Tips and information for webmasters
Crawling the web in hope to find valuable information on many activites,creations and features on the internet we would like to share with our visitors, adding, in some cases, our touch of experience. The newest article always at the top. We post useful links - sites we recommend for every article.
article nr.6.Google gadgets and other widgets on the web.
Addressing again the issue of stickiness and the ways you can enrich your site's content, we focus on
web gadgets. These miniature objects that serve all sorts of online content in many existing formats. Designed so that they are easily placed on websites.
Google gadgets, being one of the largest providers of gadgets on the web, offers a huge number of them in the most popular categories. Currently, there's no requirement for a sign up and basically after you land on this page, it's a matter of minutes before some of them you choose end up displayed on your web page.It's so simple you might come to the conclusion that it is all to easy. Think again.
Bad management or wrong choice of gadgets can do you more harm than good.
Put the gadgets in relation to your website. How can they benefit my site?
1. Choose the gadgets that are corresponding to your site's main content. Your visitors could get confused.
2. Customize the width,height,border and background color to fit the layout of your web page. Improper choice of settings might disturb your website's visual identity. If feasible, try to find a unique name for the gadget title. Remember that these gadgets could very well be served on other sites. You want to make them as unique as possible!
3. Don't exaggerate! One or two gadgets will do.
4. Change the gadgets at least once a week.Your users/visitors will see this as a clear indication that someone is actually maintaing the site. Put some work to find more providers of gadgets for websites!
Locations on the web we recommended for this topic are given below. Make us of it!
Published:3/8/2010. Updated:3/10/2010.
Recommended links
article nr 5.Generation and submission of sitemaps
Describing simply, a
sitemap or
site map, is a presentation of a website's structure. Done in such a manner so it can be easily readable and understandable by human visitors. It helps visitors to get an overall picture of your website's organisation(in other words, how your website is organized). Especially large websites with several sections and subsections, it is a tool that improves the "communication" between the site and it's visitors.
At the same time a sitemap, when submitted to search engines, ensures that all pages are indexed properly.
So, when creating a sitemap, you consider both the human aspect - the situation of your ordinary visitor and the "non-human" aspect - the importance of having all your pages indexed by the spider-driven search engines.
In the first case, an ordinary page with listed pages(links that point to each page), most usually in a hierachical fashion. In the second case, an xml-based sitemap for the search engines.
You can do all of this by hand, or turn to some locations on the web specialized in giving these kind of services. One that comes up on our mind is,
xml-sitemaps.com. Here you're able to customize your xml-based sitemap by manipulating several parameters:
file format(you may generate sitemaps in .xml/.html/.ror/mobile sitemaps...),
change frequancy - how often do you update your pages? On a daily,monthly,annually basis? Or do you not update them at all...or none...
Last modification - a specified date, server's response...or none?And, of course, the
priority - not all pages have the same priority! Not in yours nor in the eyes of your visitors.
So, how is the sitemap generated? First, you access this site on the web. Second, choose the proper setting for your website. Third, press the "Start" button. Last, upload the created sitemap in the root directory of your website.
Then we reach the question where to submit the newly generated sitemap? Well, all the major search engines emphasize the importance and benefit(for those own or administer a website) of a sitemap submission.So, Google,Bing and Yahoo could probably be the search engines to submit your sitemap first. Google and Bing have sections on their websites especially tailored for webmasters - On Google it's
Google Webmaster Central. You first need to open a Google account, submit your site and authenticate(proving you're the owner).On Bing it is
Bing Webmaster Center. They will provide you with detailed information, instructions,recommendations and guidelines on how to manage your sitemaps.
Yahoo being a search engine and a human-edited directory, it provides several options of both site and sitemap submission depending on type, or better said, versions of your website: mobile version of your website, media content,product search, etc.
Like we always do, recommended links for this topic are provided below. They will take you directly to relevant locations on the web conserning everything that is related to sitemaps.Good Luck!
Published:2/13/2010. Updated:2/28/2010.
Recommended links
article nr 4.Multilingual online translator for your website.
Thinking of making your site readable in other language than the primary?Perhaps running a
niche oriented website and would like to appeal to a web audience around the world who's native language is other than your own?
And it's not a question whether or not the bulk of your visitors have adequate reading comprehension skills. Not even if they have a problem to understand a word or sentence. They will rely on so many online dictionaries and solve the problem if they're interested enough.
We believe that having an online tool
integrated with your site which provides a
translated version of your site's content, may improve it's performance in context of becoming more acceptable to a loyal audience on the web from other parts of the world. This particularly addresses profit or non-profit websites with a long-term strategy in which case you struggle to reqruit more users,members,customers. A translation tool itself is no guarantee you will accomplish that but certainly, in concert with all other tehniques and utilities for performance enhancement, will lead you in the right direction. And it goes both ways: English to Non-English and vice versa.
Translating is relatively advanced work(depends on what kind of content you translate) as it involves adaptation of many abbreviations,acronyms,expressions,terms or even slang that may not exist in the form you would expect it to in other languages. And translating a whole site is thus quit difficult to perform. To have the best translated edition avaliable of your site would necessiate professional translation services. That is basically a human resource which is costly and not possibly avaliable for small websites. That's why you turn to customized online translator tools. And like all online tools they aren't flawless. But they'll do the job. Pressumably they will...
Published:1/12/2010. Updated:2/15/2010.
Recommended sites
article nr 3.Make your links come alive - The weight of presenting links in your directory visually.
More and more web directories put a
thumbnail or
screenshot of each website in every category. Along with the description, language,e-mail and rating of a website, you've certainly seen a small image of a website's home page every time you've browsed through a linksdirectory. It doesn't tell you much. You trust the description in written form right beside the image. Usually it's been written by the site owner and, perhaps, altered by the administrator.
A piece of information on what this particular site offers and more reasons why you should visit it. Essentially ,websites in the same directory don't differ that much. In relation to the prime or main content, they basically deal with the same thing.
Description,rating,traffic are detailed information that bears significance to an experienced web crawler. For an average user of the internet who lands on a web links directory searching for something concrete, a thumbnail image could clearly be an excellent way to establish communication. After all, it is supposed to be a photo of a website's first page. An image to unveil the site's concept,content and "more than meets the eye" information.
The first impression - how does the site look like? Corporate design?Colorful?Appealing? Unconventional and intriguing? I believe the majority of the internet population will appreciate seeing a thumbnail image next to a website's decription. And thumbnails in general can be used in many other purposes on the web. It adds more "weight" to the information.
It is an uncomplicated process to generate a thumbnail picture of any website. The fastest method to do this is to do it online - through a free image/generator service. In most cases, all that there is just to type in the web address and choose size and format. Some online services provides you with the option to choose either fixed or standard image size. Applications like filter and watermark are options present on some image generators.
A small demonstration on how to acquire a thumbnail image:
1. We choose one of the many services - a recommendation is a website named
shrink the web.
2. We enter this website and scroll down until we reach an input field. In it we type the address. We type http://www.some domain.
When the generation is completed, you'll see the images in six different sizes:75x56px,90x68px,100x75px,120x90px,200x150px and the largest being 320x240px in .jpg format. The next step should be, by all means, to save them onto your computer.
Another very handy website is quickthumbnail.com. Here you have at your disposal additional options to change format and/or size the thumbnail or screenhot image. And, more important, you can create an image of any file stored on your computer. Doesn't have to be a webpage.
While entering the site you will quickly notice two input fields, one for files and the other for the url. Same procedure like everywhere else.
Published:10/19/2009. Updated:2/15/2010.
Recommended sites
article nr 2.Calculators
In the light of the ongoing economic crisis, economy,money and finances have become "hot spots" on the internet and a good way for webmasters to
drive traffic to their sites. Usually it consists of an array of small gadgets or scripts you can easily include in your site:currency converters,financial reports, loan and mortgage calculators ,etc. Most of them are free without demanding membership, while some require a small fee and provide more advanced solutions.
Published:9/2/2009. Updated - 2/15/2010.
Recommended site
article nr 1.Sticky content and ecards solutions
Electronic postcards, one of the first interactive tools on the web that made possible for internet users to send greeting cards to friends and family via the web. Instead of sending cards at the post office, any user with an e-mail account could easily ,in minutes, pick a card and send it to a friend who also had an e-mail account. The recipient would, in most cases, receive a nofication and the url of the location where to pick up the card. For that reason, e-cards became known as
"sticky" content. Content or service that will ensure
repeated visits to your site. Putting up a completely autonomous(the service is installed on your own server), is consuming time, as you would have to supply a great number of cards for each category, nicely designed cards both static or animated and/or flash cards. Secondly, a back-end programming to ensure the service to function as intended.If the website isn't primarily designed as an e-card site, a number of sites on the web provides this kind of utility for website owners and blog editors to enrich their online content. And it usually means a simple block of code in html. For the most part, these services are free, but require a sign up. Listed below are some locations where you, as a webmaster might find a solution that suits your site. We also include "sticky" content indexes. We hope this information was useful.
Re-published :9/2/2009. Updated: 2/15/2010.
Recommended sites
Bravenet.com - Customizable colors to fit the design of your site. Possibility to add your own images and options for your site visitors to choose and add midi sounds. Along with these options, java special effects.
Link:
bravenet webtools and postcards.
All-yours.net - Provides customizable e-cards with text,colors,backgrounds,music and logos.
Link:
all-yours.net e-cards.
ecardsystem.com - Another website that offers a general plan for an advanced e-card system with plenty useful features for webmasters.
Link:
ecardsystem.com.
These three websites listed above require membership.
Disclaimer
Recommended sites which are placed on this page are not affilliated with,endorsed or promoted by www.numeroklub84.com.
