MH1 Web Design Blog

by Effendy Lie for EntireWeb.com

We all know that search engines are very important for the success of a website. Almost 85% of new internet users find good websites by using a reliable search engine like Google. Search engines like Google fight to index thousands of pages of content found on the internet in the right order depending on several characteristics.

Search engine algorithms may vary with time but you can ensure that you have a website that is filled with SEO optimized, original content so that your page ranks as high as possible on the search results.

The following explains best 5 tips about SEO optimizing your web page:

Appropriate landing page

Apart from finding a great niche and product, it’s also necessary to have a targeted landing page to encourage paying customers. And one great tip I’ve found is that to ensure your landing page does not sell anything at all!

In fact, it should give a valuable resource away for free like a niche e-book, newsletters, mini-course and even tele-seminars that will educate the customer about the value of your product. Not only does it raise customer awareness but it also encourages customers to buy what you will eventually show them!

Fresh content

Fresh and new content updated daily is one way to ensure that Google keeps returning to your page again and again. Once the search algorithms are trained to realize that the content on your page changes daily and is completely original you are more likely to see your website higher up in page rankings.

SEO optimizing!

You also have to ensure that the content is SEO-optimized. This is possible by using Keywords that are recognized by search engines as related to your product.

Fill your content with an average of 2% of Keywords per page of 100 words. That means your page should run an average of 10 Keywords in a page of 500 words. Do not put in more than that as search engines tend to classify high keyword pages as spam or duplicated content.

Create a lot of internal links where a single article links to another archived articles in your blog or the site itself. This will increase site recognition and page rankings.

Keeping them simple

Don’t flood your site with complex codes like Flash, Ajax, etc. Of course, the site will look great but this just tends to slow down your site and as a result might prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your website properly.

Arranging the Keywords can make or break a website!

Start strong by adding your keywords in the first paragraph and the very first line and the first line of the last paragraph. Search engines like this as it makes it easier for them to classify the article, site and content.

Try to use lateral semantic indexing where you use the same keywords in the form of plurals or related variations. The more the number of variations you put in, the better the page ranking.

There you have it.. The most important thing of all is to take action.

by Chris Crum for WebProNews

The More Things Change…

Google is traditionally the main area of focus when it comes to search engine optimization. With the search engine giant so far ahead of the game in terms of search market share, it’s not hard to understand why.

Search is changing though, and there are always new elements coming into play. Since social media has come into its own, more opportunities and questions have come along with it. Now Microsoft is going for Google’s throat with a new search engine and an aggressive marketing campaign. What this means for the future of search market share is yet to be determined, but there’s no denying Bing is capturing some attention, and that means there are people searching with it.

SEO for Bing

Microsoft’s stance on search engine optimization really doesn’t appear to be all that different from Google’s. You’re not going to get the same results on both Google and Bing in many cases, but that is after all why the two can co-exist. The real difference is in how the results are presented, and not as much in how the two determine quality and relevancy.

 Read the full article here

by Mike Hallaron, Mh1 Web Design

Building and launching your company Web site is only half the battle. If no one can find your site using search engine giants Google and Yahoo, then you will have a hard time seeing results and increased sales from the site. We have discussed meta tags called keywords in several posts here before, so I’ll assume you understand how important they are to how your site ranks in Google and Yahoo.

Early in the Web site design process, when we are defining goals and site architecture, I highly recommend that you visit Google AdWords and spend some time with their free keyword tool, refining your keywords and key phrases. Located at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal this tool takes seconds to use. Simply type in relevant keywords or phrases that describe your business services and products and the tool generates a list of related terms showing how many times these keywords or phrases were actually searched on Google last month. It’s gold!

This is an invaluable tool. It will help clear up subtelties between plural and singular forms of words and the most effective combination of words in your search phrases, such as “furniture houston tx” or “houston furniture” or “furniture stores in houston”. Many times we assume we know our keywords but this terrific tool provides real world data to steer you in the right direction when selecting these crucial search engine marketing nuggets.

We use the same tool with our sites and usually when selecting clients’ keywords and phrases. The tool is useful for tweaking your keywords if your site is not ranking as highly as you want. Try alternatives and variations and update your site on a regular basis to keep content and meta tags accurate, timely and fresh.

 Learn more: http://www.getelastic.com/google-keyword-research-tips/

Whether your internet marketing strategy utilizes websites, blogs, article marketing or press releases correctly using keywords is an absolute must.

Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven’t optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.

Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.

The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you’ll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.

Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.

There are 3 areas of focus you’ll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you’ll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.

Let’s discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:

ACCURACY

Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn’t reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they’re expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they’re looking for.

POSITIONING

Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.

Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you’re performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.

FREQUENCY

Here’s an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword ’stuffing’ as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.

Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.

Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you’re writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the ’submit’ bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.

Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you’re looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com.

by Mike Hallaron, MH1 Web Design 

Preparing to redesign your company Web site? ..or launch a new business site? Do not wait until after you launch to begin thinking about search engine marketing and proper optimization techniques.

You and your Web designer should have a clear understanding of your target audience and key words and phrases that will ensure search engine ranking success. In fact, if your new designer does not ask you questions about your market, competition, audience and try to understand your goals from a marketing standpoint before beginning work.. run, do not walk. Discuss and implement these key steps of search engine-friendly design and optimization before and during the design process. Lastly, have your designer register the completed site with Google, Yahoo and the others for optimum success.

Some important rules to follow:

1. Try to design your basic site structure in good old html. The folks at Google will tell you that their crawler software has trouble navigating and reading java script and flash. This will hurt your chances at high,  first page rankings among organic search results.

2. Identify your meta tags and make sure they are included in your <head> code. Although meta tags are not weighted as heavily as they were back in 1999, they still serve some functions with crawlers in identifying your key words and phrases. And tags like your description tag appear in organic search results that are read by potential site visitors, hence customers.

3. Use proper headline tags on your pages. (H1, H2, and H3 for example) Make sure to include your key words within your headlines when possible and avoid vague, abstract headlines that are subjective and meaningless. Your text should flow normally for the human reader. Google also considers bold and italicized text more important, but again, use logically and sparingly.

4. Think about adding secondary pages as your site matures to support link building, provide fresh, useful content and keyword-rich text for search engine spiders.

5. An html sitemap can help visitors quickly organize where they are within your site and where important content is presented. An additional XML sitemap is great for search engines trying to navigate through all of your Web site pages. The XML sitemap helps Google and Yahoo index your site accordingly, expediting the ranking process. Human visitors cannot see or access your xml sitemap.

6. Include a partners or links page. These pages are very useful for swapping reciprocal links with business partners and related vendors. Seek other sites in your industry and try to stay with high traffic, respected company sites. 

Remember that when you build or re-design a Web site that you must serve two masters… human readers who require an attractive, informative visual Web site and the search engine ranking software that can help boost your online success and make you more money. Find a good designer who understands how to skillfully carry off this balancing act.