Why having these checks?

When you’re about to launch your new website, you have to make sure that a good and positive experience will remain on your new website visitors, otherwise they will leave and will never come back, at least until you fix everything you have broken. From this we can understand that most of internet users don’t really understand what the meaning of phases or beta versions is. They only can understand that the website is working or not working.

What are the most important things to check?

There are many things you should be checking before even uploading the files; mainly we can divide the checks into four separate checks (visual, functionality, SEO, and Performance checks), and each one of these checks will have some other items that will need to be monitored.

Visual checks or user interface (UI) checks

The visual or user interface checks may include the visual elements that can be seen on the website as images, or flash files. In the next few lines we will know how we can
define the visual or user interface (UI) elements that need to be checked before launching a website.

Images (sizes and existence) Checks

When you are about to launch a website, it is an essential thing to check that all the images you’re using is really exist on the server, and has the same width, height as same as the local server.

Flash (existence and view area) Checks

Another thing you’ll need to check, if you have a flash file(s) you’ll need to make sure that its exist on the server, and has the same viewing area as the local server. Also don’t forget to set the property wmode to transparent in order for any other HTML, or JavaScripst to appear in front of the flash file.

Content look and feel (include default text, and headings) Checks

The content look and feel is one of the most important checks. Most of developers may forget to program default properties of some important Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles. For example they may forget to apply a style for default font of a text, and ending your website will look inconsistent, each page has its font type, or size. From this comes the important to make sure that all the content will have the same look and feel, starting from headings (H1, H2, and H3), passing by default textual content, and ending by checking the default link styles.

Cross browser compatibility checks

Among all the visual or user interface (UI) checks, this is the most important one. The importance of this check comes from the way each browser parses the HTML page. For example, Internet explorer (version 6, 7, or 8) is usually missing the HTML content, or by another meaning it parses the HTML another way, other than FireFox, or Google Chrome does. From this you must make sure that your website will look the same in all browsers. Even if you’ve followed the correct HTML syntax, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles, you still need to ensure its working fine; sometimes you’ll need to write some extra Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles to act only on internet explorer to fix any messy look and feel. To run this check all you have to do is to open your website on at least the following browsers, Internet Explorer (6, 7, and 8), FireFox, Google Chrome, and Safari.

Cross operating system compatibility checks

Though this check can’t be applied or might be difficult to be applied, but it is really important. But as a matter of fact Safari on Windows environment is acting different way than Safari on Mac environment. Same applies on FireFox, it might look different between Linux, and windows environments. Here comes why we need to make cross operating system compatibility checks, to avoid any surprises that would impact the visitor’s experience on the website.

Monitors compatibility checks

These days by technology advances you really can’t predict which type of monitors that the visitor has and viewing your website through it, it maybe a PC monitor, laptop monitor, or even a data-show projector. Before launching your website you should take into consideration that each type of monitors might show a different color other than the one you selected. It’s a good thing to know how your website colors will look like.

Monitor resolution compatibility checks

As mentioned above in the previous check, you need to know what your website colors will look like through different monitors, one other thing you must check, which is how the website will look like on big screens, or maybe small screens. When you are launching your website you must make sure that it will be looking fine in both high, and low screen resolutions, test it on 800*600, 1024*768, and 1280*1024 screen resolutions, and see whether  if it is working fine, or will need some other adjustments.

Mobile device compatibility checks

At least 1% of your visitors will come through mobile or hand-held devices, and of course you don’t want to risk these types of visitors leaving your website with really bad experience. If you’re about to create another mobile version of your website, then it is ok, a simple redirect will cover this, but if you’re not planning to have a mobile version then at least check it, and see will you understand the content, or it will need more attention.

Functionality checks

The functionality of the website is the backbone of any website. As everybody knows, any website must have a purpose, or a role it plays in the website owner minds. If you neglect checking the functionality of the website, then you’re sacrificing the visitor’s interaction with the website, and at the end he will leave it, and will never come back. In the below points you’ll know exactly what to check to make sure that your website is ready to go live.

Broken or dead links checks

Have you ever clicked on a link and found it broken or not working? Most of us had this experience before, and also most of us have closed the entire website because of this. Why leaving this to happen to your website. It is really important to know and fix the broken links in your website, unless you want your visitors leaving with bad experience about it. Myself I’m using this tool W3C Link Checker, to search my website pages for any broken links.

HTML Vs W3C validation check

It’s a good habit to create a standard compliant website, and to reach this then your website must pass the W3C checks for following the real standards of the HTML syntax. Myself I do this once I’m completed with the PSD to HTML convert process, and you can use the validation markup for HTML, and jigsaw tool to validate your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles.

Logo linked to home page check

To make sure that your visitors are able to navigate your website in a smooth and easy way, you must link your logo (if exist) to the home page, even if you already have the link in the main menu. Don’t forget this check; otherwise you’ll not be following one of the good standards you should follow.

Online forms, and emails checks

An essential functionality of any website is the online forms, imagine that you forgotten to code the contact us form, and your visitors are filling it, and you didn’t get any messages, what will you do to get them to fill the form again after being fixed? So checking that all the forms are working and acting as it supposed to, is really vital because these are one of the main things that the website rely on. Also don’t forget to check the search functionality, and make sure it is working fine.

Code and image optimization checks

It’s an important thing to make sure all your images are in the appropriate size, we’ve talked before that we need to check that all images has the correct width, and height, but in this check we will need to make sure that all the images are optimized, saved for web, and also in an acceptable size in kilobytes. Also making code optimization is not less important than image optimization, neglecting code optimization might cause the website to act slowly, and this will be reflecting on your visitors, so reducing the number of HTTP requests and optimizing codes will save you a good mount of speed you were risking.

Error pages and custom/friendly 404 (not found) pages checks

It’s an essential to void your visitors seeing the non-friendly error messages, for the developers it’s really important to know exactly what the error is, but for your visitors, they don’t know and they don’t care to know the nature of the error. All they want to see is something that they can understand, so they can proceed navigating your website. By using friendly or custom error pages you’ll provide something easy to understand for your visitors that will tell them what is the error, but as something they can understand.

Search engine optimization checks (SEO Checks)

After making sure all the visual and technical elements are fine and ready to go, there comes another series of checks that not less important than the checks you’ve already done. The importance of these checks comes from the reason of having your website to be search engine friendly and by its turn to become visible in search engines as fast as possible. In the following few lines we will learn what to check to make sure that our website is search engine friendly.

Pages title tag check

Having something like unnamed, or untitled is not really presenting an understandable way for the user to know what exactly this page contains, nether for the search engine, it will not understand why this page is for; and it will drop your website or website pages in their index, and finally you’ll not be able to gain a good rank in search results. When you’re checking the pages title you must make a focus that it at least contains the name of your website, and the current page the visitor is already viewing.

Keywords and description tags check.

Each of keywords and description tags is telling some brief information about the current page, and also it has a purpose.

Meta keywords or page keywords

Typing in some keywords will provide an advanced addition to your website, telling the search engines that this page contains the subject that the visitor might be searching for. Actually it tells the search engine crawler that it might has the information which the visitor might be looking for. So neglecting the keywords might affect your website visibility on search engines. Myself I use the Google Adwords Keyword tool for generating the most common keywords I should be using.

Meta description or page description

Typing some brief description about each page of your website will provide you great assist on search engines. The importance of it comes from the way search engines shows your website as a result. If you have a description filled the search engine will write it just below your website telling some more information about the page.

Sitemap.xml file check

This check is always being forgotten by developers, although its importance but it always being forgotten. Sitemap provides detail information about the entire website; it helps the search engines to understand the hierarchy or your website, and in order to what priority it should show the page as a result. If you’re not sure how to create a sitemap for your website, then you can use one of the sitemap generators on the web. These generators are indexing your website and placing a file called sitemap.xml to the root of your website, the next mission is yours. All you have to do is to submit this file to all known search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and Bing). Myself I like to use this online tool to generate a sitemap for all my websites, and you can use it on this URL http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Site Performance, usability, and content revision checks

Finally you’re about to complete your website checks, the entire process might be boring, and might also require a working day or something, but it is really important. The final check you should do now is to know whether your website is loading fine, or slow. If you’ve made the above checks successfully you’ll find that the website loading time is good, otherwise you’ll need to redo the functionality checks all over again.

Site Speed, and loading time check

If you’ve visited a website and found it very slow, what the impact you would have about this website? Will you visit it again? The answer is probably No. This check should show you whether you should focus on the functionality checks, or change your web hosting itself. Myself I use Google Page Speed Online to make sure that my website is in a good condition, and its speed is fine.

Usability and easy to use check

This check should NOT be made by a developer, or anyone who is using the internet in a daily wise, because developers can deal with any website, and regular internet users will have the ability to guess where they can find the information. Measuring the easiness of navigating the website can be achieved only by getting someone with limited internet skills trying to surf the website, and with his/her final opinion you can measure where your website is easy to use or not.

Pages and content existence, grammar, and spelling mistakes check.

Congratulations, now you’re about to make your last check, in this check you should look into the content, make sure all the pages are exist, and has its real content (NOT dummy content). All you have to do is to go through all the website pages, and check the spelling, and grammar, and if you found any page with no content, or dummy content, then place an under construction image or text (if you can’t get its content at the moment), After that, then you’re done checking your website, and now it is ready to be introduced to the world.

Important Finale

As we could understand from this article, there any many things you (as website owner, or developer) should be doing before introducing your website to the world. In brief you should make sure your website looks or acts well as functionality and visibility wise, also making sure that search engines will see it correctly, this will guarantee you that traffic flow will come to the website as they search for information, and they will have a smooth and positive experience with your website.

If you have any Comments, Additions, or even corrections please post them in the comments in order to spread the experience to everybody passing by this article.
Your feedback is really appreciated!

What is content management system (CMS)?

Before proceeding any further we need to know what the content management system (CMS) is. The content management system, CMS, or WCMS is a software system that provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage website content with relative ease [Source Wikipedia]. From this we can understand that in our selected CMS we will at least need the following:

1. Being able to create/edit/delete pages, or articles (and it might include images).
2. It must be very easy to people who have limited HTML or programming language.
3. All the functionalities must be understandable to anybody, as same as you’re writing on a piece of paper.

Is it really important to use CMS?

In most cases, Yes it’s really important to do CMS instead of creating just static HTML website, the importance of the CMS comes from the requirement of editing the content. Consider that you’ve delivered a customer of yours a static HTML website, and his phone number or address has been changed. In this case he will have to do one of the two things, one of them is contacting you for this adjustment, and the other is to get someone to do this for him, using a CMS will guarantee that the customer will be able to do this by himself.

How to select the most suitable content management system (CMS)

Selecting a content management system (CMS) must be built over some factors, regardless its price was high or free. When selecting a CMS we will need to make real focus on:

What functionality it will provide?
Will it provide the functionality easily, and smoothly?
What efforts should be made to make it as same as my website design?
By knowing the content management system (CMS) we will know how to select, when to select it, and also we will be sure that we made the correct choice. In the next few lines I’ll explain the most important factors that you should rely on when you’re about to select your correct content management system (CMS).

Simple user interface

One of the most important factors is how much the CMS is easy to edit, and administrate. As you know one day you’ll deliver the entire project to his owner, and since then, the customer will be depending and relying on himself for adding, editing, or even deleting content. It’s very important to make sure that the CMS has a simple user interface from customer’s prospective (Not yours), and also it must has a very good WYSISWG (What you see is what you get) interface.

Images and file management

Images and files management is factor that you or your developer might think that it is not important, because you’re mainly using FTP to upload content images, and maybe files. For customers this is not true, an image or a file upload might be a big maze for him. Consider that you don’t have the upload feature (I mean FTP), what will you do? Simply you’ll find yourself lost in the same maze, but at least you have a light and know what else you can do. When you select a CMS you must make pretty sure that it allows files and images upload in its editor, otherwise you should be expecting a lot of calls from your customer asking “how can I add images to my content?”.

Look and feel customization

For myself, I consider this is the first thing anybody should focus at when selecting content management system (CMS). The importance of this factor comes from, how much it will be easy for my developer, or front end developer to implement the web design (PSD File) to HTML then to the CMS.  Most of CMS’s (If not all of them) can be customized and you can change the way the content is being presented, but selecting one CMS that is easy to be themed will be performed a way better and quicker than a complicated one.

Extensibility (Extensions, plug-ins, or modules)

One thing you must always put into consideration, there is no CMS has been invented and doesn’t require any additions… ever! When you’re about to select a CMS, you must ask yourself this question.
What else other than content population it will provide me, and how much will it cost?
When you’re comparing between CMS’s you must pay attention to where will you be able to find extensions for it, and how much will it cost. I’ve passed by many CMS’s that it is free of charge, but to find a simple addition you’ll have to pay for it, and it is really expensive.

Security

Nobody would like to risk his website, nether its content. This also applies on your customer, if his website has been hacked, he will get back to you asking for help, or support. In most cases this will be a nightmare for the customer, and probably for you. When you’re about to select a CMS make sure it has good security treatments, user groups, and of course everybody who is working on it has his own username and password.

Documentation, and community support

When you or your developer falls into a trouble with the CMS, and you don’t know how you can solve it, you’ll be doing one of the three things:

1. Contact the CMS’s Support.
2. Look in the manual or the documentation of the CMS.
3. Find the solution in the community support (Forums), or post your question there.

It is pretty important to make sure that you’ll lost alone in the dark when you face a problem, before deciding to use a CMS you must make sure that they have a good documentation that you can find solutions through it. Also you must make sure that there is a good base of users who is using this CMS as well, because mostly you’ll find a lot of answers through the support (Forums) of the CMS.

Things to avoid when you’re selecting a content management system (CMS)

As I’ve mentioned above, there are some important factors that you should place into consideration when you’re selecting your CMS, but in the other hand there are some items that you must avoid, in order to make a correct selection:

Going with popular CMS

When you’re looking for a content management system don’t put you focus only on popular ones, you might find a CMS that has some limited features, but in fact it has a real focus on these limited features and they will be just enough for your customer. Knowing your requirements is the first thing you should know, before even looking for a CMS, after that you’ll need to find one that covers all your requirements. Just remember best is not necessarily complicated.

Neglecting the real purpose of the CMS

There are many varieties of content management systems, and each one of them has a specific purpose that it has been designed to serve.
For example vBulletin has been designed to act as forums, ZenCart has been designed to act as a shopping cart, or e-commerce software, also this applies on WordPress, it has been originally designed to act as blogging tool, or articles management system (regardless most of companies, and developers are using it as content management system). All of these systems can be considered as content management systems, but each one of them has been designed for a purpose. First you must know what your customer’s requirement is, then start finding the proper CMS.

Build selection of a friend’s opinion

Building a selection of a content management system based on a friend’s advice is a big and common mistake. When you’re about to make a selection of a content management system, this has to be built from your own conviction, according to a good study of alternatives, and requirements you’ll really need. Always remember this word; your friend’s choice is not always the proper choice.

Not doing research

This is another common mistake that most of people falls in it, before selecting a content management system; you must go through a number of scientific steps:

1. What are the requirements that your customer’s need?
2. What is the content management system that will cover the main requirements?
3. If you’re about to add more extensions (Plug-Ins, modules), where will you be able to find them? and how much will it cost?
4. Finally, Will you be able to find someone who will be assisting you if you had any troubles?

Doing a simple research before selecting a content management system will save you a lot of hidden costs, surprises, and time delays so make sure you do it before even looking for a CMS.

Allowing the developer (or the technical guy) to select the CMS

As a matter of fact the developer has a very limited knowledge about business knowledge, and also they can’t measure how much a user interface is friendly. Allowing your developer to select the content management system will assure you the best functionality, but you’ll sacrifice the friendly user interface. Selecting a content management system must be built according to a user experience, just internet user, and not an internet professional.

Just focus on the what not the how

When you’re looking for the most proper content management system, don’t just trust what they are saying in their features page, you’ll need to examine how much is it easy to do it, put yourself in the customer’s shoe and see will it be easy for him administrating the website, or will it be a nightmare taking hours from him to add or edit a page, or a news post.

Conclusion

It is pretty easy to select a content management system (CMS), but using the scientific way will save you the risk of time, money, and reputation. Also selecting a good CMS will get you more satisfied customers. It is really important, don’t neglect it. Now the choice is your!

If you have any comments, additions, or even corrections please post them in the comments in order to spread the experience to everybody passing by this article.
Your feedback is really appreciated!

Website in Many Languages

Your current website is using one single language, and creating another version with another language is not that cheap, besides you’ll have to worry again about your design, and codes. What about something that would take around 5 minutes implementation besides you’ll not have to touch your design files, or even your core code files.

Google Translation Tool

A few years ago Google has launched a translation tool, which everybody can use it for translating words, paragraphs or even an entire piece of content, and soon they got more advanced by providing link translation where you can provide them a URL and they got back with its translation. A few months ago I found something which is really interesting, I found that you can install a small piece of code and then you’ll be able to have your website in many languages, without any advanced implementation, or even worrying about the design changes. All you have to do is to place a small piece of code to the very top of your HTML page.

Is Google Translation Tool accurate?

As we all knows that Google translation is a human based translation which is not 100% accurate, and usually it gives just traditional translation, but having something is better than having nothing at all, besides by time they are advancing and one day you’ll be able to rely on their translation.

Will the translation tool sends the users to the proper language page?

No, the visitors of your website must select the proper language they want to use, because basically this is not a feature of your website, it is just something that can provide more languages.

What about flash files, and image files Will they be translated?

Simply No, the tool translates only the textual content, which means that you’ll not be able even to provide translated images, or flash files.

What about the Right-To-Left Languages, will the translation do the HTML page direction?

Yes, if you select a language with right to left direction (eg. Arabic Language), then the tool will switch the direction of the page, and might mess your design, if it is not prepared. To test your HTML you can place this (dir=”RTL”) attribute to the <HTML> tag and see what the page will look like.

Will the Google translation tool mess with my design, or code files?

In many cases, especially with Right to left languages unfortunately yes it might mess your design, but in most languages no it will not (eg. English to French). But

Ok, I’m convinced where can I obtain the code?

To obtain the translation to your website, all you have to do is following the steps below:

1. Go to Google Website Translate page By Clicking here
2. In the website you’ll find a number of steps (mostly 4 steps), set them according to what you want to have in your website, the steps are as follow:
   – Type of translation: You can set it as entire page, or just a section in your page.
   – Language: where you can select your website language.
   – Optional Settings: This contains three elements; Languages you want to enable for translation, display mode of the translation area, and some advanced settings.
   – The Code you’ll need to place in your website.
3. When you finish adjusting the options of how you want the translation to function, just copy the code provided, then paste it where you want the translation bar to appear within the <body> tag. If you want the translation to be available for all pages, simply add the translation code to all pages of your website, or to a shared page among your website.
4. Now you’re finished adding the translation to your website, and it should be looking like this.

Some concerns about Google Website Translation

1. The translation provided by Google Translation tool is very traditional (Due to many human corrections), which means that you must use native and correct language (Spelling and grammar), otherwise you’ll have incorrect translation, and of course it will impact your website trending.
2. There are some other translation tools, like Yahoo Babel Fish, and Microsoft Bing Translator, to be honest I didn’t tried them myself in order to be able to compare between them and Google translation tool. If anyone has tried them, please post in the comments section about the experience.

Final Conclusion

If your website consists of small pieces of content (Such as corporate website) then you may need to try Google Translation tool, otherwise if your website has many content, and maybe articles, in this case I don’t really recommend you use this tool because most of the translations will be wrong and of course it will affect your website trending.

If you have any Comments, Additions, or even corrections please post them in the comments in order to spread the experience to everybody passing by this article.
Your feedback is really appreciated, please contact me for any additional information [Mohamed Adel Mohamed]!

Will it support my code files (ASP.NET or PHP)?
Will I be able to take my money back if I found it worthless?
Will they provide me a good and reliable after sale services?
Many questions you should be asking even other than the three listed above. In this article we will know exactly how you can select the best hosting provider according to your budget.
I’ve tried many hosting providers since 2006 some of them was a big cheat, and some of them was good, but now I know how to select the best cheap, and powerful hosting provider.
Now we will go through the most important questions one by one:

Question 1: Will the hosting supports my code files?

If your files are based on Asp.net they the Linux platform will not be suitable for you, and you’ll not be able to use it, and you must use Microsoft Servers platform. And if your files are based on PHP technology, you still can use Microsoft Server platforms, but it would be much better, and reliable to use Linux platforms according to its stability, and maintainability.

Question 2: Will the hosting supports money back guarantees?

It is a very important thing to know that if you found the hosting is worthless, you still can take back what you’ve paid. Also this shows that the hosting provider is really trust their service, otherwise you’ll take your money back.

Question 3: Do the hosting provider have a good, and quick after sale services?

In many cases, let’s say 80% or 90% you might need ask the support for some items, it might be very simple things, and some other times its really huge and vital things. If the hosting provider responses are slow, or not reliable, then you’ll find yourself going in an endless loop looking for the solution yourself, and usually you’ll not be able to apply it yourself.

Question 4: A nightmare called Upload / Download, Will the hosting provider allow extract, compress feature?

Consider your code files are a lot (Something link WordPress, or DotNetNuke) and you want to upload them. By Internet nature your ftp program will fail at some files, and even if you’ve recalculated the files and re-uploaded the failed files, you’ll have your installation fails. To avoid something like this you’ll need to upload everything in one single compressed file, and ask the support to extract it. In this point you must make sure your hosting provider allows you extracting compressed files over the server.

Question 5: Will the hosting do Files and Database backup regularly?

Another important question to ask is: will the hosting do a regular backup for the files and databases? The importance of this comes from the point of the nature of the websites and hosting, this is a virtual machine and your website is being controlled remotely, and you can’t protect it yourself from remote threats (Include hacking attempts and misbehaviors of the users), in this case re-uploading the files and database might not be the proper solution, because your files, or database will be older than the one on the server. In this case the most proper solution to have a regular backup (daily for example) for your website and databases, and you can restore it easily. Just make sure the hosting provides regular backup, and the amount of the restore is a kind of cheap.

Question 6: Do my website has a fixed IP?

If you’re using a hosting provider with fixed IP, you’ll be able to access your website using this IP, regardless the domain is currently pointing to the hosting or not. The importance of this item shows before launching the website, or on the phase of creating and tweaking the website. By the fixed IP you’ll not have to point the domain to the hosting and finally have many visitors comes to the website and find nothing there. The importance of this item also appears very clear when you’re doing a migration or update to the website, you can work on an environment with just an IP, and in the same time have your visitors comes to another version.

Question 7: What is the hosting Bandwidth and Disk Storage?

Another thing you should be asking about, what is my limitation in bandwidth, and what is the storage allocated to my website. It is not necessary to have a huge hosting where you’ll use a small part of it, but you must estimate how much will you use, and know the answer of this question, Will the hosting be enough for me or not?
Hosting disk storage or disk space is the amount of megabytes (or gigabytes) allocated to your hosting plan.
Hosting band width is the amount of megabytes (or gigabytes) allocated to your hosting to transfer from the server and client per month.

Question 8: How many domains I can use in the same hosting plan?

When you first go into the websites game, you’ll find the need of a hosting that allows you to have many domains to be hosted.  At this point appears the importance of making sure your hosting allows this, just ask about this, if you’re planning not to have many domains then just skip this part.

Question 9: Do the hosting provider has any HIDDEN-FEES?

Many hosting providers claims that you can have unlimited everything, but in fact you’ll be paying additional extra fees to have it. For example a hosting provider might say that you can host unlimited domains, and when you buy the package you find yourself have to pay some extra fees for each additional domain you want to host. This is an important question to ask, Will the hosting be asking me for any additional fees? Or is there any very small stars describes that it is not really unlimited?

Hosting Providers I’ve used and do really recommend

If you’re looking for a good and reputable hosting provider then first you should go through its features otherwise you’ll stuck with for an entire year, then you’ll be worrying about how you’re going to migrate your files to another one. Below you’ll find some hosting providers I do really proud of, and in my slight opinion they are the best you can get:

1. DreamHost – PHP Hosting
2. DNNMart/Database Mart – Windows Hosting  

Later on I’ll be writing more about these hosting providers, one by one.
All Comments, Suggestion, or even corrections are welcomed through comments in order for everybody to gain the knowledge.

Most of people can’t differentiate between email marketing and spam; persuading that the spam is exact the same is email marketing. Here we should differentiate between the safe email marketing and the illegal email marketing which is also called spam. In the next few points we will know exactly what Email marketing is and what is spam, and also we will know the difference between each one of them, and which one we should be using.

Spam, or Illegal Email Marketing

The definition of Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately [Source Wikipedia]. This means that we have 2 factors if they comes together then the message will be counted as spam. The two factors or elements are Unsolicited and Indiscriminately.

Talking by Examples

Now let’s talk by examples: Consider that I am willing to send an email advertising campaign, and I’m intending to send a message to many people who I don’t know them, in this case the factor of the unsolicited will be present. Considering each one of the mailing list has this message and I don’t know him, also he don’t know me then the other factor which called indiscriminately has been present. In this case the entire message or advertising campaign will be counted as spam. This is briefly defines the real meaning of spam messages.

Safe Email Marketing:

The definition of email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience [Source Wikipedia]. Safe email marketing means that I should have the following factors; otherwise I’ll be counted as spammer. The first factor is the integrity relationship between me and the person who I’m sending the message to, the second factor is saying something that is really beneficial to the person who receives the message.

Talking by Examples

Now let’s talk by examples: Consider that I’m willing to send an advertising campaign, and I’m intending to send a message to many people that I really have a relation with (eg. Friend, relative, client, organization… etc), these people will not have any objection receiving a message from me and at the same time I’ll avoid my message to be considered as unsolicited, so I’m in the safe side. Also if I have a number of people that really interested in a product that I’m selling in my website, and I’ve sent them some good news about this product; in this case they will be really happy knowing the good about their favorite product, by this I’ll give a positive impact to the person who receives the message and will avoid the indiscriminately factor.

From here we can start talking about how to make a successful Email Marketing Campaign

Now as we know how to make a safe email marketing campaign, a question comes into a mind. How can I collect emails and use them WISELY.

Collecting Emails

Collecting Emails and use them for your email campaign sounds really difficult and complicated, but in fact it’s easier than what you would imagine. In the next few lines you’ll know how to make your first mailing list:

Your Personal Email

It’s a treasure having a lot of emails in your email contact list and practically you don’t use them unless you want to send them a message. Why don’t you open your contact list, export the emails to a text file or whatever you want, then send all of them an advertising email related to you.

Friends of your friends

Another treasure having the contacts of your friends, first you can ask them to provide you with their friends, and once you have the list you can add it to your own list.

Websites that you’re dealing with

In our virtual life we have a lot of websites that we are really interested in, and we frequently contacting them. For example, myself I have some websites that I know their administrators and I know they won’t mind sending them an advertising campaign related to my own website.

Clients and business relations

If your website provides services or goods that you sell, and you already have some clients, make sure they will not miss your advertising campaign, because if they bought something from you they might want to buy another thing.

Newsletter subscribers

Most of website owners are neglecting the newsletter subscription script on their website. It tells the visitor all the good news without even revisiting the website. Imagine that you have visited a website liked it, and then subscribed to its newsletter; they will tell you what is the new frequently without worrying that you have to visit the website daily for the new deals.
Now we know how to get our subscribers to our newsletter campaign, another question comes, which is, How I’m going to send the email campaign.

Sending Successful & Safe Email Campaign

Once you have your mailing list ready to go, and have your email message prepared comes a question, how am I going to send the email campaign and assure it goes to the inbox, not the junk folder?

Email Campaign websites

There are many websites that allows you to simply import your contacts, create a message, testing the performance, then sends the message to the subscribers. I’ve tried some of them but myself I like to see the client’s recommendations, and also try the services then buy it if I am happy, In below you’ll find the most three successful companies provides Email Marketing.

Conclusion

Sending a safe email campaign is not as complicated as many claims, but at the same time it’s not easy, because there are many restrictions you must avoid, otherwise your activity will be counted against you.

All Comments and suggestions, or even corrections are welcome.

When you’re about to go to a job interview the first question you would be asked is please tell me what you’re doing. Sometimes the question would be, please tell me about yourself, most interviewers says please tell me what’s in your resume in brief. All these questions falls under one simple question which is impress me!

Now we know that the most important thing is to impress the interviewer about your personality, your career path, what you are and also what do you expect yourself in the next 3 or 4 years. As an impressing factor during the interview you should be taking into consideration how you clothes, simply you’re placing the look you need to impress the interviewer into consideration.

Common Mistake

A common mistake that most of people falls into it which is the cover letter, most of people sends nothing that says what is inside the message, consider the manager who is reviewing your email that you’ve sent saying “Hello, Please review attachment Resume”. If you were the only one who sends this email, its ok, no problem, but imagine if you were one of 50, or maybe 100 other people applying for the same opportunity!

Let’s imagine the following example, you are a company owner and you need to hire an accountant for your company. Simply you’re going to place an online job vacancy and then you’ve received about 30 or 50 employees applied for this position, and most of them didn’t supplied anything but “Hello, Please check my attached Resume”, In your opinion how many resume you’re going to review? 10, 20, at max you’ll be able to review 25 in around 2 or 3 hours, after then you’ll get bored right?

Great now consider that the resume number 30 in turn came with a cover letter “Place the boring factor into consideration”. The manager will be able to know everything about you briefly before even opening the attachment, isn’t this important to ease the mission to the one who is receiving the resumes? From this we can conclude that impress me, comes from the beginning when you apply for the job, not from the start of the interview.

Other Things you should put into consideration that makes the cover letter much more important.

1. The manager would get bored from reviewing many emails, and many resumes, the cover letter pulls the manager attention and makes his job much easier.
2. The cover letter forces the manager to know everything about you before even review your attached resume.
3. With a good cover letter you can impress the manager, and push him to review your resume, if not for more info, but just for curiosity.

Important elements you must place in the cover letter

Some important things you should be covering when you’re creating your own cover letter. Years of experiences and primary goal are one of the most important things. In the next few lines you’ll know what the most important things you should focus at.

Where did you know about the job?

A manager would be interested knowing where you saw the job vacancy in order to know where he should focus his advertisement next time, and also to know which the most powerful way to get employees hired.

What is the job title you’re applying for?

Some agencies are requesting many job positions, such as marketing manager and marketing staff, placing the job title in the cover letter would ease the entire process for the manager to know what and where you’ve applied exactly.

What is your current job title (If it’s not the same as the one you’re applying for?)

Sometimes the job title you’re applying for is different than the current job title you’re already carrying; telling something like that would save a lot of questions when you go to an interview.

Some information about your education

Everybody have something he proud of, when you’re applying for a new job, one of the most important things you should proud by is your education, for this you should mention it in your cover letter.

What are the field of expertise, and how many years of experience you have

It’s strongly important to show the manager that you’re the one and only person who can carry the liability of the job, and the best way to do so, is to tell your experiences briefly and how many years you’ve been using them.

Is there any tools, or templates I can use to create my cover letter?

As I’ve searched the internet I found some tools, but they are not 100% covering everything, you can surf the internet for many templates and cut out the things you want then create your very own cover letter template. Also you can check this cover letter generator, actually this tool has been created by one of my friends and he has developed this tool according to the main concept we’ve agreed on.

Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or even complains.

Advertisement mechanism

If you ever tried to use Google Ad Words, against Facebook ads you’ll find that Facebook is pretty focusing on a specific criteria of people, which makes your advertisement more and more focus on a specific type of people, and ignore the layer that you’re not interesting at.

Google AdWords

In Google adwords you can select the country and the keywords for your advertisement, but it was missing many other factors due to the anonymous identity of the users using the Google search, or the websites they are visiting.

Facebook Ads

For Facebook ads you can set the age range that can see your advertisement besides their interests and hobbies, that’s in addition to many other filters you set for your advertisement. This makes Facebook more successful advertisement tool than Google adwords.

Why Facebook ads became more reliable?

Saving my campaign budget

When I’m running through Facebook advertising campaign I can set the age range and also peak on the interests of the person who can really see my advertisement, by this I will be able to focus only on the people will really benefit me by clicking the advertisement, in opposite of Google AdWords which depends only on the keywords.
For example if I’m targeting a business man who wants to buy computer laptop with a cost of $4000, what would benefit me if a kid with 10 years old sees the advertisement then clicks on it and finally cost me his useless click? In my seamless opinion I think this was one of the reasons Google lunched Google+.

Where Facebook is getting the search filters and criteria

Facebook is storing many important information such as age, country, city, and even the interests and hobbies of each person, so if I’m about to make an advertisement targeted to a new hip-hop album I’ll be sure 100% that my advertisement will be seen only from the people who likes hip-hop music. This is by selecting the age range, then place in the likes some hip-hop music.
Google AdWords doesn’t allow this in the advertisement campaign so they has to know these things and collect more data about the user. Now they knew that not all internet users has a Google Email (Gmail) and even some of the Google Email (Gmail) users is not opening it daily wise, so they can collect the information they want, and even if they have all the internet users using Google Email (Gmail) , and they are opening it, this is solving the problem of the age range, but it’s not solving the problem of the interests, and hobbies.

Conclusion

From this point Google realized that they really need something they can rely on in the next generation of AdWords, Having something they can collect everything about the user of Google Email (Gmail)  and have the advertisement goes to the targeted uses only. And stay on the top of online marketing chamber.

Where can I find WordPress plugins?

Basically WordPress comes with no plugins installed to it, but you can easily find plaugins and add-ons for free, but do you know what is WordPress plugin or add-on?
WordPress plugins is a piece of code which extend the capability of WordPress to enable a feature which is not originally added to WordPress, and it almost enables you to do anything you can imagine.

Where can I find these plugins?

Finding a proper plugin for WordPress is very easy, all you have to do is just go to http://WordPress.org/extend/plugins/ and you will be able to find the plugin you are looking for by browsing the categories, and the most interesting part of it, it is all for free.

WordPress requirements

WordPress is based on PHP which is almost installed to any hosting server; this means that you can install WordPress within almost any hosting server. All you have to do is to make sure about the following:

1. PHP support at your hosting: as mentioned previously WordPress is based on PHP, which means that you must be able to run PHP scripts on your server to have a successful installation of it.
2. Database server: mainly WordPress is being installed on MySQL server, which is also capable at most of hosting companies.
3. File Permissions: to gain a successful installation of WordPress, you must make sure about the files and folders permissions, basically you will not need to set these permissions, but sometimes it’s required for some plugins to work properly.

WordPress features and positive sides

Free Stuff

WordPress originally comes with very basic things like limited themes and plugins, but if you are looking to extend its feature and having your specific look and feel you will not face any troubles, because most of WordPress stuff can be found easy for free whether it is plugins or themes.

Customizing look and feel of WordPress

If you want to have your own PSD website design implemented to WordPress, first you should know how the design will be implemented. Customizing WordPress look and feel is called themes. Simply the theme is the same of your HTML codes converted, but with some PHP codes within it. In WordPress you are creating a number of themes (Index, single post, page, archives, etc) all of them have almost the same codes, but with changes according to the item theme itself.

Easy to understand control panel

WordPress comes with a very strong control panel; within this control panel you can control almost anything within your website, although it doesn’t look the same like your website, but it is easy to understand.

Friendly URLs and Permalinks

WordPress has a great feature which is being called permalinks or permanent links, within this feature you can handle how you want the URLs to look like. This really helps in obtaining good SEO friendly and human friendly URLs without any additional plugins or add-ons to WordPress.

Community support

WordPress forums have great resources to help you to get most of it. Within this forum you can find almost anything related to WordPress, from first time using WordPress to how to install it, and how to create your own theme, or plugin.

 WordPress negative sides

Although WordPress is a great application but it has a number of shortages which will describes below:

Look and feel separation

WordPress is a great tool but one of the less negative sides of it is the separation of look and feel. While you’re working on the backend you will not be able to see what you’ve accomplished unless you open another browsing window to see what the effect of your change.

Using WordPress as content management system

Although of the success of using WordPress as content management system, but it still has some shortage. In using a CMS you will need some additional features to be enabled like news portion or events calendar, which is complicated to accomplish within WordPress. Also you’ll find it some sort of complicated to focus only on pages.

Dynamic Areas, and specific plugin using

It is kind of complicated to install a dynamic piece of content within a specific area unless you determine it in the theme itself, for example this means that you will not be able to place a content rotator beneath the content within a specific page unless you create another template and use it.

Conclusion

WordPress is blog publishing software, and also it can be used for limited websites as content management system, but because of its strong community support and free stuff it can be considered as one of the best applications made ever.

DotNetNuke is meant to be content management system (CMS)

Basically DotNetNuke has been designed to be content management system, but what is content management system?
Content management system formal definition is a web application designed for creating, and controlling dynamic HTML content and their associated images. Simply anybody can handle his own website without any need of an HTML specialist involved in the website authoring activity.

Selection of free modules attached to DotNetNuke

In addition to that, DotNetNuke comes with a good selection of modules which powers the users with a good selection of additions that he can achieve. But what is a DotNetNuke module?
Simply DotNetNuke module is a small self contained code script which is being executed under the DotNetNuke umbrella, It also gives the ability for the user to do something which can’t be established by just HTML, or it eases the mission for the user to establish what he wants, like the news module, events calendar module, links module, announcements module.

DotNetNuke requirements:

To lunch a successful installation of DotNetNuke you need to make sure about number of items:

1. Hosting operating system: DotNetNuke must run on a Microsoft environment with .Net framework enabled, if your hosting doesn’t support ASP.NET then you will not be able to install DotNetNuke. Before making the decision of using DotNetNuke first you must make sure about your hosting.
2. Database server: DotNetNuke use only Microsoft SQL database, you can’t use any other types of database like MySQL, Oracle, DB2 databases, or even Microsoft access database.
3. File permissions: before running a DotNetNuke installation you must make sure that you are able to change the file permissions. DotNetNuke creates a number of files and files which is essential within the installation process, so if you can’t change the file permissions whether by yourself from the hosting control panel or by contacting the hosting support team, then you will not be able to make a successful DotNetNuke installation.

DotNetNuke features, and positive sides of it

Multi-Portal or Multi-website

By using DotNetNuke you can set many portals to run over the same website (by using sub domains, or even domains), this means that you can create as many websites using the same installation of DotNetNuke and same database as well, this will save you time, and resources.

 DotNetNuke look and feel (frontend and backend)

One of the most great things in DotNetNuke is the same look and feel in both frontend and backend, unlike other CMS’s the first thing you will notice  that you will see the same thing as same as the visitor of the website, but with more controls which makes you able to change everything in the page.

Easy to understand control panel

DotNetNuke comes with easy to understand control panel, by another meaning you are two or three clicks away from reaching the action that you want to perform.

Page management

At the top left corner of the screen you will find all the page management controls such as Add new page, edit current page, or delete current page, that’s besides the other controls which gives you the ability to import the content from another page or export it to another page.

Module management

At the middle of the mini control panel bar at the top you can find what you can add to the page, you can place a module and also you can set where it should appear.

Common tasks or website settings

At the top right corner of the screen, within the mini bar at the top you will find the essential buttons which you can manage the website features through it. You can handle the website properties, user management, and the roles of each group of users.

Types of administrator user groups

DotNetNuke has two levels of administration. One of them called admin and he/she can control the primary features of a portal, and the other is called host and he/she can has the same features of the admin besides the features of handling all the portals within the same installation.

Customizing the look and feel

If you want to have you own PSD website design implemented to DotNetNuke, first you should know how the design will be implemented. Customizing DotNetNuke look and feel is called skins and containers. The skins are responsible on the layout design which is applied to the main website and dividing where the dynamic content should be. The containers are responsible on the content, or module design itself.

DotNetNuke negative sides

None Friendly URLs

DotNetNuke by default doesn’t provide friendly URLs, which is bad for SEO, but you can purchase a module which will help you in setting friendly URLs.

Community Support

DotNetNuke has a good community support, but not at the same level as WordPress or Joomla. If you were looking for information you will find it of course, but you will need to pay some efforts to reach to it.

Free Modules

DotNetNuke has some free embedded modules attached to it. But if you can’t find the module you want; unfortunately DotNetNuke has very limited free modules. if you were looking for a specific module you’ll find it for sure, but you must to pay for it. Also if you are of the kind who is not purchasing before trying you’ll find it hard to get to your proper solution.

Conclusion

DotNetNuke is a great content management system, which is based on ASP.NET and it also comes with the source code. Although the negative sides of it, it stills a great CMS which you can use for your website(s).

First Reason – Limited content area Vs Flexible content area:

If you’ve tried the HTML generators before, first problem you’ll be facing is the area reserved for the content, which is the most important thing at any website. When using a generator you will lose control over this area if you added a bigger piece of content, you will find yourself restricted with a fixed height or width of content.

Second Reason – Website maintainability and updating

With time goes by, mostly you’ll find yourself in need to do a small change in the layout of the website, adding a new place for content area, or even divide the content area to contain two elements instead of one element. Using a custom hand-code html will provide you the ability to change the website layout easily. For example; if you want to move an entire piece of content to the right instead of being on the left, all you have to do is  switch the placing of the parent tag, unlike the generated HTML code, you’ll be forced to start slicing the website all over again.

Third Reason – Complicated HTML tags

Understanding your HTML code, knowing how things work allows you to easily update, change in your HTML page. But if you find yourself lost within column spans and row spans of course you’ll lose control over everything and might ruin everything by a very small change. Conversely if you have a nested tables within the HTML page you’ll find yourself comfortable editing your HTML page, this is allowed only in the custom hand-code HTML.

Fourth Reason – Ability to use CSS (inline or external)

The main purpose that people is using HTML is for structuring and layout, CSS is what gives the HTML the look and feel, if you used an HTML generator finally you’ll find yourself adding the styles manually to all the elements one by one, unlike the custom hand-code html you can create a number of predefined classes and you can call them so easily, and so professional.

Fifth reason – Less Code = smaller file size = fast loading website

The first impression is the last impression. If a visitor comes by your website and found it too slow, first thing he will leave your website, second thing he will decide not to waste his time at it anymore. HTML generators is resulting a huge HTML codes at your website, all of these makes the client’s browser struggling to load your website as it should be. The custom hand-code is more organized, more reliable, and of course human edited code.

Sixth reason – Images and backgrounds

HTML generators doesn’t know whether this area should use the image as image or background image, it set it to be images by default, after that you’ll find yourself forced to determine it manually from the HTML code itself, and of course you might ruin everything by this edit. Custom hand-code HTML is a human thinking who knows how this image is going to be used before being added to the HTML page.

Seventh Reason – hand-code provide better SEO results

Proper HTML with external CSS style sheets provide more ability for search engines to focus on your content and areas of importance without need to dig through all kind of meaningless HTML codes, and this is provided only in custom hand-code HTML

Conclusion

At this point we can conclude that hand codes is more powerful than using an HTML generators, we know that it takes more time, but at the end it will save you more time than using any HTML generators.