CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It’s a mark up language used in all of today’s website designs which allows you to alter the way a website is formatted through a cascade of elements specified on a style sheet or ‘rule sheet’. A cascading style sheet is an external or internal ‘rule sheet’.

This rule sheet tells one or several pages of a website how to display information. With CSS, the way to style a website is endless. CSS also makes creating a multifunctional, user friendly and consistent website easy, even for a beginner.

Recognizing the basic form and function of CSS is key to adding style to the included elements. For every element in your website, you have a tag which separates each bit of information on a web page. For instance, you may want to add a paragraph. To begin this paragraph you must have a tag to mark the beginning of the element to be styled and a closing tag to close the element. I have included an example below so you can see what the tags look like when added to HTML code.

The <p>tag in HTML stands for ‘paragraph’:

Example: <p>This is the first paragraph<p>

I’ll walk you through how CSS enables you to style one element as a simple example of how it works. Let’s say you want the text of your website to be red, with bold purple in some areas. In your style sheet, you must create a rule that will make the text red. First, come up with the name of the style. Since we are styling the text of a paragraph, we could call the style ‘ptext’. In CSS, a style is written with a period before the name, so on our style sheet it would read:

.ptext

As with the tag element, you will need something that marks the beginning and the end of a style or rule on your style sheet. We use what are called curly brackets to mark the beginning and end of a rule in CSS. Anything included within the curly brackets will be a command for the particular element of the website to which this style is connected.

This is how you would write the rule on your style sheet:

.ptext { }

There are a couple of ways you can include your command within the style sheet - inline style which means it’s on the same line and external style. With an inline style, your rules are included within the tag of your HTML document, instead of in an external style sheet.

For this example I will also add the style of font we would like to use - verdana. We are making the text red, so we need to be sure we include all the rules we want to make for the text. We also need to make certain that we spell everything correctly and include all the necessary elements of the rule. Even the smallest mistake will make the style malfunction.

This is how the style rule would look within an inline style. Remember the rules go within the tag of what you want to style:

<p class=”font-family: verdana; color: red;”>

When creating a style, you must also include a colon (:) and a semi colon (;). These determine the beginning and end of a rule within a style. Without these two punctuations added to the style, it won’t work.

An inline style can get confusing, especially when you start adding pages or get into more complex styles. Therefore, get into the habit of using an external style sheet, instead, and writing it like this:

.ptext {
font-family: verdana;
color: red;
}

As you can see from the above example, putting each rule of the style on a different line not only helps organize it, but also makes it easy to add and remove rules without spending too much time searching for the beginning and end.

Let’s go back to our HTML again:

<p class=”ptext”>This is the first paragraph</p>

As you can see by adding the style tag element to the p tag and labeling it ptext, the sentence takes on the commands outlined in the rule of the style sheet for .ptext.

Let’s try another example. This time we will keep the .ptext style rule but we also add another style rule for a second paragraph. Since we are adding paragraph #2 we will call the style rule for this paragraph .ptext2We will say we want the text in the 2nd paragraph to use the same font (verdana), but that the text will be purple, bolded, and larger than in the 1st paragraph.This is how the style rule will look on your style sheet for paragraph 2:

.ptext2 {
font-family: verdana;
color: purple;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 18px;
}

Now, we add this element to the tag for the second paragraph. I’ll include the first paragraph and the second paragraph so you can see the differences;

The rule elements of the style have commanded the text of the second paragraph to follow the rules of the .ptext2 style.

Your CSS document should look nice and clean, like this:

Creating a style sheet can be quite easy if you use just a few basic elements and know how each style should be set up. The CSS rules I have included in this beginning explanation were just for text in paragraphs and will not necessarily apply to an entire webpage.

When using a style sheet, you can also create rules for multiple pages. Commanding the text on all pages to appear alike is an ideal way to create a cohesive look throughout the entire website.

Stay tuned for my next article, in which I’ll continue to explain the basic elements of CSS styling and touch on other important elements of a web page, such as how to set up an HTML webpage, which elements to include in your CSS and how to include the style sheet on the page so that the rules created in your style sheet cascade throughout your entire website.

In email marketing, targeting every electronic communication to each specific customer’s interests makes it easier for them to buy from you. Researchers at Listrak have proven that customizing a newsletter and tailoring it to a client’s specific interests results in better response and feedback.

The key reasons to target and personalize your marketing emails are to:

Build Trust by giving clients what was promised when they signed up for your newsletters.

Satisfy Needs and Wants by giving clients what they desire.

Create Significance and Value by personalizing your email communications to the reader and helping you to remain aware of their needs.

Build Brand Loyalty. Clients perceive quality in a company when it meets their needs.

Strengthen Customer Relationships with regular communication.

Personalization
On newsletter sign-up forms, drilling down to the details about your customers helps you to target your newsletters to specific client needs. The more data you collect about your customers, the more targeted your newsletters can be.

Gather information about your subscribers that can be helpful in your marketing, such as gender, age, marital status, location, occupation, hobbies, number and ages of children, product preferences and more . For example, if you know someone’s address, you can then direct them to the location of your store closest to them or invite them to events taking place nearby.

Demographics
When creating the newsletter sign-up form for your website, begin targeting and segmenting subscribers with form fields that give you useful information, including their specific interests. Obviously, the relevant data you wish to collect will differ by type of business and industry.

In the hospitality niche, for example, you can add a list of specials or packages to your newsletter. This will allow you to find out what each client is most interested in and it can also help you discover their reason for traveling. Adding the right fields to your sign-up form is an important part of organizing data and getting as much information about the customer as possible.

Tracking
Another important way to gather data about your customers is by tracking their actions. Analytics software allows you to see which links subscribers click on in your emails and tell you if they bounce after reaching your website. Use a website tracker, like Google Analytics, to determine which products and pages subscribers look at on your website. Then, offer discounts or specials accordingly. Tracking is a very significant aspect to managing your subscriber data.

Dynamic Content
Instead of sending out an all inclusive email, use dynamic content in your newsletters to send specialized messages to specific subscribers. The crucial aspect of these types of newsletters is the management of subscriber data and targeting individual interests and needs.

Your content can target both first-time buyers and loyal customers. To gain new business, use special coupons or discount codes for first-time buyers. You may also offer different levels of discounts to subscribers. For example, you could offer 10% off to a one-time buyer, 15% off to a two-time buyer off and 20% off to a customer who has purchased from you 3 or more times. Once clicks and purchase history have been saved, the emails themselves are easily produced.

Here are a few other ways to use dynamic content:

Cross Selling
Once a customer has made a purchase, you can send out a dynamic email with related items they may wish to add to their original purchase. For example, with a room reservation confirmation, send out offers for add-ons such as breakfast, champagne or area activities.

Rewards
Dynamic content can also be used to deliver rewards to loyal customers. Rewards can also be given to recipients that forward your offer to a friend. Other perks may be based on the number of times a customer has stayed with you.

Customer Support
You can also use dynamic newsletters is to inform customers about website maintenance or to send out responses to customer inquiries.

Email Marketing Objectives
Email Marketing can provide a wealth of information about your customers and the services you offer. Managing your subscriber data takes work, but once the information is sorted, sending out your newsletters is simple.

Use email newsletter personalization and dynamic content delivery to its full potential and it can give you just the boost your online marketing needs.

So you’ve decided to hire a designer for your new website. Hopefully, he or she is a professional. Your friend’s, sister’s teenage son doesn’t count as a professional. Instead, you need someone with the skills to create an interesting and visually pleasing site that loads quickly, is easy for your visitors to understand and use, and is Search Engine friendly. This requires much more expertise than you may imagine.

Consult with your professional about what you want your website to do for you and your business. Then, they will work with you to create it. There are bad things that good designers are asked to do time and time again that are simply harmful for a website. It’s our job to advise you. Please take the advice for which you are paying.

Please don’t ask your web designer to:

Place light colored text on a dark background
This technique should be used sparingly. It is very hard to read. In addition, some printers will print the background color of a page, which wastes a considerable amount of ink.

Create dark text on a black background.
It cannot be read. Need I say more?

Tile a background image.
Tiled background images add to a page’s download time. They are usually too busy and take away from the focus of the site.

Center everything on the page.
This is a website design not a print design. Unless you want to post something that looks like a wedding invitation, don’t use this technique. It’s boring.

Bold and italicize this, this and this.
Your readers will quickly get confused trying to tell what is most important. Only use one headline and italicize only in small amounts. However, when used properly, as in this article, bolding can help to make a web page more scannable, so that readers can quickly find what they are interested in.

Create banners that move text across the screen.
Moving banners may have been the latest and greatest thing in 1990, but today it’s best not to use this outdated and amateurish technique. In my opinion, they make me dizzy. This is not Kmart and you’re not advertising a blue light special.

Place off-site links on your home page.
You work hard to get visitors to your site. Don’t send them off into the wild blue yonder as soon as they arrive-they may never come back.

Put huge images on your pages.
Please take the time to format your images, or we will format them for you at cost. Images should be jpg, gif or png, RGB, 72 dpi and no larger than 600 pixels wide.

Copy a photo from another site.
Copying or borrowing photos from another site is not okay. Take your own photos or hire a professional photographer. You may also buy stock photos from www.istock.com or a similar site. Refer to Julia Baldwin’s newsletter article “Selecting Appropriate Photography for Your Website” for more information.

Create a huge flash slide show.
Sure, they look great when used in moderation. However, large slide shows can really slow down page load times. One slide show with four or five quality images is plenty. Maybe I’m sensitive but, too many moving things on a website still makes me dizzy.

Make music play when someone lands on a page.
Not to mention copyright issues, music or any kind of audio is distracting and annoying. If you insist on audio, please give the viewer the choice to quickly turn it off. There’s nothing worse than getting caught looking at a vacation site while at work.

Stretch or shrink your content.
If you want a five page web design, don’t give the designer 20 pages of text to squish into 5 pages. On the other hand, don’t give the designer one small paragraph, either. Be prepared to write your own copy. We are designers not writers, as you can probably tell by this article’s author.

Do “just one quick change”.
This one isn’t necessarily bad for your website, but it can erode your relationship with your designer. Let’s face it, if it was that easy you could probably do it yourself. Let a professional decide how much time is needed for a change to your site. If it is a text change to your navigation, for example, it will take longer than changing a price or word in the body text. Be prepared to pay for all work completed to your satisfaction, no matter how much or how little time it takes.

Your website will be a better place to visit and more productive for your business, as well, if you take advantage of everything a professional designer knows about creating good web sites.

Photo from OxOx

Men and women are different. A profound observation, I know.

While modern culture and changing gender roles have closed the ranks to some degree and have made our differences less pronounced, they do still exist. Stereotyping the sexes proves to be a tricky line to walk, is sometimes offensive, and is never completely accurate for all individuals. There is no denying, however, that the genders are different. We look, think, act, and feel differently and our hearts and minds operate in a completely dissimilar manner much of the time.

Setting aside all other aspects of life, gender differences often make the shopping and purchasing processes of men and woman distinctly unalike. Men shop with a specific purpose, while women shop as an activity or as a social outlet. Men often decide to buy quickly, but women generally need to be exposed to a product or service numerous times before committing. Men need to digest information in a logical, concise order and will focus on facts and figures in making their selection. Women can receive information in any order and piece it together beautifully, but they focus on social influences more than on the hard data. Men rarely ask for help. Women need to ask questions. Men don’t usually consider price with routine purchases, but women regard it as very important. Most significantly, when men make a purchase it is generally to fill a basic need or as an investment, but women often buy to make themselves feel good emotionally.

Because the purchasing process is so dissimilar between the sexes, a website’s copy should take that into consideration. If your property caters primarily to business travelers, the copy should be aimed at the needs and wants of men (Men are still the majority in the business world, though this is changing.). If your business deals largely with spa weekends and family retreats, web copy catering to females might be more effective in converting lookers into bookers.

However, more often than not, your copy will need to appeal to both sexes. Here are some suggestions for helping each:

• Make sure contact information is prominent on each page for women, as they will be more apt to want to speak to a real person. Also make FAQs easily available to answer common questions that are often asked.
• Focus on the amenities that will fill a male’s vacation needs, while still writing about views, atmosphere, and environment which will help a woman make an emotional connection with the property.
• Write personal, conversational copy for women, but have bullet points and links to “more information” for men.
• In general, if you seek to improve a male’s standing or position while improving a woman’s feeling and emotion, your copy will “speak” to both effectively.

Chevrolet.com offers a great example of a company using copy to “speak” to customers on a gender level. The headline shown with the Silverado truck is a mere four words:

OUR COUNTRY. OUR TRUCK

It is short and sweet, but says so much. It’s offering men identity as well as status. It says that to own a Silverado is to be an American man. It is tying pride in vehicle ownership to National pride and patriotism. This is a powerful statement to men.

In contrast, the headline offered with the Uplander minivan reads:

THE FAMILY SPORT VAN

Minivans are driven primarily by women and it’s not uncommon to see them marketed with some sort of family focus. Relationships and the feelings that accompany them are powerful motivators for female purchasers.

In the SUV section of Chevrolet.com, the company continues to speak more to men by offering a rise in status with their headlines:

LIVE BETTER WITH ALL THIS, YOU’LL BE ALL THAT

Gender is central to identity and the way in which each of us thinks and sees the world. Companies and copywriters that understand this and consciously use the differences of the sexes to their advantage will meet with unmatched success.

Don’t underestimate the use of color as a marketing tool. The color of your website can be used to entice your viewers to linger and make a connection. Make sure you set the mood that is right for your target market. Remember that your visitors will form an impression within the fist few seconds. Part of that impression comes from visual cues like color. So choose your colors carefully.

Colors can be categorized as warm, cool and neutral.

Warm Colors

Red
Creates a mood of: Passion, love, violence, aggression, energy, excitement, warmth, sensuality
Uses: Motivate a viewer to take action, show caution or stop
Red can: Make the viewer hungry and project objects as closer and larger

When using red in website design be very careful. The way it looks on your monitor may be very different on another monitor. Bright red can also be very irritating to viewer’s eyes.

Pink
Creates a mood of: Romance, calm, affection, gentleness
Uses: When you want to evoke caring and romantic feelings
Pink can: Appeal to a feminine or romantic side of the viewer

Orange
Creates a mood of: vibrant warmth, a bit less passionate than red, tropical, youthfulness, fire, activity
Uses: Could be used for food or nature websites
Orange can: Convey warmth, make the viewer hungry and stimulate the mind. The eye focuses on it.

Use of the color orange is best used in moderation.

Yellow
Creates a mood of: Sunshine, caution, happiness, hope, light, energy, weakness, purity, understanding
Uses: Makes your website seem lighter and brighter, more spring like
Yellow can: Uplift the viewer to a state of calmness

Yellow can be irritating to the viewer’s eye. Use a pale shade of yellow to create light energy

Cool Colors

Green
Creates a mood of: Renewal, spring, growth, fertility, wealth, calm, envy
Uses: Websites where nature is part of your product. Project a feeling of money
Green can: Relax your viewer and create a feeling of freshness. Make objects seem farther away.

Blue
Creates a mood of: Open sky, vast oceans, intelligence, travel, freedom, trust, sadness
Uses: Mirror the tranquility of sitting under a beach umbrella. Ahhh
Blue can: Make a website more formal

Purple
Creates a mood of: Creativity, spirituality, mystery, dignity
Uses: Subdue your viewers with a pale lavender
Purple can: Be associated with royalty and wealth

Neutral Colors

Black
Creates a mood of: Power, elegance, death, evil, anger, night, mystery
Uses: Borders or barriers can be created visually. Use black sparingly.
Black can: Make the text on your website very readable when a background color is pale or white.

White
Creates a mood of: Purity, cleanliness, peace, perfection
Uses: Create a feeling of airiness or lightness with open white space
White can: Make other colors seem more vivid or pop

Grey
Creates a mood of: Gloom, sadness, conservativeness, security
Uses: Create a feeling of emptiness or void
Grey can: Make the viewer uninterested

Brown
Creates a mood of: Earthiness, stability, hearth and home, tradition
Uses: Give the viewer a safe place to relate other colors
Brown can: Ground the viewer

These websites set the intended mood with color.

	Hello KittyPink is the dominant color. This site is all about girls. Other colors used are pastels, cool and calming. This site is playful and kid targeted.
Massachusetts Hospital Association The blues and greens featured in this site set a mood of calm, renewal, intelligence and trust. This site is serious but also friendly. Target viewer may be an adult looking for information.
	Cedar Point Theme ParkLots of color creates movement. Blues give it a cool watery feel. Red flags grab your attention. This site creates the mood of family, action and excitement.
	St. Louis Art MuseumBlue, gray and neutral colors make this site very subdued. Tradition and stability can be felt. Quiet.
These websites don’t set the intended mood with color.
	Fiber Optic ProductsNeon text on a black background is very hard to read and annoying to look at. Black creates a feeling of doom or void. This site could have used dark blues and purples to give it a more regal feel.
	Gamequarium.comI’m not sure what this site is offering. The yellow text is so overwhelming that I want to leave as soon as I arrive. It screams caution.
	I think this is an artist’s website but there’s nothing here.Wahhhh! What is it? This site has nothing to offer me. No color. Just blah.

Computers are capable of displaying millions of colors. Website design it limited to 216 colors. Mac and PC’s both use different color pallets. Only 216 colors are common to both. These 216 colors are “web safe”. Different web browsers will display colors differently also.Is there is a website you have viewed that set a mood with color?
This tool will grab colors used in websites already on the web.
Collect colors rearrange and combine to make your own mood/color scheme for your own site.

Last month, on April 1, Google AdWords made a policy change for display URLs for all AdWords advertising. Google claims this came about in response to advertiser and user feedback and is in an effort to eliminate the “switch-and-bait” advertising that delivers one ad, and serves up a completely unrelated landing page. The policy is design to provide more relevant advertising results and a better user experience, according to Google.

So what does this mean at the advertiser level? Well, not much if you were doing things on the up-and-up. This change pertains to, but is not limited to, redirects and vanity URLs. It means that Google will strictly enforce the requirement that your ad’s display URL match its destination URL.

Tracking URLs will work fine within this system. Adding ?source= to your ads will have no affect on the domain you use. The most important aspect is to make sure your landing page matches your display URL.

Page names, etc. in your URL will be allowed without a problem. You just need to make sure that the top-level domain (www.topleveldomain.com) matches the URL of your landing page.

Google still encourages everyone to make updates and changes to their URLs, just to make sure that those changes fall into line with the new policy. If you use any redirected URLs in your ad texts, you should take notice – your quality score and cost per click will suffer if you are redirecting users from one TLD to another before serving content.

Here’s an example, if an advertiser’s destination top level domain is www.somesite.com, the display URL or the ad’s landing page top level domain should be the same.

Okay:
Ad displays:
www.somesite.com
Landing page contains:
www.somesite.com/work -at-home.php
www.somesite.com?source=google

Not Okay:
Ad displays:
www.somesite.com
Landing page is at:
www.adifferentsite.com
www. differentsite.com/work.php

Included in the FAQs on the policy changes were concerns about quality scores. Google admits that if you make changes to your display URL, you might see changes in the minimum bids of your keywords. This happens because Google AdWords treats any edited ads as new ads, therefore they have no performance history on which to base a “quality score.”

Quality score is a “grade” Google assigns to each of your keywords. It’s calculated using a variety of undisclosed factors – and a few that have been disclosed. Factors we know about are: relevancy of keyword to landing page content, Top Level Domain compliance, click through rate, and historical performance of the keyword and account. There are a lot of things we DON’T know about Quality Score. Luckily AdWords tells us the quality score of each keyword, so we know if we need to improve.

Quality score influences your ads’ position on Google and the Google Network and can determine the minimum bids of those keywords. In general, the higher the quality score, the better your ad position and the lower your minimum bids and cost per click.

Quality Score is used to help ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The system works best when the ads displayed match closely to the users’ needs. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success.

Google suggests confining your URL changes to one account to to minimize the effect of complying with this policy. This means you shouldn’t make a big effort to start a new account – or start again from scratch. The experts at Google AdWords suggest that you should make changes to the ads with your highest-performing keywords first.

There was some concern for large companies who manage local PPC advertising for their clients, such as Reach Local. Google has made an exception for these large advertisers who have close working relationships with AdWords. It appears as though that ReachLocal’s ads haven’t been affected and continue to display URLs that are different from the landing page.

According to a post by Bill Hartzer on the Vizion Interactive Blog, Reach Local is an exception to this policy.

The changes being made by Google are subtle, but should be noted by all AdWords users. Google states that no immediate action will be taken on existing ads, but do strongly urge advertisers to make the necessary changes to all their ads within your accounts. Google goes on to say that this would be necessary to ensure that your ads run without being disrupted by any future disapproved ads related to this policy enforcement. Rest assured if Blizzard is managing your PPC accounts, we have always complied with the Google AdWords best practices and your accounts are running smoothly.

With just the clothes on his back, 50 pounds of camera equipment, a harmonica and a trusty Leatherman multi-tool, one man is set out for seven days to survive on his own without food or water.  This man’s name is Les Stroud.  In each episode of “Survivorman,”  Les places himself in a unique survival situation and demonstrates how to survive in a remote location with minimal supplies until being rescued.

Surviving in a wilderness is slightly the same as a website’s survival online.  It is important to understand the essentials to a web site’s success in order for you to benefit the most from website ownership. So here are a few survival tips to prepare you for the pitfalls you may face online.

Living off of the Land

In the woods:
Being able to eat off of the land is priceless in a survival situation.  It is important that you locate a decent food supply from your surroundings and be able to build a shelter to protect you from the elements.  Dining on wild animals and plants can be your only chances of getting out alive.  But be aware that not everything edible is safe to eat.

On the web:
Traffic is the food for your web site.  Although there are many forms of traffic online, it is important to know that not all of it will help you.  Make sure that your site is setup for your targeted audience.  If you are offering vacation rentals in Florida, you would most likely want to get traffic from vacationers and not someone planning their camping trip in South Dakota.

Rabbit Starvation

In the woods:
Feasting on rabbits and rabbits alone can lead to death.  An exclusive diet of lean meat, of which a rabbit is a practical example, will make you sick due to the lack of fat.  It is important to have a variety of edibles in a survival situation.  This is a great example of how overeating can kill you when you are starving.

On the web:
Relying primarily on off-line advertising and word of mouth to promote your website will eventually lead to a decline in your site’s visitors.  By investing in a search engine marketing firm to provide you with pay per click advertising and search engine optimization, you will increase your overall website traffic, since it will be coming from different sources.  It is better to have a variety of traffic sources as opposed to just one, because if one stops working, the other sources will still pull in site visitors.

Shelter

In the woods:
Having a sturdy shelter is imperative to protect you from the elements.  Whether in rain or snow, your shelter should be able to hold up and keep you safe.  A good shelter should have a thick roof and at least three protected sides.  It should be able to be used as a wind break and also provide a sense of comfort that you most likely wouldn’t get anywhere else.

On the web:
By having a good hosting provider that can protect your site from viruses, hackers and server crashes is a valuable asset.  Make sure that your host provides 24/7 network monitoring and response and a 99% uptime guarantee.  You should have a peace of mind knowing that your web hosting is being taken care of by a decent provider, because if your site goes down, no one can buy from you.

Staying Found

In the woods:
Knowing where you are at all times is critical to getting out alive.  If this becomes difficult, you can draw a map of where you have been to avoid further confusion.  It is important that you have your head straight in this crisis so that others can find you.  You can signal for others to find you by shouting, shining a piece of mirror or reflective metal or by using smoke signals from your fire. 

On the web:
Know where you stand with your current customers.  Returning customers are the key to your success online.  Let them know you are still there by sending out email newsletters, blogging, offering new special offers or even hosting a contest.  The more informed they are, the more likely you will get the sale.

So there you have it, four survival tips for the website owner.  Being able to be prepared for whatever is thrown at you is priceless.  Be sure to remember that traffic is great, but targeted traffic is even better.  Utilizing only one traffic source can be deadly and you should have a variety of sources of traffic.  Picking a sold web hosting provider can mean life or death of a successful website and that returning customers are essential to your success.  You can never be over prepared when it comes to the success of your website.