If you have ever been to a "bad" website, you didn't need an expert to tell you it was a bust. Maybe you didn't know exactly why it was bad, but dysfunctional web sites tend to exhibit similarities that make them unlikely success stories.

For instance, have you ever visited a site and wondered "what are they selling anyway?" I know I have. I get frustrated with websites like these and quickly start my search again for a website that focuses on the information I was looking for.

A well designed website can either make or break your website success. The tips below will help you get started and to learn what works for a successful website. These tips are by no means all-inclusive; you will also learn a lot through "trial and error" just as with any brick and mortar business. These tips will however, help you to avoid web blunders that hinder even more seasoned web developers and designers.

Must-Have Tip #1 - Make it clear what you do. Find a niche market and don't try to be a "jack of all trades" selling multiple and unrelated products, services, or information. Instead, figure out who your target market will be, and what products and/or services you provide that will appeal to this market. Then, stay on topic; don't throw in a bunch of irrelevant information just to try and lure visitors. They will resent the deception and you'll lose customers.

Note: It is very important to note that search engine crawlers index and categorize your website based on the text and content you provide on each page. The content on each page is also compared to all other pages on your site, so having a cohesive set of pages that focus on your niche product or service is always better than trying to provide too many products or services.

Must-Have Tip #2 - Do your visitors know how to contact you? You would be surprised how many websites leave no way for a customer to contact them with questions or to order their products and services. Think about it this way: if you stopped into a store that provided widgets, and no one was around to help you or answer questions, how comfortable would you feel spending money with that company? You wouldn't, of course, because if they can't even make themselves available for questions before the sale, they certainly won't take time for you after the sale.

If you worry about getting too much spam, or receiving unwanted phone calls by leaving your contact information on your site, make sure to add your business phone to the federal "Do Not Call" list, and use a contact form instead of just providing your email address. This won't eliminate the problem of spam (what does?) but it will make it more difficult to abuse your contact information.

Note: Always respond to email in a timely manner. Treat them as you would any business phone call. Customers typically expect a higher-than-average response rate when shopping or doing business on the internet; if it takes you longer than 24 hours to respond to an email you will probably lose a customer. Even an "I received your email and will respond to your question shortly" is better than waiting too long to get back to a customer.

Must-Have Tip #3 - Don't use flash introductory pages. Everyone knows they are fun and entertaining, but if your site is designed for sales, a business, or for a professional purpose, what will they add to your site? In fact, for many, these are just another added aggravation they have to wade through to get to the information they really want.

Note: If you must use a flash intro, be sure there is a "Skip" feature clearly marked so visitors can bypass it if they choose.

Must-Have Tip #4 - Focus your web copy on satisfying the needs of your customer. Content can make or break the sale, or determine whether a visitor stays or finds another site to shop. Be sure to provide your costumers with unique and interesting words to help pique their interest and differentiate your products and services from your competitor's.

A well-thought through home page and a few articles that prompt a desired action, while simultaneously provide information to help your visitors quickly (in one or two clicks max) find and pay for products and services will keep them interested, and coming back again and again for future information and purchases.

Note: Consider hiring a contact writer if you're at a loss with web content. This may be a significant investment, but the results, and the success of your site, will definitely be worth it in the long run!

Must-Have Tip #5 - Update, update, update. This cannot be stressed enough; if you provide no reason for visitors to show up on your site again, why would they? If the information is the same week after week, month after month, who would want to? Even your local Wal-Mart will provides weekly sales flyers to entice shoppers back to their store! Keep your site fresh and updated!

In closing, I am sure you are reading this article because you want a professional website. If you have programming skills and can write your own code, great! If not, there are many affordable, quality online website builders available; many hosting packages also provide web software and templates. With a little elbow grease and effort, you can build and maintain a successful website as well!

In layman language Web 2.0 means the second generation of web development. The first generation web development is considered to be the great dot-com bubble of late 90's and the rupture of which around late 2001 triggered ubiquitous reactions that the Web was over hyped. Concept of second generation of Web development started after a media conference between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. In this brainstorming session it was realized that the web has thrown up more interesting applications and Web technology has emerged more important that ever and the word Web 2.0 was coined. Web 2.0 is a business revolution making a bent towards the web as a platform. Web 2.0 doesn't have a definite boundary and there are several things encompassing a core. Web 2.0 is visualized as principles and collection of numerous sites running on those principles at some distance from the core.

Since then Web 2.0 has remained a top level discussion for proper definition and boundary that is yet to be reached. One can simply say blogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, and lightweight business over a single platform. Web is no more one way, now uploading, and downloading of information happens simultaneously, sharing and distributing contents across networks leveraging the power of "Long Tail".

Web 2.o includes numerous practices. Here are some typically implemented practices by websites:

• Well-off internet applications based on Flex or Ajax.
• This intend to allow information intended for end-users, such as contact information, calendar events, geographic coordinates, content life, social relationships etc
• Presentation is separated from content through Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
• High-end APIs (Application programming interfaces).
• Content Syndication through RSS or Atom.
• Facility for content creation through users, also by machines from client side or server side.

Content Syndication: Syndicating partial or whole content through standard protocols such as RSS, Atom, and RDF by using XML so as to be used by the end-users for their need.

Some misconceptions on Web 2.0:

• Curvy designs (This curvy structures became widely popular at the same time, designers also started making more websites with this cool looking styles)
• Use of Ajax or Flex (Which happens to come in the same time of Web 2.0, No doubt that websites with web 2.0 architecture needs these to work well.)

Web 2.0 is not an alien to criticism and had its fair share. Here are some criticisms leveled at Web 2.0

• Web 2.0 is not a new version of World Wide Web at all. It merely uses the technologies and architectures of Web 1.0.
• Ajax is not substituting the HTML protocol; it's an additional layer over HTML.
• Blogs or social networking was features of Amazon.com since 1995 when the word called Web 2.0 dint exist. It's way more than only blogs and social networking.

Web development encompasses various activities related developing a website. The importance of building a web presence in today's times is immense, triggering rush by people and organizations to own websites to make themselves visible on the internet. This in turn has driven the need for web development software and tools that give competitive advantage to its users. Now the ubiquitous questions are

• How expensive is web development?
• How much I need to PAY for building my webpage or website?

There are a wide variety of web development products being sold by different vendors that cater to all your web development needs. But they do come at a price and often we are either not in a position or simply not willing to pay the price. We are always looking for a cheaper alternative. Better still - Can we get it for free?

Yes, we can - The same features and facilities as commercial web development software are available for free as feature rich Open source web development tools. Open source software offers us several advantages the most important of which are -

• The software comes free of cost.
• You can redistribute and share for free.
• You can modify source code to suit you own requirement or enhance it.

Are you someone who is vying open source web development?

Since web development is such an important and strategic area the need for open source software is even more important. This gives you freedom for creativity and experimentation while not denting your pocket with huge expenses. FORTUNATELY there are loads of free open source web development tools and software available that can satiate the need for a great looking web site by getting you the right tools to build it for free.

Here are some open source web development products one can try:

• Aptana 0.2.7 - An html/JavaScript editor intended for development of dynamic web applications. It provides integrated java script debugging and is excellent tool for ajax development.
• Bluefish 1.0.5 - It is a good tool for experience developers and has Unicode support.
• Drupal- It is a very good open source Content Management System.
• IceBB 1.0-rc6 - It is a feature rich bulletin board/forum software. It has a WYSIWYG ( What You See Is What You Get) editor and provides Unicode support
• Joomla 1.0.13 - One of the best CMS (content management system) available. It allows you to build professional websites with lot detailed customizing options.
• Liferay Portal 4.4.0 - It is high quality portal software allowing you to get started quickly without much effort with manuals.
• Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1 - SeaMonkey has all the regular internet application needs in own package. It has a web-browser, email, a newsgroup client, HTML authoring program and IRC chat client all under one package.
• Nucleus CMS 3.24 - This complete blogging tool allows publishing and maintaining your blog.
• Nvu 1.0 - It is a Web development system initially intended for Linux, but now available for windows too. It has a WYSIWYG editor.
• OpenLaszlo 4.0 - it is an open source web development platform whose main function is generating flash files and AJAX/DHTML to be used on websites.
• OpenSTA 1.4.3 - It is a distributed software testing architecture whose main feature is web (HTTP and HTTPS) performance and load/stress testing.
• SilverStripe 2.1.1 - It's a content management system based on PHP.
• Umbraco 3.0.1 - It is a content Management system based on ASP.NET giving full support for AJAX framework and gives u capability to maintain your website with latest web technology standards.

Go Ahead, Try these wonderful open source web development tools and build your dream website now.