Web Design Discussion

Did you know that your web site images get indexed and ranked by the search engines?

If you correctly optimize the images on your web site they can achieve high rankings. For example if you enter “horse” in the Google search box you’ll see several horse images for the top results. When you click on any of these images it will take you to their respective web sites. Image optimization gives you a leg up on your competitors who may not have implemented this strategy.

How to optimize your web site images?

1. Optimize the file name

Use the keyword that describes the image in your file name. Instead of naming your horse image “image1″ name it “horse.jpg”

2. Optimize your description

Search engines only read text therefore include your main keywords in the image description (alt tag). Make sure it clearly describes your image (and not something else). False use of this tag may alert the search engines you’re trying to trick them.


<img src="horse.jpg" alt="horse picture">


3. Optimize the image title tag

Example


<img src="horse.jpg" alt="horse picture" title="horse">


4. Optimize your content

The web copy surrounding your image also affects the position of your image in Google’s image search. So you would place the horse image within the copy containing horse content.

5. Include the width and height attributes

Larger images tend to do better than small images so include width and height dimensions to show search engines the size of the image.


<img src="horse.jpg" alt="horse picture" title="horse" width="640" height="480">


6. Optimize the web page

If you optimize your web page for a specific keyword it will do better in the search engines than a page that doesn’t have that focus. Using too many keywords in your web copy will dilute the ranking power for each keyword.

7. Use high quality images

If your image gets listed at the top of the first page it should be crisp and clear so visitors will want to click it to view the image on your web site.

Go through the images on your web site to make sure they are correctly optimized. It may give a boost to your current search engines rankings.

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Most webmasters focus exclusively on getting good rankings in Google because it’s what most people use when doing a search. By ignoring the other major search engines you lose the visitors that don’t use Google. Bing and Yahoo also attract a great number of people. Recently Bing improved it’s market share so it’s worthwhile pursuing link building strategies for this search engine.

Link Building Strategies for Bing

Be careful how you acquire links to your web site. If Bing detects a sudden massive increase in links it may trigger a spam filter and handicap your ranking potential. Don’t link to sites that are unrelated to your own. Bing rewards you for relevancy. For example if your site is about camping seek out blogs, forums, etc that relate to camping.

Here are some link building tips recommended by the Bing community

• Develop your site as a business brand and be consistent about that branding in your content
• Identify relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media people and let them know about your site and its content

• Write and publish concise, informative press releases online as developments warrant

• Publish expert articles to online article directories

• Participate in relevant blogs and forums and refer back to your site’s content when applicable (Note that some blogs and forums add the rel=”nofollow” attribute to links created in user-generated content (UGC). While creating links to your content in these locations won’t automatically create backlinks for search engines, readers who click through and like what they find may create outbound links to your site, and those are good.)

• Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to connect to industry influencers to establish contacts, some of whom may connect back to you (be sure you have your profiles set up with links back to your website first)

• Create an online newsletter on your site with e-mail subscription notifications

• Launch a blog or interactive user forum on your site

• Join and participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums

• Ultimately, strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry and let people know that your website contains your published wit and wisdom

Source
Link building for smart webmasters

Link building must be done consistently and frequently to be effective. Make a goal of acquiring new incoming links each week while constantly adding new content.

Also read SEO Marketing Tactics to Generate Web Site Traffic

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So you’ve built your web site and need to drive traffic to it. Without web traffic your site is dead in the water. No visitors mean no sales. To generate traffic you need to optimize your web pages then build links to them.

SEO Marketing Tactics to Promote Your Web Site

1. Create a list of targeted keywords

Use the Google keyword research tool to generate your list of targeted keywords. Use these keywords to build your search engine rankings.

2. Optimize web pages for long tail keywords

Add content using your long tail keywords first because these are easier to get rankings for. Work on building more pages that are optimized for different but related keywords. Once you’ve achieved top rankings for these keywords move on to more competitive ones.

For example, start with the keywords “chocolate truffles in dallas texas”, “boxed gourmet chocolate truffles in dallas” etc. Google will know that your website is relevant to the topic “chocolate truffles” when you’ve got high rankings for several of these long tail keyword phrases.

Once Google knows your web site is themed for “chocolate truffles” it will be easier to get ranked for more competitive keywords.

3. Get high quality links

When you do a backlink check on your competitors’ sites you may see 1000s of links. It’s not always necessary to have more links than your competitors. You just need higher quality links. These are links from sites that are well established, have a high page rank and receive lots of traffic. These may include article directories, social media, educational, and government sites.

4. Use anchor text

When getting links to your web site use the targeted keyword phrase as the link text (anchor text). It carries more authority that a standard link. Receiving 100s of general links won’t help your rankings as much as a few dozen links from high authority sites.

5. Write and publish articles

All web sites constantly need good content. Get into the practice of writing high quality content that targets your keywords. Add the content to your web site, submit it to top article directories, social media sites, ezine publishers and /or offer it as a guest article on an authority site.

Once you’ve optimized both your web pages and have a good number of high quality inbound links, it will be easy to outrank web sites that only focused on one element.

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Are you always checking your web site rankings?
Is your traffic dependent on maintaining top rankings?
Do your rankings convert into sales?

Attaining top search engine rankings doesn’t always translate into a successful online business as there are multiple factors influencing a visitor’s decision.

Here are 5 reasons why top rankings don’t guarantee success

1. Search engine ranking formulas change

You may enjoy top rankings for a while when suddenly your site disappears. This is because search engines constantly change their ranking formulas.

2. Competing web sites

Your rankings may drop due to other sites competing for the same top position. If your only source of traffic is from the search engines you may suddenly have no sales and be out of business if you lose your top position.

3. Geo targeted search results

If you enter “shoes” in the Google search box local business companies are displayed in the search results in Google maps and the Google ads on the right side of the page. This is because search engines know your location by your IP address and will provide results that are beneficial to you.

The same happens when searching within your Google or Yahoo account. You’ll receive personalized search results based on your preferences. Google is always trying to make searches more targeted so you quickly receive the information you seek. The rankings you see from your desktop may not be the same as what others see.

4. Top rankings don’t mean more traffic

It’s easy to achieve top rankings for keywords no one is searching for. The search engine company you hired may give you a list of all the keyword phrases that received first page rankings. These keywords are useless if they don’t increase the number of visitors to your web site.

5. Top rankings don’t equal sales

If your web site looks unprofessional it will turn away your visitors. Some other factors that influence conversions include:

• poorly written web copy
• slow loading times
• difficulty navigating to other pages
• broken links
• cluttered web page

Instead of constantly checking your rankings evaluate the performance of your web pages to convert visitors into sales.

Also read How to Optimize Your Google Maps Listing

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Most ecommerce web pages are filled with lots of product images so visitors need to scroll through them to select the one they wish to purchase. One highly effective way to display multiple images on a page is with a free flash image rotator (slide show). It spices up the web page and increases interactivity.

To see it in action check out this Chocolate Truffles Web Site.

Benefits of the flash image rotator

• Catches the attention of visitors
• Enables rotation of multiple images
• Create single or multiple slide transition effects ie fade, bgfade, blocks, bubbles, circles, flash, fluids, lines or slowfade.
• Control speed of transitions
• Automatically repeat playback of all images
• Playback images in random order
• Display a navigation bar to navigate images
• Assign an MP3 to use for background music
• Able to jump to a web page when clicking on the display result
• Adjust height and width of the rotator

Download, Installation, Configuration

You can download the JW Image Rotator 3.17 at:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-image-rotator/

Instead of sticking with static product images try the free flash image rotator. It will liven up your web pages with some very cool effects.

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Need help installing, configuring the flash image rotator for your web site?
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If it’s blatantly obvious your web page has been optimized for the search engines Google may penalize you. In past years site owners stuffed hundreds of keywords in the keyword meta tag to improve their rankings. As a result this tag was rendered almost useless. The same could happen to your web pages.

Google frowns upon pages that have been over optimized and may lower your rankings as a result. This is why Google constantly changes their ranking rules.

Here are some of the most common places keywords are inserted on a web page:

• domain name
• tilte meta tags
• description meta tag
• keyword meta tag
• H1, H2, H3 tags
• file name
• several times in the first paragraph
• bolded text
• multiple times throughout the web copy
• hyperlinks in the web copy
• navigation links

Inserting your keyword phrase in all these locations could trigger a spam filter as it’s obvious the page has been SEOed.

How should you optimize your web page?

Write naturally without thinking about where to place your keywords. If you’re always thinking about optimizing your content it will be obvious to your readers. The content may not flow well because you’ve included your keyword phrase too many times.

After you’ve finished writing your content go through it to check how many times you’ve mentioned your keyword. Shoot for 2%. This means 1 keyword for every 200 words.

Your home page should contain general keywords because it summarizes what your web site is about whereas the internal pages should contain more specific keywords related to your topic.

Instead of using the same keyword phrase throughout your web copy use several related keywords. For example if your main phrase is “article marketing” you could also use content marketing, content promotion, strategies for marketing with articles, etc. By using 2-5 words in your phrase your content not only reads better for your audience but it’s not obvious your spamming the search engines.

The next time you write web content let it flow naturally from your mind without correcting it along the way. Only edit when completed. This will enable you to churn out well written content quickly and easily.

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Link building is a necessity if you want your web site to increase or maintain rankings in the search engines. Even though you may currently enjoy your first page rankings, don’t get too comfortable because competing web sites may have link building campaigns running. Suddenly you may lose your position.

Instead of looking for new links everyday use viral marketing. This means people link to your web site automatically without you manually searching for them all the time.

Top 7 viral marketing strategies:

1. Create valuable content

Web site owners and newsletter publishers are always looking for unique content that offers great value to their readers. If you create a well written article it will keep working for you over and over again. People will automatically want to link ot it. One great article can become a viral marketing machine.

2. Create short reports

Bundle several of your articles into a report of 10-25 pages. Be sure to include links to your products and/or web site. Offer the report to your newsletter subscribers and/or offer it to other publishers or website owners. Submit it to ebook directories. By freely distributing your report you you create a viral affect.

3. Build a team of affiliates

You’ve probably been an affiliate for a clickbank or commission junction product. You automatically help build links for the product owner by promoting their product. Why not do the same for your own products and create a team of affiliates. The number of links (and sales) will increase in proportion to the number of affiliates on your team.

4. Write a press release

Convert one of your well written articles to a press release then distribute it to free and paid press release sites. If you’re a local business send it to local radio and newspaper outlets. You not only get high value liinks from these sites but it helps generate traffic by people finding out about you.

6. Social media

Employing social media sites such as twitter, facebook, youtube and social bookmarking sites your content goes viral. Instead of spending time getting one link at a time you can generate 100s of links with social media.

7. Article directories

The top article directories receive millions of visitors every week. If you constantly write and submit fresh articles to them they will continue to generate backlinks for you. This occurs because you are allowed 2 links in the resource box at the end of your article. When your articles get published all over the Web you have a link building machine that works for you every day hands free.

Start your link building campaign today by using one or all of these techniques. You’ll attract more visitors and increase search engine rankings.

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So you’ve just paid big bucks for your newly designed web site but don’t know if you received everything you paid for. What you assumed would be included may not be present. This could affect the long term performance of your site.

Read through this 16 point checklist for an evaluation of your new or current web site.

1. Design

Make sure it’s a professional looking design, that loads fast (displays in a few seconds on a cable connection) and is easily navigable. If it contains lots of videos and images the loading time will be slow.

2. Navigation

Web designers often use images and javascript for navigation. These don’t get indexed by the search engines. It’s better to have textual navigation. This can be created with CSS (cascading style sheets).

Make sure your home page links to all your internal pages and your internal pages link back to your home page. If you have pages that are several directories from the home page create a site map that contains descriptions and links to your whole site.

3. Place CSS and Javascript in an external file

If all the css and javascript code is included on the web page it will slow the loading time
and limit search engines ability to quickly index the content. Create an external file for the CSS code and one for the javascript code.

4. Meta Tags

The title tag is the most important. Place your most important keyword at the beginning.
Keep your title no more than 6 to 10 words long. Your description meta tag should be no more than 200 characters long. Keep your keywords meta-tag length between 200 and 500 characters. Use different meta tags on every page of your site.

5. Header tags (H1, H2, H3)

These are used for headings and sub headings. The H1 heading tag should include your main keyword. It will help your site’s rankings.

6. Image tags

Name your image files based on what the image. Include alt tags in the description of your images. Search engines can read text but not images.

7. HTML validation

HTML errors may prevent search engines from spidering your pages and they may not render well across all the major browsers. Make sure your HTML validates by visiting:

http://www.validator.w3.org/

8. Check cross browser compatibility

Check if your web site displays correctly in all major browsers. Internet Explorer and Firefox are the main browsers however also check Chrome, Opera and Safari.

9. Check screen resolution

Most computers these days use a screen resolution of 1024×768 pixels or above. If the designer used percentages for creating tables your web site may stretch to accommodate a large screen and look weird. Ask friends with different screen sizes to view your site.

10. Check broken links

Broken links don’t get indexed by the search engines and will turn off your visitors because they received the dreaded 404 error page which means “page not found”.

11. Redirect non-www web pages

If you can access your web site with domain.com, http://domain.com and www.domain.com it means the search engines see 3 different web sites. Google “301 redirect” to read how to redirect these different URLs to one URL.

12. Link popularity

The number and quality of links pointing to your site determines your rankings in the search engines. Use Yahoo Site Explorer to check how many links you have pointing to your site.

13. Site Map

A site map page displays the links of all of your pages making it easy for visitors to navigate your web site and search engines to index it. Also create a Google Site Map to help Google find your pages.

14. Web Copy

Weave your main keyword phrases into the content of your web pages. Search engines find your content based on the keywords you use.

15. RSS feed

People like to keep up to date with content from multiple web sites. Having an RSS feed on your site means visitors can easily keep track of new content plus your RSS file can be submitted to RSS directories thus bringing you more visitors.

16. Monitor your web statistics and rankings

Most web hosting services include web statistics with your account. This enables you to view the number of visitors, where they came from and what keywords they used to find your site.

If you don’t have access to web statistics create a Google Analytics account.

Check your rankings by visiting Alexa.com. It will show your traffic statistics in relation to other web sites. If it’s a new site it probably won’t appear in the search engines yet.

By following this 16 point checklist you can evaluate whether your web site has all the correct components and will perform well for years to come.

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Link building is a highly effective method for generating traffic to your web site or blog. A link from a high quality site will boost your search engine rankings. For example if CNN featured your business on their site you would receive a sudden boost in traffic. Getting back links from high traffic sites is not easy because most people don’t exchange links anymore.

Another method is to get lots of sites linking to yours. The more links you receive the better your rankings. This can be a very time consuming process.

Benefits of Articles for Link Building

Writing articles kills 2 birds with one stone. You get high quality links from article directories plus the more articles you write and submit the more links you generate. The top article directories receive millions of visitors every week so you will receive some of those visitors. Ezine publishers or site owners may select your article for their ezine or add it to their web page thus multiplying your link power.

How to Use Articles for Link Building

• Choose a niche you’re passionate about.
• Create a list of keywords on your niche topic
• Write a 400-500 word article for each keyword.
• Weave the keyword into your title, introductory paragraph, article body and resource box.
• The 2 links in the resource box should include anchor text using the keyword plus your full web site address.
• Submit your article(s) to the top article directories.

Repurpose your articles to build more links

Create a short report
If you write a series of articles, create a short report by bundling them together. Submit your report to ebook directories. Offer it for free to other site owners and ezine publishers. The links within your report will spread virally throughout the net.

Publish it to your blog or web site
Continually adding content to your blog or web site causes search engines to spider it. It also increases the stickiness of your site for visitors. They’ll want to link to your articles.

Be a guest blogger
Search for bloggers in your niche and offer exclusive rights to your article. If it’s a very popular blog you’ll get lots of links and traffic from people reading your article and finding your site from the link in your resource box.

Publish to social media sites
Add your article to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Hubpages, etc. By varying the locations you receive links from, assures search engines you’re not spamming them by generating links from one source.

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Press releases are a highly effective method for building traffic to your product or service. It’s not used much by online marketers so you can use it to stand out from your competitors. The biggest problem in getting started is writing the press release however the steps below will show you how to convert the content you’ve already written into a press release for your business.

1. Release instructions

This is placed at the top of your document . Mention if it’s for “immediate release” or “for release on some future date.”

2. Create a newsworthy headline

Press release distribution sites are looking for stories that will capture the attention of their audience. Look at the articles written in newspapers. They often begin with a story to capture the attention of the reader.

Example

Instead of your title saying “How to Convert Your Article to A Press Release” write “Mary shows you how to gain free publicity by converting your article to a press release”

3. Create a summary

Write 2 or 3 sentences that expand on your headline. It should summarize what your press release (article) is about.

4. Add your main content

This should consist of 400-500 words maximum explaining the significance of your topic and how it will help your audience. For example if you were to take the topic of this article you could describe how press releases help attract traffic, build your brand and get high rankings in the search engines.

If your article contains how to information that sounds boring spice it up a little to make it more newsworthy. Try to make your story relevant and create a sense of urgency. This will help it get accepted by the media.

5. Create an about section

This should summarize what your company is about. Include a call to action by introducing your product or service, where the business is located and web site address.

6. Include contact information

This is added to the end of your press release so media can contact you for any questions. Include the contact person, their position, name of the company, phone number and email address.

7. The ending

End your press release by adding ### centered at the bottom.

Google “free press release websites” to find locations online where you can submit your document.

If you’re introducing a new product, service or have redesigned your web site consider sending a press release to let people know about it. It’s a fast and easy way to generate immediate traffic.

Also read Top 7 benefits of a press release

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