Anson OnLine
The tools and services you need to establish an effective web presence
Why not take your place on the web?
Anson OnLine can help you do it. It's quicker, easier and more cost-effective than you might think.
Whether you're an established business looking for a way to reach a wider market, or someone just wanting to start a small business, the internet can be a powerful way for you to accomplish that goal.
Doing business online offers you opportunities unmatched anywhere else in the marketplace, in a cost-effective environment that maximizes return-on-investment.
Who we are
Anson OnLine is a website design and development company. I am a reseller of EZ-Net Tools, probably the best and easiest to use WYSIWYG html editor anywhere. With its fully integrated systems for on-line catalog, shopping cart, bulletin board, e-mail server and more — with no need for FTP — EZ-Net Tools has to be the best solution for a complete commercial or non-commercial website on the market today.
And, with EZ-Net Tools, you have the option of building your own website, having the basic structure of a site built for you, or having the whole site built and maintained for you. And hosting is included in the monthly fee.
I love these tools, and would not be on the web today without them.
Other services from Anson OnLine
At this point, Anson OnLine is still a sub-folder of the Therapeutic-Grade website. I'm still in the process of getting this, and other, website built and tweaked — part of a learning process for me. Because of this, most of what I offer to you now are EZ-Net Tools accounts. However, on a limited basis, I will provide the following services:
- Copywriting and editorial services: If you're not professional writer, or would just feel better having someone go over your web pages to check them for issues of grammar and clarity, I will buff and polish your copy for a more effective presentation. Things I will check for include:
- Basic language usage,
- Spelling, sentence and paragraph structure,
- Clarity and consistency of thought, and the organization of ideas,
- Compelling argumentation,
- Public voice: the tone in which you come across to your visitors,
- Effective use of targeted keywords and keyword phrases.
- Basic graphics services: If you don't have graphics software, and can't justify the price demanded by a pro, I will provide for some basic services. These include:
- Taking your rough images, cropping them, cleaning them up and optimizing them for the web.
- Do a search for stock images and optimizing them for your website.
- Creating simple logos or other graphics for your site.
- Basic website design and optimization: If you don't have the budget to hire one of the big boys (if you can figure out who they are), I will create a simple, effective design structure for your website, keeping in mind the issues of general usability, navigation schemes and search engine optimization. If you already have your website built, I will go through it and tweak things, to optimize its effectiveness on the web.
- Consultation: If you need help getting started in this process, I can help you avoid a lot of wasted time and money, offer advice on important elements of web design, and help you to make the best use of EZ-Net Tools.
Once my Anson OnLine-specific website is up and running, I'll be adding a bulletin board, so you can interact with other EZ-Net Tools users — or anyone else who joins in the discussion. Such interaction is a great learning tool, not only in how to use the Tools, but for every aspect of doing business on-line.
Some qualifying statements about EZ-Net Tools
As I said before, if it wasn't for EZ-Net Tools, I wouldn't be on the web today. Their ease of use and integration of functions made it possible for me to get a start in this business.
However, over the years, I've developed something of a love/hate relationship with the Tools.
They are easy to use, and remove many of the headaches encountered by trying to piece together the many components of an effective e-commerce site. You don't have to go hunting for solutions, and then try to figure out how to make them work with everything else on the site. That can mean a lot when you're trying to get a website started — especially when you lack a background in the technologies available to website developers. That's the love side of it. And, for me, I will probably always work from within this platform.
However, there are some distinct limitations with EZ-Net Tools. Designed with the beginner in mind, the Tools don't give you all of the options used in some of the more complex sites on the internet. As I grow in my understanding of the possibilities out there, I find that I have to "settle" for the capabilities of the Tools, or move my site elsewhere. For me, the issue has never been important enough for me to move.
However, as I've learned more about HTML and CSS (in which the Tools played an important role), I've come to value a tableless layout and clean code. It really doesn't make any difference, in terms of appearance or visibility on the web, but I like it. And in this, the Tools have their limitations.
First of all, while the code is technically valid and presents a very nice display in Internet Explorer and Netscape, it suffers from the following deficiencies:
- It's entirely tables-based. But, while tables give you a consistently reliable page layout structure, the standards for web design are moving toward CSS for layout.
- It's entirely HTML (not CSS). This means that text formatting is done with "deprecated" tags. They still work, but the code gets pretty bloated (which really isn't a big deal, except possibly for page-load times).
- It lacks adequate definition of the document type, forcing browsers into "quirks mode". This really isn't a problem in 99% of the cases, but limits what you can to with tweaking, due to inconsistent results across browsers.
- Every block of your pages is placed in font tags. There are no paragraph tags and no heading tags (which are of critical importance to natural, organic search placement). There are work-arounds for this (like building headings in HTML blocks instead of the Tools' title blocks), and you can get very good positioning in the search engines with EZ-Net Tools pages, so this isn't a huge issue in practical terms.
- The code is bloated with an over-abundance of table code and font tags. This significantly restricts accessibility for the visually impaired.
That's the hate side of it.
However, none of this is a super-critical issue for non-commercial sites, or sites that rely on marketing other than from organic search engine results. And, I've had reasonable success with my websites, even in a highly-competative market, without the use of pay-per-click search or off-line marketing.
Nonetheless, I've learned enough about html and CSS that I've out-grown the Tools for web page construction. I've started building my pages in Dreamweaver, and uploading them into my EZ-Net Tools sites. It's a great way to take advantage of a CSS design structure, clean up the html, and still have the many benefits of the integration of the EZ-Net Tools functions.
Making the most of the situation
That said, a great way to go would be to start out in EZ-Net Tools. Build a good, basic site and learn the ins and outs of being on-line. Then, when the time is right, either get something like Dreamweaver and tweak the pages yourself, or contract with me to do the work for you.
There's nothing instant about developing an effective web presence. This plan gives you and easy, cost-effective way to grow into this incredible marketplace.
Helpful resources for you
Do yourself a favor and check it out. |
Jill Whalen, the author of the The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines book, has a great set of resources for you at High Rankings®. Besides great search engine optimization services, High Rankings® also has a regular email newsletter, the High Rankings® Advisor (also available in RSS/XML feeds) and the High Rankings® Forum. |
Another valuable resource for you is SEOmoz | Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. It offers a wealth of information — all in one place — on how you can build a better website and get it found and ranked by the search engines. Be sure to check this out.
The Step-by-step™ Copywriting Course