Every once and a while we have the opportunity to work with someone who is starting a site from scratch. Either they have no website at all or have a one-page (for lack of a better word) site - with no content, structure or design.
Usually, the client comes to us spurred by a desire and its usually something like this: “I need to get ranked, hopefully in the number 1, 2 or 3 spot in Google, but I am not concerned about design or structure - just get me ranked!â€
Basically, the clients primary concern is their ranking, and that is common and very normal, but what we try to explain is that if you are starting a new site…design (including coding and structure) is just as important to a sites’ ranking. I will explain.
“I followed this link and all I got was this terrible site and a t-shirtâ€
Getting ranked on search engines is all about getting traffic to your website. But what happens when they land on your site? A lot of effort is put into getting people to their site but either little to no effort on where they will actually land. If users land on a website that looks unprofessional, is confusing or has functionality that does not work - that traffic that you worked so hard to generate will leave. Not only will they leave, but odds are they will not return.
Here’s an analogy: I’m driving down the road. I get hungry. I see a set of signs to many different restaurants. The first sign says “Joe’s Spam Buffet†- it catches my attention…not because I like spam, just looks curious, so I say what the heck, I can go for a Spam Taco, so I take the exit. As I get off the exit I go to what looks like a plain building. It looks abandoned, no signs of life. I get out of my car and notice a crude sign that says “Joe’s Spam Buffet†written on a piece of wood with a sharpie. I then notice that the walls are cracked and pieces of the building itself are starting to come undone. I jump in my car and dash out of there as fast as possible. Side note: I then proceed to tell all my friends to NEVER go to Joe’s Spam Buffet.
So whats the moral of this delicious story? Traffic to a badly structured, unprofessional-looking site with no content is worthless. Just as a beautifully designed and structured website is worthless without proper SEO. When someone comes to your website, you want to build trust and you want to exude professionalism. You also want people return to your site or at the very least, spread the word.
You should start the relationship with your potential customers or users on a good note, do not make a bad first impression. In this age of Google and immediate satisfaction, the first impression is usually all you get.
Structure and Professionalism
So here’s the deal - whatever web development company you use to help you with your site you want to make sure they have good coding habits. What you don’t want is a site littered with TABLE tags bloating the code. What you want is a site that is CSS (cascading style sheets) driven. This separates the code from the design and allows the site to load faster and allows the search engine spiders to reach your content quicker.
We cannot count how many times a client comes to us saying something like - “I had a site designed, but I can’t find it in a Google search†and when we take a look at it we find that its the code that was keeping the site from being ranked. Although designers that design in this way keep us working, we would much rather someone be knowledgeable enough at the start to ask these questions before they plop down their hard earned money for work that will have to be redone later.
“I got a friend who dabbles in web design, so…â€
We hear this a lot as well. My friends-uncles-doctor-knows someone who likes to dabble in web design, so I’m going with them for my website design.
Why is this a problem? Let’s look at it this way: Next time your going to get your hair done or cut, don’t go to a stylist, instead I’ll refer you to my friends brother Stevie, who is “thinking†about becoming a stylist, and likes to dabble with it. Its much cheaper!
Now, unless you don’t care about your appearance, odds are you will say “no thanks, I’ll go to my stylistâ€. But why? Why would you use a professional web designer to design and code your site? The same reason you won’t go to Stevie for a trim. You want it done right and you want it done professionally. Period.
When you hire someone who is not experienced or skilled on a professional level, to design and code your site, you walk around looking like your friends brother cut your hair. Trust a professional designer.
When you put all these things together you realize that a website design or redesign with a clear SEO strategy must work together to achieve your site goals. Remember, its not just getting people to your site, its also having them stay.
About the Author
Doryan seemed to be born with a knack for all things artistic. Growing up in Northern New Jersey, he was fed a daily dose of sarcasm and comic books, where instead of dreaming about being the superhero, he dreamed of drawing the superheroes. He discovered the treasure that is Photoshop and digital art. Doryan has since devoted his life to web design, web development, illustration and anything web design related.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Dofollow blog Directories & Social Media by Arjen Tienkamp
Last week I decided to become a dofollow blog. Not only to encourage comments, but also because I think that people should be rewarded for adding a valuable comment.
For those who don't know (yet): By default your blog adds a "nofollow" tag to the website addresses of the people commenting at your blog. So if you comment on a nofollow blog, it doesn't help you to gain a higher pagerank or get more backlinks. By removing this tag with a plugin like DoFollow, your readers receive a backlink when they comment.
The only problem with this technique is that some people only post useless comments in order to get a backlink. There probably are lots of solutions for this problem, like plugins which remove the nofollow tag after the second (or any number you set) comment of the reader, or you can moderate your comments manually (like I do) but that's not what this post is about.
After I removed the nofollow tag, I added my website to some directories for dofollow blogs.
For the full article, visit the original post: http://www.arjentienkamp.com/weblog/2008/09/15/dofollow-blog-directories-social-media/
About the Author
I'm an aviation student from the Netherlands. I work for an IT/Webdesign company, and write on my blog a couple of times a week.
http://www.arjentienkamp.com/weblog/
For those who don't know (yet): By default your blog adds a "nofollow" tag to the website addresses of the people commenting at your blog. So if you comment on a nofollow blog, it doesn't help you to gain a higher pagerank or get more backlinks. By removing this tag with a plugin like DoFollow, your readers receive a backlink when they comment.
The only problem with this technique is that some people only post useless comments in order to get a backlink. There probably are lots of solutions for this problem, like plugins which remove the nofollow tag after the second (or any number you set) comment of the reader, or you can moderate your comments manually (like I do) but that's not what this post is about.
After I removed the nofollow tag, I added my website to some directories for dofollow blogs.
For the full article, visit the original post: http://www.arjentienkamp.com/weblog/2008/09/15/dofollow-blog-directories-social-media/
About the Author
I'm an aviation student from the Netherlands. I work for an IT/Webdesign company, and write on my blog a couple of times a week.
http://www.arjentienkamp.com/weblog/
Web Site Development, so you want to get in to this field? by Joel McLaughlin
Web Site Development, so you want to get in to this field?
Web site development is the art of creating and developing the world wide web. Using tools, graphics and programming toward the development of the world wide web. This article gives you some great resources to get your feet wet in the development field.
First, to learn a little about my skills in web development. I am 24 years old and I started my first online business at 12. I started hand coding HTML for fun and learned to love web sites. I have built web sites for small companies to large corporations.
There are so many resources available on the net so that you can get involved designing web sites. However without any sort of knowledge in the field, it can be very confusing. Common questions that probably run through your head are "what development tools should be used", "how do I get web sites on the internet", and "how to I create applications". I am going to go briefly over these different questions and provide you with great resources to learn more.
Next step in the development process is that you need to obtain a domain name (or web site address) - this can be accomplished by searching google for domain names. A domain name example would be "yourwebsite.com". You will also need to find a web site host to manage your files. A web site host simply stores your web site on a computer in a datacenter that can be accessed by the entire world wide web.
Now let me give you steps to learn how to build a basic site. First off, I want to give you an understanding of the best web development tools to use (in my opinion of course).
When building a web site, you can utilize many different tools. Some of the easiest tools to use are programs such as Frontpage. However if you are interested in working long term in this field, I would grab a book on Dreamweaver - dreamweaver is a program that must be purchased. For great tutorials on using this program go to killersites.com/dreamweaver/ for video tutorials. This program is great, simple (considering its power) and offers amazing scaleability.
You will also need a program called a FTP client. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is a program that allows you to connect to your web site (at your hosting company) and add your files. I recommend Filezilla. Great filezilla tutorials are available at easywebtutorials.com/html-tutorial/lessons/publish.html
Another program you may find useful for image design & development is Adobe Photoshop. This allows you to create quality and complex images, and comes with great tutorials.
Now you must understand web site structure when building web pages. All HOME PAGE files you find on the internet are called index files. A home page file is the first page everyone sees when they land on your web site. Your index file is a page named index.html, (could be index.php or a few others) - The most common is index.html. The sites landing page will always have an index file. For example when you go to google.com - you are actually accessing google.com/index.html. You can name any other pages whatever you want, but you always need an index file in the main folder of your web site.
After you have a main index page, you will need to create additional pages that you will eventually link together from your home page. Good examples would be contactus.html, about.html, jokes.html, and etc. You can create new pages in your web site editor (dreamweaver) and then you can go to your index.html file and create a link to the new pages you created using the link icon.
This was a quick overview of the web development process. To find great resources on the internet google "web development tutorials", "dreamweaver tutorials", "web design tutorials", and so on. If you are interested in becoming a web site programmer learning languages like PHP, ASP, JAVASCRIPT and so on. I would recommend checking out classes at your local community college or searching google for "beginners guides to programming".
A quick recap - the web development process works like this. You will build your home page in dreamweaver and save the page you create as index.html - Then you create sub-pages such as contactus.html, aboutus.html, services.html, and then you link to them from the home page. Then you will proceed to upload your index.html file and all other files using filezilla to your hosting accounts root directory. This directory is often times named http, httpdocs, www, home.
Hopefully this helped!
Joel McLaughlin Dataflurry Cheap Web Development
DataFlurry offers quality web site development services to the large and small companies alike.
About the Author
Joel McLaughlin is the founder of DataFlurry Cheap Internet Solutions.
Web site development is the art of creating and developing the world wide web. Using tools, graphics and programming toward the development of the world wide web. This article gives you some great resources to get your feet wet in the development field.
First, to learn a little about my skills in web development. I am 24 years old and I started my first online business at 12. I started hand coding HTML for fun and learned to love web sites. I have built web sites for small companies to large corporations.
There are so many resources available on the net so that you can get involved designing web sites. However without any sort of knowledge in the field, it can be very confusing. Common questions that probably run through your head are "what development tools should be used", "how do I get web sites on the internet", and "how to I create applications". I am going to go briefly over these different questions and provide you with great resources to learn more.
Next step in the development process is that you need to obtain a domain name (or web site address) - this can be accomplished by searching google for domain names. A domain name example would be "yourwebsite.com". You will also need to find a web site host to manage your files. A web site host simply stores your web site on a computer in a datacenter that can be accessed by the entire world wide web.
Now let me give you steps to learn how to build a basic site. First off, I want to give you an understanding of the best web development tools to use (in my opinion of course).
When building a web site, you can utilize many different tools. Some of the easiest tools to use are programs such as Frontpage. However if you are interested in working long term in this field, I would grab a book on Dreamweaver - dreamweaver is a program that must be purchased. For great tutorials on using this program go to killersites.com/dreamweaver/ for video tutorials. This program is great, simple (considering its power) and offers amazing scaleability.
You will also need a program called a FTP client. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is a program that allows you to connect to your web site (at your hosting company) and add your files. I recommend Filezilla. Great filezilla tutorials are available at easywebtutorials.com/html-tutorial/lessons/publish.html
Another program you may find useful for image design & development is Adobe Photoshop. This allows you to create quality and complex images, and comes with great tutorials.
Now you must understand web site structure when building web pages. All HOME PAGE files you find on the internet are called index files. A home page file is the first page everyone sees when they land on your web site. Your index file is a page named index.html, (could be index.php or a few others) - The most common is index.html. The sites landing page will always have an index file. For example when you go to google.com - you are actually accessing google.com/index.html. You can name any other pages whatever you want, but you always need an index file in the main folder of your web site.
After you have a main index page, you will need to create additional pages that you will eventually link together from your home page. Good examples would be contactus.html, about.html, jokes.html, and etc. You can create new pages in your web site editor (dreamweaver) and then you can go to your index.html file and create a link to the new pages you created using the link icon.
This was a quick overview of the web development process. To find great resources on the internet google "web development tutorials", "dreamweaver tutorials", "web design tutorials", and so on. If you are interested in becoming a web site programmer learning languages like PHP, ASP, JAVASCRIPT and so on. I would recommend checking out classes at your local community college or searching google for "beginners guides to programming".
A quick recap - the web development process works like this. You will build your home page in dreamweaver and save the page you create as index.html - Then you create sub-pages such as contactus.html, aboutus.html, services.html, and then you link to them from the home page. Then you will proceed to upload your index.html file and all other files using filezilla to your hosting accounts root directory. This directory is often times named http, httpdocs, www, home.
Hopefully this helped!
Joel McLaughlin Dataflurry Cheap Web Development
DataFlurry offers quality web site development services to the large and small companies alike.
About the Author
Joel McLaughlin is the founder of DataFlurry Cheap Internet Solutions.
custom logo design by Andy
Is logo design really important for any business? Possibly the answer to this query would be positive because with the emergence of new technology, growing market demands, the industry has become very competitive, so to prove your credibility the presence of a logo design is a must for every company. In comparison to expensive advertising resources, logo design is the affordable and cost effective way to make your business recognized to your target audience. Custom logo design is the medium through which you can easily convey your services, ideas and goals to your potential customers in an efficient way. In the earlier days, most of the companies didn’t emphasize on logo design as they stressed more on traditional process to lure their audience. They either promoted their services by distributing business cards to their potential clients or made a personal visit by explaining the selling features of their service through catalogs. But with the coming times, the scope of logo design has increased at a great extent compelling companies to possess a professional identity to get their services recognized. Without a logo design, you can’t imagine surviving in the industry thus having a professional image in form of a logo is a priority for every firm. No matter how effective your service may be, it won’t appeal to your audience till you have a well presentable logo to showcase your services. If you are new to logo design industry, it becomes very essential to identify your business needs and research the market to have a logo design that is perfect reflection of your services. It is been seen that amateur logo design firms cheat small companies by giving false assurances in name of quality ad charge hidden fees and end result is that small companies don’t get the desired output as expected. Thus it becomes advisable to consult a professional logo design firm who will assist you in every stage by analyzing your requirements and provide a powerful logo design that serves your requirement in the best possible ways. Usually lots of companies prefer to get their logo design similar to other company’s logo, but this approach is completely wrong as it leaves your customers figuring out which company you exactly are. Always have a uniquely designed logo that will click your customers once they view your profile on website and printing material. Even big companies like Nike, Coca Cola and Apple have kept a simple logo design to market their business. The logo design should not only be attractive, but also relevant to your services. While getting a logo designed, always ensure to see that the logo is designed in vector graphics so that while resizing or printing the logo design doesn’t lose its quality. Let’s take a closer view at the essential points while getting a logo designed. The logo design should be visually appealing. The logo design should be adaptable to your business requirement. The logo design should be made in vector graphics If you are seriously looking to gain business opportunities, consult an experienced logo design firm and give an effective identity to your services. Don’t delay; get your logo designed right now.
About the Author
Andy
About the Author
Andy
What are the Most Common SEO Mistakes? by Michael
1. Broken information architecture - These are sites that fail to map the nature of the information they are providing into an understandable hierarchy. Bad for users and search engines.
2. Poor site usability - Results in poor conversion rates, poor lifetime value per visitor, and a less attractive site for linking to.
3. Mismanaged internal link juice - Some sites allocate their link juice poorly, resulting in not enough of it going to their most important pages.
4. Content getting buried over time - A surprising number of sites that create huge amounts of content use publishing systems that buries stuff over time. Such a lost opportunity. People and crawlers are looking for this stuff, don't hide it!
5. Bad redirects - Why is is that every engineer who does not have a background in SEO defaults to using a 302 redirect? OK, that's probably unfair (you might even say ignorant), but it sure seems that way at times.
6. Poor titles and headers - Keyword tools are wonderful weapons. These are valuable for far more than SEO. Keyword tools tell you what language people use when referring to your products and services. Even in a world without web sites, this is something you would want to know. Then you need to make sure you have pages and content that addresses the major topic areas that relate to your business.
7. Insufficient content - No content (or tools) means no links means no traffic. It's that simple. What unique value are you offering a visitor to your web site? Why would someone link to your site?
8. Duplicate content - It's unbelievable how much duplicate content that some sites create. It's a common killer, and it's a very big factor in poor page rank management.
9. All flash site - Very, very pretty, but not a great experience for a crawler. This does not mean you can't have an (almost) all Flash site. Just make sure you offer text link navigation options and use a technique like Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) to tell the crawler what is in the movie.
10. Same meta description (and keywords) on every page - These elements are included in duplicate content filter checks by the search engines. And, of course, the meta description is important because it often gets used as the description that the search engine uses for your web page, so make sure it describes the unique info to be found on that page.
About the Author
Professional webmaster of Discount Web Design, one of the leading web design company in the UK offering quality website design and SEO services.
2. Poor site usability - Results in poor conversion rates, poor lifetime value per visitor, and a less attractive site for linking to.
3. Mismanaged internal link juice - Some sites allocate their link juice poorly, resulting in not enough of it going to their most important pages.
4. Content getting buried over time - A surprising number of sites that create huge amounts of content use publishing systems that buries stuff over time. Such a lost opportunity. People and crawlers are looking for this stuff, don't hide it!
5. Bad redirects - Why is is that every engineer who does not have a background in SEO defaults to using a 302 redirect? OK, that's probably unfair (you might even say ignorant), but it sure seems that way at times.
6. Poor titles and headers - Keyword tools are wonderful weapons. These are valuable for far more than SEO. Keyword tools tell you what language people use when referring to your products and services. Even in a world without web sites, this is something you would want to know. Then you need to make sure you have pages and content that addresses the major topic areas that relate to your business.
7. Insufficient content - No content (or tools) means no links means no traffic. It's that simple. What unique value are you offering a visitor to your web site? Why would someone link to your site?
8. Duplicate content - It's unbelievable how much duplicate content that some sites create. It's a common killer, and it's a very big factor in poor page rank management.
9. All flash site - Very, very pretty, but not a great experience for a crawler. This does not mean you can't have an (almost) all Flash site. Just make sure you offer text link navigation options and use a technique like Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) to tell the crawler what is in the movie.
10. Same meta description (and keywords) on every page - These elements are included in duplicate content filter checks by the search engines. And, of course, the meta description is important because it often gets used as the description that the search engine uses for your web page, so make sure it describes the unique info to be found on that page.
About the Author
Professional webmaster of Discount Web Design, one of the leading web design company in the UK offering quality website design and SEO services.
Arizona Web Design Your Dedicated Webpage Answer by Fred Wild
No matter whether you run a large business or a business start up, one thing that you must get for your business is a dedicated website. Even a professional public relations firm can't bring the personal touch in your business-to-customer interactions that a business website can bring. Having a good website can lead to heralding a new business image in the minds of customers and competitors. If you happen to be based in Tucson, Phoenix, or any other city in Arizona, you should immediately start searching for an arizona web design company to do the job for you.
So how do you select one arizona web design firm to help build your business website? The first thing to consider is caution and diligence when following a few easy tips. The most important thing to understand is what it is really want to accomplish with your new business website.
Do you wish to build a business website for fostering sales by making it possible for customers to utilize the electronic commerce channel to see your products and place orders directly? Or do you wish to create a website to post your company's corporate social responsibility policies and work? There are different arizona web design firms that specialize in design of business websites for different purposes.
After that, you should search a business journal website for the term arizona website design firm. Here you will get the contact information and website details for several az web design firms. Jot each name down on a document and write to each of the listed firms in order to schedule a sales call.
When you get a sale call you should tell them about your website and domain. It is a must for any web design firm to make their work absolutely unique to make it stand apart when compared to other web design firms. This benchmarking helps and attracts customers of your particular business field and they can compare it with other sites.
Subsequent to the sales call, professionals of the contacted arizona web design firms will prepare proposals with respect to your business web site. When you get such proposals and quotations, you must relate them. Moreover, in case you feel the need, you must ask such firms to furnish references of past customers.
About the Author
It doesn't matter if your business is large or small, it is absolutely essential that you have a functional website. A well-designed website will act as a gateway to your company for your current and potential clients. An arizona web design company can help you establish an Internet presence for your business.
So how do you select one arizona web design firm to help build your business website? The first thing to consider is caution and diligence when following a few easy tips. The most important thing to understand is what it is really want to accomplish with your new business website.
Do you wish to build a business website for fostering sales by making it possible for customers to utilize the electronic commerce channel to see your products and place orders directly? Or do you wish to create a website to post your company's corporate social responsibility policies and work? There are different arizona web design firms that specialize in design of business websites for different purposes.
After that, you should search a business journal website for the term arizona website design firm. Here you will get the contact information and website details for several az web design firms. Jot each name down on a document and write to each of the listed firms in order to schedule a sales call.
When you get a sale call you should tell them about your website and domain. It is a must for any web design firm to make their work absolutely unique to make it stand apart when compared to other web design firms. This benchmarking helps and attracts customers of your particular business field and they can compare it with other sites.
Subsequent to the sales call, professionals of the contacted arizona web design firms will prepare proposals with respect to your business web site. When you get such proposals and quotations, you must relate them. Moreover, in case you feel the need, you must ask such firms to furnish references of past customers.
About the Author
It doesn't matter if your business is large or small, it is absolutely essential that you have a functional website. A well-designed website will act as a gateway to your company for your current and potential clients. An arizona web design company can help you establish an Internet presence for your business.
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