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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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
Website Turnaround from SeoCustomer.com
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.
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.
Gone are the days when you just had to create a pretty looking functional website and your work was done. In present times, these things don’t draw in people to your site. You have to ensure that your client’s website is SEO friendly and gives them the much needed online presence.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization improves a website’s visibility on search engines through organic or unpaid search results. It is used as a successful marketing tool as well.
There are many things you could do to improve your website’s SEO and its visibility. It is an efficient way to ensure that the hard work you have put in pays off. The following points would be helpful in making a website SEO friendly:
1. Use The Right Keywords – In an SEO campaign, keywords are the most important thing. If you use the wrong keyword, you would never be found by the market you hope to reach. Keep the business objectives in your mind and your website’s reach when you sit down to design the website.
Keywords should be important and not overused. Sit down and make a list of such words relevant to your website and put them in a keyword research tool. This tool will help you finalize the final list of keywords that are targeted. Go for not more than 3 to 4 keywords per page and launch it.
2. Place The Keywords Properly – Simply using the right keywords doesn’t ensure maximum visibility on search engines. You have to place them properly and make sure you don’t overdo it. The following places are ideal –
- Title;
- Keywords and description (meta);
- Slogan of your website;
- Bullet points;
- Internal and footer links; and
- URLs
3. Ensure that Navigation Is Friendly For Search Engines – The structure of your website should be such that search engines can easily follow it and navigate through it. The biggest and the most common problem is image based URLs. Always ensure that your links are text based. Also, try to avoid JavaScript which is known to cause issues because it is difficult for search engines to understand. Same goes for advanced languages that can’t be accessed on a mobile device.
4. SEO friendly Filenames And URLs – If your URL has the keyword, then it would boost your website visibility further and make search engines list them immediately. This is why it’s important that you are careful with the URL you use. For example –
- Not Friendly URL – http://www.xyz.com/products/item1?=123456
- Friendly URL – http://www.xyz.com/home/accessories/belts
Also, you should always be careful when you name the images. It is better to use descriptive names instead of codes and numbers.
It is noticed that people don’t take notice of images while they design an SEO friendly website. You should not commit that mistake.
SEO is an important tool that you should use to your benefit. It is an important support that a good product or service needs. Visit createasite.net to find more about how to create a great website.
Author – this article is written by Brenda Lyttle
Online marketing is a tricky affair. On one hand the selling efforts have to be aggressive, pointed, and relentless; while on the other hand the comfort and privacy of customers have to be considered as well.
Squeeze pages, or opt-in landing pages, are lead capture pages that seek to subtly extract vital visitor information in order to engender leads and eventually trigger revenues. More specifically, Squeeze pages aim at procuring the names and email addresses of potential customers via persuasive advertisements thereby “opting them” into the venture’s sales radar.
A detailed guide on how best to develop, use, and enhance Squeeze pages for overall profit:
Developing Tips
- A Squeeze page may be created as a discrete landing page or included as a segment of a venture’s web site or social media platform, which would prove to be more helpful keeping integration in mind.
- A Squeeze page should essentially consist of the ensuing elements:
- Headline: It should be compelling and catchy headline to draw immediate attention. It should relay a call to action and be prominently displayed with clever use of fonts, color, and layout.
- Description: A concise and clear introduction about what the subject matter is all about.
- Advantages: This section should succinctly outline the benefits the visitor will obtain from following the venture’s offerings. It is highly advisable to detail the advantages in the form of bullet points for easier assimilation.
- Opt-in form: This is similar to a subscription form; its objective is to get visitors to share contact information particularly their names and email addresses.This can either be a straightforward opt-in form or a sophisticated automatic responder form that intuitively manages subsequent emails posted by visitors. One may select from well-liked email auto-responding services like Aweber, iContact, Infusion Soft, Auto Response Plus, and more.
- Images: If the offering consists of a definite product, a couple of attractive photographs can be useful.
- Other Multimedia: Likewise, sound and video clips can be inserted to hold visitors’ interest.
- Confidentiality Assurance: This is an often overlooked constituent of a Squeeze page. A brief sentence reassuring visitors that their information would be kept private can go a long way in generating sales leads and actual revenues.
- One may design squeeze pages internally or take the help of the many complimentary templates available online.
- Pop-up squeeze pages ought to be discouraged; these are extremely irksome and dissuade visitors from exploring the inherent sales offerings.
Using Squeeze Pages for Maximum Benefit
- Squeeze pages are primarily data-harnessing instruments aimed at converting leads into sales. Thus they can be used for advertising the venture’s newsletter and increasing subscriptions. If the visitors are suitably informed about how they’ll stand to gain from the venture’s products and services, subscriptions will exponentially increase.
- Squeeze pages are especially beneficial for fledgling entrepreneurs and startup companies. These entities invariably need to publicize their ventures via online methods such as social media advertising, free dossiers, webinars, and contests. Squeeze pages can be utilized to appraise potential customers about these methods speedily and through a single, uniform source.
- It is a good idea to use squeeze pages to assess the response of visitors. If the response is positive, then the squeeze pages may be replaced by pages promoting outright sales. If, however, the response is adverse, more efforts should be directed at honing squeeze page dynamics.
- Identification of target audience according to type of product offered is vital. Squeeze pages can then be used to concentrate sales efforts precisely.
- Squeeze pages should always offer remedies to issues faced by visitors and customers. Thus calls to action must be subservient to customer benefits. If value addition is emphasized, it will lead to more traffic and engender greater sales potential.
The above are essential recommendations – ventures may alter the same to suit their goals and target customer base.
This guest post is brought to you by Chad Bauer of timewarnercable.wedocable.com, a site that offers savings and current information on time warner internet speed.
During the earlier times in the internet era, web designs are pretty much complicated. For this reason, only a few and rich companies are able to get this for their online exposure.
These days, websites are getting easier to create thus, small or even home-based businesses with websites are already a common sight in the online world. This occurrence on the internet can only be credited to the increasing advancements in the internet technology.
A number of people consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to be connected only to just content, however the most effective internet sites incorporate SEO into just about every aspect from content, to their code, and even down to the graphics better known as SEO web design.
In graphics designing, you must recognize and use some basic website development for SEO guidelines when constructing a website. If carried out well, SEO and presentation design will harmonize with each other.
The driving force here is marketing, increased sales and a lot of traffic to your site, since every website owner wants their site to be Google’s numerouno.
Planning Strategically
As with other websites, incorporating a wireframe for the site is where we can include the correct SEO.
Know what kind of site it will be (how-to support, publishing news, e-commerce, etc.) should be mapped out and well placed. The website should be user-friendly for the clients, and for the web designer having the flexibility to change or update the site should be implemented.
Editing on the fly and ease of content insertion must be kept in mind in the construction. And after which, SEO tactics will come to play, such as placing keywords and content material.
SEO Content and Image
SEO is all about making sure that the majority of people will find your site. It will heavily rely on the keywords you are placing. Spider crawlers that most search engines use, will look for relevant content material and it will be indexed, so that it is served to its target audience.
Obviously, critical keywords should be on every page. Putting it on the title tag, URL, and on the headings will reveal your site to those search engines. As proposed above, even images can also be given a dash of the SEO magic, although images are invisible to search engines, by putting text on the caption it will be searchable as an image result and will help your visitors to navigate your site easily.
Continuing SEO
When everything is solid and off the ground for your site, it should not stop there. SEO is a cycle that must continue, and improvement of the hits and miss should be observed. In this ongoing phase there are other initiatives that can be considered to increase more traffic to the site.
- Social Media Traffic – an integration of social media to help build the community on your brand. This the best way to market and sell your content.
- Link Building – a technique like reciprocal linking to other sites is yet a sure fire method to get more traffic to your site. By sharing high quality content to another website. Acquiring the optimum quantity of inbound links directing to the site boosts its search results on Google’s ranks. Just make sure that it contains relevant keywords or any combination of keywords.
- Tracking visitors – it helps to ensure that analytics is set up on the site to track your progress
- Site Upkeep – Fine tuning the layout or tweaking the design is required to keep the system on track.
Keep in mind these few simple things to increase visibility of your website. Web designing with SEO in mind doesn’t mean you have to let go of those pent up creative juices.You can still have an electric and dynamic site that can engage the user.
In the end, combination of SEO and graphic design must be about delivering great content and design that supports a sensible venture for the readers.
Author Bio: Jaskirat S Talwar is the owner of Impinge Solution. Impinge Solutions is a web design company which offers full-cycle services in areas of custom web design, web development, mobile application development, offshore Web development, SEO, hosting & support in all over the Globe.
When SEO people are talking about links – most of the time they will talk about backlinks. But you can also use your external links to improve your site.
So what are external links? Its links from your website that links outside your own domain to other websites on the internet.
Some people are afraid of using them.
They think “if people click away from my website I will never see them again – so I better not link to an outside domain”.
Other people are thinking “what if the website I am linking to is a spammy or bad website – then I might be punished by the search engines”.
And you will also find people that have the idea that “I should never link to a website that has a lower PageRank than mine”.
With external links you will provide your readers with in-depth information about the topic you are writing about. You can also write your own unique commentary on existing resources.
But if I Use External Linking I will Never See the Reader Again
Well you will have to rethink if you are among these people. When you are using external links you will provide your readers with a lot of information and references and this will show to the reader that your site has credible information.
And we all know that a credible website is a website that the readers will return to in the future to get more information – right?
What is the alternative for the reader?
Well if the reader doesn’t find the information he or she needs on your website – the person will just go on Google, Bing or Yahoo and find the wanted information elsewhere. So when not help your reader with credible information.
You don’t have to link to your competitors – even though the reader might find them anyway.
You can start by linking to great technical people, scientists’ people, bibliographies, Wikipedia, white papers, journal entries.
When you link to websites like these it will show that you know your product or business. And that you know what you are talking about on your webpage. Yes credible information.
Will search engine penalize me for my external links?
No – good external links are great for your website – and the search engines will reward you for doing so. But you are taking a risk. If you like to spammy sites or link farms or paid links they will penalize you.
This is the reason you will have to be sure you are linking to the right places, the specialist, the technical people, and the white papers and so on.
If you have a website where people can comment on your pages (and yes it’s a great idea – to keep the page fresh) then you should be very careful which websites the comments are linking to.
The best way is often to moderate the comments and take away the URL in the comments – and also to make all comment a no-follow link. Also undisclosed paid advertising outbound links can reduce your website’s credibility.
Another issue is too many links on one page – this might confuses visitors. Google advises webmasters to have no more than 100 links per page.
One of my readers here reminded me about the landing page for a convert to sale page. This has to be clear and clean. No need to confuse the potential buyer in the last phase of a buying. And he is absolutely right.
And Google don’t really love exchanging any types of links – so stay away from that too :)…
So what about if I link to a low PageRank website?
Don’t worry about this.
But you are right – if you are linking to a website that has a lower PageRank than yours – you will lend them some credibility (link juice). And if the website you are linking to has a higher PageRank than yours you will not.
Google writes this on their own blog – “If you’re linking to content you believe your users will enjoy, then please don’t worry about the site’s perceived PageRank. As a webmaster, the things to be wary of regarding outbound links are listed above, such as losing credibility by linking to spammy sites. Otherwise, consider outbound links as a common sense way to provide more value to your users, not a complicated formula.”
I better make an external link here. So read more about external linking of Google’s own blog
Conclusion
Yes, yes, yes – use external links on your website and comments. Just remember to moderate your comments and make the comments no-follow links.
With external links you will get a higher credibility and you will see your readers again.
Remember to grab the 3 free eBooks here at SeoCustomer with tips and tricks about SEO, SEM, Social Media Traffic and Link Building.
And join the conversation in our new SeoCustomer LinkedIn group too.
Time for my coffee – and to do some external linking.
All the best to you.
Henrik