|
|
7.5 Ways To Get More Sales Through Your Web Site
Yes, apparently - websites are supposed to make money! Somebody came up with the strange idea that it's really not enough to spend thousands on your site, hundreds of hours creating the content and then sitting back to admire you, and your...
Analyzing Website Traffic
Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable
tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can
make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to
interpret the data.
Most web hosting companies will provide you...
Benefits of Website Localization
Benefits of Website Localization Maximising profit today involves reaching beyond national markets. Accessing an international customer base is vital if a business wants to expand and participate in international trade. ‘Localization’ relates to...
Email Marketing for Website Owners
When you own a website, you can do a lot more with it besides being up and running on the Internet. One powerful website “add-on” is the ability to collect the email addresses of visitors to your site, and “stay in touch” with current and...
Is Your Web Site Generating any Business?
Is your web site generating the traffic and/or actual business you originally thought it would? Many Realtors are realizing that just having a web site is not a panacea to generating sales. Through a very small informal survey, (that I personally...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website
There are many websites that fail to target their required traffic, even if they’ve had some search engine optimisation work done. One of the main causes for this is simply because the website isn’t search engine friendly. This is a basic essential that needs to be incorporated into the design of all websites at the outset – think of it as the foundation to establishing your search engine optimisation strategy. This article aims to highlight the areas a web designer should think about and incorporate into their design for search engine effectiveness:
1.Search Engine Friendly Pages It is important that when you design your website you not only bear in mind what your website requirements are, but also what the requirements are for search engines. Best way to approach this is to remember that search engines don’t really care about how nice or complicated your graphics or flash movies are, or how snazzy your javascript is. Instead search engines look at the code behind your page. Therefore if you want to impress a search engine, then your code needs to be nice and easy to read. Now from this I don’t mean adding ‘comment’ tags and breaking the lines of code up with spaces, but to ensure that the elements the search engine is interested in, i.e. Title tag, Description tag, Keyword tag (these days only some search engines really use the keyword tag), Alt tag, are readable near the beginning of the code. Search Engines don’t like wadding through lines and lines of javascript to get to the core areas that can help you page’s ranking. Therefore careful planning and positioning of your page elements is required.
TIPS: ·If you’re using table for laying out your page then make them simple and not too complex. ·Avoid using frames. ·If you need javascripts for navigation purposes, then use smaller scripts to call up the bulk of the javascript from a different file. ·Think twice on how to use graphics – make them relevant to your content and use the Alt tag for all images. ·Position the main content of the page before the images, or at least with the images nested between the text.
2.Keywords Having good keywords is one of the most important areas to consider when designing a website/webpage. One of the best tools for this is Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com), which allows you to identify good competitive keywords for your pages. In general the range of keywords associated to your pages can be very extensive therefore for good concentration and prominence of keywords it is advisable to carefully select the top 10-15 keywords. You can always export the results to Excel and try out other competitive keywords if the ones you selected initially do not produce any noticeable benefits.
TOP TIP: Wordtracker offer a one day subscription to their service from which you can squeeze nearly 2 ½ days worth of use! Here’s how – Sign-up for the service on the evening of Day 1 (the service will be available almost immediately so you can start searching for your competitive keywords straight away). You will also
be able to use the service for the whole of Day 2 and strangely for the whole of Day 3! Enough time to get some good keywords for a lot of pages!
3.Content Many search engines look at the main body of the page and identify keywords and phrases that are used within the text.
TIP: Use competitive keywords relevant to the purpose of the page within the main body of the page. Always try and ensure that the keywords are prominent within the text body, i.e. they appear near the beginning of the page, they are defined using the ‘heading’ tag, they are typefaced in bold, or they are used as hyperlinks.
4.Page Title This is arguably one of the most important areas of a page and needs special attention to ensure that a good title is selected. Similar to many other areas of designing a search engine friendly page, the Page Title should also have a good keyword which describes the page content. To keep within the limits of many search engines the number of words for the Title shouldn’t exceed nine.
5.Page Description Another important area to work on for good ranking is the Page Description. This is the text found under the META Description tag and is displayed to users in the search results. Again, it is a good idea to pay attention to the use of good keywords when writing the description, which should be short (not more than 20-25 words) and sells your page before the user has even opened it!
6.Graphics We’ve covered the use of graphics briefly above, emphasising the importance of using an Alt tag containing the relevant keyword(s). Although the use of images can be nice and very appealing to a website, it is also important to bear in mind that they shouldn’t overpower the textual content of your page. As a general rule of thumb it is best to stick to a 70/30 ratio (70 text/30 images).
7.Site Map A Site Map is a fantastic way for search engines to find all your juicy pages on your website. There are many free Site Map tools available on the web that’ll create your site map instantly.
8.Navigation Links Navigation links to other pages on your website should be nice and easy. There are some engines which find it difficult to navigate through to the other pages on your website if the nav bar is too complicated, e.g. complicated pop-ups, use of flash, etc. Therefore if your site does have complicated navigation then it’s always a good idea to implement simple text based hyperlinks to your common pages at the bottom of every page on your website.
Following the basic suggestions above will help lay the foundation to apply further good search engine optimisation advice which will make the difference in your overall search engine ranking. This finer area of SEO is beyond the realm of this document and will require further investment based on individual needs.
About the Author
Internet Marketing Manager for Ambleton Computing. Experts in all areas of Internet Marketing, inc. SEO and Web Design.
arif_hanid@ambleton.com www.ambleton.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
Web Design - HTML XML - Web Development - Web Site Design |
Web Design and HTML are all about creating a great Web site. Use Web development and Web site design to build Web sites that customers return to over and ... |
webdesign.about.com |
  |
Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates. |
Free web designs submitted by web designers behind the open source movement. |
www.oswd.org |
  |
Web Design Library — One-stop resource for web designers |
Web Design Library offers professional free web design tutorials, articles, news, software reviews, websites showcase, interviews, free web design stuff, ... |
www.webdesign.org |
  |
Webdesign Professional WebSite Design by Web Design Auckland New ... |
Web Design build professional websites for clients all around the world. |
www.webdesign.co.nz |
  |
Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) |
The ten most egregious offenses against users. Web design disasters and HTML horrors are legion, though many usability atrocities are less common than they ... |
www.useit.com |
  |
HTML Help by The Web Design Group |
HTMLHelp.com is maintained by the Web Design Group to provide Web authoring reference material, tips, and answers to frequently asked questions. |
www.htmlhelp.com |
  |
Open Web Design - Download Free Web Design Templates |
Open Web Design is a community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates as well as web design information. ... |
www.openwebdesign.org |
  |
Pages tagged with "webdesign" on del.icio.us |
All items tagged webdesign ??? view popular ... 24 ways to impress your friends with web design · save this. This years advent calendar. ... |
del.icio.us |
  |
Popular pages tagged with "webdesign" on del.icio.us |
Popular items tagged webdesign ??? view all ... Open Source Web Design - // Home \\ · save this. first posted by cda on 2004-02-07 ... saved by 11694 people ... |
del.icio.us |
  |
RAGE Software: More Info on RAGE WebDesign |
For over 6 years RAGE WebDesign has been the HTML editor and web development tool of choice for thousands of Mac users. There is no other tool available ... |
www.ragesw.com |
  |
Web Pages That Suck learn usability and good Web design by looking ... |
Web Pages That Suck -- learn good Web design by looking at bad design. |
www.webpagesthatsuck.com |
  |
Web Design from Scratch - Free web design course - basics, layout ... |
A guide on essential skills for designing effective web sites. |
www.webdesignfromscratch.com |
  |
Current style in web design |
Current best practice in graphic design for the web, kind of boiled down into an edible form. |
www.webdesignfromscratch.com |
  |
Web design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
As the Web and web design progressed, the markup language used to make it, known as Hypertext Mark-up Language or HTML, became more complex and flexible. ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
  |
UK Web Design Association - the Web Standards Organisation in the UK |
The UK Web Design Association is a not-for-profit organisation - established to encourage and promote industry standards within the British web design ... |
www.ukwda.org |
  |
WebDesignHelper.co.uk - Web Templates, Vertical & Horizontal Menus ... |
FREE design help for all. Free page templates, Free vertical & horizontal menus and table templates. Tutorials, Graphics and java plus so much more ! |
www.webdesignhelper.co.uk |
  |
Web Page Design for Designers |
Web Page Design for Designers Web Design Archive. The cumulation of over eight years of articles, reviews and information about the graphic design of ... |
www.wpdfd.com |
  |
WebDesign-L.com |
Email list for web designers and developers, both professional and amateur. |
www.webdesign-l.com |
  |
PageResource.com- by The Web Design Resource |
Design your own web site with HTML! Includes an HTML tutorial, javascript tutorial, tips, tricks, and links to numerous web design resources and other html ... |
www.pageresource.com |
  |
beautifully : : webdesign - links |
Beautifully-webdesign.net, annuaire de liens autour du web design, mise à jour quotidienne. |
www.beautifully-webdesign.net |
  |
|