Archive for October, 2008

With the recent GoDaddy web design makeover for a revised look including new navigation, their email tutorials provide a great tool for customers who favor this very popular domain registrar and hosting service company. Follow this link to the list of GoDaddy email tutorials to learn how to setup email service on your personal computer.

Often my web design clients opt for the free email forwarding included with a new domain or hosting purchase. While you may easily have email for info@(your domain) forward to your free email account at services like Google GMail, Yahoo!, or AOL, there is a downside. For small business owners in particular your image as a professional organization will be enhanced if your return emails are sent directly from an email account that matches your domain name.

Customers emailing you from your website where an info@ or sales@ email link includes the domain name may feel you lack sophistication, or even be unpleasantly surprised, if the return message uses a free email service provider. The GoDaddy email tutorials make enhancing your corportate image easier than ever. The strategy of creating a favorable first impression will be reinforced with a gorgeous web design and matching email to your domain, and then make sure to send return emails from that same address.

A custom cms web design launched last week for Atlanta recruiter Fidelis Search, LLC, and includes an integrated matching Blogger custom blog template. Fidelis specializes in assisting Atlanta area corporate clients recruit qualified job seekers for accounting and finance related positions.

The custom recruiting web design includes the ability to easily add unlimited new pages using simple text content and graphics that are converted automatically to xhtml with css to meet W3C standards.

Visit the accountant and financial recruiter website of Fidelis Search, LLC, and check out their new Atlanta Job Blog custom matching blog.

Web design and search engine optimization strategy to misspell keywords to maximize Google search results for poor spelling is unnecessary. Graphics shown below provide evidence for a web design related search phrase that brought a visitor to my website earlier today. Google continues to improve processing of search requests for the most relevant results even if you cannot spell. In addition, Google will cross reference for similar terms to provide results based on synonyms.

The two graphics below display Google search result examples for the phrase “tutorial ebook web design” without quote marks. Each graphic has circled labels numbered 1-4 as follows: 1) underlined search box phrase (incorrect spelling and then correct), 2) position at #1 on Google page one, 3) total number of search results, and 4) the #1 result in Google.

Some SEO consultants would advise adding misspelling of key words to keyword lists anticipating that some people cannot spell. I disagree with using that tactic for search engine optimization. In this first graphic below, the visitor Googled “tutorial ebook web design” with commas between each word, except the word “design” was spelled phonetically as “desain”.

In the second graphic shown below the correct spelling returned the same #1 result, and total results were similar except with 20,000 more results when spelled correctly.

The first screenshot graphic was taken after following Google search results while checking visitor statistics for my site. While on that SERP page I then corrected the spelling for “web design” and took the second screenshot. The total results were similar at 351,000 when “web design” was misspelled and 371,000 when “web design” was correctly entered, and each returned the same #1 result.

Next, testing each search without any commas provided identical results. Keyword lists for search engine optimization, or seo, in your web design META code are given very little importance by Google. Yahoo and others may still index keywords hidden in the META tags to determine the theme of your site; however, each key word in your keyword list should appear somewhere in the text that displays to visitors on that page.

Why would anyone intentionally include misspelling in their web design and risk offending their visitors? First impressions are important to keeping people on your site. If they see you cannot spell it could affect your credibility, so some visitors will leave immediately to the next Google result. Trust Google search results for poor spelling to bring traffic without trying to second guess potential visitor typing skills.

Finally, doing grammar and spell check of your web design text content is highly recommended before launching new web pages or blog posts. Poor spelling or grammar will strike a nerve with visitors and intentional errors are unnecessary as search engines become more sophisticated. The secret to success in web design and search engine optimization is summarized in my favorite phrase “add original quality content often”. Misspelling violates the word “quality” in that advice for successful web design.

A new custom blogger template launched earlier this week for the publisher and author blog of BlackHawkPress.com. The new integrated blog design color scheme and graphics match the pre-existing web design for a consistent look. Adding a custom integrated blog to any small business website enhances search engine optimization, or seo, and helps attract search engines.

Black Hawk Press is an independent publisher of counterterrorism novels by Ben Furman, publisher and author, as well as another genre with an adventure series of fantasy novels for young adults. Mr. Furman provides an inside look of worldwide intrigue and suspense based on real world experience aimed at adult readers. The childrens series of fantasy adventures offers excitement while providing positive messages for young readers.

The Black Hawk Press blog will feature posts with audio excerpts from their books, insider information about counterterrorism, and professional writing tips by Ben Furman. Follow this link to the custom integrated blog design for Black Hawk Press author Ben Furman to compare the look to their original web design.