As an Internet user, you would definitely agree that there is nothing more annoying than a website taking ages to load. Since Internet is being used widely throughout the world, server needs to plan a responsible role so that people can have an easy access to the websites. At times, you can say during peak times some servers do give and the required bandwidth limit fails to load a website. There can be various reasons behind a server crash and each reason can have a different possibility and with every possibility you need to come up with a desired solution to get the server issue resolved. However, so many issues, possibilities and solutions can end up developers a lot confused.

You need to understand that your website’s performance depends on how you control things. The major reason behind the problems can be configuration of host server. As said earlier, the reasons behind your website downtime can be many. For instance, if your website is running on a shared server, it is natural for your website to go slow because of the other websites running on the same server. In this article we will discuss a few tips to reduce server load and save bandwidth. However, you need to keep in mind that these tips might not be applicable on all of the websites but if they do not work on one of your websites does not mean they won’t work on any. The following techniques can help you a lot in getting the desired results.

Hand your business cards out every opportunity you get.

1. Image Optimization

As mentioned earlier, half of your bandwidth is consumed by the images used on your websites and optimizing those images can help you a lot in reducing your issues with the server load. Not only optimizing is necessary, you need to resize them as well in order to shrink the size of the images. .bmp are the most heavy files so avoid using them completely on your website. For your website the first preference for your website should be either .JPG or .GIF files as these are optimized for Internet already.

Also, do take a look at the KBs of your pictures and if you really want to get rid of server issues, no image should be larger than 10Kbs. If your website contains animated pictures, you might find it difficult to adjust within 10 KB but if you can, you will for sure see remarkable differences. If you are thinking on how to convert these pictures, you do not have to think a lot as numerous software are available online for resizing of pictures.

2. Replacing Images with CSS

Heavy images are one of the reasons behind making your website slow since they consume a lot of bandwidth. So while designing a website you need to think intelligently and act wisely. One of the things that can help you a lot in reducing server load is making correct decisions when it comes to using images. You can use CSS code instead of having a proper background image.  CSS code can help you a lot with images and you would not have to use have images in order to fill your website’s background.

3. Using Shorthand CSS Properties

The reason why CSS files are considered to be heavy is that they are pretty big with a lot of spaces. CSS shorthand properties are a great option if you really want to have mercy on your server and save it from the load it is carrying. With the help of CSS shorthand you can reduce the amount of code contained in any CSS document and it will eventually help you in reducing the server load.

4. Invaliding File Hotlinks

Hot linking term is something which you need to understand carefully. It is basically linking images from one site to another which means if someone is linking your website’s pictures on his website; he is using your bandwidth eventually. So you are paying for yourself and for someone else too. You can simply stop this by disabling file hotlinks. This won’t let anyone steal your images.

5. Taking out Unnecessary  HTML Code, Tags And White Spaces

Well, the most important thing here to do is compressing the size of your page and this can simple be done by removing extra spaces in your HTML document because even a single space can mean extra page size. If you know about HTML, you must be aware of the fact that it contains a lot of unnecessary spaces which can be removed so you need to get rid of them. These spaces will make your pages bigger without any specific reason and this will increase the load and will waste bandwidth. You can simply use wordoff tool to remove unnecessary spacers.

6. Utilizing JavaScript and AJAX Libraries

Ajax and Javascript are closely related to each other because Ajax is a technology which helps a web page communicating with Javascript without having to load the page again and again. A website may contain the same content here and there so there should be no need to request a reload every time. Ajax will help in reloading the stuff which is actually required and it will lessen the usage of bandwidth to a great level.

7. Using GZip to Compress HTML and PHP

As said earlier, CSS and HTML can consist of a lot of spaces and breaks which are not really required and they take a lot of bandwidth so you need to compress your HTML and PHP with GZip. Also, make sure that browser understands the compressed content because it will get activated on server only if the compression on the server is activated.

8. Hosting Files with Free Images/File Webhosting

At times, it is important to share heavy files but these files can take a lot of your bandwidth so easy way to share these files is through host the file on free or paid image/file hosting websites such as Flickr, Pikasa, PhotoBucket, ImageShack. You can later on place the download link on your website. However you need to make sure that your service provider allows you to do that. If yes, you can save a lot of bandwidth.

9. Avoiding Attachments As Much As Possible

It is better to give the links on your website instead of sharing actual files on your website. If you will host a copy of the file on your website it will increase the load on your server and will also use a lot of your bandwidth. Apart from saving your bandwidth and your server from the load, it will also save your time of uploading file.

10. Using Cache RSS Feeds

RSS is an easy way to distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. Usage of cache RSS feeds will definitely reduce the usage of bandwidth.

11. Applying Website Caching

Website caching is a great way to retrieve data from storage. In this way you will not have to generate the information all over again if you need it. Enabling website caching on your website will allow the end users to read from your servers once and for the rest of time the backup will be used until its expiration date.

Final Thoughts

A true call-to-action website is the one that loads quickly. If you really want your website to be a success with huge traffic, you need to spend a lot of time on optimizing of your website. As you can see from the above mentioned tips, a few changes here and there can cut down on server load and save bandwidth.

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Whoever is on the Internet and reading this post might know what blogging is, and many of us are regular blogger too. A research showed that almost 75% of Internet users read blogs on daily basis which shows how popular blogging has become. Different people seek different benefits from blogs. These benefits can range from information, entertainment, learning, inspiration to advertisement and social interaction.

A decade earlier, blogs were considered nothing more than a random diary of a person who likes to write about himself and his opinion every now and then. Now, blogging has become an important source of business and money-making and since it has a huge market, it is now being used as a marketing tool. Companies and individuals are taking advantages from the popularity of blogs and it is a good way of promoting your business as well.

So Many Things in So Little Time

The blog business requires a lot of traffic for its popularity and to reap benefit for the owner. Increased traffic means increased benefits and popularity of your blog. However, either we are on-job employees or freelance graphic designers, maintaining your blog in a way that it catches and then retains reader’s interest in it can be pretty difficult at times. For those who are managing a full time job and still want to maintain their design blog in a catchy way, following tips will be very helpful..

Create an Interesting Topic

Blogs are for readers and the only thing that can attract reader’s attention is an interesting topic. Bogs give you freedom to discuss anything or everything in them. Keeping in the bounds of your field of graphic design, you can discuss the whole universe and the interesting topics never run out.

Even if you write about some serious issue or are up to teaching something, the key is to explain it in an interesting way. Always keep in mind that blogs are meant to be informal and intimate. However, informality does not mean that you go out of limits and turn obnoxious. Content attracts the largest chunk of readers to your blog, so keep it as catchy and friendly as possible.

Share the Relevant Insight

Well, in order to make your blog catchy for your target readership, you need to share the interesting insight through your blog. This insight can be tips and suggestions related to graphic designing, reviews of products and services of the field or it can even be your personal opinion about a certain topic.

Also, when you are writing something, it should have a meaning and whatever you would want to share, make sure it has a point of view. This will not only attract a reader’s attention but it will also create a respect for you in the eyes of the reader.

Add Images and Pictures

It is not possible to have a graphic design blog and not having images or pictures in it. It should be rather said that a graphic designing blog is absolutely incomplete without having cool images and pictures in it. Images attract readers to the content and (in the case of design blog) images a great source of design inspiration for the readers. If your blog will have a reputation of having a collection of great images, it will tempt the readers to keep coming back for more and they would clamor for every new post on the blog.

Design Your Own Icons and Theme

Your graphic design blog should show that it belongs to a graphic designer and not just any other person. For that you can make a custom designed theme, out of some original design of yours. Also, you can design your own customized icons of Twitter, RSS and Digg etc that will add to the uniqueness of your blog.

Involve Your Online Business Links

If you want your design blog to be successful, you need to work on your networking. If you like someone or admire them for their skills, you can mention them in your blogs. You can promote their ideas or link your blog to their blog. The good thing about blogging is that you can market yourself and that too without handling and financial issues. Imagine marketing yourself without any finance, isn’t it interesting?

Give Importance to Keywords

Let’s talk sense here. You want your blog to be catchy right? This means it is important for your blog to show up in search engines more frequently. For this, you need to give importance to keywords. Use the keywords that you think users will use in order to find a relevant topic. You can also check your Site Stats on Word press to check out the words that have been used by readers which lead them to your blog. Also, never forget to add tags in your blog. The advantage of having a blog is that you can use a keyword as long as you want which can make your blog more visible during various searches.

Write with Facts and Figures

Do not write about anything unless you are very sure about it. Your blog should make sense to the reader so write about something which you know. You can take help from the bundles of informational data available on the Internet. Never write on something which is not clear to you as blogs are a kind of open forums, you won’t be able to have a healthy conversation with the readers if you are not fully aware of the topic which can give a negative impact of your blog. Facts, figures and stats catch human interest, so it is good to add them in your content where suitable.

Make your Blog a Part of Your Signature

In order to attract readers to your blog, you need to advertise it. The best way is to make your blog a part of your signature. If you are interested in blogging it is pretty obvious that you are someone who spends a lot of time online. You must be sending loads and loads of emails everyday for one thing or the other. Add your blog’s link into your signature. This will surely increase the number of visits to your blog.

Stay Up-to-Date

Keep yourself and your blog updated on what is happening around your world. People should find something new and interesting to read every time they read your blog. If they really like your blog they will bookmark it in order to read it whenever they want to. But that does not mean that your blog will be bookmarked forever. If you will fail to keep it regular and up-to-date, you will lose your bookmarking. So by keeping it updated, you have become a part of social book marking.

Avoid Too Much Marketing

Promoting yourself every now and then can be a little annoying for the reader. Do not utilize every opportunity to market yourself. Give your readers a break too and discuss something else. Remember people are not visiting your blog to learn about you. They are more interested in reading some useful articles which will increase their knowledge so do provide them with that.

Cozy Writing Style

If it is a blog, you should not be using a language which is way too formal. For blogs, informal or comfortable language is always better. As said earlier, people can relate to blogs and their content only because the writing style is simple. Your writing style also depends on your target market. If you are targeting corporate class then obviously you will have to use a bit of formal language. If everyday readers are your target market then make sure you stay connected to them by using every day tone.

Be Genuine

If you really want people to like and appreciate you, you have to sound genuine in your blogs. Sounding fake or making up various stories to make things exciting will put off the reader and there are high chances that he would not visit your blog again considering it to be useless. If you are posting your blog on social sites, in a way you are promoting your blog on social media which is a great thing. Thousands of readers will go through your blog so be genuine to them.

Serve the Purpose

The main purpose of blogging is to market yourself and the main purpose of marketing is to develop long term relationships between your business as design house or yourself as a designer and the general public/ potential clients. Once they will start liking your blog and will trust you, they will eventually end up buying your products or start marketing your blog which will be very beneficial to you.

Active Archive

Give readers an opportunity to read your previous work as well so create a good archive. Readers should be able to read previous topics and discussions. Also, make your blogging site more interesting by making the site a little attractive. People should want to stay on your website.

I hope all, or some of these tips prove helpful for you and your graphic design blog in future.

Happy blogging!

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There is so much information flowing all around the Internet and everyone of us is being bombarded with it every day. The enormous amount of information intake leads us to its expulsion after making an opinion on the basis of provided material. The complex network of World Wide Web, in general, and blogging, in particular, enabled us to express our opinions through this unique medium. However, most of us do not really know that our opinions based on our observation and expertise can actually pay us!

There are thousands of blogs on the Internet and millions of people are indulged in blogging. People blog, on the basis of their opinion, knowledge or expertise about a particular subject regarding a particular industry. Similarly, there are hundreds of design blogs on the Internet, managed by designers and artists. Such blogs have tips, techniques, tutorials, how-tos and general informative articles which turn out really useful for a great number of readers. However, here we are looking at it the other way round, i.e. the many ways an owner of a designing blog can benefit from it well.

There are some easy techniques of filling up your pocket with money generated from your blog:

Sell the Unused Space

The most common and quickest process of earning money from your blog is to sell the unutilized space on your page. The question which must have come in your mind is how to sell it? Well it is not that difficult as it sounds. Google Adsense is the key to put the first dollar in your pocket without even moving an inch from your seat.

Google Adsense allows you to post its ad on your website. The ad will be consistent with the kind of content you upload on your site. However, earning comes when your reader clicks on the ‘Ads by Google’. The more the user clicks, more it generates money in your account, but there are some precautionary measures one needs to take before getting greedy.

Story of selling your free space does not end here as there are few more tricks of the trade are going to finance you. If your blog generates good traffic every month then you can sell ads for your blog site on your own. It will eliminate the middleman’s role and enables you to come up with your own pricing formula based on your readership or traffic. The above method is certainly a good way of earning money but it is a bit slow and takes month and even years to reap benefits.

Affiliate Your Blog

There is no harm to affiliate yourself with others especially when this relationship gives some money in return. Affiliate marketing is one of the few popular techniques to make your site earn money. In this kind of marketing your blog serves as bridge to let your readers route to other direct selling sites. The common examples of such direct selling sites are Amazon, ClickBank and Link Share etc.

This kind of advertising is usually called CPA (Cost Per Action). The affiliate in this kind of advertising sends potential buyers to direct selling merchants. Then if the potential buyer purchases something, the host web sends some profit to your blog as well.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds are not new in the Internet world. It allows the subscribers to receive the information for which they have attained the subscription. In order to do some online business you can have RSS feed ads. There are a lot of companies working in this area and can give you the ads on the basis of your CPM (Cost per Milli).

Sell your Services

On your blog site you have the opportunity to market your own services along with the general content. In the case of design blog you can make your reader or potential client aware of your abilities through your design. In this way your blog can act as your online business portfolio. You can also put your portfolio of previously done tasks which can be helpful in marketing your services.

Premium Price for Premium Quality

It is possible to charge your readers for your premium quality content. There are numerous websites which upload quality content and to let its reader read the complete article, they ask for a monthly subscription. This kind of monetization requires experienced and high quality content for which your reader feels like giving his money to you. The design blog can upload tutorials of different design software which can be sold once become popular.

Job Announcements

Finding a job through your blog can be a real treat for your readers. Job announcements are all time hit technique to increase your traffic as well as ensuring the reader to re-visit the site for more opportunities to look on.

You can contact to various job portals to post their jobs on your job announcement section by proving your worth through fancy statistical data of daily traffic. The task can be taken up to the next level by approaching for potential employers for specific industry keeping your traffic in mind to get more job advertisements.

You Tube-ing

You Tube is the biggest video data platform with videos from all around the globe. It is easy way to make your design blog look more fancy and furnished with variety of content. According to the nature of your blog you can upload videos embedded from You Tube. These videos can be interviews of famous designers or artists and also  tutorials which will certainly give your blog stats a boost as people find videos more interesting than reading the content.

Reader’s Opinion

All the above mentioned methods will certainly give your website a good boost in traffic and some weight to your pocket. The increase in traffic can give you benefit in so many ways. One of its benefits is to let your readers respond to paid surveys. There are various paid surveys available which you can post on your blog and with every complete survey you will get paid. However, in order to have those paid surveys you need to have subscription of that paid survey site.

Reader’s Contribution

Putting a donation button on your site does not harm you but gives reader an opportunity to support your blog through their generous donation. This is very good and easy way of earning some money. The reader would like to support you if you are supporting a particular cause or you have been vocal about some social issue.

Sell Design Templates

Design websites can really take advantage from this technique by putting up various design templates or Word Press themes for sale. Here you can benefit from a huge number of new bloggers looking to buy some fancy templates for their websites.

E-Newsletter

It is new yet very useful technique to keep your reader updated and having one more opportunity to earn money from your online business. In your e-newsletter the chances of selling the space available on it can earn you good money with less effort.

Usually, you just need to make a newsletter, put some very useful content on it and let your potential client know about its quality. The ad you will get from this technique will be dependent on the number of readers or recipients of it, so make sure you have the good number of readers to present before your client.

Final Words

The aforementioned techniques are not only useful in making money but these will serve to increase your page rank as well as traffic. The key to get benefit from all these techniques are to bring some extraordinary content for your blog. The content which should be novel, have your target audience’s interest and most importantly gives reader an insight about a particular issue or concept.

Earning money from your site is not difficult as long as you play good with words and kick every opportunity at right time to score a goal.

Happy blogging!

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Time management is very important in every profession; in fact it is the most vital element of professionalism. History may vouch for the fact that success comes to the people who have managed time better in their personal and professional life. You have to meet deadlines to be a successful professional and this can only happen if you are good at time management.

When it comes to freelancers, time management is of utmost importance. Unlike employed professionals, who have a regular job, freelancers have all day and all night to work – meaning plenty of lose time. Thus freelancers cannot afford to lose their track on time management. They have so many random projects and time management is very important for them in order to finish them all.

Freelance designers have a lot to deal with and since they are working on their own, they have to handle everything by themselves. They have to keep on looking for various projects, they have to deal with or meet with clients, keep a record of financial bills and a lot more. So, if they are not good at time management, chances are that they will lose a lot of potential customers and existing good clients.

Even a small job like designing business cards can take a lot of time, be sure to account for all your time and bill your client accordingly.

Following are a few time management tips for freelance designers. By following them, they can surely manage their time, work and other tasks easily:

To-do List

If you really want something productive from your freelancing, creating a to-do list is essential. You must enlist the most important things and prioritize the tasks that you have to do, first thing in the morning. Since designing is all about creativity, so when designers do have ‘creative revelations’ they start designing and forget every other thing around them. So by the end of the day, they realize that a lot of other tasks have been missed out. In such cases a to-do list can help freelance designers a lot in getting things done timely.

Fixing Your Daily Schedule

Working constantly can get boring, however; you need to realize that you can spend a calculated amount of time on relaxing too. You should divide your time and also make a schedule of your daily tasks. Remember, just because you are not reporting to anyone does not mean that you have to be disorganized. Fixing schedule is important but you will have to follow it strictly too. If you really want to be successful in your field, staying organized can be your key to success.

Multi-Tasking

Multi-tasking is one of the essential traits of a freelancer. You should be able to handle multiple tasks at one time. As a freelancer, you should have more than one project going on. Since approvals are required from clients, so when you are waiting for approval from once client, you can always work on the other projects and utilize your free time wisely.

Give Importance to Quality

Keeping a balance between time management and quality of work is very important. Even if you are in a hurry to submit the project and to meet the deadline, you should be able to take out time to check the quality of the work as well. Mange your time in a way so that you can always have time to double check your work before submitting it.

Time Management Tools

Easy and effective time management tools are available in the software market. You can always get one and schedule your tasks on that. Google tools are a great option for those designers who use Google almost everyday. In this way you can manage your tasks in a better way. Plenty of websites are available on the Internet especially for freelance designers to help them manage their tasks well.

Organizing Your Workplace

If you really have to work well, you have to act professionally even if you are working from home. Your work space should be well-organized and comfortable.  A disorganized workplace is never comfortable to work on. You should have all the important tools that are required for your designing on the desk and everything else should be placed perfectly.

This will also bring out more productivity in you. Since designers are creative, creative people have their unique way to making their surrounding comfortable. You do not have to organize your work space in a boring way. You can always add on your favorite pictures and other decorative items just the way you like.

Have Your Own Deadlines

Because you would be working from home, chances are that you might end up working all the time or maybe you won’t work at all. You would have deadlines to meet but, you should have your own daily deadline too. For instance, you will not work after 6 pm no matter whatever it is. Finishing work at a decent time is important and don’t leave it to “next time”. But make sure you stop working once you have reached the deadline for the day and if you have learn something about time management till now, you would be able to meet your daily deadline.

Enjoy Your Own Time

Everyone needs relaxation, especially freelancers. You would only be able to manage time if you are enjoying some quality time away from work. Sometimes designing 24/7 can be very stressful. In such cases, one should leave work for sometime, get freshen up, meet friends and then get back to work with a whole new feel. Always keep in mind that you have to manage your work in a way so that it does not de-motivate you. An urge to continue working should always be there and it can only happen if you are happy with the way you are handling your work.

Avoid Excessive Usage of Social Networking Websites

Yes, they are entertaining, they keep you connected with the world however, and they are quite addictive as well. Once you log in to social networking websites, you end up wasting a lot of time on them and then your important work gets delayed. Do use them but after you have finished your tasks for the day so that you are not distracted from your work. These websites are a great way to relax but then again they are a major cause of time wastage of students and professionals as well. So, if you really want to manage your time, avoid logging into them every now and then.

Avoid Distractions

You have to be strict with your friends and family. Since it is not an office job, people do not consider freelancing as a serious job. Your friends and family might think that you are not working at all and they might disturb you at anytime of the day. Make sure you make them realize that you are working on some serious projects and even if they invite you on something, you need to avoid distractions while you are working. Distractions may delay your important tasks and once such tasks are delayed, the entire schedule gets disturbed and you cannot afford to do that.

Break down the Projects and Deadlines

If you have a lot of projects from the same client or if you have multiple projects, it is important for you to break down the deadlines and discuss them with clients. You cannot manage so many things in on go so why promise something that cannot be delivered timely. It will also affect the quality of your work.

The Bottom Line

Being a freelance designer can sometimes get very tedious and it can be interesting too. It depends upon your approach and they way you handle the time on your hands. You can always be good at time management. All you need is focus and planning. You will have to plan things once and later on just follow them.

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Blogging has become the most important and widely used tool of new media technology. The concept has, once again, enabled the Internet to become a two way communicating medium. Since the advent of blogging, people from all walks of life have started pouring into this and have initiated blog sites of their particular expertise. One of its kinds is a Design Blog which is very popular among the graphic designing community and has significant number of readers.

There are numerous design blog sites working around the globe disseminating important information about layout, design, style, colors and everything that comes under the sun regarding designing. However, the mushroom growth of such blog sites has lowered the quality of design blogs, which is why I have come up with important tips to enhance the readership and quality of your design blog.

Your design blog gives customers an idea of your skills that you’ll use when creating their brochures and other marketing collateral.

Homepage Do’s and Don’ts

‘First impression is your last impression’, is a universal rule which can be applied to anything that is presented to one or a number of people. Your design blog is also one of those things. You may be a good designer or a design consultant and you are managing a design blog on the basis of your fine expertise, however; if you don’t pay heed to the nitty-gritty of your blog, you will not be able to achieve what to aim to get from this blog.

Do’s

The site has to be impressive in design and layout that the visitor should feel like exploring it and staying it longer than expected. It is wise to give the reader some insight about your blog on homepage. Writing a special note on describing your purpose of your blog site, achievements and statistical data on homepage can give a very good impression about the site.

Don’ts

Site moderator should avoid heavy design templates and flash animations which requires excessive bandwidth. It is wise not to confuse your visitor by putting hotchpotch design templates. Dark colors which make it difficult to read should be avoided too.

Suggestions for a Better Content Posting

After the design, the most important thing is the material available on your blog. One cannot just upload anything which comes in his/her mind. Following are some preemptive measures to be taken for better content posting on your blog:

• Use descriptive titles of articles/post

• Avoid writing slang language

• Use most searched key words in your posts

• Bold the important words/keywords of the post

• Pictorial postings are always high ranked

• Avoid irrelevant picture posting

The Tips

Post Regularly

It is highly advices to post regularly because the more often you update your blog, the more often your pages are indexed by the search engines, and the higher your ranking climbs. This makes blogs inherently more search-engine friendly as compare to websites. Websites don’t get updated for weeks, if not months, whereas many bloggers post new content on a regular basis.

Socialize Your Blog

Socializing is not new to bloggers but associating your blog with social media website is not practiced as yet. It is recommended to post a link of your blog site on different social media websites e-g Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc. There is an option on Twitter which allows different users to follow your updates. It is very efficient way to divert some traffic from big sites to your blog without much hassle.

RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds is unique tool to keep visitors loyal and up to date with your blog. Every time you upload something on your blog site RSS allows the subscribers to get update on their email or mobile. This method is helpful in retaining and maintaining the traffic on your website.

Give News to the Readers

It does not seem very significant to most of bloggers but having a small news section on your site is very useful. The news section should not be political but it can be regarding to design. It can give news about anything for example about different blog sites, bloggers or new in design industry.

Graphical Presentation

Displaying a graph representing the traffic on website is significant marketing tool. You can place a graph which depicts the actual or exaggerated traffic of website can index your site at better position in different search engines. It is good to mention the source of that data e-g google, or alexa.

Let them Contact You

It is important to make it very easy for visitors to contact you. Make your About page very clean and easy to read. Put some real human names on the website, and even consider adding a photo, so that people know who they’re addressing. Similarly, make it easy for readers to comment on your posts.

Easy Navigation

Most of blog owners do not pay attention to importance of navigating on their blog. They do not tend to transform the unwanted clutter into useful links. The main navigation tabs are sometimes difficult to find because just to make it fancy they make the sliding menu. It does not work all the time. It has also been seen that there are undesired tabs which just make the reader confusing.

Working Links

Most of people do not really take care of their blog site which should not be the case. It is a proper business but people just upload any template and do not remove the junk out of it. It leaves many broken links on the site which gives very negative impression about the owner. So it is highly advisable to remove unwanted links or at least post only those links which are not broken.

The Conclusion

Running a blog is unique and new way of earning money. It has provided a platform to all those who have something to say and there is a lot more for those who likes to consume the information available online. The above mentioned tips are general recommendations which can be applied to any blog site. There are many blogs who do not care about these tips and still are popular but not everyone has the same luck so it’s better to take precautions and suggestions.

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Social Media Marketing

You’re hearing a lot about Social Media as a tool for marketing your business, but like most people, you can’t seem to get past your skepticism. You’d like to try it out, but you don’t know where or how to start. Do you start with your immediate friends who use Facebook or MySpace? There’s no better place to let friends know about your business. Maybe you should just jump in cold turkey with the other thousands of tweeps on Twitter. Before you do anything, you need to understand exactly how social media can benefit you and your business.

Why Social Media is Important for Your Site or Business

• Social media is all about establishing and building relationships
• Promote your brand: don’t spam
• Social media is efficient
• Fastest way for information to travel: good and bad
• Social media is cost effective
• Cheaper than traditional advertising, you are in control of content
• Social media is interactive
• Allows for feedback from existing/potential customers/clients

How do Social Networking Sites and Social Bookmarking Sites Differ?

Currently, Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo are rated the top three social networking sites, although Bebo is reported to be losing ground. Initially, these sites were simply places for friends to gather online and share their daily experiences, but now they are stretching themselves beyond their intended purpose. Facebook, for one, has caught the marketing wave and doubled its effectiveness by including Fan Pages and static html pages. Marketing videos are also becoming a popular way of promoting businesses. This is not to say one should depend solely on microblogging sites for marketing. Usually, these sites are limited to a few hundred friends, many who may not necessarily be interested in your particular product or service.

Bookmarking sites offer the ability to categorize and organize other websites by using tags. This enables you to share your collection with other members. They take what they like from you, add it to their own collection, and the action continues to repeat. There are close to 1,000 bookmarking sites to choose from. Here are a few of the more popular bookmarking ones. Setting up accounts with these sites is a must for promoting your business brand.

1. Twitter
2. Digg
3. Reddit
4. Stumble
5. Yahoo Buzz
6. De.licio.us
7. Tweetmeme
8. Mixx
9. Propeller
10. Slashdot

These will vary according to what lists you refer to when checking out the Top 10 or 20 site.

Where to Start Your Social Media Marketing

It’s said that starting anything new is the most difficult part. Obviously, with so many places available to market yourself, you may find yourself overwhelmed with choices. Twitter is the most obvious place to start. Millions of visitors are sending out their 140 characters of important information dozens of times each day. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Hollywood star, or the one of the top web hosting provider around. Learning how to use Twitter to market your business is too valuable to be dismissed.

Once you begin building relationships and creating communities, there’s no telling what can happen. What many people don’t realize is the it’s actually the information you tweet that draw people to your site. Once they determine if your information is worthy of passing on, then it’s more likely you can get them to purchase your product or service, even a web hosting provider can have success! You might also be interested to learn that research shows 78% of business comes from peer recommendation. Good news travels fast on Twitter, but so does bad news.

Niche Sites

Many sites offer forums where members can share problems they may be having about their businesses. These would be considered niche sites as only people having a common interest would gather for discussion. For instance, if you offered free hosting services, you might engage in discussion regarding how to access your site through the c-panel. If you are a freelance blogger, you might share what you know about WordPress. The list goes on and on.

Blogs also offer prime opportunity to enter into a relationship by leaving an appropriate comment. Often, the most valuable information takes place between commentors rather than the blog owner and the reader. Sometimes if a situation occurs where someone has had a bad experience, it can be re-examined from another point of view.

More and more businesses are realizing the value of marketing themselves by means of social media. Every business depends on building solid relationships on a personal level. Sharing your knowledge with others and helping them solve a problem is the beginning of attracting potential clients/customers. Marketing your business through social media channels is the surest way to spread the good news about your business in the shortest amount of time. Social media marketing is the advertising wave of the future.

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After done an really creative and professional tutorial we must want to spread our work for get some extra and quality traffic, because most of the design lovers will learn from tutorials, they always helping to know about techniques and tool usability. Today we are with most famous and helping resource who respect your work and share to other for learn about following area:

3D GameStudio , Delphi, Studio Max , Adobe After Effects , Adobe Audition , Adobe Flex Tutorials, Adobe GoLive , Adobe Illustrator , Adobe ImageReady , Adobe InDesign , Adobe PageMaker , Adobe Photoshop , Adobe Premiere , Apophysis, Application Skinning, ASP Coding , AutoCAD, Avid Xpress Pro, Bioshock, Blender 3D, BodyPaint, Bryce , C++ General, Cinema 4D, Corel Painter, CorelDraw and Corel PhotoPaint, CSS Stylesheets, General Website Development, Halo 2 Bridging , HTML Coding, Java Development, Javascript, Macromedia ColdFusion, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia FreeHand, Maya 3D, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word , PHP Coding , Pinnacle Hollywood FX , Pinnacle Studio , PSP Modding, Ruby On Rails, Sony Vegas, Swift, Terragen, Ulead Cool , Windows XP…

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Fonts always are one of the essential part of Graphic and web designs, when working on design projects weather your designing for the web or for print its always essential to have a good collection of fonts.

Today me playing around that issue for our respected readers and visitors, presenting an creative roundup about free fonts, I found “50 Extraordinary Creative Free Fonts for Designers” where many of them are very good for font creation, creative graphic typographic works, unique web design titles and so on. But hey – we are here all becoming/experienced designers, I don’t need to tell you where to use those fonts, I am here to find that stuff for you!

Feel free to leave a comment we would love to know which one is your favorite font and any fonts which you know for share to other designers, you may share here for help those who finding more creative and professional fonts.

Dirt2Death Font. by KeepWaiting

frozenpandaman font by weknow

joenine font by weknow

Just Old Fashion

Exus Pilot by mauroh

Fonce Sans Regular Trial by $liquisoft

PT Banana Split

Musicae’s Fonts by musicae

Fonts by iamkristina

Maya Hieroglyphs Fonts by rejino

MDRS-FD01 by mindriders

Gembira font by weknow

Sunday Morning Garage Sale by Lydia-distracted

netz Demo by art-e-fact

Angelic War – Free Font by KeepWaiting

AvantGarde ALT by depression02

7 Fonts by lilia-kltz-schfr3

Denne – At The Tea Party by deathmunkey

Apogee Rounded Sans Beta by Mef

Fertigo Pro

Sovereign Regular

MOD Font

Allstar Regular

Dirt2 SoulStalker Free Font by KeepWaiting

Akashi

Plasti Puzzle Font by Rodier

Free Vecto Font by maxix

Nordic

ABC Font Typeface Version 2

Hacjiuza Dirty – Free Font by KeepWaiting

quarters typeface by iamsla

Megalopolis

Existence Light

Contemporary Modern Font

Birdman

K R A K E N – B E T A by Twiggy8520

Sliced AB by atobgraphics

trashco.ttf-download by loosy

Evolution True Type

Vintage

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Everyone want more visitors on your website is a very multifaceted process with a lot of variations, there is many ways as examples: SEO, valuable content, link exchange and advertising on different resources.  As per today need of most design and technology based bloggers who want to promote design or tech related news and want to get more traffic we presenting most active resources where you can submit your news, articles, design posts and technology news for get valuable visitors.

We just need your response on this valuable list which is verified and you may get help for more traffic, if there is another resource you should leave as comment.

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Andriod (Google mobile operating system) market is growing day by day as this OS giving lot of user friendly applications, some of those listing today as our visitors and readers demand. Android on its way to bringing flashier features to Android phones.

Android is a software platform for mobile devices, powered by the Linux kernel, initially developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance. Please feel free to leave comments for other useful Android Applications worth our time.

cab4me

Utilizing Android’s Google Maps application, cab4me lets users call a cab to their location with a single click. By using GPS capabilities to locate not only the user’s current location, but also the location of the nearest cab company, theapplication can initiate a call to the cab company with a mere click on the map. The application was developed by Konrad Huebner and Henning Boerger.

AndroidScan

Scan is an Android application that finds pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode.

Advanced Task Killer Free

Advanced Task Killer Free is just what the name states, its a task manager for Android. It gives you the power to easily kill applications with one click, that run in the background, stealing bandwidth or battery time. It has the following features besides the application settings menu:

• Click to select or unselect the app
• Long press to activate pop-up menu
• Menu>Settings>Notification bar icon, AutoStart, Ignore

ASTRO File Manager

ASTRO File Manager is a very powerful file manager for Android. It really is a must on your Android device when it comes to managing files on your sdcard. It’s packed with features, and here’s some of them:

• Download any file with browser
• Browse / create / extract zip files
• Back up and restore public applications to the SD card
• Create shortcuts
• Send files as attachments
• Thumbnails
• Multiselect
• Search
• Image, Text, HTML Viewers

Phonebook

Phonebook has a cool user interface for viewing and managing your contacts. It displays your contacts with pictures and contextual information such as coming birthdays, missed calls and unread text messages. Phonebook comes with a nice landscape view, a dialer and a quick access to your favorites and most called contacts.

Locale

Brilliant and simple program to handle profiles automatically. Locale is a scriptable, location-aware settings manager. A wide range of triggering events are available like battery level, dates, times, GPS coordinates and calls from specific people can all be used. Some third-party programs even integrate with Locale, increasing the available options…

BreadCrumbz

BreadCrumbz’ unique approach to navigation enables a new kind of user-created geo-content. Our aim is to develop a platform and a community where people create, store and share geo-content that is meaningful to them with their friends (“find my house”, “where I left my car at the airport”) or with the world (“best mountainbiking route in the area”, “find my cool shop”, “to your hospital’s department of suregery”, etc.).

Commandro

Commandro shows where are your friends REALLY are and what are they’re doing at the moment. We use GPS location information in order to make sure that you and your friends have actually reached the planned destinations, and, hence, will display 100% true real-life event and location information with regards to your and your friends.

Facebook for Android

Pretty decent way to read and post status updates. Update your status, post pictures, check out your friends profiles, make comments all from the comfort of your device. This is a must have if you have a Facebook account.

ASTRO File Manager

ASTRO File Manager is a very powerful file manager for Android. It really is a must on your Android device when it comes to managing files on your sdcard. It’s packed with features, and here’s some of them:

• Download any file with browser
• Browse / create / extract zip files
• Back up and restore public applications to the SD card
• Create shortcuts
• Send files as attachments
• Thumbnails
• Multiselect
• Search
• Image, Text, HTML Viewers

Opera Mini

Opera Mini is an Android app that serves as an alternative to Android’s default web browser. It is a extremely lightweight. Opera Mini loads most websites much faster than Android’s Browser loads the full HTML site. Extra speed is also accomplished by Opera compressing and routing the page through their own servers.

Cooking Capsules

Cooking Capsules is the first smart phone utility of it’s kind. Cooking Capsules are for anyone who wants to simplify the process of cooking. Simply “watch” a very short cooking show, “shop” with the grocery list, and “make” using the handy step-by-step recipe directions.

PicSay

PicSay is a small app that lets you edit and modify photos on your phone. You can add speech balloons, any of a range of text styles, and images like hearts and stars to your photos. Or if you’re feeling less whimsical, you can modify the picture’s contrast, tint, hue and saturation levels; flip and rotate your image; and do other basic editing tasks.

Live Chat

Chat, flirt and discuss with other users in this Live Chat application. You can create your own chat groups and create a profile with photo.

Twidroid

This Android based Twitter app is available in a free and a pro version. Both of Twidroid’s offerings provide most every Twitter function you might need, from the basic viewing and sending tweets, following and unfollowing users, viewing profiles to the more advanced: saved searches, URL shortening, photo posting, and geo-location support.

aTrackDog (SD)

aTrackDog keeps track on what applications you have installed and/or backed-up on your SD-card and notifies you in case a newer version is available. Manually checking the applications you have installed for a new version would be a pain, and here’s a easy solution. If you go to their website you can also see a overview over the 100 most popular programs installed by its users, which is a really cool feature. The program also has some exciting features such as:

• Track new version for backed-up apps
• Install, delete backed-up apps
• Export app list for sharing
• Browse top 100 popular apps (already mentioned)

Moov for Android

It calls itself a mobile interface, but in reality Moov is a launcher. From the dashboard view, slide open the keyboard and begin typing the first few letters of your MP3,application , address book contact, and so on to get a list of search suggestions popping up on a separate screen. Moov even helps you out by offering tabs that let you search your term in the publisher’s other apps: Fbook, Quickpedia, Local (Yelp), and Dial Zero.

iSkoot

iSkoot is a free app for Android phones that puts Skype on your mobile. Click to call or chat with your Skype buddies! Make inexpensive international calls with iSkoot, as well, through SkypeOut. This is similar to iSkoot app for iPhone.

ShopSavvy

ShopSavvy is all about the deals. Enter a product name or barcode (using the keypad or the camera), and ShopSavvy identifies the product, searches the Web and local chain stores for the best prices, and collects reviews of the item.

Barcode Scanner

This is a really fun and nice to have application, many android applications around the web are publish with a barcode image, I’m guessing most of you have seen these floating around. And in case you didn’t understand what exactly it was, here’s the answer. Scan barcodes on CDs, books, and other products, then look up prices and reviews, or search for a word in a book and find where it occurs. You can also scan QR Codes containing URLs, contact info, calendar events, and more.

• Easily scan barcodes
• Look prices and reviews for the scanned items
• Lots of future potential
• User friendly

Searchify

Searchify lets you perform translations, calculations, unit conversions, wikipedia searches, calendar entry and more just by typing in searches into the main search box on Android (1.6 or higher).

You can use Searchify just by hitting the search button and typing – you don’t need to open an app at all.  So it can replace your wikipedia app, your calculator, unit convertor, and it’s the fastest way to do all these things.

BeamReader

I’ve tried many different PDF readers, and none suited my needs or was easy enough to use. Then a friend tipped me about this application and it was exactly what I was looking for. View PDF files and e-mail attachments in their desktop quality. Documents are rendered locally on device.

• Fast full fidelity rendering
• Intuitive granular zoom and navigation
• Text wrap view
• Encrypted and password protected PDFs
• Text search
• Bookmarks
• Embedded links

Dolphin Browser

Now here’s a nice and feature rich browser. In my eyes it’s the best browser out there for Android. It sure beats the standard browser that’s for sure, and it really improves the mobile surfing experience. It’s fast, lightweight, supports tabs and lots more. Here are some of the features:

• Gesture
• Sync G.bookmark
• DL YouTube video
• Multi touch 4 Droid & Hero& cyanogen
• Save cache 2 SD
• Tabs view
• Theme pack support

Ringdroid

Ringdroid app for Android lets you create free ringtones from your favorite songs. Just load a song onto your SD card, select start and end points, and save it as a ringtone, alert or notification. You can even record your own ringtones with Ringdroid.

Google Voice

Google Voice is a new service from Google that gives the user his own personal phone number. You then can use your Google Voice number to make phone calls or send SMS messages from the web. And the Android app lets users do the same from their Android device. This means users can make and receive calls and text messages on your Google Voice number through your phone. Google Voice also archives all voice mails and SMS messages online, so you will never lose that important message.

ActionComplete

ActionComplete is a high-tech to-do list for your Droid phone. It makes it easy to organize your tasks and appointments. You can even set reminders that will pop up based on where you are, allowing you to remind yourself of certain tasks at the office, others at the home, and so on.

Robo Defense

It starts like your normal tower defense game. You build mazes using several upgradable towers to try to prevent the enemies from moving from one side of the room to the other. That’s where normal ends with this game.

eBuddy IM

Many want to stay connected on MSN or Facebook chat while they are on the move, well now they can. With this eBuddy Android client one can stay online on MSN, Facebook, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, GTalk & MySpace accounts while on the move. The chat function is very organized and easy to keep track of.  Personally i like this IM much more than Meebo because I haven’t had any problems with it (yet). And with Meebo i had connectivity problems all the time. Anyway, its features:

• Fast and reliable messenger
• Chat with multiple MSN, Facebook, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, GTalk & MySpace accounts
• All IM friends in one buddy list
• Run in background
• Messages sent as data, not SMS/Text

One Nightstand Pro

One Nightstand is your new favorite bedside clock, but it’s so much more than that.  One Nightstand features the usual time and date functions, but also includes current weather, upcoming calendar events, alarm, and the great “Let Me Sleep” function that lets you set a sleep timer that shuts off noises from your phone (all configurable) for a certain amount of time.  In the free version, you can set the 1 hour “Nap” timer, and in the full version you can set from 1 to 12 hours of peace and quiet.

NetCounter

NewsRob is a RSS/Atom reader that syncs with Google Reader. If you’re like me and make use of public transportation to get to school or work and would like to keep updated with news from your favourite sites, this is the perfect thing. Like I mentioned it syncs with Google Reader and we all know how we love Google services. Some cool features are:

• Two-way background sync
• Download full & partial feeds including the web pages and images
• Offline capable (You can download your feeds via WiFi then read them when not connected to the web
• Share link by email/twitter/delicious
• Share article in Reader
• Star articles
• Locale Integration
• Hide and Auto-delete read articles
• Supports your Google Reader categories and labels
• Save fetched feeds and web pages on your SD card

WaveSecure – Mobile Security

WaveSecure is the complete mobile security service that lets users protect mobile data, ensures privacy in the event of theft and enhances the possibility of recovering the phone. Track SIM changes, lock, backup, wipe & restore your data.

Puzzle Blox Arcade!

Puzzle Blox is a casual game with a lot of puzzling and fun for your mobile. It is inspired by games like Tetris, Bubble Breaker and Bejeweled with a different twist. Literally! Clear the levels just by tapping, twisting and tilting your phone.

• Unique touch & tilt game play
• Colorful graphics, beautiful themes
• Unlimited Arcade! game mode
• Features a demo of 2 more game modes
• Global high score leader board
• HD graphic mode for Motorola Droid and other WVGA devices
• Simply addicting

Places Directory

Yet another Google Labs product for Android. As the name implies, Places Directory allows you to browse nearby places in categories like Restaurants, Movie Theaters, Hotels and Banks. You’ll see distance and directions to the destination, and if you tap on the listing, it’ll show ratings and photos. You can also call the business or view its location on Google Maps.

• Mini-Map
• Location Picker
• My Favorites
• Photo Gallery
• Compass Direction
• Keyword Search

Ringdroid

This application is actually really cool. It lets you manipulate song tracks, so that you can use songs from your music library as ring-tones. Whats great about that? Well say you want the ring-tone to start 1min 30secs into the song, and last for 20 seconds (chorus maybe?), this application makes life easy for you.

• Supports MP3, WAV, AAC, MP4, 3GPP and AMR files.
• Song editing
• Creating ring-tones (duh..)

Spotify

You guessed it, its the official Spotify client which enables you to listen to your Spotify playlists wherever you go. You need to be a Premium subscriber to use this application, but I’d say its definitely worth it. You don’t know what Spotify is? Then it’s time you came out of your cave and check out their website. The client has all the features the computer client does (i think), and as long as you’ve either downloaded playlists to be available offline, or have a 3G connection you should be ready to go.

• Stream your favourite music
• Store your offline playlists
• Share your favourite tracks with friends
• A pretty decent Home widget

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