One of the most unexpected trends I’ve observed recently is the emergence of letterpress (actually pressed letters) in Web design. This technique has been rarely used until now and it is a fresh way to make a website look appealing and contemporary. Embossed fonts are also making the scene. Letterpress is used in many styles for various topics; in particular, it is often used in product designs and on websites for online services. Make your website nviting and fresh in 2009!
When it comes to internet marketing, there are many options one can choose from to make your marketing efforts successful. Many of them can cost a bit more than we are willing to spend.
If your budget is tight, article marketing can be a helpful source to get your message out. We’ve all had experiences and some of you are experts in niche fields. People are always looking for new and improved ways to do the things they are doing. By writing articles, you will simply share much needed advice to people actively looking to be helped. This is also helps get your message and name out to the communities you are looking to target.
Along with writing articles, you need to distinguish who you are from your competition. Branding is now becoming a crucial element as website marketing becomes flooded with competition. Just having a company landing page that looks like everyone else’s just won’t cut it anymore.
People are even more skeptical these days, and they want to be able to connect with the someone attached to a certain product or service. Landing pages or “squeeze pages” have been proven more successful when there is a specific person they can connect to. A friendly, professional picture with an introduction about who you are and how you can help is useful.
Even more effective, shoot a video about you and the product or service you are recommending. Your conversion rates when people can actually see and hear you in person.
Maybe you can recognize good design when you see it on the web. But most people don’t really know what makes a design good. Although there is some subjectivity within good design, there are artistic principles that good design is built from.
1. Design Units
Items that are in close proximity to one another become one visual unit. items that are related to one another should be grouped together. Laying out related items on a website page this way helps the eye associate the information and enables the viewer to mentally categorize the information easily.
It is important to organize information in a way that enables viewers to quickly and easily comprehend. When information is organized, people are more likely to read it and respond. People are also more likely to remember information that is organized.
How can you determine if items form a visual unit? Squint your eyes and look at the page on a website. Now count the number of times your eye stops as it views the page. On a page that is using the principle of proximity well, your eye will stop three to five times. In other words, there will be three to five groups of information for the eye to comprehend separately.
2. Repetition
Good design repeats some aspect of the website design throughout the site. It’s this repetition that makes all the pages in a site look like they belong together. Color scheme, graphic elements, typefaces-all of these elements should be repeated-used consistently-throughout.
I try to use some element in a company logo as a major graphic element in the design or create patterns that are repeated throughout the design. Sometimes it helps to take a small element and place it somewhere on each page for a whimsical look.
Repetition can create consistency and add visual interest, creating a professional, polished look that the eye is drawn to.
Being found on the first page of a major search engine like Google, is a common goal.
Success is all about bringing targeted traffic and visitors to your site for your niche. It is often one of the least costly kinds of advertising even if you hire an ‘expert’ to do it for you.
You can do a number of things yourself if you are willing to put in the effort. Before you even begin to optimize your site you need to think about which keywords you wish to rank for.
Think like a customer to discover keywords phrases they might use to find a similar product or service. The more you can think of the better. These may then be plugged into on-line tools like Google’s keyword research tool or on sites such as Wordtracker or Wordze.
These sites can give you an estimate on how often these terms are searched for. If you find some terms that have a great number of monthly searches then it is a good indication that being on page one for that phrase could equal a large number of site visitors.
Remember that frequently the keyword phrases with the most amount of searches are often the most competitive also. That does not mean that you can never rank for them, only that it may take quite a lot of time.
A good strategy is to select a mix of difficult and easy to optimize terms. This will help get you a short term and long term focus.
The content contained on the pages of your site should be your next focus. Try to use your chosen keywords into the various web pages. Despite the fact that one of the reasons for using your keywords in your site is for SEO, please don’t forget that actual visitors will be reading it!
The greater the number of pages you can add to your site the better. Every time you add new content you are attracting search engines to return and reindex your web site. This can increase the chances of getting you to page one for many more terms than the ones you are specifically focusing on.
Search engines and local services are being used by people in your hometown to find what they are looking for.
Research has shown that 70% of households do some kinds of search for a local product or service on a daily basis. That’s the reason, why local search is becoming more and more important to your advertising campaign. But, what is a Local Search and how can it be helpful to your Business?
What is a Local Search?
When you search for anything using a location in your keywords you will find Google will display a map at the top with links to 10 local results, then the usual organic results will be displayed.
In fact Google has made some changes to its algorithm recently so that when you search for anything Google will display local results fourth in the list. It does this by reading your IP address and detecting where you are based. The aim of this is to give people the most relevant results and helping them to find a local business.
How Local Search can be Beneficial to your Business
Well as you will already know it is really important to appear as high up in the search engine results as possible. As the local results are now appearing high up for the majority of searches you can get added benefits by submitting your site to the local results.
You also need to think about the fact that many people will want to deal with a local company. If you are nowhere for local results then you could miss out on valuable customers.
At this stage I do not think local search has the same power as the standard organic results. However as Google puts more importance on it so will searchers which will make it more and more important to be featured in the local results for your area.
How to Get Your Business Listed in a Local Search Engine
In order to get listed in the local search you will need to have an account set up with Google search engine. You will need to give them your postal address, telephone number, URL and a brief description. Once these details are verified it will probably take 24-38 hours for your site to be listed for your selected areas.
How can you help your readers know whether your site can really help them? Why is content writing for the web different from any other kind of writing?
A well designed and attractive web design is important, but the majority of site visitation happens because the consumer was motivated to look at your site to see if you could give them a reason to purchase from your business. One of the most cost effective applications this information can produce is that you may not need a website filled with all bells and whistles such as Java Script or Flash design.
These tools can liven up your website, but can often detract or even annoy visitors who are simply looking for information they expect to find on your website. A well ordered website can reap rewards – effective bullet points, keywords or phrases accented in bold type and an easy to navigate page may have a greater impact on your ecommerce web design than anything.
Writing for the Web
Content writing for web pages is not the same as writing for any other type of content. Thoughts must be compact and content must be scannable. This means when you write for the web you must help your reader find the subject they are most interested in using a sub-heading or indexing system that allows a quick scan to determine if your web page contains the information they need. Even if your website does not contain the exact information your visitor wants they may be pleased to know it didn’t require extended reading to make that determination. In turn the visitor may venture to other pages of online content to determine if you have the information they need elsewhere on your site.
For those of you who don’t know what an RSS feed is—well, now is an opportune time to get up to speed.
RSS, short for “really simple sindication” is a way to keep tabs on what your favorite sites are publishing. You set up an RSS reader on your computer and then select any website of interest to you that offers an RSS feed. Often these are news websites, social commentaries, celebrities, to name a few. If you point your RSS reader at www.slate.com/rss (for example), the reader will display headlines and previews of the most recently published stories and links that will show you the complete article. The advantage? Instead of wasting time refreshing your countless bookmarked websites, new content on those sites comes directly to you.
Many websites now offer alerts to readers for every piece they publish; offering more descriptive headlines and longer article previews, so it’s easier to get a real sense of what a story is about before you click through to read it.
To “subscribe” to a RSS feed , you need a feed reader. Simply point the reader to the URL (address) of the site feed, and it will do the rest: it will display the contents of the feed in a window or panel for you. The feed will look like a series of messages. Although the word “subscribe” is used, there is no actual subscription (in the traditional sense of the word) involved. You do NOT need to give out your email address , fork out any money, nor furnish any information whatsoever. Your feed reader does all the real work: it checks the website regularly to see if the feed has been updated. If the latter has been changed, the feed reader software will inform you and allow you to read it, giving you the illusion that you have subscribed to some sort of newsletter or message service.
For more information visit us at www.blueskywebco.com.
Spring is a wonderful time of year but it might not be so wonderful for our online business. The weather is getting nicer and people are spending more time outside, away from their computers. Here are some tips to keep your website fresh as a spring breeze:
1. Add a new section filled with resources, information and maybe even some special deals for your customers. Use relevant keywords to improve your ranking. Offer tips and advice for whatever you do. By providing information and resources along with your products, you are giving people a reason to keep coming back. This is how you build trust with your visitors and get more sale
2. Remove all dead links, outdated information and products. Nothing is worse than finding links that don’t work!
3. Give your homepage a lift by adding new graphics and text. Redo your banner and give it some new life. Take out the old graphics and add some fresh new images.
4. If you haven’t yet tried blogging, read up on blogging and zap some life into your site. Some free blogging sites are Blogger and WordPress. Blogging is a great way to improve your search engine ranking while expanding your network.
5. Update your product line. Add some fresh new products and offer the old products at clearance prices. Have a Spring Sale and liven up your sales! Keep those customers coming back for more!
6. Add a What’s New page so you can let everyone know about all your updates now and in the future. This feature could get more people to return to your site to see What’s New?
A keyword is is typed into the search engine by a someone looking for information. If a yoga student was looking for information on yoga postures, they might use some of the following common search terms.
“yoga poses yoga tips”
If you used a keyword tool like Wordtracker, you would discover that these phrases are very popular search terms. If you built a website that focused on any of the keywords above, you would have a very difficult time ranking in the top 10 on Google’s search results page because the competition for general keywords can be fierce. If a keyword phrase has a high supply, it means that there are many web pages out there that are using this keyword. The higher the supply, the more the competition.
Long Tail Keywords are longer and more targeted phrases that people type into the search engines. In our yoga keyword example above, we looked at a few very general competitive keywords. Here are some long tail keywords relating to yoga.
“yoga poses for pregnant women yoga tips for postpartum back pain relief”
Do you see the difference? Long tail keywords are much more targeted to a specific sub topic. The nice thing about discovering long tail keywords in your particular niche is that they typically have a much lower level of competition, so it is easier to rank in the top ten in the search engine results. Long tail keywords willbring in much more targeted traffic to your website.
Did you know there are Metatag Analyzer’s that provide valuable information on how your website is ranked?
- See how search engine robots analyze your or your competitors web site
- Receive tips on how to improve your Meta Tags
- Check the keywords used on the page and find the keyword density
- Check web server operating system where site is hosted
- Check website load time
- Check website file size
- Check URLs and links found on the page
Get a free analysis by emailing your website address to us at info@blueskywebco.com