First impressions last. That’s why, when it comes to marketing yourself through a website, your homepage will have to be love at first sight. And while the other pages of your website deserve equal attention, they aren’t necessarily of equal importance. A homepage, by its very nature, will typically have a unique set of design goals, content objectives, and mood in order to catch and sustain the attention of visitors. Here’s a list of seven best practices for a more effective homepage: Communicate concisely who you are, what you do, and what your site is for. Don’t leave people in the dark – show them the light, and show them the light in the first five seconds upon arrival. Your company’s name is Charlie’s Tees, and you sell funny shirts and vintage shirts, and your online store is the source of sartorial awesomeness. See? Concise and clear. Do that and you’re off to a good start. (Bonus tip: Make sure that these – Read the full article
We have been working with a client who asked us to help him rebuild his e-commerce website that has not seen any major updates in over 15 years. The site has continued to expand with new products over the years, but his content management system was in need of a massive upgrade. Whenever we take on any new web projects, one of the first things we analyze is the SEO of the site. We ask ourselves, how do we keep the current rankings and how do we improve the rankings after the launch. This site defiantly had some unique challenges, today I am going to share how we are approaching the URL redirects for our client’s aged website. We had a few ideas, for this store with thousands of products. Our ideas started with the concept of ripping it off like a bandaid and just 301 everything. Then we thought maybe it would be better to launch the new site – Read the full article
Link building is often said to be the hardest part of an search engine marketing campaign by many industry leading experts – but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so difficult. If you’re working on an SEO campaign for a client, or are a business owner looking to improve the number of back links you have, it may be better to focus your efforts closer to home, as opposed to actively hunting for links. The links you attract naturally are often the most high quality, and can help improve your search engine rankings more so than other link building techniques. Here are some tips to make your website naturally “linkable”: Great Content is Delicious! Although “content is king” is an adage that is so overused in the SEO industry it is beginning to lose it’s true meaning – it is actually still completely true. Creating good quality, relevant and engaging content is much more likely to attract visitors, links, and – Read the full article
Reliability, speed, support, and pricing: these are the things that one looks for in a web hosting provider. And while there are plenty of hosts who have put their names and services out into the market, none are perhaps as popular or widely talked about as GoDaddy. You’ve all probably seen the Super Bowl ads. But loving the commercials doesn’t automatically mean being familiar with the product or service. Does GoDaddy live up to the hype? Or are you better off with lesser-known domain registrar and web hosting providers? Services: GoDaddy offers a variety of hosting types – Economy, Deluxe, and Ultimate – each of which comes with unlimited bandwidth. Economy gets you 10 GB of space, 100 E-mail accounts, and 10 MySQL databases. Deluxe, meanwhile, offers the best value with 150 GB of space, 500 E-mails, and 25 MySQL databases. An Ultimate Plan gives you unlimited space, bandwidth, and domains, plus 1,000 E-mail accounts, unlimited databases, and a free – Read the full article
We all know that the Apple iPad has set the world abuzz. Fans have praised the tablet computer as a revolutionary, game-changing device, while critics have pointed out that it’s no more than a giant iPod Touch. In any event, the impact of the Apple iPad on how we share, consume, and publish online content can no longer be doubted. It will change, if it hasn’t already, the way we use the Internet – especially if the iPad becomes widely adopted. That’s why – if you run a small business or work as an Internet marketer or web developer – it’s important to think about optimizing your website or blog for the iPad. After all, more and more people are using Apple devices to surf the Web: part of engaging with and reaching out to these users is providing them with a smoother, glitch-free experience of your website or blog. Forget Flash Apple emphasizes HTML5, CSS, and Javascript – but – Read the full article
Internet marketing gurus have said over and over that “content is king” – but some people seem to think that in order to be crowned as royalty one only needs to dress up their website with blocks of text here and there. This isn’t the case. The content and copy on your website may be a product of good writing, but it’s important to recognize that good writing doesn’t necessarily translate to a better, more engaging website. So be vigilant not just of what you write for your website, but also of how you present it to your readers and visitors. Avoid these common mistakes that suck the life out of your website copy. Website design makes the text hard to read Colorized text. A diverse range of font types and sizes. Embossed letters and sentences with shadow or “blinking” effects. They’re all pretty tempting, and all those colorful text editing tools on the dashboard don’t make it easier for – Read the full article
The trick is to find what you are looking for easily. More often than not, a good website will procure repeat business, but it needs to be very professionally managed and easy to maneuver for this to happen. Therefore, business owners who are tr…
Just as Microsoft is trying to gain greater foothold in the search engine wars, which Google dominates, Google is trying to do the same in the Windows-controlled OS market. Yes, you heard that right. The company is launching its own operating system early next year: the Google Chrome OS. Google recently previewed Chrome OS, which is an open-source, lightweight system that is based off Google Chrome, the company’s web browser. While the company already has a mobile OS in Android, Chrome OS is primarily targeted at netbooks, at least initially. And why not? Netbooks are enjoying increasing popularity today, as more and more users push for innovation in their mobile computing devices. Google emphasizes that Speed, Simplicity, and Security are the pillars of the Chrome OS. Speed Google is taking out every unnecessary process and optimizing operations and running everything possible in parallel. The goal? To turn on the computer and surf the web in a matter of a few – Read the full article
