Macronimous Web Design

Not all the web clients are tech or web savvies. Many times you should pave them their success path online. Here are few a list of 4 important things which you should let your client know, if they trust your web development skills.

1. Flash: When they ask for a fully flashed website, let them know the adversity it might make. By doing this you are helping them to establish the right online presence. Unless your client is Coca cola or Burger King ( I mean,  :-), an establish brand), they will really want to establish better Visibility to the Search Engines.

2. SEO – If a client just wants a website, let them know what SEO is and how it is going to help them. Make the site SEO friendly within the design scope (Eg. Image tags, XHTML validations, designing without tables, etc). Most of the clients will not say NO to make their site ready for SEO.

3. CMS – Ask how frequently they want to change the content, and if they do, let them do know how to do it themselves with a CMS. You may also need to let them know the advantages of fresh content. I believe instead of providing them a static site of 20 pages, you can introduce them Joomla and how to use it, for some additional but onetime investments.

4. Advantages of Opensource - Do they need a CMS or Ecommerce, You can justify why you charge less. Let them know that you can cut cost by using WordPress or Magento and still make their site professional. By doing this you are introducing standards – if your client goes to some other developers, it would not be difficult for them to take up the work.

I recommend you to keep a short write up (with some references) or articles on the above mentioned (you may keep that under your client section of your website) and ask the client to refer them. It also helps them to understand that you know what you tell them.

What is Keyword cloud?

Keyword cloud represents most used keywords in a site visually, by showing it in different font sizes and it is known to be a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) term. It differs from larger to smaller in font sizes. Keyword that has been used more around the site and blog, which we call as keyword density, are shown in larger fonts. According to the keyword density the font size varies from larger to smaller. On looking at the keyword cloud size variation, users can see the importance of the keywords that relates to web site or a blog.

Benefits of keyword cloud

Keyword cloud is benefited to find relevant and useful web pages for user who looks for certain information. 

By using the keyword cloud, popular words (density rich words) are shown and it is as well clickable for users. When users find a keyword listed in keyword cloud useful then he will be going for a click on the particular keyword and he will be taken to the category search results page were all pages or blog posts will be listed related to the tagged keyword.

Make sure the keywords in the cloud section are not overlapped and ugly. Have it in a place were users could find it easily. The better option is to have it in the side bar of a site or blog. 

Keyword cloud generators

Here is a site that helps to generate a keyword cloud by mentioning your web link.

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-cloud/

WordPress Keyword Cloud generator plugin

The below WordPress plugin helps you to install keyword cloud to your blog or site

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/resize-tag-cloud/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/keywords-cloud-for-wordpress/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tagging-plugin/screenshots/

How Keyword cloud will look like?

If you find any other interesting information about Keyword cloud, you may share through comments.

There  1.4 million free and paid applications already exists in the iTunes app store. Though this count is very high, there is still plenty of scope for more applications to be developed and it will only stop when we humans quench our thirst for creativity.

More than a mobile phone, iPhone is looked upon as a lifestyle accessory, which is fun and exciting to use. The main strength of iPhone would be its retaining capability. Similar to most MAC users who would find it difficult to work in other platforms like Windows, most iPhone users will find it difficult to use other mobile phones. This will make the device and its applications to grow for a long time.

iPhone application development is unique in a way that it is not mandatory to have a group of people working under an organization to create iPhone applications. It is also well suited for individuals to unleash their creativity and earn a handful of money and fame too. There are applications like tossing a coin, which has attracted a lot of downloads- Kudos to the thought.

Why not you be a part of this revolution? All you need to do is a MAC machine, an iPod or iPhone preferably, Internet connection and Click here to view our first part of the article – “Getting Started with iPhone Development”

Presume you have worked on site SEO and now you have got Good/desired SEO results with your website – you are on the top of your business competitors with your targeted business keywords.

Thinking of what’s next? Do you want to leave the site with the results that you have attained and be forget SEO since you have got your results? Nope. You shouldn’t.

If your targeted keywords generates enough revenue then think of how much competitive your keywords should be and how many of your competitors will be using those keywords and working for good number of quality links for their site

Search engine algorithm gives better value for frequently updated site with keywords around the content and for site that continuously gets quality backlinks.

Watch closely you’re competitor and find out what they do to compete your site. Here are the factors that needs to be frequently monitored

(1) Content update - It is always recommended to fine-tune and update your content at least once in a month or two with keywords around meeting keyword density and keyword prominence.
(2) Brushing up your Keywords  - As always monitor your top ranking keywords and fine-tune it according to the number of total search results and compare with your competitors activity on those keywords of your target. Check out the areas in your content to know where you can focus your top keywords and build quality backlinks for those keywords as anchor text. Be sure to meet keyword density and do not stuff keywords.
(3) External site link juice - Check whether all the links build exits with time period, since some may be removed or moved out to some inner folder level and the algorithm might not identity those backlinks. So build equal and relevant links as an alternative to those links that had been masked and improve or retain the position with good number of quality links.
(4) Monitory traffic - Analyzing your traffic is one of the essential factor were you need to know how site performs with search engine organic clicks and directories or sites referrals. If you notice any drops in traffic, identify those area and work on them to set your goal.

And also here are the checklists that can help you to maintain SEO results and withstand the competition

(1) Check how your competitors rank in Google, Yahoo and Bing for your keywords?
(2) Have you updated your content that meets current target market and information?
(3) Are you tweaking your web site structure for search engine friendliness that meets current algorithm?
(4) Are you working on building quality links regularly?
(5) Are you optimizing your site with the current popular keywords?
(6) Are you analyzing you traffic to know from which location your visitors are coming from and optimize the site for those location based search engines?

These important factors and checklist will help you to measure the site strength and weakness of your site. Now you should have known that search engine optimization is not one time activity and search engine algorithm gets updated often and competitors fight for your top keywords position. Keep in mind, your website needs continues SEO in order to retain and improve your good SEO results.

Maintaining the SERPs (result/Postion) are equally important as your SEO process. Continuous SEO is within the process of SEO to generate continuous business queries to make. So keep up the good SEO, Always, do not think about stopping your activities.

Google as a search giant knows how to help site owners and webmasters on search index. Time to Time Google team has been updating Google Webmaster Tools list and now its has come to a good form. All over, these tools provide reports on your site visibility, diagnose problems, and as well helps to share information about your site to Google.

To start, here is the list

1. Google Webmaster Tools are free and easy to set up through site owner verification process by adding a Google code Meta tag to the page or by creating and uploading a file with Google code. Once you are verified you can access the tools dashboard.
2. Sitemap tool allows you to submit XML Sitemap with details on pages to index and priority to crawl pages. If you don’t have a site map create one and submit to site configuration sitemap section.
3. Crawler access tool helps to generate and test robots.txt to specify how search engines should crawl and index site content.
4. When you Google for information you can see Sitelinks. Sitelinks displays inner links generated by Google algorithm depends on how related and useful for users queries. You have no control to add but you can block / remove the link from displaying the site links if you don’t want to list.
5. Change of address is a special tool to tell Google about your new domain and helps to move your old site users to you new domain easily. This process has 4 simple steps to follow like content link verification, 301 redirect from old to new domain, adding and verifying new site to Google webmaster tool and submitting the change of address
6. Geographic target tool helps to target users in specific location. You can select the country based on the users you target and it would help for .com, .org and other top-level domains. Country specific domains like .in, co.uk and so are already associated with Country based listing.
7. Preferred domain allows you to select the domain format you like to display. You have options to select http://www.yourdomain.com and http://yourdomain.com. If you have selected http://www.yourdomain.com and the site inner page links with http://yourdomain.com then search results display URL’s takes as http://www.yourdomain.com
8. Crawl rate can be changed depending on the site root level depth and default crawl rate is recommended to avoid increase server’s bandwidth. This Crawl rate has no connection with how often Googlebot crawls your site.
9. Top search queries tool has information on your site search keywords impressions and clickthrogh ratio along with keywords position.
10. Links to your site tool provides information on inbound links with anchor text for your site pages.
11. Keywords and internal links tool shows the common keywords Googlebot sees when it crawl’s the site and internal links shows the total number of pages linked by other pages in your site.
12. Crawl errors is another special tool that lists issues Google encountered when crawling your site. The list includes HTTP, error in sitemaps, not followed pages, not found pages, pages restricted by robots.txt, timed out / unreachable pages for Web, Mobile CHTML and Mobile WML / XHTML?
13. Crawl stats tool shows statistics on Googlebot activity on pages crawled per day, kilobytes downloaded per day, time spent downloading a page and PageRank distribution.
14. HTML suggestions are provided when Googlebot crawls your site and find issues with your site content. Working on these issues will help your site in better listing and users experience. Here you can find details on Meta description, Title tag and Non-indexable content in your site.

Now ask a question yourself why don’t I use Google Webmaster tools, if I have as many tools and information from Google for free. Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools with your Google account today!

Many of our customers who look for Ecommerce solutions find Opensource solutions to build it cost effectively and they like what we recommended, Cubecart!There are reasons:1. Easy to customize (skin based), and this keeps the cost low.
2. You can bring great look and feel with skins, you can make the site like complete custom design. No footsteps of Cubecart would be visible.
3. PHP programmers likes it. – Clean code structure, easy to manage. Our PHP programmers have a great feel about it.
4. Designers like it. Clean XHTML interface and CSS driven.
5. SEO guys like it. Search Engine Friendly URLs, Custom URLs, Meta Tags, Robots.txt & PHP Session Killer etc
6. Good support from Cubecart team apart from forum support (Like http://www.cubecartforums.org/)
7. Low cost, $180 only.
8. Good number of alternate payment solutions, Shipping modules (http://www.cubecart.com/modules)
9. Web2.0 interface, But I am yet to see any Mashups.We strongly recommend and teach the importance of SEO for customers who wants us to build Ecommerce sites, as any online business should consider SEO as their primary marketing channel – Not just news paper ads, for long term business through online. Cubecart is one good choice to build SEO friendly Ecommerce sites that supports online marketing.

If you are an SEO analyst or specialist here are few techniques which are used widely these days. I am not going to explain the boredom basics, which could turn off you  However, if you need to refresh basic and regular tips / techniques you can go to these below topics:

(1) Search Engine Optimization for Beginners
(2) Increasing Link Popularity
(3) Practical SEO Techniques (Free E book)
(4) SEO for Ecommerce sites
(5) Understanding site visitors
(6) Developing SEO friendly URLs
(7) SEO for Flash sites

Now comes the few important SEO tips that might be useful for the year 2009. Some are bit simple but I am sure the post will certainly a good list to use.

(1) First and foremost is regular update of content. Absolutely unique and fresh content with target business and resource keywords
(2) Video Content with product or service link and adding to You Tube videos and related sites
(3) Regular update on website page in RRS Feed and submit to feed directories
(4) Audio content for Pod casting, a new target of Google
(5) Optimizing photos and images with alternative (ALT) attributes and image name with related keywords or theme
(6) Add tags to your site or blog
(7) Add and set your site maps to authenticate your feeds in Google, Yahoo, and MSN
(8) Get high-quality Backlinks on a local and regional directories, yellow pages, classified apart from general directories so that you can get high priority in local search engines too like Google.co.uk, Google.in so on
(9) Get listed in Google Local Business Center
(10) Get socially informed listing in Twitter and related sites
(11) Press release and News submission so that you wont miss chance betting listed in Google news
(12) Regular update of you blog minimum one post a week and submitting to blog directories
(13) Work on measures to reduce your website bounce rate
(14) Modify and update your existing website comparing with SEO checklist and also update your checklist frequently to current SEO industry
(15) Keep checking your competitor’s progress. Learn what they do to target your customers.

So work on these tips apart from your regular SEO practices and techniques and become an SEO ruler of 2009

Have you heard of the term “Bounce Rate” and thinking of what is it and how to reduce it? If you are using Google Analytics it is well and good, in Google Analytics you should have noticed “Bounce Rate” in Dashboard section and Top Content section. Bounce Rate is calculated using percentage of visitors who view the site page and exit your site without navigating other pages or closing the browser. Few sites generate high bounce rates and it should not be more than 40% for normal sites with pages related to only services and 60% to 70% for sites with pages related to services, resources, tutorials, promotional articles and downloads

If the site has more number of resources pages or products, once user gets information from specific page they will obliviously close the page thereby leading to increase in bounce ate.

So, to grab the attention of the visitor or to help or divert the visitor to similar useful content pages, we also need to focus on user-friendly site navigation and we need to highlight similar or related resources, products or services on the page where user lands from search engine or from a referral link. Below are some measures that may help to reduce bounce rate of a specific page

1. Work on site load speed
2. Improve Look and feel of the design
3. Avoid too many ads
4. Add breadcrumbs
5. Add Similar or related pages / articles / products
6. Add Popular pages / articles / products
7. Avoid auto play video
8. Using H tag in titles properly
9. Highlight important sections in content
10. Avoid popup
11. Surveys and polls to vote and users to be around the pages
12. Tag clouds

Try out these measures and let us know how your site performs

Search engine optimization is very important with respect to any online business sites, to get it search engine visible. At the same time it is an ever-updating industry. When done in a proper and standard procedure, by experienced professionals, it is sure to give top long-term results.

So we thought an ebook on SEO techniques, to boost your website’s ranking amongst the search engines, is something you will really be looking for. While you can find a lot of techniques online, this Book gives a list of  reliable approachs. Hear it from our SEO experts, who have been in the industry since the incepton of Search Engines and grab these good practical knowledge about the various SEO techniques!

 

Follow this link “Practical SEO Techniques Ebook”, where we offer this free SEO e-book.

We all face competition everywhere. Especially in this fast paced life where everyone is expecting speed and efficiency, we ought to give them the best. Offshore outsourcing not only help in managing your organization’s work better, but also help in effective and timely completion of tasks. We have heard it from many of our clients that our offshore team of professionals has been of great help in finishing the tasks faster, along with the help from the Onsite team, as the task is worked upon, almost round the clock, by both the onsite and offshore teams. Thanks to the time zone difference and the experient professionals that makes this easier and quicker completion of tasks a reality! In my experience, I have realized that time zone difference not only helps in the quicker completion of the task, but also brings in a good rapport amongst the two teams.

Read our article titled “Effective time difference management with offshore teams” wherein we have analyzed the importance of time difference management and how useful it proves to be for an organization that has an offshore team employed