| design | concept | develop | eat | sleep | work | rinse | repeat |

I had a website that was a work of art, and a product that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was
so sure I was going to make a ton of bucks that I even went out and bought a new wheelbarrow to haul all my
loot to the bank. But after two months I didn’t have a single sale. Not ONE!

And I’ll bet a shiny new nickel that this is what YOU’RE going through today.

Y’see, one of the things all the Internet gurus DON’T tell us is that even the best product in the world and
the best website in the world ain’t gonna make us a penny, unless

we get HITS to our website. LOTS of hits!

Tagged as: search engine marketing, think links

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Getting traffic to your website can often be time consuming and expensive, so I decided to put together a series of “30 Minute Website Traffic Getting Tips” to help you get traffic to your website as quickly as possible using mostly free methods.

Rather than getting overwhelmed with all the internet marketing information and feeling like you are pulled in multiple directions by lots of different internet marketing “gurus” telling you to do different things, you should focus on doing things that will bring your business benefit in terms of traffic, conversions and sales.

Even if you only have half an hour available each day, or if you are a complete newbie with no marketing or technical skills, you should be able to choose a traffic tip from this list and get results fast!

Each of the “30 Minute Website Traffic Getting Tips” has been designed to:

• Bring a direct benefit to your website - online business
• Be straightforward enough to complete in 30 minutes or less
• Be easy enough to complete without any background marketing or technical knowledge
• Cost you nothing

If you are struggling to make money from your website, need more traffic or need help setting up or modifying your website you may want to consider contacting us or join a good affiliate group.

See below hyperlinks to the various traffic getting tips, so bookmark this introduction page to easily get back to the table of contents. Another easy way would be to click on this category we created just for this.

Table of Contents

Traffic Tip #1 - Get 3 Backlinks on High PR Websites
Traffic Tip #2 – Use Twitter to Get More Traffic
Traffic Tip #3 – Write a Product Review
Traffic Tip #4 – Create a Keyword List
Traffic Tip #5 – Publish a Blog Post
Traffic Tip #6 – Submit an Article to 5 of the Top Article Directories
Traffic Tip #7 – Join & Participate in some Busy Forums
Traffic Tip #8 – Submit your Blog to 5 Top Blog Directories
Traffic Tip #9 – Promote Your Website Using Free Classified Ads.
Traffic Tip #10 – Leave Comments on 5 Different Blogs
Traffic Tip #11 - Get 2 New Backlinks on High PR Websites
Traffic Tip #12 – Submit Your Newsletter to 2 Ezine Directories
Traffic Tip #13 – Setup a Social Marker Account & Bookmark a Blog Post
Traffic Tip #14 – Participate in Yahoo Answers & get Exposure for your Website.
Traffic Tip #15 – Take Advantage of Article Directory Online Profiles
Traffic Tip #16 – Setup a Squidoo Account and Create your First Lens
Traffic Tip #17 – Setup a Google Webmaster Account
Traffic Tip #18 – A Simple Way to Build Longtail Keywords
Traffic Tip #19 – Setup a LinkedIn Account and get Connected
Traffic Tip #20 – Get Traffic from Link Referral
Traffic Tip #21 – Setup an Onlywire Account
Traffic Tip #22 – Review your SEO Position and Come up with a Plan!
Traffic Tip #23 – Join AddThis
Traffic Tip #24 – Spy on your Competitors
Traffic Tip #25 – Use Traffic Exchanges to Get Leads
Traffic Tip #26 – Master One Form of Marketing
Traffic Tip #27 – Get a Backlink from a High PR Website
Traffic Tip #28 – Use StatCounter to Analyze Your Website Stats
Traffic Tip #29 – Watch a Motivational Video
Traffic Tip #30 – Be Persistent
How to Get Even More Traffic

Tagged as: 30 Minute Website Traffic Tips, backlinks, busy forums, Keyword List, social bookmarking, Squidoo lens, Traffic exchanges, Website Traffic

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Steve Jobs was recently quoted as saying “No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5” igniting interest in HTML5 and sparking numerous debates online in blogs and forums.

Jobs’ prediction that flash is dead invokes memories of the famous Mark Twain quote “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated“. While the debate rages on over the future of Flash, HTML5’s destiny is assured.

It’s not just Apple pointing to HTML5 as an internet revolution, Microsoft, Google, Opera, Mozilla, W3C and even Adobe themselves agree. In fact HTML5 may become historic for that very reason. It is arguably the only time Google, Microsoft and Apple have ever agreed on anything.

How HTML5 evolved was largely due to a disagreement with the W3C over Error Handling and the failure to embrace modern Internet applications. In 1997, W3C announced it would no longer extend HTML4 and saw XML and XHTML as the future. Draconian Error Handling, (Draco was the Greek leader that issued death penalties for minor offences), instructed that browsers were to treat all errors in XML as fatal. With 99% of web pages showing minor errors, and the lack of new features in XML, many webmasters ignored the new standard or continued to serve their websites as HTML, even when adopting XHTML.

In 2004, a group of developers and browser vendors including Apple, Opera and Mozilla gave a presentation to the W3C on evolving HTML4 to include new features for modern web applications. The W3C rejected their proposal of extending HTML and CSS. Those interested in evolving HTML4 rebelled and broke away from the W3C, forming their own working group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group). At the core of the WHATWG beliefs was backwards compatibility and forgiving error handling. WHATWG’s vision was to extend HTML features including form handling while ensuring that it would degrade gracefully in older browsers. While the W3C wanted the world to move to a new standard XML, WHATWG planned to evolve existing HTML to support a modern Internet.

In 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the W3C, recognized that the rebels at WHATWG had gained momentum and announced that the W3C would work together with WHATWG to evolve HTML. The W3C HTML Working Group was formed, working with HTML in conjunction with XHTML. HTML5 was officially born. In October 2009, W3C shut down XHTML2 making HTML5 the future of the Internet. The pirates had taken over the ship.

HTML5 marks a change in attitude from the W3C and seeks to support the diversity of HTML rather than just enforcement of web standards. It is an incredible achievement that HTML5 is backward compatible, meaning most of HTML5 can be used straight away albeit with some JavaScript hacks on semantics for IE. Ideas from W3C, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Opera and many other experts combine to pull the best bits out of HTML and browsers past into an exciting upgrade of the HTML language that promotes inclusion not exclusion.

In many ways HTML5 simplifies web pages, taking laborious tasks such as form validation away from web authoring and into the browser. The idea of making the browser do the work probably stems back to IE3, where Microsoft provided the first browser to build in CSS support. HTML5 introduces new tags for page structure and semantics of documents.

New markets in Typography are opening up with the implementation of “@font-face”, meaning designers at last can transfer the visual appeal of print to the web thanks to advances in CSS and HTML5. Large JavaScript libraries such as MooTools and JQuery can be slimmed down as HTML5 transfers many common tasks directly into the browser. Client side storage, session storage and client side posting are set to change how we communicate on the web. Web applications such as video are embedded by HTML without the need of JavaScript. Sites will begin to move away from Flash to deliver their video and onto HTML5, especially when current codec concerns with Mozilla Firefox are resolved.

New HTML5 API’s, such as drag and drop, are reverse engineered from Microsoft, ensuring that they are supported from the start by IE. What developers of HTML5 such as Ian Hickson (Opera) have done is to view the modern web and say, “OK that’s what people are trying to do, how can HTML5 support that“.

Unlike previous web standards based releases such as XHTML 1.1 and the never finished XHTML 2.0, HTML5 is backward compatible and is here to stay. With the involvement of people that have been critical of the W3C, HTML5 brings a standard based upgrade of HTML that is fully supported throughout the industry. HTML5 will genuinely future proof your site without the danger of your markup depreciating in a couple of years.

HTML5 timetable for completion is in 2022, which has left many webmasters confused as to its relevance now. However, any website can begin using the new specification immediately by simply changing the doc type to “<!DOCTYPE html>“, the lowest number of characters required to trigger standards mode in IE. Currently, only beta versions of browsers IE9, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera support advanced HTML5 elements. However, typography “@font-face” is fully supported in current browsers. For more information have a look at Ethan Dunham’s “FontSquirrel.com” and Jeffrey Veen’s “Typekit.com“. Other HTML5 features such as “Drag and Drop” and “ContentEditable” are also currently supported. You can follow the implementation of HTML5 in modern browsers at “HTML5Readiness.com” and “Caniuse.com“.

Further information:

http://www.whatwg.org

http://diveintohtml5.org

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

About The Author
Jennifer Robinson currently works as an underpaid freelance writer for Online Connect, a supplier of photocopiers and Document Management. Visit their website at www.onlineconnect.co.uk

Tagged as: HTML5, Steve Jobs, Web 2.0, Web Buzz, Website Tips

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One of the easiest and fastest way to make money online, in through affiliate marketing. This is when you send visitors to someone else’s product sales page, they make the sale and deliver the product, and you get a percentage of the sale price as you commission (usually 50% or more for digital products).

The benefits of this are

1. You can get started almost immediately because you don’t have to create a product, write the sales page, design the website, develop marketing materials, or set up the ordering, billing & delivery system.
2. You have almost no investment of time because you don’t have to do the customer support or deal with billing or technical issues.
3. You have nearly zero risk because you already know the product sells. So if you send visitors you will get paid.

Looking at these benefits, it’s clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

The downside is…

After all your hard work of generating traffic to the sales page, you will never see any of those visitors again. Most of them will not buy on their first visit, which means you’re losing over 90% of the traffic right off the top. And of the 10% or less that do buy, the product owner will be able to sell to them again, but you will not.

What’s the solution?

Simply put, you need to capture the name and email of your visitors *before* sending them to the product sales page. This way you can follow up with them and keep sending them back to the sales page to increase your chances of making the sale. And if you’re really on top of your game, you’ll then send to a pre-sales page in between.

Here’s what these affiliate marketing strategies will do for you:

1. You’ll be building your own list of potential customers that you can market to again and again.
2. You’ll be pre-selling them by providing valuable information and then casually linking to the product sales page in the context of this information.

In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following affiliate marketing tools:

1. A Video Squeeze Page (with video)
2. One or more content-rich Pre-Selling Pages
3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. It captures the name and email of your visitors and puts them into your autoresponder, which then begins sending out the 5-part email series. Then it redirects them to your pre-selling pages after they subscribe to your email series.

All of this together increases your chances of making the sale by up to 500% so it’s well worth the effort of setting it up. And once it’s set up, it runs automatically - you just keep sending visitors to the squeeze page.

If you don’t have the time or expertise to set it all up yourself, you can use something like Affiliate Silver Bullet. Services like this design the enter system (the video, the video squeeze page, the email series, the content pages, etc). The benefit is that it’s much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it’s instantly set up. The downside is that other people will be using the same affiliate tools as you. But the internet is pretty big, so this isn’t much of a concern.

The other route you can take is to hire people on Elance to create and implement the various aspects for you. Either way, it’s an important step that you need to take if you’re going to be serious about your business.

Tagged as: affiliate marketing strategies

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I’ll admit it, I have a guilty pleasure and its name is Mafia Wars. I sincerely doubt I’m alone in this regard, but that doesn’t make it any less silly. There are millions of other players out there right now who take this thing way more seriously than I ever will and that’s at least mildly comforting.

So, when I stumbled upon a guide the other day that claimed to help you reach the top of the pile where all the elite mafias are sitting I was a little dubious. These guys pour hours of their life into the game. How can I be one of them without doing the same? It’s expensive, right?

How it Works

So, rather than wonder if I’d be forever at the bottom of the pile (I’m just a bit competitive after all), I decided to check out the guide and see exactly what it was that the gurus were expecting me to do to become one of the top players.

Turns out, it’s not that hard.

That’s not entirely accurate. These tips are genius, and well researched. But, when you read them, you’re going to hit your head on the keyboard and wonder why you never considered what you could have done to become one of those very gurus we all ogle.

Here’s the deal. The guide is relatively simple. It tells you exactly what you need to figure out and master the game from the ground up. But, if you’re already level 34, you can use the same tips to revamp your strategies.

My favourite part was when it told me how to get 500 in my family in a couple days. Granted, it took me a full week, but still…I had 500 in my family in a week. That’s insane.

I’m not quite up to level 150+ yet, but I’m well on my way to the top of the charts and you’d better believe I’m going to brag about it. If you’re serious about being really, really good at this game you really ought to give this guide a shot. Click on Mafia Wars Blue Print to get ahead in the game.

Tagged as: Mafia Wars

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Getting good backlinks to your website will help to increase the overall search engine rank of your website. There are lots of well known ways to get backlinks, including article marketing, directory submission and link exchange, but this task focuses on getting backlinks from websites that have a high page rank.

Benefit – If you complete the following steps you will have 3 brand new backlinks to your site from high page rank websites.

Step by Step Instructions

1. Get a backlink from eHow.com (PR7). EHow is a popular website that teaches people how to do things. There are lots of categories including business, pets, home & finance, entertaining and more.
   • Visit eHow.com and click the “Join Now” button on the top right
   • Fill in the form and click “Register Now”
   • Login using your username and password and click “Edit Profile”
   • Fill in as many details as you want to but make sure that you put your website URL in the “Web Site” box and also write a sentence or two in the “About Me Box”
   • When you fill in the “About Me” box include your website URL with your keywords in the anchor text
     e.g. My name is YOUR NAME and I live in YOUR COUNTRY. I am the owner of <a href=”http://www.cyberzoo.co.za”>Internet Business Tips</a>.
   • Click the “Save Changes” button and check everything looks ok by clicking the “see my public profile” button.
2. Get a backlink from Blogger.com (PR8). Blogger is a popular blogging website owned by Google. This part of the task does not involve setting up a blog, it is simply a way to get a backlink.
   • If you don’t already have a Google account create one here.
   • Login to Blogger.com with your Google account
   • Click on “Edit Profile”
   • There is a space to add our website but this is a nofollow link (not counted as a backlink). BUT, if you edit the “About Me” section you can add your website and anchor text and get a backlink.
     e.g. My name is YOUR NAME and I live in YOUR COUNTRY. I am the owner of <a href=”http://www.cyberzoo.co.za”>Internet Business Tips</a>.
   • Click on “Save Profile”
3. Get a backlink from StatCounter.com (PR8) – statcounter is a popular website tracking tool. In this method we are going to get a backlink from the statcounter forum.
   • Visit the Statcounter Forum and register
   • Login and click on your username, then click on “user cpanel“ and then on “edit your details”
   • Enter your website URL in the “Your Home Page” box
   • Scroll down and click “Save Changes”
   • If you can make a post in the statcounter forum as well this will help to get your profile page indexed more quickly, but you do not have to do this. If you do, make sure that your post is useful and either respond to someone’s comment or ask a question related to statcounter.

Additional Information

If you are not sure what is meant by page rank read What is Google Page Rank?.
In most of these examples your profile will be created on a new page which will have a page rank of zero, BUT, because these sites are very popular and have high page ranks, over time your link on that page will be a very high quality backlink.

Back to Table of Contents for:
Get Website Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less

or go to next traffic tip in the series:
Use Twitter to Get More Traffic

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

For those who are into blog monetization or pro blogging read on about this new website SocialSpark, brainchild of a company named Izea, because they got my vote on a couple of important features when joining programmes like this.

Social Spark is becoming one of the most popular “paid to post” or “sponsored post” sites on the web. Bloggers can set their own price for reviews and then start earning decent amounts of money.

I signed up a couple of days ago and the whole process was very easy and efficient. The website layouts were very well thought out with an easy flow to it, so from a total newbie to a seasoned blogger would find their way around, without feeling like your lost in a link jungle.

I liked their signup forms, being large fields with intuitive prompts to assist you in completing your details. Suppose they had to create a good comfort zone with forms, because sites like these tend to become very form field intensive. Who said filling in forms need to be dull and tedious.

Overall use of colours and regions for the pages I found to be very effective in highlighting the important and more frequently used information. The whole process looked very easy to follow because they made it easy to follow.

Once I signed up, I needed to add my blog or blogs to start accepting paid reviews and posts. SocialSpark generated a unique tracking code that I then copied and pasted into my blog source code. You might need some help with this if you are not sure how to edit or access your blog templates.

I’m using a blog theme that allows for easy adding of codes and scripts to the header or footer part of my blog, so I got my blog verified within seconds – no waiting.

Feeling my way around the SocialSpark site I found a breeze because they divided the site into four main sections being marketplace, community, account and help. Compared to other sites in the same market they got major points from me for just keeping it clear and simple with very nice looking but intuitive menu dropdowns.

Overall I’m very impressed with the signup experience, code of ethics and general website look and feel.

I am excited about this new opportunity and already busy looking at my first reviews in the marketplace. If you’re looking for a happier place to start earning from your blog, then Sign up for SocialSpark and join the blogolution!

Tagged as: blogging tips, Blogging Tools, Social Media

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The doors are open, hurry over there right now, before you’re too late  CBPredators is finally live, and it’s selling out FAST.

In case you’ve missed all the controversy this has caused, CBPredators is the system that lets you set up a fully functioning online business in just a few clicks of your mouse.

No joke, no kidding, no exaggeration. Go here and see for yourself.

When I say it sets everything up, I’m not meaning that it’s just some spam site generator either. No way – this thing provides traffic, content, everything you could need…

… and once it’s set up, it’s set up permanently.

So you don’t have to worry about all those other details… how to get traffic, how to build links, nothing like that.  Just push the buttons and it’s done. Check it out now

Do you know the best thing about it though?

The best part is that it’s totally scalable. You can start with one site, and easily ramp it up until you’ve got 40 or 50, all plowing serious cash straight into your pocket. Truth is, you could get that many up and running in no time at all.

But listen, there’s something else you need to know…

… I’ve been speaking with the CBPredator guys, and it turns out it’s actually their own personal tool. This is something they developed to help them with their own affiliate business.

Did it work? Well, in the short time they’ve used it so far, it’s made them over a hundred grand and counting.

So if you’re tired of struggling for traffic, struggling to get affiliate commissions, or just plain old want to make more money, this is just about the easiest way to do it.

You could be up and running just 10 or 15 minutes from now… and that’s if you take it easy.

Once you get it down, you could be churning out new sites every few minutes. That’s not an exaggeration. I’ve seen it working and it’s every bit that fast.

Just imagine that for a second – imagine being able to almost instantly create a new site for any affiliate product you want to… and to KNOW that site will get great rankings in the search engines.

It’s powerful isn’t it?

Listen, people are already calling this thing a game changer, and it is… but there’s a downside. At some point, they’re going to have to stop letting people in. The system will only cope with so many users, and once they get close to that limit, the doors will slam shut.

In fact, the only way to make sure you get in on this, is to jump in right now, with both feet. Go on, do it now

You could be making your first money just 15 minutes from now.

PS- Oh and don’t worry… the sites you create are completely your property, and can be hosted on your own servers, or wherever you want. This isn’t one of those weird spam networks or link farms or whatever they call it.

It’s just a very simple way of making unlimited income on the internet.

Tagged as: internet business, making unlimited income, traffic websites

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Spectacular pictures have been captured of a lightning display over Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano which continues to erupt.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been stranded across the globe as a result of the eruption which has shut down the airspace across Europe for the fifth day in a row.

More than 95,000 flights have so far been grounded in what has been billed as the single biggest aviation incident since the Second World War.

Tagged as: Eyjafjallajokull volcano, Fire

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Ever need to share a file, manage your calendar, or daily tasks? What about having a brainstorm with people from multiple cities or countries?

Wouldn’t it be nice to see people comments, discussions, or ideas on a project you have been working on? With Huddle you can do all of this and much more! Huddle is the leading Web 2.0 collaboration tool.

With Huddle you can manage projects, upload files, and share documents with anyone, anywhere. Huddle is entirely web based so there’s nothing to download or install. Simply login and start working in your Huddle.

Invite as many people as you need. Don’t ‘reply all’. Use Discussion forums to brainstorm ideas. Create and edit Word and Excel documents online. Store, share and manage your files 1GB+. Assign tasks, auto reminders and iCal integration. Whiteboards or wiki, share ideas, comments, etc.

Document management automated versioning, audit trails and approval workflows. Custom branding - customize your dashboard, homepage, emails, own URL. Notifications via dashboard, email, and RSS. Security 128 bit SSL, control over who can see and read documents.

You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time. Try the ad-supported Free plan or choose one of the following plans: Personal, Small Team, Large Team, Professional or Enterprise. Huddle bills in Pound Sterling. Dollar and Euros pricing is approximate only.

Key features

• Multiple Workspaces - Collaborate privately on multiple projects with unlimited users
• Online Editing - Create, view and edit documents and spreadsheets inside your browser
• Live Collaboration - Integrated web & phone conferencing reduces travel costs, wherever they are
• Document Sharing - Upload large (up to 2GB!) files, manage versions and get work approved
• Task Management - Easily track tasks, deadlines and milestones with our project management software
• Reduce Email Traffic - Whiteboards and discussion forums keep ideas and conversations in one place

All users have access to the support portal and community forums. Paying users get priority response time on queries. Enterprise users get direct access to a customer service representative, priority response times, setup and ongoing training. Huddle Accounts - 1 Month Free Trial

Tagged as: Business Productivity Tools, live conferencing, online collaboration, project management software and document sharing

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Here is only a small list for you what advantages you will have using CBPredators, the new product by Chris Fox and Jerome Chapman:

• You will be able to set up multiple new income streams each and every month…The good thing: it would take you a maximum of only 18 clicks for you to get each web site up and ready to rock. Profit 24/7 – and you can scale this up WITHOUT a limit as often as you like.
• Get into those big money niches… in online business the niche is everything.. CB Predator is fully loaded with HOT niche information so you don’t need to worry about it… a few simple steps and you are ready to go – easy as pie!
• Control how much money you want to make… need a little more coming in each month? Want to scale up your earnings because you want more?  Simply take approx. 15 mins to set up another site, then sit and wait for the money… yes.. it is really that simple!
• You don’t need to worry about where to start, or how you will be getting traffic to your site. Why? because CB Predator will do all this for you automatically…and all you need to do follow the stupidly simple setup, and you’re ready to make money!
• CBpredators will literally make money the first day you start… the system is incredible advanced and powerful, you know you are always just 15 minutes away from your first profits…
• You will be able to rake in serious affiliate commissions,  with almost no effort at all… the CB Predators system will build you complete and fully automated, customizable affiliate websites in no time at all… proven to be effective, attract traffic and sell.
• Since it only takes a few clicks and 15 minutes from adding whatever new automated income stream you can grow and scale up your income infinitely every single hour, every single say … grow a  real, legitimate business…
• Dominate any niche you desire,  become the “big shot” in that niche with ease… and you’ll do it automatically… simply let the system work while you sit back and relax…
• Build a stable online business where you know it will be profitable for years to come. No shady tricks, no temporary hacks or “loop holes”. A solid, stable, profitable business which will make you money 24/7

Tagged as: internet business

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Being colorblind doesn’t mean not seeing color. It means seeing it differently. If colorblindness challenges the colorblind, it also challenges designers. Some of us think designing sites that are colorblind-friendly means sticking with black and white, or close to it. But the opposite is true. Using contrast effectively not only differentiates our site’s design from others, it’s the essential ingredient that can make our content accessible to every viewer, including the colorblind. By understanding contrast, we can create websites that unabashedly revel in color.

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We take FAQs for granted as part of our sites’ content, but do they really work, or are they a band-aid for poor content? FAQ-hater R. Stephen Gracey explores the history and usability of FAQs. Learn how to collect, track, and analyze real user questions, sales inquiries, and support requests—and use the insights gained thereby to improve your site’s content, not just to write a FAQ. Find out when FAQs are an appropriate part of your content strategy, and discover how to ensure that your FAQ is doing all it should to help your customers.

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