Having a website that is designed properly is very important if you want to succeed in Internet Marketing. When designing a website, there are 2 major factors one has to consider - it has to be both User and Search Engine Friendly.

User Friendly. People are going to judge you by your website and if it is not design well in its look and functionality, users are going to assume that your business is also lacking in some way and may not trust what you have to present in your website. Take note of some simple points when creating a user friendly website;

• Nice and Attractive Header - Doesn't need to have too many graphics but eye-catching enough for users to want to read the contents.
• Plain Background - Background is important. Plain background is preferred over fanciful background. If the background is light in colour than the text should be dark in colour and vice-versa. Good contrast makes the content more visible to the readers and easier for the eyes to read.
• Navigation - Navigation tabs , placed either in the left or right column, should be visible and prominent. This allows readers to click the relevant links and navigate the pages with ease. Navigation must be simple and easy, too many deep links may discourage users to navigate further as they want information or answers within a few clicks.
• Content - Content is King! Why do readers come your website? It has to be the content that your website is providing, matches their searches or needs. Always try to provide fresh and unique content. It will help to build 'stickiness' to your website.

Search Engine Friendly. Using keywords effectively in the text of your website and inserting relevant meta tags are important for your website to be rated highly in the Internet search engines. Keywords have to be used correctly to specify to search engines the relevancy of that particular page. A good publisher will be able to give the text in your website an appropriate percentage of keywords and still have the contents interesting to read. The last thing that you want is the website loaded with keywords but is not interesting to read which will force readers to leave your site.

• Page Title - One should include the keyword in the Page Title.
• Meta Description - Keyword should also be included in the Description. Not more more than 200 characters.
• Meta Keywords - Type in relevant keywords of your websites. Not more than 1000 characters.
• H1, H2, H3 - This will allow the spiders of search engines to index the page easier.
• Alt Image Tag - Placed a text describing the image or graphic which will help in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

All these onpage optimization is within one's control. Spend some time, do it properly and you will be rewarded with better ranking in search engines that will help to generate more traffic. Traffic is exactly what we need.

Having all these important points in mind when creating a new website will certainly decide how successful our website will be.

XsitePro Video 2

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To be continued...

In the Internet world, you need to have 'presence' so that you can be found. Therefore, having your very own website is extremely important. How do you then create a website? You have 2 choices, either you outsource it to a web designer or do-it-yourself, yes DIY.

As for myself, I chose the second option - DIY. Outsourcing can be quite costly and it doesn't give you the flexibility to change or add contents easily. The web designer would charge additional money for any amendments make along the way. I have the intention to create multiple websites and would like to consistently add new contents to provide better user experience. New, fresh and quality contents help to create 'stickiness' to your website. This will allow you to build up traffic gradually and surely.

I have no experience in website design. However, after doing some research through the Internet, I came across several software that enable beginners like me to create website without any HTML knowledge .... they used WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). I have personally downloaded and tried a few of these software like NVU, CoffeeCup, SeaMonkey and several others. They are all free and can be downloaded from http://www.download.com/. I have not tried the popular software DreamWeaver. I understand that it is quite costly and only meant for web designers who have experience.

Still not satisfied with all the features these free software could offer, I decided to check-out the Internet again. After spending some days researching, I came across a software, XsitePro. I read a number of reviews and many have excellent comments for XsitePro. Below are just some of the features XsitePro offers;

1. Change the complete style of your web site any time you want in just minutes rather than days or weeks, which means you can have a site that looks how you want it to look and not have to put up with an existing design just because that’s how it has always been.
2. Publish any changes you make to your web site in just a single mouse click, which means you don‘t have to worry about whether you‘ve remembered to upload a graphic file or not - it‘s all done for you.
3. Include two styles of site map on your site by just putting a check in a checkbox, which means you can have great looking site maps that are always up-to-date without lifting a finger.
4. Print out an incredibly detailed report that tells you exactly what you need to do to each of your pages, which means you can make sure that all your pages are exactly right before you publish them to the Internet.
5. Add Google Adsense ads into your web pages with just two clicks of your mouse, which means you can add an extra income stream without any extra effort.
6. Easily hide unattractive page urls by creating redirect pages that automatically forward visitors to alternative locations, which means you no longer have to unappealing and unmemorable urls that might put visitors off.
7. Make sure that you behave honourably with your visitors data by instantly adding a privacy statement page.
8. Include navigation menus that automatically update themselves whenever you add new pages, which means your site navigation will never be out of date again
9. Have navigation menus in up to four places on your page, which means you can have site navigation on the left or right side, at the bottom of the body copy or at the foot of the page - or all four at the same time - it’s up to you.
10. Add article pages to your site in just two minutes using the fill-in-the-blanks template and you’ll maintain a standard layout that gives your site a professional look and feel.
11. Have keywords that are automatically added to the meta tags of every new web site or web page you create, which saves you a lot of time entering the same keywords again and again.
12. Creating professional looking pages using the built-in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) page editor is simple, so you don’t have to learn how to write any HTML code.
13. Quickly find out if you have forgotten to include ALT text on any of the images on any of the pages for any of your sites, which will help you to get a better page ranking in some search engines.
14. See at-a-glance how large each of your pages is, including images, which will help you to publish only pages that are of an appropriate size.
15. Create a link on your site that, when clicked, will automatically print the current page on the visitors printer, which is a great way to encourage people to print price lists, special offers or any other information that you would like them to have a hard copy of.

.......... and many more. They have listed about 47 features you can find in XsitePro.

XsitePro Video 1

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A video was put up to demonstrate the powerful capabilities of XsitePro. You can view it through this link - Click here to view the "7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!"

I was so convinced by all the reviews, testimonials from current users and watching the video. You have guessed it right. I bought the software. I did not buy on impulse but after very careful research.

I will reveal to you in my next Blog my honest opinion about XsitePro after purchasing it and trying it out myself. Keep tuned to this Blog!

To be continued .............

Click here for more information on XSitePro