Web Design & SEO For Small Businesses

Content is the king and it plays a very important role in the success of a website. If you didn’t do it right you it hard to get visitors and convert them. There are some elements in website content which needs to be consistent, organized and easy for the user to skim though.

1. Clear and Descriptive Heading – As every one know that most people online just scan the text than read the entire content. So the heading or title of the page plays a major part in the content structure. What heading ( h1tag ) does is it allow the visitor to know what the content of the page is all about. So make it clear and descriptive. Also using a heading tags has SEO benefits.

2. Content above the Fold – You most important content or the content that you want your users to read should be above the fold because it where the screen cuts of the web page. The chance of the reading the content below the fold is very less. The most commonly used screen resolution these days are 1024X768, so if you call to action and most important element of your website is below the fold it might not convert very well.

3. Consistency of the Font and color – All major content element of your website like heading, sub heading and content should have similar font and color if you try to use different variation in the content style you might confuse the user and make them leave. If you have too many color in your fonts and links on the screen, it will look cheesy and low quality website, plus your marketing message will be hard to read and will send your prospects away.

4. Goal of your content – What is the point of your web page content? Do you have a goal that needs an action from the user. Every web page has its own goal weather it is an article, blog post or a product page. The content you’re writing must have a specific goal, something you want the site visitor to do. Decide whether the goal of a web page is to inform the visitor, or to persuade them to take some action, then make sure you achieve that goal.

5. Using of Emphasis and Bold – This should be used very carefully. Bolding and Emphasis a text is to attract attention to the user but overdoing this can kill your content and turn the visitors away. Also try to avoid different characters like too many exclamation Marks!!!!

6. Readability of the content – Readability make the page easy to read and inviting and pleasurable to the eye. Spacing(padding) of the text is very important usability issue of a website.
Spacing should be large and distinct enough that a reader is able to discriminate each individual word and letters. The important factors affecting readability relate to the relative proportions of horizontal to vertical space: line width, type size, and spaces between lines, words, and letters.

7. Title of Web page – A title of the web page is what the search engine visitors see first. The page title or the HTML page title should be explanatory and unique but not stuffed with keywords. Any title which a bunch of keywords doesn’t make sense to the user and would look spam.

8. Too Much Content – Don’t put too much of content in one page Online visitors don’t read too much of content they want to know who you are, what you can do for them and finally how to contact you for their requirements. If you have too much of content on your web page to find the information they need they will leave your site and go elsewhere. Also breaking up the content into bullet points like features and benefits will help the visitor to read.

9. Alignment of text – Alignment provides the structural framework of a content design. The best and the common practice is to align the content text to the left. Since the content alignment can affect the mood of the page as well as how effective it is at getting its message across.

10. Increase Text Contrast – Always stick to the high-contrast text while you adding content to a webpage. If you adding black text on a gray background it is hard to read. Research studies has shown that dark text on a plain background is fast to scan the content and imporve the reading performance than on a textured background.

The whole purpose of a content on a web page is to help the user and take an action based on that content. If you don’t follow the above said content usability issues, you might loose your visitor to elsewhere and also reduces the chances of increasing your website conversion.

If there is any other content issues you think I have missed out here please leave you comments.

Getting a better conversion from your website is very important. Why? Because your conversion rate is measured by the number potential visitors who are going to buy your products or services. Many website owners focus solely on to bring a lot of visitors to the site but they hardly focus on making that visitors to buyers. This problem can be solved by making some simple changes to their existing site or layout which will have a huge impact on overall conversion rate of the website.

Below is 10 techniques to improve your sites conversion with minimal expense.

1. Make it easy for Users – Make it easy for the user to use the site. It sounds pretty simple but there several elements in the design which make the visitors difficult to use the website, like for example, accessibility of your website, browser compatibility and finally the usability of the site. A potential visitors always look for more information about the products and services before they make a purchasing decision. Things like these can reduce the chance reduced sales from your website.

2. Value your Users Time – Time is important for everyone. If you website have too many complicated questions and hard to find things what the visitors is looking for is making the visitor to waste their time. This means scaring your visitors away. Some of the common mistake are asking too much information which is not required, having several steps to take action, important information are not able to find it easily etc.

3. Be honest to the user – Most people are very cautious about online transactions and giving out information online. So you need to keep them honest to increase your conversion for example having physical address, a valid phone number and some online trust certificates will increase the credibility of your website in the eyes of the user and increase your conversion rate.

4. Have a clear Return Policy/Privacy Policy – As I said above online customers always need to trust you so make clear everything in your return policy if you are having a e-commerce kind of site or privacy policy if you are collecting a lead. Online visitors don’t like their personal information being distributed to others. Also make these link to these pages easily accessible for example on a product page you can find return policy easily it can increase conversion as well as on the contact us form if you have privacy policy prominently placed can increase the conversion rate.

5. Multiple ways to reach you – All online visitors are not alike they are different in their approach as well as the online behavior is different too. They user different ways to reach you or find information on your website. Some online buyers like to talk before they buy other prefer email communication etc. So user multiple ways like live chat, phone number in all pages, contact us page easily accessible, forums if they want to discuss about your products and a blog as well to community with the user. Offering multiple ways to communicate increase your conversion rate.

6. User Reviews – This technique applies to ecommerce sites if users can provide honest opinion about your products through user review it will help the new users to read these opinions and make a decision. As testimonials increase your credibility users review will increase the chances of increasing your conversion rate. Provide a place for users to give their feedback about your products.

7. Discount Codes and Coupons – Discount coupons are not a new concept, shopper offline has always been enthusiastic about discount coupons because it helps them to have a substantial saving on their budget. Recently online discount coupons and promo codes has gain rapid importance. Today most of the ecommerce sites uses promo codes to increase their sales. Also there are several places online where you can promote your online discount codes. If you use Google local listing they also allow you have promo code for your business. These extra steps with online discount codes can increase your conversion as well.

8. Pricing Strategy – Again this is more relevant to ecommerce related sites because most of the online buyers are not aware of their shipping and handing cost until they reach the check out stage. If you could offer shipping calculators or a page specifically for shipping with all the cost details the customers would have a clear idea how much it is going to cost them before they buy. A good pricing strategy will always increase the conversion rate of your ecommerce site.

9. Tracking with Analytics – Imagine a football team coach, coaching a team without keeping a track of which strategies worked and didn’t work to beat the competition. This is the same with if you didn’t use a web analytic tool to track the activities on a website. Several website owners loose many opportunities to increase leads and sales because they fail to track and have a strategy to increase their ROI. In addition tracking the site through analytics will also tell why they are buy and why they are not. Web Analytics are also the key to reducing shopping cart abandonment rate. Use web analytics to measure the drop off in the sales funnel or buying process.

10. Website Testing – Not all websites are perfect it takes time and effort to make a website work. Now a days there are tools to test your website to find which one works and which didn’t work. Using tools like Google website optimizer you can test each every page of your website and see which layout or changes in design element got your the maximum sales. You can test anything on a website using these tools and see which one work better for you and increase your ROI.

There is no better way to increase your conversion of your website than doing nothing. Start right now, the more you experiment with your website the more you will learn and more opportunity to improve the conversion of your website. Testing these techniques on your website and constantly tracking them will see improvement and increase in your ROI.

Which conversion techniques worked for your websites? Please feel free to leave that in the comments.

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Internal Links for a website is very important as inbound links from other website this one of the most important aspect often people forget. Because internal links with right anchor text gives relevant to your business. The other important value to internal links from the users point of view is they can navigate the page to find more information to the anchor text you have linked.

The process of internal link building is called link sculpting which help search engine bots to find which are the most relevant pages of your website.

Here are some of the do and don’t of creating internal links

Do’s

1. Do including your most relevant key phrases while adding internal links
2. Target long tail keywords of your business in the anchor text
3. Deep Link to pages try to link to pages which are hidden deeper inside the site.
4. Add no follow to link which are less important on your site like privacy policy, contact us page and Terms of conditions.

Don’ts
1. Using a non-relevant anchor text
2. All internal link to the homepage instead of spreading out linking to all the pages.
3. Over use of on page links don’t use more than 3 contextual links on one web page.
4. Using bold text to each inbound links
5. Opening the links in a new window which will annoy the users
6. Using the same color of the text for the hyperlinks which is also not a good usability for the user.

Also just adding a lot of links just for the sake of internal link doesn’t help. You need to measure or analysis the effort you have done with your internal link structure by check with analytic of your site.

Implement these Internal link building strategies to increase your ranking in search engines.

Please Leave your experience with internal link structure in the comments.

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Ranking your website above the SERPs for relevant keywords is key to any successful search engine optimization. Especially if you need to optimize for local search results getting your domain listed for the top 10 local search results will make a big difference. Local internet marketing is a very affordable method where you get targeted visitors for your business. Compared to organic ranking, local search marketing can achieve results much faster.

1) Keyword placement – Using the right keywords of your business. When you list your business for local search engines instead of using your business name use you main keyword phrase in the title of the listing. Also use major keywords in your description of the listings as well as under specialty or expertise fields.

2) Use you local address – Also use the local address while optimizing for local search marketing. One of the particular attention that search engines likes is the proximity of the address used in pages you are listing. Try to use your local telephone number for your local search marketing link building. emarketingmatador.com has a great list of directories for an effective local search marketing link building check them out.

3) User Review are important – Reviews always helps increase your conversation of your website. I don’t suggest to get fake reviews. Once you have successful completed your project of your clients ask them about giving an review for you in local search engine listings. Don’t try to fake user reviews. Visitors can easily identify a fake review from an genuine one and smart enough not to buy from you.

4) Display Images/Videos – Now local search engine listing allows you to have images, logos and even videos. Take advantage of these features while listing your business with google local and yahoo local. Logos and images will increase credibility  and branding. You can upload of your business premises picture as well. If you have a good marketing video upload that as well. Online videos spending has increase because online video drives engagements which will help you to accomplish your primary marketing objective of showing your unique selling proposition to increase your online leads and revenue.

5) Linkbuilding with local directories – Link Building is key for local search marketing, because local search listing is based on the weight of the backlink each site is gained. Check out your competitors in the local search listing and identify from where they are getting their local link juice identify those pages and try to get listed there. Try different cities and different niches and see from where they are getting those listings and get listed there.

6) Keep you business information up to date - Update your address and phone number in the local directories up to date. Most often we don’t keep track of directories/website where we submit the website, It is always useful to have a spreadsheet and add the listing when ever you make a submission.

If any of you have any other tips on local search marketing please provide that on the comments.

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Validation in Website designing provides guidelines for the web designers to prepare well structure and browser friendly website. Website validation ensure that the websites comply with web standards. A validated web page defines which version of html or XHTML is used to code the website.
It is necessary for browsers to process the document correctly. Here are valuable Firefox adds on for web page validation.

1.  HTML Validator – Validates HTML documents using the CSE HTML Validator engine for Windows. This addson require CSE HTML Validator for Windows. It is very simple to use and efficient in its performance. This is a great tool for web developers and web admins who want to go an extra mile. An excellent add-on!

2. W3C RSS Validator -
Validates a page using the W3C RSS Validator. Once you open the RSS feed into the browser window, you can right click on the page or goto the Tools menu and validate the RSS feed. The results will open in a new tab.

3. W3C CSS Validator – Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the CSS of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab. Will only work on pages that have a CSS file associated. For example it will work with http://www.w3.org/ as the URL has a CSS file.

4. W3C Page Validator – Validates a page using the W3C Markup Validation Service. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab. This is a simple extension that will work only for online pages.

5. W3C XML Validator – This is a very simple extension that validates W3C XML schema documents.

6. W3C Offline Page validator – Validates the source of a HTML/XHTML page via the W3C Markup Validation Service using the direct-input form. Validates a page using the W3C Markup Validation Service, even if the page is not public.

7. Validaty – One Click Validator. Provides you a button to validate a page using a validator like…

8. Total Validator – Perform multiple validations and take screen shots in one go. This 5-in-1 validator works with external, internal, or local web pages using the Total Validator service or local copy of the desktop tool…

So that’s my list of 8 extensions for web page validation which will make your validation experience better. Some of them are very useful and essentical for every web designers. What Firefox Validation addons is your favorite please leave your comments.