Archive for the ‘Web development’ Category
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all our blog readers and posters. We had a great year 2009. Looking forward to an even better year in 2010. Hopefully we will reach new heights this year. We pleasantly noticed Google was kind to us in the last few days of 2009.. hopefully it will be kinder in 2010 not just to us but to all our clients as well. Happy New Year’s Web development and a Very Happy New Year’s Search Engine Optimization to everybody!
SEO Friendly Web Design
Designs of a website can really entice people. Most web designers also think that their skills could be measured by the looks of the website they created. They think that a good looking website will be enough to attract visitors. But what if you’re in the marketing field? A good looking website will surely not be enough to attract people to visit your site.
Since people would tend to use search engines to look for what they need or want, a web designer should design the website wherein the search engine can recognize the site easily. So showing off of skills by creating a site full of graphics is a big no-no. Remember that search engines don’t have eyes like humans to see those graphics jammed in your site. Your site would not be recognized for what it is about in that way.
The job of search engines is to give relevant results for visitors as to what they’re looking for. Therefore, your site should have a theme beginning with your META tags, your page content and the H1 tag that contains the on-page title.
Web designers should avoid putting in a lot of code into your design. If the client’s field is marketing then the web designer should forget about bragging on his skills in design and focus on content instead. Excessive amounts of codes will hinder the search engines in getting to the content because as mentioned above, search engines don’t recognize graphics so no matter how beautiful the site is, it’s useless if it has a crappy content.
Again, an all image or all Flash site will not help you on your way up in search engines. Because as mentioned above, search engines give consideration into content so if there are way too many unnecessary codes then you won’t end up successful in getting your site indexed.
All in all, a good web designer is not just about having excellent artistic skills. He should know the technique of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) combined with building up a web site. If you’re looking for someone to design your site make sure that your designer knows SEO. This would be truly beneficial for those who are into marketing and would like their web site to look good and at the same time have a high page rank.
You can also tell you web designer about what you want be done specifically with your site. It is better to discuss things with your designer so that he could tell you which ones are possible and which ones are not. This way you would also be aware of the advantage and disadvantage of a certain design and what would be its effect on your web site’s ranking.
So do not settle for a web designer with good designing skills. Look for the one who can design your site nicely and give you a high page rank in search engines at the same time. If your web designer knows nothing of how SEO is incorporated in web design then look for another one.
Link Wheel Building – Will it Wheel for You?
Yes, definitely, link wheels are an excellent way to generate more traffic to your site. Some may not be familiar with it since people tend to focus on what’s talked about with regards to link building. We always hear the same old approach of getting back links, and jump start right with it without proper planning.
I am not saying that this don’t work, of course it does, blog commenting works provided that you post comments on relevant site, else it will not give any PR boost to your site. Directory submission is an excellent way to establish your site. Article marketing is another way to build back links. What I am actually saying is a strategy or an approach you could implement to build links.
First let me define what is a link wheel, basically, it is a set of links interconnected with one another and pointing towards your main website. Link wheel building therefore is creating interlinked pages pointing in one direction.
This is Web 2.0 properties comes in handy, such as Squidoo and Hubpages. The idea here is to create unique article for each high PR site. This article then has an anchor text pointing back to one of the pages created.
For example your site offers website design, web development and search engine optimization (SEO) services. You then build article pertaining to website design like “How to Create SEO Website Design Friendly”, create an anchor text, your strong keyword that you want to rank and submit it to Ezine or other high PR article directories (the resource box is the great place to place your anchor text). Next create another hub or lens on Squidoo or whichever you choose pertaining to SEO, with another anchor text pointing to the article you just created and another to the main website. The same will step will follow until you have created 6 spoke, preferably unique article – every spoke has two links, one pointing to the main website and the other pointing to the other sites you have created.
If you try to visualize the basic steps on link wheel building, it’s actually like a wheel in motion. When done properly, it could generate huge traffic to your site. It may be time consuming preparing articles and creating accounts but it’s a proven and tested way to boost your chances on appearing on Search Engine Result Page (SeRP).
How to Create SEO Website Design Friendly
A website should be eye catching to attract visitors. It should also be very search engine friendly. What matters aside from being user friendly is that it’s searchable on the web, otherwise, your website is useless.
How do we create an SEO friendly web design?
If you use flash on the entire website, you will have to put double the work to make it search engine firendly. Search Engine (SE’s) ignores Flash, therefore, you will also need a non-flash version of your website. If you really need to use flash, make sure that you have an alternative textual description that can be understood by SE spiders. Otherwise, you can also use web 2.0 technology to put your content first before your flash designs.
When using images, be sure to fill-in “name” and “alt” tags. The graphical image itself cannot be seen by SE spider, it is through this tags that SE spider interpret your website. Use relevant description only and do not try to deceive SE spider.
Avoid using frames, SE spiders have no way to interpret content on a frame.
Use CSS navigation and style sheets, doing so makes your navigational menu crawl-able and indexable by SE spider. Using Javascript and Flash do not have the same result – it is unseen by SE spiders. So if you have javascript or flash on your site, you also need to have simple texts of the same message you put in Javascript or flash.
Though it’s not a requirement to use CSS stylesheets, it will help your site to load faster.
Conduct a Keyword Research to use on your meta tags and contents but also avoid keyword stuffing, suggested keyword density is 3-5%. For the title tag, characters should be at lest 70 and 150 for the description. Have at least 5-8 important keywords listed in your keyword tag.
Also, use keyword researched on your anchor text, H1, H2 and H3 as much as possible. This will help you rank in Search Engine Result Page (SeRP).
Create SEO friendly URL, incorporate your keyword related to your web page. Use dashes to separate words.
Structure your site up to 3 levels deep; Google only sees three-levels deep.
Provide useful content and make sure to have at least 250 words each web page since some SE spiders requires at least 250 to analyze your site. Make it a point as well that content on your site coincide with keywords used, else, SE spider will find it of little value.
Lastly, provide a site map.
Having an optimized site works well with your SEO campaign, the second step now depends on you.
If you like this article you may want to read 10 Tips on Search Engine Optimization
Important Factors of a Good Web Design
Name me a person that do not know what a website is, perhaps even the elderly knew about it. It’s actually the page you browse on the web, just like the establishment or stores you walked-in to. It’s a visual representation of a company, store or even organization. It’s an important investment for every industry and even for professional practitioners like doctors and lawyers, but not everybody has all the factors to develop loyal clientele.
Having access to the World Wide Web makes the impossible possible, just look at meeting conducted online, businesses surviving after the recession and shopping without literally leaving your home. I am probably one of the million people who could not live without an Internet connection. It makes life a little bit easier for me, I could learn without literally staying at home – FREE. But what makes a good website design, what people would actually love to see and experience in your site. Technology is changing so fast, HTML – PHP – CSS – CMS, gadget and all sort of things that could be utilize and integrated in your site. Sometime we get carried away and adapt to what we see is better but forgetting the simple goal why the website is created after all – user experience regardless of the physical design.
What are the essentials of a good web design? First and most important factor is the Cross-browser Compatibility. It simply means the website runs in whatever browser visitors used to navigate the site. The best thing webmasters should do is make the site WC3 compliant.
User-friendly Interface is the next on the list. Basically it is the navigation to the sites’ interface. Users usually want a straightforward approach to a websites’ navigation. It’s a good practice to keep in mind that some users do not have the time to study how to navigate within your site; they are just there to get what they want and not figure out how to make it work.
Another thing to consider is the loading time. Flash designs and creative images are very impressive provided that they load fast, but if visitors to your site would have to wait 3-5 minutes before it loads, I don’t think it helps attracting potential clients.
Privacy and Terms of Use should also be integrated to the site specifically if it is a corporate site. This provides a certain impression that users are protected. This is the page in the site that details how information is collected and other information with regards to user security and privacy.
Lastly, accessibility, a good website design not only caters to the general public. It’s one factor commonly disregarded but could help reach out to wider audience.
Having a website is indeed very important nowadays, aside from cutting operational cost, it reaches a wider market without spending millions. So if you’re spending on website or would like to have one, be sure to remember that the site is created NOT for YOU but for your VISITORS, NOT for SPIDERS but for USERS.
Choosing a Domain Name
Clients always ask me how they should go about choosing their domain name. When doing so, there are several factors to consider:
Name. The most important factor is that your domain name and your company name should be similar, if not the same. This enhances your online marketing strategy.
.com or .ca suffixes? While .com is the most popular on the Internet, .ca identifies your company as Canadian. However, if both are available, it is a good idea to buy both names and redirect the .com to the main website URL.
Length. The shorter the domain name, the better. A shorter name is easier for a potential client to recall as well as guess when they are unsure of your company’s Internet address.
The cost of the domain names. Professional domain name sitters who have a name you want means you will have to pay a higher price than expected. However, for the purposes of branding, it may be worth the extra cost.
Most Important of All. Domain names are one of your most valuable assets so ensure you safely guard them meaning you register them under your own name and keep the passwords top secret.
Advantages of Client Forms
A website form (such as a contact us page or a price request quote form) proves to be a useful tool for collecting client data such as email and phone numbers so that qualified leads can be cultivated via newsletters, mailings, etc.
However, most people do not prefer to fill out forms. They are tedious and time consuming. So, making your forms easy and quick to fill out will ensure they are done so that a company can collect the data to their advantage.
To keep the form efficient, try to collect only what you need. Really, the main items of interest are names, telephone and email contact information. Also, a postal code should be enough for your user tracking statistics. This keeps your form easy and more likely that it will be completed.
If you are using drop down boxes, keep the choices simple or use an enhanced text field that incorporates an autocomplete function so that the user can enter a couple of keystrokes and retrieve the city they are looking for without having to scroll down a multitude of choices.
Marketing Strategy
So, you have decided you need a website? Great! Nicely built websites engage users and keep them motivated to return to your website. The more this happens, the more likelihood they will spend time on your website and review your goods and services, ultimately leading them to make a purchase. The more time a prospective client spends on your website, the greater the likelikhood of a purchase being made. However, getting a customer to your website in the first place is the hard part. Building a website is easy. Attracting quality customers is not.
To attract quality customers to your website, you need to target your customers more conscientiously. Defining your target audience will help to identify how you will most effectively market to them. For instance, some companies who target younger audiences, prefer to use the social networking approach using sites like Twitter or Facebook to get noticed.
Building a website is only half the job. To complete the full circle, one must clearly market their website so that it attracts the target audience most effectively. An overall marketing strategy complemented by a well designed website ensures that a business is on the road to success.