Build a Better Website Blog

Each page of your website contains elements that contribute to it’s overall success.  They must complement each other in achieving your goal — a call to action on the part of visitors. Home page is the main portal, and therefore deserves extra attention.

Home page of Attraction Web Design site

Maximize the value of each website page
Every page of your website contains elements that contribute to it’s overall success.  They must complement each other in achieving your goal — a call to action on the part of visitors.

Avoid Splash pages
Some sites start with a “front page” or “landing page” containing merely a brief video or static image, along with an “Enter” link.  In most cases, this is unnecessary and requires surfers to click again to get to the information they came for.  This can be frustrating to people and a page like this contains very little information for the search engine tigers to chew on!  Skip this and get to the point right away…

Home (index) page
The home page is by far the most important part of any site.  It is the main doorway to your organization by which the vast majority of visitors will arrive at.  First impression is key to help them decide to view internal pages.  You have 3 to 7 seconds to capture attention and convince visitors to stay, so the initial appearance, site title and headline should draw them into reading a brief introduction to your company. 

   • Official company logo – use similar colors and design as printed materials
   • Website title or company name – state your topic or name of organization
   • Main Headline – grab attention with a question or solution to a problem
   • Text – at least one or two paragraphs of introduction to your company and what you can do for your customers (or members).  Squeeze in as many “search terms” as possible without making copy hard to understand.
   • Images – one or more photos or graphics should reinforce the text and be a visual representation of how the site will help visitors
   • Slideshow or video – if a picture is worth 1,000 words, moving pictures could be worth a million!  Use your very best images to tell your story
   • Contact information – all pages should make it easy for visitors to request more information, but it is imperative that a phone number, email address or mailing address be visible to people ready to contact you based on their first glance at your site!
   • Current info – update home page regularly with a news item or mention a recent event to prove to visitors that your site is actually current.
   • Bullet lists – to avoid overwhelming visitors with lengthy text, use concise lists of features, benefits, samples or reasons for people to delve deeper into the site.   
   • Newsletter sign-up – Opt-in area for eBulletin, free gift, or membership to capture contact information for additional marketing opportunities.

All of these features should drive visitors toward a specific “Call to Action”. Failure to convert potential customers into sales leads is mostly due to homepages lacking primary and secondary calls to action. It may be a link that states, “Contact us for details” or “Tell us your situation and we will set up a conference call.”  Guide web users along your sales process to convert more of them into customers.  Read more tips!

To link or not to link, that is the question!  In general, the more the merrier, however some links can harm your site’s “reputation” if they are in a bad neighborhood.

Avoid questionable link building strategies
Be careful!  If you see a link building opportunity that appears suspicious, ignore it. You could be wasting your time or even risk having your site penalized for significant periods of time by search engines. It’s up to you to verify legitimacy and value of any agreements. 

“White Hat” SEO practices refer to safe, honest and trustworthy methods of obtaining links.  “Black Hat” practices are unscrupulous site design or link-building methods with the purpose of cheating or tricking search engines.  Examples of these “bad guys” are excessive use of keywords on a page or sites designed purely to list links.

Post links everywhere you can think of
Include your web address in any online information about yourself.  Your fraternal organization, church, college alumni association, civic association, sports or activity club, networking group, support circle, may allow you to post a personal profile where you can add a link or even brief advertisement.  Ask friends to link from their MySpace page!

Submit yourself to awards sites
Find sites that offer to post your link as a “site of the day” or any other reason.  One place to start is http://CoolSiteoftheDay.com, which ranks highly in search engines.

Use affiliate programs to get linked
If you have a product, start your own affiliate program and email related sites who’d like to add another stream of income.  Not only might you earn cash yourself, but each affiliate gladly provides another inbound link to help you climb higher in Google and Yahoo!  http://Clickbank.com is an easy way to use a system already in place (for digitally delivered products only).  Join for $50 and affiliates post a banner or text link to automatically receive credit for customers who purchase through their links.

Publish in other people’s newsletters
Offer to write articles for eZines or email newsletters of associates (and even competitors) in your industry.  Anyone publishing regular materials needs content, so your “payment” may be a link to your site, along with a one-sentence description.

Internal page links
Even internal links (within your site) can help.  This includes anchor links within a page to jump from one area to another.

From SEO-guy.com:  “Anchors are used to reference specific locations on a page from other locations on that same page. These “on page links” are yet another place to get your main keywords in and boost that “on page” density.

An example is “back to the top” at the end of a page. Except as smart optimizers, we use our keywords instead of phrases like “back to top”. Here is an example:
At top of page I place my anchor: a name=”seo”
Farther down,  I put SEO (instead of “TOP”)
I’ve now created a same page link containing my keyword and thus increased my density as well as received added weight by virtue of it being an anchor.”

Relative value of links
As with the entire “Google formula” for calculating rankings, the value of links has it’s own complicated formula.  Anchor text, relevancy of the other site, page rank of the other site, number of links per page and the other factors play a role.  Even the words [or search terms] in text surrounding a link affects it’s quality in the eyes of Google. 
Just remember that all links are not created equal!

Sending articles and press releases to the internet can bring traffic in two ways.  First, a good article will lead readers to your site for more information.  Also, when articles are posted at various internet directories, the embedded links to your site improve it’s quality rating with Google.

Article Writing and Syndication
Writing articles is a popular method of generating links, if your content is appealing to visitors and to webmasters. One good article could create many links and significant traffic to your website.

Write articles and submit them to syndication websites such as GoArticles, AcmeArticles and ArticleDashboard.com.  You should include a brief bio and links to your site with each article submitted.  When others are searching for content for their own site, they might use yours, which includes the link to your site.  There is no cost and you can often choose your own anchor text (keywords) and pages to link.

You can join several of these article directories and submit the same article to each, simply logging in after you’ve created your account with each.  Post as many as you have time for.  Others include http://ArticleMarketer.com,  http://Add-Articles.com.

Prepare material for other websites
Similar to writing articles, in this case you are directly supplying content to a related website, with your “payment” in the form of links to your site and possibly enhancements such as “partner” status.  Everyone wants good unique content, so others may find it in their interest to publish your work.  Approach webmasters or look for announcements on related websites.

Press Releases
Press releases can drive interested traffic to your website and some PR wires allow authors to include website links. Some services charge and others offer free options. If you pay, your releases are made available to a larger market.  http://PRLeap.com and http://PRWeb.com are two popular examples.  More marketing tools are available at http://www.attractweb.com/products.php

Web 2.0 has had a large impact on SEO, with Google and other directories gradually increasing credit from popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Regular new content on blogs increases their relevance.

Social Bookmarking and Web 2.0
Join social media and bookmarking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg, MySpace and Del.icio.us, or for more convenience, use a service like http://www.AddThis.com to generate interest in your site. Create a list of useful sites including one or two of your own, and then publish them to your profile. Search engines are recognizing the merit of these portals and visitors can “vote” for the popularity of your site.

Blogging: Your Blog
Create a blog within your site or use a free blogging service that links back to it. Present your opinions and recommended solutions for your subject. Add comments regularly (daily, weekly or monthly). Besides building an audience of visitors who appreciate your thoughts or advice, you can constantly add backlinks to help in search results or just send readers to your site.

Blogging: Submit to directories
Add your Blog to directories such as http://www.Technorati.com and http://www.Digg.com for more exposure. It’s free advertising, just like getting listed in search engines.

Blogging: Post on others’
Find existing blogs that suit your purposes and sign up. Most blogs provide the opportunity to link to your site via your name when you add a comment. Pick a name that includes relevant keywords. Post relevant content and you’re reaching people who may not have found you otherwise. Add comments and links of value!

Don’t just say “Come over and visit my Blog”. Do not spam these sites or you risk having your site delisted.

Any inbound link is a good one, but there is a wide difference in their quality.  One link from a respected, popular website may be worth more than ten links from low-ranking or poor quality sites.

Reciprocal Links: friends and associates
Trade links with business associates and anyone else you know with a website. Contact fellow members of associations, your chamber of commerce, social organizations, or any group you’re part of. Place links to each others’ sites since you already know and trust them. Maybe you’ll be allowed a longer description or preferred page placement because of your relationship.

It’s more helpful if the site content is related, but even being located in the same geographical area lends a degree of “relevance”. If people aren’t capable of adding links, they should contact Attraction Web Design for help [nice shameless plug].

Reciprocal Links: the open market
Trading links has always been a popular way to increase the number of inbound links. Exchanging links allows both sites to benefit, so everyone is happy (including the hungry S.E. tiger!!). This can be a time-consuming measure, so there is software that can be bought and there are online services to automate the process. One worthwhile service with both free and fee options is http://www.LinkPartners.com.

• Links are more valuable from highly ranked sites with good traffic, so a link from Microsoft gives you more credit than one from Joe’s Computers.
• Avoid FFA Link Farms – A FFA (Free For All) website enables any website owner to place their link on a web page. These are worthless, since search engines despise this practice and won’t give you credit.
• Ensure that your link is actually posted on the other site and that it is not just a bogus “Link Farm” itself, meaning there is no site content.
• Fewer links on a page means more “link juice” to be divided among them, so if your link is on a page with over 100 others, it may be virtually worthless.

Link building is a important for achieving greater page rank in search engines. Along with quality content, search engines view inbound links as proof that your site is valuable to visitors. In other words, if lots of sites link to yours, your site must have worthwhile information, since in affect, they are citing you as an authority or a reference.

Free Directory Submissions
Directories are the logical place to start your link building campaign. They are happy to post your site to build their list or relevant results. Submit your site to as many web directories as you can. You can later refresh your information by re-submitting it, especially if content has changed. Free directories can take weeks, or even months to include your site. It is only necessary to submit your home (index) page.
Start with Google, Yahoo, MSN and the Open Directory.

Specialized Directories
Besides general category directories, you should submit to industry and geographically specific directories. These will help your search engine ranking and they can also drive targeted traffíc to your site. If you are a member of an association, the association website may include a list of members.

The state, county, region or city you live in may have a directory of sites for that particular area. Many will offer a basic listing for free with the option of an enhanced listing for a fee. http://www.Craigslist.org allows free advertising as long as you follow their guidelines.

Paid Directory Submissions
Annual subscriptions can be purchased for directories such as Yahoo, BOTW, and http://www.Business.com. They will add your profile more quickly than their free counterparts and are more likely to allow you to choose the title of your link. This gives you the opportunity to build your links according to your targeted keywords instead of simply the site name.

For example if your site is ‘ABC Lawn Co.’, a better ‘title’ in a directory or any other website would be “Grass and Lawn Mowing Service” since it directly includes several applicable terms. Paid directories may also allow deep linking to individual pages of your website so that particular search terms will automatically lead visitors to pertinent information.