• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Heading tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks

The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many “keywords” as possible.

Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the “Keyword Density” of your site, this formula is:

Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density

Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.

Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about “Web Design”, I want my site to include the words “Web Design” as many times as possible.

However, most people don’t just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about “Web Design” in New Orleans, I would include “New Orleans web design” in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.

URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not se a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn’t come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.

Description Meta tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.

Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.

Title Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don’t put anything in the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don’t miss out.

Image Names
As I said before, content doesn’t come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don’t call it “some_dude.jpg”, call it “web_site_design.jpg”. The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.

ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can’t analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.

Heading tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:

Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs…

Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your Meta tags follow.

H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag…

Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.

Content
As every expert will tell you, “Content is King.” Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don’t want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can’t read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.

Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.

You don’t have to be a vi or emac expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.

Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:

• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don’t use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an ALT tag to, this will ad more importance to the link, and throw in a couple of free keywords for you.

Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.

Murry Daniels

Theme/Color - This is the first impression the user gets when visiting your site and can be the determining factor if they stay or leave.  When creating a theme for your site keep it simple.  The easiest way to do this is by designating areas for your header (logo/banner), navigation, content, and footer (copyright, contact info, etc) that fit together to create a square/rectangle on the page.  When picking colors try picking ones that flow together and are easy on the users eyes.  There are many tools on the web that can assist with this such as a color wheel which help with getting lighter/darker shades and colors that compliment each other.

Navigation/Menu - This is another crucial part to your site and should be visible on all pages near the top or in a sidebar for easy access.  A menu may also be placed at the bottom for your users convenience if your site content is long or you have a flash (elderly users or older browsers may not recognize this) navigation.  However the bottom of your page shouldn’t  be the primary source of navigation.  Another thing to remember is to never have broken links because they look unprofessional and can frustrate the user.  Even if a page is not up yet you should still never leave the link broken.  Simply create a page letting the user know the page is currently under construction and to check back.

Content – This can also make or break your website.  When adding content be sure to break it up with line breaks, bullets, images, different alignment, etc.  A user does not want to sit and read a wall of text, they want to get the key information easily.  If a page is really long there may be a chance that you could take a section and place it on its own page.  You also want to make sure you keep related information together and unrelated information apart to avoid confusion from the user.

Footer – The final thing in maximizing your sites potential is creating a footer for the bottom of your pages.  A footer should contain copyright information and your contact information such as address, phone, e-mail, etc for quick access to the user.   The footer should not however replace a contact page.

Sherwood Manufacturing

With the use of darker colors and a sophisticated layered background texture that tiles the page I fashioned up a site developed for fast loading strong text information and a clean navigation that gets the user to where they need to go for their information. Check back soon for updates on the this new project as it evolves and I reveal the link to their new Website!

2.  Many people research products and services on the internet prior to their purchase.

3.  You are able to update important information about your business.

4.  A web site allows a business to reach their local market.

5.  By having your customers utilize your web site to answer frequently asked questions, you will be reducing costs.

6.  Information about your business is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

7.  Obtain important feedback from your customers.

8.  Stay in contact with your customers.

9.  Promote your business by allowing your customers to view your product or market.

Their old site was not bad, but it had several downsides.  As with many old sites, the coding was not compliant with modern web standards, the search engine optimization was not up to scratch, and it really didn’t portray what they wanted to show the public about their business.

We created a new site for them, using very modern techniques to create a look that was both elegant and functional.

Check out the new site today!  Timberlee Hills Wedding Receptions.

The future of Web sites involves using a background image along with the layout in conjunction. For many years we have put patterns and one color backgrounds in our sites. It is time to  evolve into large background images and integrating those images into the layout of Web sites. Overlap some images with text, extend them over other elements. Make things interesting to the viewer so they will want to be more visually engaged in the Web site. Don’t be afraid of white space. There is nothing wrong with it. Its there to push your eye to where you want your customer to go.

As a business owner please be aware of these evolving strategies and make sure you make the right decision when choosing who is creating your Web site.