Internet marketing has given many people a new way to make some extra money or even start a new career.

I have been fortunate enough to start a new career from it and enjoy the freedom that comes with it.

But times are changing and the market is changing. The world has been rapidly moving from online to mobile and the time is right to make sure you are positioned properly to take advantage of this move.

Learning how to build (or have built for you) iPhone and Android Apps and Games is the wave of the future. Actually, that is hard to say because the future is now.

Just take a look around you and see how many people are using there mobile device for calling, texting, looking up things using apps, doing business on their iPhone or Smartphone, and even playing games.

The market is exploding and it will dwarf the online market in a big hurry.

People take their phone everywhere and use it for everything. Yep… there is an app for that.

But the market is just now starting to develop and the smart marketers are the ones that are building apps and games to take advantage of this move in the way society functions.

This shift is not just for games, it is for every day functions for many people. Any the market will continue to grow and expand as the speed and functionality of iPhones and Smartphones continue to increase.

I have been making apps and now games for the iPhone and getting them in iTunes. The nice thing about that is Apple does all the promotion. But where you are ahead of the masses is you know how to market where others that know how to make apps don’t have a clue how to market.

So the time is now to make a good app and get it into the app store and use your internet marketing ability to smoke everyone else making apps.

I have more information on building and outsourcing app creation at my new website Mobile-iPhone-Games.com.

Do you want to build a successful website and drive a lot of traffic to it? Then don’t try to fool mother Google.

It really does work like that, as most of us have learned from previous experience. However, building a successful website is possible. And we have a few easy steps which will help you achieve just that.

Here are some simple tips to drive traffic and what I found to work the best for me. I think it will work for you too.

Make content the king of your success and make the search engines “drool” over your content! If you actually publish something of value rather than trying to game the search engines you will be miles ahead of many….many marketers.

Don’t sit back and wait for traffic, go get it!

A lot of marketers build their website and wait for traffic to come to them. Do you know how many websites are out there? Millions, all competing for the same traffic. Who do you think will get the lions share of the traffic, those who sit back and wait for it to come to them or those that go out and get it?

Exactly, go out and get your traffic. Write a few articles and distribute them to the article directories. This will help you get one-way incoming links which the search engines love. Participate in related forums and provide valuable content and input in exchange for a link back to your website.

Forums have been a huge benefit for me. I started posting in several niche forums just to get a feel for what type of product they might want and before you know it I was getting traffic left and right. When I did some investigating I found it was coming from the forums that I had posted in. I mean BIG traffic and TARGETED traffic!

You can also advertise on select and related sites. Just make sure that the website you’re advertising on is actually a high ranking site with a steady stream of related visitors. The trick to getting traffic is to be consistent and to try a variety of different methods to help build incoming links.

Of course, you’ll also want to make sure that all of your website pages are search engine friendly, that your website has a user-friendly and search-engine friendly navigation structure.

Include plenty of links to outside resources and also link to other articles inside your website. This will get the reader to stay on your site longer, lower your bounce rate, and increase the value of your site in Google and other search engines.

Be a Real Person. Many websites are cold and unfriendly. This won’t help your sales. People are sceptical and when doing business on the web, they’re going to opt for websites which appear professional and also reassure them that there is indeed a real person behind the website.

Be sure to include an “about us” section on your website as well as a contact and privacy page. If you are having trouble creating a privacy policy page there is a WordPress plugin called Easy Privacy Policy that will create on for you in a snap.

A picture of you and your team (if you have one) is a nice touch as well. Share a little about your business and let them know you are there to help them. People like to know you are human. As quirky as it may sound…. the more human and less polished the website sometime the more traffic you get because it looks authentic.

Building a website requires a lot of hard work and a lot of common sense. Dont over think it adn put yourself in the shoes of your target market. What would they want to see when they come to your website…. and give it to them.

And finally, being personable and letting your customers know that you are there to help them should the decide to purchase anything from you. The more they trust you the more they will come back and the easier you might make a sale.

Amazon Kindle seems like the obvious choice when it comes to publishing your eBook, but don’t forget about Barnes and Noble’s NOOK store.

I have added this as part of my eBook distribution funnel and have been happy with the results so far.

It is easy to publish on B&N NOOK platform. All you have to do is sign up for a PubIt! account, enter your information, upload your eBook in Word doc format, and you are all set.

The only detail that I am a little put off by is the fact that you earn less of a royalty selling on NOOK than on Amazon Kindle.

On Kindle you earn a 70% royalty if you price your item between $2.99 and $9.99. On NOOK you only earn a 65% royalty for the same retail.

Why Barnes and Noble would do this is beyond my reasoning. You would think they would want to be competative with the largest eBook retailer out there, Amazon, but at this time they are keeping a extra 5% of your money.

But the fact remains, it is best to get your eBook out to as many outlets as possible. This will give you the best opportunity to earn the most money and get the greatest amount of exposure.

Formatting is very important so people can read your eBook with ease. I use the same formatting as with Amazon Kindle and it works and looks great!

Good formatting is fast and easy if you know what you are doing. If you need help formatting here is a complete resource to guide you through step by step.

When your are publishing your eBooks, the more outlets you have the better off you will be so don’t forget about Barnes and Noble’s NOOK store as you put together your publishing plans.

I am always looking for a faster, easier way to use content. Whether that be making videos, writing articles, whatever the case may be.

Well, this software blew me away! It converts articles into videos in minutes! Here is a video of me turning a blog post into a video in minutes. Give it a look.

This software does it all! And they best part is, it is only $29.95! No monthly fee, nothing! Just a one time cost and that is it.

Have you ever given any thought to becoming a published author? Me either. I never though of myself as an author or even a good writer so the thought never crossed my mind.

Well things have changed and so has my thought process about becoming a published author. You see, Amazon Kindle has changed everything.

The Kindle is hot. In fact, Amazon is selling more electronic books than print books these days.  And getting published on Kindle is hotter still with the way Kindle books are exploding. Not to mention how easy it is to publish on Kindle. If you want to get started here is a good video course for cheap that will give you all the help you need. It is called Kickin’ It On Kindle.

Some of the biggest reasons why people have bought or will soon buy a Kindle are:

1) It makes your library portable

2) It lets you add to your library from anywhere

3) Kindle screens can be read in broad daylight

4) Kindles are getting more and more affordable

5) The Kindle Store is Growing FAST!

And the best part is….. they’ll be looking for a variety of books to read on their Kindles.  Just put yourself in their shoes and you’ll immediately see the growth potential. Lets take a closer look at each point.

1) It makes your library portable

Remember when the iPod first came out and you no longer had to lug around CDs and cassette tapes when you wanted to be entertained on the road?

In addition to the convenience, there was the sheer capacity of the iPod.  You could store thousands of songs in a device that fit in the palm of your hand, and you could access any of them at a moment’s notice.

Enter the Kindle.  It has the same capacity for storage and instant access.  You’ll get weeks of entertainment in a device small enough to fit almost any purse, all accessible at — you guessed it — a moment’s notice.

And unlike CDs and cassette tapes, books are heavy, so if you’re a voracious reader, you no longer have to lug around pounds of books to ensure you won’t get bored on even the longest flights — or beach vacation.

2) It lets you add to your library from anywhere

This is where the Kindle does the iPod one better.  Thanks to Amazon’s Whispernet, you can add books and other documents at the click of a button.

You can also subscribe to blogs, newspapers, and periodicals, and have them added automatically.  Kindle makes it easy to keep up with what’s happening, without having to squint at the screen of your smartphone or iPhone.

3) Kindle screens can be read in broad daylight

Unlike computer screens, Kindle screens are designed to imitate paper, and they are doing a terrific job.  You can read them clearly in any kind of lighting, even in broad daylight while you’re out lounging by the pool.  Try that with your laptop!

4) Kindles are getting more and more affordable

When the Kindle first came out, it was kind of pricey.  Of course that didn’t stop a lot of technophiles from investing in one anyway.  But it did keep more budget-conscious readers out of the loop.

That’s no longer the case.  Now, Kindles are just a fraction of the price they were when they first appeared, and at just over $100 for the least expensive model, they’re flying off the shelves.

In part, that was to be expected since new technology tends to be more expensive for early adopters, but in the case of Kindle, sheer economics was probably driving the drastic cut in price.  First, there was the growing competition from the Nook and other e-readers, and then…

Amazon realized that it was making far more money from selling books for Kindle than from selling the Kindle devices themselves, so it became a smart move to get those Kindles into the hands of as many people as possible so they could buy…Kindle books!

And the more people have Kindles, the bigger the market for your own Kindle book.

5) The Kindle Store is Growing

Amazon’s Kindle store is getting bigger by the minute.  Sales of Kindle books are growing by leaps and bounds, and one way in which Amazon is trying to keep up with demand is by making it incredibly easy to publish books, blogs, and more to its Kindle store.

And that’s where you come in as a potential Kindle author!

An ever-growing number of people are rushing to create content for Amazon’s Kindle store.  In fact, there is a lot of intriguing information available for Kindle that’s not available in any other form.

As a result, even more people are likely to break down and invest in a Kindle, which will lead to ever more readers who are shopping in the Kindle store for new information.  And you could be right there to provide it!

I am writing this with a little trepidation. I saw this on the Warrior Forum and signed up for it. I must say it is a bit out of the norm for me but I am always looking for new sources of traffic and this is new and cheap ($2.50).

You will have to give it a look and decide for yourself but it is working big time for me. It is called Fwebevolution and it is very unique.

This isn’t for every one and it has to be used with caution, but it is producing results so I wanted to pass it on. Hope it helps.

Again… its called Fwebevolution

I just complete a module on free traffic.

It has thirteen video’s including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, HootSuite, Ping.fm, Tube Toolbox and others.

If you are interested in learning more about how to get free traffic you should really check it out. Everything is in video format, no articles so it is a great tool to learn from.

It is in our members area and it is free to sign up (for now). Sign up now because I have modules on Copywriting and How To Make Video’s coming soon and I might have to start charging soon to cover the cost.

Lots of companies benefit from having a blog. For some, it’s a friendly, accessible way to say hi to devoted fans, curious onlookers and likely a few haters and skeptics. For others, it’s simply the way they communicate important messages. The role of public relations professionals in this chatty puzzle is to help companies build, shape and fine-tune their public voice. In fact, many PR campaigns aren’t complete without a blog strategy. But building a client blog from the ground up can be daunting. So where do you begin?

Start, With Help

When it comes to picking out a blog platform, there are certainly plenty to choose from, but Jeff Davis, who runs the content services team at San Francisco-based PR firm LaunchSquad, generally points clients towards WordPress, a mostly-free, open-source platform. Davis also makes another point: When you’re just starting out, don’t go DIY. “If you’re building something strategic for a client, even if it’s small scale, hire a WordPress developer to handle set up, find the right plugins and design a nice UI. It can be fairly inexpensive and is critical to building a blog that will work the way you need it to quickly and effectively.”

With a bit of help, WordPress’ initial set up process is simple and fast, and yet it offers a huge range of customization and configuration options. And with thousands of plugins, there is one that will satisfy any need that you can think of, often for free. For those who are coordinating blogs for multiple clients, WordPress also offers admin features for easy management across the board.

Optimize, But Not Too Much

According to Rich Brooks, President and “Chief Blogging Officer” at Flyte New Media, your SEO practices should have a very simple goal: rank high in search results for the things that your client’s customers are looking for. He recommends starting with a keyword analysis service like Raventools, WordTracker or Google Adwords’ keyword tool.

You want to pick one keyword topic per post, mentioning it once in the post title and once in the body of the post. Be sure to link important words to past posts as well, but keep it to one or two internal links at most. Beyond that, make sure you’ve got the WordPress SEO plugin installed and place the rest of your focus on working with your client to create engaging content.

Make It Worth Sharing

The company and product news that grace the vast majority of corporate blogs can certainly be both useful and good, but it’s just a tiny snippet of what is possible and inspiring. Arik Hanson, principal at ACH Communications, recommends considering content that is less about your client’s product, and more about the “culture that surrounds” your client’s product.

Hubspot, a company that offers inbound Internet marketing software, is a prime example. Its blog offers up creatively packaged, practical information that appeals to its very own target audience. Readers will find witty, educational posts, videos, guest contributions and even cartoons that cover everything from SEO and lead generation to Charles Darwin and cupcakes.

As you work together with your client to determine the content and focus of the blog, you should ask two key questions:

• Who is going to read it?
• What kinds of topics and issues do they care the most about?

There are tons of ways to develop an ongoing flow of engaging blog content, especially if your client is willing to talk about something other than the company. Don’t be afraid to pull in experts for Q&As, give spots to guest authors, respond to news and timely topics, share the spotlight with partners and customers and provide educational how-tos. And of course, we all love lists.

Think Like a Media Property

Davis says that there are times when a company blog can fill a pretty significant informational void. In 2009, Boston-based PR agency March Communications launched a blog for client TuneUp, which makes PC utilities for consumers. After conducting some market research, the company learned that when faced with PC problems, many people turned to forums and blogs to end up finding unverified and even potentially harmful solutions. The goal of the TuneUp blog was to become a reliable source of information for PC users who want to improve performance. The team brought on an external, experienced editor-in-chief to ensure editorial quality, and it placed the majority of the blog’s focus on helping users solve real problems. Since launch, more than 170,000 people have visited the TuneUp company blog to find answers to their PC questions and concerns.

Build Your Own Newswire

Traditionally, when a company has news to share, the official statement comes in the form of a press release. However, a carefully-written, information-rich blog post can play a similar role. Andrew Sinkov, VP of marketing at Evernote, explains that “your blog can be your own newswire.” A pre-published draft of a blog post, shared with reporters under embargo, is a legitimate source for news. Last month, Evernote used a blog post as the “news announcement” for the launch of its redesigned web app, with an embargo set for the time the post was to be published. Instead of having the information live on a wire somewhere, the Evernote blog is the ultimate source for Evernote news. The announcement post has since been viewed over 17,000 times.

The benefit of incorporating blog posts into your news announcement strategy is that it’s an opportunity to share the news in the client’s voice. “You write a blog post like it’s coming from you. You’re telling a story, you’re talking to someone. If you’re excited about something, that personal excitement comes through,” says Sinkov. This doesn’t mean that blog posts should replace press releases, it simply means that they should not be overlooked. So if you’ve got a press announcement and a blog post all drafted up and set for a big launch, make sure the reporters who cover your news get to see them both.

Turn Your Readers Into Viewers

Some of us and/or our clients might have the luxury of a video-savvy person on staff — but many do not yet. Not having a dedicated video pro doesn’t mean you can’t post videos, which are a great way to engage an audience. Whether it’s a user offering her own how-to, a customer waxing poetic about how great your client’s product is, an employee explaining why people should want to work there, or the CEO talking about his favorite kind of ice cream (or his company vision, for that matter), video tells a story in a way that text often cannot match.

Steve Garfield, author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets and the first-ever video blogger, explains that video is easier than ever to capture. Any smartphone will do as a start. For example, capture a video on an iPhone, pull it into the iMovie app to trim the clips and layer in photos and sound, upload it to YouTube directly from the app and embed it in a blog post. Keep it short and sweet — 30 to 60 seconds at most. Garfield also recommends the Kodak Playfull, a simple camera with built-in editing and sharing features.

The best advice here is to be ready to experiment. Blogs can be casual, and captured video can be real, authentic and less-than-perfect. Companies are made of people, after all, and all of these same characteristics apply. Pick your device and take it with you when your client is speaking, out at an event, or excited about a new product, and encourage your client to capture video around the office, too.

Some Parting Advice

• Create an editorial calendar that outlines both the types of posts that you would like to see on your client’s blog (video, text, photo), and the post topics. Make sure you’ve got at least two months of blogging covered at any given time, and that there is clear delineation of responsibilities, including someone who is actively maintaining the calendar. And don’t be surprised when the topic pipeline changes, because it inevitably does.
• Come up with a realistic posting schedule. One post per week is a good starting point, and it can go up from there based on time and resources. It is good to be consistent, and it is okay to for some posts to be relatively brief in order to keep things going.
• Determine who your writers are and what amount of time and resources you’ll have at your disposal. Get them to commit to a certain number of posts per month or quarter — and start conservatively.
• Make it as easy as possible for readers to spread your content around and be sure your blog is decked out with all the key sharing plugins.
• Make a list of the top 10 or 15 most influential bloggers in your client’s space. Then, make a habit of sending them a friendly note when a great, relevant post goes up. And be sure to give back to your blogger community by setting up a blogroll and offering “link love” and retweets of great posts that you come across.
• Think like a reporter. Whether you are the main writer of your client’s blog or are working with a handful of people on the client side who do the posting, pay attention to timely topics that come through and share your ideas.

What do you think of blogging for PR? Let us know in the comments below. Share your blogs, as well as your advice for PR professionals who use blogs.

Disclosure: The author works for Launchsquad, and Evernote is one of her clients. Hubspot is a Mashable sponsor.

Series Supported by MyNewsDesk

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More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 Online Strategies for Your Next Product Launch
- What to Look For When Hiring a Community Manager
- 8 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Get More Out of Twitter

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The Digital Marketing Series is supported by HubSpot, which offers inbound marketing software that helps small and medium sized businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and converts more of them into leads and customers. Learn more.

We’ve already seen signs of it — targeted ads on Facebook, suggested people to follow on Twitter, even Google Instant seems to know what you’re thinking — but how is behavioral targeting changing the Internet at large?

Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf. (Though one interviewee, ContextWeb, targets based on content and not cookies.)

Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected. Back in 2003, we had audience targeting, which assigned people to various demographics and targeted these demographics based on age, gender and location. Now, with more data, the targeting can be — and is — much more dynamic, and can gauge your interests and preferences. Companies that specialize in targeting can nearly promise more ad engagement by targeting people who have indicated -– through their behavioral patterns on the web -– that they might be interested in the product at hand. It’s a more costly form of advertising, but the conversion rate can offset the increased cost.

All of the data that has been collected by targeters has huge implications for the Internet of the future. We spoke with three experts in the field of behavioral targeting to discuss the biggest effects that targeting will have on the web as we know it.

1. Your Internet Experience Will Be More About You

You know how Amazon suggests items that might interest you, based on the items you’ve perused? That’s how the entire Internet could be soon. With systems tracking your cursor and keeping tabs on your browsing history, the Internet can get to know you better — and be smarter than ever. In fact, Amazon’s algorithm is a paragon of excellence for targeters.

“Amazon does a fantastic job at making the Amazon experience reliable for the consumer. The entire experience is relevant and more efficient,” says Jeff Hirsch, president and CEO of AudienceScience.

And since data collection has been ongoing for years at Amazon, the data points and algorithms have been refined. Years ago, a man might buy a princess outfit for his 3-year-old niece, and then be presented with ads for toddler items the next few times he logs on. That doesn’t happen anymore, says Ted Shergalis, founder and chief strategy officer of [x+1]. “As targeters accrue more data and more sophisticated algorithms, they can lessen the impact of statistical outliers,” he says.

And what’s been done to the algorithm at Amazon is happening all over the web. Shergalis cites the advent of Google Instant as a huge shift in the web’s evolution — results are repositioning information in a way that is more focused on the query. “Marketers are hoping to do that with all of their work,” he says, meaning that the web might be able to tell you what you’re looking for before you even finish typing it.

Hirsch jokes that in 10 years, we may very well look back and laugh that we ever had to type something into Google to find what we were looking for. “Smarter” and “more useful” are two terms he uses to describe how the targeted curation will affect your web experience.

Best of all for marketers, Hirsch says, is that more relevant content can lead to more engagement.

Rose Ann Haran says ContextWeb, where she is the CMO, strives to “curate content so that we can drive a better experience for people online.” She cites how TV and radio, which now have hundreds of content channels, have evolved so that we can curate what to consume. Technology allows us to hand-pick what programs we’d like to watch and when, along with what kind of music we’d like to listen to. That’s exactly where the web is going, she says. “If you think about the online experience, you can really make the analogy to TV and radio.”

2. The Web Could Change Its Appearance For You

So when the web is all about you, will it also change its interface, too? Shergalis says the data that would drive such customization is available today, but that cost, time and resources are what’s hindering us from getting to that next level.

But, he says, “Consumers are going to come to expect it — you can’t just have a simple, one-size-fits-all experience” for all consumers.

“I think the expectations are increasing. I don’t see people wanting to go back to a less personalized, less social, more irrelevant experience, so I think [the customization] trend is going to continue,” Shergalis adds. Especially because there’s so much more information to gather, and the more consumers share their interests with marketers, the more relevant and suited products will be for us, he says.

Haran cites her own Google homepage — and how radically different it is from her daughter’s page. She says they have different widgets above and below the fold and they each have a different number of ads, based on their preferences. So it’s clear that customization on the web isn’t a farfetched idea, and sites could soon know whether you like a clean page with only two ads, or whether you’re tolerant of up to eight ads.

“The tech is there to be able to provide that unique experience for you,” Haran says. But since there are so many players in the market, only “an orchestrated approach would allow us to do that [targeting].”

3. It Will View You as a Multi-Dimensional Person With Many Interests

So you browsed through ESPN.com — does that mean you’ll only get Nike and Adidas ads from now on? No, because there’s more to you than your interest in sports, and the data knows that. It won’t try to pigeonhole you.

This is especially important because there is concern that curation and customization lead to tunnel vision and ignorance of everything else that’s out there. That’s why behavioral targeters are testing demographics and creating algorithms to determine other interests and speak to a person’s depth and varied interests and give them an element of choice. Such algorithms will help marketers “discover a whole new audience and develop a new understanding” of this dynamic, multifaceted audience, says Hirsch.

As mentioned before, ContextWeb targets based on content. Instead of interpreting CNN as a news site, it breaks it down into retirement, personal finance, education — it’s no longer a one-dimensional perception of the site. And that precision helps to refine the algorithm.

“We’re all multi-dimensional people who consume content in different contexts,” says Tanayia Washington, insights and analytics manager at ContextWeb.

4. It’s Tapping Into Social and Mobile

To some, behavioral targeting seems like an invasion of privacy, though the FTC has taken steps to ensure that privacy is respected (no data is personally identifiable).

But privacy seems to be less of a priority among millennials, who tend to be more accepting of behavioral targeting than their boomer counterparts. Perhaps it’s because they grew up with LiveJournals and were the first generation on Facebook, so they’re used to living their lives out loud. Whatever the reason, the things they broadcast on social networks -– where they are, what they’re buying, who they’re with -– are ripe for the picking by marketers, says Shergalis. By virtue of being on these platforms and being so socially connected, young users are essentially opting in and showing a “willingness to participate” for advertisers and marketers. Therefore, behavioral targeters can take advantage of the wealth of consumer information that’s out in the open on Twitter and Facebook, learning tweet by tweet about the audience it’s trying to reach.

And that’s just one aspect of behavioral targeting’s branching out — targeting will also impact the web experience on iPhones, iPads, Androids and other mobile devices. “You’ll see some pretty amazing innovations … and that will get caught under the heading of behavioral targeting,” says Shergalis.

What’s Next?

When you’re on your laptop, a targeter can assume that you’re the only user. But let’s say there’s a family of four that shares a desktop computer. How do you know if it’s the accountant dad, the PTA mom, the soccer star son or the Bieber-obsessed tween daughter? What if the husband is shopping for the jewelry for the wife, and then the wife starts seeing diamond ads?

“[Data] is not personally identifiable, so in a family of four, you wouldn’t really know who was browsing at what point,” says Hirsch. “There is some efficiency lost in that respect, which is a good example of why consumers need choice.”

In short, behavioral targeting is not perfect, but it has immense potential to change the way we consume and search for information. And this potential is more within reach every day as more data is collected and analyzed. In fact, by the time you read this post, millions more data points already will have been collected, making the Internet that much smarter.

Series Supported by HubSpot

The Digital Marketing Series is supported by HubSpot, which offers inbound marketing software that helps small and medium sized businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and converts more of them into leads and customers. HubSpot’s software platform includes tools that allow professional marketers and small business owners to manage SEO, blogging, social media, landing pages, e-mail, lead intelligence and marketing analytics. Learn more.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl, Maxrale, quavondo.

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The Web Designer Series is supported by Wix.com, a free Flash online builder that makes website creation a breeze. Click here to create your own website now.

There are plenty of Firefox add-ons at your disposal that can extend the browser’s core functionality. The types of add-ons you’ll encounter have a wide range of utility, from productivity tools that monitor the amount of time you spend on the Internet, to social media tools that conveniently give you in-browser capabilities for using popular services such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Firefox browser is a popular choice for web designers, and there are plenty of add-ons that can make the day-to-day work of web design significantly more efficient and fruitful. Here are 10 highly recommended, top-notch Firefox add-ons for web designers. Let us know what other Firefox add-ons you use in the comments.

1. Web Developer

The Web Developer Firefox add-on is a huge suite of web design tools packed with massively useful functions that will help web designers perform tasks more efficiently. By default, it displays as a toolbar towards the top of the browser, presenting you with various menus such as CSS, Resize and Cookies.

Whether you need to inspect the CSS of page, discover information about a webpage (such as seeing all the alt attributes of images on the page), quickly validate a web design for W3C compliance or measure design elements, Web Developer will likely have a convenient tool for you.

2. Firebug

Firebug is such a popular web design/front-end web development Firefox add-on that there are actually add-ons for it (see no. 5). And if you were to ask any web designer or web developer what Firefox add-on they can’t live without, chances are he’ll say Firebug.

Firebug is an open source add-on that gives web designers powerful tools for inspecting and debugging a web design. It can help you figure out what CSS styles affect certain elements (in case you’re having trouble with a style rule that doesn’t seem to render properly), inspect the document object model (DOM) to learn about the structure of the web page, determine attributes such as color, width, height of HTML elements and much more.

The extension can take a while to learn (trust me, it’s worth the time), but the creators have some helpful documentation to get you started.

3. MeasureIt

This Firefox add-on has a single purpose: It gives you a ruler that you can use on any web page for measuring items. Since web design critically relies on the proper sizing of design elements, this is a valuable tool to add to your collection of Firefox add-ons.

4. ColorZilla

One thing that web designers frequently work with is color. This add-on includes a color picker (much like the one you see in Photoshop) and an eye dropper tool so that you can sample and identify the colors used on any web page. A similar Firefox add-on to check out is Rainbow Color Tools.

5. CSS Usage

CSS Usage is an extension for Firebug (thus requiring you to have Firebug installed) that uncovers unused CSS style rules. It works by identifying the CSS you use and don’t use, pointing out what unnecessary parts can be removed to keep your CSS files as lightweight as possible.

6. Page Speed

A website’s speed is important for usability and the user experience. Research has shown that website visitors hate slow websites, so you should do the best you can to design sites that are lightning fast.

Page Speed is a browser extension (for Firefox and Chrome) developed by Google that analyzes a web page and tells you where improvements can be made to increase the site’s speed. It’s a great tool for testing a web design’s ability to render fast. Alternatively, you can use Page Speed Online, which is a web-based version of the add-on. You can also check out YSlow, which functions similarly to Page Speed.

7. HTML Validator

This nifty Firefox add-on helps to make sure that you’re writing well-formed HTML. It checks your markup for standards compliance, and if it catches anything that doesn’t cut it, the add-on tells you why so that you can update the code.

8. IE Tab 2

Web designers are always concerned about the cross-browser compatibility of their work. IE Tab 2 is a Firefox add-on that allows you to view any web page using Internet Explorer without leaving Firefox. All you have to do is right-click on a web page, and then choose “View Page in IE Tab” in the contextual menu.

9. Screengrab

Taking screenshots in the browser is a common task for web designers. Screengrab is a simple tool for taking full-page or partial-page screenshots. You can copy the screenshot to your clipboard, or save it to your hard drive as an image file.

10. SEO Doctor

Search engine optimization should begin in the design phase, when the site’s HTML is still malleable and open to change. SEO Doctor is a convenient tool for checking any web page’s SEO.

SEO Doctor gives you a score between 0 and 100% and highlights areas in the web page that can be optimized for search engines. One neat feature is that you can export the data for spreadsheets for further analysis and logging.

What other add-ons do you use? Let us know in the comments.

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