Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Tips for an SEO-Friendly Website Design

July 16, 2010 | Online Marketing, SEO, Web Design, marketing campaigns | 0 Comments »

Being at the top of the search engines is a major priority for a business. People are not looking through the yellowpages like they used to! It’s important to create a strong SEO plan for your site. Here are some tips for building an SEO friendly web site. They’re a bit technical, but important for your designer to know.

  • Make sure that title elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
  • Check for broken links and correct HTML.
  • Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site.
  • Make sure your web server supports the HTTP header.
  • Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers.
  • Avoid using too complex of tables when laying out your page.
  • Use external Cascading Style Sheets and Java Script files to reduce page size and make the download time much faster.
  • The URL structure http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. You should use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.

seo

Four Critical Aspects to a Successful Web Site Design

January 13, 2010 | Web Design, web analytics | 0 Comments »

There are hundreds (and even thousands) of different aspects, software, apps, tools, plug-ins and beyond that go into launching a successful web site.   When I look back at all of these elements,  there were several that stuck out as “must haves” across the boards.

The top four things that you MUST have on your site:

  • Analytics to track your stats (Google Analytics is our recommendation)
  • Email Opt In form (I Contact rocks)
  • A phone number in clear view (If you want a 1-800 # check out Ring Central)
  • A clear call to action — don’t make people guess what you want them to do

There are many others like: clean coding, good graphics, compelling story etc.  However, these are the top four that have no exceptions.

Is your site missing any of the above four?  If so, make the adjustments – you will be glad you did!

Benefits of Hiring a Web Design Firm with SEO Expertise

June 9, 2008 | SEO, Web Design | 0 Comments »

In the Web design industry, Web designers are a dime a dozen.  From people who use Web page creation software to create mediocre pages to experts with degrees in design, it’s easy to find a Web designer.  What’s not so easy is finding a designer who is right for your company, and knows how to design a site that will appeal to visitors AND attract search engine spiders at the same time.  Hire a Web designer who is not familiar with SEO and you run the risk of damaging the rankings of your existing Web site or hurting your chances of having a new Web site get ranked at all.  There are several ways that a Web designer with no SEO knowledge can damage your business.

Links – Linking is one of the most important strategies used in search engine optimization.  In addition to making sure backlinks to your Web site are available, SEO experts know how to use anchor text and other techniques to boost your rankings.  A designer without SEO knowledge will not know about these techniques and may not focus on building links when designing your site.

Meta Tags – While meta tags are not the most important factor in getting ranked, they do have some impact on your rankings and how potential visitors see your pages.  Meta tags are HTML tags that contain information about your site.  The meta keyword tag should include the main keywords for each page on your site.  The meta description tag should contain a short description about your site; this is what the search engines display when your site comes up in the rankings.  Designers who do not have SEO knowledge may not use any meta tags, or they may fill the meta tags with generic keywords that do nothing to help get your site ranked.

Content – If your Web design firm also provides content, you need to be sure the content is optimized for search engines.  Without SEO experience, your designer may not know how to select the best keywords or implement them in your pages.

Taz Solutions is an Internet marketing and Web design firm with experience in SEO.  We have graphic designers, Web designers, copywriters, and Internet marketing professionals on staff to ensure that your site gets the results you want.  Contact us today for a free quote.

How to Kill Your Search Engine Ranking

January 25, 2008 | Web Design | One Comment »

One word – FLASH.  If you want to kill your current search engine ranking (or kill your chances of obtaining top rankings put flash all over your web site.  In fact, even make the entire web site in flash!

The only people that can get away with this are companies that have high-power brand recognition – Disney, Pepsi, Lexus and so on.  These companies are not concerned with the top ranking for “Disney World” because they already occupy those top spots. 

You may be thinking: well how can they have a web site that is ranked #1 or #2 for all their search phrases that is designed with flash?  The answer – links!  Companies like Disney, Lexus and Pepsi have hundreds of thousands of links that point directly to their web site – making them “untouchable!”  

The key lesson here – design a web site that looks nice for your customers/prospects, but one that is search engine friendly.  Check out our web site design services:  SEO Web Design – Dreamweaver Web Design

Enjoy your Weekend!

Search Engines (and Consumers) HATE Flashly Sites

November 14, 2007 | Web Design | One Comment »

Did you know that it is 100 times more difficult to get a flash web site ranked in the searches engines versus a non flash site?

Did you also know that most consumers will leave a flash web site within the first ten seconds?

Plain and simple – design your web site with the search engines and consumers in mind.

When is flash on your web site ok?

  • To provide a product demostration
  • To demostrate a services

Please keep in mind – do not have anything flashy load right off the bat, have the flashy stuff on your secondary pages for the people that want to watch it!