Here are the lessons from the Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition.
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Get inspiration to your next 404 error page here. 20 really cool and creative error 404 pages. And remember to do some SEO work for your 404 pages too.
Have you ever heard about the traffic generating wheel? It’s a wheel you will have to start spinning and you can use it for a new website or for a website that is already up and running.
Don’t you have traffic to your website – and the visitors don’t buy anything? Maybe it’s time for a website turnaround. Check out here what to do.
All the best to you, Henrik
One of the most challenging factors of building a site is the implementation of accurate SEO website design. Finding the right balance between aesthetics and effective on-page optimization strategies is not always simple.
Here are a few tips to help you strike this balance:
1. Keeping it Simple
To be able to effectively optimize your website ask your design and SEO company to keep the layout simple. Your navigation links should be easily followed by popular search engines. If your design is trying to accomplish too much, the search engine spiders may get convinced, but most visitors will be discouraged from browsing. This will eventually impact your rankings.
2. Using CSS to Manipulate Text
One of the biggest challenges of implementing an effective <a href=”http://www.webmarketing123.com/digital-marketing/services/website-design/” title=”SEO Web design”>SEO Web design</a> is the use of plain text when graphic text is perceived more appealing. By using CSS, you can easily control how your plain text can look. This allows you to incorporate aesthetic value without compromising on how search engines will pick up your content.
3. Using Mouse-Overs
If your design is image-heavy and requires text to attract search engine spiders, including mouse-overs can be an effective solution. With this, you can maintain a visual appeal for your visitors and also provide real content for the crawlers.
4. Experimenting with Fonts
Hire an SEO expert to consult your designer on how to implement an effective design. By experimenting with fonts, you may be able to achieve a ‘graphic-text’ look that is, in reality, regular text. You may even buy font packs that allow you to eliminate the use of images and maintain simplicity in your design.
5. Building a Mobile Website
With a growing number of people resorting to mobile devices to browse the Internet, a good SEO Web design cannot ignore this platform. Make sure you also build a website that can be easily viewed in mobile format. Remember to test how it appears across various popular devices.
In addition to this, an effective SEO design must take into consideration factors such as loading time and its ability to convert visitors into actual customers.
Written by Webmarketing123 – Webmarketing123 is a California based seo company that offers global digital marketing services such as SEO, PPC and SMM.
Steve Jobs was an amazing guy. And as a SEO guy I have learned that it’s about great content. And it’s about FOCUS. So without no more talk about marketing, business, Apple, Google or anything – let’s hear it from Mr. Steve Jobs.
All the best to you, Henrik
Is it time to do a redesign of your homepage?
You might consider how you can make a redesign of your homepage so you can generate more leads than you do now. There are a lot of critical elements you need to incorporate into your homepage.
You need to tell your customers about their benefits from buying your product. But most of the people on the internet will only spend up to 10 second on a homepage before going to another page. So you will have to be very clear about your design.
Make a Goal
Don’t make a homepage without a goal. Do you want to sell something? Or do you want people to sign up for your newsletter? I think around 80 percent of all the homepage I have seen don’t have any call to action.
What is the benefit for them to buy your product? What are the features of the product?
Remember you don’t have a long time to persuade your customer. Here you can read more about Call-to-Action.
What is your keyword
Remember your audience is people – so don’t write for the SEO. But don’t forget the SEO either. So before writing your text – I would write my main keyword down on a piece of paper. Remember to use this keyword in your headline, subtext, image tag… But remember to let the text flow. Don’t overuse the word.
When I do a page I would have a main keyword but also a second keyword. So the main keyword could be “used car” but the second one could be “exclusive used cars”
But I will use maximum 2 keywords or keywords phrases on a page. Here you can read more about how to find your keywords.
Do people trust you?
Maybe the people who have found your site don’t know your company and they don’t know your product – so how can they trust you?
Well – remember to tell them that – “you are not alone”. Maybe 12.000 people have bought the product the last 5 years. Tell them.
Write down your physical address. It will show your customers that you are serious. Read more about trust here.
No standard pictures
Never use standard pictures. We all hate standard office pictures (well most of us).
Show the real faces of the people working in your company. Get an accept from some of your customers and take pictures of them. This will tell your potential customer that you are a real and they can trust your website.
Your company is your design
If people don’t know you or your company – they will only know you from the website. So if you made a cluttered website people will think that your business is messy. Can you really manage your products?
Read more about design and usability here.
Homepage as the landing page?
You should always use a specific page as the landing page – and not the homepage. But your homepage is your front door, so no matter what you do a lot of people will meet your company on your homepage.
And often the home page does a very poor job of generating leads or sales.
Your home page will get traffic from a lot of sources and from people with a lot of different goals. Somebody is looking for your phone number, somebody is looking for a job, a lot of people want to read about your products.
12 + 1 critical elements every homepage must have
I found this infographic at HubSpot. It will give you a great input to your new design.
But things are moving fast in this internet world – so I want to add one more element. Don’t forget to add the social media. Let people connect to you and let them share your page.
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Did you sign up for my weekly newsletter? If you did – you can also get over 180+ pages ebooks with tips and tricks about SEO, SEM, Social Media Traffic and Link Building.
Well … I might have to change my design soon. hmmm
Have a great day out there…
Henrik
When you design your website you will have to be creative. But a good looking website alone will not help you to sell your products or service. You will have to convert your visitors to buyers. Let me show you 5 great tips for better conversion.
I love everything about SEO – but if I get a lot of visitors to my site – and they don’t buy anything it really doesn’t matter. I need to convert visitors to buyers.
No matter if you want your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, download a PDF or to buy a product.
So I let introduce you to some marketing techniques you can use when you are designing your website.
Prevent Choice Paralysis
This phenomenon is very useful to know about. Don’t give your audience too many choices to choose between. To give a choice is great. But don’t overuse it. You will confuse the buyer. If you confuse the buyer they might just leave you right away.
Make it easy to be a visitor on your site. If you want your visitors to sign up for a newsletter (I want that on my site here) be sure you have a visible call to action.
If you are writing about a product tell which one of the choices you like the most. With your design you can make your suggestion product picture bigger than the other ones. Make it with another background picture.
There is no doubt that SEOmoz wants you to buy the PRO version of its program right. They are telling you want to do. Just by using different colors. And you only get 3 choices.
Subliminal Suggestion
Have you heard of this before? It was a big hit in marketing a few years back. But you can still use some of the elements.
Newer research shows that it really didn’t help that much anyway and most of the sneak messages were eliminated.
A very famous example that everybody is still talking about is about a hidden ad picture in a movie, and suddenly everybody in the cinema wanted to buy that product. Well this wasn’t true I have heard.
But you know – the advertising industry is still using some subliminal messaging, and you can use it for your website design too. Today, you can meet subliminal messaging for personal development, when trying to stop smoking and a lot of weight loss aids. You can still buy theses CDs and DVDs commercially.
When you are choosing your pictures for your website, you must think about what kind of messages the pictures are sending. Choose pictures that embody your message or feeling. Don’t just use the first picture you find – think carefully about your use of pictures. No stock photos (please).
You get 2 different feelings here right with the bikes. One picture is selling adventure the other picture is just selling a bike.
What kind of messages do you want to send to your visitors?
Show the Product
Out in the real world (yes you can still sell products in the real world I am told) you can see and touch the products. Sometimes you can smell it too.
In fact I am sitting right now eating strawberries – I can taste them, smell them (I tell you they are awesome). But how do you want to sell strawberries on the internet.
Well show your product. We can’t make smell (well I have read about a way to do that on the internet too – but that’s another post) so we will have to show the product. Maybe make a video. What about a 360 degree photo.
A lot of companies selling software forget to show the product or the screen dumps. Show it – show lots of pictures.
Often people are making their judgments based on how the product looks like. Appearance is important – it’s an indicator of a product’s usability. This is also known as the aesthetic-usability effect.
This product is Rank Tracker. But the company has shown it in a kind of physical box. A great way to show a virtual product right?
Design and let People Try It
It is becoming more and more popular to let people try the product. Maybe try it for free 30 days or a limited version of the product.
People will get used to the product and after the trial period they just need to have it right? If you want the full version you will have to buy it.
This is really a great way for software products to sell.
I know – this is not a design element. But you can still get a lot of conversions. And get your sale.
Aweber which is a newsletter software (I use this software – awesome) has a sign up for just 1 dollars and the first month free. Then you will get your first sign ups with this program – so why change after 1 month?
Design by the Gutenberg Rule
I love this rule. The Gutenberg rule. Johannes Gutenberg was a German blacksmith, printer, publisher who introduced printing in Europe. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution (Wikipedia). If you haven’t heard of him – go and check him out.
The theory is that a reader uses his mental path when he is viewing a design. This is called reading gravity. Here in the western world we read from left to right and top to bottom. So with this knowledge we can make the Gutenberg diagram.
So we read a page or design from “Primary Optical Focus” and end up in the “Terminal Area”. This is why it’s good to have a call to action in the bottom right instead of the bottom left. Let me show you an example here.
Market Samurai (great program about finding the right keywords) have a free trial for download.
Remember now we are talking about elements. Of course you can use colors and pictures to control your readers’ eyes too.
13 elements your home page must have
Go and check out this post too about 13 elements your home page must have. You will love it.
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Remember to sign up for the newsletter and get free 3 eBooks with lots of tips and tricks about SEO, SEM, Social Media Traffic and Link Building.
And go and sign up for our new SeoCustomer Group on LinkedIn and join the conversation.
All the best to you …
Henrik
Opting for the responsive website design should be your topmost priority if you wish to harness maximum SEO advantages from your online marketing efforts.
Your target audience will be using mobile devices in greater number this year along with the desktops. Hence, you should familiarize yourself with What Are The Benefits of Responsive Design From SEO Point Of View.
Here are the 6 undeniable benefits that you will derive if you have a responsive website:
Reduce bounce rate and escalate profits
It does not require much effort on the part of the website visitor to click on the back button when he fails to avail what he seeks. This instance is called a bounce; and it happens frequently when the visitor reaches your site through his mobile device and your site does not respond.
The high bounce rate is very detrimental to the prospects of your online business. The major search engines recognize your website as being insufficient to the needs of the internet user. Consequently, the ranking of your website on the search result pages suffer terribly.
Since the use of mobile devices is increasing rapidly, it will be a smart decision if you get your website transformed into a responsive one. Not only will your site become mobile friendly, it will also gain higher visibility on the search engine lists.
Take the advantage of already present inbound links
It cannot be overlooked that mobile internet surfing is a recent trend. Even now, the major search engines rely on pre-established inbound links for ranking the websites. Hence, by adopting a responsive version of your website, you will be able to garner the benefits of the already present inbound links.
You will strengthen the performance of the website’s SERP (search engine results page), which in turn, will make it more accessible to your mobile users.
Having one URL for all kinds of users proves better for business
In case, you have something special and unique to present to your mobile users, you can gain from having a special site for them. However, if you have nothing exceptional to offer in terms of content, it will be more beneficial to have a single responsive website for the desktop as well as mobile users.
Having a single URL for your website, helps optimize the site for the users accessing it from their mobile devices. All the traffic is directed only to one URL and the confusion amongst the users is remarkably reduced.
The mobile users will click on the single URL external link and reach a mobile site that adjusts very well to the device that they are using. It results in better user experience.
When you have just one URL, the chances are higher of having links of your website on other well-known websites. It will help in getting better visibility on the search engine lists. On the contrary, it will be a far-fetched idea to believe that you will get a pleasant response in terms of backlinks if you have a dedicated mobile site.
Dedicated mobile sites not enough lucrative
Mobile web searching is still in its nascent stage. Traffic that comes through mobile devices is not significant yet. Hence, if you invest your resources in creating dedicated mobile sites, it may only result in a waste of resources. The lack of external links to such sites fares poorly in the business.
A website with responsive design caters to all types of internet users and gets maximum benefits from the efforts of the business owner.
Pleasant visual experience with responsive web design
The responsive websites are flexible in terms of customizing according to the browser screen. These sites are created with the help of CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets3) media queries. The website pages adjust themselves according to the device, and the users experience immensely pleasant visuals.
The web developers prepare a host of conceivable layouts, which are then optimized for a variety of sizes. They use the media queries for determining ranges for possible screen resolutions for every layout.
No confusion as there is no duplicate content
It may seem very logical to have separate websites for mobile and desktop users. Moreover, since there is no risk of being caught and blacklisted for duplicate content by the search engines, the concept appears attractive.
However, having the same content at two locations will be frustrating for the users and stressful for you too. Additionally, your bounce rate may increase when the users reach the wrong version of the site.
You can skip this danger by having a responsive website that serves the purpose from one location for both desktop and mobile users.
Author Bio: Jason Smith is an online manager for BCVAWEB – dallas production companies. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.
Colors can alter the mood of a person, dictate feelings or even influence a person to purchase a product. One can say that color is a powerful tool when it comes to design.
With the emergence of new technologies and the impact of websites, the power of color can be applied even to web design. Choosing the right color scheme for your website can help in driving traffic and even to influence your readers to take action, especially for profit-oriented websites.
Here are some insights on color and its usage in web design:
Light versus dark
A light color scheme is often used by females with personal blogs because it evokes a feeling of lightness and a touch of femininity, especially when pastels are thrown into the mix.
A dark color scheme is not so popular when it comes to blogs because it makes text harder to read, but it has its uses in mainstream websites.
Some official websites by individuals make use of such, usually following the scheme in cover and album art for musicians, or movie posters for films.
White or black backgrounds
White backgrounds are generally used all throughout the Internet. It serves as a great base for e-commerce websites because items are easier to view as opposed to choosing such with a dark background.
On the other hand, black backgrounds are often used for websites and forums that are masculine in nature. Most videogame-related websites make use of black backgrounds.
Gender generalizations
With regard to gender, it is hard to generalize which color would appeal to each. There is a common notion that women love pink, but there are actually a number of them who hate the color with a passion.
A good way to determine which colors are a hit with each gender are the fashion trends of the season.
What people are wearing can translate to what the colors actually appeal to them.
Let’s talk business
For corporate sites, it is best to choose a color or two from the company logo. Some companies even have official color schemes, and that should be used in the company website as well. It adds a touch of professionalism to the website.
In the same way, portfolio sites should choose colors that reflect the personal style of the owner’s projects so that prospective clients can decide early on whether the kind of work would be what he can expect from the designer.
Those with businesses should be very careful with the use of colors, since some people have negative connotations with some shades and they might turn people off. Neutral colors with hints of accents are your best bets.
The color choices that you employ for your website can make or break the purpose of having one.
Make sure that the hues and shades that you choose are in line with the content you want to have on your website, in order to achieve what you want.
Also keep in mind that colors can have so many meanings, not just in social conventions but even psychology-wise, so be careful in adding splashes of colors on your website.
Erik Gaandt is a freelance tech writer and SEO enthusiast. He understands the importance of SEO good practices and he enjoys sharing his insights on various marketing blogs. WhoIsHostingThis is a review service that focuses on the performance of various webhosts.