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Top 10 SEO Tips

Posted by admin in Web Marketing on June 21st, 2010

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not something that can be successfully done overnight. Nevertheless, there are a few useful techniques that you can do to help boost your chances of getting good results on major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. With no particular order, here are the top 10 SEO tips that you can perform:
  • Content is and will always be king – The phrase, “Content is king” has been overused so often that it already sounds more like a cliché. Yet, this adage remains true ever since. The rule of thumb is simple—constantly update your web content with fresh, steamy content (relevant, of course). As robots dig fresh content, keep adding unique and quality content regularly to attract then and help you rank well on SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
  • Backlinks are key – The more backlinks you have, the merrier and the better. But keep in mind that quality has much more bearing than quantity. The goal is to get backlinks from high quality, high ranking websites that are related to your products/services. Plus, you need to avoid link farms and other spammy pursuits at getting links back to your website. Instead, there are numerousniche directories that you can utilize to submit your website to or some blog articles, and generate backlinks.
  • Keep tagging – Create keyword optimized title tags for every page of your website. Your keyword should be as near to the beginning of the phrase as possible. Also, remember that the title tag of your web page can be different from the heading title of the article itself.
  • Map it out – Create a sitemap so that search engine robots can easily visit and index your pages. A sitemap is basically an XML protocol that notifies the search engines about the URLs or web pages on a website that can be crawled. Alternatively, you can use Google and a number of free applications that generate sitemaps.
  • Anchors away – Use the same keywords for your anchor texts that link to the different pages on your site or when backlinking. Having anchor texts instead of using “click here” helps site visitors and search engines understand what they’re going to find when they click the link.
  • Link deeper – Don’t forget to create deep links, which is linking to a web page other than your home page. Deep linking ensures that you have backlinks coming in to as many web pages as possible. Deep linking also signifies that you build links to relevant and worthwhile content or webpages of your site.
  • Start blogging – Create a blog about your products/services and make the URL as: yourdomainname/blog. The advantages of starting a blog are: it helps in adding fresh content, you get extra SEO love when other websites link any of your blog posts, and you also get new content when readers leave comments on your blog.
  • Tag those pictures – All images on your site should also be well-optimized with targeted keywords. Describe them briefly using alt tags to help search engines that index images find your pages easily, offering greater chances of getting higher search engine rankings. Also, adding image alt tags or alt attributes help the visually impaired to easily access your website using a screen reader, including those visitors who use image search and text only web browsers.
  • Don’t dare to trick the search engines – Using hidden text, joining link farms, keyword stuffing, and other practices that meant to mislead search engines is not a good idea. Doing so can only harm your ranking, and the penalties will certainly outweigh the temporary benefits. So, keep it clean and to avoid being blacklisted by the major search engines.
  • Don’t forget your human readers – Always remember your human visitors when optimizing your website—and not just the robots. After all, SEO is meant to help your readers discover the informative content on your site. So, make your content interesting and useful while keeping in mind both the humans and the search engines.

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The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Building a Website

Posted by admin in Web Marketing on March 3rd, 2010

A website is a very powerful tool to promote your business online. However, when you are quite new to web development, you are more prone to make errors along the way. To help you avoid them, find out below the biggest mistakes people make when building a website.

  1. Improper domain name – You should pay a special attention to your domain name. Choose a catchy, easy to remember domain name related to your business. As most people are likely to forget long names, it’s better to pick shorter domain names. It’s also advisable to perform a key word research and try to include top key words into your URL.
  2. Inferior design poor functionality – Having a website is useless if no one can access it with much ease. Superb design is predominantly based on consistency. Menus must appear in the same location on every page. Links must have the same color and typeface. There must also be a visible logo at all times. It’s also important to define your target audience and incorporate their preferences.
  3. Very complex or too slow – While flash animation is fascinating, it may be too complicated for some visitors. Although visual appeal matters, it must complement with functionality and ease of use for the average user. Plus, a more elaborate design usually takes longer to load on many computers.
  4. Static site – Format, design, and content are all time-sensitive. As technology is dynamically changing, there will constantly be new tools available to make websites look and perform better. Don’t build a website and forget about it. Update content from time to time as you see fit. And maximize new applications to make the site look and work better.
  5. 404 error messages and broken links – Verify if all links on your site work; find faulty or inappropriately labeled links, as you’ll most likely lose visitors quickly if they see a “404 file not found” error message. If you have a big website, you may want to add a form so users can report a broken link. Doing so also lets users know you are in control of any issues they may encounter.
  6. No contact information – Users and potential clients need to be able to reach you easily for any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Having a “Contact Us” page is similar to having a business card, which should be accessible from any page of your site. Moreover, make sure to actually attend to these messages either personally or via an auto-responder.
  7. Disregarding statistics – Visitor traffic data and reports are available for your site, which may be obtained from your web hosting provider or offered by a third-party. By constantly tracking your statistics, you can aptly modify your marketing and design towards those frequent visitors, or determine weakness based on which target market you are not attracting.
  8. Free or too inexpensive hosting – No matter how enticing these services are, remember that the success of your website largely depends on the stability of your chosen web service company. An efficient host provider should have virtually zero downtime, and offer services like technical support, etc. You may want to read testimonials about the web host company you’re eyeing on or perhaps take advantage of their free trials (if there’s any) before making your final decision.
  9. Neglecting spiders – Search engines utilize spiders to find your website. Ensure that your pages are carefully designed to rank high on search engine results; this process is called Search Engine Optimization or simply SEO. Choose only ethical SEO techniques so as not to be banned by search engines.
  10. Not hiring an expert – Creating a website is not for everyone. Avoid do-it-yourself methods and get a professional to build your website, especially if you’re a beginner. Though it may be rather tempting to let your friend’s computer savvy son set up your website, you should think twice of such a decision. There are reasonably-priced web designers and companies who offer customized services to give your website a professional look and feel it deserves.

These are the top 10 biggest mistakes people make when building a website. Do veer away from these at all cost to guarantee a well-designed website you and your audience will love.

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