition, hundreds of thousands of government-published books, pamphlets, reports, and ‘how-to’s’ are available. Information published by the United States Government and other governments is typically not copyright protected.

Basing your marketing materials on public domain content boosts your profits by saving you time and energy. This time and energy can be invested in more profitable activities like networking, selling or direct customer service.

In many cases, proper use of public domain content can increase your billable hours five to ten per cent!

This is in addition to reducing the amount of time it takes to complete a marketing project. One client, for example, had been struggling for three years to write a website incentive showing attorneys how to prepare an effective marketing plan.

Within a week of learning how to search for, and use, public domain content, he had completed his special report and it was already attracting new business to his consulting firm!

Public domain content can be used ‘as is,’ or you can repurpose it into different forms. For example:

1. Newsletters. Adapt chapters of a book into issues of your newsletter that build on each other.

2. Teleconferences. Use a book as the basis of a series of teleconferences.

3. Website incentive. Create a special report or email registration incentive based on a government booklet.

4. Autoresponder series. You can offer a ‘mini course’ as a series of lessons delivered at weekly intervals.

5. Articles and speeches. Books can be repackages in shorter units, adapted to current conditions.

6. Checklists and worksheets are always welcome and can be easily assembled from copyright-free sources.

Often, the original, copyright-free work can be used ‘as is.’ The owner of a fly-fishing camp located a ‘fly fishing coloring book’, which he sends him clients to give to their children.

Putting public domain content to work basically involves four steps:

1. Goals. What do you want to accomplish? Simply keep in contact or motivate fence sitters to act right now? Your answer will influence the amount of information you need, as will your market’s information needs.

2. Locate. The next step is to locate appropriate public domain content. This involves research that can be done at your computer, at any hour of the day or night.

3. Verify. You’ll want to protect yourself by making sure that the materials you have selected are indeed copyright free.

4. Adapt. Unless you are going to reprint a book or government pamphlet, you will want to scan or transcribe it, and reformat it into the format that works best and suites your marketing needs.

No longer do you have to write every word of your marketing. Information in the public domain permits you to market more efficiently, so you have more time to provide your unique products and services.

Public domain material allows you to save time and money while creating an ongoing stream of credible customer communications.

About The Author

Roger C. Parker is the $32,000,000 author with over 1.6 million copies in print. Do you make these marketing and design mistakes? Find out at www.gmarketing-design.com

Website design guidelines and tips - just common sense
By Mary Magdalene Chia

Here are some design guidelines and tips to help you build a user friendly websites.

1. First, figure out what you want to do and make a plan for it. This may involves some brain storming. Then, translate your ideas and plans onto paper by drawing a diagram or a flowchart so that you can visualize it. Then, ACT on it.

2. Keep your design simple, clear, consistent and user friendly.

3. A simple design, layout makes it easier for you to build your website. The end result will be a website which your visitors will find easy to navigate and easy get whatever information they want.

4. Your content should be simple, complete and direct to the point. It should make clear the intention of your web pages, cover the subject matter thoroughly and convey the messages direct to your visitors.

5. If your design look complicated, redesign and simplify it. Complicated design/layout will only make it harder for you to build your web pages. It may also confuses your visitors if your site is full of complicated mess of information.

6. Be consistent throughout in your design approach. The background, color usage and text format should be carefully chosen and the screen layout for all your pages visibly consistent.

7. Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website. Make a copyright statement at the bottom of you web pages.

8. Have a clear color scheme based on the theme of your website. Choose carefully a set of colors you use for your background, text, border, tables and cells etc. The color scheme expresses the characters of your website and makes it unique and attractive.

9. Identify who are your target visitors and how you would make your presentation. Decide the tone of language usage and the approach that will best suit your visitors. Whether your language usage should be casual and simple or formal and technical? Whether you should use pictorial or language oriented approach in your website.

10. For ease of reading, the length of a text lines should not exceed certain width within the computer screen. To limit the length of a line of text, use indent text or use a table with the pre-set width.

11. Long blocks of text passages can be tedious and strenuous to read. Try to use short sentences, short paragraphs and bulleted or numbered list form to break them up.

12. The width of you web pages should preferably not exceed that of the computer screen. People viewing your site usually don’t mind scrolling up and down the screen; but will be annoyed when they have to scroll left and right.

13. Font size: use larger size font; Bear in mind that some of your visitors may have poor eyesight; some may have partial impaired vision and some ordinary people who just can’t stand reading tiny script on the computer screen.

14. The text color should contrast well with the background color to be easily read. Likewise, Background image or texture chosen should contrast well with the text color, so that it is easy to read on screen.

15. It looks great on the screen and soothing to the eyes. But it is not recommended to use white text on a dark background. When somebody wants to print out your page for reference, it won’t print because the background will not be printed; while the white text is printed on white paper, you see nothing.

16. The images you put in a web page are not there just for decoration. They should be relevant and necessary to use as visual to help to convey the message, or serve to break a long and monotonous text messages.

17. Limit the size of an image you insert in a web page. Large image takes longer time to display, and most visitors don’t like to wait too long to view a certain image.

18. Keep the size of a web page small so that it will open up fast - preferably less than 10 seconds. If the page is too long, have too many items to load and slow to display, you should consider breaking it into smaller pages and link them up.

19. Contents such as video, audio, flash animations etc. are huge in size. They will slow down the display of the page. If it takes too long for to load a page, the viewers might give up and leave. They also use up more of your bandwidth.

20. Ensure that the visitors get around navigating your ,website, with ease. They should be able to find what they are looking for in quickly and get there. Use a menu or image map, a site map, arrows, links and buttons to provide direction to your visitors.

21. Make sure the pages are interlinked for easy navigation. Links should be well organized, strategically placed and easy to detect by using appropriate colors. Use anchor links to facilitate navigation on the same page. Always check for any broken links and fix them.

22. Load all the important and essential information in the first page that the visitors see. Give a quick introduction to your website with brief header, bookmarked lists, short summaries, etc. This will quickly let them know whether your page is what they are looking for.

23. Is your website screen layout look neat and tidy? Ask someone to have a look at it and get her feedback. You will be surprised!

24. The contents inside a table should have a little space between the borders. Set a padding around the table or set indent to your content.

25. Don’t simply add every neat gimmick and animated images you can find just because you think they are cool. In reality they are distracting and confusing.

26. Decide whether to use or not to use pop-up windows. They are great for catching the attention of the viewers; but can be distracting and annoying as well. Some viewers would dismiss pop-up as ads and close it immediately. Pop-up also will not work if the viewers have installed a pop-up blocker.

27. Encourage visitors to contact you by providing a Contact Us page with your email link. It is even better to have an opt-in box that serves to collect visitors’ contact and data.

28. Study other’s website design and set up. See how they layout and organize their header, links, menu, buttons, images and etc. Then choose, adopt and modify whichever design that suits your need.

29. Use website templates if you don’t have any designing flair.

30. Make a back-up copy for all your web pages. It will save you a lot of trouble in the event that you have to rebuild your websites.

Well, some website design guidelines and tips - It’s all common sense.

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About the Author

Mary Magdalen Chia is the author of “How to design and build your own websites”.It is written for anyone who wants to design and build websites in 8 hours with simple, easy to follow step by step guidelines.

To learn more, visit:
http://www.108diywebdesign.com

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Mary Magdalene is the author of “How to design and build your own websites”. It is written for anyone who wants to learn to design and build websites in 8 hours with simple, easy to follow step by step guidelines.

To learn more, visit:
www.108diywebdesign.com

Brochures are not created just to have your company or business displayed. Like other print jobs, they have a deeper intent that is in favor of you. By giving people your brochures; you display what you have to make them want to have them themselves. If they get it, you get yours. That is, in terms of sales and not to mention, money. Your brochures should have the proper presentation that can make it readable, intriguing and interesting. It should catch the attention of the people and make an impact. These are the things that your brochure should present. If you think more about it, how do these pieces of papers grab peoples’ attention?

With many existing brochures offering different kind of things nowadays, people tend to dismiss all them as something they have already seen and have tired of. If they have seen one, they have seen all is the philosophy that they may have. How do you make your brochures stand out from the rest? The trick is to make your brochure appear professionally designed and written. The image you project can de seen through your brochures. You would not want people to judge you from the sloppy brochures you send them.

Your text is the key. Anyone can write their own text, but only someone with skills and proper training can make a strong yet easy sentence that has an impact. The structures of your written words should be able to clearly show the company’s message. There are specialists who can this job for you. Choosing a copywriter over them is not a very good option. If you want to put your business into somebody’s hands, would you not rather have someone professional to do it? Wither way, you will be spending money hiring them, why not spend it on someone that is more effective and knows how to get on with the job.

Having a question for your opening is better than just a plain statement. This way, the readers’ curiosity is piqued enough to want them to know the answers to these questions. Do not make it a yes or no question. Make it more meaningful with lots of hidden messages and promises contained in them.

Another important thins is the colors that you use. You may already be aware that there are many color and color styles you can use for your brochures and it is difficult to decide which one you like best. Try using colors that appear professional and reflects just that. It would like funny if your texts are so professional yet your choice of colors does not show that.

Make sure you do your brochures perfectly the first time. It would not harm you in any way to know more about styles and strategies to make them work for you. in the end, all you will need is patience.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.losangelesprintingservice.com

Don’t you just love web acronyms like LOL and WYSIWYG?

It took me forever to remember that LOL means “Laugh Out Loud” on the internet since it meant “Lots Of Luck” in my previous life.

Then I started seeing WYSIWYG. This acronym was easier to remember once I found out what meant because I’d never seen anything like it before.

WYSIWYG means “What You See Is What You Get” and didn’t exist as a programming term until the internet. (Us “older” programmers can tell you that you had no idea what we were going to get when we ran a newly written program the first time - we just hoped it would run.)

Just like our mouse gives us “point and click” capability, WYSIWYG editors give us the ability to put things on a web page where we want them and the HTML code “just happens.” So unless you were a web programmer in your other life or can learn new programming languages quickly, you should either be using a WYSIWYG HTML editor or paying someone to create your web pages.

Now a few years ago if you wanted a WYSIWYG HTML editor you had to buy 1. If you were lucky, you may have found 1 for less than $100 but usually the prices started around $200 and went up.

Today, you can get good WYSIWYG HTML editors free. They may not have all the features as the ones you pay for but they have more than enough to get you started.

Recently I downloaded and tried one of the free WYSIWYG HTML editors and it impressed me enough that I’ve included it as a free resource in our membership area. Using this free editor you can do all the the “13 HTML Basics” I mentioned in an earlier article and a whole lot more. (The article is archived in our membership area.)

While the free editor didn’t have all the same features as the version of FrontPage I purchased, it did offer the most commonly used ones.

In fact, most of the features not available with the free WYSIWYG editor aren’t really necessary to those just learning to use HTML because …

• Many of the missing capabilities can be done manually -
  like checking your page in different browser types.
• Most people don’t need or use many of the missing items
  and some really increase the amount of time it takes for
  the page to load into a browser window.
• It’s recommended to not use some of the capabilities like
  custom defined colors and WordArt because they don’t
  display the same across all browser types.

Here’s another acronym for you, YGWYPF - “You Get What You Pay For.” Only in the case of free WYSIWYG HTML editors, you can really get a lot and pay nothing.

——————–

Susan Carroll owner of http://www.friendswhocare.us has formed a global community of online business people through her weekly newsletter.

Susan recently finished a free report about adding automatic content to your website that search engines can see. It’s available at: http://www.friendswhocare.us/content.htm

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

We’ve all run into them, the dreaded “404 File Not Found” error page. When you land there, there are a few things that you can do next. On average, what do you usually do first when you hit one of those pages:

Immediately click your browser’s “back” button so that you can try somewhere else. Try to edit the URL you’re attempting to visit and then see if you can head back a step and work your way to where you want to go. Write an email to the web designer of the website to inform them of the issue that you’ve spotted while navigating their site.

Let me guess what your answer was: You click the “back” button on your web browser. If you’re like the majority of web users, then that’s precisely what you answered. Most of us don’t even realize that there are any other options out there than to go back to where we started.

Therefore, it would be awfully nice to be able to help this type of visitor to get back to your website in case they’ve landed on an old link or have entered your URL improperly. You can edit and customize your own 404 File Not Found page so that it gives them the directions that they need so that they can get back to your site and find what they want.

Of course, there are a few things that you’ll need to have available to you if you want to customize that 404 File Not Found page. The first, and most important, is that you need to have a web host that enables you to edit that part of your website. Some will, but some will not. Before getting started, find out from your web host if they will make that option available to you. To find out, look into your hosting documentation and see if they mention anywhere the ability to customize or edit a file named “.htaccess”. If so, it will likely mean that you are able to customize your 404 File Not Found.

If your web host does permit you to edit the 404 File Not Found, then you’re ready to get started. The following are the steps that you will need to follow:

Create/Modify your .htaccess file - this might not always be necessary, but for some web hosts, it’s required. If you don’t need it, then skip this step. If your server isn’t an Apache web server, however, you’ll need to ask your web host what you need to do to have the server serve your edited file when a file on your domain can’t be found. Otherwise, you simply need to add the following line to your “.htaccess” file:

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

With that done, you’ll need to create a notfound.html in your main web directory. This will be what tells the Apache web server that when it can’t find a file, then it should use that URL.

It only takes one .htaccess file in your main directory to cover your entire site and all of its sub-directories. However, if you want specific sub-directories to show their own 404 File Not Found messages, then you will have to create a separate one in each directory. The .htaccess file in any directory or subdirectory will override any other .htaccess files you have in any other directory or subdirectories.

Create the error file - now it’s time to customize your 404 File Not found page. Let the visitor know that the link is not functioning, but don’t stop there. Provide the visitor with alternatives. This should include a link to your main page. If you have a search engine on your website, this would be the ideal place to put a query box. This will make your visitor’s experience very simple because now they can simply type in what they want and they’ll be sent there. If you don’t have a search engine on your website - or even if you do - you might want to place a link to your site map, allowing your visitors to easily find what they want from the list. The point is simply to make sure that your visitor doesn’t give up on you and head somewhere else.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Mark Nenadic

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

When most people build a web site, they think one simple thing. “If I build it, they will come”. How further from the truth this is.

Little do they know that they need to do some homework before constucting their pages. It’s not a simple endeavor, but with the right software, the process eliminates all the headaches associated with building a successful web site.

Let’s start with the web site and what search engines are looking for. CONTENT! Good content will always do well with all the search engines for one simple reason. The web wants sites that are informative and lots of it.

To get to the top, you need good content unless you are willing to pay your way to the top. Which by the way, is not viable for most folks. So how do I build good content?

Good content comes from something you know. Write about what you know and be passionate about it. Than add some more! And keep adding more. Build a good content oriented site that offers good information that people are looking for. This is the foundation for your web site.

Next comes the traffic. It does take a little time, but eventually the traffic will come if you have prepared your content the right way and have continued to build the site. You can push the traffic along with a cost effective click campaign that will deliver targeted traffic to your site. This is especially good if you are selling goods off of your site.

Once the content is built, the traffic is starting to come around, than you are ready to presell customers to the final step of the sale. It’s a simple process that most people neglect. They first want to jump to the end result before doing the necessary steps to lay the correct foundation for success. C-content, T-traffic, P-presell, M-monetize your site. CTPM!

One of my previous web sites did not do very well because I did not take the time to use the right software, in the most cost efficient manner, with the right approach. However, even an old dog like myself can learn a few tricks!

There is software out there that supplies a total package for the person who wants to build a successful web site. It makes building web sites very easy and the software does all the work for you.

It eliminates all the headaches such as submitting to search engines, writing meta tags, and correct placement of keywords, etc. It even gives you updates on what is happening and what you need to do to correct any problems.

The software is called S.B.I. which stands for site-build-it.
It is by far the most useful software that I have ever come across on how to build a web site. 62% of all S.B.I. users are in the top 3% on Alexa rankings and 35% are in the top 1%! The software works for you so you can concentrate on building the content.

With the right approach and the right software, you can build a very successful web site that you will be proud of and will enjoy for years to come.

Bill Bathe- I am a former major league ball player who played in 1989 world series with the San Fransisco Giants. I also played in Venezuela and Japan. I have built a successful web site about baseball using S.B.I. After researching over the years how some web sites do well and some don’t, it was an easy choice to use S.B.I. You can learn more about that software at http://www.pro-baseball-drills-and-equipment.com, than clicking on the ‘Site Build It’ link located at the bottom of the navigation bar.
I did, and the results speak for themselves. Also, if you have any questions, just visit my website and send me an email.

If Blingo can do, why not MSN! In fact Blingo’s business model is based on handing out attractive freebies for using their search engine.

And although while searching on Blingo you get to see its logo and other details at the top and bottom of the page, the search results are all from Google. Being a ‘partner site’, Blingo supposedly gets revenues from Google, of which a part goes to finance the cost of freebies.

So in a way, it’s almost like Google offering prizes to use its search engine, albeit through proxy. But Blingo is not alone. Though not official, Amazon is known to offer discounts on its products for using its A9 search engine for more than a year.

Yet when MSN unveiled its ’search and win’ plan, it’s seen as an act of desperation. In this article, Mike Musgrove quotes Nielsen-NetRatings recent findings that MSN is not only trailing Google and Yahoo! (in that order) in gross web searches, it’s share also slipped from 14% a year back to 10.9%.

Juxtapose MSN’s offer for freebies and Yahoo!’s admission of barely holding onto its share, it’s clear that Google’s juggernaut is here to roll, no matter what comes on way.

What indeed goes to Google’s credit is that the range of top-class products it’s been launching for awhile has completely washed away whatever counter-strategy its competitors have thought of.

Coming back to MSN’s offer, it proved sour for me for the freebies aren’t for non-US citizens. How very sad!

Once you have a website you then need to think about hosting your site. There are many hosting companies offering different fees, therefore it can be quite difficult in finding the best deal.

There are many avenues to explore to find this best deal. I would advise asking the company who designed the website, if they know of any hosting companies which they could recommend.

Alternatively you can search the internet using a search engine like Google.

If you have a large number of websites which you need hosting for it is worth considering a reseller account. This is where you pay, normally a yearly fee, and are allowed an unlimited number of websites on the same server.

I myself have a large number of websites and use http://www.fasthosts.co.uk for my hosting. They charge £500 annually and this works out to be a lot cheaper than having individual hosting accounts for each of my websites.

There are other companies out there offering a similar service to fasthosts, however this is a company I was recommended to use, and I have had no problems with them as yet.

The only negative I could mention about fasthosts is that at times when you phone their customer services hotline, you are kept waiting quite a long time before you get to talk to an advisor.

A lot of the questions are though answered at their control panel, therefore it is quite rare that I have needed to phone them.

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including http://www.insomnia-symptom.co.uk and http://www.meditation-symptom.co.uk

A new trend, appearing in the Web Hosting industry, is the concept of Managed Web Hosting. Web hosts have been offering dedicated servers for a while now, however, because dedicated servers can be difficult to operate technically, there has been a demand for web hosts to provide extra services such as: reporting and monitoring; managed load balancing; managed security; managed storage; and, managed databases. These extra services are referred to as ‘managed hosting’.

Do you need it?

Before you think about managed hosting you will first need to decide whether or not you need a dedicated server. You will need a dedicated server if you have a high-traffic web site. If you only have a small web site with low traffic levels then a shared hosting arrangement should be fine. A dedicated server is more expensive to rent and more difficult to operate than a shared hosting solution but if your business depends on a steady service then you should seriously consider renting a dedicated server.

The only disadvantage with dedicated web hosting is that you will have to do a lot of the server administration yourself, and to do this you will need to possess some technical skills; hence the demand for managed hosting. If you fall into this category of needing a dedicated server but you need your host to provide system administration services such as security, firewalls, monitoring and reporting services, and data backup then most likely you will need managed hosting.

How do you find Managed hosting packages?

Many web hosts who once provided only shared and dedicated web hosting are now beginning to offer managed services too. A good place to start looking for managed hosting is through web hosting directories and search engines, by doing a search for managed hosting you should receive a good list of managed hosting providers. Another key place to start is by contacting hosts who are offering dedicated hosting and ask them if they can provide a managed hosting arrangement as well.

Companies providing managed hosting will either offer managed hosting per item or in a pre-configured plan. Per-item managed hosting gives you the freedom to pick and choose what services you need or do not need; on the other hand, a pre-configured plan will include the dedicated server and the managed hosting services at a monthly fee.

What should I look for in a managed hosting provider?

When choosing a managed hosting provider it is a good idea that your host provides the following qualities:

Reliable and fast support - a good way to find out the response rate and the quality of the services offered by a web host is to send them an email before you sign up with them. If you receive a good response from your web host then this should give you a good indication of the services they are offering.

Freedom - its important to have as much freedom as possible and having the ability to choose from a wide range of services is essential. With managed hosting you might decide that you don’t require firewall support, its important that your web host will provide you with the option of selecting exactly what you need and what you don’t need. Also having the ability to pay monthly is a huge advantage. It will be less of a drain on your budget and you can avoid any expensive yearly contracts.

Fast and reliable connection - You should find out exactly what sort of connection the web host has to the Internet. By asking the web host they should be able to send you their network and connectivity details, you might even be able to find this out on their web site. Also find out where the web hosts Network Operations Center (NOC) is located, it is an advantage for the web host to have its NOC located in the USA as the USA has the fastest and most reliable internet connection in the world.

Competitiveness - When searching for a managed hosting provider it is important to do your research. Each web host will be offering different managed hosting services all at different rates, you might find that one web host may offer one attractive managed hosting service while another doesn’t. However, as many more web hosts are beginning to offer managed hosting, a new competitive market is developing and the prices for managed hosting are becoming much more affordable with many more services being offered.

Managed hosting is ideal for the new online businesses person, looking to build a large online business, and wanting to avoid the extra time and resources spent in-house on managing their dedicated servers. In-turn, managed web hosting has provided a profitable outcome to many online businesses by preventing a waste of valuable resources spent on high skilled employees; months of staff training; and, costs of hardware and software.

Written by Candice Humbley http://m6.net Fast, reliable and affordable Windows 2000 web farm hosting.

The Problem Too often new webmasters sign-up with the first good hosting plan they see; they purchased a domain name, built up a site, generated a small income, and decided “Hey, this works, I should make another site”. From there the webmasters purchase a new domain and begin working on a new site only to realize that their hosting plan supports only 1 pointed domain; they will have to purchase an entirely new hosting plan for each new domain name.

The number of “pointed domains” a web hosting plan can support is often overlooked by new webmasters. With so many other factors to consider, such as space, bandwidth etc. it does not immediately seem important. I will be the first to admit that the first time I ever purchased a hosting plan I did not even consider the number of pointed domains. It did not dawn on me until many months later when I decided I wanted to launch a new website. Fortunately I was lucky and I stumbled into a plan that allowed for 50 pointed domains.

The Solution So how many pointed domains should your hosting plan support; in my opinion as many as possible. There has never been an instance where I thought to myself “Geeze, I am never going to have a need for 50 domains that’s just a waste”. If you are anything like me you are always dreaming about that next big idea, that next big website you are going to build. Don’t constrain yourself by choosing a host that cannot support all your dreams.

Check out great Web Hosting Packages at my site