Posts Tagged ‘seo’

A new 2012 SEO report released today “Catchphrase Secret for Online Success” provides advice for SEO best practices for 2012 and beyond. This 5 page illustrated report compares two websites that I designed, and the difference made between a 10 year old website that has not followed my advice compared to a 7 month old website that does.

The catchphrase is “Add original quality content often, and get social”. This new 2012 SEO strategy for attracting traffic from Google may seem simple, yet each word in the entire phrase is important. You cannot drop words like “original” or “quality” and achieve better results than your competition if they implement the search engine optimization strategy that I advise.

My specialty is custom cms web design that allows a site owner to take over their website to manage content and add, edit, or delete material without advanced technical skills. This gives them the ability to control the growth of their website to help meet the goal behind “Add original quality content often, and get social”. The cms, or content management system, is ideal for small business owners with limited time or resources to keep their website updated.

The strategy is based on more than 15 years of web design experience, and depends on natural methods of attracting search engines. Google publishes resources to describe the type of website that will succeed. Design for visitors not search engines.

Google further warns website owners against hiring SEO experts who make outrageous claims or any promise to get your website on Google page one. If you ignore the advice in this new 2012 SEO report and launch a small website that doesn’t grow, you may have problems with high ranking no matter how many experts you hire.

Unlike the natural methods I use and recommend, those self proclaimed SEO experts likely use deceptive methods that may work short term but could eventually get your website blacklisted. Google advises website owners to create content that provides a positive visitor experience. Original quality content will do that.

Read the 5 page illustrated 2012 SEO report (pdf, 226Kb) online or download a copy to read later or share with friends or business associates. View the graphics to see the big difference in traffic between that 10 year old aged website and that 7 month old new custom cms site.

The Catchphrase Secret for Online Success report ends with an invitation for readers to have me evaluate your website with a no cost or obligation review and summary report. Contact me today to request the free review.

Custom cms web design services for small business owners is about more than providing a wow first impression to succeed. A fancy website in flash with talking characters or video with music that launches automatically is what I call “Let me entertain you web design”.

I’m currently working on a custom cms web design project redesign of a recently launched website that blasts music automatically. They’re getting next to zero return traffic. People coming to your website want information, not entertainment. An exception might be a famous recording artist website where you expect music or video on autoplay.

Anyone looking to spend money for a product or service will search the internet for information first while doing comparison shopping before ever placing an order or even contacting you. Music or talking characters in a custom web design for a small business website is a distraction.

Imagine a person at work doing a search on company time who lands on your website, and is met with loud music that their boss overhears. That potential new customer for you could be fired, and I guarantee they will remember your website and their horrible experience.

Your primary web design goal should be attracting potential customers and convince them to buy your product or service.

Next, you want search engines like Google to send you visitors. Information may include nice graphics with descriptive text about what you offer. That text including key words that people may use searching for your product or service is what Google will use to rank your site to determine if you belong near the top in search results.

Getting that traffic from Google requires common sense and natural methods. Do not hire a SEO search engine optimizer and self-proclaimed expert who promises top listing. I know about disappointing results from customers who spent $1000′s to get on Google page one without even $1 in ROI before finding me.

9 out of 10 so called SEO “experts” know just a little more about site optimization and SEO buzz words than the site owner, yet cannot provide evidence to prove similar high ranking results for their site. How can a person expect them to achieve those same promises for a client?

In summary, avoid autoplay audio or video with sound, include key word text that describes your product or service in common terms a visitor is likely to place in the Google search box, and don’t hire an SEO expert if they cannot prove success for their website.

The website optimization strategy in the SEO for 2012 Report tutorial released last month works, and this case study provides evidence. You must invest time to improve and promote your website to achieve online success.

A recent custom cms web design implementing the principles in that seo search engine optimization strategy blog post has performed beyond expectations in less than 2 months.

Launched on 4 December 2011, the new dog rescue custom cms website for Lifeline Dog Rescue, a division of Central Florida Weimaraner & Dog Rescue, Inc., demonstrates remarkable success.

In summary, the first strategy for attracting search engine traffic begins with providing a positive visitor experience by creating high quality original content often. You cannot launch a new website and then ignore adding fresh content if you want to motivate happy visitors to return.

Likewise, a dynamic site that changes often will attract search engines to return and index updates frequently.

The second strategy is creating off site content in social communities that directs visitors to your website. The seo report recommends becoming active on social network websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Flickr. A key feature on this new custom cms web design is social network icons linking to those sites and social bookmarking sites.

Those icons and links make social interaction easy. Being active on social networks and interacting with your contacts provides real time off site quality content that enhances your positive reputation for visitors and search engines.

Consider the following milestones achieved with the custom cms web design and social network accounts for Lifeline Dog Rescue. Clues to the success may be found by viewing the social site icons and statistics at the bottom of their home page.

In less than 7 weeks as of 31 January 2012, the stats show 92 likes on Facebook, 146 tweets on Twitter, 2 Google plus one shares, and 16 links to social bookmarking sites. Keep in mind those numbers are just for their home page.

Next, consider Alexa traffic numbers for the Lifeline website. Lower ranking indicates higher traffic in comparison to competition between 100+ million other websites. Lifeline launched ranked at 16 million. As of the date of this post the rank is 797,404. Any number under 1 million puts your website in the top 1%.

Stats tracking likewise shows 1) a steady increase in traffic, 2) a very low bounce rate meaning visitors land on one page and continue to expore more pages, plus 3) the rate of return visitors continues to climb which indicates popularity.

Why does this seo search engine optimization strategy work so well? It depends on quality content and natural methods for attracting search engines. The strategy is forward looking and considers the importance of human interaction and not just mathematical algorithms of Google crawlers to determine website ranking.

Is it simple? Yes. Is it easy? Not really. You must still invest time on website content and social connections. Site owners who recognize and implement this simple strategy will reap the benefits of staying ahead of their competitors who do not.

View and download the 2012 SEO Design Strategy Tutorial (pdf, 13 pgs., 96kb) and then apply these principles of website success.

Improve and enhance SEO search engine optimization of website content with this 2012 SEO web design strategy tutorial. Unlike printed marketing materials to promote your business product or service, your website content is easily changed.

This new 13 page SEO search engine optimization tutorial download provides readers an up to date strategy to implement on their website to enhance their online success in 2012.

Please note that you do NOT have to register or reveal your email address to get this free SEO and web design tutorial. Simply click the link in the last paragraph below.

Website owners can perform this annual website content review even if they outsource the actual web design to a web developer or delegate the task to an employee. Take one day to invest the time in learning these basics to apply to your website and help promote your business online, and then review the results with the person responsible for managing your website.

View the 2012 SEO Design Strategy Tutorial (pdf, 13 pgs., 96kb) online now, or open it to download to your computer and read later.

The key to search ranking in a phrase is still “add original quality content often”, and a recent article on the official Google Webmasters Blog provides advice to implement this strategy. Read the post entitled More Guidance on Building High Quality Sites, and then compare your website content to the Google web design quality list plus the analysis here.

Rather than list each question or duplicate that portion of the Google blog post, readers may follow the link above and read for themselves.

Instead, our analysis will pick out the negative web design and seo search engine optimization factors as mentioned to highlight strategies to avoid that violate best practices.

The photo shown is a Google logo bumper sticker that I received by mail. Google represents more than 80% of search engine traffic to my website. It makes sense to follow their quality advice. Here’s my analysis.

Avoid the following seo or web design strategies:

• duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles
• spelling, stylistic, or factual errors
• attempting to guess what might rank well
• content mass-produced or outsourced
• sloppy or hastily produced content
• an excessive amount of ads
• lacking in helpful specifics
• content that might cause users to complain

Knowing the negative factors and realistically evaluating your website content to eliminate violations is key to ranking well in Google. Each item listed above violates the words “original and quality” in the phrase “add original quality content often”.

Apply this analysis to your plan for creating new web design content as well as evaluating existing site articles or pages. Older sites may have outdated content published years earlier that may not accurately present facts about information that has subsequently changed.

If adding content often is important, some website owners may be reluctant to remove previously published information thinking more is better. However, outdated or inaccurate content violates the word “quality”, so reasonable choices are to edit the information and republish, or remove it entirely.

Important: Negative ranked content can impact and lower the ranking of all pages on your website including quality content pages.

Our advice? Edit or delete poor content that violates the rules for a high quality website design, and then follow the advice from the Google blog and our quality analysis presented here.

This Google Plus One (+1) button tutorial gives site owners an easy way to add the social button to each post or page of their blog. Instructions include tutorials for Blogger and WordPress format blogs or you may want to include the Google plus one +1 button on your main site pages.

First, here’s some background information about the new Google +1 application. With the release of Google +1 yesterday going from “by invitation only” to everyone, this allows all users to sign up for the beta version and begin socializing in new ways that are similar yet superior to Facebook.

Where you see the +1 button on any site you visit you may click the +1 button to add and save that post or article to your free Google +1 account. Your +1 feed will look familiar if you’re already using Facebook. Similar to Facebook you may share content you like with a circle of contacts that you can specify by groups as friends, acquaintances, family, and more.

Visit the Google Plus One website to learn more basics.

As with anything new, the technical aspects may be daunting for novice site owners. Adding the Google +1 button to your website and blog should be easy with this +1 button tutorial.

To get the Google +1 application working you need two things. First, you need a script callout to the Google API or Application Programming Interface. Secondly, you need to add a chunk of code that automatically adds the +1 button to your site and blog posts. In layman terms you need 1) a connection to Google to add the function, and then 2) code to display the button on your website.

Important: ALWAYS backup your template before making changes. A single typo can ruin a web design layout, so protect your website to insure a roll back option if something goes wrong.

Blogger with Blogspot Address Instructions

If you have a free Blogger blog with a Blogspot address, the Google +1 button setup is added from the admin backend. Log into your account, select “Design” and then select the “Edit” link to the right under “Posts”. In the popup window of options and settings slide down and select the square radio button for “Show Share Buttons” if not already checked, and then slide to the very bottom and click “Save”.

That’s it. You’re done! Exit and visit your blog to confirm the +1 button has been added to every post.

Blogger Custom Domain, Template Site, or Static Web Pages

If your Blogger blog is on a custom www domain (like yourblog.com, not yourblog.blogspot.com), a template based website, or you have a static website design (no template), begin by inserting the following line of code between the opening <head> and closing </head> tags near the top of your template (or static page).

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>

This code will “connect” to Google’s secure server to provide the functionality for your +1 buttons.

Step 2 is adding code that displays the Google +1 button. Copy the code shown below to insert in your Blogger blog, site template, or each individual page if your site uses static pages. Insert the code in the specific place where you want the Google +1 button to appear.

<div style=’float:right’>
<g:plusone size=”medium” expr:href=”data:post.url”/></g:plusone>
</div>

For example, I decided to use the above code as-is modified and placed the Google +1 button (with 3 others) near the top of posts on my Blogger platform personal blog “Growin’ Up in Maine” with childhood stories and floated to the far right on the same line as the date posted. Visit that blog to see it in action.

The code may be customized, also. You may change the Google +1 icon size from small to medium (middle) or standard depending on the size you prefer and where you want it placed. In addition, you may want to change the float right to float left, also.

Note: Once placed in your blog or site template the buttons publish automatically with each new post or article. If your website design doesn’t use a template, but only static pages, you must manually insert both of the above codes each time you create a new page.

WordPress Blog Format Instructions

The majority of my blog designs are in the WordPress format because of ease of use and the large number of plugins designed to do functions automatically. Search and you’ll find several 5-star rated plugins for adding the Google +1 button function. I tested 3-4 and then chose the Google ‘Plus one’ Button by kms for my WordPress blogs and as featured in this tutorial.

The fast and easy way to install the WordPress Google +1 button is from the admin backend. Log into your account and then click on the down arrow in the sidebar heading for Plugins. Select “add new” and a new screen offers a search option. Input “Google ‘Plus one’ Button by kms” then select the Search Plugins.

The only option that should appear is in fact the plugin by kms. Under the name are links to details and install. Click on install and then “yes” on the following “Are you sure” nag message. The plugin will be installed automatically. When you return to the plugin options select “Activate”.

Next, under Settings in the left sidebar you should now see a link to Google +1. Click that to complete the setup. Set the first two options from the dropdown menus. My choices were “middle” under “size” (medium button), “below the post” for location, and then 3 of the 4 check boxes under that leaving “on first page” blank. Select “save changes” and you’re done. (Update: With additional testing, I moved the +1 to the top and added Twitter, Facebook, and a bookmarking dropdown.)

Choose alternate options from those I recommend to suit your preferences. Please note that this blog is a WordPress custom design. View the +1 button after the last line of the text and right above the “Share and Enjoy” date as subsequently moved to the top of posts next to 3 other social icons.

Closing Comments on the Value of Google +1

Besides the social value of Google +1, eventually those “votes” by visitors to your site may affect seo search engine optimization and page ranking. Google has dominated the search engine market for years with superior robotic algorithms to evaluate website content to rank pages.

The human factor of real people making real choices and recommendations that may be measured will certainly enhance Google’s position. Their reputation depends on relevant results to search requests. The human factor of +1 will certainly help.

For site owners, the early adopters adding Google +1 buttons to their website gathering +1 fans may likewise have an SEO advantage over their competition.

Comments are welcome. Feel free to call or email me with any questions, and keep in mind I may be available to handle the Google +1 button installation for a modest fee if you run into problems or lack of patience.

Here’s a web design META Title tutorial with positive advice to follow after the post recently about page titles and what NOT to do.

Each page META Title on your site is like a newspaper headline to grab attention. A single sentence that web designers use is the META Description that states the essence of the content on that page. These elements appear in the code and require key words to optimize the seo value and rank well with search engines. This strategy is part of the technical aspect of writing for the web.

The title of your page is usually the visible headline at the top in the on page content, plus if properly used as the META title it will appear off page at the very top of the screen next to the logo of your browser brand. If bookmarked as a favorite the title becomes a summary or reminder in your visitor’s bookmarks, too.

The page title continues to be THE most important seo high value item on each website page. It makes sense to give extra thought to your equivalent of a newspaper headline to capture the interest of readers and motivate them to continue exploring your site.

A good website page or blog post title often takes as much time to write as the actual article. Keep the POW factor in mind as you write title headlines. Less is more is an old yet accuracte advertising adage. In the case of titles my advice is using 6 words or less for website page or blog post titles. “Man Bites Dog” is a favorite example of a short headline that grabs attention.

This advice bears repeating: The page title continues to be THE most important seo high value item on each website page.

If you take all the advice written by dozens of experts, the ONE top key seo factor for ranking well is something you can learn to your advantage over competition to attract search engine traffic to your website.

Interested readers may want to learn more about seo for META Descriptions and search engine strategy in a blog post written last week at my collaboration web design site opened earlier this year with my son.

This is a lesson in SEO Search Engine Optimization. Imagine a web design where your website is listed in Google results on page one out of one billion SERPs (search engine result pages).

The search term would need to be a very popular, very generic, or frequently used phrase just to have a billion search results.

Today I discovered that this blog acheived #10 on page one for a one-in-a-billion phrase I made fun of nearly 3 years ago.

Some site owners make the mistake of wasting home page seo search engine optimization value by using the page title: Welcome to our website.

For optimized content for seo use descriptive phrases with key words about your business.

In a blog post about seo search engine optimization on 14 December 2008 I wrote about that phrase and why certain page titles are inappropriate when trying to compete for search engine traffic in your web design. The phrase is so generic and mistakenly used so often by web design amateurs that I decided to do a search just to see who was #1. Someone had to be.

The problem is the phrase has zero key words to rank well for terms related to actual website content. Afterall, who really does a search on “Welcome to our website“? At the time of my blog post a university was the “winner”. While working on seo search engine optimization for a new project, I decided to see if they were still #1.

The university is no longer on page one out of one billion SERPs, yet this blog is, and maybe in another 3 years this post will make page one for “Welcome to our website“.

The latest custom cms web design project completed and placed online is the residential and commercial sprinkler and irrigation cms site launch for Hessenauer Sprinkler Repair & Irrigation who services the greater Orlando area and surrounding communities.

The project represents a redesign of their static do-it-yourself website.

In addition to the custom cms main website, the design includes a matching integrated WordPress blog to allow enhanced seo search engine optimization because the customer can add original quality content often without assistance.

A key aspect of this custom cms web design with matching WordPress blog is the files that automate much of the publishing are managed in a single database.

This cuts down on custom web development time, allows automated site backups, and includes advanced features that clients may use without professional web design skills.

Content publishes automatically from plain text to xhtml and meets W3C worldwide standards, plus represents a breakthrough in state-of-the-art evolution for custom cms web design.

Hessenauer Sprinkler Repair & Irrigation has been providing sprinkler and irrigation design, sales, installation, and service to customers in the greater Orlando area since 1979. Links in their home page sidebar take visitors to very favorable reports and customer feedback on Angies List and the BBB Better Business Bureau.

Site navigation and usability in your website may be enhanced with a tree structure and cms web design. Besides the home page, about us, or general topics like a blog linked along the top navigation the site layout usually includes additional tabs of broad categories for the cms website.

For illustration purposes, let’s assume you offer products and they fall into general categories of Product A, Product B, Product C, and Product D.

Your website could grow to 10, 100, or 1000 pages yet everything you do falls under one of those broad categories. It would be too confusing for visitors to see a link for each of those 1000 pages in the top navigation.

Instead, this tree structure allows people to follow one link by Product A, B, C, or D for each of those tabs, and takes the visitor to a “directory” of the rest of the content relative to that category.

Think of this tree structure like a funnel that directs a person from the top navigation to general categories and then specific topics under that category. This makes a complicated site easy to navigate to get to content of interest. My site looks simple at a glance yet actually has over 500 pages of content.

The tree structure of navigation and links to more content can be seen on my site if you follow any of the top links. Follow the link to Web Design www.jimdegerstrom.com/web-design-services.html and then study the “tree” structure. This is not an article written about web design, but instead is more like a directory to web design related content on my site with a list of summaries with links to more content by following the “Read more…” hyperlinks.

Consider the lessons on optimizing pages presented in the 50 page seo and do-it-yourself web design tutorial sent to each customer. It teaches the importance of keyword research and then writing proper titles and descriptions for seo optimization, and explains how it is entered into the backend admin of the cms.

As you view my sample tree structure on web design as linked above, note the following important fact.

The headline and description for each item listed on that web design page “directory” is the title and description used in the code. There’s no better way to link to content deeper in the site structure than by using the actual title and description already chosen on the destination page for search engine optimization.

The value of describing what people will find at the destination is good for human visitor usability as well as helping search engines index your overall website content.