50 Tips To A User Friendly Website – Designing Interactive

Here is a list of 50 things that I keep in mind on every website that I build. Some of these are secrets I have acquired from the best designers in the world, and some of them are standard every day practices. Either way, these tips will improve your visitors experience on your website.

1. Clicking on the logo should take you to the home page;
2. Your logo/site title should be positioned in the top left of the page;
3. Duplicate your main navigational links in the page footer with links to additional, but less prominent pages;
4. Keep your navigation positioning consistent from page to page;
5. Don’t open links in a new tab/window, except PDF’s and embedded documents;
6. Highlight your current location in your navigation bar;
7. Use reasonable sized fonts (12px or larger);
8. Make sure font sizes are flexible (Use em’s or %, not px);
9. Sans-serif fonts are easier to read at small sizes;
10. Serif fonts are easier to read at large sizes;

Full list here: 50 Tips To A User Friendly Website – Designing Interactive

Facebook | Username

Starting NOW, you can choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.

To select your username, visit the link NOW:
http://www.facebook.com/username/

To learn more about usernames, visit the Help Center:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=89

What is Affiliate Marketing? and why do you need to know?

Cool breif find more on his blog: Tourism Smart Marketing

You join a company's affiliate program and once you're approved, you get a special code that you include on all links you have to their site. When someone visits your site, clicks on one of your affiliate links, and then goes to the vendor and actually buys a product or service, you are paid a small commission.

For example, if you were to sign up as an Amazon.com Associate (Amazon calls their affiliates "associates") you can easily use its Associates area to search for a particular product and then be shown the exact code you need to embed an affiliate link on your own Web page or weblog.

This sales model might not seem earth-shattering, but it is estimated that affiliates accounted for a total of $6.5 billion in sales in 2005. That's a lot of commissions!

Remember, the beautiful thing about an affiliate program is that there's no salary to pay, no health benefits, no office to stock, no computer to buy. In fact, a company can double or even triple its affiliates without incurring any cost whatsoever. It's the sales version of "pay per click": affiliates are only paid when the transaction is completed, so there's no risk.

Unsurprisingly, a small number of affiliates generate the majority of sales just as one or two retail outlets will lead their corporations in sales. Indeed, a common figure you hear when you talk with companies that have affiliate programs is that 5% of affiliates generate about 95% of sales.

If you are a tourism business looking for a way to increase online bookings or sales, you should definitely be considering an affiliate marketing program. What better way to empower thousands of other Internet people to help you sell your service or product, and you only have to pay them when you get a new customer!

Tourism Smart Marketing :: Affiliate Marketing