In the present Internet era where billions of website are being surfed every day it is not enough merely to own a website or creating a website with good look but it is very important to make it reachable to the targeted visitors and provide them with all the essential elements to convert them into potential customers.
Here get some simple steps to make your site a search engine optimization SEO friendly site:
1. Make it Simple
Try to make your site as simple as you can. Make use of white spaces on your site so that it visually also pleases visitors. Use appropriate font color with contrasting backgrounds. Less is more. It will help to make important elements more eye catching.
2. Avoid JavaScript
Try to avoid excessive use of JavaScript or any other scripting language on your webpage. Search Engine robots as per their algorithm do not read JavaScript codes and use of these codes increases the load time of websites which annoys the user. As a result of which you may lose your potential customer.
3. Avoid use of Frames and Flash
Try to avoid excessive use of frames and flash as they increase load time of the websites.
4. Organize site
Organize sites in a manner so that every page is easily navigated from all the pages of the site. Navigation to the pages should be simple and clear. The Anchor text should be relevant to the link contained underneath.
5. Avoid Excessive use of Images
Avoid use of unnecessary images on the website as they increase the load time of the website and make the website bulky. Do not overuse graphics on the web page.
6. Minimize Site loading time
Site should be quick to load so that it can easily and quickly reach your potential visitors. Minimize the loading time on your site as much as you can.
7. Check Availability of Server
The web server on which your website is hosted should be 24 X 7 up as search engine robots can crawl your website anytime. And unavailability of your site on being visited can lose you your potential visitor and thus you may lose your business.
8. Keep Navigation at the left
Create a Navigation tap and place the navigation links on that section. Keep the navigation links to the vital pages of your website on the left of the web page as search engine robots generally start crawling your website from the top left corner of the website and also it is very much convenient for the web users.
9. Relevant content
Don't forget that visitors are coming to your website to take some information. And for providing the required information to the visitors, search engines crawls your website. The ultimate main purpose is to provide information to the visitors. So keep your website more informative and post content on the website that is relevant to the site.
10. Manage Sitemap
Manage a sitemap containing the links of all the pages of the website on a single page so that a visitor can easily get to the page he wants to with the help of sitemap.
11. Avoid Scrolling Horizontal Scrolling!!!!
Users use to hate horizontal scrolling on a web page. It must go now. Vertical Scrolling is OK if it is very much necessary to keep it. But try to make your content or the information on your webpage very concise and snappy. Users should have good feel when they come to your site.
These are just general aspects that one should consider while designing a website or optimizing a website.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Image Optimization
Excellent images are essential for web sites and can lift an ordinary web site to a professional level. The average surfer responds better to websites that use good quality images, tending to linger longer and browse more pages than when faced with dense, text-heavy pages. There are many reasonable priced picture libraries online where one can source everything from flower pictures to computer equipment images.
Here are a few rules that need to be followed to ensure that the images become an asset to your site rather than an unwieldy burden and that your careful search engine optimization SEO use of keywords in the text is enhanced by the images:
1. Make sure all your images are correctly optimized: i.e. a relatively large image of 600x475 pixels should be between 20KB and 50KB in size(maximum). If you use a lot of thumbnail images on one page (125x125 pixel) then they should be between 5KB and 10KB in size.
By sticking to these simple size guides you will ensure that your page loads quickly. Do check every single image that you put up. I have seen images on websites that are 2MB in size, leaving the web site owner scratching his head and wondering why the page takes so long to load. Casual surfers will have long since departed to faster loading sites.
2. Naming your images appropriately will substantially help by making it easier for Google to find the images on your web site (Google has recently changed its algorithm to take into account images and other media more than ever before) improving your overall search engine optimization.
Try to name each image using keywords that link to the subject of the page that the image is on. If the subject of your page is red flowers, then find an image of a red flower and name it red-flower.jpg. Hyphenate the image names or use underscore between the words. The search engine spiders will see this image name as separate words if you do this.
Don't be tempted to abbreviate your image names, thus rendering them unrecognizable for search engine optimization SEO purposes e.g. rdflwr.jpg. You may end up with rather long image names by using the full keyword names but you will maximise the search engine optimization SEO benefits of your chosen key phrases for each page.
Lastly vary the image names that you use, when you have multiple images on one page, even by one letter to make it a plural e.g. red-flowers.jpg or flowers-red.jpg so that the search engines don't penalise you for keyword loading.
3. Make sure you add alt tags to every image, which are also taken into account by the search engine spiders, once again using appropriately varied keyword phrases that link to the subject of the page.
4. Search on the Net for royalty free stock picture libraries. There are many of them, some specialising in one subject others covering a huge range of subjects. They are normally free to register with and generally use one of two payment systems: a credit system whereby you purchase x number of credits and each image costs a number of credits according to size; or a monthly subscription which allows you to download a certain number of images each month. Most libraries provide web ready images at 72 dpi or print ready images at 300 dpi. Web ready images are generally from 450-800 pixels wide or high, but this is perfectly adequate for use on a website. With prices often ranging from $1 per web ready image to $50 for a A4 sized print ready image this is a very affordable way of enhancing your web site and attracting both spiders and surfers.
Here are a few rules that need to be followed to ensure that the images become an asset to your site rather than an unwieldy burden and that your careful search engine optimization SEO use of keywords in the text is enhanced by the images:
1. Make sure all your images are correctly optimized: i.e. a relatively large image of 600x475 pixels should be between 20KB and 50KB in size(maximum). If you use a lot of thumbnail images on one page (125x125 pixel) then they should be between 5KB and 10KB in size.
By sticking to these simple size guides you will ensure that your page loads quickly. Do check every single image that you put up. I have seen images on websites that are 2MB in size, leaving the web site owner scratching his head and wondering why the page takes so long to load. Casual surfers will have long since departed to faster loading sites.
2. Naming your images appropriately will substantially help by making it easier for Google to find the images on your web site (Google has recently changed its algorithm to take into account images and other media more than ever before) improving your overall search engine optimization.
Try to name each image using keywords that link to the subject of the page that the image is on. If the subject of your page is red flowers, then find an image of a red flower and name it red-flower.jpg. Hyphenate the image names or use underscore between the words. The search engine spiders will see this image name as separate words if you do this.
Don't be tempted to abbreviate your image names, thus rendering them unrecognizable for search engine optimization SEO purposes e.g. rdflwr.jpg. You may end up with rather long image names by using the full keyword names but you will maximise the search engine optimization SEO benefits of your chosen key phrases for each page.
Lastly vary the image names that you use, when you have multiple images on one page, even by one letter to make it a plural e.g. red-flowers.jpg or flowers-red.jpg so that the search engines don't penalise you for keyword loading.
3. Make sure you add alt tags to every image, which are also taken into account by the search engine spiders, once again using appropriately varied keyword phrases that link to the subject of the page.
4. Search on the Net for royalty free stock picture libraries. There are many of them, some specialising in one subject others covering a huge range of subjects. They are normally free to register with and generally use one of two payment systems: a credit system whereby you purchase x number of credits and each image costs a number of credits according to size; or a monthly subscription which allows you to download a certain number of images each month. Most libraries provide web ready images at 72 dpi or print ready images at 300 dpi. Web ready images are generally from 450-800 pixels wide or high, but this is perfectly adequate for use on a website. With prices often ranging from $1 per web ready image to $50 for a A4 sized print ready image this is a very affordable way of enhancing your web site and attracting both spiders and surfers.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
How To Measure The Value Of A Fan Or Follower In Social Media
It’s hard to justify the time spent on social media account management. But there are ways to measure the real value (monetary or otherwise) of fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. These top two social media websites offer free advertising, an open customer service and communication platform and a demographics database all wrapped up in one, so knowing the value of fans and followers can be a big help when deciding how much time should be allotted to social media efforts. Here are some of the ways to measure how much Facebook and Twitter users are really worth.
Number of quality fans
Many being social media marketers believe that the total number of followers or fans is what matters when it comes to having a great presence online, but that simply isn’t the case. Websites that offer programs to garner “1000 followers in 24 hours” or the like absolutely cannot guarantee that these followers are actual real people who are interested in your product and what you have to say. Buying followers is like running a search engine campaign with few or irrelevant keywords—your message is not targeted to the correct demographic. Think of gaining quality followers and fans as building up organic search engine rankings.
Remember, getting a high-quality audience goes both ways. Do not follow someone on Twitter solely because they have followed you. This is how many spammers gain followers so they can litter twitter feeds with their own links. When a person becomes a follower, visit his or her account to see if they are in the same industry or would be interested in your products or services. If either of these is true, follow them back. This is the same for a person that becomes a fan of your page on Facebook—add them as a friend if they are an industry colleague or potential customer (if you have a company profile). Periodically updating and evaluating fans and followers is a great way to measure the value of Twitter and Facebook accounts. High quality accounts will have followers that are specifically targeted to their product or service—this makes the social media relationship mutually beneficial.
Advertising & promotion value
In terms of actual monetary value, fans and followers can be measured and analyzed from two different angles: from a CPM standpoint and from a website analytics point of view.
CPM value. When users become a fan of someone/something on Facebook and Twitter, that action is front page news on their friends’ front pages, as well as appearing on the right side column under “Suggestions” while they are surfing around Facebook. Because most people are friends with others who are in their demographic or share similar interests, they are much more likely to also become a fan (or visit the page). Therefore, it’s easy to think of Facebook fans as “free” CPM campaigns. Adam Goldberg does a great job of explaining this in his article entitled What Is The Value Of A Facebook Fan? by comparing Lamborghini’s fan base against Toyota’s. By estimating CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) and average number of friends a fan may have, you can get a reasonable estimate of what it would have cost to run an actual online ad campaign of the same reach.
As for Twitter, it’s a little more difficult to have the same level of natural impressions that occur on Facebook. Including hashtags (#keyword) makes it easy for those searching for that keyword to find your tweet. Additionally, the phrase “please retweet” is a call-to-action that can help spread your tweet quickly.
To track how many visitors viewed a website from Twitter or Facebook, use Google Analytics or free URL shortening services like bit.ly and cli.gs that include analytics within user accounts. High levels of spam or inactive accounts make Twitter impression value harder to calculate. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore reported that 24% of all tweets are from automated bots, whereas 5% of all Twitter accounts create 75% of all tweets, meaning most Twitter accounts are inactive or have little significance.
Measuring conversions with goals and funnels. Besides tracking traffic and visitor sources with Google Analytics, its goals and funnels feature can also be used to track the actual monetary value that social media sites have brought to an e-commerce website or as a generated lead. Google’s definitions of goals and funnels:
Goals. A goal is a website page that serve as conversions for your site (with some extra code, they can even be file downloads or on-page actions). Some examples of good conversion goals are:
A “thank you” page after a user has submitted information through a form. This can track newsletter signups, email list subscriptions, job application forms, or contact forms.
A purchase confirmation page or receipt page
An “About us” page
A particular news article
Funnels. A funnel represents the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to the goal. Defining these pages allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals, and where they go. For example, funnels in an e-commerce goal may include the first page of your checkout process, then the shipping address info page, and finally the credit card information page. The only report that shows the funnel path is the Funnel Visualization report.
Google Analytics Help offers a short tutorial on setting up goals and funnels, including a case study of how the Chicago music festival Lollapalooza Tracked Social Media Campaigns with Google Analytics.
Finally, for measuring offline reach (e.g. if a customer comes into a company’s bricks and mortar store), asking customers how they were referred is a good way to see if Facebook or Twitter influenced their decision.
Direct communication. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow organizations and websites to have a direct line of open communication between themselves and their customers or users. This is also a great way to build up a free, but closely-targeted, demographic database or sample group. Asking for feedback on new policies, products or website layouts via Twitter and Facebook is a great way to get free feedback from people invested in what you have to say and offer. Additionally, answering customer questions and comments through Twitter or Facebook is a great way to both communicate individually with customers while also sharing those answers in a public forum for others who may have had the same question or comment, especially if it is negative or causing dissatisfaction.
While social media sites will (almost) surely never replace customer service phone lines, they are an affordable companion and occasional alternative. What’s most important in social media is ensuring that a company continues to show appreciation and respect for their fans and followers—whether they are customers, industry colleagues or potential leads by supplying high-quality information and service.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
Number of quality fans
Many being social media marketers believe that the total number of followers or fans is what matters when it comes to having a great presence online, but that simply isn’t the case. Websites that offer programs to garner “1000 followers in 24 hours” or the like absolutely cannot guarantee that these followers are actual real people who are interested in your product and what you have to say. Buying followers is like running a search engine campaign with few or irrelevant keywords—your message is not targeted to the correct demographic. Think of gaining quality followers and fans as building up organic search engine rankings.
Remember, getting a high-quality audience goes both ways. Do not follow someone on Twitter solely because they have followed you. This is how many spammers gain followers so they can litter twitter feeds with their own links. When a person becomes a follower, visit his or her account to see if they are in the same industry or would be interested in your products or services. If either of these is true, follow them back. This is the same for a person that becomes a fan of your page on Facebook—add them as a friend if they are an industry colleague or potential customer (if you have a company profile). Periodically updating and evaluating fans and followers is a great way to measure the value of Twitter and Facebook accounts. High quality accounts will have followers that are specifically targeted to their product or service—this makes the social media relationship mutually beneficial.
Advertising & promotion value
In terms of actual monetary value, fans and followers can be measured and analyzed from two different angles: from a CPM standpoint and from a website analytics point of view.
CPM value. When users become a fan of someone/something on Facebook and Twitter, that action is front page news on their friends’ front pages, as well as appearing on the right side column under “Suggestions” while they are surfing around Facebook. Because most people are friends with others who are in their demographic or share similar interests, they are much more likely to also become a fan (or visit the page). Therefore, it’s easy to think of Facebook fans as “free” CPM campaigns. Adam Goldberg does a great job of explaining this in his article entitled What Is The Value Of A Facebook Fan? by comparing Lamborghini’s fan base against Toyota’s. By estimating CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) and average number of friends a fan may have, you can get a reasonable estimate of what it would have cost to run an actual online ad campaign of the same reach.
As for Twitter, it’s a little more difficult to have the same level of natural impressions that occur on Facebook. Including hashtags (#keyword) makes it easy for those searching for that keyword to find your tweet. Additionally, the phrase “please retweet” is a call-to-action that can help spread your tweet quickly.
To track how many visitors viewed a website from Twitter or Facebook, use Google Analytics or free URL shortening services like bit.ly and cli.gs that include analytics within user accounts. High levels of spam or inactive accounts make Twitter impression value harder to calculate. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore reported that 24% of all tweets are from automated bots, whereas 5% of all Twitter accounts create 75% of all tweets, meaning most Twitter accounts are inactive or have little significance.
Measuring conversions with goals and funnels. Besides tracking traffic and visitor sources with Google Analytics, its goals and funnels feature can also be used to track the actual monetary value that social media sites have brought to an e-commerce website or as a generated lead. Google’s definitions of goals and funnels:
Goals. A goal is a website page that serve as conversions for your site (with some extra code, they can even be file downloads or on-page actions). Some examples of good conversion goals are:
A “thank you” page after a user has submitted information through a form. This can track newsletter signups, email list subscriptions, job application forms, or contact forms.
A purchase confirmation page or receipt page
An “About us” page
A particular news article
Funnels. A funnel represents the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to the goal. Defining these pages allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals, and where they go. For example, funnels in an e-commerce goal may include the first page of your checkout process, then the shipping address info page, and finally the credit card information page. The only report that shows the funnel path is the Funnel Visualization report.
Google Analytics Help offers a short tutorial on setting up goals and funnels, including a case study of how the Chicago music festival Lollapalooza Tracked Social Media Campaigns with Google Analytics.
Finally, for measuring offline reach (e.g. if a customer comes into a company’s bricks and mortar store), asking customers how they were referred is a good way to see if Facebook or Twitter influenced their decision.
Direct communication. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow organizations and websites to have a direct line of open communication between themselves and their customers or users. This is also a great way to build up a free, but closely-targeted, demographic database or sample group. Asking for feedback on new policies, products or website layouts via Twitter and Facebook is a great way to get free feedback from people invested in what you have to say and offer. Additionally, answering customer questions and comments through Twitter or Facebook is a great way to both communicate individually with customers while also sharing those answers in a public forum for others who may have had the same question or comment, especially if it is negative or causing dissatisfaction.
While social media sites will (almost) surely never replace customer service phone lines, they are an affordable companion and occasional alternative. What’s most important in social media is ensuring that a company continues to show appreciation and respect for their fans and followers—whether they are customers, industry colleagues or potential leads by supplying high-quality information and service.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
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