If you have been receiving our newsletter you know that every month we have been listing a handful of terms that you might hear or read but may not know exactly what they mean. Just doing our little part in helping clear up some of the confusion and mystery surrounding web design and website marketing. Well I am going to do a little recap and list a few more to round off the New Year.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
This is the act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
The amount search engines charge advertisers for every click that sends a searcher to the advertiser’s web site. For an advertiser, CPC is the total cost for each click-through received when its ad is clicked on.

PR (Page Rank)
Google technology developed at Stanford University for placing importance on pages and web sites. At one point, PageRank (PR) was a major factor in rankings. Today it is one of hundreds of factors in the algorithm that determines a page’s rankings.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed,” “web feed,” or “channel,” contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity)
To put it simply Wi-Fi is a local area network (LAN) that communicates via radio waves. A more detailed explanation is, it is the set of standards for wireless local area networks based on the specifications known as 802.11. It was originally developed for use by wireless devices and local networks. It is now used for Internet access as well. If you access the Internet wirelessly from your computer or personal digital assistant, chances are you are using some sort of Wi-Fi.

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Here are a few more new terms that will hopefully jump start you into the New Year knowing just a little bit more than you did before:

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
The document format used on the Web. Web pages are built with HTML tags (codes) embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web.

ASP (Active Server Page)
A Web server technology from Microsoft that allows for the creation of dynamic, interactive sessions with the user. An ASP is a Web page that contains HTML and embedded programming code written in VBScript or Jscript.

IDK
I Don’t Know (keep brushing up on your vocabulary and you won’t need to use this one.)

JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
An ISO/ITU standard for compressing still images. Pronounced “jay-peg,” the JPEG format is very popular due to its variable compression range. JPEGs are not suitable for graphs, charts and explanatory illustrations because the text appears fuzzy, especially at low resolutions.

ROI (Return On Investment)
A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

There are a lot of people who are afraid to hire a professional web designer to do their website because they think it is going to cost them an arm and a leg.  Or that it requires a great deal of technical knowledge.  Well take a deep breath and relax because there are reputable web design companies that charge reasonable fees and stand behind their work.  You won’t have to know how to do one ounce of programming to get this done.

First you must decide what exactly you want your website to look like.  Do you want a bare bones approach with minimum amount of information or (more…)

Keeping it simple and avoiding useless and confusing features are the best ways to improve your website.  Here are  some easy ways  to improve your website and get your customers and visitors to keep coming back.

1. Are the important areas of information above the fold?  ‘Above the fold’ is an old newspaper term where the editor would make sure the eye catching headlines (more…)

So here you are ready to get yourself a professional web design presence.  You have considered doing it yourself or having that ever talented brother-in-law do it for you.  Now you are reconsidering after researching the subject because you realize you are out of your element, you are a business man after all not a web designer.  There are a few criteria you will need to follow to help you find a good web design company.

First off you need to decide how you want your site to look.  Do you want only essential information or do you want your whole store online?  Are you trying to establish a closer relationship with current customers or are you looking for new ones?  Once you have determined your initial requirements you need to write them down and use them as a basis for evaluating a website design company. (more…)

We have launched our new website design forum. Please go visit the site register and give us some feed back.

We have the following forum sections:

• Introductions
• Tiger Lounge
• Website Review
• Graphic Design
• Programming Help
• Google and Other Search Engines
• Other Marketing

We will be adding more sections and/or removing and tweaking sections to fit our members as we grow. We plan on being a very large, friendly & helpful community as time goes by… so tell your friends from other communities to stop by as well.