The client is free to get services independently, or Compugasm will perform this service silently. Any skills not provided "in-house" will be fully disclosed. You expressed Copywriting as an additional skill. The contact to perform this service will be disclosed if/when appropriate.

True, the keywords help search engines find you. But Google is constantly on the look-out for cheaters. Run-on paragraphs full of keywords is considered cheating. It might work in the short term, but long term results are always better than short term gains.

All Google has to do is "flip a switch" and now you're being penalized for cheating. The keywords should be normal parts of your text, or cleverly hidden in small groups. Not only will search engines consider this proper, but people will actually be drawn to read it.

Some Clients will desire to independently edit or update their Web pages after completion of the site as a way to control costs, and avoid the expense of a Maintenance Agreement. Blogs are so easy, literally a caveman can do it.

What Avaluxe does with her blog, is use it to make new product announcements and newsletters. This is far easier than making custom pages within the shopping cart software to feature new items.

As you see here, Avaluxe customers leave favorable comments about her products, or ask questions directly related to her newest offerings. Comments could be disabled, or held for review before being published. Additionally, spam postings are automatically deleted so minimal undesired conversations will clutter up your blog.

Make the effort to address the two most major browsers.

Most organizations don't need content management software. Unless you have a very busy website with lots and lots of content being published, the return on investment is not there. The promise of a CMS, is in the magic of technology to sweep away any and every problem. But they're 10x more complicated, and therefore 10x as many headaches. The majority of those who do require such software need a very simple, streamlined solution like a blog.

You listed Copywriting as an additional skill. The client is free to get services independently, or Compugasm will perform this service silently. Any skills not provided "in- house" will be fully disclosed if/when appropriate.

In addition to Copywriting, the KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION tags on each page should be spell checked.

They must be reserved for frequently asked questions, since that's the only thing that makes a FAQ a useful website feature. Infrequently asked questions undermine users' trust in the website.

Respect the user's preferences and let them resize text as needed. Also, specify font sizes in relative terms -- not as an absolute number of pixels.

Rewrite text to make it more compelling, or hiring a professional photographer to shoot better photos is a better investment. People prefer predictable navigation and static menus.

Put the burden on the computer, not the human: let users enter data in the format they prefer.

Nowhere on the site is an "email to friend" link because it isn't convenient for the customer.

The more that things behave consistently, the more users understand what they can do and the greater their sense of system mastery. The mail links should indicate that they're email addresses, either by their format (donald@duck.com) or their wording (send email to customer support). Don't place mailto links on names; clicking on people's names should usually lead to their biography.

The Developer offers two kinds of maintenance agreements.

PROBLEM:

If you don't have a newsletter, then publishing one is probably the single-highest ROI action you can take to improve your Internet presence.

SOLUTION:

Email newsletters let you maintain a relationship with your customers that lasts beyond their visits to your site. The newsletter is the perfect website companion because it answers a different user need: newsletters keep customers informed and in touch with the company.

Newsletters require little technology. I discuss how to work more efficiently when writing blogs, newsletter, etc... on my blog. Blogs are great for this. If you do have a newsletter, then improving it, will likely make it several times more valuable.

One of the simplest ways to improve product pages is to show better photographs. Having several additional photos that show different angles and close-up details. This may or may not be something you have control over. But high quality photographs are essential to making people feel good about buying online, and convey the value in the product their buying. Having these photos in a standard size train customers to focus their attention to areas of the screen where you want it.

Press releases really don't need to be posted, except if your legally required to post them by government agencies. Just know that they are not the reason any sane person would decide to come to your website. A website that places press releases on its homepage is communicating a clear message: We couldn't be bothered writing useful web content so we just threw up this dross.

Even if you have a small and clearly defined product line, you must make the differences blatantly obvious on your site. Designing product pages according to user needs is a highly targeted way to encourage sales.

No specific programming language is required.

Even the basics could be done for minimal expense. For example, you have to write meaningful page titles that actually explain the page's content so that people will know what they'll get when they click on a search hit.

Have people who are expert in writing and editing in that language, or don't make multi- language sites. Instead of one website English website, you now have an additional website, for each additional language.

Grammatical errors will not instill confidence in your customers. The reader doesn't look at the translated website, and then buy from you because you made an effort. Would you buy from a website fully of mistakes?