Picking a theme for your website can be big deciding factor on whether your company takes off or miserably fails. I know it sounds harsh, but giving your website the right scent can attract or offend visitors. Giving your website the right scent can be simple.

It’s all about finding the theme/color scheme that goes along with your company’s niche. For example, a child care center’s website should be bright and full of warm colors. Having a black background with red text would scare parents away.

Another thing to think about is logo a brand recognition. Target’s website is a great example of this. All of the menu and side bars on the site are red, matching the bullseye logo. People walking by that glance at your screen will instantly know what site your just from the color scheme. This is huge for the corporation.

So, when choosing your background take into account the advice I gave you. Have someone imagine and describe to you what a website would look just given a company’s name and description. This can be a great way to see what the interests are of the demographic looking at your site.

On March 11, 2011, Japan was rocked by an earthquake of magnitude 9.0. The quake created several massive tsunamis that destroyed a large amount of Japan’s coastline. The pictures look surreal. It’s hard to believe they’re real.

The amazing thing about the whole situation is how the news has reached the world. Millions have read articles and seen pictures of the devastation. But thats not all thats available on the internet. Videos off the earthquake and the tsunamis are all over the web. Google Earth created an animation showing the locations of the quakes and the waves. Areas are marked off as to where there are dangerous levels of radiation.

One of the most important features on the web is the people finder. Anyone that is rescued or is in a shelter is registered online, and relatives/friends can search to see if they made it and find out their location.

Once again, the internet shows to the world what an amazing tool it is. Click on the link below to see more pictures of Japan.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/japan-earthquake-the-struggle-to-recover/100026/

Keywords: they can make or break your site. Having accurate keywords can generate large mounts of traffic to your site. The way to find the best keywords is following these simple steps:

• First, get a full understanding of the site you are building or tuning up. Finding relevant keywords is crucial.
• Use programs such as Google’s Keyword Tool to find out the most searched keywords relevant to your site.
• Relevancy: very important!! Relevancy tests can be conducted very similar by having an unbiased panel look the specified website, and coming up with a description and a list of keywords. If their results match up with yours, then you are accurately categorizing the site.
• Also, look at your site analytics. They can help you determine what keywords and links are generating the most traffic to your site
• One more piece of advice is to check out the competition. Type in the keywords you are using for your site into Google and see what other sites come up. Check out those sites and see what they don’t have that your site does. Take advantage of this and add keywords or site descriptions that would attract people looking for that piece that other sites are missing.

I’m not an expert yet, but following the steps above will greatly benefit your website and your business.

Internet Entrepreneurship has been my first experience with internet business and web design, and I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed it. It’s amazing to me what goes on behind the scenes with Google, or any website on the internet. I’ve never taken a class that I have been so interested in what I am learning.

When you think about the Internet and how you could possibly run a business with it, it seems so overwhelming.

As you learn more about how the Internet works, you can put the puzzle pieces together and eventually build your own website. Our class uses WordPress, which allows you to build a site without knowing anything about coding. Here comes the fun part.

So you just built this website for your band, and you think it’s so awesome that the whole world should see it. Since you don’t have thousands of dollars to blow on advertisements, you need to know SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a way to have high organic ranking for a website without spending any money. Ways of optimizing include keyword research, links, content, etc.

Now that your band is famous and half of the people on the planet have heard you, it’s time to monetize the site. Plugins can help you to organize sales, so you won’t have to do paperwork for the millions of records your selling. Post in your blog that you are looking for companies that would be interested in posting relevant advertisements on your site. Make a deal with them, such as $.20 per click goes to you.

Your site is now complete and you spend less than an hour of maintenance on it every day. All you do now is sit back, relax, make lots of money, and thank Mr. Sweet for teaching you how to make it in the billion dollar industry of Internet Entrepreneursip.

Do you know if your company’s website is better than your competitors? Well if you don’t, you should. Doing competitor research is a major way to be a successful company in your niche. You should know exactly what your competitors are doing as far as what their homepage looks like, what plugins/technology they use, and what customer reviews or testimonies they have posted.

After picking apart the other companies websites, you should have a good idea of what you need to do to optimize your site for your niche. Make your homepage look very professional, while still making it feel inviting. Post raw feedback from customers. Also, a very important piece is who you link to. Lets say you are a local health clinic. You do workshops with teachers at the daycare across the street as well as with the grocery store employees. Have them link with you! Google links links, and your customers like to see your interactions in the community.