The Diet Season

Hi.
Sorry its taken so long to update you with the latest news about what's going on at ItsTheRightWay.com but I've been working on updating all of my major stores and columns to our new look and feel. I have also been working on our Diet & Health Center.
Many of you will think that I'm just trying to make a buck by promoting the advertisers and services in the center. While I do want to make money I can assure you that I'm very passionate about the services that I'm promoting.

In the diet section I promote a number of weight loss programs. I started my journey of losing weight and leading a healthier lifestyle about five months ago and I'm trying to pass on my new found passion to my visitors.
That's why I've included the Weight Tracker Zone (my personal weight loss story) in the Diet & Health Center.

I'm also promoting smoking cessation programs as well. I saw my uncle dying from emphysema (caused from smoking) when I was only six years old. I vowed never to start smoking and I have kept my word.
If you're a smoker and can use the products that I'm promoting on my site then my job has been done well and I commend you on the journey that you're taking.

I really want to bring products and services that can help my visitors lead a healthy lifestyle and if I can make a living doing this, then that would be icing on the cake. My main goal is serving you, my customers and visitors.

We would like to wish all our customers and visitors a happy and healthy Christmas, Chanukah, Kwansaa and New Year.
You have made it a banner year at ItsTheRightWay.com and we would like to thank you for that.

It's because of you that we tripled our growth in the past year. Most of that growth has come in the past 9 months. We measure our success by how satisfied our visitors are. We are pleased that we are receiving the highest number of repeat visitors to our site.

Many of you have been kind enough to send us your comments on how we can improve your experience with us. We rely on this feedback so that we can serve you better.

We look forward to serving you in 2006 and hope that your website experience on our site becomes even more enjoyable.

Anthony
Owner
ItsTheRightWay.com

UPDATE!

Our Rush, free and reduced shipping for the holidays page is now up and running. We are still working on updating the site with more merchants but you can still take advantage of the free shipping and offers available to you.

To visit the rush, free and reduced shipping page click here.

Enjoy your evening.

Last Minute Shipping For The Holidays

We are working on providing our visitors with a listing of vendors who will provide Rush, free and reduced shipping for the holidays. Look for the list of vendors providing this service to be available within 24 hours. You will be able visit the site by clicking here.

We are now two thirds through our re-design of our shopping pages. Our Products pages are complete and you can visit the products page listing by clicking here.

Now on to our featured article.

Designing Your Website For Your Visitors & Customers and Not The Search Engines

It seems that every two to three months Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts come up with a new twist of what they believe the three major search engines are looking for when ranking web pages and sites. The SEO experts encourage website designers and owners to implement what they think are required design changes.

While you may want to keep up with the latest trends in SEO developments and from time to time you may want to implement SEO techniques, you should base most of your website design decisions on your customers needs. Many sites go through minor and major re-designs of their website periodically. These re-designs should be made based on providing customer value and not solely based on trying to receive better search engine placement

I believe that viewer and customer feedback is the best way to know what your customers desire. This information can then be used to help you design the site to their specifications.

Many SEO experts believe that website developers should never link to sites with a PR (page rank) of less then 3. They feel that the three major search engines (Yahoo, Google and MSN) will penalize websites who link to low PR sites.

I think that this is ridiculous. If a website can provide value to your customers and visitors then you should link to that site, no matter what that site’s PR is.

I believe that this is acting in good faith. I believe that this ideology is providing value to the search engines, because you will be linking to sites that are providing value to your visitors.

I also believe that search engines are looking for quality and reliability in their search results. Content driven and popular sites should eventually be listed highly in the search engines.

As owner of ItsTheRightWay.com I believe that it’s my duty to inform our visitors about quality sites that may be of value to them.

If all web owners were to do business in this manner then eventually it will lead to valuable and quality sites being listed in Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Midweek Posting - Featured Products Page

We have decided to do a periodic mid-week update on one of our virtual shopping pages/stores.

This week we are featuring our Game and Toy page. If you are looking for that special game or toy to give as a gift for the holiday season then our game and toy page is just the place for you.

We have gmaes in the following categories:
Action Figures
Animal Alley
Arts & Crafts
Barbie
Building/Models
Care Bears
Dolls
Fisher-Price
G.I. Joe
Games
Puzzles
Stuffed Animals
Vehicles

We hope that you enjoy your shopping experience with us. As always, if you need to contact us you can email us at support@itstherightway.com.

This is a short update today. There isn’t much to report. We are moving along with our updates to our products pages.
Initial feedback with the completed pages have been very positive. Our customers like the design and format of the new products pages and find it easy to navigate from page to page.
The new design also makes it easier to find the product that you are looking for.
You can find our products pages at http://www.itstherightway.com/productspages.html.
Our latest update has been completed for our Toy and Games product page.

Now on to our featured commentary.
Charity Without Judgement

I sat down with my wife last week to discuss the charities that we would be giving to this holiday season. We have some tough decisions to make and want to do what we can to make a difference in people’s lives. As we started to narrow down our choices I caught myself saying “I’ll give to this charity but not that because…..” I was starting to judge the very people that I was attempting to help.
My parents taught me to be a compassionate person who should give to charity and try to make a difference in people’s lives. They taught me to respect people who are less fortunate then myself and not to judge a person because they might need society’s help.
My synagogue and its Rabbis pass on the same message every week at services. I was embarrassed by my actions. My wife and I decided that we would give to our desired charities but would not judge the people who may receive our charitable contributions.
I really do believe that charity should be about making a difference in our society. We should respect people that are less fortunate then ourselves and we should do it in a way that still allows them to carry out their lives with dignity.
I know all too well the feeling of experiencing tough times. I know how hard it is to make ends meet during these tough times. I’m a hard working person and know that sometimes tough times are out of our control.
Our family was great and still allowed us to have dignity. They respected us and gave us the emotional support that allowed us to keep our head held high.
I vowed to always respect other people. I vowed to try and make a difference in other people’s lives. A little respect goes a long way in helping another person to gain the dignity that they need to go on with life.
This holiday season if I see a person with their hand held out, I plan to help them to the best of my ability without judging them or asking any questions.
I urge you to do the same thing. Being liberal or conservative has nothing to do with human compassion. Human compassion comes from within and both liberal and conservative ideology teaches us to be respectful of others.
Together we can make America an even stronger, greater and prosperous nation.
Anthony B. is the founder and owner of ItsTheRightWay.com - a news, political, and sports commentary website.