Website Owner « Christopher Ross

Posts Tagged ‘Website Owner’

31
Aug
2009

Four Quick SEO Tips

I received a great question this week via my Model Mayhem account (it’s like Facebook for models and photographers) from a website owner named Bella Valentine, here’s her email and what I had to say about it, I’m sharing this (with her permission) because I believe Bella’s questions are the same questions many people have about Search Engine Optimization and online marketing.

Hey,

Saw your post in the forums and I was hoping you could help me out with a few questions that I have…

How do you find related blogs?

Do you write your site’s link as the signature when posting a comment on such blogs? (I’ve been looking for blogs that have the slot for your website’s url but have come only across one that was set up that way)

Wouldn’t that be considered spamming?

Should I try to stay away from sites that have a worst ranking then mine on Alexa or do all links back help?

Thanks,
Bella

Hi Bella, thanks for asking!

You can find related blogs using Google’s blog search function, it’s found under the “More” tab on Google or at http://blogsearch.google.com/. If for example you’re hoping to improve your ranking with Denver models, search Google for that phrase and you’ll see 92,000+ blogs appear but you’ll want to play with the keywords until you find the right combination to return the best results for you.

Many of these blogs will have a comment form at the bottom of the page and on these forms you will see a space for your name, email, website and comment. Now you have to be careful, some web masters such as myself frown on “keyword spam” which is when you replace your name with keywords such as “Denver Model”, so instead I always suggest people using their name in addition to the keywords they’d like to leave. For example, I will always delete people using “Denver Model” but look the other way for “Bella, the Denver Model” or “Bella a model from Denver”. I appreciate self promotion is part of the game, but not at the cost of my site’s reputation.

On that point, I will also point out that 75% of people surveyed prefer the Ben & Jerry’s brand vs. Häagen-Dazs yet … 75% of people surveyed prefer Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Why? Because as people, we like people … so website owners and other surfers are far more likely to “connect” to you if you’re a person rather than a keyword.

There is a fine line between blog spam and self promotion. I tend to think of it as the same line men often cross in a bar, keep it genuine and nobody gets hurt but when your comments are fake, false or generic … web site owners will reject you. Instead of leaving generic comments which will get flags as SPAM, only leave comments which add to the texture of the article or benefit the website owner. You’ll be surprised how quickly your comments get you traffic when you’re helping others in a positive way.

Commenting on websites with a lower PageRank value will not hurt your website, in fact each successful link regardless of where it comes from is either positive or neutral, but never negative. This is because Google knows that you can not control who links to you, so they don’t punish you for poor incoming links.

That said … the higher the PageRank of a link coming to you the better.

For example, if you can get a link from Model Mayhem (5) to your website it’s better than a PR 1, but a link from Apple (9) is better still. There’s a complex math formula that is used … way to complex for me to explain or even understand but basically, in the simplest terms possible assume that every PR point is worth double the value before it so … a link from a PR1 is worth 1 point while a PR2 is 2, a PR3 is 4, PR4 is 8, PR5 is 16, PR6 is 32, PR7 is 64, PR8 is 128, PR9 is 256 … OK, so that scale is completely made up but it holds some analytical water and more to the point, it reinforced that incoming links from high ranking sites is better but lower ranking sites are not worse.

Chris

If you have a question about SEO, why not ask me? I’m always happy to answer your questions and look forward to hearing from people!

Want to learn more about Bella’s website? Visit her at http://www.BellaValentine.com.

Tags: alexa, blog, Denver Model, email, Facebook, google, Model Mayhem, Models, photographers, phrase, reputation, Right Combination, Search Engine Optimization, Search Function, self promotion, Signature, spam, Valentine, web masters, Website Owner
Posted in Questions and Answers, Search Engine Optimization

01
Jul
2009

How to Make Your Website Better in 20 Easy Tips

4 Comments

Give it Away for Free

Socialism us alive and well on the Internet and getting things for free is what it’s all about. From videos to software, music to movies the web has created a culture of creative freedom where people feel they are entitled to get content for free. Why fight it? Produce great content and give it away, let people enjoy your works and make your fortune by building a strong loyal fan base.

Be Proud of Your Website

A website is a reflection of you and your business, if you’re not proud of it you have a serious problem and it’s time to get it redesigned. You might not be able to afford the best sign in town or the fanciest location but building a great website is all about time, so make sure that you’ve built (or had built) a website that you can be proud to point people to.

Learn from the Best

I don’t care if you hate Apple or love them, you can own a million iPod’s or have no idea what an iPod is but if you’re going to be on the Internet, learn from them. Apple has more money in the bank than you do, accept it … they’re better at this game. Why are they so good? They design easy to navigate, easy to buy products that simply work.

Just Say No to 404’s

Of all the things that a website owner can avoid, it’s 404 errors (Page Not Found errors). In fact, if your website has a 404 error, fire your entire web team because they’re incompetent. I’m not kidding, fix your website by getting rid of dead weight. A 404 error is the equivalent of your CFO forgetting a decimal or your sale manager mis-handling the spouse of your biggest account, it shows sheer unadulterated incompetence.

Google Analytics

Some people don’t even know what Analytics is. Guess what, reading this has already made your website more successful because it’s made you aware that there are measurements you can use to judge your success. I once had a very successful friend tell me that without up to date statistics about a company you can’t make money because you’re only guessing. The same is true for website and Google Analytics delivers the most comprehensive summary of who is visiting you, what they look at, where they’re coming from and when they left that you’ll ever find on the web.

Start Your Own TV Station

Upload videos to your website, it should be quick and easy and even if they’re just simple slideshows or animations you’d be surprised how amazing the reaction will be! People let to connect and get past technology, they want to hear real people talk about solutions and video offers a great medium to help them.

Talk About Your Website

Step one, make sure your website is on every business card and letterhead in the office, put it on your company van, make a jingle out of it on the local radio stations and then move onto step two. Put it in your email signature, in your PDF documents and post it to every blog, forum and news website in the tri-state area that’ll let you talk about your great website.

Forget SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, it’s a scam and should be avoided. You know what will get you noticed in the search engines? Great content, amazing information and quality products. SEO is icing on the cake, but even if you can trick a million people to come to your website, they still won’t buy from you.

Use WordPress

Forget everything else that you’ve ever heard or read about websites and simply install WordPress to run your website. It takes the technical out of technology and makes updating a website a snap. I’m not going to pretend that it makes it fun but it makes it easy and all too often the real holdup in a company’s online marketing drive is too few IT resources so spread the love, WordPress makes it so easy to update your site that even the CEO will be doing.

Learn about the Internet

Something that truly surprises me about the Internet is how many people are trying to build businesses online without understanding the first thing about it. At the bare minimum, before you start buying into the hype ask yourself … if it’s so easy to make money on the web, how come people like me still have day jobs?

Add a Blog

Why would somebody come back to your website if you’ve never updated it? Adding a blog gives your staff somewhere to write about your cool toys, business products and awesome corporate structure. Let project managers become evangelists for your wares, help your helpdesk answer questions before the phone rings and engage the public in meaningful debates.

Put Out a Press Release

Thousands of journalists around the world are all looking for a fresh story or a new angle on an old story, whenever possible put out a press release to promote your business and bring in a crowd.

Fix Your Navigation

Now that you’re using something awesome like Google Analytics to see where people are going, start rearranging your website to meet their needs. Get rid of everything that distracts people from your business objectives, focus their attention on your areas of interest (sales & service) and move all the rest (about the company, history, blah blah blah) to the bottom of your website.

Google Web Master Tools

No list of website tips would be complete without mentioning Google’s amazing Web Master Tools. It’s not enough for Google to be the greatest search engine in the world, they have to go and make it super easy for people like us to use it too! Web Master Tools is just that, a comprehensive technical overview of your website showing you exactly what Google sees, how it indexes and what errors it’s discovered about your website. Think if it as a weekly punch to the ego, it’ll always knock the wind out of you but if you learn from it, you’ll be stronger.

Stop Thinking of the Web as a Technology

Far too often, too many companies leave their website to people with IT backgrounds and forget that it has nothing to do with technology. Load your website up and honestly ask yourself if it’s speaking to your customers or if it’s jammed with techno-trash. Remember, the web is a medium just like TV and radio.

Deep Link

Who’s going to bother linking to articles on your website if you don’t bother linking to them yourself? Take the time to link to articles on your website, if you’re talking about templates link to One night in Paris. If you’re discussing the finer points of PHP, link to your article about it! If it was good enough to write, it should be good enough to link to.

Learn One Thing About the Web Every Week

Look, the web is a really big thing and nobody will ever know everything, especially if it’s not your only job but every week you should try to learn a little something about it. Get out of your safety net, go to Google Blogs and type in a subject you know nothing about and start reading! Before you know it, you’ll be making movies, uploading to YouTube, added to Fanzine’s and blogging about botany! Trust me when I tell you the web is a really cool place but you can’t expect to make your website better if you don’t drown yourself in it.

Make it Work on All Devices

Why keep your website simple? So that it works on all the devices you can imagine! My hometown had a restaurant when I was a kid, the owners put in a wheelchair ramp and I remember asking my father why they did that, the owners could walk fine … he told me that they put it in because nobody else it town had one, so every Mothers’ day, elderly birthday dinner, wedding and Friday night it was packed with people who couldn’t get into other restaurants in town.

Let them Contact You

Add your email, phone number, mailing address and other contact details to every page. Don’t be shy, your website is there to market you. Afraid of SPAM? Don’t be, look my email address is info@thisismyurl.com. It’s published all over my website, on thousands of pages that get hundreds of thousands of visits … don’t fear SPAM, just know how to avoid it.

Update it Daily

A website isn’t a ‘fire and forget’ project, if there’s one thing that you take away from this posting take away the fact that a website is a full time investment, it’s like a separate franchise location of your business and it needs full time management by a marketing professional.

Remember, your website is the first place people come to look when they have a question and often the last place you think about updating.

Tags: 404 Error, apple, Cfo, Creative Freedom, Entire Web, Fortune, game, google, google analytics, Incompetence, ipod, Loyal Fan Base, measurements, Money In The Bank, Music Movies, Reflection, Socialism, Software Music, Videos Music, Website Owner
Posted in Marketing Advice

26
Apr
2009

25 simple ways to make WordPress SEO friendly

6 Comments

Making a website (especially a WordPress website) search engine friendly should be the focus of every webmaster but many independent website owners get it all wrong, so let’s take a quick look at 25 things every website owner should do to make sure their website is making the most of free marketing tools.

The title tag

In HTML there are two tags that can make a website sink or swim. The first is your title tag. Located in the <head> section of your websites HTML the <title> tag controls what search engines think your sites name is. This title commonly includes both the name of your website and the name of the article that is stored on a specific page but which is more important?

To search engines the answer is easy, it’s the name of the page that people are on … not the name of your website, so placing the content in the right order is critical! Instead of placing My Site Name || My Post, I can instantly improve my ranking by posting My Post || My Site Name. To do this in WordPress, simply open your header.php file and make the required changes.

The H1 tag

No tag is more misunderstood or more poorly used than the poor H1 tag. It’s the most critical tag in the entire body of a post, yet people waste it on their website title! It’s not really you’re fault … WordPress themes often mistakenly use the <h1> tag as the title of a website.

To fix this, open your header.php file and remove the <h1> from around your site name. Replace it with a <div> tag such as <div id=’logo’> so that you can format your title to look how you’d like.

The H1 tag is meant to encompass the page title, so next you’ll have to open and edit your single.php and page.php files to ensure your title is using an <h1>. Remember, there should only be one <h1> on an entire page!

H2 … H6 tags

Document structure guidelines dictate how these tags should be used. They’re mean for headings, not formating! If your document has multiple depths, use <h2> .. <h6> tags to structure your document depth, for example an <h3> tag should only ever follow an <h2> tag. Remember, search engine robots are looking for consistent order and logic in a page.

W3C Validation

There’s a little debate over how important it is to validate your pages, my opinion on the subject is simply that if a robot (which is all search engines are) can’t read your page … how can they index it? Run your page through the validator at The W3C Markup Validation Service.

Images

When naming images, use descriptive keywords in the filenames as well as the ALT tags. ALT tags are used to “display” the images to people who can’t see but they’re also hand for companies like Google to understand what the image contains.

Friendly URL’s

Does Google really care if your URL’s include keywords? Wow, great question. According to Matt Cutts (Googler Prime) … no but it’s more attractive and it’s one of those simple SEO things that helps make our websites feel more friendly.

Anchor Tags

Remember to add titles and rel values to your anchor tags! The title can be added through the WordPress WYSIWYG editor but rel tags? You’ll have to delve into the HTML if you want to use them effectively.

Meta Descriptions

Like the <title> tag, Meta description tags are found in the header.php file for WordPress and instruct web search engines what your website is about. These description tags should be updated for every page and remember, it should reflect the content … not the site!

Meta Keywords

Meta keywords are also stored in your <head> section and summarize the article for search engines. Want a clever trick? Use the post tags as your comma separated list of keywords! That way, you’ll be sure to get rich, descriptive tags to match your content.

Content Placement

Remember that the content for your website is the most important part! Make sure it’s as close to the top of your HTML as possible or else search engines might not be able to find it.

HTML Clutter

One great way to keep HTML clutter to a minimum is to link as much as your code as possible to external files. This keeps your document as empty as possible so Google (and other robots) know that your content is key.

Fresh Content Matters!

Websites are like restaurants, people want fresh content and Google knows it. One great way to optimize your content for Google is to ensure your content is always fresh, using a blog or a forum is a great way to keep fresh content online.

Link to Quality Content

Search engines love links so if you have a favorite website that helps your audience, link to it (remember to use the title tag as well!), this will not only increase your standing with search engines but it’ll help build a great community

Avoid Flash

Flash is a great tool, we all love it and it sure is sexy but … no matter what anybody tells you it can not be read properly be search engines and if search engine robots can’t see your site, your website is worthless. It’s just that simple, I’m sorry.

Include a Sitemap File

Robots search for content on your website by crawling (literally traveling from link to link) this is a painful long process so help them out by posting a sitemap.xml file for them to read! This file orders your content and helps robots to understand where fresh content is located on your site.

Include a Sitemap Page

Sitemaps aren’t just for robots anymore! Help people find everything on your site by including a comprensive page with all your links in a single place. This also ensures that SEO robots can find all your links.

Build a better footer

Footers are an easy way to help both people and robots easily find important content on your website.

Use Tags and Categories

WordPress has some wonderful SEO features build right in, so use them! Every one of your posts should use categories to help optimize them but they should also link to each other! By linking your article to list of other articles which use those keywords, you’re helping index your content.

Deep link your articles

If you’re writing an article that could benefit from another article on your website, include a hyperlink to the supporting piece! It’s called deep linking but I like to think of it as common sense, after all if you’re not willing to cite your own articles why should others?

Keyword your titles

What words do you want people to use to find your site? Use those words in your title! Don’t push your luck though, nobody likes a keyword spammer so make sure your article title is natural but try to use the words that you’d search Google in hopes of finding your article with.

Keyword your page content

Don’t be shy to sprinkle your article with your keywords either, especially your header links! Make sure that whenever you have a chance you’ve used the words and phrases that you feel people would search for in Google.

Know your competition

Search for your competion in Google, what terms are they using? Should you be using the same to compete with them in search engines? You can optimize your website for your community, your industry or your products … make sure you’re doing the best job you can.

Don’t duplicate your content

Content should only appear once on your website and only on your website! Don’t fall into the habit of posting other peoples recycled posts on your site and be careful that WordPress isn’t duplicating content on your site. If you’ve posted your content to two categories, chances are that Google is penalizing you for it so make sure you’re only allowing it to be indexed once!

Format your text

We touched on this with regards to using headers but your website should also use tags to format your text! Search engines respect tags such as <cite>, <strong> (<b>), <em> (<i>) and <blockquote> so why not use the to help robots understand your content?

Write better content

I’ve said it before … but here’s tip #25 … write better content. Well written, formatted and structured content is still the best SEO value you’ll ever earn.

Tags: Div Id, Div Tag, Documen, Document Structure, Free Marketing Tools, free tools, H1 Tag, Headings, Html Tag, Independent Website, logo, Making A Website, One Lt, search engine, search engines, seo, Structure Guidelines, Tag Search, themes, title tag, Website Owner, Website Search
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Advice, WordPress Help

08
Oct
2008

Simple Design Ideas to Increase Your Web Sales

1 Comment

How can a simple web design help increase your web sales? More importantly, does your website make it easier or harder for people to shop on your website? These are some pretty basic questions that every website owner should be asking themselves but oddly, most of the time the choice of how to design a website is left up to the IT department, the same people who put monitors on desks and wear Pong t-shirts to the office.

If we take a look at two highly successful websites, Apple.ca and Bell.ca (yes, I am Canadian) we can see what millions of dollars of market research has determined is good design.

Bell Canada had determined that using only a few colors will help them tie online branding into real world branding. The few colors they’ve used correspond to the colors they use in their print materials but it also simplifies the design, allowing us to focus on the content. They easily provide options for shopping, navigation and support with little confusion for the user. Simply put, users can not make the wrong choice because Bell has made it too easy for them to make the right choice.

There are a few proven, indisputable truths in marketing and Apple has used every one of them in their corporate website. First and foremost, only show people what they need to see. If they want to see more, they can click the carefully designed tabs but by default users should only seen content that will help them make the decision to purchase. Secondly, Apple has been sure to design an interface that’s so easy to use that anybody from a grade school kid to a grandparent could figure it out. That’s not an accident, so we should learn from it. Finally, the design is clean. People like clean, clear and professional.

If you own your own website and you’re disappointed in the volume of sales, take a look at your own website and then look at those two examples above. Really look. If you want to compete on the web, your site should be as easy to use and professional at the ones featured here.

Tags: Basic Questions, Bell Ca, Bell Canada, colors, Confusion, Design Ideas, desks, Indisputable Truths, Market Research, monitors, Own Website, pong, Print Materials, real world, right choice, School Kid, Simple Web Design, Web Sales, Website Owner, Wrong Choice
Posted in Web Site Advice