The huge advantage

You might be wondering what is the advantage of having your website listed on the first page of search results. The answer is simple – popularity! If you have a website for your business, it is most likely that you want to get customers using your website. Having your website optimized is like getting free advertisements for your website. People spend millions or sometimes even billions of dollars just to advertise but by using SEO, it is like advertising your website for free and best of all, the people will find you. People go to the internet when they are looking for something especially when they need something. If your website is found, it simply means that they are probably looking for your website.

If you are making money using your website, the more you can make money if your website can be seen on the first page of every relevant search results. Imagine how many potential customers that you can have locally or even across the globe.

Is SEO hard?

SEO is not hard to understand. The process is simple but the amount of work is a long term process. Achieving first page in search results is impossible overnight. It takes time and a lot of effort. Before starting the SEO, you must understand that this is a long process and that you need a lot of patience, hardwork and sometimes a little money too. Take note that the more time and effort that you put into it, the greater the results you will be able to accomplish.

Where to find SEO in UK?

There many SEO specialist in UK. SEO Newcastle team are among the best. You can find many SEO specialist online. You know that they are good if they rank in the first page of the search results in Google.

WordPress is a simple to use and install program that makes developing and editing websites a simple task that almost anyone can use with competence.  Blogs and even major websites can easily be edited by using WordPress that allows you to edit web content from almost anywhere; this is a simple step by step guide that will walk you through the process of how to install WordPress to the root of your website’s domain.

Step 1: Downloading and Unzipping

The first step to installing WordPress onto your site is to obtain a copy of the software.  The relatively small sized file (3.0 MB) can be downloaded for free from WordPress.org.  Once the zipped file has been downloaded it is necessary to unzip using Winrar or some other similar program.

Step 2: Creating the Database and a User

If your site is hosted by a hosting provider it is important to check to see if it is already installed in which case it will not be necessary to install WordPress.  Most hosting providers use cPanel as its main interface with your site, this step will walk you through the process of configuring it to install WordPress as the editing tool.

1. Log into cPanel
2. Click MySQL the Database Wizard icon found beneath the databases area.
3. Insert the name of the database and click next step
4. Create database users by entering the database username and password, then click create user.
5. Add user to Database by clicking the “all privileges” checkbox and click the next step button.
6. Complete the task by noting the database name and user, make sure to record the hostname, username, database name, and the password.

Step 3: Setting up wp-confic.php

To install WordPress it is necessary to go back to the files that you downloaded and unzipped, look for the file “wp-config-sample.php” and rename it as “wp-config.php” and open it in the text editor of your choice.  You now need to enter your database information in the necessary fields such as “database_name” for the name of the database which you used, “database_user” for the user which you assigned to the database and “database_password” for the password which you assigned to the user. Zip the files and name it as WordPress.

Step 4: Uploading the Files

Using your FTP client upload the zipped file and extract it to the directory where your domain is pointing at. Make sure that the files were unzipped properly.

Step 5: Running the Installation Script

Using the web browser of your choice enter the URL of your site with the proper extensions as shown in the following example, http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php .  All that is necessary now is to enter the proper information in the fields of this page and you’re all done.

Basically, you will need an HTML script to create the form and PHP script that will catch the results from the forms and send it to your email. In our example, we will use a contact form that will send the results to email.

Below is the HTML code for contact form. You may edit this depending on fields that you need for your website. The code “send_email.php” refers to the file name of the php script that you will use. Make sure that your PHP file will be the same with this one.

<form action=”send_email.php” method=”post” name=”contactform”>
<table width=”557″>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign=”top”>
<label for=”first_name”>First Name *</label>
</td>
<td valign=”top”>
<input type=”text” name=”first_name” size=”30″ maxlength=”50″/>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=”top”>
<label for=”last_name”>Last Name *</label>
</td>
<td valign=”top”>
<input type=”text” name=”last_name” size=”30″ maxlength=”50″/>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=”top”>
<label for=”email”>Email Address *</label>
</td>
<td valign=”top”>
<input type=”text” name=”email” size=”30″ maxlength=”80″/>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=”top”>
Your age
</td>
<td valign=”top”>
<input type=”text” name=”age” size=”30″ maxlength=”30″/>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign=”top”>
Message
</td>
<td valign=”top”>
<textarea style=”width: 374px; height: 130px;” name=”experience” rows=”6″ cols=”25″></textarea>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style=”text-align: center;” colspan=”2″>
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit”/>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</form>

The output of the code above will be:

So that you can receive the results to your email, you will need the PHP script below. Open a notepad and save it using the file name “send_email.php”. You may change this provided that you also change the file name indicated in the HTML code. Make sure that the file name extension .php remains

<?php
if(isset($_POST['email'])) {

// EDIT THE 2 LINES BELOW AS REQUIRED
$email_to = “enteryouremailhere@email.com”;
$email_subject = “Contact form results”;

function died($error) {
// your error code can go here
echo “We are very sorry, but there were error(s) found with the form you submitted. “;
echo “These errors appear below.<br /><br />”;
echo $error.”<br /><br />”;
echo “Please go back and fix these errors.<br /><br />”;
die();
}

// validation expected data exists
if(!isset($_POST['first_name']) ||
!isset($_POST['last_name']) ||
!isset($_POST['email']) ||
!isset($_POST['age']) ||
!isset($_POST['message'])) {
died(‘We are sorry, but there appears to be a problem with the form you submitted.’);
}

$first_name = $_POST['first_name']; // required
$last_name = $_POST['last_name']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email']; // required
$age = $_POST['age']; // not required
$message = $_POST['message']; // required
$chk = $_POST['chk ']; // required

$error_message = “”;
$email_exp = ‘/^[A-Za-z0-9._%-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$/’;
if(!preg_match($email_exp,$email_from)) {
$error_message .= ‘The Email Address you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />’;
}
$string_exp = “/^[A-Za-z .'-]+$/”;
if(!preg_match($string_exp,$first_name)) {
$error_message .= ‘The First Name you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />’;
}
if(!preg_match($string_exp,$last_name)) {
$error_message .= ‘The Last Name you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />’;
}
if(strlen($message) < 2) {
$error_message .= ‘The message you entered do not appear to be valid.<br />’;
}
if(strlen($error_message) > 0) {
died($error_message);
}
$email_message = “Form details below.\n\n”;

function clean_string($string) {
$bad = array(“content-type”,”bcc:”,”to:”,”cc:”,”href”);
return str_replace($bad,”",$string);
}

$email_message .= “First Name: “.clean_string($first_name).”\n \n”;
$email_message .= “Last Name: “.clean_string($last_name).”\n \n”;
$email_message .= “Email: “.clean_string($email_from).”\n \n”;
$email_message .= “age: “.clean_string($age).”\n \n”;
$email_message .= “message: “.clean_string($message).”\n \n”;

// create email headers
$headers = ‘From: ‘.$email_from.”\r\n”.
‘Reply-To: ‘.$email_from.”\r\n” .
‘X-Mailer: PHP/’ . phpversion();
@mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);
?>

<!– include your own success html here –>
<h1>Message Sent!</h1>
<p>Thank you your interest in joining us! We will respond to you as soon as we have evaluated your application. Further instructions will be sent to your email. Please check your email regularly.</p>
<p>Have a great day ahead of you!</p>
<?php
}
?>

One of the cheapest solutions for a business owner is to outsource work; there are several websites that allow you to post project details and often times you can save lots of money.  This too however may be a gamble because you aren’t sure of the quality of work the people you are hiring.  When choosing to outsource work it is always important that you know that the person you’re paying does a good job, asking for a portfolio is always a good idea, to get a look at their previous work.  Make sure you can communicate with this person at all times through every step of the way to make sure that your website is going along as planned.  For the best results I suggest that you write all of the major content yourself and just have the webmaster you hired to encode the data, you know your business better than anyone else and it would only be natural that you can put the most compelling content on your site.

When you finally get a hold of a webmaster over the net and they build your site it is always a good idea to ask about any support that they offer after the site is up and running should any bugs and glitches come about.  If your website takes off and you start making revenue off of it, it may be necessary to hire a full time webmaster.  However in the infantile stages of your web site this is not advisable since you’re never sure if it’s going to be a hit or miss.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, as long as you don’t use a picture as your background image; a background image takes long to load and makes it difficult to read the text, those thousand words might as well be a loop of words such as “amateur, hard to read, illegible, attention” and other synonymous terms.  If you do chose to use a picture and it is absolutely necessary for your background there is a proper way of executing it, the picture should be pretty low contrast and be either on the dark or bright side; choose a picture that does not have a lot of features in it which may make reading the text difficult and confusing.

As with anything in life moderation is the best policy; there are such things as too little and too much.  Depending on the intent of your site the balance point may shift further in one direction or the other.  Finding this balance is up to you as a web designer and always keep the end user in mind.

The big mistake most people make when designing a website is they try to please themselves and in the end may turn away a lot of potential visitors.  You should always keep the end user in mind; and this is simple since you are the end user to many other websites.  The best way to produce a quality cheap design is to adhere to other practices that you like when you are browsing the internet.  You know what a pleasurable online experience is over a confusing irritating one; the bottom line is if you were browsing your site, none of the elements should irritate you while perusing the pages.

Always keep the target market in mind; always remember who you are trying to reach, and make your site more available and appealing to them.  The best and cheapest way to include a large demographic online is to offer a website that is edited in such a manner that it is simple and easy to access by anyone around the world.  Always consider that the internet connections of people abroad may differ from place to place, therefore the best and cheapest way to reach all these people is by having a site that offers all your content in a simple to access form.

There are many articles online aside from this one that will give you many tips on how to achieve a low cost web design, research is always key if you want to make a professional looking product.  Doing it yourself is the cheapest way to get this done, and it also adds a new skill set for you to learn; in an ever growing digital age it may be a good idea to become literate and savvy to online design.  Without the middle man changes to your site are swifter and faster to update.

Always maintain your site and check it periodically at least once a week, check for spelling or grammatical errors and dead links since these degrade the reputation of your website and make it seem unprofessional.  When on the cheap it may be necessary to forgo flashy niceties on your site like drop down menus and flash imagery, this doesn’t mean that a bare bones site is ineffective.  As long as the layout is logical and the site is full of information, good content, and is easy to browse; there should be no problems.

If you’re reading this that must mean that you have some interest in the ordeal, and what you’re doing is the first step to becoming a good SEO, research is always key.  When editing the content on your site think of different key words that may be associated with the products, services or niches of your site and include them in the text.  Don’t go overboard and keep repeating “funny painted plywood cut outs” every three sentences, this is considered keyword stuffing and is both unnecessary and potentially malicious to your website.  Make sure the information you include in your site’s content is relevant to all the other information, there’s nothing more irritating when you’re searching the web for something and when you click on the site it’s something completely different than what you were looking for.

Another way to generate more traffic to your site is by adding descriptions to your pictures, always label the picture with accurate data and include relevant key words.  This will make your site visible on image searches and easily reachable for users.  Another huge no-no in a good web design is stealing content, you know, copying and pasting data found on other sites and posting it on your own without the permission of the original site.  You may think this saves you time but it is unethical as well as illegal and may result in breach of copyright suits on your part.  Paying legal fees is far from the idea of low cost web design, so as far as plagiarism goes, just say no (yeah like Nancy Reagan).  At one point in time this was a good idea for websites and SEO since if they use the content from another more prominent site, their site would also appear on the same search results; however new systems in place in search engines eliminate this as a benefit, most of these search engines may black list your site for copyright violations.

Being a web designer is a mix between art and science much like clock maker, and as a clockmaker one should avoid putting too many unnecessary parts on a time piece.  When choosing a template it’s best to look for one that offers space for a navigation menu on each and every page to make browsing your site a quick and simple ordeal.  Drop down menus should be looked into when possible however a well designed plain text system is just as effective.  Avoid templates that frame the entire site, this disables the people visiting your site from using the navigational buttons on their internet browsers; worse yet it makes it impossible to find specific pages on your site from a search engine.  Always maintain a balance between functionality and aesthetics, in my opinion a plain looking site that has a good layout is much better than an over the top flash animated website.  To me flash laden sites scream “look at me don’t you think this is cool”, and often fail to give me enough information; whereas a plain looking site with easy navigation and lots of easy to read text gives me all the information I need in a simple easy to read fashion.  Going with the simple site also reaches a larger population of people world wide where the internet and computer capabilities are not always the fastest or smoothest, and in the end it is the cheapest web design.

The cheapest option is usually to seek out a company or firm that can provide the service, make sure they are good at communicating and will listen to your input every step of the way; make sure you’re getting what you’re paying for.  These larger companies ideally get the job done faster than private contractors, however the work on your site may pass through many hands and inconsistencies may arrive as such.  The use of templates by these companies may speed the process up even further and lower expenses which lowers the cost of using their services.  If you are not concerned about how unique your site looks and just want a well functioning product, this may be the best choice for a low cost web design.

Private contractors are best when you don’t need your website up quicker than fast in a hurry; they will often do all the work by themselves and should also communicate with you every step of the way.  They can cost more than a large firm or take longer or both, but having a personal web designer may be the best way to conduct business if you want consistency.  Another aspect of a solitary web designer is that your website’s business doesn’t shift through so many hands and will often resort in a more customized outcome than in companies that may use cookie cutter systems to punch out a large volume of sites.  It is also possible to find quality qualified people to do the work for you online, there are many sites that will allow you to outsource designing your website to a global market.  When outsourcing it is always important to check the competence of the people you hire, make sure they also have a firm grasp of English (further more it is best that you yourself write the content for your website and allow them to encode it for you).