The Webmasters Mind-Meld

Get’em while they’re hot! I was referred  to this site for an excellent SEO ‘Keyword Suggestion Tool’ . Go here: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/ It’s worth a look becaue it may not be a free forever, and bookmark it. I have it as a resource on my SEO Learning page  . Lastly, I have over 50 free directories to list your site at on my Links page.  This is all ‘Tin Roof’ ! ( where do you find a ‘tin roof’? it’s ‘on the house !’ LOL )

Hope all is well with U !

Considering a Flash Web Site? If so, consider the following, a  Flash Web Site is a great thing if you use it correctly, but using it for eye candy will not achieve your goals. You should consider who you may rule out,  corporations that don’t allow plugins or addons, including java (a great majority of people surf from work). Also, 60+ % of people “never” have access to broadband in the US (this includes at work). There are tricks to getting flash web site pages placed higher but “load time” is always of first priority. Some Flash Web Sites have a high percentage of visitors that leave before the page loads. Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and the term applies also to successful web site design. Those slow loading Flash Web Sites often have a low conversion rate because allot of them don’t have the content to make the sale or explain the service. And what is conversion?Web site conversion is strategies to turn web visitors into leads and customers. Please consider the above when you think about choosing a style for you web site.

If you are considering Cheap Web Hosting, you may want to think about the downside of an inexpensive host. Unless you are building a web site for a personal hobby, or perhaps to post the scores and information for your bowling league, there are significant things to consider when choosing a web host. Cost is one of them, free hosting often comes with ads that will display on your site, and you may have no control over them. Also, websites hosted by free web hosts do not usually rank well in Search Engines for competitive keywords. Furthermore, if your web domain is on a shared server that sends out spam, or adult content, you may get penalized by search engines, or your site may load slower because precious bandwidth is being hogged by these factors that are completely out of your control. Customer Service is another thing to consider. Will you be able to get Technical Support on a 24×7 basis, and what about their claim in regards to ‘up time’? If the host has a small operation in a remote area of the world, what happens if their equipment goes down? If you are building a website to make money these are significant factors to consider. The host should also have the ability to register a domain name for you, they should be ICANN Certified, and you should have the ability to transfer your domain ‘hassle free’. FTP access should be user friendly, and available. I personally had a bad experience doing some work for a customer where I, and the customer were refused access to the FTP Files. You don’t want to be held hostage by your web host. Lastly, security will be very important if you plan on any ecommerce. If this is the case, some people even suggest finding a host that has government agencies as customers because they will be required to meet strict security standards.

In conclusion, it all boils down to reputation. Do some research on your potential host, give their 800 number a test call to see how long you are on the line. Do a Google search using key phrases to find good and bad results, or go to www.hostsearch.com for a review. If the above seems all too confusing, surf over to www.webhostingpal.com, they have an excellent beginners guide to hosting, as well as reviews and pricing. Currently, I’m very satisfied with my web host,HostMonster, they’ve been more then I could ask for, and more.

Ok, you’ve starting to get traffic to your web site, but are the visitors signing on the line which is dotted? Did you ever see that movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ where the Sales Manager played by Alec Baldwin screams at all the lower level salesman because they aren’t making enough sales? Baldwin reminds them of the ABC’s of sales,A- Always, B-Be, C-Closing, or should I say Always, Be, Converting in regards to your web site. Web site conversion is strategies to turn web visitors into leads and customers, and here’s the formula, Traffic + Organized Landing Page = Good Conversion rate. A landing page is a lead capture or sales page that contains information that is relevant to that particular visitor and persuades a visitor to take an action. Does this mean that every one of your pages should be a ‘Landing Page’? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’ Every page should load fast; people often forget that there still are a large percentage of people that use 56k Dialup. Those slow loading Flash sites often have a low conversion rate because allot of them don’t have the content to make the sale or explain the service. Be sure to make your content relevant so you can establish trust with visitors and offer solutions as well as making solid recommendations for your product or service. In order to do this, you need to identify the landing page goals. Furthermore, you need to apply good SEO by inserting your keywords in the landing page to achieve the optimization for success.

In conclusion, when it’s all said and done, conversion will make or break you, so off I go, to work on my conversion.

“Where’s my website!” bellowed the new  E-Entrepreneur that can’t seem to find his site on Google. Perhaps it’s in the ‘Google Sandbox’. If you’re wondering what the sandbox is, please read some helpful explanations I have provided below.

 From Wikipedia:“Sandbox is a measure taken by Google to avoid spam websites abusing search engine optimisation techniques to reach the top of the index, getting barred by Google, and then repeating the process using a different domain.”

From a Member of the V7N Seo Forum  www.v7n.com/forums/seo-forum

It’s never easy for newcomers to enter a market and there are barriers of different kinds. For newcomers to the world of search engines, the barrier is called a sandbox – your site stays there until it gets mature enough to be allowed to the Top Positions club. Although there is no direct confirmation of the existence of a sandbox, Google employees have implied it and SEO experts have seen in practice that new sites, no matter how well optimized, don’t rank high on Google, while on MSN and Yahoo they catch quickly. For Google, the jailing in the sandbox for new sites with new domains is on average 6 months, although it can vary from less than a month to over 8 months.

While it might be considered unfair to stop new sites by artificial means like keeping them at the bottom of search results, there is a fair amount of reasoning why search engines, and above all Google, have resorted to such measures. With blackhat practices like bulk buying of links, creation of duplicate content or simply keyword stuffing to get to the coveted top, it is no surprise that Google chose to penalize new sites, which overnight get tons of backlinks, or which are used as a source of backlinks to support an older site (possibly owned by the same company). Needless to say, when such fake sites are indexed and admitted to top positions, this deteriorates search results, so Google had to take measures for ensuring that such practices will not be tolerated. The sandbox effect works like a probation period for new sites and by making the practice of farming fake sites a long-term, rather than a short-term payoff for site owners, it is supposed to decrease its use. 

 I hope this gave you a little insight into the Ups and Downs of SEO. 

I would like to explain the concept and development of my logo at www.cheapwebdesigninelgin.com. I used the image of the desert and mountains, with its surreal look because I feel cyberspace is analogous to this, a new frontier so to speak. The highway in the image, I feel, represents the Internet winding out into the vast expanse of cyberspace. I put ‘The Information Super Hwy’, otherwise known as the Internet, on the image as a hint to those who may not get it. Then I did a Google Image search for highway signs. I downloaded your typical freeway sign, and did some work in Photoshop. I took the Magic Extractor Tool, and extracted the sign only, eliminating all the background junk. Then, I took the Clone Tool, and got rid of whatever was written on the sign. I took the Text Tool and put Cheap Web Design In Elgin.com on the sign, and placed the image of the re-done sign on the image of the desert. So, do you get it, the Information Super Hwy leads to my website, eh? Ok, not done yet, I wanted to make this into an animated GIF where Google, MSN, and Yahoo were like cars coming down the highway but I couldn’t quite make it look the way I saw it in my head. Instead, I took the jazzed up image, and used  it as ‘background’ in my Flash program. I didn’t want to make it too distracting because that is a rule of effective design, that’s why I just put the star animations only in the presentation.

The finished product is a Flash presentation depicting a magical road leading into cyberspace because the Internet is indeed magic. Lastly, it is also a sample of what I can do for you with scratch elements, and a mind of melded magic.

Cheap Web Design in Elgin.com has officially launched the SEO Learning Center, and it’s ‘Mucho Bueno’! Yes that’s right, the Mexicans have given it two thumbs way up! Ok, just kidding, but it’s very informative and it can be found right here: www.cheapwebdesigninelgin.com/webdesign-elgin-the-seo-learning-center.html

If you don’t know SEO, and you want things simplified, all you have to do is read one page of 10 pt Times New Roman Text. And it’s true, what good is it to have the best looking site on the net if no one can find it? Or you have some awesome stuff to sell, but know one knows where your website is, boo hoo! You’ll learn how important it is to choose good keywords, and where you can find good tools to shag down these keywords. You’ll learn how your website should be built, ‘SEO Friendly’, as the architect would say, ‘form follows function’. Oh, and I forgot to mention that you should choose good keyword phrases when you choose a domain name. Case in point, www.cheapwebdesigninelgin.com contains the following phrases ‘cheap web design’, ‘web design’, and ‘web design in elgin’. Yahoo that commands approximately 33% of the search traffic likes that kind of stuff, that’s why I’m number 1 at Yahoo with the search phrase, ‘web design in elgin’. Link Exchange; get your URL on other websites so the search engine spiders can find it when they crawl the web. Write articles, start a Blog, submit your site to free directories, join forums. That’s right, work hard, work at it, and it will work for you.

Lastly, please consider bookmarking that page because I have links to some free SEO Tools to check your progress, and your methodology. Now that you’re done reading this, I want you to write and article that pertains to the content of your website, and report back to me ASAP. (Bueno?)

Tony the Tiger here, and I want to say, ‘Tech Forums Are Grrrrrrrrrreat !’. I must say, I joined The Web Development Community at www.v7n.com a few months ago, and it has been very helpful. There are several sub forums there, for example, Web Designers, SEO, and Marketing to name a few. I particularly like the SEO Forum. There is very little if any spamming, and it seems that most of the participants have been around the block more then once. I’ve asked several questions, and have gotten responsive answers the same day. You can receive an email notification with a link when someone responds to your posting thread. I check that board everyday at least once to see what’s cooking. Often people will provide links to quality informative articles they feel would be informative to the group. Also, you can read how people are succeeding, or struggling with their SEO, and how others weigh in on the issues presented. One particular thread I thought was interesting was when someone posed the question, ‘how often do you work on your SEO’? Most people noted that they work on their SEO at least once a day in some shape or form. I find that to be true with myself also, be it checking the forum for advice, making an entry in this blog, or using some online tools to check the status of my websites (see the Blog Roll for links). This particular forum has provided my with a plethora of links to sites that has free SEO Tools, they have been very helpful and insightful in my quest to be the best.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend joining this forum, or some forum (there are several out there). I feel it is very helpful to take a peek everyday to get a sense of the pulse of the people that are trying to succeed in their internet endeavors.

I can’t (or write) enough good things about my Web Host, Hostmonster.com. The cost is good, but the Customer Service, and Technical Support are excellent. Whenever I have called, I don’t think I’ve been put on hold for more then 5 minutes. The Tech guys are real friendly, and not the least condescending. I’m sure some of my questions must have seemed dumb to them but I was treated like a ‘professional with a problem’. Furthermore, the FTP Control panel is very user friendly if you’re just getting started, and there are several other features I haven’t a current need for but it all there for advanced applications. If you read my blog, ‘Why Choose Me’, you’ll see the nightmare I had with a customers Web Host. Their customer service involved calling them, and then they would call you back, who knows when. It took one of their Techs a week to respond to one of my emails. Also, they would not let me have access to the customer FTP Files. I actually called Hostmonster, and explained the situation; they told me that sometimes not having access is a policy due to security. Hey, at least Hostmonster was kind enough to answer a question of mine.

Lastly, here’s a good site that rates web hosting, http://www.top-10-web-hosting.com. I check this site just before I wrote this blog, and Hostmonster was rated #1.