Archive for February, 2009

One of the first obstacles to overcome upon beginning a small business website, is the creation of your main page. You only can make one first impression, so the challenge is to make a positive one and draw your potential customers into your small business with good search engine optimization.

Depending whether you need a dynamic or static small business website will determine the work or cost it will take to launch. Static websites generally just sit there and have no options for interaction except for email. Static sites may not generate traffic, but are cheaper to run. Dynamic small business websites include secure and advanced online functions such as ecommerce, shopping carts, secure login, and generally need maintenance such as adding products and adjusting prices.

Important content contained in dynamic small business websites may include text, graphics, photos, audio, video, music, logos, trademarks and other artwork. You may or may not need all of these types of media, but you should maintain a simple message, positive first impression and a professional design. If you do, you may need a dynamic website design, and the proper decision may improve search engine optimization.

Deciding between a static and dynamic small business website depends on how much information, time and effort you want to put into your site. Static sites generally are for information purposes and just sit there, where dynamic ones usually use more functions. Gearing your small business product or service accordingly will determine whether you get the search engine results you desire.

Deciding what tags and labels to include on your small business website log, or blog, is one of the first challenges to face. First, understand the difference between the terms: Tags and Labels, and secondly use that knowledge to direct more traffic to your small business website, thus increasing usability and backlinks for search engine optimization.

A blog should be an informal account of your thoughts of the day, talking to your audience like you would to a friend. The tags and labels within your blogs are used primarily to aid your website visitors. Blogs contain tags and labels, which are important key words and phrases that assist with navigation either to or around your website pages. Tags lead visitors to your small business website and are a link to Technorati that create backlinks for bringing traffic to your website, adding promotional value to your blog. Blog tags should be simple, 3 words or less using key words, because keyword tags are more likely to attract visitors to your blog.

Once visitors arrive on your small business website, labels are keywords within your site which organize your posts and refer visitors to other pages in your website with related topics. Like a filing system, labels group your blog posts into categories, and both tags and labels should be contained in the content body of the blog post they are in.

Using tags and labels can facilitate navigation within your small business website, and help search engines find you easier as well. Using appropriate tags and labels for your content will aid search engines in finding you on the internet, and help navigation of your web pages to your visitors once they arrive there.

Read more about Search Engine Optimization
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There is a direct relationship between website design quality and cost. There are many factors to consider when understanding that just because a small business website owner may spend a great deal on a site design, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he has a site of high quality. Simple aesthetics and look of a site does not mean that it is running at optimum performance, because a lot of what the search engines see is invisible to the common visitor.

When my Dad told me that he writes in perfect HTML code, I didn’t realize how impacting that really is in the web design world. To have a site run with NO errors and absolutely NO warnings is no menial achievement to accomplish in website design. Many sites run just fine without having perfect code, but search engines don’t always see a website the same as visitors do.

For example, I checked the HTML code on various quality websites that ran just fine using a code checking toolbar. To my surprise, the pages were loaded with errors and warnings. Although some errors appear due to Flashplayer buttons and simple forward slash problems, there is no replacement for perfect code. Even the page that checked the code of other pages came up with multiple warnings and errors. The quality that I offer is the reason that I can charge the amount that I do.

Consider multiple options before jumping into a project with a web designer, and research the fundamentals of website design quality versus cost, and you may find that the quality of the site created for you was undoubtedly worth the cost.

The importance of website content is nothing to overlook when deciding what should be included in a website design to attract search engines, and attain more traffic with Google. Many times the aesthetics of a website design may be correct, but the website content may still be lacking in several areas. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the most important keys to a website design is that it needs optimum performance by having a satisfactory search engine optimization, or seo. The key fundamentals of website content will help a site owner maximize the search results received.

One very important factor for a site to improve seo is having the content linked to the internet by using keywords and labels. These are keys to make your site more visible for search engines, improve search engine optimization, and attract more traffic. The title of the page should be included somewhere in the content of the web page itself. If not, the site may end up invisible to search engines such as Google.

Another fundamental key for website content is a snappy first impression or image design that the visitor will see. Make it easy for a person to be able to tell what service or product is offered, right away. Make buttons and key phrases large enough for the public to see.

Giving proof of reputation on your site is also fundamental for your website design. For example, if you have a business installing screenrooms, show examples of your work right on the website in order to uphold your reputation to visitors.

Using key fundamentals of website content will not guarantee page one of Google or other search engines right away, but it will most likely give your website design that edge needed over your competition.

Letting a website sit idle by not adding content often enough may force it to die off within a few months, and it will never receive an esteemed ranking with Google or other search engines. Another important point is that having improper keyword density, or KD, is just like having no keywords in your site at all. A low keyword density will get you penalized, and too many or “stuffing” keywords into a page will be picked up on by search engines as well. It’s wrong to try to use deceptive practices in order to reach page one of Google.

Blogging with original quality content as often as possible is important, even if it is only once or twice a month, but obviously, the more posts the better. Search engines know if content has been added, and reward those who add fresh content on a regular basis. Also, an appropriate keyword density of around 4 percent is rather important to optimize your search engine optimization, or SEO. Keyword density is a percentage ratio of number of instances of a keyword on a single web page, divided by the total number of words on that page. Keyword density can be easily calculated by a downloadable program from a site known as Dupefree Pro.

Blogging approximately once or twice a week can improve your page ranking because blogs give search engines more resources for visitors to link to your page. Also,it will give you an edge over the 90 percent of small business website owners who do not blog regularly, and the page ranking, or PR, of your small business website is more likely to increase. Again, maintain a keyword density at or close to 4% in order for search engines to find you more often, and your stats with Google will undoubtedly improve greatly.

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The importance of tracking stats is to know which of your pages have been visited, and how long visitors stay on your site so a small business owner can adjust the web content to match the interest of the visitor, thus increasing search engine optimization.

Every “hit” a site gets leads a trail back to the search word the visitor used in Google or MSN in order to find your small business website. This is important to find out how search engine optimization works and how you’re indexed, so you can use those words more often in order to attract more traffic to your website. The point of a site does not just revolve around the volume of traffic received, because high traffic is useless unless those visitors convert into paying customers. Having a “Benefit Statement”, or defining a purpose for your website is important. Think, “How will someone benefit by visiting my site?” At the same time, realize that the visitor is thinking, “What can this product or service do for me?” Show the best aspects of your site on your main page and try to solve a problem for them.

There are stat tracking services to analyze popular pages, such as statcounter.com, goingup.com and onestat.com. A piece of code can be put on the bottom of the html pages of your small business website to track your traffic. This may work against a small website owner in some cases, because a high number may seem unrealistic, and a low number may show a website as unpopular. Popular term searches, what terms were used for people to find your site and other important statistics may be viewed as well.

The results of tracking your website stats can help small business website owners tweak their sites to get the optimum results for search engine traffic optimization. Your stats will determine whether you have search engine optimization for your small business website down to a science, and help search engines recognize your website better.