Unique Page Titles include Keywords

June 22, 2011 by Ray

Use unique title tags for each page of website. This is one of the most productive and easiest SEO features to build into your pages.

The title tag appears in the header section of HTML code, near the top of the page. Search engines give it considerable weight, so create your page titles carefully.

Officially (from World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org):
“Authors should use the TITLE element to identify the contents of a document. Since users often consult documents out of context, authors should provide context-rich titles. Thus, instead of a title such as “Introduction”, which doesn’t provide much contextual background, authors should supply a title such as ‘Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping’ instead.”

Brief explanation of page content
Page titles display at top of the visitor’s browser and should represent an abbreviated description of that particular page’s contents. A title such as “Home” or “About Us” tells nothing about the content of a page, so it is useless to readers and search engine robots. No “Welcome to my website” or other superfluous headings, please! Proper titles should be under 64 characters in length, so 5-7 words is a good guideline. Include the most relevant keywords or keyphrases.

Avoid using “filler” words (the, your, home) since they take up valuable characters from a limited supply. Avoid strings of keywords that appear more like “keyword stuffing” than a complete thought (“Web design – hosting – SEO – internet marketing”) Your organization name should be part of your home page title if possible. Here is how the title appears in page code:
    <head>
    <title>XYZ Shoe Company sells shoes and boots</title>
    </head>

Providing each page with a unique title and it’s own keywords enables visitors to find pages other than your home page when doing searches. For example, the following are titles of 2 pages at Attraction Web Design. If someone is searching for “search engine optimization”, they may find my (more appropriate) SEO page before my home page.
[Home] Website Designer – Hosting – SEO by Attraction Web Design of Delaware
[SEO] Website search engine optimization – SEO and keywords

Your page title will appear in the following places:
• Browser window title bar, and when printed, at the top of the page
• As title for web page listing on the search engine results. This helps to guide interested parties to your site.
• Default entry in favorites (bookmarks) and history lists. This helps repeat traffic come back to the correct site.

Location of your office or customer base
If you serve a particular population, your location is a keyword too! Notice that my home page title (above) includes “Delaware”. Web surfers realize that they have to limit their search to a geographical area if they are looking for someone local to work with, so adding your state, city or town will rank you higher in those cases.

For the home page, I include my complete business name in case someone is aware of the name but not the web address. The other words will give me a better chance of a high result for various combinations of searches, such as “web designer in Delaware”, “Delaware website”, “website design and hosting”, etc.

My business serves the entire USA, although most people find me by including “Delaware” in their search. Especially if you only service a particular area, it is critical to include that state, city, county or locality on your home page and other important pages (both text and title).

Website Images and Video

April 15, 2011 by Ray

Integrate photos and graphics in attractive ways. Slideshows, photo galleries, videos and flash movies bring your site to life and stir interest, while reinforcing text.

Images on your website reinforce text for better conversion rates. Pictures, photographs, graphics, diagrams all help visitors more quickly grasp your content.

Slideshows reduce need for scrolling
For your home page or another page that you wish to keep clean and compact, a slideshow is a collection of two or more alternating images. You can incorporate effects to transition from one image to another in a set or random order. Besides showing your story, this is a simple way to bring your site to life with motion. [Sample: http://www.pcvrc.com]

• Display products – show samples of your work
• Examine a process – give a visual tour of each stage of your service
• Text statements / quotes – complementary famous quotes, lists of accomplishments, awards, recognition
• Logos of affiliations – move through logos of your professional affiliations, vendors, partners, customers or any groups that help build your credibility

Photo galleries tell your whole story
Set aside pages or portions of pages to providing enough photos to satisfy visitors and persuade them to get in touch. A slideshow may be best for home page, but details pages can devote more space for all to display together. Make it interactive so visitors can control what they want to view, clicking or mousing over thumbnails of their choice. [Sample: http://www.jmweddingcreations.com/gallery.php]
• Show a process – include a storyboard from step one through step “x”
• Display options – show samples of each color, style, or other variation
• Multiple applications – Show samples of different ways to use the same product

Video can be casual
From a 20 second “Welcome” message to a 30 minute movie, allow the visitor to sit back and relax while you introduce your company or a particular product. Decide whether to upload a movie viewer to your own server or just let the visitor open the movie with an application installed on their own machine. The most common client-side pluggins are Windows Movie Viewer and Quicktime. [Sample: http://www.gndcollects.com]
• Automatically running welcome message on home or about page
• Video clips collection to allow viewing of any particular clip
• Longer movies should indicate their file size and length so the visitor can decide if they have enough time (or fast enough internet connection)
• Humorous video can entertain while explaining your message
• Include link to download (free) movie player in case visitor does not have one installed. Never make assumptions about your visitors.

A good video can convey your ideas and demonstrate your product much more quickly and effectively than lengthy paragraphs of text. Search Engines may reward sites with higher rankings, knowing that you’re more likely to please visitors.
An excellent resource for online video marketing tips is http://www.ReelSEO.com

Flash presentations are fancy
Flash movies can contain a multitude of effects and can integrate video, graphics, still photos and text on a server-side platform, to be independent from the visitor’s computer configuration. But costs can be greater to create and to change. Some web designers specialize in these sites or can create an individual flash movie for inclusion on “non-Flash” sites.

Images On Your Website- Best Practices

April 1, 2011 by Ray

Let’s explore how to best use images on your website to reinforce the text for better conversion rates (for more sales or return visits).

Images reinforce text
Images can include photos, graphics, illustrations, logos of your own or that you create or purchase. Professionally photographed images may be a requirement for glossy brochures, but there are sections of your website which may work well with simple candid photos or basic diagrams. “A picture is worth a thousand words”, so use visuals to complement and help explain what you are saying in text form.

Dispose of unnecessary images
Do not include images unless they support the message of that particular section of your site. Don’t confuse visitors by adding photos just because they’re pretty. If the correlation of images to your text isn’t apparent enough, you are not only wasting space, but wasting the time of visitors. If they came to your site to find a solution to a problem, a photo of your family on your Services page may aggravate them since they have to scroll past it to find what they seek. However, that same photo on your “About Us” page may put them more at ease since they appreciate the human touch.

As many images as possible
Insert appropriate photos and graphics, even if they are not the primary subject matter. On the web, you have plenty of room to add them. Convey your message in seconds, saving viewers time and the work of reading those extra thousand words.
– Take the time to gather or photograph images if you don’t already have a sufficient quantity. Choose the best so your webmaster doesn’t have to guess what to use.
– Several small images may be better than one larger one, since you have more opportunities to show just what the visitor is looking for
– Besides products, people or places, images can be used as metaphors or to illustrate a theme: a clock to signify time savings; a handshake to signify a successful partnership; a lightbulb to signify an idea.
– Include actual photos of your organization rather than stock (clipart) photos. You’ll make more of an impact with the real thing!

Crop images
Page space is valuable, so before uploading photos, remove any excess space that is not important and ensure that the subject is centered in the image.

Optimize images
You must optimize the photo or graphic to reduce the dimensions and file size to an appropriate degree for internet viewing. Photos out of a digital camera may have dimensions as large as 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels and file size of 3-4 MegaBytes (MB). For the web, these numbers must be much lower, for instance, 300 pixels by 200 pixels and under 80 KiloBytes (KB). Follow these steps, generally:

Open the image in editting software such as Photoshop, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, or another program that came installed on your PC or came with your digital camera, scanner or printer. Specific procedures are listed below for using Microsoft Paint, which comes installed on many PC’s. When you complete the following steps, you may want to “Save As” a different name, so that you still have a full size original.

1. Crop the image to get rid of any unimportant parts except for the subject(s) of the photo/picture. Also take the opportunity to adjust brightness and colors. Snapshots often need some brightening for proper display.

2. Reduce the width/height, maintaining the proper ratio. It may start as over 1200px of both and you need it to be at least under 500px for both for a very large display and as little as 150-250px for a large thumbnail size.

3. Doing both of these will greatly reduce the “file size”. For a regular size photo on a website, we need it to be under 80kb, unless it will be appearing in a new window as a blown-up size. If the file size is too high, many imaging software programs will allow you to reduce the “image quality” (for example, from maybe 95% to 85% or from 10 to 8 on a scale of ten.)
Image filenames
“Name” of image is something like “joe23.jpg” or “DSC001255.JPG” or “logo1.gif”. It is usually case sensitive so joe.JPG is different from joe.jpg. Do not leave spaces in filename. Underscore character is OK to use. To prevent typos, it is usually best to shorten image names.

Image format must be .jpg or .gif. If it has an extension such as .tif, .bmp, .swf, .png or something else, it must be changed. Since working with images can be time consuming, any of the above that you can do before sending them to a web designer will save you money.
More info in my website tips eBook.

Identify Your Target Audience

March 17, 2011 by Ray

Establish a concise list of objectives for your website.
What do you want to accomplish? Sell a product? Sell a service? Gather contact info for emailing or calling? Sign up a new member? Motivate to visit a physical location? Motivate to call? Invite to take a survey? Invite to submit feedback? When you’ve decided what actions to prompt visitors to take, you can design your site for all pages to work towards that goal or goals.

If you want to drive people to visit your brick and mortar location, be sure that maps and driving directions are prominent. Include photos of the location. Include testimonials of how easy it was for customers to find it and what great service they received there. Make your business hours clear.

What is your niche market?
If you have several goals, you may need to decide between having one or more sites. With multiple products or services that are closely related, one site may be sufficient, but if they differ slightly or you’ll be marketing them differently, unique sites may be best so that each can achieve it’s particular purpose. One larger site can be easier to administer and the combined volume of content could be better for SEO.

Keep your navigation logical and your order process simple. Offer “help” pages or windows when any doubt could arise about what visitors should do next or what information to enter in forms. This is where “pop-up windows” can be helpful. If someone is interested enough to take out their credit card or submit information, don’t lose them by complicating the process. Make it clear what buttons to press and which links to choose for their individual needs.

Identify your target audience
Who exactly are you trying to reach? Are they located in a particular geographic area? How old are they and might they have any technical or physical challenges? What information do they need, and how fast? Will graphics help? What is their typical financial situation? Are they male, female or both? What is their age group and education level? What keywords would they use to describe your product/service? Answering these questions will help improve your conversion rate without wasted effort and cost. The better you understand your customers, the easier to meet their needs. What is your niche?
The above factors could help you determine any of these:
– Language(s) for site to use and/or how formal text should be
– Text size and colors
– Amount of text per page and reading level of terminology used
– Objective of site (online sale or visit location or contact via phone or email)
– Types of images to best reinforce text
– Most appealing images of people (similar age/race/occupational make-up)

How To Choose Best SEO Search Terms

February 10, 2011 by Ray

Determining proper search terms (keywords and keyphrases) to focus on is critical to achieve the best possible search engine and directory rankings.

SEO vs. SEM
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) includes any web design techniques used to achieve the best possible “natural” or “organic” search engine results. These are the regular (main) listings on each page of results. Some SEO methods are incorporated during site development and some can be added at any time or on an ongoing basis (such as link building). Most methods don’t cost a lot of money, but some require a considerable investment of time. The time commitment will prove to be worthwhile as it is amortized over the life of the site at no financial cost.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) basically includes any techniques to produce traffic that cost money. Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is the best example. These “paid listings” or “sponsored results” appear alongside or on top of organic results for the same terms. PPC terms are often sold through auctions. More general or popular terms (such as “dogs”) are more expensive to bid for than targeted or less popular ones (such as “poodles” or “german shepards”).

Another SEM technique is inclusion in paid directories, either general (such as Yahoo Directory for $299), regional (state or city-specific) or industry-specific organizations.

SEM is online advertising and requires an ongoing budget. You can start, stop, or make changes to campaigns at any time and improve your results through analysis of traffic and sales. SEO does not produce such instantaneous results. It can take as long as 4-8 weeks to see “natural” effects. To “cover all bases” a combination of SEO and SEM is often employed.
Broad (generic) terms vs. Targeted (specific) terms
From Wikipedia.org: “Not all sites have identical goals for search optimization. Some sites are seeking any and all traffic, and may be optimized to rank highly for common search phrases. A broad search optimization strategy can work for a site that has broad interest, such as a periodical, a directory, or site that displays advertising with a CPM [cost per thousand impressions] revenue model.

In contrast, many businesses try to optimize their sites for large numbers of highly specific keywords that indicate readiness to buy. Overly broad search optimization can hinder marketing strategy by generating a large volume of low-quality inquiries that cost money to handle, yet result in little business. Focusing on desirable traffic generates better quality sales leads, resulting in more sales. Search engine optimization
can be very effective when used as part of a smart niche marketing strategy.”

In other words, “drill down” to your particular specialty within your broader category, similar to the structure of directories. Concentrate on these more specific terms:
Apparel > Footwear > Athletic Shoes > Running Shoes > Nike
Travel > Vacation Packages > Adventure Trips > Safaris > Kenya Safaris
Health > Nutrition > Dietitians > Vegan Dietitians > Chicago Vegan Dietitians

A page for each search term?
Create distinct pages for each search term so that any individual page might rank highly enough to appear within the first 3 pages of directory or S.E. results, even if it is not the home page. If you have several products or services, give each it’s own page where you can highlight the distinct terminology and characteristics. When the differences are slight, consider writing a page or article on one of them where you simply replace one possible keyword for another. For example, you may use the word “car” on one page and “auto” on another page.

Concentrate on your company’s strengths and dominate your niche!