The Internet is a wonderful world.  Anybody can be anything in his own little space in the web.  It is a place for reinvention, uniqueness and expression.  It’s no wonder that the Internet became one of the most important inventions during the last century.  Banking, shopping and info gathering has become easier.  It has made communication, research and everything else definitely easier.

As of 2008, there are approximately 182 million websites in the Internet.  The top three most visited sites are Google, Yahoo and YouTube.  But ten, twelve years ago, these names were not so well known.  So you might want to ask yourself how these websites became some of the most recognized names in the World Wide Web.

One of the more tried and tested ways of gaining attention in cyberspace is to make your website unique.  When putting up together a website, ask yourself who your target market is.  Put yourself in your demographics’ shoes and give them what they want to keep them coming back for more.  Stand out head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd and put up eye catching graphics and designs.  Nothing is more off putting than a drab layout, lame or outdated information and sites that look messy and unkempt.

Customizing and designing does not take all that much effort.  If you do not have knowledge in website design and is totally clueless with languages like CSS or HTML, then there are professionals out there who can do this easily and quickly.  A unique, updated and user friendly website can easily race up the charts and become one of the most visited websites in the internet.

Favicons are there every time you open a popular website or even for those blogs that are handled by techie individuals who know how to manipulate their blog behavior well. Most people must be aware of it—even entertained when they happen to notice one but didn’t know what it’s called while others may not be aware of these cute little things. But, a wise personal branding strategist will quickly see its potential in terms of establishing product branding.

Favicons are like logos. They represent the company—in this case, the website. Although they are quite small and often overlooked, they’re the first ones to greet you even if the whole page is still loading up. Favorite icons or favicons are also known as website icon or URL icon. This is the small icon that sits right beside your website URL. When you try a page such as Google, it is the 16×16 pixel square icon bearing the colorful letter “g”.

So how do favicons help you with your branding needs? It is because favicon, just like last-song syndrome, sticks in mind even after you turn off your computer. Even if you barely notice this small icon, you’ll be amazed how your mind can recall it when you see it elsewhere. That’s how effective favicon is in terms of personal and product branding; now try to imagine what it can do for you today!

For every successful website, there is one great web designer who knows how to balance beauty and functionality. Web designing takes lots of creativity and know-how. The web designer should know what your market wants and what’s pleasing to their eyes because after all, they are the ones you are luring to come to your site.

But what happens if the web designer’s vision is different from what the site owner had in mind? I will tell you now, it will cost both the web designer and the site owner’s time and money. It will be a long and winding road for the both of them and most probably at the end of the project, it will leave a “not-so-good” feedback that will probably last a lifetime. Bad for the artist; bad for the client.

So how are we going to avoid this very unfortunate situation, which apparently affects almost half of designer-client transactions? Well, let’s just say, it’s a two-way street that in order for your plans to succeed, you will have to work hand-in-hand. For clients, please remember that creativity is a very vast word and if you use it to imply something to your web designer, it will not work. Lay out something definite or if you don’t have anything in mind at all, be sure to express what your site is all about and what you want from it after the design takes effect. This way, the designer will be able to share valuable ideas and input that you can either agree upon or discard altogether. Be conscious of each other’s time because in this transaction, time wasted is wasted money. Clear goals will make the assignment go faster.

A difficult website is guaranteed to a low ranking page, low number of visitors and of course, no staying power. If a visitor stumbled upon a difficult site, there is a possibility that your visitor won’t come back and try again. They just don’t do that. Since internet is a vast place with many sites to visit, surfers will not waste time waiting for your website to sober up, they just go and move on to the next.

So what do I mean with a difficult website? First of all, a difficult website is everything you don’t want to encounter when you are web surfing. You know how annoying it can get when you spend time waiting for a website to load completely. Flashing, blaring sounds, pop-ups and screaming backgrounds are officially thumbs down. Work on something that won’t distract your visitors because they hate that. All you need is a clean, nice, professional looking web design.

You see, it is not all about the things you put in your website. Obviously, you can do without a blaring music if music is not your main interest. You should govern your web design, not the other way around. Your website is one big space to express yourself and most of all, it doesn’t require you to “fill-in the blanks” so keeping it clean will only convey your message clearly and without interference.