5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee (9 page)
Read 5 Easy Steps to Make Your Website Your #1 Employee Online
Authors: Steve Johnsen
Tags: #Business, #Marketing, #Web design
As you can tell, having a website that is functionally effective is critical.
We have covered the main areas to consider in ensuring that functionality is in place in this chapter; now let’s cover some steps you can take to get you on the path to creating a functionally sound website.
1.
When you go to build a website, make sure you are clear that it must be easy to use, above all else.
This will mean that you need to be involved in understanding the site mapping and plans for navigation.
2.
Plan carefully with your graphic designer how the layout is going to look.
Make sure it is very obvious what you want your visitors to do once they get to your website; ‘show them the banana!’
3.
Use common sense when you go to create accessibility and build navigation bar tabs out.
The navigation bar tabs should be self
-
explanatory and clearly direct visitors to the other pages.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of your user: what would you need to see in order to get where you need to go?
4.
Be smart about incorporating hyperlinks throughout your web pages.
Be critical when you beta test your site, and make sure each and every hyperlink works, leads users where it is supposed to, and is clearly marked as a hyperlink.
The best way to ensure that your website functions seamlessly is to keep everything we’ve discussed in mind, and be meticulous about making sure everything is user friendly
…
and that everything works the way it should.
Step Five: Let’s Speak “Geek”:
Technical Aspects of a
Great Website
A website is not a good website unless it’s well
-
designed technically
. I
t’s as simple as that.
What do I mean by “technically?”
When I speak of the technical aspect of websites, this includes all the back
-
end detail, from hosting to code to meta
-
tags.
And, yes, this is where we get into the computer nerd
-
isms that are rarely understood by people who don’t “speak geek.”
That’s why you’re reading this book!
Imagine your website is a sports car.
It may be the best
-
looking sports car in town, but what actually makes it go fast?
The answer is not the killer paint job or the chrome wheels
…
it’s what happens under the hood.
In this chapter, we’re going to get into “what’s under the hood” of your website, because without this, a website is nothing but some pictures and words on a page.
First let’s talk about what makes up a website.
In essence
, a website is a collection of text files containing some code, and some
media files and
pictures sitting on a computer somewhere.
It might have a nice design, and it may even boast the best written content in the land, but wh
at is going on behind all that?
What gives your website real traction—what makes it optimized for the best
-
possible chance of being found by the right people (a phenomenon otherwise referred to as Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO”)—is what goes on under the hood.
These are the technical, invisible elements that you don’t see, but that make a huge impact on your website’s success.
The quality of a person's life is directly proportional to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
– Vince Lombardi
In this chapter I’m going to cover
the essential elements of a technically sound website for maximum SEO.
You’ve probably heard of code, but you likely haven’t heard it described in terms of why, exactly, it’s important.
In a nutshell, the HTML and CSS code used on a website affects the site’s performance, both in terms of user experience and search engine rankings.
When it comes to writing code, the primary goal
…
and this may sound so reasonable that it’s confusing
…
is that it is readable.
That’s right—search engines are just like us: they want readable content, readable code!
So, what’s the difference between good code and bad code?
Let’s talk about bad code first.
Bad code looks like gibberish. Many times this is the type of code that is generated by the hundreds of DIY, “make your own website” offerings out there. You see, search engines don’t look at web pages; they look at website code.
For example, Google at its core is a text matching machine—its job is to match what you type in the search engine with what’s on the page.
When a search engine looks at a bunch of bad code, it sees exactly what you would see: nonsense.
What does that do?
The page will never show up in search results, because no one’s search could possibly match the gibberish.
Here is an example
of the gibberish I’m describing. This is what it looks like when viewing the source code in the browser window:
You probably can’t read this. With a unique ability to ignite a room and positively engage your guests, Brad Kinney brings a special kind of magic to an event; simply put, no one makes a room come alive like Brad. Brad is a best-in-class auctioneer, but he is better defined as the master of creating an extraordinary experience. This is an example of what good website code looks like. The bottom line is, good code is readable to both humans and machines, so the way your code is written is critical to your success in being found online. Not long ago, I met a travel agent who was frustrated by her website’s performance. When meeting with her, I learned that she had been paying a major national company—the same company that built her website—to do “search engine optimization” for the past 9 months—with no results. In fact, when I dove a little deeper, I discovered that her web pages had not even been indexed by Google; i.e., it was impossible for her to show up in search results, because We proposed a simple solution—without changing her web design, we rewrote the underlying HTML code, and moved her site to another web host (more on web hosting Within a week of the changes, she was showing up on page 2 of Google search results for her targeted terms, and by the second week, she was showing up on page 1. If you’ve ever had a website built, created one yourself, or discussed having one built, Essentially, meta tags are descriptions which are embedded in Closely related to the meta tags is the page title. This too does not show up "on screen," but it is one of the most important elements for your Google ranking. So, what is a good Instead of using generic search terms, you want your This does not mean you should stuff a bunch of keywords into the meta tags. If the keywords list In the past few years, because so many people have abused meta tags in an attempt to manipulate the search engines, Google has stopped factoring the most common meta tags into their search results. An If I had to summarize, I would say that in order to ensure you’re usingcellspacing=”0” align=”center” style=”border-right:1px solid
#000000; border-left:1px solid #000000;” background=”img/base/
bgtile.html”>
height=”97” alt=”” />src=”img/titles/mt.jpg” width=”611” height=”68” alt=””
/>
width=”259” height=”68” alt=”” />
width=”311” height=”29” alt=”” />
Guess what?
Neither can Google!
Now, let’s look at a sample of good code:
Brad brings your event to life
like no one else.
With a magnetism and spirit perfectly suited for creating amazing events and lively parties, Brad has a gift for helping your organization raise more money through your auction.
It is easy to read; most of it is in plain English, and you can read it.
Guess what?
So can
the search engines
.
her pages didn’t even exist in Google’s database
!
This was particularly frustrating because she was targeting a small niche in the travel industry, and after 9 months of
real
SEO work, should have dominated the search results.
later in this chapter).
you have probably
heard the term “meta tags.”
And, if you’re like most people, these are two words that make your eyes glaze over.
I’m asking you now to open your eyes back up, and hear me out, because once meta tags are understood, you’ll find them neither boring nor expendable.
the
headers of web pages.
Website visitors do not see meta tags, but they are used to provide key
information
to the search engines.
Even more simply explained, meta tags tell search engines what the web page is all about; so you can see why meta tags are critically important to your success in effective SEO.
title or
meta tag?
Well,
titles and
meta tags should align with terms your users are searching for.
As an example, I recently worked with a client who used the following as a page title
and
meta tag for a Denver
-
based charity’s website: “About us.”
Now, I ask you: how many people are using the term “About us” to search for a Denver
-
based charity?
I think you know the answer.
titles and
keyword meta tags to include words which are actually used on the page—they should reflect the content on the page.
In fact, if they don’t,
the search engines may not include
your website in their search results, even when it would make sense to find you otherwise.
ed in your meta tag
are not words you are actually using in your page content,
it can result in a penalty with some of the search engines, causing them to stop including
your pages in search results.
However, the page’s title tag continues to be one of the most important ranking factors on the page.
important principle in using
title tags
effectively is to ensure that each web page has a different title
. The same is true if you are editing the
meta tags
—especially the
meta
description
.
This is a mistake that is very commonly made when website are built: using the same titles, descriptions and tags on all the pages of the site.
page titles and
meta tags to your advantage,
you need to:
elect
appropriate
keywords for each page to target
rite a unique
, descriptive
page title for each page
nclude targeted keywords in page titles
rite a
useful and
unique page description for
the
page
nly
list
keywords in your keyword meta tag that you actually use on the page.Other books