Web design is the art of creating an aesthetically appealing design to represent your content on the World Wide Web. It is the integral part of a website and involves imbibing text and stimulating images, and presenting them in HTML or XML. The inclusion of graphics adds greater dimension to the look and helps support the message.

A properly planned and drafted checklist has got benefits which are manifolds, the primary one being the ability to attract web traffic and make the most of every dollar spent on creating your website. A checklist works like a ready reckoned, which the team members involved in creating the web design can always refer to, in case of any doubt. Be it the content, standards, or the more important aspect of accessibility, it pays to have a clear idea of what you want and how to go about it. When you are at the final stages of giving the shape to your project, there is no room for errors. Remember – web designing is not child’s play. Rather, it calls for people with expertise in the same field. Engaging novices could make things more complicated and time consuming. So, before you begin work on designing your website, take a look at the checklist that would serve you well:

Make it Cost-Effective: People involved with the designing process generally charge on the number of hours that were put into the work. This increases each time you ask the professionals to make amendments to their previous work. Thus, the escalation in costs can be kept at bay if you have a clear idea of what your requirements are. In case you are going to design the site yourself, you can save precious time by having clarity about your objectives.

Highlights of Your Wish-list: It will be prudent to have a clear idea about the sections of your website where the users are likely to spend most of their time. This will help you or the professional web designers hired by you to make the design eye-catching in these specific areas, and help steer clear of any experimental mood.

Well Defined Objectives: Having a good know-how at the outset about the objectives that the web design is expected to achieve gives a clear idea of what kind of web design the site should have. So, have a blue-print of your desired objectives before beginning work on the site’s web design.

Know About CUAV: Basically, any good web design covers four crucial angles namely content, usability, appearance and visibility. By taking proper care of these factors, you will easily win half the battle for your website.

Browser Compatibility: The compatibility with commonly used browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari should be adhered to with due diligence while creating the web design.

So, use the checklist as mentioned above to get that dream web design for your site and reap the benefits of it.

Have you noticed how easy non-writers think writing is? When you’re a writer that can be frustrating.

There are three main things about writing that make it lack the social proof people expect of professional activities.

• It’s intangible – Many people don’t seem to consider writing a proper job, maybe because often writers type away for days with apparently little to show for it. Yes, there may be the occasional article in a newspaper, possibly even a published book you can actually show people. But even then that small book, an object you can hold in one hand, isn’t a good indication of the many hours, months or possibly years of work that went in to actually writing it.
• It’s unpaid – This is true even of successful, established and published writers, people like Zen Habits and Write to Done founder Leo Babauta who still regularly give away his writing on his own blogs and elsewhere. Many writers have blogs they write unpaid and if you’re not paid for something then other people tend to see it as a hobby and an unnecessary indulgence when for most writers creating a blog is a carefully planned career move.
• It’s intellectual – People see hard work as being physical like laboring, or stressful like being a fighter pilot. They don’t realize the kind of mental determination that writing calls for, the inner motivation that’s required to get you writing and keep you going until you actually finish the work.

No wonder writers often struggle with motivation.

Writing is a common dream for people. Yet most people who dream about writing don’t actually do it. Some of them hardly even read. Meanwhile writers who do actually earn a living from their work still struggle to stay motivated and keep writing.

Faced with all this opposition, both external and internal, how can we motivate ourselves to get writing and keep at it?

Here are six ideas that work :

1. Get motivated
   Accept responsibility for you own actions. Acknowledge that you’re the only person who can do this. That if you don’t glue your backside to the chair and first start, then finish writing your article or book, no one else is going to do it for you.
2. Create tight imaginary deadlines for yourself to spur you on.
   Try pretending you only have one hour to write today and that can be a good incentive to get on with it. Or ask yourself what you’d start or finish writing if you only had a month to live.I motivated myself to write a 70,000 word manuscript by telling myself that if I didn’t write it that year I never would. These scare tactics do work and best of all no one has to die in the process.
3. Commit to your writing.
   Work out how much time you can give to your writing and when. Schedule it in your diary it. Make it a part of your routine and keep at it until it becomes a true habit.Now stay focused. If it’s a book you need to be able to maintain your focus for months. For a shorter piece like a blog post or an article you need to focus for one or two hours.
4. Remove all distractions.
   You know what they are. Unplug the phone, turn off your router, find a place where you can write away oblivious to the household duties which are being neglected.Try using a kitchen timer to keep you seated and writing. Set the timer for an hour and write away. When the time’s up have a five minute break then repeat until the piece is finished.
5. Use motivational tools.
   Don’t dismiss Twitter as a waste of time waster or, at best, a simple networking tool. I’ve found it a powerful way to motivate myself and other people. It surprised me too but here’s how it happened.I followed a well known novelist and journalist called John Birmingham @johnbirmingham on Twitter.I noticed that he constantly tweeted how many words he’d written on a project and how many he was about to write. He’s prolific and his word count put me to shame so I decided to try his tactic and see if it helped me.First thing in the morning, I’d tweet:”Three jobs: edit chap two of fiction manuscript, finish short story for the competition, write blog post for Get In the Hot Spot.”Then I made updates on my progress via Twitter, as the day went on, such as:”Chapter two edited and looking good. About to update my blog now. Hope you’ve had a productive morning too.”

   I know this sounds ridiculously simple and unnecessary too, but if it works as a motivational tool, that has to be a good thing.

6. Try co-motivation
   Sometimes on Twitter I’ve challenge other writers or bloggers to a word race if I know they’re in the same boat as me. As we both write more than we would have otherwise, we both end up winning. I’ve found that innocent bystanders who’ve seen my word count tweets are motivated and inspired by that just as I was by John Birmingham.This type of motivation even has a proper name. Appropriately enough for writers it’s called “bookmarking”.

   Basically, you tell someone your goal and then update them regularly on your progress. It may be a friend, but it can be anyone, and it can also be done on the phone, with a text message, face to face, or on Twitter where you don’t even need anyone specific to report too.One brilliant side-effect of this is that as well as John Birmingham motivating himself and me, my progress reports have motivated other people too.

   One man told me that my tweets about writing and my word count have inspired him to start writing again. Another Australian writer Peter Moore @travdude who’s published six travel books, emailed me saying”I’m impressed that you’re knocking out those kind of numbers in a family environment.”

Final word on motivation

Who cares if writing’s intangible, unpaid and misunderstood? We mark our progress in words written and don’t worry that most of them will be removed in the end. We pay ourselves a favor each time we put pen to paper and practice our craft. We wage a war against lassitude and writer’s block on a daily basis and we win.

We just sit down to write no matter how hard it is, because no one else can write it like us.

How do you start writing and stick to it even though it’s easier not to? Please share your tips in the comments.

On the Internet it’s just the same as in real life ~ if you spend time with positive, inspiring people, you’ll be motivated to improve yourself and work harder.

Brrng, Brrng! Got to go now, the timer’s ringing. Have a super duper and highly productive day everyone.

Annabel Candy writes about self improvement at Get In the Hot Spot. She runs a web design company with her husband and manages to stay mostly focused on her writing despite the general mayhem created by their three children. To have as word count race or boast about how much you’ve written, tweet her @inthehotspot

Here are some methods to increase traffic to your blog or website. Some of these techniques will help increase sales as well as hits.
1. Have Your Own Domain – If you use WordPress or blogger, try to avoid using sub-domains or free hosting services. Pay for some web hosting and get your own unique domain name. This will make your website more memorable and encourage visitors to return.
2. Create a Professional and Unique Design with Logo – Code your own template or modify an existing theme for your site or blog. What makes your blog so special if it looks the same as 1000 others on the Internet? Make sure you have a great memorable logo so when people see it; they know it’s your websites. Your design should be clean and simple so it’s easy to navigate. Once you have made it, test it and check everything works, a site with errors will lose visitors.
3. Content is King – You need to consistently write great content on your blog or website. The posts that you make need to be worth reading and have some impact on the visitor. If I am visiting your website for the first time, I want to be impressed and bookmark your website so I return to see what else you compose.
4. Post Linking – When a link is made to your blog from another blog, if activated, it places a link in that blogs comments back to the relevant post. This will help increase back links to your blog and therefore increase traffic.
5. Personality – Do not pretend to be someone you are not as a blogger. Be yourself and do not act otherwise. This is best because your readers want someone to connect with, someone who is a real person and not just a blog with no face.
6. Always Room for Improvement – Always strive to improve your blog or site any way you can. Play around with ad placement, colours and graphics and other features to make your blog more appealing. Ask for reviews to find area’s for improvement.
7. Reply to Your Readers – This means replying to comments and any e-mails that you receive. This is part of your personality and showing that you are a real person who exists and cares about the topic you are blogging about.
8. Real Posts – Ensure that you sound human in your posts. Do not post in the third person. Use words such as “I” and talk about your personal experiences.
9. A Picture – A picture paints a thousand words so why not show your readers who is writing the blog. Upload an image of yourself onto your about page, or if you are not quite comfortable to do that then have a cartoon of yourself made.
10. Comment on Other Blogs – This is a very powerful technique, I know I find myself clicking the link to a person’s website after I have read their comment and this is what you can achieve by leaving your comment on as many other blogs as possible. Blogs that are about the same topic will help you get targeted traffic. Ensure your comment is worth reading and not just a load of rubbish.
11. Question Your Readers – Ask your readers questions in posts, this will help to provoke a response from them. You give them an important role to play and they respond by commenting their opinion. This will encourage repeat visitors to respond to your posts with their opinions.
12. Internal Linking – Linking to previous posts that you have made will create more back links and also encourage readers to re-read or look at some of your older work. Readers of a particular post will be interested in related posts so ensure you link to them.
13. Alternate Text Images – When you use images on your site, ensure that you use alternate text “alt” tags to insert keywords or the name of the image. This will help get the images listed on image search engines and result in traffic from that source.
14. Submit to Directories – Submit your site to online directories. Do this to as many as you can to improve your PageRank. This increased back links to your website and there for you receive higher rankings on search engines. Quality back links are important so try and obtain some from high Page Ranking sites that have similar content to your websites.
15. Image Use – Try to use images when posting on your blog. These make posts more fun to look at and can break up boring text.
16. Join Forums – Join many forums and message boards that are related to your websites content. Place a link back to your website in your profile and signature and frequently post useful information to other members.
17. Keyword Rich Content – When writing articles or posts on your site or blog, ensure you include relevant keywords so that people searching for the topic will have an easier time finding your article.
18. Write Intriguing Post Titles – Ensure that you write intriguing post titles that have keywords in. This is what is going to show up on search engines so ensure your spelling is right and that you would want to click it.
19. Meta Data – Get as much use out of Meta data as you can. Try to have a different page description and keywords on every page of your website.
20. Write a Press Release – Write a press release about something to do with your website and publish this on news sites or press release websites along with sites that are relevant to your niche.
21. Merchandise – Create pens, pencils, t-shirts, mouse mats etc that have your websites logo and address on. Maybe sell the t-shirts from your website however give you the free pens in your local area.
22. Advertise Locally – Place an advert in your local business newsletter or in a local shop. List what the purpose of your website is and hopefully you will receive some interest. Local traffic can really help especially if you are selling something. Visitors will be much more inclined to purchase from someone locally than from the other site of the world.
23. Share a Secret – It is likely that your website will be based on something you have an interest in, so why not share some inside knowledge that many of your readers may not know. Let them know something that has helped you and only you in the past. Curiosity is a marvellous thing.
24. Advert Experiments – Naturally most will want to make some money from their website and therefore adverts will be on there. Try and experiment with your adverts placement to see which gets better results. Do not overload your website with adverts because this will deter visitors. Maybe implement a membership system that removes 50% of adverts when logged in.
25. Social Bookmark Posts Plugin – If you have a blog then get a plugin for your posts that allows your readers to click a button and this will then bookmark your site on digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc. 
26. Ask for Diggs – There is no harm is asking your readers to Digg posts that you have written. This will help increase the number of dig users visiting your website.
27. Ask for Comments – Ask your visitors in your posts to post their comments about the post. If you are not getting as many comments as you would like then anything is worth a try. 
28. Ask for Subscriptions – While asking for comments you may was well ask for other things such as subscriptions to your RSS feed. Ensure there is a big button that can be clicked that allows subscriptions to be made simple and stress free.
29. E-mail Subscription – Allows users to sign up by e-mail so that your blog posts are delivered to their e-mail address. This will ensure visitors do not miss any of your posts.

30. MyBlogLog – This is a great service that shows an image of your visitors on your website if they are registered. There are similar blog social networking sites that can also be used for this.
31. Post Rating – Enable a plug-in on your blog that allows visitors to rate your posts. This is a simple way that does not require registration to enable readers to report on how good a post is.
32. FeedBurner – Using a service such as Feed Burner allows you to monitor the number of subscribers you have. Many readers will be interested to see how many other users are reading your blog and are subscribed to it. Use their publicize services to show the number of readers.
33. Commenting – Try enabling and disabling the “must be registered to comment” feature to see which yields more results. You should find that without registration, more comments will come through; however this does mean that you should implement some spam protection feature.
34. Online Homepages – Many people use Google for example and have iGoogle activated. This is why you should have an RSS plug-in that allows users to click and it adds to feed to such services.
35. Write a List Post or Article – Writing a bulleted list can sometimes be easier on the reader and writer if you have lots on information to roll off in one post. This is a list post and makes for easy reading.
36. Article Marketing – Write an article and post it on sites such as article beech or ezine articles. Ensure you include a link back to your site in the article. Make sure the article is great so that people will want to read more of your work.
37. Autopinger – use sites such as autopinger.com to submit your blog to lots of websites.
38. Submit Site to Search Engines – Manually submit your site to the major search engines on the web and also use auto submitter websites for lesser known search engines. Organic search engine traffic is great and will increase your ad revenue.
39. DMOZ – Submit your website to dmoz.org. if you manage to get listed this will really help your traffic stats.
40. Site Contests – Offer a prize to the 1000th subscriber or commenter to encourage whatever activity you want. The prize could simply be a text link on your website, however the more appealing the better.
41. Banner Exchanges – You could try a banner exchange service however you may not be able to choose what type of banner is placed on your site. Try and contact other bloggers with similar content and ask for a link exchange.
42. Site Load Time – Check how long it takes your website to load and increase the speed if necessary. This is important to ensure visitors are not leaving before the site has fully loaded. Try to use smaller images or multimedia if your site is slow.
43. YouTube – Create a YouTube account and add you link in your profile so that you might get traffic from people who view any videos that you upload. Make videos relating to your website content so any traffic is targeted.
44. About Us – Get your site listed at Wiki – about Us Wiki Page, this is another way to increase back links. On the site you can put information about your website.
45. Tags – Tagging your posts or articles on your website is a great way of entering keywords to help search engines. Make the most of these where you can.
46. Categories – If you have a blog then use blog categories with meaningful names that use keywords so that these show up in the websites URL and on SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages)
47. Permalink – Check to see if this features is enabled. If its not then enable it and have the post title in the URL.
48. Holidays – These are great for marketing so ensure that you are ready. Start making posts and site content about Christmas / Easter or whatever about a month before the event. This gives search engines chance to list your posts. Then when people search for Christmas XXXXXX your site will be there. – Maybe decorate your site to suit the holiday theme.
49. Interviews – Interview other sites and post the interview on your website. Alternatively get interviewed by other sites yourself.
50. Selling your site? – Pretend to sell your website. I sold a site recently and the traffic shot up. If you can list your site free then you have nothing to lose apart from responding to offers. However the chances of any of the traffic you received returning is slim. You may benefit from padding out your MyBlogLog section.
51. Surveys – Have a survey or poll on your website, not large, just a small one in the sidebar somewhere that allows visitors to vote on a controversial question or something that will change on your website depending on a vote.
52. Blog Networks – Create a blog network where you can link all your blogs together. This will take up a lot of your time, however if you have it spare the more the better providing the content is unique and remains at a high standard.
53. Create a Site Template or Blog Theme – As the title states, create a theme and have a link back to your website in the footer. 
54. Plugins / scripts – If you have the knowhow, create a plug-in or script for a website and have a link back to your website.
55. Comedy Writing – If you can write funny content, this will attract lots of readers. I know I have returned to a blog in the past due to its humour.
56. Social Networking Site – Use social networking websites such as MySpace, gain lots of friends and then post a bulletin about your website.
57. Reviewing – If you are honest and able to post great reviews then review sites and products and post about them on your website. If this is successful then other sites will want to be reviewed by you.
58. Get Reviews – Go to other sites and ask them to review your website. No one like’s criticism so be prepared to take some. It is likely to benefit your site in the future though.
59. Post News – Try and be first to post breaking news in your niche. Get listed on news websites such as Google News which will increase your traffic.
60. Awards Program – Create an awards brand. Get webmasters to submit their site and you offer prizes or just a graphic that states they won or passed your tests for a great website. Use your imagination.
61. Resources – Write posts that link to resources that may be useful to your type of reader. A webmaster blog may link to free stock photo sites as a post and list them in order of best first.
62. Treat others as you wish to be treated – This speaks for itself. If a reader of yours needs a hand then take the time out to help them. They will appreciate you for it.
63. Edit Posts – Go back over old content on your website and update it if it needs updating. Insert relevant links into old pages that go to content that is similar.
64. Yahoo Answers – Get an account at Yahoo Answers and post your blog URL in answers where appropriate. Only do this when you have a good reputation and the content is relevant and will actually help the user.
Great! That’s it for this time. If you learned at least one thing from this post it was worth reading!

14 Types of stories can you tell on your blog

1. Personal Discovery Stories – tell how you discovered a lesson. These stories show your readers how similar you are to them and also might give some practical advice on how they might learn from your experience.
2. Stories as Analogies and Illustrations – tell a story that on the surface has nothing to do with your topic but which illustrates a principle that is relevant.
3. Success Stories – tell how you achieved something. These stories can be inspirational and motivating for your readers.
4. Failure Stories – I find that these stories are incredibly powerful – particularly if you are able to show some lessons learnt through a failure.
5. Tell Someone Else’s Story – sharing the journey of someone else and how/what they learned can be effective
6. How I did it Stories – these practical stories can be effective because they talk your readers through a process in a relatable way
7. Biographies – pick a key person in your niche and tell your readers that person’s story – pulling out useful parts that can be applied and used to enhance your readers lives.
8. Autobiographies – tell your own story from start to finish. I’ve done this a couple of times and find readers really respond well to it. It can also be something to link to from your About Page for further reading.
9. Picture Stories – using images or video can be another great way of communicating a story because it engages the senses in a way that text can’t (similarly – audio posts/podcasts can do this too).
10. Case Studies – quite often pulling apart someone else’s experience in a case study can be a powerful way to connect with readers. Similarly you can use your own story, or the story of a project, brand or company that you had something to do with can be useful.
11. Fiction – if well written a made up and imaginative story can be a good way to lead into a post. You’ll probably want to come clean about the fact that it’s not true though
12. Reader Stories – ask your readers to tell you their stories/experiences on a topic. You might kick things off with a short one of your own but then quickly hand it over to others to share.
13. Collective Stories – sometimes telling the story of a group of people, industry, niche etc can be very powerful. This might be presented as a ‘history of….’ your niche/industry which chronicles key developments over time. These pieces can almost become reference material for others in your industry.
14. Imagine If…. Stories – another type of story that I’ve seen used well on occasion is one where you get your reader to imagine a hypothetical scenario that they are in. These posts can be particularly useful for getting readers to FEEL something or to help them to understand that the problem that you’re writing about is one that is personal for them.