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Create a custom Favourites icon

A Favicon is such a little thing (16 x 16 pixels to be exact) but having one on your website/blog really makes you feel like you’re moving up in the world. A favicon is the little icon which appears next to your website title on the menu bar in Internet Explorer/Firefox etc. It also appears next to your website title in the Favourites menu if someone saves your site to their favourites.

By creating a custom favicon of your own using your logo or part of your logo, you both reinforce your brand and make your website stand out amongst the sea of Internet Explorer blue ‘e’ icons which most websites feature by default. Note the tiny black circle with the green ‘W’ next to my website address at the top of this page. Now save this website to your favourites and see what happens….

How to Create Your Own Favicon

1. Decide what image you’d like to use. It is going to be really small so you may want to use only part of your logo. You want it to be clear whether it’s an image or a letter. (See my best favicons list below for ideas)
2. Go to http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ to create your Favicon.
3. Upload your image and create favicon
4. Using an ftp program (see my post on ftp of you don’t have it already) upload your new favicon called favicon.ico to your main website directory.
5. Insert the code below in the head section of your main index page (homepage).
6. <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”/favicon.ico” mce_href=”/favicon.ico” />
7. It took a couple of days for my new favicon to appear online so just keep checking.

My Favourite Favicons

• http://www.springwidgets.com/
• http://www.clipart.com/en/
• http://createpdf.adobe.com/
• http://www.shopnewzealand.co.nz/
• http://www.nhf.org.nz/

NOTE: I originally read about favicons on the Java Script Kit website.

Submit Blog Posts to News Websites

www.scoop.co.nz, a top online news website (if you search for New Zealand news stories on Google, Scoop is listed number 1) has a new community-driven news and information website called Scoopit (see www.scoopit.co.nz). This the New Zealand equivalent of Digg and Reddit.

On Scoopit, anyone can submit stories and articles (with the link from the blog/website they came from) for review, however, rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories are worthy of frontpage attention, the users do. Once an article has at least 4 votes, it is published on the Scoopit site and the Scoop site for Google and the rest of the world to discover.

As kiwis can subscribe to Scoop to receive daily email news under any number of categories they choose, this has amazing potential for getting your news and your blog/website in front of thousands of potential customers.

How to Get Your News onto Scoopit

1. You can add a Scoopit link to all the posts on your blog which readers can click on to automatically submit your article. See an example of this at the bottom of this and every other post on my blog. Get instructions for a hosted WordPress blog, free WordPress blog…
2. You can add Scoopit links to your website for the same effect. Get instructions… (there is also Scoopit code to paste onto your standard webpages.)
3. You can submit articles yourself.

Once an article has been posted on Scoopit, it goes into the Pending Scoops category. You can just leave it and wait for people to Scoopit (vote for it) or email your customers/friends and ask them to vote for it. You do have to register to be able to submit articles.

Other Places to Submit Your New Zealand News/Articles/Press Releases

• www.homebizbuzz.co.nz – Share your expertise with other businesses and profile your business at the same time.
• www.newsroom.co.nz – email your press releases to editor@newsroom.co.nz for free
• www.scoop.co.nz – email Comments, articles, speeches and press releases to: editor@scoop.co.nz
• www.tv3.co.nz – You can send your stories, comments and pictures to tv3. If you have taken a picture or filmed some video that tells a story you can send that too.

If you’re aiming more at the international market, you should try Digg and Reddit.

Let me know how you go with Scoopit and others suggested above. It would be great to hear what sort of traffic you created for your site. Please feel free to Scoopit any of my articles by clicking on the Scoopit link below each post on this website.

NZ Affiliate Programs for Your Website

Joining a website affiliate program which complements your product and provides you with additional income is great for you and your customers.

Most people just add a product here and there on their website or blog, but many people are now building entire websites based on products from affiliate programs they are a member of. You simply find a niche on the web which doesn’t seem to be catered for or find a topic you are very knowledgeable/interested in, create a website, add products from various related affiliate programs, market the site well online and start earning commission on products people click on on your website. In most cases they need to actually make a purchase before you receive any money.

You can find a full list of Affiliate Programs in New Zealand at http://www.affiliateprograms.co.nz/new-zealand-affiliate-program-list/ as well as lots of useful articles on making money this way.

Or check out the Affiliate Directory, New Zealand

If you want a bit of background reading, buy Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich from Fishpond or buy Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online from Amazon. This is the definitive guide to planning and managing a successful online affiliate business!

Sell Books on Your Website

A great way to offer your customers additional infomation and make some money at the same time is to join a website affiliate program with Amazon (US-based) or Fishpond (New Zealand and Australia) to promote books of your choosing on your website or blog. See the Blogging Books section on the right sidebar of this blog as an example of what you can do.

Sell Amazon Books – Earn up to 8% from referrals

To join Amazon Associates, go to the Amazon website and click on Associates Program on the left sidebar. Once your membership has been approved, you login and go to Build Widgets/Links. Before you start building links or widgets, it is a good idea to visit the main website and find all the books you want to promote on your site, scroll down each book listing to find the ASBN number and make a note of it. Once you have created a widget or link, it is just a matter of pasting the code into your website or blog. The great thing about Amazon is that it is not only books, but also music, toys, clothing and millions of other products which may complement your products.

Find out more about getting your own Amazon aStore…

Types of links

1. You can create a box similar to the one on my website using the “My Favourites” link.
2. You can choose a banner link like the one below.
   
3. If you have a free WordPress blog, you can create product links to individual books and paste them inside posts or pages for users to click on.
4. You can also build your own A-Store full of all your favourite books etc.
5. See other examples of Amazon widgets and banners in the sidebars of Kath’s Sticky Websites blog.

Sell Fishpond Books – 10% commission on books, music and movies

To join the Fishpond Affiliate Program go to http://www.fishpond.co.nz/affiliate_info.php?osCsid=cb24edb2cdd74d8586607794311c2471. Fishpond is based in New Zealand and Australia so if your customers are mostly in New Zealand, this is a good one to use in terms of delivery costs and range of New Zealand books. Once your membership has been approved, you login on left side of the website and go to Build Links. Before you start you need to visit the main Fishpond website and find all the books you want to promote on your site. You then make a note of the product number (the 7 digit number at the end of the page url) of each book. Once you have built a link, you simply paste the code into your website or blog.

Types of Links

1. Build a Link- You create links with a photo of the book to paste into a post or page on your website.
2. Product Links – You can put general banners onto your site like the one below.

All links contain your unique affiliate code so Amazon or Fishpond know that visitors have come from your website. Give it a try and add value to your website and your business.

I’ll be posting links to more great affiliate websites over the next few weeks. Please let me know how you get on with Amazon or Fishpond in the comments box below.

Add Video to Your Website or Blog

Setting up a free account on www.vodpod.com, allows you to upload digital camera video clips from your home computer to the VodPod website.

You can keep them private and invite friends and family only to view them (see button on vodpod website to do this), or get “widget code” allowing you to display your video collection on your website or blog and on the vodpod website.

Ideas for video to enhance your website/blog

• If you own a b&b, show video clips of the grounds and rooms, a short welcome from the hosts and local attractions
• If you run a tourism business, show clients enjoying the jetboating, dolphin watching, 4wheel driving or whatever it is
• If you own a restaurant, show your meals, your tables etc
• If you sell vacuum cleaners, show them in use, being cleaned etc
• If you sell clothes, show them being worn
• If you sell expertise/advice, show yourself, show presentations, answer questions visually
• If you have kids, invite friends and family overseas to watch them grow up

Here’s how to add your videos to VodPod
(See screen shot sample on right)

1. Go to www.vodpod.com
2. Click on Start a Pod to setup your account.
3. Once you are logged in, click on Add a Video
4. Choose Upload video from my computer option
5. Select your videos, then click on upload. NOTE: This takes a while even with broadband so you may want to keep the clips to less than 30 seconds, preferably around 10 seconds.
6. Once uploaded, click on each video and give it a name, description etc
7. Add categories and tick a category for each one

Here’s how to add your videos to your website/blog…

1. Once you are happy with the videos in your pod, click on Get a Widget for this pod
2. Select the type of media you are publishing to (WordPress.com is a free wordpress blog)
3. Select the name of the pod you want to display (you can have more than one)
4. Select a Category or a range of other options (most recently viewed etc)
5. Give the Widget a Title (this will show at top of your widget)
6. Choose sidebar style for blogs or horizontal style for websites
7. Choose skin (sidebar 1 is fine, but check the preview on right to see the difference)
8. Change the colour of grey background for a HEX colour of your choice or leave as is.

Adding Code to a free wordpress blog
Free WordPress blogs include a VodPod widget, so copy the code you are given on right of screen, then go to your blog admin, Presentation, then Widgets. Drag the Vodpod widget onto your sidebar, click on it, then paste the code where you are instructed.

Adding code to a hosted WordPress blog
Copy the code you are given on right of screen, then go to your blog admin, Presentation, then Widgets. Drag a text widget onto your sidebar, click on it, then paste the code into it, save changes and view your blog.

Adding code to a website
Copy the code you are given on right of screen, then paste this into the code of your website where you want the videos to display. NOTE: You need to be able to make changes to your website’s source code to do this. If you don’t, ask your website designer so add it or contact Creative Ideas for help.

NOTE: Because the videos are hosted on the vodpod website, they wont add size or cost to your website hosting package.

Put a Photo in your Sidebar

Adding a photo or image to your sidebar is a great way to make information stand out or to point the way to important information. Using widgets, you can put all kinds of things in your sidebar as well as the usual categories, pages, recent posts, blogroll etc.

You could add a photo of yourself, a photo from a post with a snippet of text linking to that post, a photo of a new product, a book review, a membership logo or anything else you want to put in front of your audience. If you look at the sidebar on this blog, you will see that I have added a screenshot of the latest website I have designed with a link taking people to it.

To add an image to your sidebar, you need to be able to

1) resize the image you want to use to the exact size (in pixels) you want it to appear (you don’t want it to be wider than your sidebar or it will play havoc with your page layout)
2) Have widgets available as part of your blog’s theme
3) Know a little bit of html code (which I will teach you below).

How to Add an Image to Your Sidebar

You need to upload your image first, then…

1. go to Manage/Uploads
2. Select the image you want
3. Click on the link text button
4. Copy the link url (appears top field on the right)
5. Go to Presentation/Widgets and create a new text widget
6. Enter html code below and replace the link url, hyperlink (if you want one) and alt text etc altered to suit.

Code to display photo only

<img src=”http://nzwebsites.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/pepwebsite.jpg” alt=”Parenting Enhancement Programme Website”>

Download code for photo linked to website or blog page

<a href=”http://www.parent-help.co.nz” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://nzwebsites.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/pepwebsite.jpg” alt=”Parenting Enhancement Programme Website”></a>

Titles and Slugs for Blog Posts

The title of each post you write on your blog is not just something catchy which appears above your content! It is very important when it comes to search engine ranking and blog searchability.

What is a Post Slug?

Whatever title you type for a new post on your blog, is automatically translated into a Post Slug. For example:

Post Title = Titles and Slugs for Blog Posts

Post Slug = titles-and-slugs-for-blog-posts

The post slug is then added onto the end of your blog address when visitors are veiwing that particlular post. The webpage address (url) for this post is therefore http://nzwebsites.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/titles-and-slugs-for-blog-posts/

For this reason, naming your posts using keywords and keyword-rich phrases makes it much more likely that your blog will be listed on search engine results for searches by your target markets.

How to change your post slug

You can change your slug to something different to your post title as long as you have no spaces and include dashes between words. If you are not sure where to find the post slug field when writing a new post, click on the image on left to see a screenshot.

NOTE: This diagram illustrates how to use a WordPress blog only.

How to List Products Online

When it comes to displaying your product range on a website, the most important thing is to make it easy for your customers to find what they are looking for.

To achieve this, there are several important design elements you need to think about…

• Include an obvious button called “Products” or “Product Range” on your navigation bar
• Showcase your new/best-selling/most popular products or all categories on your homepage (with photos)
• If you can include easy-to-understand product categories on your navigation panel
• Link to related products throughout your website wherever possible

Too many products to list?

If you only have a few products, it is a good idea to list them all as main headings on your navigation but if you have lots of products, include categories only on your navigation. If you have too many categories, use sub menus which fold out from the main heading (“product range”). See screenshot of HodgPodg Creations homepage on left.

This can be reinforced by showing a photo and heading for all your most popular categories or products on your homepage with links to the information. See Oak and Whale homepage screenshot on right. Again, it is down to knowing what your customers are looking for.

For advice on how to best display your products on your website or for a detailed navigation plan for your new website, send me an email or phone 09 5337093.

Use Plain English on Websites

Ever had comments from your customers that they had trouble finding information on your website? You probably had a look and wondered how they could miss it!

Take another look. The chances are you wrote your website for yourself rather than your customers. The exact words which read well, look professional and reinforce your brand identity to you, may do the exact opposite for your customers.

Ask yourself what the 4 main things visitors to your website will want to do, and include “plain english” text links to these on your homepage. For example:

The #1 thing visitors to my Creative Ideas website want to do is to see other websites which I have designed. I have therefore included a line of text right near top of the page stating View websites designed by Creative Ideas. It is also in bold to make it stand out for people who only scan webpages quickly looking for the important information.

Use short obvious headings on the navigation panel to get people to your main webpages. For example:

The navigation headings on Lupton Lodge Website (see image on left) are very easy to understand. A common mistake is to use brand names instead of an actual product name or category. Customers who are on your website wanting to buy a frying pan with have a lot of trouble finding one if the navigation heading leading to this page says “sizzlypots” (the name of your frying pan range).

Don’t use industry terms or jargon if you want your customers and search engines to understand you.

If you would like me to review your website and suggest ways to improve the homepage and navigation so your customers can find important information and products, send me an email.

Translate Your Website

If your customers come from countries where english is not widely spoken, you should consider translating some or all of your website into your clients’ languages.

Your clients will be able to understand the information on your website and so are more likely to purchase your products. You will build better business relationships by taking the time to accommodate your clients needs’. It is not unlikely that you will be the only website in your industry or area which is available in a particular language and this will be reflected in your rankings with search engines and online directories. Translating your website has the potential to open up a whole new market for your products.

Where to get your Site Translated

The New Zealand Translation Centre staff are very professional, helpful, can translate your website into a huge range of languages and supply website-formatted files (especially important for Asian languages). Visit their website at http://www.nztcinternational.com:80/. Note: If you wish to translate your website into Chinese – “you should use Simplified Chinese if your target market is Mainland China or Singapore, and Traditional Chinese if you’re targeting Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.”

Some Creative Ideas clients who have translated their websites with great success are:

• www.opuamotel.co.nz (French, German, Chinese, Japanese)
• www.tropex.co.nz (French, Chinese)

If you would like your website translated into another language or languages, just email us the languages you need your website to be translated into and a list of links to each webpage you would like translated. We will organise an itemised quote and add the translated pages to your website when complete.

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