Smugglers Bay

WebSite Design & SEO

Tip of the Day!

21 Oct 2010

Predominately Flash sites may look gorgeous, but are very hard for search engines to index properly. If you are enamored with Flash, use it sparingly and have alternate HTML pages for the spiders to crawl. You need text and tagging to make a site with Flash perform to its highest potential.

Anna Strand

19 Oct 2010

Be bold. Use the ‹b›‹/b› tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example of deep linking, in this case to my personal happiness workbook.

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same page.

Article exchanges. You've heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the navigation bar.

By - David Leonhardt, an effective, professional seo consultant and a website marketing consultant. For a free quote, call 613-448-3931, or send us an email.

Article: No-Nonsense Website Promotion Plan!

Looking for a no-nonsense, take no prisoners free website promotion plan? This article provides ten important steps you should follow and act on in order to ensure a safe and successful website promotion plan.

Define Your Objectives and Your Audience.
Get out a piece of paper and spend ten minutes or more writing your answers to the following questions which will help you define your mission and target audience:
- Do you want to promote through traditional marketing methods?
- Are you selling a unique product or service?
- Are you selling the same product or service that other people are selling? If so, why should anyone come to your website?
- Are you providing information of some kind?
- Are you trying to reinforce a brand image?
- GO: Find Links From PR9 Sites.
- Is there 12 Months Permanent Link Assurance?
- Look at Our Competitive Rates
Target Search Engines in Everything You Do.
Did you know...it is estimated that 85% of people employ a search engine to find information online? Google (the largest search engine in the world) is home to 80+ million searches a day and that's just the USA alone. Every search engine has specific rules that they expect newcomers and long time players to adhere to with their websites. Learning and understanding SEO plays a huge role in how you do on the web.
Create a Short List of Domain Names and Variances
The domain name you choose (www.yourname.com) is very important in the overall success of your website. Being as specific as possible is the key to success. If you sell widgets, then your web domain should be closely related to the products you sell. For example, xyzwidgets.com would be ideal for a company selling widgets. But a name like MarioAvini.com wouldn't help people looking for widgets to know that your site sells those products.

And for the record try your best to buy a .com or a .net if the first one is taken. An .info is ideal if your going to send people to a squeeze page where you plan to capture their contact information in exchange for a free give-away. Remember, if you do buy a domain name and you have the money, buy up all the domain variances; .com, .net, .org etc. that relate to your domain so that people can't steal your good name.
Ferret Out Your Competitors
I am a big fan of this one! I am giving you permission to investigate and spy on your competition. No matter what you sell whether physical or intangible, there must be at least a few competitors. Simply go to Google and do a search for whatever you believe people would type in to find you. Look at the top 5 results that show on the first page. Visit these websites, look at the content, images and keyword phrases they use. Then without copying exactly turn around and offer the same appeal to your audience. This is how you position yourself as an expert in a sea of sharks.
Enlist the Aid of Your Visitors
Statistics show that 28 to 42% of the people who have bought something from you will buy again. So, cultivating the relationships of your existing clientele over going after new business is much greater for return. Therefore, you should always be looking for new ways to provide even better service to the people who visit your website. Give them something for free first or offer them a special service at a steep discount. Then ask them for any referrals.
Cultivate Partners and Relationships
This is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes I ever made when I first got started online. I basically positioned myself as the expert in my niche but didn't want to cultivate any relations with people that could supplement my business. Why is this good for a website promotion plan? Basically, by contacting the owners of websites that relate or add value to your products and services and asking for link exchanges you both rise up in the search rankings and can offer each others clients continued service if you can't deliver.
Talk Up Your Site Constantly
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why people fail to succeed online is their inability to promote their website to everyone they come into contact with. Just as you would normally say Hello to a new person you meet, you should never walk away without telling that person to at least check out your website. Sometimes the situation doesn't allow for that sort of promotion, but you just have to work it out. Say you meet a guy at the pool hall and you're just shooting the breeze, you can simply say, "Well I gotta get back to my game, but if you're ever in the ball park for a set of golf clubs, you should peep my site at www.golfclubsrus.com! Later."

Also, make sure you mention your website in every piece of literature or promotional material you craft up and pass out. That includes business cards too!
Integrate Your Marketing
This is a play in words off the previous paragraph you just read. It basically reiterates that you should convey your message and represent what you stand for in everything you do on a consistent basis. Use as many forms of media as you can think up to promote your website and keep your message or USP consistent, clear and repetitive.
Do Everything Regularly
The main secret to a successful website promotion plan is to keep doing something with regards to your website or online promotions on a constant, regular basis. Even if you only have 20 minutes a day to work on your website, you should use that time to make sure you constantly do something productive online. If you do everything you can to promote or prepare your products and services online every day, then you will see success come sooner than you think.
Measure Everything
The way you build a successful website and ebusiness from a website promotion plan is to test and measure everything. By successfully analyzing where your hits and traffic are coming from, what keywords people are using and how long they are staying at your website, you can continue to craft new products, pages, content etc. around what is most successful. If you do that, you'll get to the point where you've hit the jet stream and are so busy you'll have to work full-time from home. Measure everything!

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