'Fully integrated' is a term used to describes websites that are progressive enough to include virtually every form of online media in their web presence.

If you look at sites like Yahoo, Forbes and virtually any of the major television network sites you can gain some idea of what I am taking about.

These sites contain either news of blog information. They also contain original video streaming sources and audio streams including podcasts. These sites tend to subscribe to the idea that the web user wants it all and should be able to find it all when they visit the business site.

A fully integrated site will often use flash or other animated or moving text. The interesting dynamic is that the best of these sites understand navigation and ease of use remains a critical concern for guests.

Forbes, for example is highly adept at slideshow type presentations on a multitude of topics. It could be top selling cars, entertainers, vacation hot spots, etc. These slideshows are optimized for search engines and are easy to breeze through.

It seems as if a site like this has the potential to garner some of the same consumers of media that have been courted mostly by network television or traditional newsprint.

Most fully integrated sites did not start off that way. In most cases they worked through issues they could easily address and then added features as their knowledge and confidence grew in relation to the their site development skills.

That's something I have always suggested. Do the best you can at developing a site with the most comprehensive development techniques at your disposal. That doesn't mean you have to have a fully integrated site in order to conduct business, but it does mean that you do not simply wipe your brow, release a sigh and suggest to yourself that your work is finished.

The truth is there are more skills in online web development that are being released than ever before. More programs are working with each other allowing a new robust platform for online use. The role of online web development is an ever changing - ever growing function in relation to how you manage your site and in the use of the most effective marketing tools available.

Many sites will develop an internal compass that provides the date they want to upgrade the website to include new functions. In essence they treat their website like software developers treat upgrades. Some will even go so far as to indicate their website has gone from version 1.0 to version 1.1 or 1.5. The idea is to challenge their own thinking in relation to developing a website even after the website has been launched.

This has the potential of keeping visitors interested in finding out what improvements you will come up with next.

Perhaps the greatest development rule of thumb is that you should always strive to be more integrated by attempting to meet the real and perceived expectations of your site visitors. This mentality will always give you a new goal line in your race for the perfect business.

Millions of websites being launched year after year can only signify two important things. One, the importance of being on the net, regardless of whether yours is a small business website, a home page, an ecommerce or even a portal, and two, easy availability of variety of free templates which make website building a child's play.

In this article, let us try to explore whether templates, free or paid, offer suitability and ease of working and why they are taking the newbie web owners and builders as well as professionals by storm.

Website templates are pre made web designs into which you can start filling in your information straight after downloading. Easily, this eliminates the cumbersome task of having to design an appealing layout and more than that, it does not want you to have any knowledge of HTML at all.

At this point in time, you might be tempted to ask, if this is all, how good it is over HTML editors which don't require a template to be downloaded for every time you are building a website? True, they don't require you to possess knowledge of HTML but they still rest the task of creating an appealing layout upon you, juggling with color schemes, and placement of different sections on your page etc which are really not your job. It is precisely here that the website templates fill the void- import web templates into your favorite HTML editor and get-set-go with site building.

Conventional method of web designing is out of date as it takes a lot of manual labor a web entrepreneur can hardly afford to waste. When web presence matters to you for reasons beyond passion, you would never want to waste time and efforts on designing your own templates or even purchase them in bulk.

Free templates are in no way inferior to paid templates but you have to be choosey about your source. They do not limit your aspirations; instead you can have a variety of them such as free CSS templates, PSD templates, besides the plain HTML types. The very reason these templates are a matter of big business today is their aesthetics, functionality, easy of use and of course, the huge demand.

Free templates also make business sense considering the number of websites the ordinary people launch every month. To get your business off by launching hundreds of websites you know what makes sense and what not. Choose your templates without compromising on your needs and let the cost be condoned by the world.

You put up a website to attract clients for your professional service business. Maybe you even put up a sales letter - a solo web page designed to promote an information product, tangible product, or seminar.

And so far...nothing! No takers. No sign-ups for your ezine. What's going on?

(1) Get solid evidence that people want your product -- and will buy it online.

Even on eBay and craigslist, some products go unsold. Some markets don't buy online, download ebooks or listen to mp3 files: they shop in brick and mortar stores, buy books at Borders and listen to CDs.

(2) Make sure you have targeted traffic coming to your site.

If you have no traffic...well, there's your answer. But not all traffic is equally valuable. Your keywords, positioning or referral site may be attracting visitors who are outside your target market.

(3) Encourage each visitor to begin building a relationship with you.

Often visitors won't buy on a first visit. So you need to invite them to sign up for an ezine, an ecourse, or even a downloadable manual. Some people read my ezine for over a year before they buy from me.

(4) Showcase unique, meaningful benefits for your target market.

Many professionals focus on how they deliver the service instead of how clients feel about their new lives. And you need to tell readers why you're unique - why nobody else can make the same offer.

(5) Make it easy for your visitors to say yes.

Believe it or not, when visiting other people's sites, I often have to hunt around for an order form when I'm eager, even desperate, to get my hands on a product. Ask visitors to buy...and consider adding some bright red arrows to point them in the right direction.

(6) Create a sense of urgency.

Ideally, your product or service reaches readers by connecting to their pain and their toughest challenges. But you also need to suggest reasons for buying today - not next week, not later.

(7) Test...and test some more. For example:

Test 2 or 3 versions of your headline. Sometimes a news-oriented headline actually works better than a sales-oriented headline or vice versa.

Test backgrounds. I once tripled sign-ups to my ezine by changing the background color.

Test the small stuff. Once I compared two google adwords ads. I changed the spelling of one word in the headline - from midlife to mid-life. The hyphenated version attracted 40% more clickthroughs. Go figure.

Bottom Line: Even when experts create your marketing message, you need to keep evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing materials, especially your website. The Internet gurus share one passion: testing and revising. They're constantly enhancing their sites and their messages. And the rest of us need to do the same.