Search engine optimization should always be considered long before your website structure, colors, layout, and overall site design. But, the majority of people usually get caught up "in the moment"... thinking of riches instead of "how" they're going to attract more website visitors. This article is meant to get you back on track, and provide you with 5 winning search engine optimization tactics.
Identify Keywords
1. The single biggest mistake that most business owners make is trying to think of a "cool name" for their website, when they should have chosen a keyword-rich site name like 'prevent-corporate-bankruptcy.com' instead of SmithLawOffice.com' (as an example). Your potential customers search for keyword phrases... not business names... unless you're already a household name like Wal-Mart, eBay or Apple. Facing reality, many business owners gave up on websites ever helping their business a long time ago... usually because of a poor website name choice. And, it doesn't have to be this way.
Simply, discover what terms people are searching for. Identify the "action" keywords and phrases that people are actually using when they are searching Google, Yahoo, MSN or any of the other major search engines. I highly recommend looking for keyword phrases that incorporate the following keywords: buy, want, need, order, download, etc. I'm sure you're getting the idea now. Then, you need to purchase website names that are centered around the most popular keyword phrases. And, redirect these visitors to your current website. And, I promise that you can setup a website redirect in less than one minute... even if computers scare you. You just need to have access to your website hosting interface, with cPanel being the most popular choice.
Optimizing Your Web Page
2. After identifying a minimum of 10 keyword phrases, I recommend optimizing your current website pages' title tags, meta tags, image "alt" tags. You need to start using these keywords within your webpage content in bold text, underlined text, and as text links. Do not overuse these keywords though. These keywords should only comprise 4-6% of each page. So, if you have 500 words on a webpage, limit your keyword usage to 20-30 words. Most of the major search engines index every word of your page and compare them to your title META description and META keywords. So, you should never hide or add non-related keywords to your webpages: like Anna Kournakova, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, etc. This is a "black hat" tactic and should never be used, unless your want your website to be permanently banned by the search engine directories.
Most of the major search engines don't even consider the META keywords anymore, which is why the actual content of your webpages is becoming more and more important. Excessive repeating of keywords is considered as spamming, which will get your website penalized with a lower ranking. And, be sure mix your keywords in different combinations throughout the page and in your ALT tags, instead of using the same phrase over and over again.
Link Popularity
3. One of the most important factors to achieve a high ranking in the search engines is link popularity. The overall number of links to your web site is important, but the quality of the links are even more important. All the search engines are very fond of "on topic" links. Links from sites that contain your same keyword content and are focusing on the same topic as your site, are known as "on topic" links. Three of the best ways to get "on topic" quality backlinks are to comment on other industry-related blogs, make comments in industry-related forums, and to submit articles to article directories. Just make sure that you're adding comments or articles to high pagerank sites, avoiding low page rank sites.
Misspellings
4. Adding misspelled keywords within your META tags can also boost your website traffic, because many people are likely to misspell your keywords when browsing the search engine directories. As an example, here are several popular misspellings I found people making when they searched for a site submission service, as follows: "free search engine submision", "sumit", "subit", "search egnine submission", "submition", and "saerchengines".
Add Fresh Content
5. Adding fresh content to your website on a regular basis is another key factor that plays a critical role in your search engine rankings. Adding new content regularly gives your visitors a reason to come back. Search engine robots will also visit your website more often, once they notice that you update regularly. This is one of the main reasons why WordPress blogs are so popular right now. When visitors leave comments about blog posts you have made, the search engine bots see this as new content. And, it really helps your site rankings when a visitor makes a comment with a permalink back to their high pagerank site. This helps website owners save time, by allowing website visitors to create content for them.
Don't Kill the Search Engine Crawlers
Avoid using flash intro pages where it says "Click Here to Enter Site", because the search engines have a very difficult time indexing (seeing) anything beyond the intro page... unless you've submitted every webpage of your site to the search engine directories manually, which is very time consuming. Even if you use the alt attribute to specify alternate text for flash images, that text will not be anywhere near as important as real text on a main index page.
Provide Relevant Title Tags
7. Making your page titles simple, descriptive, relevant and "keyword rich" makes it easier for search engines to know what each page is about. Keyword rich titles help the search engine directories provide consumers with more relevant search results, helping them determine whether your website contains what they are trying to find. The title description is the most important element of your website design, after you have chosen your website domain name.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Act Of Interdependence
The best role of business online is that of interdependency. We’ve all heard the old saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to online business this is especially true.
If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.
It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.
Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.
In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.
Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.
This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.
The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.
In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.
Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.
It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.
I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.
Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.
Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.
If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.
It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.
Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.
In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.
Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.
This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.
The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.
In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.
Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.
It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.
I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.
Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.
Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Internet And Business Online
Let’s face it; the web is filled with entitlement issues. For a few dollars a month we gain access to the world via an Internet connection. We want sports scores and we don’t want to wait for the sports networks on television to scroll their list, so we log on and get the score. We missed a portion of a television show we like so we log on and often find the program available to watch on demand.
We gain free access to online encyclopedias and dictionaries.
We play along with game shows and sit at the computer to find the answers before the contestant does.
We want to know more about the weather and a few clicks later we know.
We want the ratings on a car we’re thinking about buying and we find it online.
There is often one underlying prerequisite to our online perusal. We do not want to have to pay to get the information. This information is typically thought to come at no cost when we pay to log onto the Internet.
The entitlement issues have largely been managed by websites competing with other forms of media for your attention. If a site is brokering knowledge they will typically offset the expense by infusing Google AdSense Ads or other PPC or banner ads into the site thus allowing the visitor to have access to the information without the concern of payment.
Even fee-based sites generally have a free tier of service for anyone. A perk-filled membership is generally available at a modest price. If a visitor gains significant value from the free tier they may be inclined to purchase a membership if they feel the extended value is worth it.
Interestingly many sites that are entirely fee-based may struggle more than those with at least a most basic free tier of service.
Whether the mentality is correct or not the Internet has accommodated those who may have a feeling that the world owes them something. Obviously businesses online can’t give product away, but they can and are infusing their sites with information and free downloads that add incredible value at no cost to consumers. This strategy has become a primary component to improving trust between online business and potential consumer.
Websites are filled with free podcasts, video streams, game downloads, teaching materials, recipes, home improvement tips, garden development plans and information on virtually any subject you can think of.
To online businesses it may seem unfair to have to find alternative ways to fund free information and advice, especially when you may be used to being paid for the information you can provide.
In most cases the information provided is designed to work as part of a marketing strategy pointing visitors to products and services you make available. The knowledge-based content provides information that coincides with something you can offer the customer.
Since face-to-face connections are not easily managed online this strategy not only tackles the entitlement issue, but it is useful in developing a trusting relationship with those who do not easily pass on their trust.
We gain free access to online encyclopedias and dictionaries.
We play along with game shows and sit at the computer to find the answers before the contestant does.
We want to know more about the weather and a few clicks later we know.
We want the ratings on a car we’re thinking about buying and we find it online.
There is often one underlying prerequisite to our online perusal. We do not want to have to pay to get the information. This information is typically thought to come at no cost when we pay to log onto the Internet.
The entitlement issues have largely been managed by websites competing with other forms of media for your attention. If a site is brokering knowledge they will typically offset the expense by infusing Google AdSense Ads or other PPC or banner ads into the site thus allowing the visitor to have access to the information without the concern of payment.
Even fee-based sites generally have a free tier of service for anyone. A perk-filled membership is generally available at a modest price. If a visitor gains significant value from the free tier they may be inclined to purchase a membership if they feel the extended value is worth it.
Interestingly many sites that are entirely fee-based may struggle more than those with at least a most basic free tier of service.
Whether the mentality is correct or not the Internet has accommodated those who may have a feeling that the world owes them something. Obviously businesses online can’t give product away, but they can and are infusing their sites with information and free downloads that add incredible value at no cost to consumers. This strategy has become a primary component to improving trust between online business and potential consumer.
Websites are filled with free podcasts, video streams, game downloads, teaching materials, recipes, home improvement tips, garden development plans and information on virtually any subject you can think of.
To online businesses it may seem unfair to have to find alternative ways to fund free information and advice, especially when you may be used to being paid for the information you can provide.
In most cases the information provided is designed to work as part of a marketing strategy pointing visitors to products and services you make available. The knowledge-based content provides information that coincides with something you can offer the customer.
Since face-to-face connections are not easily managed online this strategy not only tackles the entitlement issue, but it is useful in developing a trusting relationship with those who do not easily pass on their trust.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Cashing in by Blogging
Believe it or not, but it’s actually possible to make money from blogging. One teenager has, in fact, earned $5,000 a month just from making posts on his blog! Of course, not every blogger is this lucky. It does take some skill, and some luck to make money from blogging. What it also takes is some knowledge of how exactly to generate income just by posting blogs. In this newsletter, we will go over three specific methods of making money on your blog: Adsense, Pay Per Lead, and Affiliate Links.
So how exactly do I make money on my blog?
You do it by working with another company that wants to use your blog as a form of advertising. It sounds like selling out, right? Not exactly. The advertising can be as in your face or subtle as you want. And it can still make you money, provided you have enough visitors to your blog.
What is Adsense?
Adsense is a program offered by Google. The program, if installed, will display ads provided by Google.
How do I get Adsense?
You’ll need to go to Google.com, first. At the bottom of the screen is a link for “Advertising Programs”. Click on that. Then click on the link for “Adsense”. Scroll down on the page that comes up and click “Click Here To Apply!” You then fill out the form with information about yourself. After 12-48 hours, Google will notify you via email whether or not your site has been accepted. When you’ve been accepted, set up your ads by doing either of the following:
1. If your blog is hosted on Blogger.com, you can set up your AdSense ads by going to your profile, selecting settings>template>add an element. Then select AdSense and login with your account info. Next, you’ll configure your ads and save the template. That’s it.
2. If you are self-hosting your blog, you’ll have to set up AdSense in more of a manual way. You’ll create your ads(which can be as small or as tall as you want) and then copy the HTML/Javascript code Google gives you. Then you’ll paste it into your blog(on the left, right, or top of the screen).
For the first few days, the ads displayed by Google will be Public Service Announcements. After the ads have been up a few days, though, the ads will switch to ads that are relevant to your blog.
How does Adsense work?
Every time a visitor clicks an Adsense ad, you get a little bit of money(usually around 30-60 cents). The amount you get for each ad clicked depends on the number of unique visitors you receive on your blog. The more visitors, the more money that can be earned.
Google will then send a check or pay you through Paypal once you’ve made at least $100 from the ads.
It is important to remember that Google will penalize you if you click your own ads, or if you ask visitors specifically to click ads. So don’t do that!
Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click is basically just like AdSense, except you don’t just work with Google—you work with multiple companies. BidVertiser is one such company you can sign up with to do Pay Per Click advertising.
How do I get Pay Per Click
You sign up with a site like Bidvertiser and then follow their instructions to set up the Pay Per Click ads on your site.
How does Pay Per Click work?
It works by paying you money each time someone clicks an ad that you display. You won’t get paid for multiple clicks from the same user in the same visitor, nor will you get paid for someone simply visiting your site. You only get paid for legitimate clicks.
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links are basically links which people pay you for. Companies will actually pay owners of popular blogs to post links on their blog. You can do as much Affiliate linking as you want.
How do I get Affiliate Links?
You can get Affiliate links by searching for “Affiliate Link Programs” on the internet. Once you find an Affiliate link program that looks good to you, sign up for it. Then you can follow their instructions for putting the link(s) on your blog.
How do Affiliate Links work?
Like the other two methods mentioned above, Affiliate links work by paying you money each time they are clicked. You get paid for each click per unique visitor.
So that’s it. There’s three legitimate ways to make money from blogging. It is important to keep in mind that the amount of money you are able to make depends on how many visitors your blog draws. If you draw a lot, you’ll make a lot. If not, the money you earn will be modest. But it’s still extra money, so why not do it?
Making money using Adsense, Pay Per Click or Affiliate Link programs is easy and effective. Start monetizing your blog today!
So how exactly do I make money on my blog?
You do it by working with another company that wants to use your blog as a form of advertising. It sounds like selling out, right? Not exactly. The advertising can be as in your face or subtle as you want. And it can still make you money, provided you have enough visitors to your blog.
What is Adsense?
Adsense is a program offered by Google. The program, if installed, will display ads provided by Google.
How do I get Adsense?
You’ll need to go to Google.com, first. At the bottom of the screen is a link for “Advertising Programs”. Click on that. Then click on the link for “Adsense”. Scroll down on the page that comes up and click “Click Here To Apply!” You then fill out the form with information about yourself. After 12-48 hours, Google will notify you via email whether or not your site has been accepted. When you’ve been accepted, set up your ads by doing either of the following:
1. If your blog is hosted on Blogger.com, you can set up your AdSense ads by going to your profile, selecting settings>template>add an element. Then select AdSense and login with your account info. Next, you’ll configure your ads and save the template. That’s it.
2. If you are self-hosting your blog, you’ll have to set up AdSense in more of a manual way. You’ll create your ads(which can be as small or as tall as you want) and then copy the HTML/Javascript code Google gives you. Then you’ll paste it into your blog(on the left, right, or top of the screen).
For the first few days, the ads displayed by Google will be Public Service Announcements. After the ads have been up a few days, though, the ads will switch to ads that are relevant to your blog.
How does Adsense work?
Every time a visitor clicks an Adsense ad, you get a little bit of money(usually around 30-60 cents). The amount you get for each ad clicked depends on the number of unique visitors you receive on your blog. The more visitors, the more money that can be earned.
Google will then send a check or pay you through Paypal once you’ve made at least $100 from the ads.
It is important to remember that Google will penalize you if you click your own ads, or if you ask visitors specifically to click ads. So don’t do that!
Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click is basically just like AdSense, except you don’t just work with Google—you work with multiple companies. BidVertiser is one such company you can sign up with to do Pay Per Click advertising.
How do I get Pay Per Click
You sign up with a site like Bidvertiser and then follow their instructions to set up the Pay Per Click ads on your site.
How does Pay Per Click work?
It works by paying you money each time someone clicks an ad that you display. You won’t get paid for multiple clicks from the same user in the same visitor, nor will you get paid for someone simply visiting your site. You only get paid for legitimate clicks.
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links are basically links which people pay you for. Companies will actually pay owners of popular blogs to post links on their blog. You can do as much Affiliate linking as you want.
How do I get Affiliate Links?
You can get Affiliate links by searching for “Affiliate Link Programs” on the internet. Once you find an Affiliate link program that looks good to you, sign up for it. Then you can follow their instructions for putting the link(s) on your blog.
How do Affiliate Links work?
Like the other two methods mentioned above, Affiliate links work by paying you money each time they are clicked. You get paid for each click per unique visitor.
So that’s it. There’s three legitimate ways to make money from blogging. It is important to keep in mind that the amount of money you are able to make depends on how many visitors your blog draws. If you draw a lot, you’ll make a lot. If not, the money you earn will be modest. But it’s still extra money, so why not do it?
Making money using Adsense, Pay Per Click or Affiliate Link programs is easy and effective. Start monetizing your blog today!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Stop Blog Spammers
Blogs are now an extremely popular and important part of the internet. Millions of people blog every day. As blogs have evolved over the years, so has the commenting system. Now anyone can make comments on a particular blog posting. As blog commenting has grown more popular, so has spam commenting. In this newsletter, we’ll go over why comments are a great form of feedback for your blog, how they help the credibility of your content, what spam comments are and how to prevent them from happening.
Comments – A great form of feedback
When blogs first came around, they were simply online journals. No one could post comments on a blog posting. That all changed in 1998 with OpenDiary, a site which allowed people to comment on blog postings. Now every blog, whether it is remotely or self-hosted, includes this option to comment.
Commenting is great because it allows real people to tell you what they think about your form. It gives you feedback on what you are doing right and what you may need to improve. Comments can be encouraging to you and motivate you to post more quality blog messages. Or they can be constructive criticism to make you work harder to get better at writing content.
Whatever the style of comment is, it is still very useful to your blog. High numbers of comments have the ability to make a blog look credible because they show that the blog is being read by a lot of people. That’s something that every blog owner wants, and comments help to let them know just how many people enjoy their content.
Bad comments
Unfortunately, spammers have now started to use comments as a way to spam. How do you know what a spam comment is? Well, a spam comment is a comment that only advertises another site or product. If the comment seems bland/generic with a cheap link thrown in, then it’s definitely a spam comment.
Here is an example of a typical spam comment:
“Hey, this site is really cool. Check out my really cool site at spamsite.com.”
Of course not all spam comments will be this blatant, but you get the point.
Fortunately for bloggers, as spam comments have grown, so has the ways to prevent it. Here are a couple ways that you can prevent spam comments from even being posted on your blog.
#1: Close off commenting on older blog posts
There are options for you to stop comments from being posted on any particular blog post. Lots of times, spammers will post comments in weeks or months old posts. So take away this opportunity from them to keep it from happening. Most blog hosters now offer this as a standard option in the tool panel. If one of your posts has been up for a couple weeks, close it up.
#2: Take advantage of software offered to prevent comment spam
If you host your own blog using WordPress, you can use an option in that software to prevent spam. Even if you aren’t using WordPress, you can still use other Spam comment blocking software like Spam Karma, Akismet, and Bad Behavior. While these aren’t 100% effective, they have proven to be quite effective in preventing spam from happening.
#3: Take a look at your settings and see what can be tweaked to toughen your protection
Lots of blogs now have settings to help prevent spam. If you already have a spam blocker on in your blog and are still experiencing spam, take a closer look at the settings to see if there’s anything that can be tweaked to make your protection stronger. However, if you do this, you should closely monitor your posts to make sure legit comments aren’t being blocked out. If they are, you might have to lighten up a bit.
#4: Regularly read your blog comments
Be sure to keep an eye on your comments. Even the best software or setting can’t prevent everything, so you will have to occasionally manually remove comments on your own.
By applying the above principles, you can ensure that your blog is full of only good, quality comments, which will help your credibility tremendously.
Comments are a great form of communication between yourself and your readers. They help the credibility of your blog!
Comments – A great form of feedback
When blogs first came around, they were simply online journals. No one could post comments on a blog posting. That all changed in 1998 with OpenDiary, a site which allowed people to comment on blog postings. Now every blog, whether it is remotely or self-hosted, includes this option to comment.
Commenting is great because it allows real people to tell you what they think about your form. It gives you feedback on what you are doing right and what you may need to improve. Comments can be encouraging to you and motivate you to post more quality blog messages. Or they can be constructive criticism to make you work harder to get better at writing content.
Whatever the style of comment is, it is still very useful to your blog. High numbers of comments have the ability to make a blog look credible because they show that the blog is being read by a lot of people. That’s something that every blog owner wants, and comments help to let them know just how many people enjoy their content.
Bad comments
Unfortunately, spammers have now started to use comments as a way to spam. How do you know what a spam comment is? Well, a spam comment is a comment that only advertises another site or product. If the comment seems bland/generic with a cheap link thrown in, then it’s definitely a spam comment.
Here is an example of a typical spam comment:
“Hey, this site is really cool. Check out my really cool site at spamsite.com.”
Of course not all spam comments will be this blatant, but you get the point.
Fortunately for bloggers, as spam comments have grown, so has the ways to prevent it. Here are a couple ways that you can prevent spam comments from even being posted on your blog.
#1: Close off commenting on older blog posts
There are options for you to stop comments from being posted on any particular blog post. Lots of times, spammers will post comments in weeks or months old posts. So take away this opportunity from them to keep it from happening. Most blog hosters now offer this as a standard option in the tool panel. If one of your posts has been up for a couple weeks, close it up.
#2: Take advantage of software offered to prevent comment spam
If you host your own blog using WordPress, you can use an option in that software to prevent spam. Even if you aren’t using WordPress, you can still use other Spam comment blocking software like Spam Karma, Akismet, and Bad Behavior. While these aren’t 100% effective, they have proven to be quite effective in preventing spam from happening.
#3: Take a look at your settings and see what can be tweaked to toughen your protection
Lots of blogs now have settings to help prevent spam. If you already have a spam blocker on in your blog and are still experiencing spam, take a closer look at the settings to see if there’s anything that can be tweaked to make your protection stronger. However, if you do this, you should closely monitor your posts to make sure legit comments aren’t being blocked out. If they are, you might have to lighten up a bit.
#4: Regularly read your blog comments
Be sure to keep an eye on your comments. Even the best software or setting can’t prevent everything, so you will have to occasionally manually remove comments on your own.
By applying the above principles, you can ensure that your blog is full of only good, quality comments, which will help your credibility tremendously.
Comments are a great form of communication between yourself and your readers. They help the credibility of your blog!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Post Regularly Because...
Keeping people interested in your blog, whether it is a business or personal blog, is key to attracting a lot of regular visitors. Many blogs have died because people have just lost interest. The main reason for the lack of interest is simply a lack of posts by the blogger. Regular, frequent posting, which will boost your blog’s ranking in search engines, is essential to the survival of any blog.
You might be asking yourself, what is frequent posting? How many blog entries should I make on a given week? How do I make frequent consistently good posts? What are the reasons for me to post frequently? In this newsletter, we will go over all of the above.
What is frequent posting?
Frequent blog posting is posting enough to keep your readers interested. Obviously, people will not want to come back to a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. They want to see consistent posting so that they know coming back to check the blog next week to see if there are more posts won’t be a waste of time.
How many blog entries should I make each week?
This is one of the tougher questions to answer. It really depends on the purpose of your blog. If it’s a personal blog, a weekly or twice weekly update is an excellent idea. A political/sports/music/religion blog should have 3-4 posts per week. Business blogs should have at least 2 posts, but preferably 4 each week.
The thing to remember is that quality counts. Posting frequently just for the sake of posting frequently tends to result in subpar posts which people won’t care about. It is important to find a balance—frequent, quality posts that won’t result in burnout on your part. Why create 4 poor quality posts each week when you could post 2 quality posts per week?
How do I create quality postings on a consistent basis?
It’s all about following a consistent pattern of writing. Maybe you’re not a natural writer and this is difficult. That’s why we’ll give you an outline to help you.
1. Pick a topic that is interesting to you and to your readers. Maybe if your blog is a personal blog, you could write about the latest happenings in Hollywood.
2. Carefully think about what you’ll write about the topic. It makes it easy to make quality blog postings if you know exactly what you’ll write. Plot out everything about the post before even beginning to write it.
3. Before writing your content, pick out some keywords that are relevant to your blog. If you naturally use keywords throughout your post, you will please search engine spiders which will get your blog ranked higher on search engines. Your visitors won’t mind the use of keywords if they are used in a tasteful way.
4. Begin writing your post. Don’t limit yourself to a particular amount of words. Just do what’s natural. And if any blog post is hard for you, just take a timeout and relax. You should be able to finish the post a bit later on, after you’ve had some time to think things through, you should be able to finish the post with no problems.
Why is frequent posting important?
Blogs are meant to be outlets for individuals or businesses. They are used to get an opinion out on something and to engage readers. Readers need to have something that makes them want to keep coming back to a blog. That something is usually quality, frequent posts.
Gaining and maintaining visitors isn’t the only reason to post often in your blog. Catching the eye of a search engine—and achieving a high ranking—is another valid reason for posting frequently. Most likely, each posting in your blog features some keywords or keyword phrases scattered throughout it. Logic says that the more natural keywords you have on a blog, the better. Thus, the more posts you make on your blog, the more keywords you have on there. And the more keywords you have, the more likely a search engine bot is to crawl your site. The more your site is crawled by bots, the more likely it is that you will have a high ranking on a search engine.
Frequent blog posting can be easy as long as the person who is posting takes the time to plot out what they’ll write about. So take a few minutes to think about your post and then just do it!
You might be asking yourself, what is frequent posting? How many blog entries should I make on a given week? How do I make frequent consistently good posts? What are the reasons for me to post frequently? In this newsletter, we will go over all of the above.
What is frequent posting?
Frequent blog posting is posting enough to keep your readers interested. Obviously, people will not want to come back to a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. They want to see consistent posting so that they know coming back to check the blog next week to see if there are more posts won’t be a waste of time.
How many blog entries should I make each week?
This is one of the tougher questions to answer. It really depends on the purpose of your blog. If it’s a personal blog, a weekly or twice weekly update is an excellent idea. A political/sports/music/religion blog should have 3-4 posts per week. Business blogs should have at least 2 posts, but preferably 4 each week.
The thing to remember is that quality counts. Posting frequently just for the sake of posting frequently tends to result in subpar posts which people won’t care about. It is important to find a balance—frequent, quality posts that won’t result in burnout on your part. Why create 4 poor quality posts each week when you could post 2 quality posts per week?
How do I create quality postings on a consistent basis?
It’s all about following a consistent pattern of writing. Maybe you’re not a natural writer and this is difficult. That’s why we’ll give you an outline to help you.
1. Pick a topic that is interesting to you and to your readers. Maybe if your blog is a personal blog, you could write about the latest happenings in Hollywood.
2. Carefully think about what you’ll write about the topic. It makes it easy to make quality blog postings if you know exactly what you’ll write. Plot out everything about the post before even beginning to write it.
3. Before writing your content, pick out some keywords that are relevant to your blog. If you naturally use keywords throughout your post, you will please search engine spiders which will get your blog ranked higher on search engines. Your visitors won’t mind the use of keywords if they are used in a tasteful way.
4. Begin writing your post. Don’t limit yourself to a particular amount of words. Just do what’s natural. And if any blog post is hard for you, just take a timeout and relax. You should be able to finish the post a bit later on, after you’ve had some time to think things through, you should be able to finish the post with no problems.
Why is frequent posting important?
Blogs are meant to be outlets for individuals or businesses. They are used to get an opinion out on something and to engage readers. Readers need to have something that makes them want to keep coming back to a blog. That something is usually quality, frequent posts.
Gaining and maintaining visitors isn’t the only reason to post often in your blog. Catching the eye of a search engine—and achieving a high ranking—is another valid reason for posting frequently. Most likely, each posting in your blog features some keywords or keyword phrases scattered throughout it. Logic says that the more natural keywords you have on a blog, the better. Thus, the more posts you make on your blog, the more keywords you have on there. And the more keywords you have, the more likely a search engine bot is to crawl your site. The more your site is crawled by bots, the more likely it is that you will have a high ranking on a search engine.
Frequent blog posting can be easy as long as the person who is posting takes the time to plot out what they’ll write about. So take a few minutes to think about your post and then just do it!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Remote Blog or Self Hosted Blog?
So you’ve decided to blog, but aren’t sure whether you should host the blog yourself or sign up for a free service like blogger.com. It’s a dilemma that many bloggers face. There are pros and cons to both, which makes the decision difficult for many. Neither is perfect, and neither is for everyone. Fortunately, you should be able to make the best decision for you if you are armed with adequate knowledge of both. In this newsletter, we’ll go over services like blogger.com and others, plus software that allows you to host your own blog. We’ll also go over the pros and cons of each. After reading this, you will know which is best for you.
Who offers free blog hosting?
Many sites offer free blog hosting. Among them are Forumer, Blogger, BlogEasy, Aeonity, BlogThing and Blogates. A quick search for “free blog” on Google reveals many possibilities.
What software can I use to host my own blog?
Like free blog hosting, there are many possibilities for software that makes hosting your own blog easy. Most of them are free to use. These include:
WordPress(the most popular software)
Apache Roller
Blosxom
Geeklog
Textpattern
LifeType
There is also blog software which you can purchase for use on your site. These include:
Community Server
Movable Type
Radio UserLand
One negative about using software and hosting your own blog is that the process can often times be complicated. You have to download the software and install it to your server, which doesn’t always go easily. It’s particularly hard for those who don’t have a lot of experience installing things on servers.
Why should I remotely host my blog at a place like Blogger?
Places like Blogger allow you to host your blog there. It’s a good option for many people.
The Pros
• It’s easy to set up and maintain a blog. You don’t have to go through the trouble of installing software and configuring it to work on your server. All you have to do is sign up for an account and start posting.
• It’s friendly for beginning bloggers. Sites that host blogs offer good tutorials on how to make your blog postings, so that even someone who is completely new to the concept of blogging can do it easily.
• Most blog hosting sites are completely free to use. There is no need to pay for things like a domain name and hosting.
• Monetizing your blog is easy. Rather than having to manually put HTML/Javascript codes on your blog to manually set up things like AdSense and Pay Per Click advertising, you can select an option on most blog hosting sites that does much of the work for you.
The Cons
• You don’t have as many options to customize your blog. Remotely hosted blogs are admittedly somewhat limited in terms of what you can actually do on them. You have to stick with what is provided to you in terms of look and features.
• The URL you get is always yourname.BLOGSITE.com. You don’t get to have a custom domain name like YOURNAME.com. This can possibly hurt traffic to your blog.
• Blogs hosted on free blog sites don’t look as professional as self hosted blogs.
Why should I self-host my blog?
The Pros
• You have more options and more flexibility. You are able to tweak the blog to your liking.
• Your URL is your address for your blog. Rather than having go to where your blog is hosted to read it, they can read it right from your site.
• The ability to make your blog look professional. Blogs that are hosted on sites of their own tend to look a lot better than those hosted on free sites.
• More space for your blog. Free blog sites usually place a restriction on how much space you have for things like photos and music. By hosting your own blog, you are able to use as much space as you need.
The Cons
• There are sometimes problems with setting up blog software to run on your site and server. If you aren’t experienced when it comes to working with mySQL, the process will be hard.
• Updates aren’t as easy to post.
• You have to manually set up programs to monetize your blog. However, if you are good with HTML/Javascript, this shouldn’t be too hard.
• You have to pay for your own hosting and domain
As you can see, there are pros and cons to both. Which should you choose? Well, it depends on who you are and what you intend to use your blog for. If you intend to use it for business, then a self-hosted blog is the best idea. If it’s a personal blog, then a free hosted blog will probably be fine for you.
Closely examine all of the pros and cons mentioned above. That way, you’ll be able to make the best decision for you!
Who offers free blog hosting?
Many sites offer free blog hosting. Among them are Forumer, Blogger, BlogEasy, Aeonity, BlogThing and Blogates. A quick search for “free blog” on Google reveals many possibilities.
What software can I use to host my own blog?
Like free blog hosting, there are many possibilities for software that makes hosting your own blog easy. Most of them are free to use. These include:
WordPress(the most popular software)
Apache Roller
Blosxom
Geeklog
Textpattern
LifeType
There is also blog software which you can purchase for use on your site. These include:
Community Server
Movable Type
Radio UserLand
One negative about using software and hosting your own blog is that the process can often times be complicated. You have to download the software and install it to your server, which doesn’t always go easily. It’s particularly hard for those who don’t have a lot of experience installing things on servers.
Why should I remotely host my blog at a place like Blogger?
Places like Blogger allow you to host your blog there. It’s a good option for many people.
The Pros
• It’s easy to set up and maintain a blog. You don’t have to go through the trouble of installing software and configuring it to work on your server. All you have to do is sign up for an account and start posting.
• It’s friendly for beginning bloggers. Sites that host blogs offer good tutorials on how to make your blog postings, so that even someone who is completely new to the concept of blogging can do it easily.
• Most blog hosting sites are completely free to use. There is no need to pay for things like a domain name and hosting.
• Monetizing your blog is easy. Rather than having to manually put HTML/Javascript codes on your blog to manually set up things like AdSense and Pay Per Click advertising, you can select an option on most blog hosting sites that does much of the work for you.
The Cons
• You don’t have as many options to customize your blog. Remotely hosted blogs are admittedly somewhat limited in terms of what you can actually do on them. You have to stick with what is provided to you in terms of look and features.
• The URL you get is always yourname.BLOGSITE.com. You don’t get to have a custom domain name like YOURNAME.com. This can possibly hurt traffic to your blog.
• Blogs hosted on free blog sites don’t look as professional as self hosted blogs.
Why should I self-host my blog?
The Pros
• You have more options and more flexibility. You are able to tweak the blog to your liking.
• Your URL is your address for your blog. Rather than having go to where your blog is hosted to read it, they can read it right from your site.
• The ability to make your blog look professional. Blogs that are hosted on sites of their own tend to look a lot better than those hosted on free sites.
• More space for your blog. Free blog sites usually place a restriction on how much space you have for things like photos and music. By hosting your own blog, you are able to use as much space as you need.
The Cons
• There are sometimes problems with setting up blog software to run on your site and server. If you aren’t experienced when it comes to working with mySQL, the process will be hard.
• Updates aren’t as easy to post.
• You have to manually set up programs to monetize your blog. However, if you are good with HTML/Javascript, this shouldn’t be too hard.
• You have to pay for your own hosting and domain
As you can see, there are pros and cons to both. Which should you choose? Well, it depends on who you are and what you intend to use your blog for. If you intend to use it for business, then a self-hosted blog is the best idea. If it’s a personal blog, then a free hosted blog will probably be fine for you.
Closely examine all of the pros and cons mentioned above. That way, you’ll be able to make the best decision for you!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Website Sales Purpose
When designing a website, it is important that webmasters ask some general questions before they begin the design process...
What Is The Purpose Of Your Website?
Many companies use websites to establish their brand. Others use websites as a communication tool. Some companies see websites as sales vehicles and "billboards". Still others use their website as an educational tool. And some may be any combination of the above. The website must have a purpose in order for it to be effective.
What Is It That You Are Trying To Accomplish With The Website?
A strong understanding of the website will allow a webmaster to emphasize the action they want the website visitor to take on the website. By defining and understanding the purpose of the website, webmasters and publishers can better structure the information on the website. Information can be provided with the appropriate emphasis and navigation. An ideal website will lead the web visitor to take the action the webmaster wants.
Who Is Your Audience?
You must identify and understand your target audience. Understanding your demographic will allow you to cater content specific to that group.
What Are The Objectives Of The Website?
You also need to determine what the objective of your website is. What are you attempting to accomplish? Are you trying to sell something? Are you looking for downloads, or is sales your real objective? Is your website trying to promote a specific product or service? Do you want your visitors to take a specific action? Is the intent to profit from ad space in general or to have website visitor's click on specific ads? Are you trying to build a brand? Do you want visitors to purchase a product, or provide an email address?
When attempting to solicit a specific action, there are some general guidelines that you should follow. Your website should be designed to solicit the action you desire, so the navigation should intuitively lead the visitor to take the desired action. If clicking a link is the goal, then that link should be clearly indicated and prominent on the page. This will not only help insure that the maximum number of visitors will be able to adequately view and navigate your content, but it will also help prompt those visitors to take the action you wish to have occur.
For example: Many software companies struggle with the action they wish to solicit from the website visitor. Software companies and eBook publishers are often guilty of pushing users to download, at the expense of the actual sale. Some companies prefer to have users download prior to making a purchase decision, while others lose impulse purchasers by only pushing the download rather than the sale.
In Order To Maximize The Websites Sales Purpose And Objectives, Follow These Simple Steps...
Address Compatibility Issues
If a website visitor is unable to view the website's content, they are obviously going to be unable to complete the desired action. The compatibility issues could be related to technology or usability. Avoid using technologies that require the website visitor to download a plug-in before they can view the website content. If providing content using flash is important to you, you should also provide a flash-free version as well. Also, do not alienate website visitors who might have a disability -- use proper web construct, provide alt tags for images, and avoid using a color scheme that will cause confusion.
Define A Clear Navigation Path
A website's navigation should provide the visitor with a clear path. Information architecture is the organization and categorization of online content -- the process of creating clarity and organizing online information in a purposeful, and logical way. Prioritize and emphasize the most important items on the website. Give visitors a clear path to what they are seeking. Each and every page should intuitively provide them links to additional information and purchase options.
Minimize Distractions
Minimize choices and other website distractions. Website visitors should be provided a clear path of action. Do not provide the website visitor an abundance of choices -- studies show that a large number of choices often puts the consumer off. It is generally recommended that you provide no more than 3 choices. Keep your message concise and on-topic. Website visitors will often just scan a webpage rather than reading it, so bulleted lists and headlines might be used to emphasize your message.
It may sound like a cliche, but it's the little things that can make the biggest difference. Pay attention to all aspects of your website. Defining the specific website objectives and purpose will help to encourage the desired action or behavior from your website visitors.
What Is The Purpose Of Your Website?
Many companies use websites to establish their brand. Others use websites as a communication tool. Some companies see websites as sales vehicles and "billboards". Still others use their website as an educational tool. And some may be any combination of the above. The website must have a purpose in order for it to be effective.
What Is It That You Are Trying To Accomplish With The Website?
A strong understanding of the website will allow a webmaster to emphasize the action they want the website visitor to take on the website. By defining and understanding the purpose of the website, webmasters and publishers can better structure the information on the website. Information can be provided with the appropriate emphasis and navigation. An ideal website will lead the web visitor to take the action the webmaster wants.
Who Is Your Audience?
You must identify and understand your target audience. Understanding your demographic will allow you to cater content specific to that group.
What Are The Objectives Of The Website?
You also need to determine what the objective of your website is. What are you attempting to accomplish? Are you trying to sell something? Are you looking for downloads, or is sales your real objective? Is your website trying to promote a specific product or service? Do you want your visitors to take a specific action? Is the intent to profit from ad space in general or to have website visitor's click on specific ads? Are you trying to build a brand? Do you want visitors to purchase a product, or provide an email address?
When attempting to solicit a specific action, there are some general guidelines that you should follow. Your website should be designed to solicit the action you desire, so the navigation should intuitively lead the visitor to take the desired action. If clicking a link is the goal, then that link should be clearly indicated and prominent on the page. This will not only help insure that the maximum number of visitors will be able to adequately view and navigate your content, but it will also help prompt those visitors to take the action you wish to have occur.
For example: Many software companies struggle with the action they wish to solicit from the website visitor. Software companies and eBook publishers are often guilty of pushing users to download, at the expense of the actual sale. Some companies prefer to have users download prior to making a purchase decision, while others lose impulse purchasers by only pushing the download rather than the sale.
In Order To Maximize The Websites Sales Purpose And Objectives, Follow These Simple Steps...
Address Compatibility Issues
If a website visitor is unable to view the website's content, they are obviously going to be unable to complete the desired action. The compatibility issues could be related to technology or usability. Avoid using technologies that require the website visitor to download a plug-in before they can view the website content. If providing content using flash is important to you, you should also provide a flash-free version as well. Also, do not alienate website visitors who might have a disability -- use proper web construct, provide alt tags for images, and avoid using a color scheme that will cause confusion.
Define A Clear Navigation Path
A website's navigation should provide the visitor with a clear path. Information architecture is the organization and categorization of online content -- the process of creating clarity and organizing online information in a purposeful, and logical way. Prioritize and emphasize the most important items on the website. Give visitors a clear path to what they are seeking. Each and every page should intuitively provide them links to additional information and purchase options.
Minimize Distractions
Minimize choices and other website distractions. Website visitors should be provided a clear path of action. Do not provide the website visitor an abundance of choices -- studies show that a large number of choices often puts the consumer off. It is generally recommended that you provide no more than 3 choices. Keep your message concise and on-topic. Website visitors will often just scan a webpage rather than reading it, so bulleted lists and headlines might be used to emphasize your message.
It may sound like a cliche, but it's the little things that can make the biggest difference. Pay attention to all aspects of your website. Defining the specific website objectives and purpose will help to encourage the desired action or behavior from your website visitors.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Web Development And The Big Time Out
One of the great debilitators in online business is simply the perceived (or real) lack of time. Business owners are used to moving forward. An online web presence can make them feel tied to an office chair learning skills they aren’t sure they want to know.
It’s not uncommon for those who deal in full time web design to have individuals contact them for a site design, but have absolutely no idea what they want. Furthermore when the designer questions them the response might be, “I don’t know, just make it look nice.”
Let’s not forget the core values or mission of the business. Many business owners have no idea how to answer those kinds of questions. They may stare blankly for a moment or two and there’s no more time for further deep thought so they go back to action – without answers.
In many cases it is possible to answer some of the questions needed, but it may require taking time away from a familiar setting. It may also require more time than you think you want to give.
If you can get to a place of concentrated contemplation you are likely to find yourself stripping ideas to their core to find out what your business is trying to accomplish and what your ultimate goals might be.
As with almost any project you can turn frustration around if you will just take the time to come to terms with your vision.
Sometimes we spend so much time ‘doing’ we never stop to ask the question, “Why?”
This process can be a bit like taking a bus that drives around the park. You keep looking at the flowers and the park bench and long to sit in the quiet shade of a tree and just absorb the calming atmosphere. You know they will have a positive effect on you, but for some reason you just can’t seem to find the energy to get off the bus.
It seems to me there are some sites that are misguided or rarely guided that could benefit from the process of self-evaluation. These sites may look nice, but there is a sense of disconnection that may not be easy to identify, but it’s fairly obvious to visitors.
Creative energy is at a minimum while business owners simply tackle what seem to be the most urgent details.
As more people gravitate to online business there needs to be a shift in the thinking of how one goes about doing business online. In many ways it can’t be approached in the same way a traditional business is developed, yet that is typically the way many new web commerce ventures choose to tackle the subject.
You may discover your business will be more successful if you take some time for rigorous reflection. The time set aside can be a bit like an architect that takes the time to develop plans for a new building. You wouldn’t expect the architect to simply tell a construction crew to, “Go out there and build – something.”
Work at ‘building’ your online business in a comprehensive way. Your effort can develop a firm foundation for long-term success.
It’s not uncommon for those who deal in full time web design to have individuals contact them for a site design, but have absolutely no idea what they want. Furthermore when the designer questions them the response might be, “I don’t know, just make it look nice.”
Let’s not forget the core values or mission of the business. Many business owners have no idea how to answer those kinds of questions. They may stare blankly for a moment or two and there’s no more time for further deep thought so they go back to action – without answers.
In many cases it is possible to answer some of the questions needed, but it may require taking time away from a familiar setting. It may also require more time than you think you want to give.
If you can get to a place of concentrated contemplation you are likely to find yourself stripping ideas to their core to find out what your business is trying to accomplish and what your ultimate goals might be.
As with almost any project you can turn frustration around if you will just take the time to come to terms with your vision.
Sometimes we spend so much time ‘doing’ we never stop to ask the question, “Why?”
This process can be a bit like taking a bus that drives around the park. You keep looking at the flowers and the park bench and long to sit in the quiet shade of a tree and just absorb the calming atmosphere. You know they will have a positive effect on you, but for some reason you just can’t seem to find the energy to get off the bus.
It seems to me there are some sites that are misguided or rarely guided that could benefit from the process of self-evaluation. These sites may look nice, but there is a sense of disconnection that may not be easy to identify, but it’s fairly obvious to visitors.
Creative energy is at a minimum while business owners simply tackle what seem to be the most urgent details.
As more people gravitate to online business there needs to be a shift in the thinking of how one goes about doing business online. In many ways it can’t be approached in the same way a traditional business is developed, yet that is typically the way many new web commerce ventures choose to tackle the subject.
You may discover your business will be more successful if you take some time for rigorous reflection. The time set aside can be a bit like an architect that takes the time to develop plans for a new building. You wouldn’t expect the architect to simply tell a construction crew to, “Go out there and build – something.”
Work at ‘building’ your online business in a comprehensive way. Your effort can develop a firm foundation for long-term success.
Firefox Just Got Better
The safest most secure app for browsing the internet currently available just got better and has more improvements on the way. Are you ready for the latest Mozilla release? Firefox 3 Beta 4 is available for download, but before you go running off like some half cocked Microsoft groupie notice the "beta" tag.
Hello!! The internet is a dangerous place. The Remote Helpdesk 1 Team continues to be amused (we can no longer say amazed) at people who would not dare to venture into certain parts of a city but who seemingly rush into the internet's dark corners and dimly lighted streets ill prepared.
Before you sail into a storm baton down the hatches, and before you cruise into hacker, virus, trojan, and criminally infested areas of the world wide web at least darken the windows and arm yourself. Not to take appropriate precautions will assure your computer a visit to the infectious disease controls center if not the hard drive morgue.
Firefox developers have thus far proven themselves to the best at incorporating necessary safety features into their browser while preserving user options and cruise speeds. Online PC Repair folks feel they owe a lot of their success to getting their loyal users involved in the development and testing process. These folks, like The Tennessee Mountain Man, have helped keep the programs on track and the applications minimal. For instance, if a client wants twenty-five cents - give him a quarter like Mozilla tends to do rather that twenty-five pennies as Microsoft is famous for.
It takes a lot less resources to process one coin than it does to count twenty-five. Mozilla recognizing this has given the new "beta" release a lot of new features and improved compatibility while freeing up resources. The end result being a more nimble and faster overall browsing experience. At the same time they have enhanced Firefox's security.
Released to the public via the Mozilla website Monday, 10 March 2008, Firefox 3 Beta 4 is in the beta stage of any software's life cycle. Firefox 3 Beta 4 loudly proclaims that it is "for testing purposes only" therefore it is not for everyone. It you are a newbie or maybe even an intermediate internet user, the suggestion of the Computer Man would be that you use Firefox 2.0.0.12, the latest most stable full release until Firefox 3 is out of beta.
If you just can't wait for a better browsing experience Mozilla reports "the new release includes more than 900 enhancements from beta 3, including drastic improvements to performance and memory usage, as well as fixes for stability, platform enhancements and user interface".
But that is not the half of it... not by a long shot. "Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers improvements.", according to Mozilla.
Enhancements like these reported on the Mozilla website:
"More Secure
Easier to Use
More Personal
Improved Platform for Developers
Improved Performance
Hello!! The internet is a dangerous place. The Remote Helpdesk 1 Team continues to be amused (we can no longer say amazed) at people who would not dare to venture into certain parts of a city but who seemingly rush into the internet's dark corners and dimly lighted streets ill prepared.
Before you sail into a storm baton down the hatches, and before you cruise into hacker, virus, trojan, and criminally infested areas of the world wide web at least darken the windows and arm yourself. Not to take appropriate precautions will assure your computer a visit to the infectious disease controls center if not the hard drive morgue.
Firefox developers have thus far proven themselves to the best at incorporating necessary safety features into their browser while preserving user options and cruise speeds. Online PC Repair folks feel they owe a lot of their success to getting their loyal users involved in the development and testing process. These folks, like The Tennessee Mountain Man, have helped keep the programs on track and the applications minimal. For instance, if a client wants twenty-five cents - give him a quarter like Mozilla tends to do rather that twenty-five pennies as Microsoft is famous for.
It takes a lot less resources to process one coin than it does to count twenty-five. Mozilla recognizing this has given the new "beta" release a lot of new features and improved compatibility while freeing up resources. The end result being a more nimble and faster overall browsing experience. At the same time they have enhanced Firefox's security.
Released to the public via the Mozilla website Monday, 10 March 2008, Firefox 3 Beta 4 is in the beta stage of any software's life cycle. Firefox 3 Beta 4 loudly proclaims that it is "for testing purposes only" therefore it is not for everyone. It you are a newbie or maybe even an intermediate internet user, the suggestion of the Computer Man would be that you use Firefox 2.0.0.12, the latest most stable full release until Firefox 3 is out of beta.
If you just can't wait for a better browsing experience Mozilla reports "the new release includes more than 900 enhancements from beta 3, including drastic improvements to performance and memory usage, as well as fixes for stability, platform enhancements and user interface".
But that is not the half of it... not by a long shot. "Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers improvements.", according to Mozilla.
Enhancements like these reported on the Mozilla website:
"More Secure
- One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)
- Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)
- New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)
- New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)
- Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.
- Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.
- Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.
- Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.
- Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.
- Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.
Easier to Use
- Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.
- Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the Website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.
- Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.
- Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.
- Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.
- Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.
- Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.
- Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.
- Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.
- Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.
- Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with Vista: Firefox now has Vista-specific icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and spell-checker in web forms and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.
More Personal
- Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.
- Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!
- Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.
- Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches.
- Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).
- Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.
- Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.
Improved Platform for Developers
- New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.
- Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.
- Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).
- A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.
Improved Performance
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in significant improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 4, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.
- [Improved in Beta 4!] Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 Beta 4 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.
- Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Battle of the Browsers
With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?
Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.
People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?
Origins
The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.
In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.
In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.
In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).
The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer
Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.
Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998
....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%
In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.
Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.
By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.
2000 – 2005
These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.
Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.
Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.
Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.
2005 – Present
Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.
Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.
Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.
Opera currently holds 1.07%.
Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.
The Future of Web Browsing
Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.
Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.
These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.
However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.
As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.
Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.
Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.
People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?
Origins
The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.
In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.
In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.
In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).
The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer
Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.
Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998
....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%
In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.
Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.
By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.
2000 – 2005
These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.
Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.
Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.
Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.
2005 – Present
Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.
Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.
Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.
Opera currently holds 1.07%.
Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.
The Future of Web Browsing
Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.
Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.
These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.
However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.
As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.
Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.
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