Archive for May, 2009

Small business website design choices are a crucial element to begin an online relationship that will attract potential customers and clients. Using a large company for your website design project may not always be the way to go. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen these corporates use bad SEO strategies to design websites for their customers. Sometimes they put the administrative contact in their own name instead of the website owner’s and have multiple errors on webpages such as missing keywords, descriptions and titles. I’ve even noticed that these company designed websites have errors and warnings on their own main page, something a common visitor wouldn’t notice.

People get charged exorbitant amounts for monthly hosting, like $40 to $100, when it should that much should be for a YEAR of hosting. They see a website online and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, not realizing that it may not bring any traffic at all, and in Google’s eyes is like a blank sheet of paper. People think “I got a big name company doing my work and they are in the top ten, they must know what they’re doing”, when in actuality, it’s the small webdesign companies like myself who are going to take the time and effort to make sure your projects are done properly.

Your website design choice for small business is not one you want to make more than once. In conclusion, be careful who you pick and don’t be afraid to ask questions to your website designer. If they don’t want to make you the administrative contact or discuss SEO value for your website, you may want to find someone else.

The advantages of CMS in website design revolves around the option for a small business website owner to add content as often as desired. Unfortuantely, I find about 9 of 10 small business website owners do not add content even when given this opportunity, due to the busy schedule of running a business.

By using a CMS system to give small business website owners access to add original content as often as needed, the website owner can add or edit existing content to keep their website up-to-date. Adding content means more pages are added to the site, whether it’s in a blog or main site content, and more pages helps a website rise up in the rankings of search engines. This feature of CMS can then only become a positive feature for a website owner is if it is taken advantage of.

By giving the small business website owner the option to add content as often as possible, new pages are added to the site. New pages means more indexing by search engines and therefore a better chance of rising up in search rankings.

Comparing whitehat SEO and blackhat SEO methods involves understanding of the terms. Picture the good guy and the villain in old western film. The difference in whitehat and blackhat SEO are comparatively the same.

Whitehat techniques use usability to give a website page better standings in search engines by keeping the user in mind with no tricks for deceptive means of rank boosting. Whitehat SEO methods are more favored and usually have longer lasting effects than other methods.

Blackhat methods use tricks to get SEO results, such as buying backlinks to a website. Google’s algorithm’s can detect whether linked sites are relevant to each other, and may ban websites that use these practices. Websites that use Blackhat SEO methods usually don’t last very long, and aren’t good for long-term SEO results.

In comparing whitehat and blackhat methods for SEO, obviously whitehat methods outweigh blackhat ones. It may take more time to use proper actions to help your website’s SEO, but in the long run it will be well worth it. Don’t let the end justify the means because Google punishes deceptive promotion practices and can ban a website for it.

Tracking website statistics is important research for any small business website owner to make choices about the interests of the buyer. By analyzing traffic data such as how people arrive on your website, how long they spent on your page, the volume of traffic and trends for your visitors, small business website owners can adjust their online marketing strategies.

If visitors tend to “bounce” quickly from your site, the reason may be because your website doesn’t have enough .“Stickiness”. This could mean the website doesn’t answer the question, “What can this website offer me?” The website needs to fulfill a need for the visitor, and give them a reason to inquire in your services.

If you see that most people arrive on your website on Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps it would be a good idea to write posts on those days, or just before, and link those posts into your site. This could draw more of your traffic in, and give you more of the edge against your competition through proper online marketing for your website.

Use Statcounter to track website stats, visitors, traffic, time spent on each page, where visitors are referred from, and use this data to adjust marketing strategies. Your results could include more traffic, potential customers, and clients being lead to your website.

For more on tracking website statistics, this article could be helpful:
“The Importance of Tracking Stats”

Statcounter Visitor Traffic Tracking Site

Benefits of perfect code in XHTML are an unparalleled strategy in web design for small business website owners. By incorporating SEO strategies for improved page ranking, top search results and accessibility, a small business website can attain more business online.

Flash videos that have no video titles online cannot be read by search engines, therefore resulting in code errors. The same applies for pictures without titles associated with them because they aren’t indexed with Google and show up as errors when you validate the code. When a website is written in XHTML with perfect code, the chance to receive more traffic increases, and potential customers can grow in number. Coding for the future to avoid deprecated code should decrease the amount of errors that show up on a website both today and tomorrow.

The benefits of perfect code in XHTML can increase traffic, page ranking, number of indexed pages in search results and decrease loading time. Since there is no substitute for writing websites in XHTML with perfect code, this practice can be deemed as very valuable.

Getting a website to Google page one is not something I would ever promise a client because it is something that takes time, hard work and patience. Small business website owners should realize you can’t launch a website, kick back, and expect the money to roll in. By using the appropriate techniques, appearing on Google page one really is achievable.

Several factors are taken into consideration by search engines in order to decide what pages are indexed in the top rankings. A high number of pages and inbound links, appropriate keyword density, a blog, an RSS feed, and an appropriate length title, description and number of keywords are important factors. Using non-deceptive means of enhancing my own website, this site ranked on Google page one for over 30 searched key phrases, and THIS POST for position #8 out of 571,000,000 hits, the moment I published it.

Getting a website to Google page one by using non-deceptive tactics for page ranking is a key in attaining more traffic for small business website owners. Attaining more traffic leads to more potential clients, which leads to return customers, and soon your business can grow through your website.

Add a Blog to Your Website

The 7 best website optimization techniques for positive search results involves many attributes of your website design. Marketing strategies for small business website owners begins with good writing techniques. Gain traffic and return customers by incorporating tips from professionals who have had good results.

Having good content that keeps readers interested gets people involved in what you write about. Getting your website bookmarked is a compliment that comes with fresh content.

Getting quality links from other related sites helps small business website owners gain popularity. Let other sites know you are there by linking to them and hope for reciprocation.

Appropriate website title, keywords and heading tags are heavily weighed by search engines. These should always relate to the on page content and be general enough to draw traffic for a wide variety of phrases.

Keyword Density is important for ranking better in search engines. Keep it an appropriate percentage and make sure your website uses relevant content as related to your keywords.

For larger sites, a sitemap is a good idea to help both visitors and robots find and index content on your website. Name it “sitemap.xml” and search robots will be able to find your files efficiently.

Meta tags do matter to rank well, get indexed, and for visitors to find your website. With appropriate page and post titles, small business website owners can get visitors to click on their search listings more often.

Age of a domain and keywords included within it matter as well. Having a domain that includes keywords you’re interested in ranking for lets search engines know your content is relative enough for search engines to index often.

Some of the best website optimization techniques can help a small business website owner obtain a winning website to get more visitors and customers for their business. By incorporating these techniques, a website may rise in the rankings to be found by more people online.

Read more about Search Engine Optimization and read my entire article on Natural Methods Of Search Engine Optimization at Earticles Online. Also have a look at these other tips about Tips Designing a Fast Loading Website, Tips on Writing Blog Posts and Tips on Using Twitter for Business.