[Infographic] How to determine the value of a website

Have you ever ask for the value of your site ? How much is your site worth ? I found this infographic in Webstarts website that may helpful to you all .
Via: WebStarts

Four ways to improve your boring blog

If you ask a handful of people what the purpose of a blog is, chances are you'll get a few different answers.

• For writers, a blog is a place to hone their skills and get their thoughts published easily and inexpensively.
• For readers, a blog is a place to read others' ideas, stay up-to-date on the latest news and trends or learn about a topic that interests them.
• For Internet marketing mavens, a blog is a means to boost a website or brand's SEO ranking.

There are millions of blogs floating around out there on the Interwebs, and each one was started for a particular reason. On the same note, there are blogs about every topic imaginable, and some are naturally more popular than others. Looking for a blog about cooking, technology or small business? You're in luck. Just type your desired topic into Google, and watch the results roll in. Even those who work in traditionally "boring" industries — such as insurance, construction or law — are jumping on the blogging bandwagon. So, how do writers in these niches garner enough readers to make their blogging efforts worth it? By implementing techniques that make their blogs and blog posts more interesting, which ultimately makes people want to read their blogs on a regular basis. If you want to draw more readers to your blog, follow these four simple tips.

1. Use photos in your posts.

It's no secret that a blog post comprised of both photos and words is a lot more enticing to readers than a blog post that appears to be a page of endless text. Use images to break up large chunks of text, add value to your post, illustrate your point and keep your blog visually appealing. Of course, the type of image you use matters. I'm a fan of stock photos, but not the cheesy ones (you know, models smiling right at the camera and holding some sort of inanimate object). Sure, it takes a little time to find good, quality stock photos, but it's well worth the effort. Also, don't shy away from using screen shots, graphs, charts and infographics in your blog posts as they make for a nice change of pace.

2. Tell your story.

The best way to be seen as an expert in your industry is to establish yourself on all fronts of your brand's web presence, and this includes your blog. An easy way to do this is to tell your story — or your company's story. Feature details about your education, credentials, humble beginnings and professional growth. Another way to establish yourself as an expert is to show who's behind your blog. Put a face with a name by including a short bio section that features all of your blog's contributing writers. I know from experience that many surety bond companies do this. Although some readers will pass right over the "Meet Our Team" page, others will appreciate the behind-the-scenes information and will realize the value in what you have to say.

3. Promote your blog via social media.

Today, engaging with your audience on a personal level is a large component of finding SEO success. An easy way to engage your readership is to incorporate social media on your blog. How? With social media buttons. Take a look at some of your favorite blogs. Chances are they'll have buttons for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ on each post. Some blogs even include buttons to email posts and share them on Digg, LinkedIn, Tumblr, WordPress, Pinterest and other social media platforms. Additionally, give readers a way to subscribe to your blog via email by providing an RSS feed or FeedBurner signup form on your homepage. Installing these features on your blog is easy and can be done with the insertion of simple code in your site's HTML. Altogether, putting social media links on your blog is a little-effort-high- result way for visitors to share your content.

4. Focus on timely, relevant and accurate content.

Nothing will cause a visitor to leave your blog faster than seeing a post from several months or even years ago at the top of your blog feed. As Internet marketing professionals, we know that Google rewards timely, accurate and original content, and these values should be translated to how you manage your blog. To keep readers interested in what you have to say, get to know your audience and publish information that pertains to who they are and what they know. To keep them coming back for more, publish content on a regular basis. Daily is best, but every other day or twice a week is also effective. Posting fewer and further between will give readers the chance to forget who you are and why they visited your blog in the first place. We live in a day and age where Internet marketing is always evolving, and blogging is no exception. There are a million things you can try to draw readers to your blog and keep them there, but these four tips are a good starting point for those looking to improve their reputation in the Blogosphere.

About Guest Blogger

Sara Aisenberg is an Internet content writer by trade and has experience writing about surety insurance, small business, Internet marketing, healthcare, travel and more. Sara strives to stay up-to-date on the latest SEO practices to help business professionals of all kinds make the most of their marketing efforts. Follow along with Sara on Twitter @SaraAisenberg.

Important notice - Why your blog stop working ?

Many many people ask me why their blog stop working recently ,why 110mb.com down ,and ask me for js files .I repeated thoudsand times the answer . But it seem useless . So I make this post for clarifying what need to do with js file .

1,If the host 110mb.com live again ,you can open template files ,search for what files hosting in 110mb.com ,download them and than upload to your host . After that ,replace links in template files .

2,If 110mb.com downs ,you can search for file in internet ,very simple ,for example :
Search for file :jquery.js , I open GOOGLE and type 'jquery.js' in search box and press Enter , jquery.com site which provide jquery.js is the first one in search result ^^
Now you got it .

Repeat for other files , I must say that all files I used in template are popular js script in internet and it's the line in search result . So don't need to worry I hide something or have special script that don't want you to know . So what to do when you have js file ? you can buy a host ,I recommend a host that support CDN for best quality and than host your files there . Don't upload your files to services such filefactory.com ,rapidshare.com ,mediafile.com ... because they are file sharing services ,and file hosted in these host can't use directly . If you don't have enough money for a host , you can see my post here for unlimit hosting for blogger

[Infographic] Email marketing is alive and well

In the world of modern communication method and social media, some of us may think that email marketing is forgotten and replaced by another marketing method . But not at this time . Email marketing is still alive and well . Please take a look in this infographic :
Via: iContact

Best Font Apps for Apple iPhone and iPad

When working on almost any kind of designer project, one of the most important yet difficult things is to choose the right font. Here’s when our smartphones can come to help us. There are many good font-related apps out there at iTunes, and some of them can even be used by professional designers:

1. WhatTheFont

If you’ve seen a nice font in a pic or poster and want to use it in your own project, it’s now possible with the help of the WhatTheFont app – just snap a photo with your Apple iPhone, and the app will easily identify the desired font. Or, if the font can’t be found in the app’s database, it’ll find the closest match. Very useful sometimes!

2. FontBrowser

FontBrowser is the next free iPhone app that can be used by designers, software developers, and all those who like playing with fonts and colors. It’s actually a Unicode font and color browser (with a huge database of 19,000 Unicode font characters, 9,600 colors and all their codes) and it’ll help you find the key codes and web codes for different symbols and colors. With its help you can also find out what fonts are installed on your Apple iPhone. Well, in case you don’t already know it :)

3. Font Maker

Font Maker can be downloaded from iTunes for free, and it’ll give you the opportunity to create your own fonts and use them wherever you want – in designer projects, is messages or in other apps. The only shortcoming is the fact that some of the custom letters and symbols created by you will be visible on Apple devices only. But let’s hope this little bug will be fixed soon.

4. The Typography Manual

The Typography Manual is a very useful and complete information resource that includes a glossary and a 60+ page book about graphic design, fonts, their history and use on the web and in different projects. Most designers, of course, already know all those theoretical things or just don’t need them at all, but still, sometimes we all need to access some info on the go, and this app can always be at hand. It’s available via iTunes for $3.99.
Besides, The Typography Manual offers a number of other useful tools, too, including those that can help you find the key combinations and HTML codes you need, or measure the type size of any font from any pic.

5. TypeDrawing

TypeDrawing, which is available at iTunes for $1.99, is one of the few apps that allow you to draw pictures using letters, number and sentences instead of brush strokes. Maybe this app isn’t made for professional designers, but the final images you get are really unique and interesting, and you can definitely use them in one of your projects.

6. Font Dresser Free

Font Dresser Free is a mini app that can help you write and edit texts, change the font colors and sizes, save them as photos and send them to your friends by email. It’s not very useful in professional projects, but is still rather fun to use – after all, designers should send out stylish emails.

7. FontBook™ – The Original Typeface Compendium

Available at iTunes for $5.99, FontBook includes the work of 118 renowned international type foundries, 1650 type designers, 700,000 typeface samples, and 35,000 fonts from 8050 font families, so it is one of the most useful tools to research and compare fonts.
The app is regularly updated over-the-air, so new content and fonts are being added all the time.

8. Typography

The last font app from our list is used more for fun than for any serious projects, but a good designer can find some professional use for it, too.
For £0.69 Typography gives you the opportunity to send messages using letters and numbers from Flickr pics instead of the usual ones. Since there are many, many different images with letter out there on Flickr, the app can generate a huge number of different sets of such messages; if you don’t like the current version, just shake your iPhone, and the app will come up with another version.

About Guest Blogger

Amelia is not a professional designer, but she’s definitely interested in design and works on different amateur projects from time to time. She’s also interested in mobile phones and mobile apps for designers, since they can really make the life much easier. You can contact Amelia via her Twitter or Google+accounts

Guidelines for Multiple Language Websites Design

 
Images Sources : Nailsmag
This is guest post by Daliah Kaif 
This is an article that highlights the importance of multiple language websites. Also this article gives important tips that can help you in creating amazing multi language websites so that you can appeal to a global audience.
English is the language of the world. However, that is today. The evolving world of today needs no explanation. There are no certainties that everything (including language) will remain the same in the coming future.


Also, with so many commercial sites in the world, are you absolutely sure that all your products are made for only the English speaking crowd? What about those who have a different language? Are you going to take the blame of racism? My guess is, not.
The world is becoming smaller because of better communication. Online shopping is a rage amongst people. It is so convenient to be able to sit in one part of the world and be able to shop from somewhere completely across the globe. Most websites today are adopting the multiple language approach to ensure that people from a different language and ethnicity too can procure their products.

So, it is important to create multiple language websites that can help people from different languages read your website and thereby become aware of your products. Do not lose out on a client just because he couldn’t understand what you wanted to say. Overcome the hurdle of the language discrepancy by following the following points:

Top Level Domains (TLDs)

To accurately penetrate overseas markets you’ll need to create a distinct TLD for each language. Doing this will augment your site’s credibility and reliability along with assuring a higher ranking in the local search engines of the particular country. When you have multi languages sub domains it becomes easier for your search engine to crawl through these sub domains.

Hosting

Hosting is as important as having the website in the first place. This is why you must take care that you host all these different language sites on servers in individual countries. Once again this can prove very helpful in local search engine rankings because of Geo Targeting.

Design

Website Design determines largely how a viewer receives your website. Although it has no direct impact on the changes in the language, it however should be laid out in a way that helps people read matter in whatever language it is offered in. This means that the framework that you have should be such that it is consistent in terms of banners and ad placements.
Your branding should be recognizable across various localized sites. It should be flexible enough to assist in navigation across various markets based on their preferences. There are several elements to consider when it comes to your overall page and navigation design for your set of localized sites.
You must take care that you may have to tweak the design with respect to the width and height of various columns based on language. Some languages may require you to use maximum imagery. Some others may require you to simply incorporate maximum texts.

Color

The social and ethnic implications of colors can differ extensively among diverse nations – for instance black is usually the color of bereavement in the west, while it’s white in the east, and green may point to the environment and nature in European countries, but in the Middle East it has sacred meanings, as the divine color of Islam. Contemplate prudently about your color scheme before going ahead with each site.

Imagery

Ethnic thoughtfulness is of critical significance when it comes to your imagery. You must ensure that the imagery of your site is in sync with the region. Say for example, for an Indian website, show Indian people; for a Chinese website show Chinese people. Also verify and be doubly sure that none of the images used in your site are offensive in nature to the particular ethnicity.

Flash

It is of utmost importance that you give importance to bandwidth. Making heavy sites may not work well everywhere. Minimize the use of Java and Flash as much as possible to ensure that the site gets loaded properly and in time.

Author Guest Blogger

Daliah Kaif, Currently working at Viteb. Which is a leading Outsource Joomla development and Web Design Company based in India. Her interests span from professional Joomla development and website redesign services. She has  also enjoyed writing for his specialization, that is, website redesign on various forums.

Graddit - Star rating for blogger

Have you ever tried Blogger default star rating ? I tried several times and hard to make it work as I want . In internet , I found Graddit.com ,a star-rating system that work for Blogger . So in this post ,I will show you how to add them to blog. Maybe it useful for you .



1, Go to Blogger Dashboard -> Template - >Edit HTML

2,Add this code before </head>

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.graddit.com/css/graddit.css" />

3, Go to Graddit.com . Choose a style that you want to apply . Click on Blogger link

A textbox appear with the code inside. Copy the code .

4,Back to Blogger Dashboard ->Template ->Edit HTML
Find the code <data:post.body/>
And paste the code you copied in step 3 before <data:post.body/>

5,In case you want to make star rating for a specific post , in step 3 ,click on Generic link .
Copy the code in text box .Go to Blogger post editor window ,choose edit HTML mode and paste the code in post content .

That's all .Save template and you can check the result .
I made a demo for this star rating in this post . You can see it work before deciding install or not .

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