Keyword and description meta tags optimization tutorial for better search engine rankings. Have you ever wondered why some web pages get higher search engine rankings than others? Of course you have, if you are a web developer. You may have read or heard of a hundred ways to improve your page ranking and tried them all. Only to see dismal results and wonder what the heck went wrong.
Been there and done that. So I thought I would let you in on the secrets I use to get my pages to rank high in the search engines. Once you read these tricks you might think that is so obvious I should have thought of it.
Here are the 10 rules I use to search engine optimize a page for keywords and description meta tags.
1. First let's assume that you already know what the page is about and have already created it. This is not a tutorial on how to write web pages. Rather guidelines for search engine optimization using your meta keywords and description tags.
Depending on the type of page you are creating determines how many keywords you should use. For instance a sales letter is typically 2000 or more words. In that type of page you need to describe all the advantages of your product and why it is the right solution. You will want to get testimonials and place them in appropiate places. You may even want to tell a story relating to how well the product has performed. Don't over do the page or you will lose your prospect to boredom.
The product page (different from the sales letter) should be between 500 and 750 words. All you are trying to do here is sell a product. Visitors that make it to these pages probably already know what they are looking for and are only looking for specific information. Your job is to convince them that your product is the right one. Beyond that and there is more opportunity for your visitors to disagree with your pitch and move on.
The article page should be at least 1000 words and not more than 5000 words. Okay some might say that 5000 is too long and others have said that isn't 1000 words aren't enough words to describe what they have to say. Too long - some say that 500 words is good for an article page. So lets look at this: a person who can read 10 words a second will be through your page in 50 seconds. Not enough time for them to soak up your message. A person reading 3 words a second will take about 2-1/2 minutes. Plenty of time for your message to sink in.
The average reader can read somewhere around 6 words per second. Which would take them 83 seconds to read your 500 word article. Barely enough time to get your visitors comfortable. At 1000 words the avearge reader will read your page in roughly 3 minutes. At 6 words a second your reader needs around 3 minutes to read a 1000 word article. This plenty of time for the reader to make a decision to click on your most wanted response.
At over 2000 words the average reader will need 5-1/2 minutes to get through it. This is stretching the limit of time most visitors will spend reading one web page. At 5000 words the average reader takes over 13 minutes to read your page. This is well past the amount of time a visitor will need to decide to click on your most wanted response. If your article is really good most people will read all the way through it. If not they are off to the next website in a flash. If you have more than 2000 words you may want to consider breaking the article into 2 pages.
Okay, back to rule #1 use the right amount of words for a particular type of page. Not too many and not too few.
2. Primary meta keyword (the first one) must be an exact match with the file name of your page. This lets the search engines match up your keyword with your page and give your page higher relevancy. Here is an example from: Ocular Defense Formula (Pr2 and #2 in Google). The first keyword for this page is "Ocular Defense Formula." This seemingly obsure product gets 33,000+ search engine results in Google alone. So it is not that obscure after all. And makes for a good example.
3. Use only 5 keywords in your meta keywords tag. More than that and the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and won't list your page. The search engines rank your keywords in the order that they appear. This makes the first one the primary keyword and the second one a secondary keyword and so on. You should line your keywords up in the order of relevance to the page. Here is the meta keyword tag I used in this example.
"Ocular Defense Formula, Lutein, Bilberry, eye health, vision"
4. Use all of your keywords in your meta description, with the primary keyword as close to the front as possible. Definitely within the first 5 words of your description. The search engines don't read your description verbatim, but can find and match them with your keyword list. So try to use them all but don't repeat them if at all possible. Again if your meta description repeats your keywords too often the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and not list your page, so don't do it.
5. Meta description should be between 100 and 200 characters. It is important to get a solid description of your page. Less that 100 characters and the search engine may not find it relevant enough to list. More than 200 characters and the search engines may truncate it. Which looks unprofessional on your part. Truncated meta descriptions may leave searchers with the impression that your content will be too wordy and full of you know what. Too short a description and your visitors may think there is not enough information on your page and move on to the next result. So try to get your description just right, not too long and not too short. Here is the meta description for ODF.
"Ocular Defense Formula with Lutein, Bilberry and herbs to support eye health and protect your vision from aging and oxidation. Learn how to improve your visual acuity."
6. Line up your meta keywords up too resemble a sentence. Although search engines don't read your keywords as a sentence verbatim, it should reflect well what your page is all about. See the meta keyword tag above.
7. Proof read your content twice. You should always proof read your work before you post for a lot of good reasons like spelling, grammar, placement and paragraph distribution. Once your page looks great proof read it again with your focus on keyword placement and repitition. You want your keywords placed in your content sparingly. What? you say. Again over use of your keywords might result in the search engines thinking you are keyword spamming. That isn't to say you shouldn't have too few. My rule of thumb is 3 uses of a keyword for every 300 words. This lets the search engines know that there is a lot of supporting content for the keyword.
As you are proof reading you may discover that you have a much better keyword for your meta tag than what you originally thought. For instance in ODF I discovered that I had left out the keyword "vision". After proof reading my page I added that keyword to my list and used it a couple more times in the page.
8. Put your meta description all on one line in your html code. This will ensure that the search engines reads it all. I have noticed that some search engine results leave off the second line of a description. That may leave out some of your meta keywords if that happens.
9. Never use more than 3 words for your primary keyword (and file name). People rarely search for a keyword phrase over 3 words long. Too many words in a keyword phrase and the search engines may not find enough relevancy to list your page in the results. Two words in a keyword phrase (and file name) is ideal. For Ocular Defense Formula, I thought 2 words weren't enough to describe the page. "Ocular Defense" would have been too vague and misleading. I could have named the page something else and optimized for those keywords, but, ODF is a product page and optimizing for something like "Eye Health" would have been misleading and probably not get listed high in the search engines.
10. Use your primary keyword in the first and last paragraph of your page. The search engines will give more relevancy to your page if they find your keywords at the beginning and the end of your page. Also your primary keyword should appear in the first 90 characters of your content.
Bonus tip - Use your primary keyword as a text link in your page only once. Not twice but definitely once. If you don't want your visitors to leave your page make that link an "add to favorites" bookmark. On a product page this works great because you don't want to give your visitors the opportunity to go else where.
In summary use these tips to increase your search engine rankings. Optimizing your keyword and descriptions should improve the relevancy of your page and boost your search engine rankings. Notice how I used my primary keyword and description meta tags in this last paragraph.
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About the Author: Tim Koen - web developer, http://www.best-website-tools.com. Tool Time blog. All the best website tools, tips and techniques to grow your online business.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
My Key Finder
I just released my key finder today, actually it's two weeks old but version 3 went up today. My wife Tami is selling purse acessories and i am trying to get links for the site. if anyone needs key finders aka key finder purse then you have found the place. She is also selling purse hangers as well.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Site Search As Key Performance Indicator
Do you know what's happening in your own site search? Understanding site search is one of the most important KPI (Key Performance Indicator) you should measure.
According to a Forrester study, over 50 percent of major web sites fail in search usability. When your search fails to deliver, your conversion suffers. A low converting site will result is less sales and decreased revenue.
Search is not just another nice feature to have. You have to think of search as a revenue generating part of your business.
Your company works hard to drive traffic to your site. Many visitors will use your on site search instead of browsing through your site. Online shoppers want to use site search to expedite the shopping experience. The faster and easier they can locate the product they are looking for the more likely they'll buy on your site. The more roadblock you set in place to inconvenience the shopper, the more likely they'll buy from someone else.
Do you know what they are searching for? Are you in any way measuring what search phrases are queried on your site? It is not enough to have site search as a feature. You must analyze it. You have to understand it. Then, you have to make adjustments based on your findings.
The best place to start learning about your site search is through the search log files. If you don't monitor your log files, you will fail to gain an insight into what your customers are looking for on your site. Understanding site search is a KPI that should be part of your tactical operations. Learning about site search will tell you what your customers are looking for.
In addition to understanding what site visitors are searching for, you have to test what results yield from searches. For example, if your customers are searching for "return policy" what results are they shown? Are the search results relevant to the search queries? If the result you get is not the best possible result, you have to tweak you search engine.
The top few results must be relevant, because searchers are not interested in reading deep down your search results. Result number 10 is infinitely more irrelevant than result number 1.
Every reasonable search phrase should result in relevant search results. For example, if the site searcher types "return policy" in the search field, the search should result in some result. Every e-commerce site should have a return policy; therefore, the site search should yield the relevant result.
One of the worst possible outcomes for a search query would be no result. If a user types any relevant key phrase, it should result in relevant results. If they don't, your search is failing your customers.
Site search is a tool to enhance customer satisfaction. If it works as it is supposed to, it has done its job. If site search fails it becomes a frustrating experience instead of a positive experience resulting in lower conversion rates, lost sales opportunities, loss of revenue and unhappy site visitors.
________________________________________
About the Author: George Meszaros - Webene.com, web site design and online marketing.
According to a Forrester study, over 50 percent of major web sites fail in search usability. When your search fails to deliver, your conversion suffers. A low converting site will result is less sales and decreased revenue.
Search is not just another nice feature to have. You have to think of search as a revenue generating part of your business.
Your company works hard to drive traffic to your site. Many visitors will use your on site search instead of browsing through your site. Online shoppers want to use site search to expedite the shopping experience. The faster and easier they can locate the product they are looking for the more likely they'll buy on your site. The more roadblock you set in place to inconvenience the shopper, the more likely they'll buy from someone else.
Do you know what they are searching for? Are you in any way measuring what search phrases are queried on your site? It is not enough to have site search as a feature. You must analyze it. You have to understand it. Then, you have to make adjustments based on your findings.
The best place to start learning about your site search is through the search log files. If you don't monitor your log files, you will fail to gain an insight into what your customers are looking for on your site. Understanding site search is a KPI that should be part of your tactical operations. Learning about site search will tell you what your customers are looking for.
In addition to understanding what site visitors are searching for, you have to test what results yield from searches. For example, if your customers are searching for "return policy" what results are they shown? Are the search results relevant to the search queries? If the result you get is not the best possible result, you have to tweak you search engine.
The top few results must be relevant, because searchers are not interested in reading deep down your search results. Result number 10 is infinitely more irrelevant than result number 1.
Every reasonable search phrase should result in relevant search results. For example, if the site searcher types "return policy" in the search field, the search should result in some result. Every e-commerce site should have a return policy; therefore, the site search should yield the relevant result.
One of the worst possible outcomes for a search query would be no result. If a user types any relevant key phrase, it should result in relevant results. If they don't, your search is failing your customers.
Site search is a tool to enhance customer satisfaction. If it works as it is supposed to, it has done its job. If site search fails it becomes a frustrating experience instead of a positive experience resulting in lower conversion rates, lost sales opportunities, loss of revenue and unhappy site visitors.
________________________________________
About the Author: George Meszaros - Webene.com, web site design and online marketing.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Optimizing Your Site for Both Google and Yahoo!
Search engine optimization techniques for Google and Yahoo are quite different. Many websites rank well in one search engine but not the other. This is the direct result of each search engine having its own unique ranking algorithm. For example, the Google algorithm predominantly values the anchor text of in-bound links. Yahoo places more emphasis on keyword density and meta tags.
The primary reason for the difference in ranking algorithms is that Google owns the patent on Page Rank (PR), named after Google's founder Larry Page. As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimization factors including website URL, keyword density and so on.
What are the greatest differences in search engine algorithms?
Google places a significant amount of emphasis on inbound links to your website. The value of these inbound links are measured based on their Google PR. The more links you receive from high Google PR web pages, the better your search result placements will be for a given keyword or search term.
Yahoo places emphasis on website URLs, meta tags, and keyword density. These factors can be analyzed on any website with a limited amount of effort, allowing Yahoo to quickly and easily rank websites properly.
How you can optimize your website for both Google and Yahoo!
The challenge all website owners face is making the most of their optimization efforts. When thinking about search engine optimization, you need to cover all the bases. To do so, pay particular attention to the following guidelines.
Keyword Targeted URL. If your website URL doesn't contain your keywords, consider purchasing a new one or creating a new page off of your root directory (ex: marketingscoop.com/internetmarketing.htm). Having your keywords in the URL helps improve both your Yahoo and Google search results. Yahoo weighs the website address as an important ranking factor. Google values a keyword rich URL when third party websites place a link to your site using nothing but a web address.
Meta Tags. Although not as important as they once were, Yahoo still uses meta tags to help align search engine rankings and appropriate website pages. Make sure that your meta tags are complete and include your keyword phrases in the title, description, and keyword tags.
Keyword Density Between 6 - 8%. Although much has been written about the importance of keyword density remaining between 2 - 3%, Yahoo looks for sites with keyword densities as high as 8%. Don't be afraid to include your keywords throughout your webpage content. Make sure however, that your keyword density is not more than 8%.
Link Building. This is the most important factor for increasing Google search result placements. Develop a link building campaign and give other sites a reason to link to your site. This may include free downloads, tools, or other valuable resources.
Site Map. Publish a sitemap. This makes it easy for search engines to spider your website and access all of your most important web pages. Site maps should be accessible from your home page and kept up-to-date.
Optimizing for both Google and Yahoo can be challenging. Following basic seo principles and working to develop incoming links can help you reach the top of the largest search engines. Apply these techniques regularly to see the greatest results.
________________________________________
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert with more than 12 years of Internet marketing experience. Learn how to improve search engine rankings with his latest ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.
The primary reason for the difference in ranking algorithms is that Google owns the patent on Page Rank (PR), named after Google's founder Larry Page. As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimization factors including website URL, keyword density and so on.
What are the greatest differences in search engine algorithms?
Google places a significant amount of emphasis on inbound links to your website. The value of these inbound links are measured based on their Google PR. The more links you receive from high Google PR web pages, the better your search result placements will be for a given keyword or search term.
Yahoo places emphasis on website URLs, meta tags, and keyword density. These factors can be analyzed on any website with a limited amount of effort, allowing Yahoo to quickly and easily rank websites properly.
How you can optimize your website for both Google and Yahoo!
The challenge all website owners face is making the most of their optimization efforts. When thinking about search engine optimization, you need to cover all the bases. To do so, pay particular attention to the following guidelines.
Keyword Targeted URL. If your website URL doesn't contain your keywords, consider purchasing a new one or creating a new page off of your root directory (ex: marketingscoop.com/internetmarketing.htm). Having your keywords in the URL helps improve both your Yahoo and Google search results. Yahoo weighs the website address as an important ranking factor. Google values a keyword rich URL when third party websites place a link to your site using nothing but a web address.
Meta Tags. Although not as important as they once were, Yahoo still uses meta tags to help align search engine rankings and appropriate website pages. Make sure that your meta tags are complete and include your keyword phrases in the title, description, and keyword tags.
Keyword Density Between 6 - 8%. Although much has been written about the importance of keyword density remaining between 2 - 3%, Yahoo looks for sites with keyword densities as high as 8%. Don't be afraid to include your keywords throughout your webpage content. Make sure however, that your keyword density is not more than 8%.
Link Building. This is the most important factor for increasing Google search result placements. Develop a link building campaign and give other sites a reason to link to your site. This may include free downloads, tools, or other valuable resources.
Site Map. Publish a sitemap. This makes it easy for search engines to spider your website and access all of your most important web pages. Site maps should be accessible from your home page and kept up-to-date.
Optimizing for both Google and Yahoo can be challenging. Following basic seo principles and working to develop incoming links can help you reach the top of the largest search engines. Apply these techniques regularly to see the greatest results.
________________________________________
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert with more than 12 years of Internet marketing experience. Learn how to improve search engine rankings with his latest ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
SE Tactics: How to Avoid Alienating the Major Search Engines
Each of the major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN have quality webmaster guidelines in place to prevent the unfair manipulation of search engine rankings by unscrupulous website owners. These webmaster guidelines change frequently to 'weed' out any new deceptive practices and those websites found engaging in these illicit practices are consequently dropped from the search engine rankings of the major search engine they have offended.
Being banned or dropped from the search engine rankings can have dire effects on your website traffic, online sales generation and site popularity. Especially if your website is classified as a 'bad neighborhood' site, you can then kiss your reciprocal linking campaign goodbye, as existing and prospective link partners will not want to be associated with your site for fear of their own rankings dropping.
If you wish to avoid alienating the major search engines then do not engage in the following SE tactics:
1. 'Cloaking' or sneaky redirects - displaying different content to the search engines than shown to your normal website visitors including hidden text and hidden links. Often this is achieved by delivering content based on the IP address of the user requesting the page, when a user is identified as a search engine spider a side-server script delivers a different version of the web page to deceive the search engine into giving the website a higher ranking.
2. 'Doorway' pages created specifically for the search engines that are aimed at spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for specific keyword phrases to send the search engine spider to a different page. With doorway pages a user doesn't arrive at the page they were looking for. Similarly avoid 'cookie cutter' approaches that direct users to affiliate advertising with little or no original content.
3. Don't create pages that install viruses, Trojans or badware. 'Badware' is spyware, malware or deceptive adware that tracks a user's movements on the internet and reports this information back to unscrupulous marketing groups who then bombard the user with targeted advertising. This type of spyware is often unknowingly downloaded when playing online games or is attached to software or information downloads from a site. They are often difficult to identify and remove from a user's PC and can affect the PC's functionality.
4. Avoid using software that sends automatic programming queries to the search engines to submit pages or check rankings. This type of software consumes valuable computing resources of the search engines and you will be penalized for using it.
5. Don't load web pages with irrelevant words.
6. Don't link to 'bad neighborhood' sites who have:
* Free for all links pages
* Link farms - automated linking schemes with lots of unrelated links
* Known web spammers or the site has been dropped or banned by the search engines.
7. Avoid 'broken links' or '404 errors', your site will be penalized for them.
8. Don't display pages with minimal content that is of little value to your site visitors.
9. Do not duplicate content unnecessarily.
10. Do not use pop-ups, pop-unders or exit consoles.
11. Do not use pages that rely significantly on links to content created for another website.
12. Do not use 'cross linking' to artificially inflate a site's popularity. For example, the owner of multiple sites cross linking all of his sites together, if all sites are hosted on the same servers the search engines will pick this up and the sites will be penalized.
13. Do not misuse a competitors name or brand names in site content.
14. Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual host names will be penalized.
15. Do not use techniques that artificially increase the number of links to your web pages ie. Link farms.
16. Display web pages with deceptive, fraudulent content or pages that provide users with irrelevant page content.
17. Using content, domain titles, meta tags and descriptions that violate any laws, regulations, infringe on copyrights & trademarks, trade secrets or intellectual property rights of an individual or entity. Specifically in terms of publicity, privacy, product design, torts, breach of contract, injury, damage, consumer fraud, false, misleading, slanderous or threatening content.
________________________________________
About the Author: Rosemary Donald is an SEO Consultant with Rank1 Website Marketing (www.rank1websitemarketing.com) & author of the SEO ebook 'Insider Secrets of Rank1 Websites' available for $29.95 AU. Rosemary is a regular contributor to online article sites on the topics of SEO, website marketing, ecommerce, search engine marketing & small business development. Rosemary is also a successful online trader & owner of top ranking website .
Being banned or dropped from the search engine rankings can have dire effects on your website traffic, online sales generation and site popularity. Especially if your website is classified as a 'bad neighborhood' site, you can then kiss your reciprocal linking campaign goodbye, as existing and prospective link partners will not want to be associated with your site for fear of their own rankings dropping.
If you wish to avoid alienating the major search engines then do not engage in the following SE tactics:
1. 'Cloaking' or sneaky redirects - displaying different content to the search engines than shown to your normal website visitors including hidden text and hidden links. Often this is achieved by delivering content based on the IP address of the user requesting the page, when a user is identified as a search engine spider a side-server script delivers a different version of the web page to deceive the search engine into giving the website a higher ranking.
2. 'Doorway' pages created specifically for the search engines that are aimed at spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for specific keyword phrases to send the search engine spider to a different page. With doorway pages a user doesn't arrive at the page they were looking for. Similarly avoid 'cookie cutter' approaches that direct users to affiliate advertising with little or no original content.
3. Don't create pages that install viruses, Trojans or badware. 'Badware' is spyware, malware or deceptive adware that tracks a user's movements on the internet and reports this information back to unscrupulous marketing groups who then bombard the user with targeted advertising. This type of spyware is often unknowingly downloaded when playing online games or is attached to software or information downloads from a site. They are often difficult to identify and remove from a user's PC and can affect the PC's functionality.
4. Avoid using software that sends automatic programming queries to the search engines to submit pages or check rankings. This type of software consumes valuable computing resources of the search engines and you will be penalized for using it.
5. Don't load web pages with irrelevant words.
6. Don't link to 'bad neighborhood' sites who have:
* Free for all links pages
* Link farms - automated linking schemes with lots of unrelated links
* Known web spammers or the site has been dropped or banned by the search engines.
7. Avoid 'broken links' or '404 errors', your site will be penalized for them.
8. Don't display pages with minimal content that is of little value to your site visitors.
9. Do not duplicate content unnecessarily.
10. Do not use pop-ups, pop-unders or exit consoles.
11. Do not use pages that rely significantly on links to content created for another website.
12. Do not use 'cross linking' to artificially inflate a site's popularity. For example, the owner of multiple sites cross linking all of his sites together, if all sites are hosted on the same servers the search engines will pick this up and the sites will be penalized.
13. Do not misuse a competitors name or brand names in site content.
14. Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual host names will be penalized.
15. Do not use techniques that artificially increase the number of links to your web pages ie. Link farms.
16. Display web pages with deceptive, fraudulent content or pages that provide users with irrelevant page content.
17. Using content, domain titles, meta tags and descriptions that violate any laws, regulations, infringe on copyrights & trademarks, trade secrets or intellectual property rights of an individual or entity. Specifically in terms of publicity, privacy, product design, torts, breach of contract, injury, damage, consumer fraud, false, misleading, slanderous or threatening content.
________________________________________
About the Author: Rosemary Donald is an SEO Consultant with Rank1 Website Marketing (www.rank1websitemarketing.com) & author of the SEO ebook 'Insider Secrets of Rank1 Websites' available for $29.95 AU. Rosemary is a regular contributor to online article sites on the topics of SEO, website marketing, ecommerce, search engine marketing & small business development. Rosemary is also a successful online trader & owner of top ranking website .
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Understanding Search Engines So You Can Get a High Ranking
Just 5 years ago getting a high ranking in the search engines
was easy. As search engines have gotten smarter it has become
impossible to get a high ranking in the search engines with
gimmicks. Now the only way is to have one of the best pages
about your topic and lots of people agreeing that it is one of
the best by linking to it. Before explaining how to get high
rankings in the search engines it is important to understand
some basics about search engines.
If you were to run a search engine what would be your number
one goal. This one is simple; you would want to be the most used
search engine on the Internet. The only way to become the most
used search engine is accuracy. People use a search engine for
one reason and that is to find what they are looking for. When I
first started using the Internet 12 years ago, it was difficult
to find anything in a search engine. You would type in baby toys
and get hundreds of sex toy sites with a few baby toys sites
mixed in. Now you type in baby toys and you get baby toys. The
reason Google became number one was that for several years they
had the most accurate results. So if you want to get a high
ranking in a search engine for the terms your pages are about,
then you must give the search engine what it is looking for.
The search engines became more accurate because now they look
primarily at one thing. That one thing is content. The only way
for a search engine to find out what a page is about is to scan
the page and see what it is about. Yes, there are a few other
things the search engine looks at but none of those things matter
if the content does not match what people are typing in a search
engine. If you want to rank high in the search engines, you must
make a great page specifically about the topic that page is
about.
Natural Language
It also matters how you put your content on the page. One of
the things search engines look at now is natural language. You
cannot just put a search term a bunch of times on the page. It
is true than once upon a time that worked. But stacking search
terms no longer works. Search engines look at how many times a
term shows up in a sentence and how many times it shows up in a
paragraph. In a normal paragraph you will not have a search term
that shows up 6 to ten times. That is not the way a paragraph is
normally constructed. When a search engine sees this it counts
against you and not for you. The same is true about sentences.
So be careful how you word your content. Try not to put the same
term multiple times in a sentence or several times in a
paragraph.
It is also a good idea to make sure you write in complete
sentences and make your content read well. This is not just a
good idea for search engine consideration but also for the
reader of your page. You want them to find the page informative
and easy to read. Having them come back and telling their
friends about the page is important. If they find it interesting
enough, they may just give you that all-important link to your
page.
Here are some other things to consider about content.
The content of your page is not just limited to the words
written on the page. Search engines also look at how you present
your content and what you say about it. For example, every page
in your site should have a title. This is the first thing
written on the page such as the title to an article. When you
present a title you place it as a heading. Heading tags are a way
to tell the search engines this is what my page is about. To be
effective your heading needs to be about the same thing as the
rest of the content of your page. You can also put sub headings
on the page. You can title different sections of the page with
heading 2 or heading 3 tags.
Search engines also give you two places to tell them what you
think your content is about. This is done through your meta
title and description tags. These are the only two meta tags
that most search engines look at so far as determining how
they are going to rank your page. I do not even add a key word
tag to any of my pages. The meta title is the place where you
tell the search engine what your page is about. It can be
exactly the same as the title on the page itself (your H 1 tag
or page heading). Your description tag gives you the opportunity
to describe the content of the page to the search engine. The
description needs to be short and to the point. It should be no
more than two sentences but preferably only one sentence. There
is no reason a good description of a page cannot be made in one
simple but complete sentence.
Last but not least is the overall content of the page. Make
each page about one thing. The more topics your page talks about
the less credit you get for each topic. For example you want to
make a page about the three most influential people in medicine
today. You can make your first page generic and mention the
names of the three people and their general contributions to
medicine while concentrating on making sure every paragraph is
about the main topic of "most influential people in medicine".
Then, if you want to go into detail about the three individual
people, make a separate page about each and have them linked to
from the "most influential" page.
Article by Rusty Ford, Editor (http://arthritis-symptom.com/)
was easy. As search engines have gotten smarter it has become
impossible to get a high ranking in the search engines with
gimmicks. Now the only way is to have one of the best pages
about your topic and lots of people agreeing that it is one of
the best by linking to it. Before explaining how to get high
rankings in the search engines it is important to understand
some basics about search engines.
If you were to run a search engine what would be your number
one goal. This one is simple; you would want to be the most used
search engine on the Internet. The only way to become the most
used search engine is accuracy. People use a search engine for
one reason and that is to find what they are looking for. When I
first started using the Internet 12 years ago, it was difficult
to find anything in a search engine. You would type in baby toys
and get hundreds of sex toy sites with a few baby toys sites
mixed in. Now you type in baby toys and you get baby toys. The
reason Google became number one was that for several years they
had the most accurate results. So if you want to get a high
ranking in a search engine for the terms your pages are about,
then you must give the search engine what it is looking for.
The search engines became more accurate because now they look
primarily at one thing. That one thing is content. The only way
for a search engine to find out what a page is about is to scan
the page and see what it is about. Yes, there are a few other
things the search engine looks at but none of those things matter
if the content does not match what people are typing in a search
engine. If you want to rank high in the search engines, you must
make a great page specifically about the topic that page is
about.
Natural Language
It also matters how you put your content on the page. One of
the things search engines look at now is natural language. You
cannot just put a search term a bunch of times on the page. It
is true than once upon a time that worked. But stacking search
terms no longer works. Search engines look at how many times a
term shows up in a sentence and how many times it shows up in a
paragraph. In a normal paragraph you will not have a search term
that shows up 6 to ten times. That is not the way a paragraph is
normally constructed. When a search engine sees this it counts
against you and not for you. The same is true about sentences.
So be careful how you word your content. Try not to put the same
term multiple times in a sentence or several times in a
paragraph.
It is also a good idea to make sure you write in complete
sentences and make your content read well. This is not just a
good idea for search engine consideration but also for the
reader of your page. You want them to find the page informative
and easy to read. Having them come back and telling their
friends about the page is important. If they find it interesting
enough, they may just give you that all-important link to your
page.
Here are some other things to consider about content.
The content of your page is not just limited to the words
written on the page. Search engines also look at how you present
your content and what you say about it. For example, every page
in your site should have a title. This is the first thing
written on the page such as the title to an article. When you
present a title you place it as a heading. Heading tags are a way
to tell the search engines this is what my page is about. To be
effective your heading needs to be about the same thing as the
rest of the content of your page. You can also put sub headings
on the page. You can title different sections of the page with
heading 2 or heading 3 tags.
Search engines also give you two places to tell them what you
think your content is about. This is done through your meta
title and description tags. These are the only two meta tags
that most search engines look at so far as determining how
they are going to rank your page. I do not even add a key word
tag to any of my pages. The meta title is the place where you
tell the search engine what your page is about. It can be
exactly the same as the title on the page itself (your H 1 tag
or page heading). Your description tag gives you the opportunity
to describe the content of the page to the search engine. The
description needs to be short and to the point. It should be no
more than two sentences but preferably only one sentence. There
is no reason a good description of a page cannot be made in one
simple but complete sentence.
Last but not least is the overall content of the page. Make
each page about one thing. The more topics your page talks about
the less credit you get for each topic. For example you want to
make a page about the three most influential people in medicine
today. You can make your first page generic and mention the
names of the three people and their general contributions to
medicine while concentrating on making sure every paragraph is
about the main topic of "most influential people in medicine".
Then, if you want to go into detail about the three individual
people, make a separate page about each and have them linked to
from the "most influential" page.
Article by Rusty Ford, Editor (http://arthritis-symptom.com/)
Monday, September 03, 2007
How to Build a Better Website Without Building a Website
How to Build a Better Website Without Building a Website
By Richard D S Hill (c) 2007
The most important thing to consider, when first thinking
about any website, is the user. Like so much marketing,
websites are, unfortunately, too often developed 'inside
out' (company focused) rather than 'outside in' (customer
focused).
All website users have their own reasons and objectives for
visiting a site. No matter how targeted, any website has to
communicate with a wide range of individual users.
To be successful, therefore, every site has to give each and
every user a thorough but simple presentation of the site's
content so that the site achieves your objectives e.g.
registrations, leads, sales.
To do this successfully, users want:
Simple Navigation
Navigation that is clear and consistent.
Probably the worst issue is 'lost visitors' – those who are in
a maze and don't know where they are in the site.
The site should always allow users to easily return to the home
page and preferably get to any page with one click.
Studies have shown that users want to find things fast, and
this means that they prefer menus with intuitive ranking,
organization and multiple choices to many layers of simplified
menus. The menu links should be placed in a consistent position
on every page.
Clarity
Users do not appreciate an over-designed site.
A website should be consistent and predictable. For maximum
clarity, your site design should be built on a consistent
pattern of modular units that all share the same basic layout,
graphics etc.
Designing Websites That Meet Their Objectives
Everything above is pretty simple, but how do you ensure that
you can achieve it?
The answer is website architecture – an approach to the design
and content that brings together not just design and hosting but
all aspects of function, design, technical solutions and, most
importantly, usability.
The distinction may seem academic but imagine trying to publish
a magazine using just graphic design and printing whilst
ignoring content and editing. It just would not work yet that's
what too many people still try to do.
Website Architecture
Defining a website using web architecture requires:
- Site maps
- Flow charts
- Wireframes
- Storyboards
- Templates
- Style guide
- Prototypes
This planning saves you (the client) money. The better the site
map, flow chart, wireframe, storyboard, templates, style guide
and prototype the more time and money you save because it gives
the designer who has to do the graphics and the developer who
has to do the programming a blueprint.
We are constantly amazed that people who wouldn't think about
building a house, car, ship or whatever will still build a
website without an architectural plan.
The benefits include:
- Meeting business goals
- Improved usability
- Reducing unnecessary features
- Faster delivery
Site Maps
Many people are familiar with site maps on web sites which are
generally a cluster of links.
An architectural site map is more of a visual model (blueprint)
of the pages of a web site.
The representation helps everyone to understand what the site
is about and the links required as well as the different page
templates that will be needed.
Flow Charts
A flowchart is another pictorial or visual representation to
help visualize the content and find flaws in the process from
say merchandise selection to final payment.
It's a pictorial summary that shows with symbols and words the
steps, sequence, and relationship of the various operations
involved and how they are linked so that the flow of visitors
and information through the site is optimized.
Wireframes
Wireframes take their name from the skeletal wire structures
that underlie a sculpture. Without this foundation, there is no
support for the fleshing-out that creates the finished piece.
Wireframes are a basic visual guide to suggest the layout and
placement of fundamental design elements on any page. A
wireframe shows every click through possibility on your site.
It's a "text only" model to allow for the development of
variations before any expensive graphic design and programming,
but one that also helps to maintain design consistency
throughout the site.
Creating wireframes allows everyone on the client and developer
side to see the site and whether it's 'right' or needs changes
without expensive programming. The goal of a wireframe is to
ensure your visitors' needs will be met in the website. If you
meet their needs, you will meet your objectives.
To create a wireframe requires dialogue. You and your
developers talk, to translate your business successfully into
a website. Nobody knows your business better than you and your
developers should listen to ensure the resulting wireframe
accurately represents your business. You, however, must answer
the questions; questions such as:
- What does a visitor do at this point?
- Where can a visitor go from here?
and ignore questions about what your visitor sees at this
point. Sounds easy, but!
Storyboards
Storyboards were first used by Walt Disney to produce cartoons.
A storyboard is a "comic" produced to help everyone visualize
the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. When
creating a film, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events
as they are to be seen through the camera. In the case of a
website, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or
viewer sees the content or information.
However, the wireframe provides the outline for your
storyboard. Developers and designers don't need to work in a
vacuum - the wireframe guides every design, information
architecture, navigation, usability and content consideration.
Wireframes define "what is there" while the storyboards define
"how it looks".
Templates and Style Guide
Templates are standard layouts containing basic details of a
page type that separates the business (follow the $) logic from
the presentation (graphics etc) logic so that there can be
maximum flexibility in presentation while disrupting the
underlying business infrastructure as little as possible.
Style guides document the design requirements for a site. They
define font classes and other design conventions (line spacing,
font sizes, underlining, bullet types etc.) to be followed in
the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) used to provide a library of
styles that are used in the various page types in a web site.
Prototypes
A prototype is working model that is not yet finished. It
demonstrates the major technical, design, and content features
of the site.
A prototype does not have the same testing and documentation as
the final product, but allows client and developers to make
sure, once again, that the final product works in the way that
is wanted and meets the business objectives.
Once you have built your virtual site, it's a lot quicker, easier
and cheaper to build the real one.
About The Author
================================================================
Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions and has spent many
years in senior direct and interactive marketing roles. E-CRM
provides EBusiness, ECommerce and Emarketing and ECRM.
http://www.e-crm.co.uk/profile/message170807.html
================================================================
By Richard D S Hill (c) 2007
The most important thing to consider, when first thinking
about any website, is the user. Like so much marketing,
websites are, unfortunately, too often developed 'inside
out' (company focused) rather than 'outside in' (customer
focused).
All website users have their own reasons and objectives for
visiting a site. No matter how targeted, any website has to
communicate with a wide range of individual users.
To be successful, therefore, every site has to give each and
every user a thorough but simple presentation of the site's
content so that the site achieves your objectives e.g.
registrations, leads, sales.
To do this successfully, users want:
Simple Navigation
Navigation that is clear and consistent.
Probably the worst issue is 'lost visitors' – those who are in
a maze and don't know where they are in the site.
The site should always allow users to easily return to the home
page and preferably get to any page with one click.
Studies have shown that users want to find things fast, and
this means that they prefer menus with intuitive ranking,
organization and multiple choices to many layers of simplified
menus. The menu links should be placed in a consistent position
on every page.
Clarity
Users do not appreciate an over-designed site.
A website should be consistent and predictable. For maximum
clarity, your site design should be built on a consistent
pattern of modular units that all share the same basic layout,
graphics etc.
Designing Websites That Meet Their Objectives
Everything above is pretty simple, but how do you ensure that
you can achieve it?
The answer is website architecture – an approach to the design
and content that brings together not just design and hosting but
all aspects of function, design, technical solutions and, most
importantly, usability.
The distinction may seem academic but imagine trying to publish
a magazine using just graphic design and printing whilst
ignoring content and editing. It just would not work yet that's
what too many people still try to do.
Website Architecture
Defining a website using web architecture requires:
- Site maps
- Flow charts
- Wireframes
- Storyboards
- Templates
- Style guide
- Prototypes
This planning saves you (the client) money. The better the site
map, flow chart, wireframe, storyboard, templates, style guide
and prototype the more time and money you save because it gives
the designer who has to do the graphics and the developer who
has to do the programming a blueprint.
We are constantly amazed that people who wouldn't think about
building a house, car, ship or whatever will still build a
website without an architectural plan.
The benefits include:
- Meeting business goals
- Improved usability
- Reducing unnecessary features
- Faster delivery
Site Maps
Many people are familiar with site maps on web sites which are
generally a cluster of links.
An architectural site map is more of a visual model (blueprint)
of the pages of a web site.
The representation helps everyone to understand what the site
is about and the links required as well as the different page
templates that will be needed.
Flow Charts
A flowchart is another pictorial or visual representation to
help visualize the content and find flaws in the process from
say merchandise selection to final payment.
It's a pictorial summary that shows with symbols and words the
steps, sequence, and relationship of the various operations
involved and how they are linked so that the flow of visitors
and information through the site is optimized.
Wireframes
Wireframes take their name from the skeletal wire structures
that underlie a sculpture. Without this foundation, there is no
support for the fleshing-out that creates the finished piece.
Wireframes are a basic visual guide to suggest the layout and
placement of fundamental design elements on any page. A
wireframe shows every click through possibility on your site.
It's a "text only" model to allow for the development of
variations before any expensive graphic design and programming,
but one that also helps to maintain design consistency
throughout the site.
Creating wireframes allows everyone on the client and developer
side to see the site and whether it's 'right' or needs changes
without expensive programming. The goal of a wireframe is to
ensure your visitors' needs will be met in the website. If you
meet their needs, you will meet your objectives.
To create a wireframe requires dialogue. You and your
developers talk, to translate your business successfully into
a website. Nobody knows your business better than you and your
developers should listen to ensure the resulting wireframe
accurately represents your business. You, however, must answer
the questions; questions such as:
- What does a visitor do at this point?
- Where can a visitor go from here?
and ignore questions about what your visitor sees at this
point. Sounds easy, but!
Storyboards
Storyboards were first used by Walt Disney to produce cartoons.
A storyboard is a "comic" produced to help everyone visualize
the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. When
creating a film, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events
as they are to be seen through the camera. In the case of a
website, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or
viewer sees the content or information.
However, the wireframe provides the outline for your
storyboard. Developers and designers don't need to work in a
vacuum - the wireframe guides every design, information
architecture, navigation, usability and content consideration.
Wireframes define "what is there" while the storyboards define
"how it looks".
Templates and Style Guide
Templates are standard layouts containing basic details of a
page type that separates the business (follow the $) logic from
the presentation (graphics etc) logic so that there can be
maximum flexibility in presentation while disrupting the
underlying business infrastructure as little as possible.
Style guides document the design requirements for a site. They
define font classes and other design conventions (line spacing,
font sizes, underlining, bullet types etc.) to be followed in
the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) used to provide a library of
styles that are used in the various page types in a web site.
Prototypes
A prototype is working model that is not yet finished. It
demonstrates the major technical, design, and content features
of the site.
A prototype does not have the same testing and documentation as
the final product, but allows client and developers to make
sure, once again, that the final product works in the way that
is wanted and meets the business objectives.
Once you have built your virtual site, it's a lot quicker, easier
and cheaper to build the real one.
About The Author
================================================================
Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions and has spent many
years in senior direct and interactive marketing roles. E-CRM
provides EBusiness, ECommerce and Emarketing and ECRM.
http://www.e-crm.co.uk/profile/message170807.html
================================================================
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Good website layout
The left hand column should contain all the primary navigation, which should remain constant across the whole website. It should líst all the main categories of the website, so users can find their way around from every page.
The right hand column on the homepage should provide navigation to individual pages in the site which you want to highlight. Or, it can be used for small applications, such as email newsletter sign-up, scrolling news headlines, links to the forum, etc. This column tends to disappear on the content pages to leave more space for the article and images.
Top menu bar – some sites have most of their navigation in the top menu bar which goes across the page under the masthead (take a look at Guardian or Forbes as examples). I don't like this for two reasons. First, it restricts the number of menu links that you can have. Secondly, it usually means that the site has flash based drop down menus to enable them to accommodate more links. Flash menus are not user friendly. They force your reader to search for links to the content they are looking for. Don't make your user work for their answers. Also, search engines find it harder to index sites with flash menus.
Bottom menu bar – This strip at the foot of every page tends to contain links to the site's terms and conditions, privacy statement, sitemap, etc.
The central column contains the content. On the homepage, this can be a combination of an introduction to the website and teasers to articles. On the content pages, the articles and images sit in the central column.
Search top right on every page – this is the search box used to search the content of the website. This is a less rigid placement than it used to be, but you can't go wrong if you place it top right.
Time and date – usually placed on the right hand side under the masthead. This is optional, but does give readers the impression that the site is up-to-date.
Within this layout there is a great deal of flexibility to add your own personality and styles, particularly when you overlay your design on the basic page structure. However, at all times your number one goal should be constant; that is to make your website simple and intuitive, for every reader that visits. To achieve this learn from those sites that have a lot of experience.
The right hand column on the homepage should provide navigation to individual pages in the site which you want to highlight. Or, it can be used for small applications, such as email newsletter sign-up, scrolling news headlines, links to the forum, etc. This column tends to disappear on the content pages to leave more space for the article and images.
Top menu bar – some sites have most of their navigation in the top menu bar which goes across the page under the masthead (take a look at Guardian or Forbes as examples). I don't like this for two reasons. First, it restricts the number of menu links that you can have. Secondly, it usually means that the site has flash based drop down menus to enable them to accommodate more links. Flash menus are not user friendly. They force your reader to search for links to the content they are looking for. Don't make your user work for their answers. Also, search engines find it harder to index sites with flash menus.
Bottom menu bar – This strip at the foot of every page tends to contain links to the site's terms and conditions, privacy statement, sitemap, etc.
The central column contains the content. On the homepage, this can be a combination of an introduction to the website and teasers to articles. On the content pages, the articles and images sit in the central column.
Search top right on every page – this is the search box used to search the content of the website. This is a less rigid placement than it used to be, but you can't go wrong if you place it top right.
Time and date – usually placed on the right hand side under the masthead. This is optional, but does give readers the impression that the site is up-to-date.
Within this layout there is a great deal of flexibility to add your own personality and styles, particularly when you overlay your design on the basic page structure. However, at all times your number one goal should be constant; that is to make your website simple and intuitive, for every reader that visits. To achieve this learn from those sites that have a lot of experience.
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