Following Points must also be kept in mind before opting for your website design and its optimization.
* Avoid restricting yourself to the color choice that you like, instead, search for the color combinations that appeal to majority of the population. It might not be an important factor when you have a full-fledged website, but it does play an important role, when your visitors give importance to aesthetically pleasant layouts. In other words, a good site layout imparts a good first impression on your website visitors.
* Never choose free layouts for your websites. The major drawback of choosing free layouts for your site is, it does not impart a unique look to your site. There can be a lot of people using the same layout like yours. Therefore, always rent some designer or coder for coding a unique and fresh design for your own website, in order to really own its layout also. In the end, money spent upon coding and design will be paying you off in terms of your product sales.
* Avoid too much flash elements in your site’s design. The major disadvantage of excessive use of flash is, search engines do not identify it and it makes page loading difficult too. So, flash might look pleasing to your visitors, but search engines will be skipping all the components included under flash. Some search engines do also not identify Java scripts; however, they are not as big a problem as is flash loaded components.
While configuring your site for optimal exposure to the targeted traffic as well as to various search engines, you need to have a balanced approach towards layout of your site. As we have talked earlier, search engines do not see your site the way visitors see, so, you require a well-balanced template, which is soothing for the visitors as well as acceptable by the search engines at the same time.
You can start your site on any platform, for instance, you can order a website template or you can even use blog templates and configure them according to a full website. For beginners any kind of configuration can do the required thing. As, you start as a beginner, you can adapt yourself to either the famous blog software like wordpress, type-pad, moveable type, or you can order for coding of a standard website layout not based upon any blogging platform. Keep the following things in mind while choosing between any of the above platforms:
The site template which you are going to choose, should be of optimal visibility in the sense; it should have easily read fonts/font-size, soothing colors and “must be” professional looking.
After making and editing your site’s navigation bar and header links as per the product oriented keywords, move towards footer of your website. The latter strategy relates with the following one.
Take some of your site’s static sections, and add some keywords here and there. For example, at the footer of your page, instead of writing “Copyright 2008 yoursitename.com”, write “Copyright 2008 yoursitename.com – Dealing with…-appropriate description with keywords here-!”
There are also “ALT” tags. These ones go inside images’ HTML code. Use keywords in your ALT text, but make sure it still makes sense! “Title” tags inside links can also be “keyworded” in the same way. Now take all those tips I gave you above, and throw them into a mix! Combine <h1> tags with keyword remarking and anchored linking, etc. It all comes down to using the tricks together creatively but without spamming. A word of caution here. NEVER overuse these tactics. Remember, your website’s content is the most important part of it, for visitors and search engines alike. Write your content, your services, and your products description, and then use on-page optimization on that content. Never just stuff your web pages with keywords. Search Engines hate this and eventually you can be punished for that in the form of lower page ranks in various search engine listings, which find your site breaking general rules! Use keywords sparingly but surely, while applying these optimization tactics you will do fine.
Continuing with the site configuration, have a look at the other layout optimizing tips:
2. We also have what we call “keyword tagging”. Just mark your keywords in a certain way using HTML features. For example, make them bold or italic, a different color, etc.
Your site text should look like this:
Your keyword here – some text- keyword 1 – some text- keyword 2 –some text- and so on.
This way, search engines will spot your keywords easily and reward
your site!
3. Next, there are title tags. Use <h1> (main title), <h2> (subtitles) and <h3> (almost never used) title tags accordingly at the start of each page and paragraph throughout your site. Make each title “keywordy”!
Then we have internal linking. Your website probably has a “navigation bar” or section. First, make sure your navigation section is present and well linked in every page of your site. Then, take these links and “anchor” them accordingly. Instead of putting a link with the text “About us”, use “About our products (keyword with your service/product name) site”, for example. Be creative! Use your keywords in your links, but without keyword spamming either. Search engines keep crawling sites at regular intervals, so just be patient to have your site gaining popularity in their listings.
Next after purchasing a domain name comes configuring your site for search engines. As, we are going to deal with search engines and not with actual visitors at this very step, we are skipping the design and general layout of your site. For that, you can choose any template and later change it, as it does not affect search engine crawlers. Remember, search engines cannot see your site like humans, they can just “feel” it by its configuration for which they are programmed. Therefore, we will be skipping that step altogether.
When you have your domain name and your website template with you, the following tips and tricks can help your optimize your site for most of the major search engines used by people all around. Of course, you need some HTML knowledge for that, but you can just follow the simple guidelines here and it would be easier for you to implement the required changes in your website’s code.
1. First, we have Meta tags. I will not discuss how important or not these are (it is said that many search engines do not consider them). Just use them! It takes little time and can help you with some search engines.
Let us begin with the various possible and effective way to do search engine optimization and optimizing your site for the visitors.
1. Choosing a domain name: If you have already chosen a domain name for your site, you can skip these tips. We are proceeding from the very beginning of establishing your site, so describing it at the very first go. Search engine robots identify any website by its name or title and its description. You should keep some things in mind while choosing a domain name:
a) It should depict the central idea of your website. This helps visitors to recognize your services and provides you keyword rich domain name. It is not a convention for choosing “cars.com” for a cars website, but try to include at least one keyword which centers around your business’s theme.
b) You can choose domain names from any reliable registrars. Always make up your mind before purchasing a domain name to decide whether you want to buy a single domain name or in bulk. This saves your time as well as money.
c) Very long domain names, which contain very less keywords, are not considered advantageous in the end. Try to limit the domain names to 11 characters if you do not have significant keywords into it.
Even these three tips are sufficient for getting an appropriate domain name, signifying your marketing agenda.
Promoting your site through search engines is the most inexpensive way if you know how to make it search engine friendly. We have discussed in our previous posts about importance of search engines, and on how to make your site compatible with any search engine. It can be done both by using the paid methods provided by various online companies working in this arena or you can choose to do it manually. Let us discuss the various manual methods of making your site search engine friendly.
There is no single way to make your site search engine friendly or favorable. The reason for this is, search engines work on basis of some inbuilt and continuously updating algorithms, just as we make business plans and divide that into various steps; they have their own algorithms or criteria to “crawl” and “index” websites, which appear on this World Wide Web. Firstly, we will be focusing upon the general ideas behind making your site search engine friendly, and after that, the next step of making search engine love your site. This is not an overstatement, as you can easily do that by following the minimal requirements of search engine optimization.
So far, we have discussed about promoting online businesses using the tried and tested techniques related to everything other than search engines rankings. Let us now talk about the much “talked about” topic here about optimizing your website for getting higher rankings in search engines. How is it related to growth of your online business? Well, the word “online” describes the main purpose behind search engine techniques used to promote various websites. It is a topic of concern and of top most priority before even starting their online marketing businesses for many entrepreneurs.
Search engines have come into picture since the growth of this World Wide Web, as more the expansion of internet is happening, more it is becoming difficult to “find” some desired things by the visitors or net surfers. Usually people take help of these search engines to find appropriate things over net, and, often they prefer going to the sites, which are among the top listings in search results for particular words they have typed; in internet marketing, these are known as “keywords” for which users search on the search engines. If you are not convinced by the idea behind “visiting top listed sites”, just imagine it for yourself. If you search for, say, automobiles engine sales, you will be getting the top results for those three keywords “automobiles”, “engines”, and “sales” and the sites where all these would be together, would be the sites on top of search engines and also on top of your priority for visiting those sites.
Therefore, for of getting more targeted visitors to your products site, you would be needing specific keywords, defining your services as well as the needs of targeted market.
Till now you are very well aware of all the feasible and most common methods of promoting your website, as we have described the major and minor ways of promoting your website for getting leads and getting customers for your products. It is all a very serious approach towards building a long lasting impression over internet as well as making a place for your “domain” on World Wide Web. Please follow the methods of promoting your web site and online business in the previous posts, if you have missed them, and you will be getting a general picture of “how marketing and promotion” go hand-in-hand, if promotion is done effectively and sincerely.
Today, we will be discussing about those ways of promoting your business, which involve you as a customer and not as an active promoter. Here, we are talking about the paid services provided by various companies for promoting your sites. No doubt promoting your business goes the same way as does the general promotions in internet marketing world. Therefore, among them, services offerings “featured listings” in their directories need mention. You can submit your online site’s link and a brief description about your services and rest everything is done by them. No doubt, you have to look for their reputation first, before investing your money with them, as they can be frauds. Established sites providing site promotion services for money are a good way to be listed fast in search engines. Again, search engines act like guides for the visitors and the sites which are search-engine friendly often get higher ranks.
One more effective way to promote your products is to write about it, in a manner to convey the central idea or goal behind your business and the benefits of purchasing your products. Again, take an example of this very website, where we share our knowledge and ideas with business-minded people or with those who are “interested” in reading these ideas. In other words, only the targeted visitors become potential readers and read the posts here. If someone is not interested in business ideas or marketing strategies, he or she will obviously not be visiting here, unless got here by chance through some keyword search in any search engine. So, without explaining more, let us come to the point; promoting your web business, marketing techniques or anything related to general business. You should start promoting it using the technique of “explaining a bit or more” about your product line and services. How to do it?
1. Simplest way is, as we have said it in our previous posts, start a blog about your site and start posting there for updates.
2. Write an e-book about your business/products and again services.
3. Publish a journal (if it is in your budget) explaining your services in detail or short, whatever you prefer.
4. Make a brochure of your services and products. This helps in giving a glimpse and introduction about your site/business to the interested people without crossing budget limits.