Web Guides 4 U

Keywords are to search engines what catnip is to cats. It’s true. Keywords aren’t the only selector utilized by search engine algorithms to determine the ranking of your site, but they are a key component…no pun intended. Understanding keywords and utilizing them properly in your site’s content will help make your site successful, and that, my friend, is why we do this, is it not?

In order to understand which keywords will return the best results you need to do a little research. There’s a number of different ways to perform this research, and the good news is that none of them involve a lab coat…unless you want to wear one, and then who am I to question your personal style?

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With three to five seconds to capture your potential customer’s attention, you’ve barely any time to work your magic. This is why it is absolutely vital that in addition to proper site design you take the time to really develop your copy.

Imagine your site’s visitors as wild animals. You’ve set out the bait by marketing your site properly, by submitting your site to search engines, by practicing your SEO training (or paying someone else to do it for you), but a wild animal’s curiosity only takes it so far before its instinct is to bolt. If you don’t make the risk all that much more enticing, the wild animal will sniff at the offering, but they won’t stick around. Before you know it, you’ll be staring at their furry little hindquarters as they bound back into the dense cover of the World Wide Web. This is where igniting their interest comes into play.

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There are two sides to this website debate. On one hand everyone you speak with insists that you need to have a site in order to be competitive in today’s market—even the blue-haired old lady who lives down the street and swallowed a fly has a blog, right? On the other hand, you’re wondering why you should spend the time and money developing a site that you feel will just get lost in the plethora of websites being hosted by millions of people worldwide. After all, won’t your efforts be just another small fish in a big pond?

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The process of building a website can be a daunting one, especially if you’re building one for the first time. It raises questions like, “What kind of information should I provide?” and, “What pages should I include?” just to name a couple. If you’re not asking these sorts of questions…well, my friend, something’s already wrong.

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What a wild time we’re experiencing as businesses these days, eh? What was strong before—what seemed impermeable—is no longer, but what was once an afterthought, or a tertiary method, is now not only a necessity, but one of the most successful methods for continued success a business can attempt.

Folks, the people have spoken. Oddly enough, even with previous studies indicating that the majority of people don’t believe everything they read on the Internet, the Internet has taken second place in media as the preferred news source (according to an article on eMarketer.com). In addition to this, more business put their marketing money to work through online avenues such as search marketing using services such as GOOGLE AdSense (up by 23.6% in the first half of 2008 according to eMarketer.com). Were you part of that group? If not, you need to reconsider where you’re spending your marketing money.

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Everything about a professionally built site can potentially cost you money: hosting, design, development, special functionality, branding…everything. You know what? It’s worth it. You wouldn’t buy from some guy selling out of the back of his van in a dark alley wearing a stained trench coat no matter how inviting his smile was, would you? Well, your potential customers aren’t going to take your site seriously if you don’t dress it up a little. This is why it is so very important that you understand what to look for in a designer—you don’t want to be fooled into believing you’re hiring a miracle worker (because there’s no such thing) when, in fact, you’re hiring some fresh-faced, high school student who picked up a copy of Dreamweaver and figured out how to use templates.

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When the advent of a website occurred they were simple documents that delivered information to the end user, usually through overkill. There was nothing else to put on the page until people started using BMPs, JPGs, and GIFs, and that’s when the mistakes began to roll in. Everyone was so excited that it was possible to create something fantastic looking on the Web they forgot the actual reason most people needed a website. Caught up in making their site “fancy” they overlook that which will make their site a success, and websites became a place to showcase design skills, get “Flashy”, and again, over stimulate their end users with excessive content.

Well, my friend, most sites are being hosted for one reason and one reason alone: to incite customers to action. Your site is a marketing tool, plain and simple. The development of your site should be focused on this effort, and how you do this will determine your success. There are some tricks to marketing, and believe it or not, most marketers don’t even know how to properly utilize a website in their marketing campaign.

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Many people operate under the false assumption that all you have to do to join the millions of people marketing their offering on the World Wide Web is to find a hosting company and put a site up on their servers. They don’t put a lot of thought into the actual offering, the process, the design, the marketing effort needed, and the end result provided the user. It’s sad really, but how much of the Web is actually useful, and how much of it seems to be a frivolous use of space? Take a look around when you’re searching a particular subject and I’m sure you’ll find yourself mouth agape at the sheer number of useless sites in existence.

Well, I know, and you know, that this isn’t the group you want your site categorized with as they make poor bedfellows indeed. You want to stand out in the crowd, to be recognized as not just different, but useful, helpful, and a provider of quality no matter the industry you’ve chosen to call home. The big question is how?

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If you’ve built a site and have it hosted with a reputable hosting company then chances are you’re concerned about your search engine ranking. After all, you’re paying money to make sure that your offering is available to the public, right? So it stands to figure that you should be concerned with search engine ranking and the popularity of your site. If not, I’d urge you to reconsider.

Being ranked on the first page of any given search engine is a site owner’s dream come true. The problem is that most people view the top site’s ranking as a piece of alien technology they’ve stumbled across: it is beautiful to behold, but impossible to understand. I’ve news for you: it isn’t all that enigmatic.

Sure, it will require some work on your part, but what doesn’t? We can’t all be lottery winners, but you can initiate your success by following this advice.

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Hosting a site is the easy part. Designing the site and, subsequently developing it, is the hard part. Hate to break the news to you, but this is a major pitfall for most people. What they wind up designing is as much a detriment to their potential customers as if they’d never attempted to offer the service in the first place.

Seeking Zen

What I’m going to outline might seem simple until you start to apply it. That’s when you’ll realize why the professionals exist. There are some really effective methods for delivering a usable website design.

• Intuitive Flow
• Purpose Clarity
• Efficiency
• Simplicity
• Being Memorable

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