Today's top article makes a distinction between website design and website development by asking this question: would you hire an interior decorator to design your house?

I can hear you now: "No way - I'd hire an architect!"

"New Strategies for Website Development" encourages website owners to consider that a business website's structure is best developed by an "architect" rather than a website designer. Ensuring that your website is an effective moneymaker in your business model requires development first, and design second.

I believe that the best website design follows from sound, logical, clearly stated website development. In some of his strongest work, Frank Lloyd Wright designed not only the building itself, but the light fixtures, tables, chairs, and even the dinner ware. He wanted to insure that his ideas carried through to all levels of the building environment.

Whether you like Wright's work or not, his example is a clear statement on the development and design of your website - start with the business ideas firmly in place and let everything else, from button color to navigation, follow.

So would I hire an interior decorator to design my house? Yes, if that interior decorator happened to be Frank Lloyd Wright. If he's not, I'm hiring an architect.

What do you think about website design vs. website development? Let me know.

I hope you enjoy today's issue, and don't miss the kindness marketing responses. Some of them stray a bit from the idea, but they are all examples of how the amount of your kindness affects the amount of your business.

Also in this issue is the latest site for review. Our sister publication, DevWebPro, also has a site for review. It's a bit dryer than what we usually review here in WebPro, but if you're done reviewing NaturesFlavors and still hungry for reviewing, visit DevWebPro for more. (It's at the bottom of the page)

Best Wishes, and thanks to all those who wrote in!

Garrett

New Strategies for Website Development: the Architect and the Interior Designer
By Shannon Brown

Over the past three years, dramatic changes occurred in web site development. Early web site "design" focused on the "look" of the site and resulted in a "nice looking" but minimally effective business tool. The focus of the early web sites was primarily on marketing and advertising and containing little integration with business operations. Many web sites are still developed using these less effective methods.

Where is your web site positioned on the major search engines? Free Trial! Effortlessly SUBMIT and RANK your web site in one click to 386 search engines world wide!

Current and emerging web site development focuses on developing viable business tools. Sometimes termed "e-business," the new generation web sites incorporate the web site, and related Internet technologies, as an integral part of the overall business operations. Far beyond the simple advertising and marketing models used previously, the current strategies incorporate Internet technologies into customer relationship management, workforce empowerment, field staff support, employee relations, project management, data collection and research, procurement, billing and bill payment, inventory management, and logistics. Web site development is now specifically designed to enhance the overall business mission, to reduce operating costs, and to develop long lasting customer relationships.

Shannon Brown provides technology advising and development services for small to medium size businesses and non-profit organizations. His experiences include startup advising, due diligence technical reviews, technology project planning, structuring technology groups, and high level development. He can be contacted by email at info@shannonbrown.net or by telephone at 717.665.5656.
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Visit NaturesFlavors.com Send your reviews here

Hi Peer Reviewers,

I'm a frequent reviewer with a site that is in trouble. The site, www.NaturesFlavors.com, is an online superstore of natural products. We sell about 2500-3000 products, from aromatherapy products to syrups and juices to sugar-free products to flavors and fragrances.

We've watched the number of hits and orders drop steadily over a period of a few months. We've made some changes to try to improve things (like the site layout), but nothing we do seems to make much of a difference. There are still some small bugs here and there, but nothing that should cause sales to simply die like they have.

We've tried a few different Overture campaigns, placing some items in the top 3 positions, which have brought in some sales, but the generated revenue is less than what we've put into it, so we've pulled back some of the bids on the keywords. It seems like most hits from Overture listings get to our site, look around a bit, and then leave without ordering.

Earlier this year, in June, we were getting about 15 orders per day. The current host we were on did not offer logging capabilities, but a makeshift counter offered an average of 100+ visitors per day at that time. Over the months, the orders have dropped to 10 then to 7 then to 5 and now we're getting anywhere from 1-4 orders per day on average, with about 50-80 visitors per day now.

That's quite sad, really - that 3 of our top 10 listings are people searching for our own name. I would like to see a variety of keywords show up for our top listings... It's nice that we have name recognition, but it would be better if those were later listings.

As a final question - I would be interested in some assistance in doing link requests for the purposes of pushing up our Google rankings. Is there an SEO company out there that has linking-only services, i.e. pay-per-link-obtained?

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Hilgeman,
http://www.NaturesFlavors.com
Click here to send in your review.

All About Marketing on a Shoestring Budget!
By Charlene Rashkow

As an aware and knowledgeable professional you already know that before conducting any type of marketing strategy the first thing to consider is who and what your target market will be. But knowing your intended market is only the beginning since marketing is 'everything' you do to attract and keep your target audience.

Because there are so many variables and strategies when it comes to marketing, it's sometimes difficult to know which method will be the best and most cost-effective for your particular situation. But regardless of your financial situation, presenting yourself in a professional manner is the key component for any marketing strategy. Whether you use simple less expensive tactics such as newsletters, articles and letters, versus expensive commercial advertisements through the media, you are always representing yourself!
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We are a web development company in Omaha, NE. Kindness Marketing has helped us in two ways - gaining new clients and retaining current ones. Read the whole story here	Just 6 months after setting up my new computer business, I was driving long distance to a client when on a bend in the highway, I saw what looked to be a large leather business organiser... Read the whole story here
At the height of this year's busy season, someone wrote in looking for a product we don't carry... Read the whole story here	There's this one guy who had paid me first via PayPal for putting his banner on a Pop-up. When I clicked his banner code it didn't work... Read the whole story here
Angie and I offer a Five Year Satisfaction Guarantee, which I tell them in their questionnaire that they have over four and half years to figure out if they like their new tool. They get a charge out of the questionnaire and we get great customer quotes also. Read the whole story here	Back in November, I had some small supplies on order for about a month and a half. I finally decided that I had waited long enough and wanted to track the order down myself because I was really in need of these supplies... Read the whole story here
For more examples of how kindness affects sales, click here.

Name: Darren Cronian Name of your company: Worldwide Holiday Homes Why do you read WebProNews? Various reasons... It's the first newsletter that actually interacts with its readers. Your newsletters help me gain new ideas for website submission, marketing... I love reading the newsletter. This is my first business, I work full time, but run this business in my spare time, and weekends. Rather than spending money on people to assist me with marketing, I can get all the help I need from you guys! What makes your site successful? Holidaymakers don’t have to spend hours searching the net for a villa or apartment etc, doesn’t matter where they live, we will find a holiday home for everyone. Some of our success stories have been finding a honeymoon villa for a UK couple and finding two large properties next door to each other to sleep 34 people for a family gathering.. apparently some family members hadn't seen each other for over 15 years! URL: http://www.holiday-rentals.uk.com Introduce Yourself

For information about advertising within an iEntry email newsletter or via a targeted direct emailing contact Susan Coppersmith at susan@ientry.com.