Germany is currently lagging behind the United States and Great Britain / Ireland when it comes to the percentage of companies with an online presence. A major factor in this is the fact that Deutsche Telekom are still charging for local calls, which of course makes online surfing a lot more expensive here than that of say the United States which does not charge for local calls in many areas I understand. A recent headline in a UK newspaper indicates that free surfing on the Internet there is just around the corner with Altavista offering to cover their online users surfing telephone charges. This will probably have a dramatic effect on the number of online users in the UK as of course other ISP's will get in on the act of offering truly free online access. Germany, I'm sure, will go down that route eventually. There is already substantial pressure on Deutsche Telekom to mend their ways with regards to the charging of local Internet access calls. Some third party telephone companies are already offering a reduction on telephone charges for online purposes. German E-commerce is really in its infancy at the moment. The large companies are for the most part online and offer their products through the net but your small and most medium size companies are off-line. I recently changed that situation for the company I am currently employed with. I have developed a Real Estate site which is currently creating more leads (requests for exposes) than their conventional advertising in newspapers ever achieved. My work site is most definitely a success and has already resulted in the sale of a property. Of course it is all very well having gotten your company online, but it is pointless if nobody visits you. This is where a sound knowledge of Web promotion comes in benefit. I have studied this aspect of the Web and it is surprising just how effective submitting a Website to a search engine can be if you follow general guidelines such as the correct use of meta tags, key words (words that will be entered in a search machine to bring up your site) key word weighting in your body text, page title and domain name are just a few areas where you can make the difference between being on page 6 at a ranking of 63 or being ranked within the top 5 on page 1. Who really looks past the first 3 pages of a search engines result listing? Research has shown that if your company is ranked below the top 20 in any given search machine you are not going to be doing an awful lot of E-commerce, unless you have another form of promotion such as a banner exchange or traditional media advertising the URL. There are various tricks and tips to improve your ranking on the search machines. Doorway pages are one method and inside knowledge of a search machines key word weighting algorithm is another but they keep that information a closely guarded internal secret. There are general principals to follow though. Some are those I have mentioned above but there are others which could be regarded as "spamming" the search engines. This is not advisable and I would never do it myself, but for instance, one trick is to have your key words spread out in your document in a tiny font and the same color as your background so it isn't visible. Something like "curriculum vitae, resume, lebenslauf, sales, marketing, e-commerce.." might well be used on this site but not in blue but the same color as the background. This will of course increase your key word weighting in the document and therefore you would be more likely to achieve a higher ranking in a search engine. DON'T try it for yourself as many search engines have clicked on to this and will now in fact penalize sites that engage in this kind of tactic. Some haven't but will probably soon penalize such tactics. It is normally best to start thinking about the promotion of your site before you type a line of code. This way you can work out an ideal weightage and formulate your content around your key words. A common method for promoting your site is to use a doorway page. This is usually a page which is designed for the specific search engines and would normally have little content. It is no coincidence that the index page of my site has just my photo, the headings, meta tags and very little content. The page is heavy in my chosen key words of "curriculum vitae, lebenslauf and resume". You will increasingly have noticed how many sites sites have "click here to enter" with just their company logo in the background. This is most probably a doorway page designed primarily for promoting the site on the search engines. Another plus of doorway pages is that you in a way commit the visitor to getting deeper within your pages which is in fact your goal. I do not regard myself as an E-commerce specialist and have no formal training in the subject. I DO have "on the job" experience however and have a pretty good idea about what works and what doesn't. Here is another observation you may have come across regarding banner advertisements. Have you noticed how often banners are shown in a negative format? e.g. Red background with yellow text or red in black. It is well known in advertising that a negative image draws the eye more effectively than non-negative images such as black on white. This is another reason why the classic "NEW!" statement in advertising is normally in the negative or has a highly contrasting or loud background color usually in the form of a star or diagonal bar. Webpage design is not as easy as some people believe it to be. Open up Frontpage Express, pick a background color and start typing ala Word is OK for a hobby site, but not OK for an E-commerce site which is promoting you and your company. Webpage design is also a hobby of mine and I have completed a few sites. None of which are ground breaking but I'm happy with the results and judging by the entries in my hobby site guestbook so are my visitors. I thoroughly enjoy Webdesign and Website promotion for that matter and would relish the challenge of creating a Website for any prospective employer if they are not already online. If you are interested in taking a look at some of my other HTML, JavaScript Web design work then send me an E-mail and I will oblige you with the URL(s). E-Commerce is one area that I believe with proper training I would excel. I long to be given the challenge of completing a large Website project and would relish the opportunity. If your company could make use of my skills in Web design, HTML/JavaScript programming,Website promotion or feel I could be part of a team working on E-commerce projects then send me an E-mail with your employment offer. For Website hit statistical reasons I would prefer not to place a link on this page to my current work Website. Please do not judge my capabilities on just this site alone. This site is intentionally basic as the idea in my opinion of an online resume / C.V. is not to fill pages with flashy effects, but to get my message across clearly. That message is give me a chance in the field of E-commerce and I will give you 100% effort as it is something that I thoroughly enjoy doing. Current employment status: Still seeking a new challenge in the Hannover, Germany area!