by: Dan Karwoski

Does your website make a good first impression? Is the navigation intuitive? Is the content appropriate for your audience? You've had your website up and running for a while now but you've always had a nagging suspicion that your website is lacking effectiveness and you just can't put your finger on it. You've dabbled with colors, added/removed images re-written the text but it still feels as if everything just isn't working together. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a way to sort things out? Well now you do!

Find out if your website has power, energy and the right stuff to help your business succeed. You'll be able to find out if the navigation; advertising, optimization, imagery and look are combining to make your home page an effective tool. Each section has a number of questions that help define, in detail, all the important areas of a well designed website. Just run through the list starting at the top. When you're finished just click the "Total Score" button at the bottom.

Just use the simple Q and A form here: http://www.learn2design.net/login/secure/interface/eval.php to see if your website meets established design standards. Using this checklist form you can rate your website (or anyone's) to make sure you've got all the essentials covered effectively.

Now the hard part; you have to answer the questions honestly and objectively! I know, it's your baby; you've spent countless hours nursing it to stardom. But now is the time to make an honest assessment. (Pretend its someone else's website if that helps.)

The form should only take 5 to 10 minutes to complete and at the end there is a brief description of what your score means and what you can do to improve your site.

About The Author

Dan Karwoski has been teaching website design to college students since 1997 and has created quality work for MSNBC, Microsoft, Amazon, Atom Films and many others. Interested students can learn the basics of web design by registering at http://www.learn2design.net. Please email questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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 by: Vinu Thomas

You've built up a good site, put in a lot of content, but none of the search engines lists your site? If you'd like to know how to go ahead with Search Engine Submission the right way, read on.

How do I get my site to be included in search-engines? That's a question a lot of people ask me. My question back to them is "Is your Site Search-engine ready?". A lot of sites don't get spidered into search engine results just because the pages are not search-engine friendly. Search engines like to see a lot of text on your site. This means that if your site is filled with Flash animations and graphics, instead of text for content, your site probably not show up in search-engine results. Another reason your site might be loosing out in search engine rankings could be the lack of meta-tags.

So what are meta-tags? Metatags are small pieces of code which you embed into your pages which informs your search engines about your site's contents, how to spider your site, and other such instructions.

Most search engines look at your page's meta-tags and title tag to get the relevant information to index your site. So you should make sure that all your pages have the relevant details in meta-tags. The three most important tags for your site are 'DESCRIPTION' and 'KEYWORDS' meta-tags and the 'Title' tag on all pages.

• The 'DESCRIPTION' tag is used to describe the contents of the page. You should enter a short description of the page in this tag. Here's how the tag will look when you enter the description of the page:
• The 'KEYWORDS' tag is used to tell the search engine which keywords words you feel are important in the page. This helps in the ranking process of search engines. In your keywords tag, use as many combinations of your search term as you can, without repeating the same terms too many times. Some search engines penalize a site for repeating keywords. Here's how a keywords tag would look :
• Every page you have on your site should have a Title tag. All search engines use the content of your title tag to index the content of your site. So make sure you've got a Title tag and the Title has some relevance to the content in your page. An example of the title tag :

How to submit your site

So once you've entered your tags properly, your start of the HTML code for the page should look like this :

How to submit your site

These three tags by themselves should give a boost to your ranking once the search engine crawls your site. If you want a tool to make the tags for you, check out my Meta-Tag Generator Script at: http://www.vinuthomas.com/gate.html?name=MetaMaker. This online tool helps you generate the basic and some advanced meta-tags for your pages.

Now how do you get the search engine to crawl your site? You'll have to start submitting your site to the search-engines for them to start crawling your site. Here are the Submission URL's for some of the major search engines:

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Exact Seek: http://www.exactseek.com/add.html

All The Web: http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url

MSN Search : http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

Altavista : http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

Scrub The Web: http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html

Sympatico : http://pre.sympatico.ca/en/search/submit.html

True Search : http://www.truesearch.com/addurl/

Lycos : http://insite.lycos.com/

Ask Jeeves/Teoma : http://ask.ineedhits.com/sitesubmit.asp

About The Author

Vinu Thomas is a consultant on Webdesign and Internet Technologies. His website is http://www.vinuthomas.com. You can read more articles on Search Engine Tips @ http://www.vinuthomas.com/sections-listarticles-8.html

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 by: Patrick Carlow

Five FAQ about Google PageRank

1. What is PageRank and why should I care about it?

PageRank is a formula that assigns a value to every page in the Google index. Google displays search results based on an algorithm which includes the value of PageRank. So the higher your site's PageRank, the more likely it is that you will receive a top listing on the search result page when someone types in the keywords for your site.

2. How can I view the PageRank of my own or other websites?

It's very simple to see anyone's PageRank. Just download and install the Google toolbar. It's a very quick and easy install. Just be sure to choose the Advanced option during the install so the PageRank of each site you visit will be displayed on the toolbar.

3. How is PageRank calculated?

I've seen a formula for PageRank posted on Internet websites and forums but have failed to see anyone give a satisfactory explanation of the formula. The formula appears so complex you would probably have to be a mathematician to even have a chance to decipher it anyway. It looks something like this:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

I will attempt to explain it for you in plain English. Basically it works like this. The more links that point to your website the higher your PageRank will be. The higher the PageRank of the referring page that has your link on it, the more PageRank you receive from Google. For every outgoing link that a page has, the value of those links drop. So for example, a link from a page with a PageRank of 4, and only 3 other links, is worth more than a page with a PageRank of 5 and 100 links. It is also believed that Google assigns more value to a link that comes from a site with similar content. So as you can see, there are many variables when calculating PageRank.

4. How do I increase my PageRank?

Again, PageRank can be increased by the number of incoming links to your website from other sites on the Internet. In addition, it requires anywhere from five to seven times more to get from one level of PageRank to the next.

So for example, (and this is not a true formula) if 100 PageRank 3 sites with a link to your page give you a PageRank of 4, then it would take around 500 more PageRank 3 sites to link to you before you became PageRank 5. However if you had 1 link from a PageRank 8 site, that might be enough to give a higher PageRank all by its self. It's really all relative and trying to figure it out will simply drive you mad, so don't bother. :) The best thing you can do is obtain as many quality incoming links from other sites with similar content as you possibly can.

Another important factor is the number of pages on your site. The more pages on your site, the higher potential you have to gain in PageRank. More pages doesn't mean you will get a higher PageRank only that you won't hit a ceiling. Apparently Google has a cut off point somewhere on the highest PageRank it will give to sites with a low number of pages.

5. When will my PageRank be updated or change?

According to the Google website, they update the index about once a month. However if you spend any amount of time reading search engine forums, you will find that results vary for every webmaster. PageRank may not update or may change drastically for a long period of time which is often times unexplainable. Usually as long as you follow good web site optimization techniques and maintain enough quality incoming links, the index will eventually assign your website PageRank and adjust any changes which may have been made in error.

About The Author

Most Relevant Links Directory http://www.most-relevant-links.com/. Free marketing information and links for the online entrepreneur.

 by: Steve Lillo

Excerpted from the upcoming book The Busy Person's Guide to a Profitable Website and PlanetLink's Enews - an email newsletter delivered for FREE to your computer. To subscribe, go to www.planetlink.com.

We'll explore the use and abuse of email and discuss how you can use it more effectively in your business.

Email has become the most used service on the Internet. According to a Gallup Poll survey, 52%, of email users says that sending and receiving email is their most common online activity.

Consider these statistics:

• By year-end 2002, there will be 135 million email users, representing 59% of the overall U.S. population of adults and teens.
• There were 409 million email boxes worldwide in 1999, up from 234 million a year earlier.
• When asked their opinion on spam, 42% of email users say they "hate it," 45% say they find it "an annoyance, but do not hate it," while the rest have no strong feelings either way .

Here's some tips you can use to make the most effective use of email:

Keep business emails specific and to the point.

In your replies to messages, quote or refer to the original message so that the person you are sending the message to doesn't have to look through past messages to follow the train of thought.

Have you service provider setup your email account so that you can use any address at your domain name. When you provide your email address in a form, make it something that you would associate with that company. If you get mail to your newly created address from a different company, you'll know how they got your address.

Use an email address with a domain name that is in your control. If you use an address at aol.com, earthlink.net. msn.com or any one of several thousand service providers, you'll have to continue to use that service provider in order to continue to receive your email. If you decide to change providers, any mail that is sent to you at the old address will be lost or returned. If you instead have email sent to an address at your own domain name, you'll always be able to access it - no matter who your service provider is.

PlanetLink can assist you in with setting up an email account, registering domain name, developing a sound and profitable Internet services plan, website design services, hosting services, application development, ecommerce and site promotion. For more information, call us at 415-884-2022 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

About The Author

Steve Lillo author of Websites That Work! is the President of PlanetLink, a website design and consulting firm which specializes in creating websites which get results. They also provide their Web Rx Service for increasing the effectiveness of existing websites. PlanetLink can be reached at http://www.planetlink.com or by telephone at 415-884-2022.

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