Tips & Tricks
Can Web Content Generate Its Own Traffic?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on June 7th, 2010
Anyone who has done business online and who has performed adequate experiments with search engine optimization knows at least two things about on-page website content:
- It generates its own benefits
- The more of you have, the better
Those might look like strange bits of information, but all it takes is a little taste of the pudding and you’ll understand what they mean. Let’s cover them one by one.
SEO Generates Its Own Benefits (Including Traffic)
SEO has lots of benefits and traffic generation is just one of them. If you want to know whether or not search engine optimization alone can generate traffic then commit yourself to a little experiment. Buy a domain name and commit to adding one page to that domain name a day for an entire year. Do nothing else.
Well, do one more thing besides. Create one inbound link – from somewhere (otherwise, it will never crawled).
Make sure that your domain covers a single topic, or niche. Use each page on your website to create subniche-specific content that is optimized for one key phrase. Put together a logical internal linking structure and navigation system and keep adding pages daily – for one year. At the end of the year you’ll see that your website has grown in traffic steadily.
Now, do it for another year. Just add pages and do nothing else. You’ll find that you’ll get web pages ranked for specific long-tail key phrases and that they generate traffic. All it takes is one inbound link to get your website crawled and indexed. Beyond that, SEO generates its own benefits.
The More You Have, The Better
If you just build one page to your website with an inbound link pointing to it and do nothing else, you’ll be disappointed. You’ve got to add content. That’s why blogs are so effective. They update your website every time you post to them.
The reason new content is so important is because every time you add a page of content to your website you are inviting the search engines back to re-crawl your site and re-index your pages, possibly even re-ranking them. And that’s why the more content you can get on your website that is optimized well can generate traffic that generates more traffic.
So What About Link Building?
So what about link building? Does it work?
Yes.
None of this is to say that building inbound links to your website isn’t a good thing. It’s simply an illustration of two simple truths: SEO generates its own benefits and the more content pages you have on your website the better. Everything else is gravy.
What Is Header Tag Optimization?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on May 7th, 2010
Header tag optimization is the practice of making sure your header tags are doing the best possible SEO work for your web pages. Now for the obvious question – What’s a header tag?
A header tag is the name given to title and subtitles on a web page. Do not confuse these with your Title tag, which is found in the Head of your web pages. The header tags are in the Body section and surround text that your site visitors will see when they view your pages. The most common header tags are:
- H1
- H2
- H3
- H4
- H5
- H6
These tags are largest to smallest from H1 to H6. Do not confuse the larger number with a larger heading. It’s actually quite the reverse.
What Header Tags Look Like On The Page
Usually, though not always, a web page’s title is an H1 tag. Subtitles below the title are usually H2 or H3 tags. Many SEOs believe that these tags should be in descending order, from largest to smallest, from the top of the page down. That’s one view and it’s a valid one, but there is another view that is just as valid. Pick one H tag – the H2 or H3 tag – for your subtitles and make them consistent across your website. If you have sub-subtitles (sections within sections for longer pages) then drop down to the next size for those.
Here’s how your header tags look to your site visitors when you size them correctly.
This is an H1 tag.
This is an H2 tag.
This is an H3 tag.
This is an H4 tag.
This is an H5 tag.
This is an H6 tag.
The actual appearance of these header tags will vary according to the stylesheet that defines them for your website (that’s another blog post). But the best way to optimize these tags is to consider how your visitor will view them. You want them to stand out and you want them to define the sections that they head or preside as title over.
One way to think about it is as a newspaper editor would. Newspaper editors have always put the larger titles near the top of the page and made the titles smaller down the page. This tells readers that there is a taxonomy of importance or relevance to the stories. But you should also consider other practical SEO techniques such as keywords and special formatting rules.
How To Optimize Your Header Tags
Keywords are important to every web page. You want your primary keyword in your web page’s title. Your header tags, however, should be optimized for each of the keywords that are important to a web page. That means you can optimize a web page for multiple keywords.
Depending on how many header tags appear on each page, you’ll have one to three important keywords for that page. Prioritize those keywords according to importance. Have a primary, a secondary and a tertiary keyword. Optimize your header tags for those keywords based on that taxonomy. In other words, sectionalize your web page so that your most important keyword is near the top of the page in a header tag, your second most important is in the middle of the page in a header tag and the third most important keyword is at the bottom of the page.
That’s about it for now. Header tag optimization is important for your web pages, especially if you are writing content intense pages with a lot of useful information. You want to present it so that readers do not get lost and will find what they are looking for easily.
The High Value Of One Graphic Image
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on May 3rd, 2010
Graphic design is an oft-misunderstood art. One graphic image can mean the difference between thousands of dollars of income and hundreds of thousands of dollars. It can mean the difference between a run-of-the-mill service within your niche or one that stands out from the crowd. The value that is derived from one logo image is much more than you can ever place on the price of the graphic artist creating the image. Don’t underestimate the value of a graphic image.
What makes the image so valuable? Is it the reputation of the artist? Is it the design itself? What factors determine long term value?
That’s a difficult question to answer, but I do believe that it can be answered. In short, the value of a graphic design is determined by how many uses and how often you can employ that graphic design and profit from it. Let’s examine how graphic images can be used over and over again to build a profit for your enterprise.
- Your logo can be used in print on your letterhead and stationery, brochures, flyers and other marketing collateral as well as on your website and other digital marketing collateral;
- A website header can be used for your website, blog, forum and any other digital property you own for branding purposes;
- You can also turn a logo or graphic image into a favicon that can be used for Web branding in a very simple way;
- Your logo can be used as an avatar on your social media profiles;
- Any graphic image can be used repeatedly for a variety of purposes online and in print (for example, a customized bullet point can be used multiple times on your website and other online properties);
- A graphic image you use in print can also be transferred for use to your online marketing efforts and vice-versa;
- Designs for business cards can also be used for postcards and other print materials as well as online equivalents like e-mail signatures.
If you have a graphic image created for a specific use, try to think of other ways that graphic can be used over and over again for your marketing purposes. If a graphic image only has one use then it is limited in terms of its profit value, but a graphic image that can be used again and again increases in value for each use. That’s the wonderful power of a graphic image and you should be thinking that way.
Graphic Design Begins With Your Logo
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on April 25th, 2010
Graphic design work in the digital age is often misunderstood. It does not just mean website graphics. Nor does it just mean print graphics. In fact, graphic design often means a little of both.
The first step to good graphic design management is to create a logo. It is usually the first need for most companies starting out in business. It is the beginning, but not the end, of graphic design. So what should you look for in a logo?
A good logo should have the following qualities:
- Simplicity – Don’t make it too complicated. Keep it simple. And, no, I won’t call you stupid.
- Memorable – Your logo should be memorable. You want to implant it on the minds of people you want to know about your company. Create a top-of-mind awareness.
- Represent Your Values – Your logo needs to represent and communicate your company values.
- Transferable – It should be easily transferable from Web to print and vice-versa.
- Re-usable - You’ll be using your company logo in a lot of different ways – digitally and in print. Make sure it is something that you can use and re-use again and again.
Before you begin your marketing campaigns, give careful thought to your graphic design strategy. Plan your logo and your complete strategy at the same time so that they complement each other. You don’t want to have to start over in the middle.
Online Sales Tip: Don’t Spam Your Fans
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on March 29th, 2010
Selling online is a bit different than selling off line. Most companies who migrate to selling online bring with them the same set of attitudes and practices they are accustomed to off line. That’s why they struggle with Internet marketing. They have adopted a “push” method of marketing and often engage in hard sell tactics when a softer approach would be more effective.
Selling online, like selling off line, is about building relationships. But the relationship building takes place in different ways. The tools can be broken down into three very distinct categories:
- Social – Social tools are just as the name implies. Their purpose is to help you better establish and maintain your online relationships. Social marketing tools include social networking, blogs, Skype, VOiP, IM and other tools that facilitate interaction with your audience.
- Informational – Informational tools allow you to disseminate information without necessarily interacting with others. For instance, e-mail, Twitter, blogs, static websites, fan pages, articles and other online publishing formats that allow you to provide useful information to your audience and send them back to your website for a deeper relationship.
- Technical – Technical tools are important because in and of themselves they do not necessarily communicate anything, though they may. Link building is perhaps the most widespread technical tool for online marketers, but you might also employ widgets, RSS feeds, apps, etc.
While these definitions may seem a little but cut-and-dry, there is some cross over. Some online tools may actually fall into more than one category. Blogs, for instance, can be used for building relationships, interacting with your audience and providing useful information that drives people back to your primary landing and sales pages. Widgets and apps may be technical, but they can also be social in nature.
The key to effective online selling is to know what tools are available to you and how you can use them. Better still, how will you employ them to make your online selling experience the best it can be?
Is Off Page Optimization Important?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on March 26th, 2010
You may be asking, “What is off page optimization?” That’s the term SEOs have used to describe the optimization of a web page based on activity performed somewhere other than the web page. In other words, what you do to improve your website apart from the website.
One example of off page optimization is link building. There are a variety of methods one can use to go about building inbound links to your web pages. Some of them are more effective than others. But all link building efforts are really about one thing: Building solid inbound links.
Anyone who has been around SEO circles for very long understands the importance of inbound links. Some SEOs place more emphasis on them than other SEOs, but almost all SEOs agree that inbound links are important. Therefore, off page optimization is important.
Off page optimization, however, is not always about links. It can also be about traffic. In recent years the search engines have analyzed the quality of traffic to a web page and figured that into the web page’s overall optimization value. A high bounce rate can lead to lower search rankings. A lower bounce rate can mean higher search engine rankings. And traffic sources can make a difference as well. That’s why SEOs spend a considerable amount of time seeking traffic from the best traffic sources for their niche.
Suffice it to say, off page optimization is just as important as on page optimization. Don’t ignore it.
What Does The iPad Mean For Your Website?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on March 23rd, 2010
Apple is all set to launch it’s brand new foray into the world of tablet computing, the iPad. It’s expected to have a high adoption rate, considering its low price point and the cachet behind the Apple brand name. If you’re doing professional web design, it would behoove you to make your site behave with the iPad.
“Well, wouldn’t my site already work with the iPad? It’s just a computer, right?” The iPad is a little different. It uses Apple’s iPhone operating system, which means that any Flash animations will not appear on your site. In other words, that whooshing graphic that opens up your site? That cool music track that invites guests? Those cool beeping rollover buttons? Won’t work. Gizmodo put together a little piece about what most major websites look like without Flash, and it’s depressing.
So what can you do? First, if you’re building a site from the ground up, avoid Flash if you can. While it does some things really well and it certainly can look cool, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Second, if you already have Flash on your site, you want to make sure that it’s relegated to a part of your site that won’t affect your visitors’ experience.
Making Keywords Work For You
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on March 23rd, 2010
In the wild and woolly days of the internet, a website design company could get great search engine rankings for your site by using the keywords that you were looking for frequently. For instance, let’s say you were a fast food restaurant that wanted your site to get noticed for your hot dogs. Some web design companies would make a paragraph that would look like this:
Come to our hot dog restaurant, where we serve the finest hot dogs to people who love hot dogs. When you try our hot dogs, you’ll be shocked at how good a hot dog can be, so come to our hot dog restaurant today!
You used to be able to fool search engines with this stuff, but modern search engines are much more careful about what they count as “good content.” In short, they can tell when you’re just loading up on keywords for the sake of keywords. In fact, most modern search engines will actually dock you for doing such a thing. Modern search engines care far more about useful content than an arbitrary amount of keywords.
If you’re still doing things the old way and wondering why you don’t get noticed by Google, Bing or Yahoo, maybe it’s time to change the way you do things. A modern SEO package can help you to maximize your results and get the attention that your site deserves.
Why Flash Should Be Used In Limited Proportions
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on March 22nd, 2010
Flash animation has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. One of the biggest mistakes that I see new webmasters making when they build a website using Flash is to make Flash the primary mode of presentation. This is a mistake because it offers no SEO benefits.
SEO is important, but it isn’t everything. With the rise of social media and viral marketing, SEO is just another tool in the webmaster’s arsenal, albeit a very important one. We encourage webmasters to use every tool available at their disposal to draw visitors to their website and convert them into paying customers. Can Flash do that?
Flash can convert visitors. There’s no doubt about that. With a well done presentation you can offer your site visitors a great presentation based on Flash animation and close the sale – get the e-mail opt in, sell a widget, take the free download, etc.
Where Flash fails is in the drawing in of new visitors through search engine marketing. Yes, it can be used off site in viral ways, but its search engine marketing benefits are limited. That’s because the search engines until a couple of years ago the search engines could not crawl Flash. Now, however, Flash can be crawled and indexed, but only in limited ways.
While the search engines have come a long way in the way they deal with Flash animations, there is still a long way to go. I’d use Flash in limited ways, but I wouldn’t overload my website with it.
3 Google Chrome plugins I can’t live without.
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Tips & Tricks on February 12th, 2010
I’ve been waiting for Google Chrome plugins for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’ve set Chrome on the back burner and stopped looking. Well I across a forum post today where someone was talking about Chrome plugins. Sure enough! The waiting is over! So, here’s a short list of the plugins I downloaded immediately. These are so important that they kept me from using Chrome as my main browser.
XMarks Bookmark Sync for Chrome – Easily sync your bookmarks across all your browsers & computers. Even access them from any computer on your own account page. The best bookmark sync I’ve ever used. (Previously knows as FoxMarks.)
SEO Quake Plugin – I never had an SEO plugin for firefox, mostly because they were too intrusive. I don’t want you taking over my Google results or flashing things about every site I visit. When I want to know, I’ll ask. Enter SEO the latest installment of the SEO Quake Plugin. A nice little banner that sits quietly below your toolbar. When clicked, it gives you a slew of SEO information related to the site your on. Oh, and yes, it will take over your Google results, but you can turn that off in the settings menu. Thats what makes the SEO Quake toolbar a great SEO plugin.
IE Tab – This plugin is a must for anyone who truly wants to use Chrome 100% of the time. InFirefox, I used a plugin called IE view. It was great. In one click you could load any page you were on in IE. IE Tab for Chrome, however, takes it one step further. It actually embeds an IE browser in a Chrome tab! Gadzooks, now that’s cool! Now when I want to go to a site that doesn’t support Chrome (um, Quickbooks Online!), I never have to open an IE window again. Ah, one more step away from the IE teet.
I hope you’ve found my 3 picks interesting and helpful. What’s your favorite Google Chrome Plugin?
