Many companies have gone through the expensive process of having a website designed or updated only to discover that the new website can’t be found in the search results. To prevent this costly misstep, we recommend that SEO services be included as a component of any website development project.

Where web designers focus on the creative effort of designing a website that is attractive and making your products a services appeal to buyers. The SEO persons focus is on what it takes to make a website appeal to the search algorithms and understand how to prevent loss of rank when an existing site is replaced.

Where does SEO fit in the design process?

Before you design, Audit.

A Website Audit will evaluate competitors’ sites and your site to determine what is and isn’t working. The Audit will explore the most important words in your industry and develop a strategy and structure to provide the best exposure for those terms to the search engines.

Prior to Launch, Tune.

A pre-launch optimization pass should be made to tune title tags, page titles, page names, and meta-descriptions. This will boost relevancy for your content, improving how your content appears in search results and improve your click through rate (CTR).

Incoming links to your pages should be evaluated and then redirects created that will focus those links on the most appropriate new pages. This will assure that any existing page rank isn’t lost on content that can no longer be found.

Analytics should be installed on the news site. Using the same tracking code as the previous site will make it easy to evaluate the effects of the changes and compare the old site to the new site, month over month and year over year.

When you Launch, Notify.

A new sitemap should be created to be sure search engines can find all your new content. Google should be notified if your domain name is changing and Google Webmaster tools settings made to configure any URL preferences, and set the primary county, if you are not marketing worldwide.

After Launch – Follow up, Maintain, and Tweak.

If you are using a content management system (CMS), it should be kept up date with the latest revisions to reduce the likelihood of being hacked. Google Analytics should be reviewed to measure the effectiveness of paid and organic marketing efforts. Content that converts may merit off-site marketing and content that doesn’t convert re-evaluated.

Google’s Webmaster Tools should be checked routinely to evaluate the effectiveness of the effort. Done correctly, missing page (404) errors should be minimal and errors should fall off dramatically as cached content is flushed from the page cache of the popular search engines.

SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville designing a website, google analytics, SEO Huntsville, web design, webmaster tools

There are hundreds of thousands of sites online today, and nearly every business that is looking to succeed has added to that vast quantity by making a site of their own. Trying to get your site to the top isn’t as easy as it once was, and those interested in staying ahead of their competition must create effective websites.

A good website is more than just a great landing page and some additional media. In fact, a great website should have at the bare minimum:

The Ability to Create a Good First Impression

The look of your website is everything. If the site’s design doesn’t look professional, you can guarantee that potential clients will be quick to hit the back button. To make sure that you capture quick conversions, go the extra mile and pay for a professional design.

Excellent Content

Content is essentially one of the best forms of SEO available, and every website needs to make sure that it is posting relevant articles. Not only does web content need to pertain to the site itself, but it also needs to be interesting and informative. Great content will keep readers coming back, with drive up rankings, and will overall increase business.

Easy Usability

If your site is a pain to navigate through, you will quickly lose business. If users struggle to find the information that they need about your organization or products, they will move on to your competitors. Make sure all information pertinent to your business is easy to get to, if not on the primary landing page.

SEO

Titles and meta titles and descriptions are important when producing a SEO friendly site. Also the phrases used within your content and links to your site are highly important when trying to raise your site’s rank in the search engines. If you are struggling with getting your site to the top, don’t be afraid to hire a professional. In the same way that it is difficult to compete for business against sites that are professionally designed, it is difficult for a business to compete in the search results against sites that have had professional SEO help.

Social Aspects

Every website also needs to have a Facebook and Twitter page, as well as accounts on various other social networking sites, to remain effective. It doesn’t take paid surveys for business owners to know that everyone is chatting through social media, and one of the best ways to drive business to your site is by linking your social media accounts to your business’s primary landing page.

Getting ahead on the web is a bit difficult, but with the right site design, some SEO work, and social media integration, business owners allow themselves the opportunity to get ahead of their competition. If you find that your site is lagging behind, take the above tips and analyze your site. You may find that a few quick tweaks to content or simply signing up for a social networking account was all your business needed to raise its rank on the major search engines.

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Your company website has the role of a sales person, working 24/7, representing your company, answering questions, educating the prospect. Many times it will be the first impression prospects will have of your business and should convey quality at every turn. Like any good sales rep, its appearance should be a reflection of its audience, wearing tennis shoes if it’s selling skateboards and a suit if it’s selling financial advice.

A website is in many cases the first impression someone has of your company and doing it right can make a huge difference in the sale of your products and services. For traffic to translate into sales, you need a solid message, a unique selling proposition, and content that engages the prospect, answers questions, and addresses key concerns.

Let the Designer Design

When you work with a designer, keep your focus on the message and let the designer design. You hired a professional for reason and becoming too involved with the design will often compromises the results.  In the end, the money you spend on quality website design, content and copy writing will pay dividends in sales for years to come.

Don’t go cheap

Companies who wouldn’t think twice about spending thousands on booth design, promotional items, and direct mail for a trade show, will often attempt to market the same products and services on the Internet with a budget they might allocate for designing a brochure. Or worse, hire a friend that “does websites”, paste in some blurbs from a brochure, and feel they have covered their bases.

A website is not a brochure

Unlike a brochure, a website can be an interactive portal to your company and its products and services. It can enable customers to ask and get answers to questions in real time. It can capture leads, provide product demonstrations, take orders and solicit reviews and get product feedback.

Keep the copy crisp and write in common terms

The copy should be carefully written to convey your understanding of the market and the solutions you provide. Care must be taken to avoid proprietary terms, techno-babble and unverifiable marketing hyperbole. It must be both brief and detailed. Pages should be brief enough to capture the attention of the prospect surfing the Internet aisles for a solution, and yet enable a prospect to drill deeper when they are ready to know more about your solution.

People want to do business with an authority in the field

They want to know that the company they have chosen to work with is a safe choice and a leader in the market. Listing your credentials, years in business, and memberships in trade associations, Chamber of Commerce, and the Better Business Bureau help clients know you’re for real.

Keep the noise down

Getting noticed at a large trade show was almost always a problem, but you didn’t want your booth to become a circus act either. While giving away tee shirts and hawking your products over a megaphone might generate a lot of traffic, in my experience, the “show” detracts from your message and rarely translates into sales. The same is true for your website. A site that is overly busy with too many colors, icons, buttons, and animated gifs, can be confusing and detract from your message.

Don’t clutter your Home Page

Your home page should briefly describe what you sell and who you market to. Divide other content into logical sections and let each page do its job. When people search, they will enter on the page that most relates to the topic they are researching and your website will rank better in the search engines.

See: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

I don’t design websites, but I work with many local designers who can help you with this important part of your marketing effort.

SEM Huntsville designing a website, SEM Huntsville, web design

I just read a great article by Ian Lurie at Coversation Marketing titled Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers. Perhaps more aptly named Things to remember when designing a website, its a great read with clear points we all need to remember. In summary:

1. Reading onscreen is hard, for everyone.
   • Use short paragraphs.
   • Use short lines.
   • Use wide line spacing and nice margins.
   • Use dark text on a light background.
   • Scrolling up-and-down is OK
   • Use lists.
2. They browse in an F-shape
3. They can’t remember your web address (being at the top of search results for your name means nothing)
4. They don’t search for your name (they search for answers to problems)
5. They don’t want to log in (or anything standing between them and their goal)
6. They don’t want an ‘experience’ (simple is better)
7. They do want your newsletter (make it prevalent and easy to sign-up)
8. They don’t care how clever you are. (just the facts please)
9. They aren’t enticed by mystery.
10. They get lost a lot (make navigation easy, redundant, and extend to your 404 pages)
11. They aren’t using cell phones  (at least not in big numbers)
12. They still use Internet Explorer (so be sure it works in IE)
13. They’re using big monitors. (so don’t create 800 X 600 layouts)
14. They need to want (create desire)

A list of designers I work with and recommend is here: web designers

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As I mention on the SEO page, key word data is very important for determining navigational structure of your website, writing copy, and building your SEM campaigns. There are several good sources for phrases, I look a web logs, Google Analytics data, Webmaster Tools, and the words most often used on other high ranking web sites in the industry.

If you are looking to expand the words in your SEM campaigns you should also examine the ”long tail” of your logs. What you will find is that some of the more specific phrases that occur less often (and are therefore in the tail of the data) actually turn out to be good conversion phrases, and because they are very specific, can be inexpensive to bid on.

SEO Huntsville designing a website, keywords