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Have you ever wondered how experts use Wordtracker to keep their clients’ sites at the top of the search engine results pages? What can you learn from their methods? How can you apply their strategies to your own website to get outstanding results?
September 7th, 2006
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The months of November and December account for at least 28% percent of retail sales and are also a peak web browsing and purchasing season. With this in mind, it pays to prepare for the increase in traffic the Christmas season will bring no matter the size of your Web site. Retailers are already gearing up for Christmas in late August, so you will be in good company as you prepare for the Holiday Season.
Content is the life-blood of an online business, so most of these tips will focus on your Web site’s content. Here are Seven Tips to help you bring your Web site up-to-date for the Christmas Season:
Monday. Proofread. You probably won’t like this very much, but you need to read every page on your Web site to make sure it accurately reflects your current product or service. What changes have you made to your business offerings lately? Nothing is more embarrassing or counter-productive than promoting a product you no longer carry or misrepresenting your product on your Web site. Trust is vital to the online exchange of services and products.
Tuesday. Remove Ambiguities. Think about questions clients, customers, and friends have asked about your business over the last year. What seems absolutely self-evident to you, but is misunderstood by others? If questions are coming at you from left field, it may be time to add a Frequently Asked Questions page or to update your existing page with clear answers to those not-so-self-evident questions!
Wednesday. Revive Your Web Site’s Look & Feel. Take new product photos and replace the old ones on your Web site. Liven up your pages with new graphics and stock photos as needed. Add a slideshow or flash presentation to your home page or other appropriate landing pages to grab the attention of more visitors.
Thursday. Learn from Competitors. Visit your the Web sites of your competitors and compatriots for new ideas regarding content you can add to create value for your customers and clients. Add New Content: Articles, White Papers, Tools, etc.
Friday. Research to Improve Your Search Engine Traffic. Put on your thinking cap. On a blank sheet of paper, write an unedited list of search terms that you think potential clients and customers might use to find your Web site. Concentrate on phrases in the two to three word range. Spend about 15 minutes searching Google for these phrases. Does your site come up on the first few pages? If not, don’t panic. Consider ways you might be able to add the phrases you consider most important to the HTML titles and body copy of a few relevant pages on your Web site.
Tip: A good place to get search term ideas is from your server logs. These record all visitors to your Web site and often specify search terms used to find your pages. This may spur you on towards finding additional related phrases that are not in use now.
For added effect, visit Wordtracker and purchase a low-cost daily subscription (Support me - find an affiliate link here) to research the keyphrase list you created. Find the most effective phrases. Concentrate your efforts on those.
Saturday. Evaluate the contact channels your Web site provides. Do your contact forms work? Is your email address clearly visible? Is your business address included in the footer of EVERY page? Is your telephone number available on every page?
Why should you be redundant with regard to contact information? Most Web site visitors these days come either from pay-per-lick advertising or search engine results pages. They are seeking highly targeted content and have a cynical distrust of Web only businesses. Showing your physical address and offline contact information on each page declares your location in geographic space as a real and accountable entity.
If you disagree with my reasoning above, at least include a prominent “contact” link on each page.
Sunday. Rest. Relax. Perhaps mull over in the back of your mind any promotions or events you can offer your customers and clients during the coming months. Find a piece of paper and write them down if you wish. Be completely non-judgmental. You’ll evaluate them later.
If this blog post left you wanting more, Harvey Ramer has also written a short e-Book called A No-Nonsense Guide to Creating Your Web Site Design Plan that you may find helpful.
September 7th, 2006
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It’s that special time of year again, when the first plush Santas, singing snow men and blown-glass Christmas ornaments begin to appear on store shelves.
You know. August.
What, you find it hard to muster yuletide spirit when you’re wearing a bathing suit?
Well, too bad.
September 7th, 2006
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Having presented the other side of the coin, I thought I would also publish this post presenting some good reasons to adopt the Wordpress Engine as a CMS.
If you are an experienced user of WordPress and want to setup a non-blog website - perhaps a portfolio site, news/magazine site or even an e-commerce site - you might just want to skip the more robust content management systems most people tend to suggest, like Drupal and XOOPS, and consider using WordPress for your CMS-oriented task instead.
August 31st, 2006
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What’s the difference between a Web page titled:
Bob’s Doggy Treats
And one titled:
Bob's Doggy Treats
Maybe more than you think … it’s all in the apostrophe.
Recently, I noticed that a client had pasted their business name from Microsoft Word into their Web site title tag without converting their apostrophe from Word’s character entity to the straight text-only apostrophe that HTML requires.
Initially, I was not very concerned until I Googled for the client’s name and it was nowhere to be found. Other similar business names were in the search engine results pages where my client should have been. Though most Web browsers are able to interpret the Word markup visually, it made no sense to Google, who treated the apostrophe pasted from Word as part of the business name instead of punctuation. For a business who relies on search engine traffic, this can be a costly mistake.
This post is a short reminder that cutting and pasting from Microsoft Word into a Web page document is ALWAYS a bad idea. If you need to cut and paste, a short workaround is to copy from Word into a text editor like Notepad. Then, copy the text from Notepad into your Web page. This removes most of the extra characters could potentially harm your Web page.
1 comment August 28th, 2006
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Though Wordpress can be used as a simple CMS, it is not specifically designed to function as a content management system. Some limitations that should be considered before you choose Wordpress as your CMS include an overly simple post and user management system and a rigid permalink structure.
1 comment August 27th, 2006
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Over the past few months, the range of behaviors available via the JQuery library has grown rapidly. Initially, it was fast way to hide and show divs and change CSS classes on the fly with very little hand coding. Now, it has matured into a library of behaviors that can empower Web designers with high quality animation and interactivity.
view some additions to JQuery | digg story
August 23rd, 2006
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In CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions, Andy Budd makes Web design with cascading style sheets accessible to readers of all levels with clear explanations of standards compliant design techniques, CSS bugs and case studies. CSS Mastery features exceptionally clear explanations of the causes of CSS bugs and provides elegant hacks along with the reasons each hack is effective.
This book does not skimp on detail in its discussion of:
To strengthen his clear presentation of CSS methods, hacks, and best practices, Budd hosts two talented CSS designers, Simon Collison and Cameron Moll, to create cutting edge Web sites using the techniques featured in the book. Their detailed case studies with full code samples available by download close out this comprehensive book.
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1 comment August 20th, 2006
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If you ever need a failsafe way to redirect browsers with PHP, whether or not the page headers have already been sent, look no further than Jakob B.’s snippet on PHP.net.
This code snippet uses the cleanest method, the php header function, if it is available. Otherwise, it defaults to javascript. Failing that approach it uses the old meta refresh method.
August 19th, 2006
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The Google Analytics Blog has announced that you no longer need an invitation to receive the Website statistics tracking for free. Just head on over to the Google Analytics site and login with you Google account. It will then take you through the steps that are needed to setup your Website.
August 18th, 2006
CSS Web design, e-commerce Web design, and internet marketing issues from the desk of Harvey A. Ramer at Design Delineations.
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