Web Design Discussion

A static site is what most people have been using to get their businesses on the Net. These days blogs are becoming popular because they are easier to create and maintain, however there is now an easy way to convert a blog to a static web site and still retain all its benefits.

What is a Blog?

A blog is a database-driven web site that generates dynamic web pages. It can be easily and frequently updated. Often a blog is added to a static web site or stands on its own.

What is a Static Site?

A static site used html pages and is not database-driven. It is still the most popular type of web site because it’s relatively easy to build.

Top 10 Benefits of a Blog

1. Separate content from design

If you use blogging software such as WordPress you have hundreds of templates to choose from. Because the design is separate to the template design you can change the design of your whole web site in a few seconds and still keep the content intact.

2. Easy installation and set-up

Most web hosts enable you to do a one click installation of WordPress from the cpanel (admin panel). If your web host doesn’t have this feature find another. With the admin panel of your WordPress Blog you can change the theme with another click or choose from hundreds of doing a search on Google for “WordPress Themes”

3. Easy maintenance

Instead of using FTP to upload and download files, you simply login to the admin panel, write your content, then save it. You’re new web page is immediately generated.

4. Search engine friendly

Because blogs usually contain fresh content, the search engines love them and will index the pages faster than static sites.

5. Automatic RSS Feeds
Your content is automatically syndicated to RSS directories because RSS is already built into the WordPress blog. Every time you write a post the software pings the RSS feed directories. This means more traffic to your blog.

Blogging is a great way to rapidly build links to your web site. If you don’t have a website you can easily create a blog in a few minutes by installed the WordPress software that comes with your web host or add a blog to a subdirectory of your current site.

According to blog tracking firm Technorati, there are currently 14 million blogs with 80,000 more being added every day. And 30 percent of all 50 million internet users are blog readers. In short, a lot of people are reading and writing blogs.

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Official Word Press Theme Page
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Get New Themes
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes#Get_New_Themes

Word Press Theme Viewer
http://themes.wordpress.net/

10 Most Downloaded Themes
http://themes.wordpress.net/columns/1-column/3695/cloudblue-10/

Sadish Themes (person whose themes I like personally)
http://sadish.net/wordpress-themes/

AdSense Revenue Exposed
How to Turn Your Web Site’s Content Into Cash

How To Optimize Your Blog for the Search Engines

Need to put up a blog for your business? There are hundreds of Free WordPress Templates available that will allow you to set one up very quickly without the need for customization.

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Instead of spending thousands of dollars for a customized design for your wordpress blog, you might want to look through the free wordpress themes to find a template that fits your business model.

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After you’ver installed your WordPress Blog you will notice all URLS contain “id” in them. This means they are not search engine friendly…search engines have a difficult time spidering this type of URL therefore you will lose traffic.

You need to optimize your blog by converting your long URLS to ones that include the title of your post.

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If you want to attract visitors to your blog you need to market it on a continous basis. You won’t see any increase in web traffic if you just throw up a blog on the Web and expect it to get traffic immediately. Create a simple marketing plan first using the methods below, then stick to it.

Here are the top 12 ways to market your blog:

1. Add fresh content

You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king.” This is because content is what the web consists of. Search engines
primarily spider content on web pages and information is what people search for. I try to add content to my blog at least 3 times a week to keep visitors and search engines happy.

2. Research keywords

If you have a business blog that has AdSense Ads or Affiliate Programs on it be sure to research your best keywords first
then integrate them into your content. You won’t attract search engines or visitors if you write on topics people are not
interested in (ie you only receive a small number of searches for that term). I use SEARCH IT for all my keyword research. It’s a free SEO tool that not only provides you with targeted keywords, but also shows what competing sites are doing to get good rankings.

3. Placement of keywords

Include your keywords in the meta tags (title and description tags) and within your content. Your title is the most important tag because visitors will read this first before your main content. The title also appears at the top of your visitors’ browsers.

4. Create an attractive headline

Write a catchy headline for each post. For example the headline of this post explains what you are writing about (Top 12 ways to
market your blog) and what benefit you receive (Increase web traffic). The headline needs to pull the reader into the content.

The other points are discussed in my next post……

Blogs are meant to make it easy to find information however I find them still somewhat awkward to navigate sometimes. I will search through the recent posts, categories, archives and finally enter my keyword in the search box (maybe I should have
done this first) before I find the specific topic. Some blogs have posts that are not even related to the blog’s title.

Adding a Site Map to your blog makes it incredibly easy for any visitor to quickly scan all the categories and posts of your blog. All the information from your blog can be neatly arranged in a vertical order down your site map page. Your posts are automatically placed under their appropriate categories.

You can see it in action by visiting my site map page

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Many site owners make the mistake of duplicating their site’s home page. They will have the same content for http://www.url.com, http://url.com, and http://www.url.com/index.html. This will result in lost link value and therefore damage the rankings of the site’s homepage. For example you may have your internal links pointing to http://www.url.com but outside sites may be linking to http://url.com. Therefore you will be diluting the effectiveness of your site.

If you find many links outside the site pointing to both the non-www and the www version, it may be wise to use a 301 re-write rule so all pages will be redirected to the same url.

How to include the 301 re-write rule in your web site

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Wordpress has a built-in feature which allows you to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of web traffic immediately. You automatically gain backlinks to your blog.

What are pingbacks?

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