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Bing Redesign Gets Top Result in Social Search
posted by Michael Garrity @ 10:25 AM
Friday, May 11, 2012
A few weeks back,
Bing made some design changes to its search results pages that were meant to offer a new de-cluttered experience and make it easier for users to quickly find the best
results for their queries.
Microsoft’s search engine added some more changes on Thursday, one that highlights different results types in three vertical columns and, most importantly, finally does social search right (and much better than Google).
Now, when a SERP pops up, everthing from the center to the left side of the page will show the algorithmic text results. To the right of that, context results will appear, including maps, reviews and actionable input fields. Finally, the far right side of the screen displays “social assistance” results; this focuses on social network connections (notably from Facebook) and experts who can help searchers find the information they want.
One of the best social assistance features is an “Ask Friends” option that lets users request help from their Facebook friends in sorting through results. After entering a question, Bing will automatically post it to the users’ Facebook profile along with a link to the user’s current search. If any friends make recommendations, the searcher will be notified in the social assistance sidebar.
Overall, this is a solid addition and further advances the company’s efforts to cut down on a lot of the clutter that can quickly become distracting and cumbersome for users.
Of course, this is also probably a shot at Google’s attempts at social search with its integration of Google+ to create Search Plus Your World, which has been accused of overemphasizing the importance of Google+ content.
In addition to the latest design tweaks, Bing is including more social functionality into its product. Thanks to an instant personalization partnership with Facebook, users will be able to see what their friends have liked in search results, which shows up as a thumbs up icon next to the text results. However, Facebook Likes won’t have an effect on search result rankings.
For more information about the new design, click here, and here for a video highlighting the new social search features.
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Happy Earth Day,
loyal Website Magazine readers!
Some say that it ain’t easy going green, and that sentiment certainly rings true when you’re talking about a Web business. However, if you know where to look, there are actually plenty of ways that you can curb your energy consumption and make your website more environmentally friendly.
Green Hosting
Most of the energy consumption that takes place on the Web comes from hosting. After all, it takes a lot to host and manage all
of the data from all of the websites out there on the ‘Net. However, some more
forward-thinking hosting companies have begun to turn to green hosting,
wherein they purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) that are powered by
wind energy to offset the amount of energies used by their servers.
Don’t know how to find a green hosting provider? Never fear, our editorial staff compiled a list of some of the best right here.
Green Partners
Businesses can also take steps themselves to curb their
energy use. Two of the best are by working with the EPA’s Green Power
Partnership and the Energy Star program.
The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program in which partnering businesses can buy green power to reduce the environmental impact of their purchased electricity use. The EPA provides the businesses with expert advice, tools and resources and credibility through publicity and recognition for their green-inspired efforts.
Energy Star is a joint program from the EPA and the Department of Energy that partners with businesses to offer an energy management strategy that measures their current energy performance, sets goals, tracks their savings and rewards their improvements.
Simple Site Design
It’s no secret that the more bells and whistles you add to
your website, the more energy it is going to take to display it. So why not
tone it down, cut out the unnecessary frills and keep your design as simple as
possible so that your business’ message is still clearly stated and your site
is still interactive and useful for audiences.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to keep as much of the content of your Web pages above the fold, because then users won’t have to continue to scroll down and continue rendering the page, which constantly increases the amount of energy needed just to view a single page.
Printer-Friendly =
Environment-Friendly
Sometimes people just need to print things out, and with
stellar content like yours, it’s bound to happen. However, you can lessen the
environmental impact and save a few trees by designing a printer-friendly
version of your Web pages, especially those that you think are more likely to
be printed.
You can do this by making an alternate version of the page that users can click on before printing. Some characteristics of a printer-friendly Web page are: They are black and white only, use a small-sized, serif face font, free of unessential images, JavaScript, Flash, animation and navigation (and sometimes advertising) and include a copyright notification and the original URL at the bottom of the page.
Be a Green Advocate
If nothing else, it probably doesn’t take much to put an
image on your site encouraging and reminding your visitors of the importance of
going green. A simple, tasteful logo will show off your commitment to an
energy-conscious future, and hopefully influence your visitors to do the same.
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The Meaning Behind Color – What Choice Evokes the Best Response
posted by AllisonH @ 6:51 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Color is one of the most fascinating things in the world. It attracts attention, evokes emotion and can trigger the memory.
Something so powerful should not be taken lightly, especially when creating visual elements to a website, in an advertisement or for a brand. Colors can increase brand recognition, increase participation and provide brands with a competitive edge.
Of course everyone has a favorite color, but marketers should be aware of the meanings behind colors, as well as what colors yield the best response from consumers.
Red – This color draws attention, and is often the color that eyes are drawn to first. It is also known to increase the heart rate and create a sense of urgency, and is often used for clearance sales. Its complimentary color is green, however, adding just a spot of red can be useful in some cases, because it can accent other colors or draw attention to a specific spot of an advertisement or webpage. Big brands that are associated with the color red include Target and Coca-Cola.
Orange – This is an ambitious color. It is associated with fun and energetic times or citrus fruit. It is recommended for kid’s websites or call to action buttons, such as subscribe, buy or sell. The complimentary color to orange is blue. Brands associated with this color include Nickelodeon and the Home Depot.
Yellow – The color of the sun is associated with laughter and happiness. It is said to make people feel optimistic and youthful. In its brightest form, this color is often used to grab consumers’ attention. Its complimentary color is purple. Many brands are associated with this color, including Best Buy, McDonalds and Sprint.
Green – Who doesn’t love the color of money? This color is associated with growth, nature, wealth and can also be calming, depending on its shade. Its complimentary color is red. Brands that are associated with this color include Starbucks and Android.
Blue – This is probably the most popular color in the world, perhaps because it is the color of the sky and the sea. It is calming, and can be associated with dependability and security. It is used by many brands, especially banks. Its complimentary color is orange. Brand’s associated with blue include Facebook, Chase and, of course, Website Magazine.
Purple – This color is associated with royalty, and therefore represents sophistication and prosperity. It is often used with anti-aging and beauty products, and can be used to soothe or calm consumers. Its complimentary color is yellow. Brands associated with this color include Taco Bell and Yahoo.
Pink – This feminine color is best associated with romance. However, depending on the shade it can also be seen as sentimental or youthful. Many times this color targets women and young girls. This color is associated with Victoria Secret’s Pink line and Barbie.
Black – This is a powerful color (or absence of color). It represents authority, stability and strength, and is often seen used for expensive products. It is usually used in combination with other colors, especially white. Brands associated with this color include Nike, Adidas and Smashbox Cosmetics.
White – Simple and purity are two words that describe this color. It is often seen used is conjunction with black, or with health related products. While most brands won’t only use white, many use white in at least some aspect of their color scheme, including Apple, Volkswagen and Tylenol.
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Cross-Team Collaboration for Design and Development
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 1:45 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Collaboration is a key element of successful design when working within a team. Fortunately, several powreful tools/platforms exist to facilitate much of the collaboration and they work wonders when it comes to documenting decisions, tracking progress and even providing a much needed spark of inspiration from time to time from others.
One of the best is Protoshare, a tool developed to combine collaboration with the real nuts and bolts side of website and Web app development – wireframing and prototyping. The latest release (Protoshare 6) is out today and the new version features a stronger collaboration engine with new workflows that aim to support team communication and better decision-making throughout the idea and project lifecycle.
New decision tracking features in ProtoShare 6 allow project team members to tag design elements, assign topic ownership, document decisions and track project status within a discussion thread. The tool's new interface enables users to filter and view the discussion threads that are most relevant and in its "Editor," where prototypes are created, users can now drag-and-drop images from their computer onto the canvas or into the page tree. This will be attractive to users as it carries the potential to help speed the building process.
"Collaborative prototyping enables UX, design, development and business teams to better focus on priorities and support the true purpose of prototyping: getting your work done,” said Andrew Mottaz, founder, president and CTO of Site9/ProtoShare. “Getting it done on time, on budget and with the fewest possible headaches requires clear communication and effective decision-making. We’ve designed ProtoShare 6 to support that process through the entire idea-to-design lifecycle."
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An infographic is one of the best ways for a to generate buzz on the Web and create high-quality links.
These visual representations of data are informative, visually appealing and great marketing tools.
But how do you create one?
Find a topic: Search for ideas through social media, brainstorming sessions or news stories.
Identify your best idea: Make sure the content relates to the website that it will be published on, that the concept is easy to understand and that the information is credible.
Research and organize: Define the topic’s focus, find supporting information, group similar points together and think of a way to connect and visualize all of the content together.
Get your artistic juices flowing: Think colors, visuals and cohesiveness. By providing your graphic designer with direction, you can ensure the infographic is created the way you have thought it up.
Review and edit the finished project. While you and your designer may have got it right on the first try, it is more likely that you will find a few flaws in the first draft. Don’t be afraid to add, take away or change some aspects of the infographic.
Check out some infographics about infographics:
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Directory Submission: The Key to site Promotion
Most website owners fail to differentiate between a directory and search engine, failure to do so has resulted in failure to harness the powers of Internet directory effectively.
Search engine uses the spiders – (an automated software program) to locate and collect data from web pages for inclusion in a search engine’s database and to follow links to find new pages on the World Wide Web. While directories depends on human editors, who in most cases examine every single new listing before they are added to their directory. Most major search engines these days use links from human edited directory to measure the quality of the site they index. That is why you should place emphasis on the type of website or directory you list to and how to do that effectively.
However, there are some significant differences between the two link sources, Directories have only one purpose in life and that is to provide links to other sites. Directories are an established source of authority in regard to various subject matters. Being listed in directories serves as a level of measure as to the site’s worth.
A Directory Submission Service, in my opinion, is a company that will submit your website to directories. Now, the client must be careful when selecting a company. Many I have seen say something along the lines of “We submit you to over 800,000 Search Engines and Directories”. This statement alone lets me know that they are not trustworthy. We can all fire up ANY free/shareware submitter and boast the same statement. What I LIKE to see, when checking my competition, is a listing of directories they will submit to. And, of course, no one can guarantee inclusion.
There are several ways you can submit your RSS newsfeed to directories. The first, obviously, is by hand. You can get a list of the directories (http://www.rss- software.net/rss-directories.php), then go to each website and add your feed manually. Since there are many RSS directories, this can take quite a while. To save the webmaster time, two ways of automated directory submission exist.
While the article directory submission site is growing, granted yes, they may not get as much traffic as the big guys. But that means that the visitors that they do get, are more likely to see and READ your article. This means your article can find its way to ezines that want unique and fresh new content.
Search Engine Optimization is a fuzzy art in which the rules and techniques change as quickly as the Internet changes. Nonetheless, a good SEO consulting expert will always be able to help move your website towards better search engine placement, greater visibility, and consequently higher levels of targeted traffic. When it comes to choosing any professional — a dentist, doctor, travel agent or hair stylist, it may take you a couple tries to locate the right SEO professional for your business, but it’s usually better to focus on what you do best, and hire experts who spend all their time staying informed and practicing effective website promotion.
Link Building: When Will Backlinks Show Up In Google
Many times website owners who are new to link building simply don’t know what to expect when it comes to the timeframe for registering backlinks.
Here’s a common question I get:
“I’ve just started marketing my brand new website, and I know I have backlinks coming into my site, yet when I do a check for incoming links, nothing shows up. Am I doing something wrong?”
Probably not–A backlink check will tell you how many incoming links are registered with a particular search engine, but it will not tell you how many backlinks you actually have.
Why is that? Well, it usually takes search engines months to re-evaluate incoming links, so if you do a backlink check today, there are likely links that are going into your site that haven’t yet been calculated in.
It would be nice if we could build links and then immediately have them show up in a backlink check, but that’s just not the way the internet works.
As you’re building links to your site, here are some ways to keep track of your progress and build links effectively over time:
- How To Do A Backlink Check
It’s incredibly easy to do a backlink check for your site. In Google, just type this into the search box (replacing the ‘yourwebsite.com’ part with your URL):
* link:http://www.yourwebsite.com/
The results of that search will bring up a list of sites that are linking to your website address. In the upper right hand corner of Google you’ll be able to see a total count of your registered backlinks.
An even better tool is Yahoo Site Explorer https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com which provides a list of your registered backlinks and much more detailed information. Both of these backlink checking tools are free, so you can try each one out (or do both).
- Why Are Backlinks Not Showing Up For My Site?
Let’s suppose you know that you’ve build links to your site, but nothing is showing up when you do a backlink check (frustrating, I know!).
There are some logical reasons why backlinks may not be showing up:
1) Perhaps your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google
When you launch a new site it does not automatically appear in Google–it usually takes several months for Google to realize that the site is there and to index and categorize it.
Until your site is indexed, it will not show up in any search engine searches and no backlinks will be registered. You can even do a search for your exact site name or URL and nothing will show up–that is how you know that your site has not been indexed yet.
If this is your situation, don’t fret! This waiting period is something that all website owners go through, and Google (and the other search engines) will eventually index your site.
It can take anywhere from 3-5 months for a new website to be indexed.
I remember the last time I was launching a new site it took about 5 months for the site to be indexed in Google. On that 5th month, all of the backlinks that I had been building over the preceding months finally showed up–whew!
2) Not enough time has elapsed since building the links
Even if your site is already indexed, it usually takes search engines several months (3-4) to recalculate the backlinks. So, if you have been doing article submissions for the past 2 months and you know for a fact that you have quite a few incoming links, those links will not show up in a backlink check for another month or two.
This doesn’t mean the links aren’t there–they are! The search engine just hasn’t registered them yet.
As you can see, one necessary component of any link building campaign is PATIENCE. There will be a time delay from when you build the link to when you see the fruit of your labor in Google.
Keep in mind, this time delay does not impact your marketing campaign–whether the links have started to show up or not, you should continue to market your website and submit articles. Immediate results are not the goal–you should be going for a long lasting impact on your search engine ranking for your keywords, rather than a brief shot of traffic that fades away after a day or so.
When you’re link building, you need to market your site consistently–develop an article submission schedule for yourself and stick to it, submitting articles each and every month.
You will be rewarded in the long run with an increased search engine ranking for your major keywords, which can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.
Free and Easy Link Building Tips
Okay, you’re the proud mama or papa to your brand new website. Now what? This isn’t like the movies – just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll come. The Internet is a huge limitless space with ever-growing numbers of websites. You are just one small website among millions. How will anybody ever find you? How do you become visible? Right now, you just exist out in the web, untethered. You need to become visible when someone searches for you and one way to become visible to people is to become visible to search engines. And one way to become visible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN is for your site to be tethered, or linked to other sites.
If you’ve spent any time reading Internet marketing blogs you know that link building is a huge part of a marketing campaign. Backlinks – links that point to your website – are a major factor in determining your popularity or ranking with the search engines. And of course, just like in high school, you want to be popular.
You can buy your way into links, but here we’re talking about a few free and easy ways. An obvious and natural way to build links is through content. When you start a link-building campaign for your new website, focus on attracting links that will add value for your website visitors and best represent your most important keywords too. It is invaluable to have visitors go to your site and share your content.
Here are a few easy and mostly free ways to build links for your website.
* Blog-Based Link Building
One way to get natural links back to your website is by setting up a blog for your company. Make sure you network online with other blogs that complement yours. If you share industry news and have useful and relevant content, you’ll attract links. Reference other bloggers in your content and link to other blogs in your industry.
For blogs, content is extremely important. Every time you add words to your blog or website, you are presenting yourself to a potentially huge audience. How does your blog’s content reflect your company? This content could be the page that carries your company’s name around the Internet world. Cheap content is just that – cheap. Create content that people want to read and that will make them come back again and again.
Reviewing products and services and posting those reviews on other sites is another way to build links. Your honest evaluations and smart opinions can also build your reputation as an expert in your field.
* Link Building with Social Media
Another way to build natural links to your website is through social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. These sites allow you to set up a user profile where you can add information about you and your company including a link to your website.
Some sites, Facebook for example, also have a way to promote your business with a page, ad or group. Just keep in mind that there are good ways and bad ways to promote your business on social sites and you should observe proper etiquette when you do.
* Link Building with Organizations and Directories
If your industry has professional organizations or associations that you belong to, check with them and see if they have an online directory with links to member sites. They may or may not charge a fee for this. If they do, it shouldn’t be much.
Check with your local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau. Links from sites like these can be very helpful. Check with other local businesses and organizations that have lists of businesses and request links from them, too.
Online directories are another opportunity to look into. Yahoo! Directory is a good one. If your business is in a specific geographical area, you might also find some local directories to submit to that will boost your local visibility.
* Links from Charities or Non-profits
If your company makes charitable donations to organizations and non-profits, see if they have a “donors” list on their website and ask if they will link to your website.
* Links from Press Releases
Has your business just started or have you just launched a new product? A press release is a great idea to announce your news. There are quite a few press release distribution services available and some have a free first time offer.
* Links from Partners
If your website offers information about other partner websites like business directories, you should make sure to use all your linking potential. You could have a badge that your partner could put on their site linking to you and one for your site that links to theirs.
If you have an RSS feed or a widget on your site that has good value to visitors, those can be taken from your website and displayed on another person’s website, linking back to your site.
The Internet is constantly evolving and there are thousands of ways to build links. Look around at other websites and see what they have and how they work. Look at your business, think outside the box and you might come up with other ways to develop links. If it all seems like too much, there are many online consulting companies that can help with link building, SEO optimization and brandcasting.
Who Is Your Website’s Biggest Competitor?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Link Building: Who Is Your Website’s Biggest Competitor?
* Have you ever noticed that competitive runners achieve their best race times when they are pitted against worthy competitors?
You can be an excellent sprinter, but odds are you will not run your personal best on a track by yourself–most of the time it’s the spirit of a heated race and a determined runner breathing down your neck that makes you dig down deep give it all you’ve got.
The quest for a higher search engine ranking and more website traffic is much like athletic competitions. When you’re trying to get your site ranked higher in Google, you are not operating in a vacuum–you have competitors, whether you acknowledge them or not.
Your progress is not only dependent on your own efforts at marketing your site, but the efforts of your competitors–if other website owners are more consistent, more reliable, and more focused in their marketing, there’s a good chance that they will outrank you.
With website rankings, there is a constant jockeying for position, so it is extremely helpful when you’re trying to market your site and get a higher search engine ranking if you will use your competitors to your own advantage.
Before you start your next link building campaign, take a look around the playing field and gather some intelligence about those you’re running against.
* How Can You Tell Who Your Competition Is?
It’s actually quite easy to tell who your top competitors are–just do a search for each of your keywords in Google.
- What site is at the #1 position?
Unless it’s you, that website is your top competition. Repeat this search for each one of your keywords.
When you’re starting out, you may want to limit yourself to 3 main keywords whose competitors you’re keeping track of. That way you have 3 competitors to keep track of, and that will give you a good idea of how you’re progressing and also how far you need to go to catch up to the #1 position.
- What Type Of Information Should You Keep Track Of?
Alright, now that you know who your top competitors are, it’s time to do a little investigating. Here are the main bits of info that will help you get an idea of where your site stands in relation to site holding the #1 position.
1) How many backlinks does the competing website have?
You can do a backlink check by typing the word “link:” (following by a colon) and then the competitor’s URL into the Google search box. The results will be a listing of sites that are currently linking to their site, and at the top of the page you can see a total number of backlinks.
2) What is their search engine rank for the keyword?
For the first month at least, their ranking is #1.
Another thing that will be interesting to you is to see how the site that is ranked at #1 can fall if they are outdone by another site further down in the ranking. If you are consistent with your link building campaign, you can see your site climbing up the rankings each month, until finally your #1 competitor drops from the number one position and your site takes over.
3) What is the other site’s PageRank?
PageRank (PR) is a tool Google uses to reflect the authority of a web page. The rankings go from 0-10, where 10 is the best. You’ll likely notice that a website does not need to have a PageRank of 10 in order to hold the top ranking for a keyword–many times sites with lower rankings hold the top position. Why is this?
Remember, it’s all about competition–the top ranking website may have a PR2, but the other sites who are competing for top listing for that keyword have lower authority. Of course, there are many other factors that go into determining who has the top rank in Google, and only Google knows all of their criteria for judging.
At any rate, it is helpful to know the other site’s PageRank, especially in comparison to your own. If you see that the competing site has a PR4 and your site has a PR2, you can set a goal for yourself to achieve PR4 or higher.
With all of these indicators, it’s nice to get an idea of what you’re shooting for. Being aware of your top competitor’s stats can help you strategically jump up the rankings and keep your motivation going to earn the #1 spot.
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO Put simply, back links are inward-bound links to a particular internet site or page. What this means is that the other site has a hyperlink “pointing” directly to your website. Regarding search engine optimisation, you want as many back links pointing to your site as you possibly can, even more so if the site is directly related to your area of interest.
As the number one goal of a website is to achieve traffic, i.e. people actually looking at the site, it follows that you must make the website visible. Generally speaking, to make your website visible, people must be able to find it when they search for keywords directly related to your product, niche, service or whatever else your website represents. Individuals tend to be seeking such information via the big search engines, whose operators have rather complicated algorithms to help them decide whether a certain website is applicable to the searcher’s request, or not.
Although they will not divulge exactly how they go about composing these algorithms, the search engine operators do assure us that relevancy, as viewed by others, is most important. If they see that you have a back link or a number of back links from other websites that have some relevancy to yours, this is a plus. In addition, if the site linking to you has a fairly high “page rank”, this helps as well. Page rank is Google’s proprietary method of allocating a number (zero being lowest and moving up to ten) indicating how important a site is within its particular niche of operations.
There are a number of ways to achieve back links for your site:
* Article Marketing
As Bill Gates once said, “content is king”. Article marketing is known as one of the most solid Internet marketing methods. By writing highly relevant and informative articles and submitting them to high profile article directories you do several things, not the least important of which is to help establish you or your site as an expert in your niche. Within your article, published in the article directory, is a resource box which contains your details – who you are and what you do, and a link back to your site, the all important Back Link.
* Social Bookmarking
There are many hundreds of social bookmarking sites, and their primary motive is basically to provide a way of informing people about the existence of content related to any niche or interest in a very manageable format. You can sign up and initiate a process of notifying social bookmarking sites about fresh content, including back links in many cases. You should note at this stage that some webmasters apply a “no follow” tag which can void the effect of a back link, as the tag instructs the search engine spider not to give you points, or what’s called “link love”.
* Social Media – Twitter
Whilst Twitter and other similar sites are becoming increasingly more powerful in marketing terms, you should know that to include links within your “tweets” or in your URL profile box is not a powerful back linking strategy, as these are all allocated the dreaded no follow tag. However, you may find that it is possible to link within a bio box and get some link love this way. Also, if you syndicate, your Twitter feeds are updated via the RSS aggregators, earning you back links.
* Blog Commenting
First of all, you will have to locate blogs or forums that are relevant to your area of expertise. This is fairly simple to accomplish as a straightforward and pertinent search will locate hosts. Once you find these blogs you can sign up and create a profile. Often you will be allowed to create what is called a “signature”, and within that signature you incorporate your links. Note, you should check to see if there are any no follow tags, as these will appear occasionally.
Enter into the spirit of the place by interacting with other members and making entries and posting comments that are relevant, useful and educational. As well as a back link being displayed each time you post a comment, you’ll also create a potentially profitable bond with other members – and this has the potential to lead to all kinds of new possiblities.
Backlinks for Search Engine Optimization: How Important are They?
Backlinks are a key component in search engine optimization. Search engine consultants talk about the importance of backlinks for achieving higher search engine ranking. That’s because the more one-way backlinks you have leading to your website, the more important the search engines believe your page to be.
There are two types of backlinks: one-way links and reciprocal links.
One-Way Links are basically backlinks that only go one direction. Maybe it’s a link that goes from your website to another website. Or maybe it’s a link that goes from another site to yours. Either way, it’s only going one way.
Reciprocal Links are backlinks that go from one website to another, and then back to the original website.
It’s important to differentiate between one-way back links versus reciprocal links. Many search engine optimization experts believe that one-way back links are more valuable than reciprocal links because they’re much harder to earn. The thinking is that since they’re harder to earn, they must be more valuable, which means other people think very highly of your site. If people think highly of your site, it must be an important site, which means the search engines will give it a higher ranking than those sites that do not have a lot of one-way backlinks.
As search engines like Google grow and improve, they’re putting more emphasis on how popular a website is, not whether they use all the right keywords. This popularity is measured through one-way backlinks. They’re like votes to Google, and search engine ranking is more like a popularity contest: have a lot of links to your site and your site achieves a high ranking. The easiest way to find the number of backlinks that lead to your site is to visit Google or Yahoo! and type in the following command:
link:www.yourwebsite.com
You will be shown a list of all the websites that have backlinks to your own domain. If you want to see who has links back to a particular page on your site, then type in the whole URL to that individual page.
Although no one can be sure of the exact algorithm Google and Yahoo use to rank sites, it’s commonly believed that if a website has more backlinks, it will achieve a higher search engine ranking. There are other factors that go into the whole search engine ranking, but backlinks are one of the more important ones.
But it’s important you have good quality backlinks, not just links that appear on any page you can find, like a link farm or sticking a comment on a page that has nothing to do with your website at all. That is, if you sell hammers, don’t put any backlinks on a page that sells children’s shoes.
That’s because search engines like Google have started cracking down on link farms and backlinks spammers. The search engine spiders know how to tell the difference between backlinks on a link farm and links on a quality website. If you are caught spamming, you will be dropped in the rankings, or possibly even dropped completely from Google’s index.
So you need to pay attention to the quality of your backlinks, now more than ever. One way to do this is to make sure you use the proper anchor text in your backlinks. For example, do not ever hot-link the words “click here.” What you’re basically telling the search engine spiders is that the website is about Click Here. Instead, use the keywords about the site that the backlinks are leading to. If you’re creating backlinks to a site about hammers, put the word hammers in your links. “Click here” isn’t about hammers.
In short, if you want some great search engine results, be sure to include backlinks as part of your search engine optimization strategy. You’ll see it pay off with improved search engine rankings.
How Many Links Does It Take To Get To The Middle Of Google Page One?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
How Many Links Does It Take To Get To The Middle Of Google Page One?
Everyday it seems, people are asking me the optimum numbers of inbound links they need to acquire for their website in order to rank well in Google.
My answer is going to seem a little flip, but it is the honest, best answer.
Answer: You need more inbound links – of equal or higher quality – than what your competitors have.
Albert Einstein argued that any mathematical formula that required pages of calculations did not contain within it “the mind of God”.
So when Albert Einstein developed E=mc2, then Einstein had fulfilled the promise of a simple formula that could encompass the brilliance of God.
When people wonder as to how many inbound links they might need to acquire in order to rank in the Top 4 of Google’s search results or even the Top 10 of Google’s SERPs, they are generally hoping that someone will be able to give them a numeric answer, so that they know whether they can afford to undertake the process or not.
I understand the WHY of the question, but there is no canned answer that will work for everyone.
Remember, your competitor may be asking the same question and undertaking the same processes as you are, trying to accomplish the same goal.
No one can truly begin to understand the answer to this question, until one has take the time to do an Inbound Link Comparison Analysis of all of your competitors in the Top 10 spots of Google’s SERPs.
* You need to look at the Top 10 listings in Google for a particular keyword.
* You need to do backlink checks for all ten URLs in Google’s search listings, and you need to check those numbers across a variety of sources, including Google, Yahoo and any other tool you can find to do a check. (Google and Yahoo both tend to understate the actual link counts. While Yahoo will show you more than what Google does, they also show a number of “no consequence” links in their results.)
* You need to look at the quality of a few of the pages that offer links to the URLs in the search results.
This is not an easy process to undertake. I have done it before, but the best you can hope for is a “snapshot” of what is out there, and therefore, what you need to accomplish.
Note: If Wikipedia turns up in your search query, few people with small budgets will ever be able to dislodge Wikipedia in the search results. What they make up for in a small number of inbound links, they more than make up for with links from dozens or hundreds of PR4, PR5 and PR6 pages. Wikipedia is the king of Internal Linking, and they use that to a great degree to rank extraordinarily high in Google’s search listings.
Your analysis should seek to uncover how many links a page has to it.
As a general rule of thumb, Google will show you less than 1% of the existing number of links for a web page. Yahoo will sometimes show closer to 5% of the existing number of links for a web page, but they will not show you the highest quality of those links.
So, as you strive to gain a “snapshot” picture of the playing field, you want to take Google’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 100. Then you want to take Yahoo’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 20, then cut the number in half to acknowledge the number of worthless crap links they have in their database. Once you have achieved these two numbers, then I tend to call the truth “somewhere in the middle”.
With your “somewhere in the middle” number in hand, then you need to look at the quality of links to a few of those search listings, to get an idea of whether those links exist on higher quality pages or simply junk pages.
If those links are on junk pages, then the goal could be achieved by just working the numbers. But if there are a lot of high PageRank pages in the mix, then whatever number is in your hand, should be multiplied, perhaps 100-fold, to overcome the quality of pages that link to your competitors.
If you get the idea that my simple formula leads to a complicated answer, then you are right.
All of the numbers that I have included in my sample formula are based on rough speculation, as the “snapshot” offers you your best hope of understanding the challenge in front of you.
While the number of inbound links may be relatively easy to determine, the link quality is a factor that is really hard to pin down.
* If you determine that you only need 300 inbound links to rank with the big boys, you may be right.
* Your 300 inbound links number should also be quantified against the number of links that Google will count worthy, so you may need 1200 links to get 300 links that Google will deem worthy. This calculation depends more on the “quality of your content”, rather than the “quantity of your content”.
* When all is said and done and your 300 Google-worthy links have not yet put you on page one, then you know that the quality of the links pointing at your competitors is greater than the quality of the links pointing to you.
If you were hoping for an easy answer, I am sorry that I could not help you with that.
But with this explanation of the challenge, you may be better prepared to answer the big question, the question that is really on your mind:
Are my hopes of achieving good rankings in Google within my reach?
I tend to throw “worry” to the wind and just start working. I don’t worry if I can afford to do it or not. I simply start doing, and I know that in one month, one year or five, I will have built enough value in my website that my competitors are going to be the ones who are trying to figure out if they can unseat me!
Targeted Web Traffic – 5 Tips For Great Traffic
Targeted Web Traffic is the “holy grail” of webmasters who want good sales results at their sites. It’s a simple concept.
You want traffic. Otherwise your site sits unobserved and unvisited in the blackness of cyberspace.
But you don’t need just ANY type of traffic. You want, for your “rain umbrella” site, customers coming to you that typed in, ideally, “buy rain umbrellas.”
Now, one of the problems with generating targeted web traffic is the fact that there are a LOT of webmasters out there trying for the same thing. Competition, in other words.
It can appear daunting, but if you keep these 5 tips in mind, and you work at it, you can increase traffic to your site and have the happy coincidence of “better quality” traffic from what we call in the business, “buyer keywords.”
1. Know thy target!
You need to know certain things about your typical buyer, but the one most important thing to know is “Which keywords do they use to search for what you are selling.” Right there is an “aha!” moment.
And don’t neglect putting content on your site that is highly relevant to your targeted audience so that they will find your site informative and interesting and return to your site in the future.
2. Writing Articles
A good strategy for making articles work for your site, and thereby pushing the site up in the rankings for certain keywords, is to write an article that… a. Interests your target and… b. targets your keywords.
Here is the “aha!” moment for the prospective article marketer.
There’s a “resource box” at the bottom of the article and in that box you are to put links back to your site! But here’s the nugget, those links are to be “keyword text links” wherein “your keyword here” is the clickable link. Google loves keyword links and you WANT Google to like you.
3. Links – One Way And Only One Way
One of the surest ways to get your site ranked high on your specific keyword is to get “one way links” from high PR sites that are relevant to yours. Google loves this. Google sees the one way link as a “vote” for your site for that keyword.
You’ll accomplish building one way links with the article strategy above, but you need a variety of links, and many sites that are relevant to your target will NEVER publish your article.
An awful lot of the article sites are of low page rank (PR). There are many hundreds of article submission sites and out of all of them all there probably isn’t 50 with good PR. Those are the ones you want!
I highly recommend Ezinearticles and Goarticles and especially Sitepronews. A mass submission company like Submit Your Article can be a real help, too!
A blog comment works too. Find a high PR relevant blog and make a comment! Easy. You can get a link back to your site on the comment. Make sure it’s a good, meaningful, well written comment with relevant copy.
So, backlinks count. And from higher page rank sites…all the better. Pass the link juice, please. Targeted web traffic can be right around the corner.
4. Optimizing Your Website
Search engine marketers are looking for targeted traffic and they insist on having the basics of search engine optimization in place on their site. This is made up of good and relevant content in the form of articles and posts.
This, and your link building efforts can put your page at the top of page one, resulting in a great flow of targeted web traffic.
5. Building A List
A list is typically made up of people that decided to get onto your list because they were interested in what you have! You can’t get much better “targeted” than that. So build one. It’s a grand experience and can be very profitable, too!
One of the things we all like about targeted web traffic from the search engines is that it generates a higher quality prospect AND it’s free! You really can’t beat it.
Tips On How To Promote Your Site
If you’ve got your own web-based business, you might be asking yourself how you can market your site. There are lots of ways to make this happen, and this article talks about all the demonstrated strategies that would make you have favorable outcomes in this particular field.
The traditional way of promoting a business venture would be to pay for want ad space in your local newspapers. This would let everybody know about your website, but carrying this out regularly would make your overhead costs go up.
A lot of people utilise the web to obtain details, plus the constant progression of the internet means that there will always be many different strategies to market your webpage. Among the choices that you could utilize is pay per click advertising, wherein you will spend money in order to put your ad on the results pages of search engines. While this is a proven way to market your site, it can get costly if you are bidding for keywords that are popular. One other way to publicise your webpage is by making use of weblogs. Crafting blog entries about your products or services and also placing the right amount of information in your weblog would draw in potential customers.
But the fastest method to publicize your site is to write content pieces and also submit them to many different article publication sites. The reason why this strategy gives the most results is due to backlinks: if your content is posted, you’ll be required to include a backlink. This particular link will let your readers visit your site if they want more information about your services and products, and you will acquire more page views.
You need to create articles that are short and educational, and you have to come up with lots of articles so that you’ll be seen as a specialist in your chosen field. Article directory websites will always be in need of new and also excellent content since this would help them receive better search engine rankings, and people will always be on the lookout for specialized information for their own webpages. When your content piece is published in an online directory and that specific article directory website acquires a high page ranking, that result could be achieved by your webpage as well since you will lead your readers to your site through your posted write-ups. In other words, everybody wins in this scenario.
But there are a few vital things to bear in mind when composing content pieces. You have to make an effort to compose around three to five articles every day, as well as restrict your write-up to 300 to 500 words; people will not read through content pieces that go past that restriction. Also, originality is of high importance. Never ever reproduce a posted content piece online or in publications and call it yours. Plagiarism isn’t accepted in any industry, plus your write-ups wouldn’t be posted if you’re caught. You can borrow an idea from another article and extend it, but remember to cite your sources.
If you do not have the time or ability to craft your own articles, you can employ freelance content writers or maybe content creation services to make your content pieces for you. Aside from offering you extra time to pay attention to various other aspects of your internet business, outsourcing this endeavor would mean getting a lot more write-ups for you to send for publication.
The main ideas guiding this specific site publicity tactic would be to provide valuable material and compel your audience to take a look at your site to obtain more details on your products and services. The secret is to make them desire more of what you are offering.
Quick Link Building Tips
Link building is the most dreaded task of all serious SEO’s. Here are five quick and easy backlink building tips that you can apply today!
* Link Building Tip #1 – Get Active in Your Community
I’m not talking about joining the local country club here (although that would be fun…), but rather about joining forums that are relevant to your niche. You want to find a forum (or forums) that is active and well ranked, and place your link in your “signature” section. This way, whenever you contribute to the forum (i.e. say something), you’ll be building backlinks. It is vital that your posts are of informational and educational use, and that you don’t just abuse the system in order to gain links. You’ll get banned quicker than you can say “backlink” if you do this. Contributing to the community is of the essence here.
* Link Building Tip #2 – Suss Out Your Competition
Write down the website addresses of the top five results for your desired keyword. Then, using Google, type in “link:website” (replace website with the actual website address). This will show you where each site is getting their links from (well, most of them in any case) and hopefully spark some ideas for your site.
* Link Building Tip #3 – Get Writing…
Writing and submitting articles is definately one of the most popular link building tactics around. You simply write a short article (400 – 600 words) and publish it on as many article directories as possible. Each directory will allow you to place your link in the “resource box”, thus growing your number of backlinks. You might be wondering “But what do I write about?”. The answer is simple – write about your area of expertise. So if you’re a handyman, write about some basic DIY tasks that people can carry out. Write how-to’s, 101’s and the like – Just give it some thought, it’s well worth it…
* Link Building Tip #4 – Submit To Directories
Wherever there is an industry, you’ll find directories, especially on the internet. Do a search for your keyword and the word “directory”. Sign up to as many of them as possible – it’s a free link every time, and you might even find organic traffic (people) finding you on these directories (that’s what they’re there for, after all).
* Link Building Tip #5 – Get Blogging
My final tip is to get blogging, or at least commenting on other people’s blogs. Have a look for relevant blogs and post some useful comments where suitable. Each comment will earn you a free link, plus potential direct traffic if the blog is popular and well followed. A word of warning though – make sure that the blogs don’t use “nofollow” tags, as this will render your link null and void in the eyes of the search engines.
And there you have it! Five easy link building tips that you can apply today. Best off all – they’re all absolutely free… Remember, link building is an ongoing exercise, and the more you make it a habit, the easier it will become. The only cost is your time and effort.
Link Back To Your Site In Simple & Effective Ways
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, June 10, 2011
Link Back To Your Site In Simple & Effective Ways
You have finally set up your own site & are eagerly waiting for your business to flourish. But have you given a thought to how users online will know a site like yours exists? Well, if no one knows your site exists how would you sell your product or get more clients? The entire e-business world relies on one simple thing to gain visibility and get more profit. Yes, search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing determine which sites are visible and which are not. And for a search engine to place your website at the top, you need to have good backlinks.
The high page rank that you crave for is attainable only if you have done your homework and set up good backlinks. Making your site appear in the top pages of a search engine requires a great deal of backlinks which will ultimately ensure that you have traffic in your website. And the procedure is simple. There are many legal ways to create backlinks to your site. First you have to learn how to create a backlink. An anchor text is all you need. It should look something like this:
<a href=”your” website url>Your keywords here</a>
Now let’s take a look at the various ways you can create backlinks to your website:
• Submitting articles to directories:
This is one of the most trusted methods of getting great backlinks to your site. All you have to do is write an article with good content and submit it to the many online article submission directories. While you are at it here are some points to look out for:
1. Add Variety: Content is king. So make sure that you don’t just submit the same articles to every directory. Chances are there that the search engines will mark them as ‘duplicate content’ and all your hard work will prove futile. So have good content and variety in your articles.
2. Submit Manually: True time is money, but to save time don’t get lured by the many ‘automatic ‘submission software. Instead submit the articles manually and only to the relevant directories where you know the search engines will look first.
3. Always Link To Your Site: Make sure that your backlinks contain your own website URL and also throw in a keyword that which in turn links to that specific keyword related page in your site.
• Using Social Media:
Make use of social media like Facebook & Twitter to spread the word. Upload videos of your site and add them to YouTube channels. Or you can also use your articles in an innovative way by converting them to slideshows which can be submitted to many websites. Also posting to forums in communities helps spread the word. It’ll surely generate more traffic to your site.
• Posting to Blogs & Sites:
With the huge no. of blogs that are being created every minute, you can surely link back to your site by submitting the backlinks to the blog with keywords that matches with yours. Use the many blogs and websites that allow you to submit your articles too and thus give you good backlinks in return. You can even make use of Google keywords alert that will alert you whenever a new blog comes up that has keywords useful for your site.
• Link Exchange sites:
If time isn’t what you have in plenty then worry not. Many link exchange sites have now come up that assure you a higher page rank when you submit your links to them. But make sure you opt for sites that have a good PR & are relevant to your keywords. And of course you need to shell out a few bucks too for this service.
• Using Comments Effectively:
A simple yet tricky method to link back to your site is to effectively use the comments section that you find in many blogs & websites. All you have to do is give a good comment and add the anchor text to it and now you have another backlink! But be careful not to end up marked as spam. Make sure that the site or blog is closely related to your comments & link. Don’t just go about commenting on home loans when the blog is about culinary skills!
So now that you have successfully added backlinks everywhere, watch the traffic flow to your site & get a better page rank. But don’t rest for too long as you need to keep updating and adding more links to ensure the PR stays good. Keep abreast of the latest changes so you wouldn’t lag behind when it comes to popularizing your site.
Web Design FAQ – 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, July 30, 2010
Web Design FAQ – 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website
Many site owners make the mistake of building a website
without laying out a clear plan for their online business.
This is a sure set-up for failure. There are 1000s of
abandoned sites on the web due to lack of careful planning.
Before designing your website you should ask yourself some
questions to avoid making mistakes down the road.
10 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Designing a
Website
1. What Are Your Business Goals?
It’s easy to say, “I want to make money,” however, this is
not a great motivator. Think of a deeper motivation that you
feel passionate about e.g. “I want to have the financial
freedom to spend more time with my kids as they are growing
up.”
2. What’s the Purpose of Your Website?
This is the question most visitors will ask when accessing
your website. Your home page must clearly explain the
purpose and benefits of the products and/or services you are
offering.
3. What Type of Products or Services Will You Sell?
Research the marketability of your products or services by
doing keyword research. Use the free Google Keyword Tool to
find out how many searches your main keywords receive every
month. If there are no searches, it means there is not much
demand and therefore not worth marketing.
If it is a very competitive market (millions of searches per
month), it may be difficult to stand out from your
competitors and create a profitable online business.
4. How Many Products Will You Sell From Your Website?
This will determine how many pages your website will have.
If you’re only selling one product or service, you may only
need 4 web pages e.g. Home, Product (or Services), About,
Contact. If you’re selling 100s of items, you will need a
database driven site to store and manage all of them.
5. How Many Variables Does Your Product Have?
Variables may include size, color, type, sku#, shipping,
tax? Make sure your shopping cart allows you to include
these variables.
6. How Will You Accept Online Payments?
To accept credit card payments online, you will need a
shopping cart, merchant account, payment gateway and SSL
certificate for secure transactions. This means you will
have monthly fees and processing fees every time a customer
purchases something from your website.
A less expensive option for accepting payments online is the
Paypal shopping cart. You don’t need to purchase a separate
merchant account, shopping cart, payment gateway and secure
certificate. For a small processing fee it takes care of all
this in one place.
7. Do You Have a Web Hosting Plan?
Your website needs to be hosted on a server for it to be
available online. Select a hosting plan that has sufficient
space for all your files and bandwidth to receive 1000s of
visitors each month. Make sure you have the flexibility to
upgrade your plan should you need more space and bandwidth.
8. Will You Need to Maintain the Website Yourself?
Asking this question before the design will determine what
software your designer will use to build your website. If it
only consists of a few web pages which don’t need regular
updating, then use software such as Dreamweaver to build it.
It creates clean code and you will have only a few files.
If your website has 100s of pages, consider a content
management system such as WordPress, Joomla or Zen Cart.
They all enable 100s of items to be stored in a database.
The website can be managed (add, edit, or delete items or
pages) by logging into an administration area.
9. Do You Have a Marketing Plan?
To create a profitable online business you must create a
plan to promote it. Some methods may include, search engine
marketing, pay-per-click, article marketing, press releases,
social media, video marketing, etc. Website promotion needs
to be done frequently and consistently to be effective.
10. How Will You Monitor Your Website Statistics?
Check if your web hosting plan includes site statistics
(e.g. AW Stats). If not, create a Google Analytics account
and insert the code on your web pages. It will track how
many daily, weekly, monthly, yearly visitors you receive,
where they are coming from and what keywords are being used
to find your site in the search engines.
If you answer these 10 questions first, you’ll avoid the
pitfalls of designing and building a website and increase
your potential of creating a profitable online business.
Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
You’ve tested your website, you’ve visited it a few times, you’ve gotten some feedback on it, and you have a bit of data about your visitors.
You might want to make some changes. Here are the top ten issues in website design and usability.
Think about these things in relation to your website and consider what you might want to do to perfect your site.
1. The First Glance
In general, people look at the top left corner of your website first. You should have your essential information there: what your offerings are and how your potential customers can get it. Some visitors are at your site only long enough to confirm that you sell what they want, and some are ready to buy. All visitors need to be able to tell what you do right away. Don’t hide behind a splash page or make people wait while something loads – many won’t take the time.
2. Navigation
When your customers want and need more information, they’ll stay and look for it. Make sure they can find it easily. Put your navigation in the usual places, and make it very obvious what your visitors need to click in order to find each section. Don’t have more than 5-7 choices in your main navigation and keep it consistent on every page. Let your creativity and uniqueness show in some other way – follow the rules when it comes to navigation.
3. Contact Information
Can customers (and search engines) find you when they need you? Your contact information must be clear and accurate. It must also be easy to find. Visitors will visit your website several times before they choose to go for your services or purchase. Don’t make it hard for them to contact you when they’re ready.
4. Call To Action
What do you want your visitors to do? It should be easy to find out how to complete an order through your website or get more information. Regardless of the content of the page make sure that you include a clear call to action. Make it easy for visitors to purchase or request information from you. Just be sure to make it very clear.
5. Above the Fold Focus
Many visitors won’t scroll; most won’t scroll unless you have already convinced them that it’s worth their while to do so. Make sure important aspects are above fold. The unimportant things – why are they on your page? This is especially important on the home page. Visitors who’ve reached your FAQs page or your blog are probably interested enough to spend some time reading.
6. Inviting Content
To develop relationships with your clients, you need to have them visit more than once. In fact, most people won’t commit themselves the first time they come to your website. You need to offer them something of value so they’ll return. Do you have a blog, or frequently-updated featured products? Have you got any useful information that you could offer your customers?
7. Well-Organized Pages
Don’t make your visitors search. Always ensure that your page layout is clear, concise and gives the visitor exactly what they want without having to search for it. Try to put yourself in your customer’s position and use what you learn from testing. Decide what you want to say and plan its organization before you write, so you can be sure to have coherent paragraphs.
8. Visual Appeal
While the content on your page is the most important thing, an attractive page will be more enjoyable and appealing for visitors. Choose colours that work well together, leave some open space so it’s not too busy, and make sure you have everything lined up nicely. Even if you have not got artistic skills you can make a good impression – and you should.
9. Sincerity and Trustworthiness
The internet is all about trust. If you can ensure that your website is trustworthy, people will be more likely to complete an order. What’s more, the search engines also base your rankings on how trustworthy they think your page is. Don’t undermine your future success by trying to trick the search engines or mislead your visitors.
10. A Polished Finish
Do your links work? Make sure you check your grammar, spelling and layout are correct? Is all the information up to date and accurate? Your visitors would prefer to shop in a well kept and clean shop in the high street. They would prefer to purchase in a clean and well kept website too. They’ll have less faith in you if you have errors on your website.
Is your website perfect? Maybe not. We’ll be providing more information on all of these points as we go along, and your site will become better and better as you follow our suggestions and learn more.
Web Design For Beginners
Define your audience and their needs
Defining the purpose and objectives of your website should be your first step. Focus on what you want your website to achieve. Create a profile of your intended audience and try to understand their needs and tastes, and design the site with them at the forefront of your mind at all times.
Take a look at competitor websites to gain an idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Easy navigation
In order to make your content easy for your intended audience to navigate, make sure the links to the main sections of your website are easily visible from each web page. You want to invite people to view as many pages of your site as possible, so make it easy for them to find each page.
A good way to help you visualise the structure of the site is to create a flow chart of the whole website on paper. Think about think about how your users might structure the information within the site to help them find the information they need easily.
Try to keep the information on your first page a general overview so you don’t bog people down with too much information. They can then click on the (clear and easy to use) links to view more information about the topics that they are interested in.
Layout
Most web pages have a common structure consisting of a header and footer, a horizontal navigation bar along the top and / or a vertical navigation bar down the left of the page and a central section for the main content.
This structure is based on simple, easy-to-understand layout principles.
If there’s a lot of content, split it up into several different pages so your viewer doesn’t have to digest too much information on one page.
Keep text simple and to the point, and make sure grammar is correct – check and check again to avoid looking unprofessional. Text is more difficult to read on screen than in printed media, so it’s crucial get your message across in a succinct and easy to understand way.
You should always keep your text blocks relatively small. Huge paragraphs are more difficult to read and may make your audience lose interest quickly.
Stick to 2 or 3 different fonts at the most – and make sure they are ones generally found on most computers. San serifs are easier to read on computer monitors so stick to these for the main text, and make sure your text is large enough for everyone to read.
Bullet points, lists and relevant photos can help to break up the text.
Learn the basics of html
Learning the basics of html – even if you are using WYSIWYG software Front Page or Dreamweaver – will help you gain an understanding of how a web page in built, and deal with problems you encounter using the software. A good beginner’s guide to html can be found at: http://htmldog.com/guides/htmlbeginner/
Try and stay away from tables, and create the pages using layers (divs) and cascading style sheets (CSS).
Tables mix ‘presentational’ data in with your content, which makes the file size of your pages unnecessarily large, as users must download this presentational data for each page they visit.
But by using structural markup to create web pages, you can keep the actual content of your page separate from the way it is presented.
Table-based pages are also much less accessible to users with disabilities and viewers using mobiles and PDAs to access the Web.
And to change the layout of the site, all you need to do is change the style sheets; you do not need to edit the pages themselves at all.
For more info about the advantages of using divs and CSS over tables, take a look at http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html
Using colour
Creating a balanced colour palette from which to choose your website colour scheme will help you to create a professional looking website. Bright clashing colours scream amateur.
If you are creating a website for a company with a logo, start here. Upload the logo to your host server and go to a colour palette website such as (http://www.colorhunter.com/) to create a palette, from which you can choose colours for the main banner, buttons and text rollovers etc.
And keep things simple and uncluttered – empty space makes colours stand out and text easier to read.
Optimising photos and images
Don’t use a graphic just for the sake of it – make sure there’s a reason for it’s presence, i.e. it improves the user’s understanding and experience. A site full of unnecessary graphics looks amateurish, and it can be an obstacle for accessibility tools such as screen readers.
Make sure the photos and images you do use are clear and well optimised to reduce file size and increase page loading times. One sure sign of an amateurish website is a page with a huge image that takes forever to load. And your viewer will probably click away from the site before they even get a chance to see it.
Creating clear, professional looking graphics
GIFs are really grids made of tiny pixel squares. Data about every pixel is saved (so it’s lossless), and you can save up to 256 colors. Pixels may also be transparent.
A GIF may contain more than one frame, so it can be animated.
It is a good format for saving images with fewer colors, like charts and small graphics, images containing text, and drawings.
JPEGs are a good file format for images with millions of colors, like photographs, drawings with many shades, images containing gradients etc.
For more information on optimising images for the web, have a look at this tutorial: http://inobscuro.com/tutorials/read/35/
Design tips:
a.) Use design to highlight functionality. For example; using gradients on button also helps make them seem more ‘button like’, different coloured mouse over text draws attention to links.
b.) Be wary of animation and sounds unless they serve a specific function. It is difficult to concentrate on reading what’s on your site when there are things flashing on and off and flying around the page. And visitors with slow connections may resent that you wasted their time by forcing them to load animations and sound files against their will.
Some recent research does indicate that visitors assaulted by blinking ads are more likely to leave the site immediately, and are far less likely to bookmark the site, return to it, link to it, and recommend it.
c.) Don’t use images as a web page background. Image backgrounds scream “amateur”, because it’s mostly amateurish sites that use them. They take longer to load and the text over the background image is usually difficult to read.
d.) Design the webpage including all elements within it for your audience. For example, create a chilled out mood for a massage / therapy website using colours like lavender and blue. Use darker, more restrained, stronger colours for a more traditional finance website.
e.) If your business doesn’t already have one, make a logo for your site, display it at the top of every page, and add a link from it back to your homepage. It will make your site look more professional and create a sense of branding to help people remember your site and recognise it as yours.
Going ‘live’
Hosting
When it comes to hosting, cheapest is not always best. For a small-ish ‘beginner’ website you shouldn’t need much bandwidth (unless you’ve not been following the ‘image optimisation’ guidelines!) But I wouldn’t recommend hosting your website with the cheapest offer available until you have checked that they can give all the support you may need as a newbie.
I would always recommend looking for a local contact telephone number on the website of the hosting company you are considering using, and ringing it to make sure there is an actual person at the end of it.
Ask if you can get technical help from this number – they may only communicate via email for technical support. If they give you another number, ask how much it costs per minute, and ring it to make sure there is someone at the end willing to help you as a beginner should you have any problems connecting to their server, uploading your files, or sorting out your email accounts.
You should also make sure email accounts are included in the cost, and, if you have any dynamic elements such as a search facility or enquiry form on the website, check that the server will support the PHP or ASP etc needed to allow this facility to work, and if that is included in the hosting price quoted.
Ftp
You can download free ftp software to upload your new website to your new hosting space from Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) or Smart ftp (http://www.smartftp.com/), or you could try a free trial with Cute ftp (http://www.cuteftp.com/cuteftp/).
Search engine optimisation
Although professional web designers have the optimisation of the website in mind from the start of design and development, as a newbie, you have to take it one step at a time! So now you’ve designed, built and uploaded your website, take a look at some of the ways you can now begin to optimise it for search engine ranking:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
http://www.seo-news.com/archives2009.html
In addition to design, a business website should offer the right features for its users. Although professional web design is important, usability of the website is crucial to its success. A professional website should be rich with features and allow customers to interact with the business.
Customer expectations have evolved with time. When internet users visit a website today, they expect the website to offer a certain level of interaction. With the popularity of second generation websites, popularly known as Web2.0, it has become common for businesses to offer a range of interactive features on websites such as videos, podcasts, and many ways in which customers can offer their feedback. Many of these features are easy to implement on a website and most web design companies and professionals will offer them as standard features with their websites.
Businesses can benefit from this trend by offering interactive features on the company’s website that are easy to implement. Building an effective web presence is vital for any company today and the company’s website is its greatest marketing tool. Improving the interactivity of the company website can help increase conversion rates and improve brand loyalty and recognition.
Discussed below are some the top interactive features that are easy to implement on your website. It can add value to any website.
Newsletter Subscription
Collecting email addresses of potential customers is vital for direct marketing or sending newsletters. Most websites offer an automated system for subscribing or unsubscribing to their mailing list via their website.
Commenting on articles
This is commonly found on blogs. Allowing users to comment can be useful in many ways. In addition to feedback, it also allows the content to build with user generated content. It should only be added to relevant sections of the website.
Most Recent Posts
If you have a blog, then you can display a list of 10 most recent posts from your blog on your main website. It can add value to your website especially if your blog and website target the same niche.
Google Map
An interactive Google Map can make your website interactive. Google map can be used in many ways. You can use it simply to display an interactive map of your location or you can use one of its built in features such as distance calculator, etc to add more functionaility. It is also possible to custom applications for your website using Google Map’s powerful development API.
Most professional web design companies and freelance web designers today will be able to work with this technology to add to your website if required.
Google Custom Search feature
Google’s custom search feature has become popular with websites in recent years. Google custom search allows websites to implement search functionality on their website using Google’s powerful search algorithms. It is possible to restrict the search to your website only or include other partner websites in your searches. Ad revenue generated by Google using your custom search feature can be shared so there an opportunity for generating revenue on your website.
Related Articles
This can improve the readership of your website by providing users with content that are related. It is relatively easy to implement on a website and can be automated or work by assigning manual tags or keywords.
RSS Feed
RSS is a commonly used format for sharing content on the web. By offering RSS feed of your website content, you make it readily accessible to millions of internet users who use feed reader applications to find information on the internet. It also makes it easier for users to subscribe to website updates by email. RSS feeds also make it easier for users to share content on other social media sites.
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking has become quite popular on the internet. Millions of users use social bookmarking to organise favourite content and share it with others. It also helps in promoting your website and can generate massive traffic. A website should offer a shortcut for adding the web page using leading social bookmarking accounts.
Latest Content Tab
A list of latest content from relevant sections of the website can improve the usability of the website.
E.g. List of the Latest Articles, News and Jobs can be displayed at the side of a website; similar to what is found on leading blogs and portals today. This offers better utilization of space and adds interactivity.
Feedback forms to gather information
Feedback forms are still an effective method to collect response from website users. It is used by many websites. The form should be customized to the specific needs of a website.
Survey/polls
Surveys and polls on website is another also important and widely used to collect information from customers. This feature is now standard with most leading CMS or blog platforms.
There are many features that can make your website interactive and more effective. Websites designed by a professional Web Design Company or designer will most likely include a range of interactive features to start with.
Your Website’s Missing Ingredient
“My mechanic told me, ‘He couldn’t repair my brakes, so he made my horn louder.’” – Comedian, Steven Wright
We all want our websites to be more effective, and if you’re like mo t business people you are constantly searching the Web for anything that will help. What you find is a cabal of experts armed with statistics, analysis, charts and graphs all pointing to how they can get you high-up on the search engines and drive more traffic to your site. The problem is that like Steven Wright’s mechanic these guys are adjusting your horn when it’s your brakes that need fixing.
There is little point in attracting more visitors to your site if your site has little of interest to say. Even if your site is jammed packed with useful products, services and solutions if it doesn’t connect with your audience, they will never invest the time necessary for you to make your case.
When websites fail it’s most often because they do not function effectively as your primary communication tool. The Web is overcrowded with options and unless you’re prepared to deliver a compelling differentiating presentation you will be quickly dismissed as irrelevant. Let’s face it; business is tough, probably tougher than it’s ever been before.
Something is Missing
You’ve done all the technical tweaks and responded to all the research and analytics. You’re blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, and search optimizing, but still something is not quite right, something is missing. What’s the missing ingredient? You know it’s out there, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what it is.
You know the Web offers the potential to access new markets, find new customers, and reach new heights, but with all that opportunity, the results always seem just out of reach. If research and analytics were the answer you’d already be rich. Of course it was an over-reliance on research that brought us the Edsel, New Coke, and that wonderful Wall Street goody called Derivatives, one of the greatest investment boondoggles of our time.
There is something artificially comforting about putting your faith in seemingly logical yet unfathomable solutions based on indecipherable scientific modeling and over-hyped research analysis, all brought to you by computer scientists and mathematicians who never ran a marketing department or launched a new product or business.
Business leaders have adopted the attitude that, “It must be right, because I sure as heck don’t understand it.” And when it all goes wrong, or results are anemic, well, “What are you going to do? It’s not my fault, it all looked good on paper.” Ad agencies and Wall Street have been getting away with this kind of bunkum for decades, and look at the mess they’ve made of things.
What’s It All About, Alfie?
Business success is all about your ability to engage your audience with a message that compels them to action. Simply put, your business relies on your ability to communicate. Eureka!
And your website is the best communication vehicle you have. The question is how do you use your website to communicate your marketing message in the most engaging, compelling, and memorable manner? What is the missing ingredient that will turn your scientifically sterile online cookie-cutter presentation into something that cuts through the massive sameness of Internet clutter, and makes a statement that your audience will respond to?
Finding Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
One of the hardest things for tough-minded business people to accept is that sales and marketing success is based on the subconscious emotional and psychological appeal of a brand. That’s the reason, reliance on feature selling rarely works, and only tends to commoditize a product or service – the guy with the most bells and whistles for the least amount of money wins, and why would you want to play that game?
Even the most casual market observer must recognize that all leading brands have one thing in common, no matter what they sell: the promise of their brand is based on a concept that is established through an emotional or psychological appeal. Apple is about thinking and acting creatively without the worry of technical issues; Starbucks is about reconnecting to the original coffee break ideal of a relaxing oasis away from the hustle bustle of everyday life; and Ikea is about stylish living on a budget. Each concept appeals to the deep-seated desires of the targeted audience. It is this singular concept that makes each of these companies special and different from their competition; it is the message that all their marketing, advertising, and promotion is based upon, and it is the true value they offer their audience that attracts interest, holds attention, and delivers promise.
Implementing Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
In order to implement a company’s emotional and psychological value proposition, we use a process called the ConceptCreator. It starts with various sales’ points that need to be covered. Based on the supplied information, we develop a focused marketing concept using the Law of Dissatisfaction that enables us to discover the experiential human subtext of why people will want what you sell. The presentation concept is boiled-down to a movie-style logline that states the brand story to be presented in the Web Video campaign.
How Much Is A Concept Worth?
“Wait a minute – did he say a movie-style logline? That sure doesn’t sound business-like, and I never heard any corporate CEO or MBA talk about movie loglines.” Maybe so, but think about it. Hollywood studios spend enormous sums of money to produce a movie with the potential of making hundreds of millions of dollars, and each financial investment starts with someone coming up with a clever logline that captures the imagination. Television commercials can cost ten thousand dollars a second to produce and without a guiding conceptual premise they become DOA when implemented. So why wouldn’t you start your Web Video campaign using the same proven formula.
The logline, mission statement, or elevator pitch if you prefer needs to state the characters, goals, obstacles, differentiating factors, and resolution within the context of a story scenario.
For Instance…
If it works for the movie industry will it work for the advertising and marketing industry? Let’s take a look at one of the most successful last number of years, The MAC versus PC campaign.
Example Logline Concept: A stylish, pleasant, mild-mannered young man verbally spars with his geeky competitive opposite (characters) in a series of humorous, relatable incidents (story scenario) that illustrate the people-friendly advantages (resolution) of the brand compared to its rigid, unbending competitor (differentiating factor) whose sheer size dominates the market (obstacle) in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the computer buying audience (goal). – The MAC Versus PC Ad Campaign.
“The Time Has Come The Walrus Said…”
- Lewis Carroll from ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice
Found There,’ 1892
The time has come to realize that Web Video is the best communication tactic available to deliver your marketing message to a worldwide audience; an audience that craves answers and resolution to their every need, concern and desire. It is not good enough to list a bunch of features and hackneyed bulleted points or even to dump pages and pages of search engine optimized hard-to-read text, especially when it’s aimed at an audience raised on television, movies, music and video games. We must learn to speak the language of the audience, and use the appropriate communication tools they can understand in a way that connects on a human level.
It all starts with finding the emotional and psychological value proposition your product or service promises. In a world of frustrated, cranky, attention deficit consumers, the onus is on you to present what you offer in a way that relates to the human elements that make your brand relevant.
By George Peirson (c) 2009
Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.
These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the
Ten Website Design Rules For High Search Engine Rankings
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 11:21 AM
Friday, February 13, 2009
Ten Website Design Rules
For High Search Engine Rankings
By Case Stevens (c) 2009
While millions of people run some sort of website, only a few – it’s estimated at only 1 to 2% – are really successful in accomplishing what they want on the Net.
The main reason for this is the lack of well defined goals and the necessary focus to achieve them. A great plan goes a long way. Part of a good plan is web design.
Successful website design lets your visitors focus on the most important part of your website: the content.
Whatever the content is, sales pages or valuable information, great website
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