As part of activities marking the official visit of the high powered delegation of the National Youth Service Corps of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by Brigadier General Yusuf Bomoi, the National Youth Service Scheme officially launched its website recently. Delivering his launch statement at an event held at the Joint Officers Mess, Kotu, NYSC Director General, Brig-General Bomoi, expressed satisfaction with the progress made by the NYSS in the recent past. He noted that the occasion was yet another mile stone in the annals of the NYSS and that it speaks volumes of the efforts of the scheme geared towards empowering the youth.

Brig-Gen Yusuf Bomoi, who spoke at length about the relevance of NYSS, also seized the opportunity to talk about the importance of the website to the scheme, noting that it will help to strengthen the ideals of the scheme. While commending staff of NYSS for what he called an indelible achievement, he promised to support NYSS in all its endeavours.

For his part, Marchel Mendy, NYSS Public Relations Officer said the website that can be browsed on www.nyssgam.org and contains some vital information about the programmes and activities which the scheme and its corps members are involved in.

Further still, he noted that the launch of the website is in line with NYSS’ ardent desire to change the mindset of the people about the scheme and also make known some critical issues of the scheme. “There is no denying that the importance of NYSS is immeasurable. However, a rather small percentage of the Gambian populace know about the existence and its programmes. This among other things prompted the launch of a website for the scheme”, he noted.

While urging people to visit the website, he expressed confidence that all browsers of the website will be adequately informed about what happens within the NYSS by the time they finish browsing.

The embassy of the United States of America in The Gambia recently launched a new website geared towards standardizing US embassies around the world.

The new site, http.banjul.usembassy.gov, is designed to increase customer services and standardize the United States embassy websites around the world.

Having been created to give a detailed and up-to-date information to the general public and    

to the US citizens on wide ranging issues, the new format is more user-friendly, has shorter load-times for those with slow internet connections, and contains information about American citizen services and visa application procedures and US policy.

Importantly, the site is also, among other things, expected to highlight the latest headlines from Washington, embassy news including offices and departments, American citizen services and general information about visas to the United States.

Also to be highlighted in the website is the issue of Non-Immigrant visas for students wishing to attend a university or other academic institution in the United States.

Briefing journalists about the new website on Wednesday, Ms Wendy A. Kennedy, Consular Officer at the US embassy, said the change was considered an important step in improving customer service and standardising US embassy websites around the world.

She added that the old website will be discontinued. She demonstrated the filing of the visa application form to journalists gatherted. "The US Embassy website is most visited by people seeking information about visa applications".

She revealed that the embassy has a special section called the "Visa to the US" that contains all the relavant informations needed to apply for a visa. "More importantly, this  section contains links to the necessary application forms.

For his part, Papa Njie US Embassy Public Diplomacy and Cultural Affairs Assistance,  believed that the informations posted at the site would better the communication between the embassy and the general public. He is of the view that the site would also be useful to journalists.

In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don’t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your money making ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you’re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you’re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don’t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst’s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we’re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

For More Free Resources visit www.freeearningtips.com

In this article, I am going to discuss the issue related to Google sitelinks. So the article is going to be little technical.

Before three years, webmasters noted that Google has started showing "sub topic" or "sub category" links within the results. Now Google has finally implemented the change and the name given to that service is "SiteLinks".

Sitelinks are the additional links that appear below search results in Google. They basically serve as a shortcut for internal pages of the website. It allows users to easily navigate through your website.

Google sitelinks are the ultimate endorsement of a website. While there are many clear compensation but knowing how to place site links is always like searching something in a dark art. More guess work and then hard work. But there is always a way out.

Last month in Feb, 2008, I planned to get Google sitelinks for one of my website. It was a very good experience to gain sitelinks as I also learned alot about Google sitemaps. As usual, Google is not entirely helpful in explaining the sitelink system. I worked on alot of options and found a way to get my sitelinks. I am going to share my experience so that you can also get sitelinks for your website by using these following steps:

1. Create Google sitemap of your site (e.g. sitemap.xml)

2. Upload this sitemap to your domain (e.g. www.domain.com/sitemap.xml)

3. Submit this URL in Google webmaster tool.

After submitting the sitemap, the next step is to verify your site on Google. Google offers two methods for verification. You can either upload an html file with the name which Google will specify on verification screen or you can add a Meta tag to your index file.

After verification, Select links from the left menu of webmaster tools and then navigate to sitelinks. From there you can see the pages which Google is going to use as sitelinks. You can easily manage your sitelinks from there and also block any page you don’t want to show as a sitelink.

I hope that the above information will help you in getting your sitelinks placed on Google.

Junaid Ashraf is the SEO Specialist in eNet Technologies. Website Design and Search Engine Optimization Company.

These days, it is a cut-throat competition. Unless you take advantage of the resources and the latest technologies right now, you may never be able to make it and eventually compete with other business people in your field. Hence, you have to make sure that you can build your own website. However, it should not just be any other site composed of multiple pages. You should also ensure that you have implemented an effective website design.

How Your Business Can Gain Something from Good Website Design

Why do you have to focus on your website design? Here are the numerous reasons why. Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive. Nevertheless, there are the best purposes:

1. A good website design can drive traffic into your site. Whether you like it or not, Internet users will always go for websites that appear neat, easy to navigate, and professional looking. And these are usually the basic benefits that you can derive from having a good website design. The more people going into your website, the higher will be the possibility that you will be able to obtain the kind of sales conversion rate that you have always wanted for your online business.

2. You can generate sales leads from a good design for your website. An efficient web design allows you to build your number of potential customers. This is because you can include a mailing list where they can place their full names and e-mail address, making it real convenient for you to promote your products and services as well as send out news and other updates.

3. You can gain your own spot in search engines. This is also another huge advantage of an effective website design. As a business owner, it should not be sufficient that you can see your website in the Internet. Most of all, you must appear in at least the first pages of search engine results. A professional web designer can implement search engine optimization techniques that can make your web pages extremely friendly search engines such as Google, allowing spiders to index your web pages. You should bank on your maximum visibility.

4. An effective design for your website can help you increase your credibility. In business, it is very essential that you can build a good reputation or credibility not only for yourself but, most of all, for your small business. Otherwise, if people do not trust you, you will not be able to improve your sales, and you cannot even maintain your customer base.

Your web design, however, can increase your credibility. With excellent content to balance the aesthetic value of your web pages, you can provide information to your target market, allowing them to make careful and wise decisions. Your Products and Services page will also help you let your customers know that you can offer everything they need. Most of all, you can steer clear from penalties of search engines. After all, if you are doing web designing right, then you shouldn’t have implemented any online marketing techniques.

John Mahoney is a freelance author who writes about various technology related subjects including Website Design . For more information about John visit his website: www.techstore.ie

Introduction:

Over the last decay, an increase number of research were conducted to determine ways Information Technology can assist in meeting special needs to ensure universal accessibility. Findings to date suggest that by being more knowledgeable about accessibility issues, Web designers and developers are able to accommodate end users with special needs.

As we enter the knowledge age, it is no longer acceptable that people with limited or no vision are on their own when it comes to accessing the web, nor those with mobility problems are on their own when it comes to use a hardware. To ignore website accessibility raises moral, business, and legal issues. It is morally wrong to discriminate against disabled people on the web simply through lack of thought, consideration, or awareness. Many business web sites designed without considering accessibility issues result in loss of revenue. Some countries, such as the US, UK, and Australia has introduced legislation that requires organizations to adhere to accessibility issues.

In June 1999, the Disability Discrimination Act (1999) has been used to fight for access rights in Australia. The 2000 Olympic Site Games, jointly developed by Sydney Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and IBM was found inaccessible to the blind users, and SOCOG was fined A$ 20,000 [1].

The purpose of this paper is raising awareness among web designers and developers, to achieve universal web accessibility goal. The paper looks at the disability issues and the existing assistive technologies or methods used by disabled users to assist them in accessing the web.

Afterwards, the paper reviews guidelines for good web site design, and provides analysis for designing an accessible website. Furthermore, the paper highlights on the challenges and gaps in the web accessibility area.

Literature Review:

Two years ago, a Conference was held in ‘London’ and attended by representatives of commerce, industry, government, and the IT Sector aiming to raise awareness of the potential benefits of assistive technology to disabled users. The outstanding number of speakers highlighted through number of cases how technology can transfer lives. ‘Sue Bassoon’ a Business Development Manager at IBM said: “IBM’s goal is to have a speech recognition system as good as the human ear by 2010” [2].

The objectives of this literature is two folds: (1) explain how a particular disability (e.g. visual impairment, mobility restriction, hearing impairment) can impede the use of the web, and what can be done to accommodate special needs; and (2) show how web designers and developers can construct accessible web sites to end users with disabilities, such as visual or hearing impairment.

(1) Disability Issues

The section begins with a descriptive part concerning disabled user functional limitation and dependence on assistive technologies.

A- Vision Issues:

A web user who has no sight (totally blind) is likely to use the screen reader technology to reads a load the content of the web page. Other web users, with partial or poor sight need to be able to enlarge the text on web page using a screen magnifier.

B- Mobility Issues:

A web user may have mobility problems as a result of an accident or disease such as:(loss of limb, Injury, or aging process). The technologies used by users with mobility problems are:

- Sticky Keys: For users with one finger typing.

- Filter Keys: Ignores repeated strokes for people with hand tremors.

- Mouse Keys: Permits moving pointer with numeric keypad.

- Serial Key: Permits access to alternatives for mouse and keyboard functions such as Foot Mouse.

- Eye gaze: A video camera that racks eye movement as the user look at an on screen keyboard. It is customizable as how long a key must be looked at to be recorded. When system has identified the key looked at the symbol appears and the user look at next key.

C- Hearing Issues:

A web user may be deaf or experiencing problems with hearing due to the natural aging process. To assist those users the audio or video need to be translated to the ASL (American Sign Language) language of the deaf, in which certain signs represent words.

(2) Design for Accessibility

In the above section, the paper provided readers with a general knowledge about disability issues, disabled users, and the existing assistive technologies. This section is intended for web designers and developers, because it provides them with tips and guidelines on ways to design a good and accessible website. There are two main aspects to take into account:

I- Look and Feel

Web designers need to present a user friendly interface that addresses specific ability needs. The designer should be able to describe ways disabled users interact with a website, and how they move through the pages and how they achieve their goals. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website.

- Web Designers & Developers; should follow the four principles of visual organization in the process of designing a website which are: Proximity, Alignment, Consistency, and Contrast.

- Web Designers & Developers; must avoid using HTML tables to control the layout, instead use style sheets.

- Web Designers & Developers; should use legible fonts, and font size to allow disabled users to easily change them from the browser interface.

- Avoid poor color contrast in your design, and do not use color for meaningful description.

- Avoid the use of animation, and flash which may affect users with photosensitive epilepsy.

- Avoid using Frames because it can pose problems for technology used by some disabled users.

- Try not to use graphics for menu and button forms.

- Avoid hiding menu items (using DHTML or applets)

II- Content

Web designers should organize content in a way that can provide ease of use and simplicity. Below, are helpful tips that designers need to consider when designing an accessible website:

- Use a clear language, and write short sentences.

For example, a web page should provide blind users with a short summary of what they can find. A Search Functionality is important because a blind person can’t scan the page, and will generally trust first result he/she receives.

- Add Accessible tags and attributes by using rich set of tags to enhance accessibility. For instance, an ALT tag is used to provide a text equivalent for images within a website. The ALT text description is what the screen reader or talking browser will read to the blind users .

- Use clear link descriptions, and include links that a user can click to skip repetitive regions of the page.

- Ensure the pages are usable when scripts, applets, or style sheets are turned off or not supported.

- All audio and video content should contain captions, transcription, and descriptive information.

Analysis:

It is estimated that 20% of the population has some kind of disability. The internet opens a new window of opportunity and independence to disabled users from reading news to banking to conducting business. For example, by using the screen reader technology a blind user can listen to the latest newspaper published electronically. Similarly, a user with mobility problem who can not go out shopping to buy a newspaper, nor use a

keyboard or mouse independently, can rather use the eye tracking software that allow people to use a computer with nothing more than eye movement.

Nowadays, organizations are asking designers to make their web sites accessible and for good reasons. First of all, the more people who can use a site, the more potential it can generate. Online stores, in particular have a great deal to gain, since many people with functional limitation problems, find it much easier to shop online. Most Web designers are not personally opposed to the concept of making web sites accessible to people with

disabilities. In fact most accessibility errors on web sites are the result of ignorance. A large proportion of web designers and developers have simply never thought about accessibility issues. A small proportion of web designers (4%) do not understand the needs of users with disabilities; another (46%) understand some of the needs of users with disabilities. While only (26%) of designers understand most of the needs of users with disabilities and can accommodate them [3].

The Challenges and Gaps of Web Accessibility:

In this section, we highlight the challenges and the requirements posed by user needs, to access the web. We argue the need for a new approach to address accessibility issues, and include it in each and every web project life cycle.We recognize that the vast majority of disabled users face challenges when accessing the web. Why is this? Is it the lack of technical solutions to meet their needs – absolutely not! You will hear today that there are new technological solutions to address even most extreme form of disability. Is it cost?

Again it is not! Some technical solutions, cost nothing at all, and already exist in software. So, What then? Is it that web applications are being developed that present challenges to accessible design? Is it lack of knowledge and skills to meet their needs?

There does seem a general lack of awareness of web accessibility issues. Web Designers and Developers, need to have a better approach to tackle the problem in each phase of the web development process. For example, during the requirement analysis phase a web developer must define the target audience of the site, and should take into account people with a combination of disabilities. In addition to this, during prototyping phase a web designer must have the knowledge to accommodate end users with special needs, and also the skills to meet their expectations.

Moreover, testing the web site using different technologies is critical for a successful web site, to ensure it meets the accessibility standards and user requirements [4].

Therefore, in each phase of the web development process, accessibility plays an important role. Accessibility and Usability should be completely embedded in web design and development cycles from beginning to end.

The future looks bright for web accessibility. It promises to educate web designers and developers about accessibility issues, through training courses offered at universities.

Conclusion:

The Internet offers independence and freedom. But, this independence and freedom is limited to certain users. Many websites are not created with accessibility issues in mind.

Whether it is the Web Designer lack of knowledge or ignorance, they exclude a segment of users that in many ways benefit from the internet [5].

In short, designing accessible websites does not require an enormous effort or time. It simply, requires commitment, and accountability, to achieve a universal goal.

Reference:

[1] Duckworth D. (2003).Web Accessibility in Australia. Retrieved June 18, 2005, from

http://www.tonneten.net/mt/blog/archieves/000024.htm

[2] Conference (2003). IT – The Universal Enabler, London. Retrieved May 28, 2005

from http://www.stcsig.org

[3]Web Accessibility Survey (2003). Retrieved June 24, 2005 from

http://cita.rehab.uiuc.eduu/survey/2002-2003-web-practices.html

[4] Volpon A. (2002). The Life cycle ofWeb Accessibility. Retrieved June 24, 2005 from

http://www.evolt.org/article/The_Lifecycle_of_Web_Accessibility/20/50376/

[5] Bohman P. (2003). Introduction to Web Accessibility. Retrieved June 24, 2005 from

http://www.webaim.org/intro

[6]Mertz D. (2000). Tips: Design for accessible Web sites. Retrieved June 22, 2005 from

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/w-mertz.htm

About The Author
Nidal A. Bousaleh holds his Master degree in Information Technology (Web Engineering) from Australia. He is an author of many articles related to Web Design and E-Business. One of the best is "Web Accessibility a Universal Goal" which highlights on the needs and wants of people with special needs (Hardware & Software needs) in order to access the World Wide Web. The paper provides guidelines for web designers to follow for achieving Universal Accessibility.

Banners are probably the most common form of advertising on the Internet today. The reason behind this has to do with their randomness and prevalence throughout the cyber highway. Banners are not intended for target audiences; instead, these flashing, animated, sound-generating eye-catchers are intended to simply throw the message out there in an endless array of locations for everyone—professionals and public—to see. In this way, the company that is advertising becomes known instantaneously, which is the purpose.

The banner may very well be the prelude to sucessfully target networking. When the banners provide a vast acknowledgement of a business’ existence, networking becomes easier and more successful because a wider variety of other business owners will have become more familiar with those who have previously launched the banner. The banner, then, is a form of dynamic introduction for new business ventures and a constant affirmation of already existing ones. All types of businesses use banners due to their “in-your-face” nature and the company recognition they provide during short-term and over long-term periods.

Banners are initiated through particular HTML or PHP hyperlink coding. The more elaborate ones, however, are launched through specialized software like Flash® and Java®, both of which are designed for extreme animation, video and audio presentations, some of which are unrestricted by Windows® framing, such as the Adobe™ logo which is activated everytime a PDF file opens. Some banners feature only color stills with lettering, while others include motion and sound. That’s the great thing about banners: they can be constructed to show anything, and they are growing more and more sophicated all the time.

Among the more popular banners circulating the Internet, many represent the more well-known companies that have been around for a while. This suggests that the larger businesses tend to employ such technical and dynamic means of advertising. Cost isn’t low, and it continues to rise. This includes: software, design and development, and sponsorship with other businesses who offer space on their sites to feature the banners. Pricing varies, but it is usually beyond the budget range of the typical small business. Therefore, the banner not only advertises the company and its particular marketing pitch, it also boasts its success.

There is also the constancy of the banner. Unlike, say, television commercials, this mode of advertising can run on and on, non-stop, day and night. Because of this, in conjunction with their prevalence throughout the Internet, business owners need not ever fear that their banner ads will be going unnoticed. Ongoing advertising is sure to incessantly increase traffic, keep the inflow steady, and promote current development in the businesses the banners represent.

In the end, banners are, due to their countless advantages, the best form of advertising for online business. As a matter of fact, their impact in their effects and efforts make their employment just short of a necessity to ensure success. New online business owners who aren’t sure how to introduce their ventures would be served best to use banners, which are flexibly ideal, despite their potentially high costs.

About The Author
Todd Thomas is the Founder of http://www.ChooseHomeWork.com and http://www.WorkAtHomeForDummies.com. He writes business related articles ranging from internet business to network marketing and everything in between. Todd is also a baseball coach and hitting instructor. He owns http://www.HitItHere.net. Contact him at support@workathomefordummies.com for info on articles for your website!