The best SEO results come from combining graphical website design and search engine optimization strategies. Integrating web design and SEO gives the best results. So what should be considered in an effective website design?
Plan Before Designing
Web designers should chart out their SEO plan before beginning their design. SEO done as an afterthought is never as effective. Starting with keyword research, choose keyword phrases that have a good amount of search traffic and that reflect what you are offering. Create a detailed keyword plan by page. The right keywords are the foundation for all other SEO strategies. Using these keywords in page names, navigation, linking and headings will dramatically improve the designs effectiveness.
Create Focused Content
The keywords and the website topics need to be focused on a single subject. A website that tries to about shoe repair and computer consulting will not rank well for either subject. Using your keyword plan, create compelling marketing copy. Keep your marketing message clear in text, navigation and graphics.
Balance Graphics and Text
Search engines use the visible body text to determine what a website is about. Generally you will want roughly 500 words of text on an optimized page. The text should be broken up into segments with headings so that a reader can quickly scan a page to find what he wants. Use graphics and colors to create an inviting and easily readable page. If a page is all graphics, it won’t do well with the search engines. If it is just a big block of text, it loses it’s marketing appeal.<
Avoid Intro Pages
An Intro or splash page is a graphic or Flash introduction that is usually without text. The index page or very first page of the website is given the greatest weight by the search engines. Search engines determine what the page topic is about by scanning the body text. Without body text, the search engines will downgrade the importance of the index page and the entire website.
Validate All Code
Producing websites with W3C Validated code helps with browser compatibility, usability and with SEO Results. This is a hotly debated issue on the importance directly to SEO. We have seen faster rankings improvement with valid code over code filled with errors.
Doug Williams, Website Optimization Firm
Web Design is a one time creation of a compelling design and then forgetting it. SEO or search engine optimization is long-term methodical process designed to bring traffic and business to your website. So, why is it that so few web services companies are able to do both?
This is as fundamental as left brain vs. right brain learning styles. Left brain is considered the analytic in approach, which is what, is required in SEO. Right brain is considered the creative, innovative and design approach, which is required for great graphical designs.
SEO takes hours of research, choosing the correct keywords, developing strategies to fit the company, industry and competitive environments. Done correctly, SEO will bring a steady stream of targeted visitors who are interested in what you have to offer. The analysts will develop lead generation strategies and look at conversion rates.
Designers have the imagination and ability to create the branding and a graphical look to make your website memorable. They know how to select colors that spark emotion which a strong part of converting lookers into buyers. They are able to conceptualize and visualize things that the analytical types never could.
This is having both types of people involved in creating very effective websites. This is why we very purposely employ both types in both the planning and creation of the business websites that we produce.
Doug Williams, Internet marketing consultant
Custom PHP MySQL databases are used to add interactive functionality to websites. By adding online tools, searchable databases of your work, pricing wizards and complex sign-up applications you can automate your business website. This can effectively lower your operating costs and improve your level of customer service.
By combining the server side technology of PHP database programming with your specific business functions, you can allow 24/7 access to applications designed to sell or service your customers.
The difference between a web designer and a web developer is that a developer usually has more back-end programming skills for building shopping carts and member databases. At Doug Williams and Associates we have both teams of high end graphic designers and high end PHP web developers.
These are some examples of our web development portfolio
- Online DISC personality profile Free team building tool
- Online business analysis tool Determine the strengths and weaknesses in your business management.
- Searchable web design portfolio Ability to browse or search photos and descriptions
- Futon furniture and beds Searchable database of products carried at their retail store
- Plastic injection molded parts Photo gallery of products they have produced
- Portland Oregon luxury condos Site map graphically showing available and sold units
- Lead referral groups Online membership application
- Commercial equipment loan application Secure online loan application
- Custom tempered glass pricing wizard Calculates price based on size, thickness and material and then processes order.
- Searchable stolen property database Designed for use by insurance companies and consumers to report stolen property.
What is it?
Spammers can either send unsolicited bulk emails from a temporary email account or they can hack into another computer and send it from there. Anti-spam services like SpamCop receive reports of spam and create an “email blacklist” of reported spammers by IP address. People who run email services and systems, configure them to reject emails that come from a “blacklisted” computer.
Now there are well over 100 email blacklists. There are two basic types, those that blacklist a single IP address and those that blacklist a large block of IP addresses.
The blacklist of a single computer is much easier to be removed from. You will be asked to show that you have repaired the security breach that allowed the spamming or show that the offending account was removed from that server.
The “Guilt by Association” type of blacklist that lists a large block of IP addresses is a much tougher one to fix. The companies that prepare the blacklists know that it is easy for an unethical spammer to rotate through a block of IP addresses, so they blacklist a large block… up to 1000 IP addresses. Now this catches many thousands of innocent email senders that get their emails rejected because of someone they don’t know or even have any relationship with.
How to Avoid?
The best way is to only purchase hosting services through someone who has a zero tolerance policy toward spam. We learned our lesson. Like many Internet marketing and web design firms, we supply hosting. Ours is a very high quality business class hosting with all the support, bells and whistles.
Even though our hosting has a zero tolerance Spam policy, we housed our computer in a data center that had a lenient Spam enforcement policy. We spent an enormous amount of time fighting these “Guilt by Association” blacklists.
About one year ago we moved to a new data center that had a very strict zero tolerance Spam policy. In the last year, we have not had a single blacklisting incident. Although this data center cost us twice as much, we have saved a tremendous amount in technical support costs. Lesson learned: Cheaper hosting is not suitable for hosting business websites.
Doug Williams
A recent CNet News article highlights a push by the US Congress to target the Internet for tax revenue. If successful, this will change and reshape Internet marketing and web strategies.
Currently state and local governments are prohibited from collecting Internet taxes, but a flurry of bills in the US Congress may change this as early as this fall. Tax free email, Internet shopping and broadband connections may become a thing of the past if congress has their way. Congress is weighing whether to lift a prohibition on Internet taxes, and one senator warns an e-mail tax could happen by this fall.
At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. Pro-tax and anti-tax forces are jockeying for position before a Net access tax moratorium expires in November.
Those taxes could yield billions of dollars in new revenue by next year. But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill.
If the moratorium expires, one US Senator is predicting taxes on e-mail. A United Nations agency proposed in 1999 the idea of a 1-cent-per-100-message tax, but retreated after criticism.
Current Congressional Bills Pending
Enzi bill: Ushers in mandatory sales taxes on Internet purchases.
S. 156: Renews expiring access tax moratorium permanently.
H.R. 1077: Renews expiring access tax moratorium permanently and eliminates grandfather provision permitting nine states to collect taxes.
H.R. 763: Renews expiring access tax moratorium permanently.
Doug Williams, Web Optimization Firm
An effective website design is part of your company’s Internet marketing strategy, which is part of your marketing plan. A Marketing plan is really a mini business plan that emphasizes the market analysis and marketing strategies along with the budgets and financials to show the expected results. So, what goes into a formal marketing plan? More on writing a business plans.
1.0 Executive Summary (2-3 pages)
Keep it short, 3 pages tops. You have to make the opportunity clear and establish your company’s key advantage over the competition. State the purpose of the plan succinctly. What sort of company is it? What’s the product/service, and what’s special about it? What is the opportunity? How much money do you need and in what stages? What will you use it for? Show the milestones. The summary must be persuasive in conveying the company’s growth and profit potential.
2.0 Company Overview (1-2 pages)
Tell your story. What is it that makes your firm unique? Describe the product or service you specialize in and the markets you serve. Talk about what your enterprise does, the legal form of your company, where principal offices are located and the year founded. What’s the history and what stage of development are you in? For the most recent period what were the sales and profits?
3.0 Product or service (1-2 pages)
List products/services and briefly describe each in order of highest sales or significance. Describe in understandable terms. Avoid using technical jargon and terms that could confuse the reader. Where is each product/service in its life cycle (introductory, growth, maturity)? Explain the critical factors for success and describe the unique advantages you enjoy in the marketplace. What is it that keeps out competitors? Describe the barriers to entry. Are there any patents, copyrights and trade secrets that protect your business?
4.0 Market Analysis (5-7 pages)
This is where you will show the knowledge of the market and the results of your market research. Show your data using charts and graphs. The market analysis and then the strategies developed in the next section are the heart of the marketing plan.
- Define the market, size and growth. What share do you have now? How about in the future?
- Profile your competitors discussing their market share, strengths and weaknesses.
- How is your product positioned in the market and how does it stack up against the competition?
- Profile your targeted customers. What drives their buying behavior and what would cause them to select your product / service over your competitor.
5.0 Marketing Strategies and Tactics (4-6 pages)
Present your company’s strategies and tactics to penetrate and capture the market.
- Describe your company’s basic 3-year strategic plan for the market, products and services, and customer segments.
- Describe branding and positioning strategies.
- Explain your marketing and sales strategies you will employ to reach your targeted customer base in terms of pricing, distribution channel and promotion.
- Discuss advertising, Internet, public relations communications, trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail or any other market and sales plans you intend to employ in promoting and selling your product.
- Present your sales forecasts.
6.0 Financial Budgets and Analysis (3-5 pages)
Include sales history and sales projections by month. Present sales and marketing budgets and budgets for key programs. Show the projected results in terms of net income, cash flow and break even projections. There should be a 1-2 page narrative with assumptions, describing key items in the financials. Support your projections with assumptions.
Doug Williams, Business Consulting
If you have a business, you need a blog! Business blog marketing opens up new market channels to your business. According to Technorati there are now 71 million blogs with 120,000 new blogs being created every day. So is anyone reading these? Absolutely!
Out of the 100 most popular websites, 22 were blogs. This is up from 12 just six months ago. Young adults 18-24 read blogs three times more frequently than older adults. If your market is made up of this age demographic, blogging is a very effective way to reach this segment.
Why should a business set up a corporate blog? Here are 10 reasons
- Reach new market demographics than traditional marketing.
- Relatively low cost and quick to get up and running.
- Blogs are simple to use and with RSS feeds are effective in reaching large numbers of people.
- Blogging is branding. Regular posts reach your market segment and make them aware of your products and services.
- Blogs convey authority. You will quickly be viewed as an expert and a market leader by readers.
- Search engines love blogs with their regular growth in content and natural link rich format.
- Blog marketing is also a powerful search engine optimization tool which can be used to dramatically improve website rankings.
- Information is broadcast at an amazing rate and picked equally quickly by the search engines.
- Feedback can be almost immediate and businesses can find out right away what people think of their company, products and ideas.
- Add a human face to your company and create a corporate personality.
Doug Williams, Internet marketing consultant.
A “call to action” refers to website advertising copy that compels a user to take action. One of the first steps in planning a new website is to establish the call to action. Business website design focuses on purpose. What action do you want a website visitor to take when they arrive at your website? If you have an eCommerce website, then you want them to “Buy Now.”
In planning your website, establish the three most important things people can do. Choose one of these to be your primary call to action. The other two are your secondary actions. This gives your website clarity and focus and people can easily follow the path you create.
Choosing your call to action
This is the central purpose for your website. Examples that are commonly used are buy now, call now, email now, get a quote now, subscribe now, apply now, act now, join now and donate now. These can be coupled with phrases that add urgency such as for a short time only; offer expires June 30 or get a free eBook when you register today.
Implementing your call to action
The call to action should be clear on the home page. It should be in the center of the page, above the fold and preferably in a different color so it stands out. Make it clear in your navigation and page design. Design a pre-sale path that also leads to the call to action. Write compelling text that supports this. Website examples.
Measure the results
Use your website statistics or analytics to watch visitor behavior. What page do they arrive on? What pages do they go to? What is your conversion rate? What pages do they exit on? Regularly go in and make changes until you are getting the results you want.
Doug Williams, Internet Marketing Consultant
Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines. In SEO the only constant is change. The search engine algorithms are changing and evolving in quest of the perfect search results. SEO practitioners have to change with these Algorithms. To understand where we are going, it always good to look at where we have been. This is a short history of SEO.
In 1994 the search engines Lycos, Yahoo! And Galaxy were launched and in 1995 SEO had its beginnings with the use of keywords. By 1997 META tag optimization was very important.
In 1998 SEO was relatively easy and there was a shift toward looking at off page factors such as link popularity. Link farms became prominent. Spamming was rampant and this is also the year Google was founded.
In 2000 pay-per-click (PPC) was introduced first with Overture and later with Google. This is important because PPC would become the source of money to fund the search engines. The search engines need to attract users in order to attract advertisers.
By 2001, Google becomes the dominant search engine. In 2002-2003 There was a major consolidation and reshuffling where Google bought Blogger and Yahoo purchase All The Web, Alta Vista and Inktomi.
In 2005 Google introduced the XML-Sitemap format to allow easier indexing and crawling of websites. This was accepted and used by MSN and Yahoo in 2006.
There has been a constant improvement in search algorithms by the search engines. Today META Tags have very little to do with getting top rankings and visible body text and off page factors have a high importance. Algorithms, search engine patents and SEO strategies are changing on a monthly basis.
What is new in 2007?
- Business blogs have become a quick and effective to get you very good search engine visibility and that good search rankings can increase your brand value. More on Blog Marketing
- The internal databases of Google will be updated every 1-2 days instead of once every 3-4 weeks. This means more variance will be in the Google rankings for webmasters.
- Universal search by Google is going to make it harder to rank high for some key words, as you are now competing against videos, images, news and the like, as opposed to just websites.
Who is the real winner in all this? It is the user of the search engines who get better and faster search results. The search engine that delivers the best results, wins the advertising dollars. Right now the clear winner is Google.
Doug Williams, Internet Marketing Consultant
E-commerce is based on trust. Other than the store itself, what other pages should be included in an eCommerce website design? There are number of other pages, each designed to build trust, to answer a shopper’s questions and to put them at ease in doing business with you.
About Us
This is where you tell your story and tell why you are better to do business with than your competitors, what is the company’s purpose, the history of your company, your philosophy of doing business. Use a creative and interesting writing style to let your potential customers get to know you. This is one of the most read pages in a website.
Testimonials
People will trust what other people say about you, much more then what you say about yourself. Positive customers that are specific are the most powerful. Here is an example of a powerful testimonial with detail. “You guys are great and helped me out of a jam, your customer service ran my order out to the airport so I could get it the same day. You’re the best!”
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are an important part of the pre-sale step. By posting answers to the common questions being asked, you reduce the phone calls and emails from potential buyers. By satisfying the visitor’s questions on the spot, they are much more likely to make an immediate purchase.
Privacy Policy
People are wary and want to protect their personal information. They want to know how you are going to use this information and if you will pass it onto others. This is another element in building trust. Privacy Policy Generator
Return Policy
One of the best ways to put customers at ease is through a well-thought-out and prominently posted returns procedure. This can range from all sales final to complete refunds.
These content pages help the sales process, build trust and ultimately lead to more sales for your eCommerce store.
Doug Williams, Internet marketing
