Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category
published by Dan in SEO | Website Design
In my last post I discussed how web design plus SEO packages aren’t always good. So when should you for these kind of packages?
- The web design firm has an in-house SEO team with a solid reputation.
- The web design firm offers the SEO package but the SEO will be done by their partner SEO firm.
- The web design team offers an SEO package that specifies exactly what is to be included in that package. Will they simply adhere to coding standards that will make the site search engine friendly? Will they take care of link building?
How about reputation management? The web design team need not offer the a full-blown SEO package but the price they quote should be commensurate with the service they will give. Value for your money.
In short all you really need to do is use common sense in order to determine whether you are being offered a good package or not. Remember not to always go for the cheapest package but to choose the one that offers the best results. In the end you will save money on having to have your website undergo a redesign or having to hire another (additional) firm to launch a more effective SEO campaign for you.
published by Dan in SEO | Website Design
An outdated look - If your site looks like it has been left behind then, whether your site is performing well or not, it is time to overhaul your site’s design. If your website is really old (from the 90s) then even though it was based on good website design standards then you need give it a facelift at the very least. Ageing is good for your website in terms of SEO but can hurt your reputation especially if your visitors are more modern. There is no need for your site to look like a dinosaur. Get rid of the outdated look and ask a graphics design team to come up with a newer version of your old look. If your company has a specific feel though make sure that the transition to your site’s new look retains the company’s feel so as to not alienate your old visitors. The outdated look is also usually a sign that your site is not really optimised. This would also be the perfect time to make sure that your site is optimised for search engines.
Search engine optimisation - Speaking of optimisation, even if your site does not look outdated one of the clear signs that your website needs to be redesigned is if the current design is based on poor SEO practices. Ask an SEO consultant whether your website’s design is hurting your site’s performance with search engines because you might be surprised that it does. Certain design elements hinder spiders from crawling pages and you want to make sure that the issue is addressed. You also want to make sure that all important content are indexed so that if your site’s design simply isn’t search friendly you might need a redesign or at least have an SEO consultant do “background” work for you, leaving the graphics intact but the site optimised.
published by Dan in SEO | Web Development | Website Design
Aside from having a great website, good people skills, and postive feedback from previous clients the other signs of a good web design company include:
- Knowing the difference between “building” and “designing” a website - I will go into detail about this aspect in my next post. For now let’s just say that you want to hire a company that wants to not just build but design you website for you. Find out the company philosophy on building vs designing and if they tell you that you’re just being contrary and there is no real difference then that is not a good sign. Plus, that means that they do not have really good people skills.
- Custom designs - There isn’t really anything wrong if a web design firm offer template designs. After all some clients do not have a need for customized web page designs. However, it is a good sign if the web designers offers custom designs too. This means that not only do you have more choices but that in case you have specialized needs they have the experience and know-how to be able to make the needed changes in the template design (if that is what you chose).
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Although there are SEO companies that you can hire to do you SEO for your site if you pick a web design company that offers SEO services then it will entail less worries for you as well as (usually) lower fees. If they do not offer SEO service they may have a sister SEO firm, which is also a good sign.
published by Gary in SEO | Website Analytics
Web analytics, or your website usage data tells you how many visitors you get per day, per week or per month, how they end up on your website, what they do once they are on your website, and what makes them leave eventually.
By carefully and routinely studying your website usage data you can figure out what pages of your website are favorite among your visitors and what pages need to be changed/improved in order to get more attention. They also tell you what keywords and key phrases people actually use to find your website.
How can web analytics help your SEO efforts?
As I just said above, your web analytics tell you what keywords people are using to arrive at your website. Now, this could be a totally wrong traffic because the keywords being displayed by your web analytics tool might not be the ones you are trying to optimise your website for. So you can re-orient your effort and get your web pages re-written to better search engine optimise for the right keywords.
On the other hand you may also discover some search phrases that are very relevant to your website but somehow you missed optimising your website for them. You can increase traffic for these keywords by further optimising your website for them.
What do they do once they are on your website?
Search engine optimisation doesn’t only mean getting tons of traffic from the search engines; it also means optimising that traffic so that you derive maximum benefit from it. So it’s very important to know what people do once they are on your website. If you notice that there is a page from where people leave your website the most you can make some improvements there. Then there might be some pages people immensely like. You can devise ways to promote your special products on those pages
Where are the inbound links coming from?
Search engines are not the only source of relevant traffic. A lots of traffic might come from those websites that display your links on them. If you notice a high amount of traffic coming from such websites you can strike up partnerships with them to encourage them to put more of your links there. You can even reciprocate.
The web analytics are primarily there to give you a picture of your traffic. By studying the trends and making the needed changes you can optimise the traffic your website gets to a great extent.
published by Gary in CSS | SEO | Web Development | Web General | Web Technology | Website Design | Website Standards | Writing for the Web
Although some argue that adhering to strictly validated code is just a way of making things needlessly complex, by the end of the day it makes sense to create validated code for many reasons. I have seen scores of websites getting highly ranked in the search engines despite not having a valid markup and this is an aspect used as a counter point. I don’t see it as a proof of “invalid code works too” but just as a fact that these websites don’t have enough competition to feel the pinch.
Valid code passes the recommendations laid down by the W3C, the body that defines (X)HTML.
The biggest advantage is the SEO factor. Another is browser compatibility. Let’s quickly go through a few benefits of writing validated code for your web pages.
Validated code makes it easier for the search engines to crawl your website
Some people don’t agree with this but a valid code ensures better organisation of content and layout. This tells the search engines where they can find the right information. Valid code keeps the clutter away.
Validated code works in all the browsers
Do you see that irritating message on some websites: “This website looks best in IE” or some browser X? How silly! You are actually declaring to your visitors that you are incapable of writing valid code for your website because valid code makes your website work seamlessly on all major browsers. Valid code not only makes your website suitable for current browsers, it also prepares it for future browsers.
Validated code makes your website accessible to all
You cannot write validated code without incorporating accessibility features into your website. Once your code validates, it automatically makes your website accessible to people with special needs and different abilities.
Validated code makes your website available to various devices
These days people don’t use just the computers. There are scores of other devices that can be used to connect to the Internet to view web pages. A valid code makes your website compatible to almost all handheld and other devices.
In the end, validated code makes your website future-proof
Standards are always defined with an eye on the future and nothing is different for the web designing standards. When you use validated code, you make sure your website will be ready to embrace the new technological changes with ease.
Writing validated code is not as difficult as it seems in the beginning. More than an expertise, it is a matter of habit. Once you start writing validated code, you won’t even notice that you are doing it.
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