tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77362452530291975972024-03-08T07:41:59.105-08:00Website promotionJane Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01156548204579788113noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736245253029197597.post-4070236131716647902010-06-16T02:43:00.000-07:002010-06-16T02:45:11.614-07:00Website Health Check<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">With regard to your website, how many of these suggested good practices can you tick <span class="GramE">…</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Is</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> your website organised into 5-8 main pages?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you tried not to rely heavily on images, with little accompanying text, which could cause problems for search engines such as <span class="SpellE">Google</span>?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you tried to avoid large images which are slow to load?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you avoided using frames, which can be difficult for search engines to follow?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">If your website uses dynamically generated <span class="SpellE">webpages</span> which are created ‘on the fly’ such as Forums and Online stores, and can cause problems for search engines, have you considered using the ‘robots’ file to control which pages search engines visit?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Do you have a memorable URL (web address)?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> you have an intro page that uses Flash or Shockwave files, do you offer a non-flash version for older systems to access? Have you considered if your welcome page is needed?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Is</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> your website written in valid HTML code? You can check this at: <a href="http://validator.w3.org/">http://validator.w3.org/</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you checked that you have meaningful page titles for each page? (<span class="GramE">the</span> title is what appears at the top of your web browser)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span class="GramE"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you reviewed the navigation structure of your website and checked for any stray <span class="SpellE">webpages</span> that are hard to navigate to?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you considered having a sitemap on your home page?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Where possible, have you used filenames and directory names that are keywords?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Do</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> you need to research new keywords, for example using a tool such as: <a href="http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/">http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial;">□</span><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Does your website use <span class="GramE">meta</span> tags containing concise and precise information?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;">For more information, check out our website: <a href="http://www.walkerwebsites.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">www.walkerwebsites.co.uk</span></a></p>Jane Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01156548204579788113noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7736245253029197597.post-70478440440366323952010-06-16T02:39:00.000-07:002010-06-16T02:41:58.082-07:00Website Promotion Guide<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Once you have a website, you need to promote it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Check your web page design</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Your website should include interesting and useful content. Use meta tags, titles and headings. Keywords are important, so think about which words you will use on each page. Your code should be HTML compliant - you can check this at: </span><a href="http://validator.w3.org/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">http://validator.w3.org/</span></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Submit your website to major directories and search engines</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Google is currently the most popular search engine. Google uses a complex algorithm to determine the 'PageRank' or importance of a web page. For this reason, you should consider submitting your website address (URL) to each of the following search engines and directories:<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/addurl/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Google</span></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Yahoo!</span></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.dmoz.org/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Open Directory Project (ODP / DMOZ)</span></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It can take some weeks before your website is 'found' by Google or Yahoo!, or accepted/rejected by ODP.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Web Analytics</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Google Analytics</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> is a free tool that allow you to analyse the 'traffic' to your website.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Online Advertising</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If you have some money to spare, you could use </span><a href="http://www.google.co.uk/AdWords"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Google AdWords </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">to create an advert which is shown when relevant keywords are searched.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Other options include </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/Ads"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Facebook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> and </span><a href="http://www.bttradespace.com/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">BTTradespace.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Email Marketing</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Email marketing is the advertisement of a product, service or brand through electronic mail. It is popular as it can be much cheaper than traditional mail marketing, and can reach a wide audience in a short period of time. If it is abused, it can be regarded as spam (emails that are sent to a large number of people with little discretion). Always include an option for people to easily leave the distribution list.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Email Signatures</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Whenever you send an email, a few lines of text can be added automatically to the email. These can include contact details and a tag line, advertising your product, service or brand.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Blogging</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">You can promote your website by writing a short article or blog which can often include a link to your website. Your article should be useful, informative and relevant.</span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Hopefully these ideas will help to improve the presence of your website on the Internet. </span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">For more information, see our website: </span><a href="http://www.walkerwebsites.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: Arial;">www.walkerwebsites.co.uk</span></a></p>Jane Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01156548204579788113noreply@blogger.com0