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If your client is having a charity event, I think it would be a good time to use a press release. The press release can provide some information on the charity and then link to the website. I would also suggest they use some word of mouth to get people to visit the site. They could mention the charity to people who usually are involved with or give to their charties.

Eria, your method sounds a lot like mine as well. Although I do usually come up with the basic idea for the colors that I want to be used on my website. However, I always keep in mind or take into consideration what my designers says since he is the expert when it comes to design and I am not.

I have been most successful in promoting my website and business through forms and word of mouth. I have obtained a majority of my work through forums. Sometimes forum members speak with me directly. Other times they visit my website to view samples. I have also had former clients refer others to my website or to me personally if they could use my services.

I think sometimes if you are interested in starting your own business, it is a good idea to start out by freelancing. You can do some jobs in addition to your "day job." This gives you the opportunity to see how well you like providing your services as a business. You also have time to get some samples for your portfolio or samples section of your website.

Did you carefully pre-plan your website? Or did you pretty much just get an idea and start designing your website? Since I am not a web designer, I had to have someone design my site for me. I did write up a basic idea of what colors I wanted to use and what pages I needed for my website. My site is a work in progress right now so I am doing some more planning. But I at least wanted to have a site up and running.

Yes forms do provide an excellent way to promote your website but only when you follow the rules. You never want to SPAM. You should always be an active member of the forum. Offer helpful tips for others instead of using the forum only to advertise your own business. Never advertise in any areas other than those where advertising is permitted.

If you are freelancing you might not think you need a business plan. In fact, there are many small businesses that are not using business plans. Consider writing a business plan even if it is rather simple in the beginning. Business plans are beneficial for many reasons. They can help you pinpoint your target market. You can decide who you want to sell products and services to and then decide how you can reach these people. Your business plan can be used as an outline to come up with some basic marketing ideas. You can also reasearch your competition to include information about the competition in your business plan. What other businesses in your industry are out there? How can you compete? How can you stand out ahead of the compeitition. A business plan provides you with the opportunity to look over financial information and make some predictions about the future. Again, the plan will help you have some idea of where you want to be financially in a few years. Business plans can also be updated and expanded. They do help to provide you with some direction and to give you some goals to work towards. You can look back at your business plan and see what you have accomplished and what you still need to accomplish.

Well my point of the site was to remind everyone to put some thought into your site when desiging the site. I mean it does seem like common sense that you would want to make your site as customer friendly as possible. And yet I have visited many sites that are not. There are sites that have no real sense of order. You try to find details on products and find that the information is scattered. Other sites I have visited do not make it easy to view prices. I believe pricing should be easy to locate. And yet i have actually visited some sites where you have to begin processing an order to find out the price. Other sites do not have enough contact information. One site that I have been trying to get assistance from for weeks now only has an online contact form. They do not offer any type of phone number, regular email address or even a snail mail address. I think ecommerce sites should offer more than one contact methods. Also, they should respond as quickly as possible. When I contact someone and they have not replied in days, I find this a bit ridiculous.

I belive the colors used on a site should vary depending upon each individual site. The colors you use will be impacted by your particular audience. The purpose of the site can also have some impact on what colors you will be using. You may want bright colors for one site, while wanting slightly darker colors for others.

I do not think the particular positioning of content on your website has an impact on your search engine rankings. However, I think you should plan ahead to know where you will place content as opposed to other components of the website such as images, links, etc.

I am looking for suggestions on good Graphics software for beginners. What would be a program that has some ease of use and is not too dfficult to learn to make at least the most basic images.

I usually check my website in just a few browsers. I also use FireFox and IE. Sometimes I run it in Netscape as well. I think it is a good idea to see how your website looks and how it runs in different browsers to know if any major adjustments should be made.

Take some steps to make your website ecommerce friendly. Your site should be easy to navigate. Customers want ot be able to find information and details about products and services quickly and easily. Contact information should be displayed so that visitors can easily contact your business with questions. The ordering process shoudl be secure, and as easy and fast as possible.

I pretty much have clients all over the world. Most of my business is conducted online. I enjoy having customers from a variety of different places. I learn about other areas of the world and get to work on a wide range of projects.

I think a freelancer should always obtain some of their fee before starting the job. Then receive the rest upon completion. Never turn over an entirely completed project until you receive payment. Begin by sending out friendly reminders that money is due.

It is important to use your own domain name and not a free domain (sub domain). Having your own domain reflects professionalism. Your domain name can be made to match your website or business. The domain you select can be made to be creative and yet easy for visitors to remember.

When planning a new website, it is important to decide how you would like to layout your content. Content is a very important component of any website. Quality content is necessary to help the search engines find your site, to attract and retain visitors and to keep people coming back to you site (for updated content).

I have seen several really nice sites that utilize Joomla. I am a writer and marketing professional and do not do my own designs. A web designer just created a site that is pretty easy to use and navigate with Joomla.