You might have a great website with engaging, compelling content, but your web content needs exposure to get more and more people to notice your site. Twitter, which effectively shares your content links, is a great platform for popularizing your web content.

Your website design and content writing efforts will bear you greater results when your content is shared on social media platforms like Twitter. You can enhance the value of your site’s content by writing catchy Twitter headlines!

• Shorter Headlines

Twitter requires your headlines to be shorter, i.e. not more than 140 characters. This rule has been imposed for a purpose. You want your headline to spread; to do that, you have to give people additional space to retweet.

How do you keep headlines short but effective? Keep your headlines within eight words, lesser the better. Think of crisp, smart words that describes your website’s content precisely. Keep your headlines short, because shorter headlines communicate ideas more quickly and effectively.

• Create Headlines that Promise

Your Twitter headline must promise something to your online users. Give readers some benefit in return for the attention and time they are giving to you. The reward can be in the form of an entertaining activity or an answer to a vital issue. The best way to create quality headlines is by following the 4U approach:

1. Make your headlines Useful.
2. Communicate that the benefit you are offering is Unique.
3. Offer a sense of Urgency.
4. Implement the above in an Ultra-Specific manner.

• Say ‘No’ to Puns

Headlines with puns often help spice up a dull story, but using puns in Twitter headlines should be avoided. Don’t be vague and avoid using innuendos in the headline because a user may not be able to deduct the actual idea behind your content and consequently, never click on the headline.

• Use Keywords

Write Twitter headlines that has important keywords from your article. This is important for search engine optimization. Your keywords should include words or phrases that web users will use to look for a story.

Often, as part of their marketing campaign, webmasters will use “coming soon” or product anticipatory pages before launching their websites. To create a successful “coming soon” page, follow these guidelines:-

• Establish Your Identity- Design a powerful “coming soon” page that will establish your corporate identity. Use your corporate colors, logo and fonts in the teaser-page design. Your website design, which is likely to be more extensive and detailed, is bound to look different from your teaser-page; however, using your corporate colors and symbols will help viewers identify your website instantly once it’s launched.

• Tempt Visitors- Include a “sign up” or “subscribe” option in the “coming soon” page to collect customer data. You can promise your subscribers exclusive first-come-first-serve offers post site launch to tempt them to sign up, or offer your subscribers few free and downloadable items on the spot, post subscription. Nothing works like ‘FREE’! Exploit it to collect customer information.

• Convey an Interesting Message- A “coming soon” page is not meant to include your company’s history, instead, is to create anticipation with the help of a short and interesting message. For instance, favmovie.net “coming soon” page says, “This winter only in your browser.” It’s short, but interesting enough to compel users to visit their site once it’s launched.

• Go Viral- Post a video of your company/products/services in the “coming soon” page and include a “share on social media” option. Visitors may share the video if they like what you are offering and this will help your website become popular.

• Design Something Special- Use more graphics than text in your “coming soon” page to make it attractive; use Flash where applicable to make your page interactive. Your “coming soon” page should be interesting, fun and informal. For instance, squidchef.com’s “coming soon” page uses an image of a purple squid with a chef’s hat against a background that looks like an ocean. The imagery goes well with the company name, though the site actually offers WordPress themes.

By using a “coming soon” page intelligently, you can create anticipation for your products/services before they are launched. Hype can go a long way to enhance the popularity of your website. Of course, quality will sustain in the end, so make sure what you offer, gives your customers their money’s worth!

Many people underestimate the importance of domain names. However, the truth is that, domain names can play a critical role in your website’s success. Domain name is the first thing that a visitor will notice about your site and thus, it is important to come up with a memorable domain name. Domain names can also provide you with a unique identity.

If you are wondering about the techniques that will help you to identify good domain names, read on.

• They are Simple and Short

It is a known fact that people tend to remember things that are simple and short. The general rule is that a good domain name should contain less than 10 characters. Avoid exceeding 20 characters at any cost.

As far as word numbers are concerned, try to use one-word domains. Two-word and three-word domains like webguru-india.com and logo-design-india.com can be considered good and average, respectively. A great example of a short domain name can be quotes.com.

• They are Memorable

Most users do not have the time to bookmark sites. Rather, they prefer to memorize domain names of their favorite sites and type them when they are surfing the Internet. Using a complicated domain name can interfere with the user’s desire to memorize the name.

• They have Easy Spellings

Your domain name should not contain words that are difficult to spell. Using words that have complicated spellings can result in the user landing in some other site. To simplify the user experience, do not use unknown foreign words or those that have complicated pronunciation.

Additionally, avoid words that have unusual combination of alphabets.

• They come with .COM Extension

Did you know .com domain extension enjoys the maximum popularity in the world? Additionally, most people have the tendency to remember this domain extension. Except in special cases, using .com domain extension can be a great idea.

A simple and memorable domain name can enhance your site traffic greatly. Therefore, before deciding about a domain name, pay attention to all these factors.

Microsoft, which still rules mainstream PC industry with its popular Windows OS series, is hogging attention these days after unveiling a preview of its upcoming OS, Windows 8. Its CEO, Steve Ballmer, is leaving no stone unturned in wooing users and if early indications are anything to go by, a majority of web developers have already warmed up to Windows 8 from its preview.

Windows 8 is, in fact, more than just an OS for Microsoft; it aims to capture a large share of the fast evolving tablet segment with its 8th version. Windows 8 will rely strongly on web based apps and this may be ideal for web developers who make apps using Microsoft technology. In fact, for a website design company that relies on Microsoft technologies like.Net platforms, Windows 8 will open new possibilities. Much has been said about Metro UI in this upcoming OS which is targeted at touch-screen device users. Therefore, web design professionals making websites and apps for such devices will benefit in the long run from Windows 8.

It is probably still too early to predict the extent to which Windows 8 will appeal developers, but a section of industry veterans think it will be a worthy contender to Apple’s iOS, as well as Google’s Android, both of which dominates the tablet market these days. Earlier, Windows 7 also offered some touch-based features for touch screen device users, but it has not made much dent as a touch-screen OS.

Windows 8 preview has garnered mostly positive responses from the industry. Technology majors that have been Microsoft’s partners in the hardware arena, including HP, have hailed Microsoft’s new move. Developers have also given a thumbs-up to the wide device support capability of Microsoft’s upcoming OS, which will run on ARM CPU powered tablets and also on mainstream laptops and desktops. Windows 8’s final version, which will be released (possibly) by end of 2012, will be fortified with more features.

Analysts are lauding the fact that with Windows 8, Microsoft is poised to take a bold step towards convergence. If everything goes according to plan, Windows 8 may succeed in bringing developers from various segments under one umbrella. This OS is not going to suffer from platform fragmentation, which has been an issue with Android OS.

A section of web developers, however, are not too jubilant about the prospective uses of Windows 8, yet. They prefer to wait and watch until its stable version is released the next year. They agree that in theory, everything looks promising but until the software and devices start rolling out, nothing can be said with finality. Some of them feel that Microsoft still needs to polish its much touted touch UI to make it really lucrative and useful for developers and users. How this Metro UI accommodates existing apps, need to be seen as well.

Weak vision, partially blind and colorblind people constitute a good portion of web users visiting your website everyday. You should take care to create a website design for the visually impaired so they can read content and navigate your site easily.

To create a successful web presence, you need to make your website accessible to all people. When you design a website, consider all types of users visiting your website, including those with visual problems.

Color – Almost 8% of men and 1% of women users suffer from color blindness and can’t identify red from green in a website. Use of these two colors in your website’s design means creating problems for this section of the web users. This, however, does not mean you must design a black and white website, but overuse of red and green should be avoided. Use a color analyzer to maintain color contrast in your site.

Web designers often use colors to identify tabs, menus, sidebars, etc. Instead of colors, use icons or underlined text for better navigation.

Text – What use is a good design without content? Frankly…not much! If your text is not visible to low vision users, your site is of little use to them.

To make text readable, include the most important points of your discussed matter in the first 1-2 paragraphs of the article. Break the webpage’s content into different sections by including headings, bullet points, tags, etc, to help better reading. You must avoid animated, scrolling and flashing text in your website. It’s not only difficult to read for people with weak vision, but also people with normal vision.

Choose some of the most commonly used fonts for your text. Ariel, Verdana, Tahoma, Helvetica are fonts commonly used with which our eyes are familiar, and thus, helps better reading.

Image – People with low vision will typically magnify a site to view its images and text. Avoid using low resolution images in your site. Although low resolution images load faster, they blur when zoomed, causing a user’s eyes to strain.

Use as few graphics in your site as possible. Pages without graphics load much faster than image-heavy websites and that helps both partially blind and normal users.

An ideal website is one that is easily accessible to all internet users. When you design a website keeping in mind the visually impaired, it helps your website acquire a wider audience.

SEO is like an intricate art whose success depends on certain elements that website design firms need to implement in their websites properly. In recent months, Google, the undisputed Internet search giant, struck down a huge number of websites that were boosting their search engine rankings with SEO tricks. These shortcut techniques, which can enhance the search engine ranking of a website, are commonly referred to as Black Hat SEO.

From Google’s recent moves, it is quite evident that no SEO services company will be able to escape its scrutiny by manipulating SEO techniques in an unethical way, which had become an industry malpractice in the recent past.

It is very important for a SEO Company to be aware of the popular unethical SEO techniques and steer clear of them in its projects. To get better ranking from Google, SEO experts need to implement those techniques in a website that adheres to Google’s new algorithm for ranking websites.

• Nothing can be more detrimental than manipulating content and using shallow content in a website. The majority of websites enjoying high traffic by content replication and spinning them in a clever way, have been ‘slapped’ by Google’s much touted Panda update. Its new algorithm found hidden content, or texts placed behind an image, and also hunted down various articles with near identical content.

Websites with replicated or near identical content are now treated by Google with low priority, while fresh and unique content are favored.

• Keyword usage is one of the pillars of success in SEO, but has often been exploited by Black Hat SEO firms. Relevant keywords have been used in a way so as to trick search engines into thinking that content had more relevant data than it actually did. Keyword density in content was used to attract search engine bots. The content itself, gave users little to benefit from.

This is no longer going to be effective as Google’s Panda update has indicated. A website having content with an unusual number of keywords, inserted sporadically, will be punished by Google.

• Without quality and relevant links, no website can witness traffic growth and boost its search engine ranking. However, a section of Black Hat SEO experts resorted to using links from various sources in a site to boost its ranking very fast. Ethical link building is time consuming and it cannot be done overnight. Besides, the search engine ranking of a site cannot improve any longer on links alone.

Using automated content will not serve to increase ranks anymore. Relying on perfect meta keywords, as well as description, will not be fruitful either. The same thing can be said about PageRank as Google itself is shifting its focus from Toolbar PR.

Have you ever wondered why Coca Cola makes millions of dollars all over the world when there are other soft-drink companies in the market? They sell because of two things: their USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and marketing strategy. The same rule applies in the website design industry. If you are a freelance website designer and want to get regular projects, you need to highlight your USP to the clients and convince them to choose you.

Think about what makes you different from other designers. There are lots of web designers vying for the clients’ attention. Why a client should hire you when there are others? If you can’t stand out from the crowd, you can’t survive.

Find Out What Makes You Special- What is your USP? Are you an excellent logo designer? Can you create unique and wonderful layouts? Are you an expert in Flash design? Whatever your USP is, make it your trademark and convince your clients that you know about it better than anyone else in the field. It will help clients choose you quicker.

For example, if you want to brand yourself as an expert logo designer, people who want to design a logo for their company will come only to you.

However, there is a drawback with such branding. If someone wants to design a website in WordPress and you claim yourself as a Joomla expert, they won’t hire you. Another problem is, if that particular field loses its popularity, your career is over.

Some clients like to hire a web designer a few weeks before their website launch, and demand project completion within a very short deadline. If you work very fast and can deliver a logo within a week or two, that can be your USP.

Create A Respectable Profile- Make people aware of the fact that you are an experienced web designer. Start writing blogs and share useful tutorials, participate in seminars, etc. Once you establish yourself as an expert, you would be swarmed with new projects.

Also, you should have a portfolio site. When potential clients visit your site, they must be able to see your work samples and decide. Include your past clients’ testimonials in the site. When a future client reads the praises of another reputable client for your efficiency, reliability and timely delivery, he will be convinced about your capability.

Localize Your Services- Getting projects and earning money is lucrative, but the competition is much tougher when you compete with designers all over the world. When you present yourself as a local designer however, local clients will be more interested to do business with you. Especially, small-scale businesses don’t want to hire foreign companies, but when you present yourself as “web designer in Kolkata” or “web designer in India”, they can approach you without worries.

Flaunt Your Own Style- Over time, you will gather experience and will be able to create your own style. Try to be distinctive so that clients can recognize you when they see a website designed by you.

Also, besides designing a website, offer something extra to your clients. For instance, you can offer logo design services with website design at reasonable rates. When you offer multiple services, clients don’t need to go to other designers. This way you will save your clients’ money, as well as time, and they will be interested to hire you again.

How Much Do You Charge? - Some designers think that if they offer their service at a cheap rate, clients will certainly hire them. But there are two problems in this: low price is often considered equal to low quality. Also, in today’s competitive market, quoting the lowest price is impossible. There is always someone ready to offer a cheaper rate. Don’t try to make “cheap rate” your USP. Charge a reasonable rate and show your clients that your quality deserves a lot more.

Just like designers search for new clients; clients also look for reliable designers. A business owner always wants to hire designers who offer impeccable services, quotes an affordable charge and have expertise in their profession. When you highlight your USP, it becomes easier for a client to make up his mind and hire you.

From freelance web designers to big web designing agencies, everyone is utilizing the marketing capabilities of Facebook. Facebook Fan Page is a very useful medium to promote your business to a global audience. It will help you meet new customers, stay in touch with the old ones and promote your new products or services.

A great Facebook Fan Page design is not enough to make a successful marketing campaign. Unless you have enough fans, the main marketing purpose won’t be fulfilled. Every company/individual wants thousands of fans, but only a few succeed in capturing people’s attention.

So, what is the secret to encourage people to click on the “like” button?  Here are few things you can do to get more Facebook fans.

Include a Facebook Fan Page box in the website/blog- This is an easy-to-use and useful application. You can copy the Facebook page plug-ins codes and paste it in your blog/website. You can customize this box as you like and view images of your fans or stream regular updates from your Facebook fan page. The ‘like’ button is generally placed at the top of the Facebook fan page box and gives one click access to your Facebook fan page.

Never forget to ask people- If you are very active in your blog and write regular articles, give a “follow me on Facebook” link at the end of every article. If you write guest posts in other blogs, then ask your readers to ‘like’ you on Facebook. Wherever you have an online presence, leave a link/button for your readers to ‘like’ you. If you constantly ask readers to become a member of your fan page, at least a few will be interested and click the ‘like’ button.

Give advertisements- You can advertise your fan page in Facebook to get the attention of your target audience. Giving an ad in Facebook will earn you better response than from placing your ad on other websites. You will be able to attract the existing 500 million plus users with just one advertisement. Advertising process in Facebook is also quite easy and affordable.

Use fan page to interact- You can switch identity from your personal profile to fan page profile and start interacting with your fans directly. If you ‘like’ several other fan pages, you can comment on their page and their fans will see your fan page’s name in the comment. It will lead them to your fan page directly.

Start a contest or give free items- This is a popular marketing trick to increase fan base within a short span of time. In these contests, participants are asked to become a fan to enter the contest or get the free item. This free item gifting technique was successfully used by Tradus and they have almost 60,000 fans now!

Mention other fan pages in your update- This is a good process to establish bond with other companies in your niche and get the attention of their fans. First, be a fan of other famous web design, web development, logo design, SEO companies, etc, and then in your Facebook fan page status, mention how the company is doing a great job. The post will appear in that company’s wall and their fans may get interested in you, visit your page and ‘like’ your page. Without spending a penny, you will be able to increase your fan base.

Attractive welcome tab will increase the number of fans- You have convinced people to visit your Facebook fan page. But will they click on the ‘like’ button? To interest them, you can add a “welcome tab” in the fan page. It’s completely customizable and allows you to welcome a new visitor with animation or video.

Connect Facebook with Twitter- If you are popular in Twitter and want to lead that traffic towards Facebook, all you need to do is install a plug-in and connect the two social networks. Once the plug-in is activated, your FB posts will be published in Twitter as a tweet. Your Twitter followers will get to know about your Facebook fan page and may become a fan as well. You can also write about your Facebook fan page in the Twitter “about me” section. The same thing can be done in your personal Facebook profile as well. It will inform your new friends about your fan page.

Conclusion- Facebook fan page is the best way to interact with your clients and friends. You should update the fan page content regularly, post new images, organize competitions and answer the questions asked by your fans. Some companies even use the fan page as a new product/service launch platform and online customer care. If your fan page contents are exclusive, your fan base will keep increasing.

You can’t find new clients if you don’t promote yourself. You have to make people hear you and hire you to stay in competition. However, self-promotion needs intelligent strategy to garner the desired result.

Every small and big company promotes their service and there is nothing bad in this. Unless you tell people about yourself and what you are offering, how will they know about you? Of course, self-promotion does not mean banging your own drum without clear focus. Nobody likes a bragger, but everyone likes to hear the achievements of a talented man.

Here are some tactful self-promotion suggestions that will help you capture the target audience’s attention.

Let Your Work Do The Talking- Before promotion, you need something that you can promote. What is the best thing that a man can promote about himself? His work or the services he provides of course.

If you have created an amazing logo design or started providing website designing at an affordable cost, people will be more interested in you.

To promote yourself, you first need to believe in yourself and the work you do. If you feel that you can design a website the way no one else can, your self confidence will boost your self-promotional skills.

Promotion Must Be Planned- Some people like to promote their work to the world as soon as they do it, while some people like to share their success with the people they trust and gradually let other people know about their achievements.

You can brag about your work if you know it’s flawless, but the wise thing to do is to give it some time. Let the small number of users try it and when you make it absolutely excellent, promote it. A good example of thoughtful promotion is Google +. Till date, Google has not made it available to everyone.

Tell People How You Can Change Their Business- When you meet a new client and want to impress him, don’t say things like, “I have 10 years experience” or “I have worked with X,Y, Z brand.”

There are several other web designers in the market who have worked more than a decade in this industry and have worked with many more brands than you ever did. Why will the customer come to you?

To interest clients, tell them how you can improve their business and earn them more profits. Claims like, “my website design will increase the conversion rate by 20% for you” will impress them. But, when you claim such things, show him data, where you helped your past clients to get more customers through your unique web design. One page statistical data is much more convincing than an hour of futile talk.

Listen More, Talk Less- This is the most subtle way of self-promotion. You may meet two clients one day. One of them is facing a problem with the contact form and another with the products page of his website. Unless you know what their problem is, you may start telling what a good webpage designer you are to the person who is looking for a great contact form!

Listen to your potential client’s problems and then offer them the solutions by saying how efficient you are in that particular field. If your expertise can solve their problem, they will be more interested to hear your ideas.

Don’t Pretend- Every web designer has his own personality and style of work. Don’t try to be someone you are not. You can’t be a jack of all trades, and acting like one is the gravest mistake you can make.

If you are good at graphic design, only promote your graphic designing skills. If you start promoting yourself as an expert in all aspects of  web development and fail to deliver, people will realize you are nothing but a liar. This will not only damage your image, but hurt your business as well. If you claim something, stick to it and satisfy the clients with your service.

Every client likes a sincere web designer who fulfills his promise. Hollow self-promotion will land you in trouble. When you promote your work, service or ideas, show people enough reasons to believe you.

Now, more than ever, internet marketers are making the change from traditional marketing tactics like SEO to Social Media. Social media marketing has significant advantages but without optimized content, the scope of social media is limited. Combining social media advertising and SEO services has greater benefits than either does individually.

Useful content (text, images, videos, blog) that is undiscoverable via search engines adds little value to any website. Granted, there is ample cross-linking between posts and user generated keyword-rich content aiding SEO, but without leveraging core optimization, there is little chance that social media marketing alone can create the desired impact on target audiences.

Where social media helps SEOed websites is sealing the path for quicker, wider and more effective website marketing. Popular social content means more exposure, traffic, sharing and a large number of inbound links that are relevant and thus, useful.

Where Social Media and SEO Combine…

Not everybody will be interested in what you offer. Knowing the people who will is half the war won. A target audience lets you develop a more focused and result-oriented website. Target audience gives your website an objective.

To optimize a website, first understand your target audience and how your audience behaves on your site. What actions they take on your site will decide the fate of your website. By using social media to advertise your site, you can reach and share information about your business, products/services with a wider client base.

Remember, a website without a defined objective doesn’t know what it wants or where it’s going. A defined set of goals gives your website direction and SEO and social media can be combined to achieve it. Both social media and SEO help directly influence traffic inflow to your site by the deliberate discovery of social communities and content via searches.

Your focus should be on keyword and content optimization, since content is what people look for, discover and share. An interactive user interface allows users to find content easily. An optimized website is typically one that has useful, informative content and structured navigation in the website design leading to its hassle-free access.

The focus of social media advertising is to promote website content and encourage interaction, creating opportunities for user-generated content. Social media helps easy sharing of content amongst members of your website or niche community.

By mixing social media and SEO, internet marketers can channel their investments towards profitable returns. Social media marketing helps attract new customers, content experiences wider reach and facilitates direct and indirect links to the company website. The traffic benefit is massive and a significant advantage of combining SEO with social media.