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The mid-late 1990s were the playful childhood of the worldwide web, a time of great expectations for the future and pretty low standards for the present. Those were the days when doing a web search meant pouring through several pages of listings rather than glancing at the first three results–but at least relatively few of those websites were unabashedly profit-driven.

Hallmarks of 1990s Web Design

Of course, when someone says that a website looks like it came from 1996, it’s no compliment. You start to imagine loud background images, and little “email me” mailboxes with letters going in and out in an endless loop. Amateurish, silly, unprofessional, conceited, and unusable are all adjectives that pretty well describe how most websites were made just ten years ago.

Why were websites so bad back then?

Knowledge. Few people knew how to build a good website back then, before authorities like Jakob Nielsen starting evangelizing their studies of web user behavior.

Difficulty. In those days, there weren’t abundant software and templates that could produce a visually pleasing, easy-to-use website in 10 minutes. Instead, you either hand-coded your site in Notepad or used FrontPage.

Giddiness. When a new toy came out, whether it was JavaScript, Java, Frames, animated Gifs, or Flash, it was simply crammed into an already overstuffed toy box of a website, regardless of whether it served any purpose.

Browsing through the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of nostalgia for a simpler time when we were all beginners at this. Still, one of the best reasons for looking at 90s website design is to avoid repeating history’s web design mistakes. This would be a useful exercise for the tragic number of today’s personal homepages and even small business websites that are accidentally retro.

Splash Pages

Sometime around 1998, websites all over the internet discovered Flash, the software that allowed for easy animation of images on a website. Suddenly you could no longer visit half the pages on the web without sitting through at least thirty seconds of a logo revolving, glinting, sliding, or bouncing across the screen.

Flash “splash pages,” as these opening animations were called, became the internet’s version of vacation pictures. Everyone loved to display Flash on their site, and everyone hated to have to sit through someone else’s Flash presentation.

Of all the thousands of splash pages made in the 1990s and the few still made today, hardly any ever communicated any useful information or provided any entertainment. They were monuments to the egos of the websites’ owners. Still, today, when so many business website owners are working so hard to wring every last bit of effectiveness out of their sites, it’s almost charming to think of a business owner actually putting ego well ahead of the profit to have been derived from all the visitors who hit the “back” button rather than sit through an animated logo.

Text Troubles

“Welcome to…” Every single website homepage in 1996 had to have the word “welcome” somewhere, often in the largest headline. After all, isn’t saying “welcome” more vital than saying what the web page is all about in the first place?

Background images. Remember all those people who had their kids’ pictures tiled in the background of every page? Remember how much fun it was trying to guess what the words were in the sections where the font color and the color of the image were the same?

Dark background, light text. My favorite was orange font on purple background, though the ubiquitous yellow white text on blue, green or red was nice, too. Of course, anyone who will make their text harder to read with a silly gimmick is just paying you the courtesy of letting you know they couldn’t possibly have written anything worth reading.

Entire paragraphs of text centered. After all, haven’t millennia of flush-left margins just made our eyes lazy?

“This Site Is Best Viewed in Netscape 4.666, 1,000×3300 resolution.” It was always so cute when site owners actually imagined anyone but their mothers would care enough to change their browser set up to look at some random person’s website.

All-image no-text publishing. Some of the worst websites would actually do the world the service of putting all their text in image format so that no search engine would ever find them. What sacrifice!

Hyperactive Pages

TV-envy was a common psychological malady in 1990s web design. Since streaming video and even Flash were still in their infancy, web designers settled for simply making the elements on their pages move like Mexican jumping beans.

Animated Gifs

In 1996, just before the dawn of Flash, animated gifs were in full swing, dancing, sliding, and scrolling their way across the retinas of web surfers trying to read the text on the page.

Scrolling Text

Just in case you were having a too easy time tuning out all the dancing graphics on the page, an ambitious mid-1990s web designer had a simple but powerful trick for giving you a headache: scrolling text. Through the magic of JavaScript, website owners could achieve the perfect combination of too fast to read comfortably and too slow to read quickly.

For a while, a business owner could even separate the serious from the wannabe prospects based just on how (un)professional their business websites looked. Sadly, the development of template-based website authoring software means that even someone with no taste or sense whatsoever can make websites that look as good as the most biggest-budget design of five years ago.

Of course, there are still some websites whose owners seem to be trying to spark a resurgence in animated gifs, background images, and ugly text. ‘ll just have to trust that everyone is laughing with them, not at them.

1. Make A List or Tutorial Headline. Your Headline should make it seem like the reader’s online success is just a 5 minute read away. Remember, the average digger has the attention span of a gnat on crack. Diggers want the fast, easy answer that will solve all their problems. Your headline must appeal to people with severe ADD or most people won’t even read your article – let alone Digg it.

*In the past year, a ‘top 10′ or ‘top 100′ list has made the front page on average once every other day.

2. Write about Digg. Could a site be any more narcissistic? I think not. Digg likes itself so much that Paris Hilton looks about as humble as a Nun by comparison. People must be sitting at their computers going ‘OMG Look it’s a story about Digg! That’s sooooooo cool! I’ll totally digg that!’ Bonus points if you mention Kevin Rose.

* In the past year, stories with ‘Digg’ in the submission have made the front page a whopping 554 times and mentioned Kevin Rose by name an average of once a week.

3. Appeal to the Apple fanboys. Did you hear from someone who knows someone who served a Cream Chai Latte to Steve Jobs about some Mac Rumor? Well that’s front page Digg Material all the way! Don’t know why, but if Apple lets out a fart, diggers can’t wait to comment on the rosy smell.

* Stories with ‘Apple’ in the Submission have made the front page a mind blowing 1225 times in the past year.

4. Doom and Gloom about how Global Warming will destroy us all. Who cares if we only have real data that covers about 1/20,000,000 of the earth’s history? (unless you’re a creationist, then it’s like 1/40th). So what if there is nothing but anecdotal evidence to support almost every claim? Does it matter that world’s best meteorologists can’t even tell me if it’s going to rain tomorrow? No!
Diggers don’t really like to DO anything about global warming, but feel guilty about it despite a lack of conclusive evidence. In that sense, I guess it’s kinda like ‘Religion 2.0′;. Diggers will Digg Global warming Doom and Gloom stories so they can ‘feel’ like they ‘did something’ to ‘help mankind.’ All while consuming more electricity, more oil and more natural resources than the 80% of the world’s population that doesn’t even have a computer.

* A junk science, doom and Gloom story about Global Warming will make the front page of Digg on average of once a week.

5. Write about how great Firefox is. When it comes to Firefox, no story is too lame, no plugin is too useless and no article can praise Firefox too much for the front page of Digg. Sure, it’s just a freaking browser. Sure, it leaks memory faster than . . . umm . . . some kind of leaky thing leaking much faster than usual. Sure no one really needs YAFFFP – but who cares?!?

* In the past year, a firefox story has made the front page on average once every day.

6. Remember: Walmart, George Bush, and Fox News have NEVER done ANYTHING right. Everything they do is because they are 100% evil to the core. This REAL Axis of Evil delights in the clear-cutting of forests just for shits and giggles, the sadistic torture of children, and is right now plotting the Next 9/11 attack on America. Here’s a link to a Jon Stewart Video that proves it’s all true!

* * actually, I’m not a fan of George Bush; but his coverage on Digg is more rigged than a Diebold voting machine. Maybe he should ask for a Digg recount?

7. Repeat after me: ‘Microsoft sucks, Microsoft Sucks, Microsoft Sucks.’ So what if 97% of all computer users use their products? Ignore that they’ve been the most consistent winner for the last 25 years in a space littered with failures. Who cares if their founder has given more to charity than any human in the history of mankind? They suck! And they are evil! Why? Because it’;s cool to say so.

Don’t believe me? Check out this screenshot of the most recent Digg front page Microsoft Stories.

* 94% of the front page articles that mentioned Microsoft in the past year cast the company in a negative light.

8. Make up outrageous statistics that you have not researched. State your opinions as fact. Sure, they might get vetted by some geek who has nothing better to do, but that probably won’t happen until you’ve already made the front page.

9. Insult as many groups as you can. Flamewars are popular for a reason. Throw out bombs that dare people to comment on your story. If you haven’t pissed off half your readers by the end of your article, it’s probably because you don’t have the balls or you’re too stupid to figure out how.

10. Include the word’s slowest loading Plugin so people can Digg your Story without leaving your site. If you manage to type 1000 words, there’s at least a chance that it will finish loading before the reader has finished reading your article. Then if you’re lucky, about 5% of your lazy-ass readers might actually click the button to digg your story

11. Make Digg Friends and ask them to exchnage digg ( You can get banned by doing this,but still if you like to take risk , you can do it )

For one reason or another, you may have chosen a computer whose storage capacity you’ve outgrown. It may be full to capacity with files and programs, and you need room to expand. So the first example is to use your external hard drive to add expandability to your computer. This is true in case all of your PC’s hard drive bays are full, and especially if you have a laptop which has only one hard drive bay.

A second example is to use your external hard drive as a shared storage drive. You can attach it to a PC, set permissions and share-ability, and start saving, and sharing various files. For example, you can share and save pictures, MP3s, and video files. By using it in this manner, you’ll be able to free up tons of space on your computer’s local hard drive, and you’ll be able to share files with everyone in your home network.

Another possible use for your external hard drive is to save important documents. For example, you can scan wills, deeds, insurance information, leases, bank account and credit information, and store them on your external hard drive. You can also take pictures of all your valuables, and keep these safe in your external hard drive for future reference. If it’s important to you, then it’s worthy of being saved in your external hard drive. You can then store this hard drive in a secure location such as a fire-proof safe, or a safety deposit box. This will surely save you tons of headaches in case of theft, or worse yet, a disaster.

There you have it. That’s 3 possible uses for your external hard drive. They’re versatile, and come in sizes that you can choose according to your specific needs. If you have a lot of files to save, then you can get a 500 GB hard drive, or larger if you wish. If you only have a few important documents to save, then maybe a 15 GB hard drive will suffice. The important thing is that it is you who can choose the size you need. It is you who can choose what its primary function will be. And if you need to, you can get more than one external hard drive. That’s what makes them so ideal.

Stage 2 – Designing for online visibility
In Stage 2, the reality of an ineffective web design begins to hit, usually around 3-6 months after the initial launch. A site will typically get rejected by many of the major directories, not be indexed by the major search engines, or not get the traffic or sales that were projected based on the various types of marketing strategies used. Typically, that’s when companies decide that they will try to hire a professional online marketer to promote the site. Doorway page companies, in some way, shape or form, rear their ugly heads. Unfortunately, many web site owners fall for a doorway page company’s pitch because the beautifully designed site couldn’t possibly be the problem with low site traffic. Yahoo might have rejected a site, or the site might have been listed in Yahoo and the company cannot understand why they have no description next to their company name. But in no way would many ad agencies or doorway page companies want to tell potential clients the truth — they simply did not design and write an effective web site — because it would mean losing thousands of pounds in business

Stage 3 – Designing for your audience
By Stage 3, after spending an exorbitant amount of money on pretty web site designs and various marketing strategies, web site owners generally figure out that they did not design or write an effective Web site for their target audience. Typically, web site owners will bring in a usability expert to analyze potential problems and present various solutions. Bringing in a search engine marketing expert to help with search-engine friendly web designs &templates early in the design phase can save a company thousands of pounds in online marketing costs.

Stage 4 – Site redesign
After careful usability and search engine visibility analyses, web site owners finally have an effective web site. A site that is written, coded and designed for user friendliness and search engine visibility generally gets the most traffic and resulting sales because it was written, programmed, and designed for end users.

Conclusion
Web sites should always be designed with your target audience in mind, not your own personal preferences. Colours have meaning. Professional designers understand the psychology of colour and the use of white space to best project the image your audience wishes to see. (For example, try not to use the colour red on a financial site.) Understanding the products/services/information your target audience is searching for is paramount to designing and maintaining an effective web site. When you launch a site, you might have to make an educated guess as to what your target audience wants. After that, tools such as site statistics software and reporting from site searches tell you exactly what your visitors are looking for. Then content and marketing strategies can be adjusted accordingly. Unless the advanced technology clearly benefits end users, do not use it on your site. If your venture capitalists or CEO’s or lawyers like the site, ask if they are going to spend the thousands or millions of pounds to keep you in business.

They’re not. Your target audience who will ultimately determine the success or failure of your site.

So, what are these layout secrets?

Together let us unfold them one after another…

1. Centering it all is no good. The secret is doing the contrary and not centering everything. The latter will just make the page disorganized, strewn and drab. The alignment may also seem weak and wanting.

2. The use and mastery of contrast is indispensable. Contrast is one thing that makes the page attractive. The use and mastery of it in color, value, size and weight will greatly affect the site’s appearance and edge. In fact a typeface may appear bigger with the use of contrast in color. The latter can also affect the look of organization of the page. At a glance, a page may appear organized or the exact opposite. That is the secret of contrast.

3. Apply deviations if necessary. Most of the designers practice nowadays is to develop a ‘uniform-pages’ look. They try to use same background colors and other peculiarities to establish similarities to the homepage or other pages. But the fact is that viewers can be easily bored with that scheme. Viewers always want something new and by giving them a repetitious work, they are pissed off and transfer to another site where they can feast both their eyes and mind.

Placing lines in between contents also manifests division. Instead of using these lines, use blank ‘buffer zones’. This way what are created are invisible lines to make the effect subtle.

4. Do not forget that functionality is the king of web development. Moreover, keep the content and information full, tight and pretty useful. Use the space, don’t waste. Only leave a small percentage for blank spaces. Use the space cleverly in order for the website not to look crowded at the same time loose. Multiple columns are also advisable in order to maximize space.

These four topmost secrets in page layout are so crucial that to break them may spell disaster or the end of your precious site.

What are you going to write about? It should be a topic that you’re passionate about or are at the very least interested in. If you’ve chosen blogging as your new career, then you don’t want to torture yourself by writing about something that you have zero interest in, otherwise you might as well return to that mundane job you just quit!

Feelings and emotions show through your writing, so your readers will notice any indifference you may have toward a certain topic that you find boring. Don’t forget the advice about writing with a personality. Forced writing will not establish you in the world of blogging at all.

Once you’ve chosen your main theme — or if it has chosen you, then that’s even better — start posting to your blog and try to get into the habit of doing that at least once every day. It doesn’t always need to be a long post; it could be a comment on something you read in the newspaper today or a segment that you saw on the breakfast news program on TV. Think of yourself as a gigantic container ship, that needs a lot of effort to get moving. At first, you’ll budge just a foot or two and later you’ll trudge slowly on until you’re at full speed. Before you know it, it’ll take a lot of effort to stop you!

Nevertheless, regardless of how well you know your topic, you’re going to run out of fresh input at some point, so let’s look at some content brainstorm ideas.

1) Check out what other bloggers have to say on the current state of affairs in your field of discussion. You can find related blogs by visiting http://blogsearch.google.com/ or http://www.technorati.com. You’ll learn from other blogs and you can also comment on what others have to say on your own blog!

2) Once you’ve established contact with other bloggers, you’ll have almost inexhaustible input to keep you going for a while, so there won’t be an acute need to search for content to write about. Should you still be stuck, then you can search for news articles related to your niche in you local newspaper or online.

3) By joining a few forums related to your niche — just choose the ones that are the most focused on your particular area — you can engage in conversations with others who share your interests. This is a great way to build up a Q&A bank and interesting discussion topics to write about. An added bonus is that your forum posts will quite handily generate traffic for your blog and, hopefully, profits.

Try to maintain your daily posting habit. The major search engines love fresh content and they are more likely to spider your blog frequently, which will also result in getting you extra traffic.

The subject of traffic will be discussed in a future article, so don’t worry about that right now. Just keep writing and posting and building up that momentum — you’ll be an established blogger before you know it!

In this article, let’s take a look at the profitability of a blog and set up one of our own, free of charge! Interested? Read on!

First, you need to get yourself a blog. There are several options – host a blog on your own domain or get a free one. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You can obtain one at http://www.blogger.com or the newer (and better!) http://www.wordpress.com. WordPress is a free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.

Blogger is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected by Google’s radar faster and you will be indexed more quickly. WordPress.com, however, is a relatively new option so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed by search engines. However, WordPress is better in the sense that it has more advanced features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage your sidebar links more efficiently (more about this later).

Get a free blog at either Blogger or WordPress. Then, familiarize yourself by publishing your first post on your blog and tinkering around with the options and templates.

Here are some words to start expanding your blogging vocabulary:

Permalink – Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.

Trackback – When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section. This feature, however, is not available with a Blogger account.

Pinging – Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way to gain traffic, which I’ll discuss in a future article.

Content

Next, let’s look at the type of content that’s suitable for your blog in order to make it profitable. You need to understand that there is no fixed scope that your blog should have, which means you can write about whatever you’re interested in. Mind you, the difference between a profitable blog and a non-profitable one is the way you write. What would you prefer: reading your university professor’s lecture notes or the latest novel by your favorite author? People prefer to read “light” items most of the time. When they check out your blog, they are not only looking for information, but they are also looking for information that they can access easily.

So, to attract more visitors as well as to keep your current readers coming back for more, it’s very important to add a personal touch to your blog posts. This can be done by simply imagining that you’re talking with your personal friend. An extra bonus for your readers would be a great sense of humor, so try to add funny comments in your articles where relevant.

Another important point is to avoid addressing your reader as a plural unit. Don’t write as if you’re preparing a speech. Instead, write as if you’re having a conversation with a single person, an equal friend, because this will make your reader relate to you more easily.

Besides that, it’s also very useful to establish your own personality through your words. We’re very curious creatures, so naturally your visitors would want to know as much about you as the information you’re offering them.

Having a distinctive personality in your blog will make a world of difference between your blog about gadgets and all the other blogs about gadgets out there. This is a lot like creating your own brand name, where people immediately remember your blog’s name when they need information about gadgets, just like how people immediately think of McDonald’s for fastfood or Nike for sportswear.

There will be more on the subject of content the next time.

When word gets around about your command of blogging, others who need to know about blogging will start to actively seek you out!

The best way would be to provide the content yourself, and this is of utmost importance if your goal is to try to create traffic to an affiliated link. You’ll definitely want to sell the idea about the services and products beforehand. What that will do is set the stage or the “mood” and give your recommendations authenticity.

Expounding on the uses of a particular service or product, with your own likes and dislikes, achieves this naturally. With an affiliate program, it is a good idea to have a personal anecdote that goes hand in hand with the product or service.

Using private label articles is a viable alternative. PL articles abound in the Internet and you can always buy some that are connected to your central topic and then place them in your blog. One way of maximizing a purchased PLA is to cut it down into several pieces, thereby maximizing its content.

Utilizing RSS feeds to post on blogs is becoming very popular, although not everyone is familiar or willing to learn about RSS feeds. The advantage to an RSS feed is that your blog is automatically updated with fresh news and content. The disadvantage is that it is not unique content and that anybody interested in the feed will likely click out on a story that appeals to them.

Putting in your very own content is the best way to go. One way to find fresh ideas is to look for an appealing news article and then do a summary write-up based on it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but you and your readers will find it the most rewarding way. If you feel that you just don’t cut it as a writer or you genuinely don’t have the time, then hire someone else to do it for you. There are many services out there who provide a “blog service” which includes daily posts of unique, engaging content and you can instruct these content writers as to where you want the links in your blog pointing to- so that any burden of cost in terms of hiring them should be offset by the gains in your increased visitor base, the marketing of your other websites and earnings from your affiliate programs.

These are the best ways to generate content for your blog. It is advisable not to be going with the automated path. If you do decide to do that, you will probably have plenty of content- but the substance of the text is unlikely to increase traffic for you. Putting in some good, old-fashioned content work will yield better results for you. As the expression goes- “you get out what you put in….”!!

The best way a business can use blogging to boost their business is by taking part in the blogs of others. You can easily create quality posts with your business in mind without needing to set up a blog of your own. Try finding blogs that pertain to the area of business you are in. This will help you get started. With millions of blogs out there, you should be able to find some with no problem. Choose to post on all of them, or choose the few that get the most activity. Then begin posting. When you do, you will see positive results come in. If you are still curious about how this can boost your business, check out these three reasons blogging boosts business.

Quick Name Recognition

The fastest way to get your business’s name out in the public is to make it known to your targeted marketing group. If you want to get your company’s name out to men who like fishing, then you can find a blog that is about just that. When you find the blogs pertaining to this marketing group, post useful and intelligent information about topics that pertain to your company. You might not want to sound like an advertisement. Think about responding to another comment and simply tagging your signature with your company’s website. This is a subtle way to get their attention. The more you post on blogs, the more widely known your company’s name will become with the select marketing group. When they tell their friends and family about the site then your consumer group will have grown even more. This is a fast way to get started. You will have to invest some time however. At least an hour a day can be used for this type of task.

Consumer Testimonies

Your company might even think about hiring professionals to blog for your company. You can offer these employees products to try and give them the task of finding blogs where they can appropriately “praise” the product. By paying these people to do the task, you will be getting the work done that you need without having to devote much time. Consumer testimonials go a long way with other consumers. If these bloggers are productive enough, you will see an increase due to it.

Building Relationships

Smart business owners know that they can go further with the help of others. A great way to connect and build relationships with other businesses is via their blog. If you are a regular poster who values their business, they will be more likely to work with you. Working together with advertising is a great idea. You can swap ad space for no fee if you like. These are great things for business owners and are easy to get into when you blog regularly.

As you can see, blogging can be a great way to do business. It may seem like tricky advertising, and it is in some ways. However, it is free advertising that does the same thing as a commercial on television does. It reaches a targeted marketing group and lets them know your company’s name, products, and sometimes offers an endorsement. Overall, it is an effective way to get your business out there. When people have no idea who you are, they are not going to feel comfortable working with you. The better your reputation is, the more likely they will trust you. When you have no reputation at all, they will not trust you either. So, even if you just want to use blogging to build your company’s reputation, it will be worth your while. Give it a try and see what type of results you can get using these tips.