New York Web Design Company Offers Some Insight
Published on August 18th, 2008 by David Radovanovic in SEOSo what makes a New York Web design company different from others? Competition! Take a look at how many there are out there! Whether it’s in the city or anywhere near or far, a company looking for top quality Web design in the New York area can be faced with hundreds of choices in an area of just a few city blocks!
Just picture Google search results, but instead of clicking links you are entering hundreds of Web design studios, lofts and offices of every conceivable size, type and style imaginable. And just as if you searched through Google, if you don’t see what you like, it’s on to the next one and then the next and so on.
Although a bit daunting, with all that competition comes something good; a competitive edge that is crucial in a tightening economy. Sure, we all have to look good on the Web, but when you are competing with your physical neighbors as well as online competition; you have to take it to a whole new level.
With that said, I offer some inside advice from a successful New York Web design firm. Let’s focus our attention on Website usability. This has the unfortunate distinction of being both the most important yet generally least considered aspect of design all too often and the Website owners suffer for the oversights.
First of all, people don’t typically read a Web page. They gloss over it. Actually, they quickly scan it so you need to get their attention right away and keep it. Here’s how…
1.) Start off with your best content first. Grab the reader’s (or should I say scanner’s) attention right away. Don’t save the best for last since most visitors will leave the same way they entered: the Home Page. Your strongest message should always come first.
2.) Be as consistent as possible with you functional areas; especially navigation links (top, left, right, etc.) search boxes, login fields, and anything else that needs user interaction.
3.) Link your company logo back to your home page. It’s both comforting and expected.
4.) Add a search box that searches ONLY within your site. Don’t bother with one that offers to Search The Web. It’s like giving your visitor an invitation to leave your site. What might help Google’s advertisers isn’t always good for you. Besides, why encourage users to leave your site?
Secondly, people are not the only ones who visit your site. Search Engines do too. At least you should hope they do. So how do you make a website search engine friendly? It’s easier than you might think. There’s a lot more to it than using keywords in your meta tags. The days when you could just add keywords to your site’s head tags are over. The following are the three (3) things you absolutely need to do if you want your site at the top of Google.
1.) Use keywords as anchor text (the visible clickable words) in your links throughout your page’s content. This is huge! Allow me to demonstrate how powerful this one element can be.
Want to see for yourself? Go to Google.com and do a search for “Click Here” (without the quotes.) You should notice two things right off. First there are well over 1.6 billion competing Web pages. ?Click Here? is not a search engine friendly use of a hyperlink. It doesn’t tell the search engines what they would be searching for. And second, the number one match is for Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Ready for the crazy part that might destroy your conceptions of what matters most in SEO? The words Click Here do not appear anywhere on the page or in the META tags. It’s number 1, of 1.6 Billion competing Web pages, because thousands of other Websites used “Click Here” as their anchor text of choice in the URL for the download page. Crazy huh? This is great news for you! You can easily take advantage of that power by linking to and from pages within your Website. Which leads us nicely into Tip number two…
2.) If you deem that SEO is a priority for your site, create a unique page for each of your main keywords. Just be sure to link the anchor text from each page to the page that has that specific keyword as its focus.
Insider Advice: As a Web developer you can deliver more value to your clients and earn substantially more by learning about SEO and helping get your clients sites to the top of Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are plenty of great SEO tools that can help anyone become a quick success with little time or effort. Just find a product that delivers and has customers you recognize. eBay, Motorola and Lexmark all place their online success in the hands of a tool you can get for $250 at http://www.iBusinessPR0M0TER.com. Just dig around and find a tool that has the best success rate with clients who could easily afford anything but choose to stick with that one.
3.) Keep the idea of relevant anchor text in mind when requesting inbound links from other Websites. Google is all about inbound links and even the sites with the best content never get too high without great inbound links. By the way, this might not seem like a ?design? tip but it is more important than you can imagine.
This is how you can build your brand using your own words. Getting visitors there is only half the battle, keeping them is a whole different ballgame. Now, similar to tip number 2, you want to request specific keywords be used in the anchor text leading to your pages from other sites. And be sure to request each link to the most appropriate page. Just linking to the homepage doesn’t cut it anymore.
Be Warned: Reciprocal link farms can get your site penalized on Google! Simple reciprocal linking, via automated script or link farm, is easily recognized by Google. There’s a much better way if you need the “set it and forget it” convenience. We’ll look at one now
If you are in need of quality links but don’t have time to setup link partnerships yourself, you may want to try a service that facilitates “3 way linking” like the one at http://www.3WayLinker.com.
It’s very simple and really pretty ingenious. Here’s how it works Site 1 links to Site 2. Site 2″ links to Site 3. And Site 3 links to Site 1 forming an indirect chain of 1 way links.
That’s all for now. Good luck!
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