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AVOID THE FLASHY WEBSITE TRAP
Does
your Dallas web site design company or advertising agency know the necessary marketing
techniques and search engine optimization strategies for
internet advertising / marketing success in DFW Dallas, Fort
Worth Texas?
Get the truth about web design
for internet marketing and advertising in
Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas
via (SEO)
search engine optimization.
What's the "Flashy
Website" Trap?
The flashy website trap is the most common problem today
with web design! Everybody, including Dallas advertising
agencies, design web sites because
it's easy. However, does your Dallas web site design company
or advertising agency know the necessary marketing techniques and search engine optimization strategies for success? There are some beautiful websites out there, but their chances of ranking high for any relevant,
targeted keywords have been dashed by the use of only graphics and flash and very little or no text on the pages.
You need a Dallas web design company that knows what they're doing
when it comes to search engine optimization. If they don’t, it could cost you
thousands in the long run trying to go back and change everything because your not getting the
TARGETED search engine traffic necessary to make sales.
For Example: You could spend $5,000-10,000 easy, on a website designed
by a Dallas advertising agency, in Flash or mostly graphics with cool fonts
embedded in graphics, only to realize later that the search engine spiders can’t read embedded text, and won't be able to index your information...
And this means you won't show up in the National or local Dallas, Fort Worth,
or Texas search results, so your prospects will never find you.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
This is
critical information
YOU NEED TO KNOW
about web design and search engine optimization
before choosing a Dallas web design company or advertising
agency!
Search
engine spider readable text needs to be present on each page
of your web site for effective search engine
optimization, as Google explains
here in their webmaster guidelines. Direct Google Quote:
"Create
a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and
accurately describe your content... use text instead of images to
display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler
doesn't recognize text contained in images."
There are some very pretty websites out there, but their chances
of ranking high for any relevant keywords have been dashed by the
use of only graphics and flash and very little or no text on the
pages. It is very important to your SEO strategy that you make
sure that you've taken the time to write some quality textual
content for your pages. Don't write nonsensical text filled with
blatant spam. Instead, take a few extra minutes and write 4-5
quality paragraphs which clearly explain the theme of your site
and the particular page your writing for.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
Dallas,
Fort Worth, or Texas Search Engine Rankings and
Conversion are
the goals of internet advertising and marketing!
Dealing with search engines is
the biggest pain in the neck you will face when designing your web
site. Why is it a pain? Because you need to integrate strategies
in the design of your site so that search engines can find your
pages. It shouldn't be an afterthought. You can put a lot of work
into making your web site beautiful, but it’s all for naught if no
one ever sees it.
A search engine has
electronic
robots or spiders that go and look for information on the web,
including your site. You should avoid spamming the search engines
at all costs. There are two kinds of spamming and they're both
bad. Most people have heard of spam email. That's where you send
bulk email to someone who has not agreed to receive it. Spamming a
search engine is a little different, but the consequences can be
just as severe. Read more about this from Google
here.
Using JavaScript or Other
Unspiderable Code
If you intend to use JavaScript
on your web page it is best to use it sparingly or not at all.
Search engine spiders cannot read JavaScript and it is possible
that along with ignoring it when they come across it on your page,
they may also get hung up on it if you are using a lot of it. If
you really need to use JavaScript you can safely use it by putting
the code into a separate JS file and calling it with a single line
of code which you place between your <head> and
</head> tags within your web page.
Using Style Guidelines
Effectively
If you are using CSS style commands, do not include them
within your actual web page source code. You don't want search
engine spiders to have to wade through 100 lines of unreadable
code before they reach your actual content. Instead, place your
style guidelines into a separate CSS file and call them with a
single line of code from within your <head> and
</head> tags.
Primary Keyword Layout
Examine your web site from a source code point of view and
ensure that your primary keywords or phrases will be spidered
first. When search engine spiders read your page they read the
source code just like we would read a book from left to right -
top to bottom. We know that search engines place higher relevancy
on keywords and phrases which appear closer to the top of a page
so it stands to reason that if you've got a large table full of
graphics appearing at the top of your source code before your
primary keywords, then you can achieve higher rankings by
adjusting your layout and placing a well written search engine
optimized paragraph above that table full of graphics.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
Read this article:
Search
Engine Optimization
Basics - Content (Part 5)
By Andy Beal
Over the past
few months, search engine optimization (SEO) has become more
mainstream, with many companies considering this form of marketing
for the first time. The amount of information on the topic of SEO
has increased dramatically, with many new authors stepping forward
to pen guides that explain how to optimize a website. Yet even
with this increased awareness, I'm still amazed by the number of
business owners who still believe tweaking titles or adding
keywords to Meta tags is all that is needed to increase search
engine visibility.
Optimizing
Your Page Content
In previous articles, I have
endeavored to provide a beginner's guide to making these changes;
now it's time to turn our attention to perhaps one of the most
important aspects of any SEO campaign, optimizing your page
content.
So, where do we start? What is
the most important change a Webmaster can make to a page in order
to improve search engine positioning? To find the answer, we
simply go back to the very first article in this series, where we
discussed effective keyword research. When researching your
industry, competitors and most requested search terms, you
identified the keywords that are the most regularly used by your
target audience. You've used them in your title and Meta tags, but
their most important use is in the actual page content, the text
you display on the pages you are trying to get positioned.
Include Your
Targeted Search Terms
So many times, I have seen web
sites that fail to mention any of the search terms they are trying
to achieve rankings for. They'll have lots of graphics and may
also have good levels of text on the page, yet the company still
fails to include the exact phrase that is important to them. For
example, if you're trying to achieve rankings for the term "desktop
computer supplies," make sure your content has that exact
phrase present in it. It is of little benefit to say something
along the lines of, "The best selection of accessories for
your home computer" when trying to target "desktop
computer supplies." While you may pick up points for
having text that is on the same theme, you won't achieve your best
search engine rankings unless you include liberal occurrences of
the exact phrase you are trying to target.
Checking
Keyword Density
Your next question is likely to
be "How often should I mention each search term?"
A well-optimized page should include at least 250 words of
text. Within that text, aim to achieve between 5% - 15%
frequency for the term you are trying to target.
Make sure that you place your most important search terms in text
located towards the top of your page and also try not to target
more than 5 phrases within any block of text (the more phrases you
try to target, the more text you need to achieve a high
frequency). You can check your keyword density here:
http://www.keyworddensity.com.
Also look for opportunities to
make links out of search terms located within your page text. In
the example of "desktop computer supplies," consider
making one of the occurrences of this phrase a hyperlink to the
most relevant page within your website; it will give you a little
push in your ranking efforts.
The Impact Of
Keyword Proximity
If you're unable to include the
exact phrase within your page text, which can often happen when
the targeted search term is not used in the course of normal
syntax, try at least to keep the words within close proximity. For
example, you could use "Discounted supplies for desktop
computers." While it is not as valuable as including the
exact phrase, it at least contains the targeted words, albeit in a
different order. The search engines, while preferring to display
pages that match search terms exactly, have shown a propensity to
display web pages that have the targeted words within close
proximity.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
Search Terms
Should Be Pervasive
While paragraphs of text within
your web page offer the best opportunity to include search terms,
make sure you don't miss the many other opportunities within your
content. For example, look at the text contained within the
headings of each page and make sure they contain the most relevant
search term for your content. Also, consider the navigation menu
that you use and look for instances where you can include a
relevant search term. How about the text you use under each
product description? I've seen websites where the most dominant
two-word phrase on a product page was "Sale Price."
Ouch!
As you can see, the text you use
on each page is vitally important when trying to achieve better
search engine positioning. However, adding keywords to your
content is not enough to get your web site to the coveted
"#1" position. There are many other factors that need to
be considered, including many that don't involve the content on
the page, but since we are looking at page content, here are a few
quick tips:
::
Don't bury your keyword-rich content at the bottom of the page.
The search engines consider where the text is located on a page
when determining your site's relevancy. Google will believe that
text pushed to the bottom of your site, in a small font, can't be
that relevant to your business.
::
Don't overdo things. While having no search terms in your text is
disastrous, having too many could have an equally negative impact.
Stick to your 5-15% frequency.
::
Remember the user experience. While your SEO efforts will help
improve your search engine rankings, don't sacrifice the usability
of your web site. Ensure that it is easy to navigate and that all
of your keyword-rich text still makes sense to the average
visitor.
::
Add one or two targeted search terms to the ALT tags of any image
that links to another page within your website. Search engines
have shown they consider ALT tag text when the image contains a
link to another page.
::
Don't go overboard with the use of "H1" tags or
bolded text. While they can help improve your search engine
positioning, less is more.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
Walk Before
You Run
Hopefully, the above advice will
assist you in modifying your most important pages to increase
search engine visibility. When you feel you have made all the
basic changes to the text of your site, you'll find many articles
that discuss fine-tuning your page layout and content. Search
engine optimization is an ongoing process, and you can drive
yourself crazy, if you try to optimize every single aspect of your
web site. Simply remember to keep your site relevant and make sure
you have covered all the basics before advancing to more complex
techniques.
About
The Author
Andy Beal is Vice President of Search Marketing for WebSourced,
Inc and KeywordRanking.com,
global leaders in professional search engine marketing. Highly
respected as a source of search engine marketing advice, Andy has
had articles published around the world and is a repeat speaker at
Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Strategies conferences. Clients
include Real.com, Alaska Air, Peopleclick, Monica Lewinsky and
NBC. You can reach Andy at andy@keywordranking.com
and view his daily SEO blog at www.searchenginelowdown.com.
What
is Search Engine Spamming?
Read Google's Quality Guidelines
here.
Don't
make your text the same color as the background of the site in an
effort to hide extra keywords. Just making it the same color can
get you banned, even if you aren't stuffing in extra keywords.
They'll even nab you if you use a text that is just slightly
different in color from the background.
Don't
use a keyword or keyword phrase over and over again in your
keyword META Tags, anywhere on your page, or in any HTML areas.
Don't
stuff a bunch of keywords way down at the bottom of your page
where you think no one will click. The spider police will get you.
Don't create a highly optimized page to get a high ranking, and
then switch the page on your server to another one.
Don't
use automatic redirects. It’s not recommended if you want to get
high rankings.
Don't
submit the same page over and over again, or try to trick the
engines by simply renaming the same page. Don't submit
nonsensical sentences that are stuffed with keywords. Don't
submit more pages per day than a particular search engine allows.
Don't have more than 8% of the words as keywords on any one page.
Don't put a tremendous number of transparent GIF files on the page
with the same alt text. When using transparent GIFS, don't put the
height and width tags. Don't
put multiple title tags in your HTML code. Used to work, but, alas
no more!
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis.
Search
Engine Strategies
Keywords:
The Critical Component
There
are two critical methods used by search engines to find pages. The
first is by keywords, and the second is metawords or META Tags. An
extremely critical part of this whole mix is the keywords and
keyword phrases you select that match the services and
products you offer. A keyword is the term someone uses when they
look for information. What are they actually going to type into
their computer? It’s really to your benefit to find out what
they would enter into the search engine. It may not be what you
would use and in many cases it will totally surprise you. What
they type would be the "keywords" that the search engine
uses to look for the information.
If
you kill yourself designing your site based around certain
keywords that you think are great, but the searcher is searching
using other keywords, then they'll simply find your competition
that did a better job of picking out keywords. We don't want that
to happen, do we?
Each
page of your site may have different keywords associated with it's
content, or you could have a site that has every single page
optimized to the same keyword. The important thing is that it MUST
BE THE RIGHT KEYWORD or you will never be found.
For
example, let's say someone goes to the search engine Google and
types in the keyword phrase "presentation skills."
Google has cataloged millions and millions of pages, so they can
find the pages on the Internet that are most relevant to that
particular keyword phrase. Their goal is to return the proper list
to the person that is looking for information on
"presentation skills."
Name
your Graphics as Keywords
Search
engines are getting so sophisticated now that you want to take
advantage of any little boost you can get to beat the system. You
can also name your graphics with keywords. Instead of making the
file name of a photo "joe.gif" you would name it
"presentation-skills.gif" Anything you can do to boost
yourself without spamming is a good idea.
How
do you find out what people are using for keywords when they find
your site? This is where you get into the field of statistics.
What you’ll find out is it tells you what hours of the day
people are coming to visit you. It will say where they’re coming
from and it will tell how long they stayed there. The more
sophisticated ones have the keywords that people typed in and
which search engine they used. These are critical pieces of
information.
Traffic
Analysis for Measuring Effectiveness of Marketing & Optimization Efforts
Don't
use Frames on your Pages
Many
people say you should not have frames on your home page. What is a
frame? To explain using a visual example, imagine buttons down the
left side of the page that always stay there, while the text on
the right side of the page switches. That’s a frame. The frame
is the fixed part while the rest is variable. Why shouldn’t you
have frames? Search engines have had a tough time with them.
They’re supposed to be getting better, but you’re safer not
having them on your home page, because the last thing you want to
do is make it tough on a search engine.
Don't
let your designer talk you into having frames. They are only
interested in the look of the site. All the top marketers in the
world who are actually making money and getting top search engine
rankings don't use frames.
Contact
me for more details,
or to get a
FREE web
site analysis. |
