Carl Townsend Design

Tips for Content Development for a Working Web Site

carl — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:29:14 +0000

Specific goals for content development include credibility, easy to use, logical organization, and quality/professional design. Here are some tips:

Organize the content and structure for the user. Internal business sites often reflect the company’s departmental organization. Structure and content for external users should reflect the wants of those users.

The web site should serve a single purpose. I know one company near me that has over 80 web sites, each serving a single purpose and each targeting many of the same products to different user groups.

Make the site easy to use and serving the needs of the user.

Be sure the site looks professional.

Verify the statements you make on the site (cite references) and make it easy for the user to verify your statements.

Establish yourself and others working with you as an authority. Use testimonies, galleries, and authoritative information. Your About page is important.

Put warmth in your content. Show pictures that relate of smiling people doing things.

Build trust with your audience.

Give multiple ways they can contact you. At least one should be your geographic address (not the “Box number”). Search engines use this to give priority to local listings. In addition, the geographic address builds trust.

Update the content on the site frequently. This is also very important for search engine listing priority. Use a blog.

Minimize advertising and promotional content. This is particularly important in the social networks.

The Ten Major Mistakes of SEO

carl — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:33:14 +0000

Not seeing the search from the user’s perspective.

In selling product A, the SEO often uses A as the keyword. Unless
the product is branded well, however, the user knows nothing of A. As a general rule, you should use keyword phrases that relate to the problem, not the solution.
Not planning an objective SEO strategy.Static web sites are a thing of the past.

Successful web sites take on-going work and are dynamic. They involve blogs, social networking, and are often built as content management systems so that they can adapt, grow, and be dynamic. This takes good conceptual design work from the start.
Not using the right keywords and keyword phrases – not using long keyword phrases.

This means using the keyword phrases you expect the user to use to find your site. They should have a minimum of competition and are phrases used often in searching to meet their need.
Not using link text correctly.

On your text links, this means using a keyword phrase when you want them to link from your page instead of “click here”.
Ignoring accessibility issues for physically challenged.

A blind person, for example, might using a voicing device that speaks the words of the ALT tag of an image when you link from the page using the image. You need to use a good ALT tag for the image so that the user knows where he or she will be taken. Same thing on text links.
Designing for a high number of links to the site instead of looking for link-in
quality.Design for a very minimum of out-going links and look for incoming links from quality sites. Quality sites often have high PageRank.
Building menu structures with JavaScript or Flash and not providing an alternative.

Google cannot spider links well using JavaScript or Flash links. If you are choosing to use these, provide an alternative menu (perhaps at the bottom of the page) that has text or CSS links. A site map is another alternative, as it uses text links. Also avoid linking using dynamic links, which are often used with sites where the pages are served up from a database.
Not creating a site map.

Use third-party tools to create a site map quickly and link to it from your home page with a text link. This helps the search engine find
everything in your site and gives deep indexing.
Not creating strong content.

The content should describe the benefits and call for action. It should also tell how your product or service differs from competitors.
Not tracking site statistics.

You need constant feedback on how well the site is working: hit rates, visitor stats, which pages are active, etc. Be sure you can get this for your site.

Making Web Content Work for You

carl — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:49:18 +0000

Picking the right keyword phrases, it is said, is the Holy Grail of the success of your website. It is your keyword phrases that drive your search engine positioning for the people who search for and answers to their needs. Your keyword phrases also drive your content and links, as well as your viral marketing. If those keyword phrases are the Holy Grail, then content and links are the king and queen. Even with viral marketing, your aim is to drive people to your web site with those phrases. Once they get to your web site, it is within the web site that you use your content to take your customer from those keyword phrases all the way to the action step.

Here are some basic steps for making that content work:

1. As a general rule, in site design, your keyword phrases should be problem to solution. People search on the problem, not the solution. Spin your content from these keyword phrases.
2. Structure your web site so that your web site is in categories and even subcategories, and then use the proper keyword phrases for the entrance page of each category and subcategory. For example, if the web site is for a pet store, your primary categories might be dogs, cats, fish, birds, and so on. And then, for each category you support, have subcategories. Under each subcategories use separate pages with keyword phrases based problem to solution: choosing the right food, choosing the right toy, should I declaw my cat, and more.
3. You should have about 400-500 or more of words of text content on a page.
4. Images, video, Flash, and JavaScript do not drive the search engines. Use these to draw the user, but remember to keep plenty of text on the page. Use ALT tags and CSS wherever possible to drive search engines.
5. Know your audience. What is their social-economic profile? Use the vocabulary of the people you are trying to reach, target your message to the audience and their needs. Target for your audience, not the search engines.
6. Write to draw an emotional response from your audience.
7. Optimize each page for the search engines but keep your user as the primary target.
8. Use a variety of content to enhance the user experience: FAQs, tutorials, video, pointers to offline resources. Try to engage the user in an interactive process: polls, games, blog comments, and more.
9. Use stories, stories, stories. If you are selling widgets, have people give their testimonies (stories) on how the widget solved their problem.
10. Subdivide your page with headings and use related keyword phrases in the headings.
11. Remember to give that call to action. Often I see great content on a web site only to find they never ask me to do anything.

Often the best way to develop your content is to outsource it. Why not contact us – http://www.netadventures.biz/contact-us/ ?

40+ Web Design and Development Resources for Beginners

carl — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:53:44 +0000

Here are some good web development resources:
http://mashable.com/2010/07/23/web-design-resources-beginners/?

The Path to an Inexpensive Professional Quality Website.

carl — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:42:16 +0000

You probably know we do high-quality Web sites for small businesses and organizations for about $2,000. Don’t have the two grand? If you are familiar with the WordPress interface, you can build your own Web site using the same tools we use. We often use the Genesis framework for our sites and add a theme. Genesis with the theme is less than $100. This is the authoritative book on using Genesis (44 pages) and it’s free to download. Our own business site you are visiting, for example, uses the StudioPress Enterprise theme.

This publication is a FREE resource suitable for anyone who has an understanding of WordPress. It covers everything, from the beginner level to expert issues, and can help anyone who is considering the Genesis Framework to get their site looking and performing exactly the way they want it. Order the book at no cost (click on the book image here) and then come back and order Genesis and the framework from us by clicking the blue icon in our sidebar for the StudioPress WordPress themes.

Leap to Success

carl — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:13:52 +0000

Hey! It’s leap year! Why not leap to your vision and dreams with an awesome Web site? Run with professional quality, reliability, and low cost with one of our Econoweb sites. Better jump fast.

Selling Your Product or Service using Social Networking

carl — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:18:25 +0000

Sell to the need of your customer. Actually, you sell to the “want” of the customer. What the customer wants and what he or she needs are two different things. Suppose you sell health products. For example, HGH is a hormone that enables the rebuilding of cells and restores youth. Normally you don’t take HGH, but rather a precursor that forces the body to release the HGH that the body has already made. If the product is XXX, you are not selling XXX. That may be what the customer needs, but the customer doesn’t know that. Also, you are not selling an HGH precursor. What you are selling is youth. Target that with your keywords and content.
Go for the niche market. Do your keyword analysis, use long keyword phrases, and target a niche in your market. Use multiple web sites and blogs if necessary to target multiple niches.
Drive from content. Lead from ideas and information. In the old paradigm, this would look like you are giving the store away. In the new paradigm you are establishing yourself as an authority and drawing people from your authority. To win, you have to lead from authority and encourage networking in terms of that.
Be interactive. Keep your blogs open for dialog. Interact on the social networks like Facebook and Linkedin. Join groups on the networks and contribute to them. Force interaction with controversy and novel ideas. Be creative. Comment on blogs that relate to your issues. Don’t interact to sell, interact to drive comment and synergy. Give people multiple ways to reach you. Be sure to follow up on contacts.
Use lots of links. Link from the social networks to your site and blogs.

Using Social Media Networking with Your Church

carl — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:07:16 +0000

1. Know Your Church’s Goals. What is the focus of your church? How does it intend to accomplish that? What are the needs your church is trying to address? What people groups?

2. Who else in your church is already using social media and networking? What networks are they using? Connect with them. In our church we have a social network for the unemployed. The network physically meets biweekly, and connects on Linkedin between the meetings.

3. Keep the content active. Blogs need to be updated at least weekly, a Twitter account at least daily.

4. Target your posts to the needs of the reader.

5. Encourage dialog. Ask questions, introduce conflict. Keep your motives and values pure.

6. Let others in your congregation know about your networking. Encourage them personally to join in.

7. Reference your church website.

8. Use additional tools to enhance your efficiency. For Twitter, for example, use TweetDeck or Hootsuite.

9. Learn from the others. Saddleback Church has a special area on their website to train their congregation on using social media to invite others to church. Also see Steve Fogg’s http://stevefogg.typepad.com/blog/2010/02/killer-church-marketing-ideas-which-wont-cost-one-cent.html.

10. Contact us if you need help. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Choosing a Layout

carl — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:15:15 +0000

For those who wish to use a professionally design Web site such as our Econoweb, we offer a wide selection of layouts, or themes as well call them. You can see a list of themes here. In each case, you can bring up a demo of the theme and explore it. Each theme has its own list of features. Most support both a static portion and a blog.

If this is too confusing, we will list for you the best-selling top 10 themes over the recent Christmas/New Year’s holidays in descending (most popular first) order:

Agentpress – for real estate agents.
News – This is a good theme for content-heavy publishing in a newspaper style.
Enterprise – This is a very popular theme for business applications. We used it for this site.
Lifestyle – This is a very flexible theme for many applications

Magazine – For creating an online magazine – content-heavy publishing in a magazine style..
Generate – Use for growing an email list
Associate – Professional and projects a strong company image.
Modern Blogger – for the modern woman (contemporary).
Minimum – This a simple theme, with a black & white layout.
Driskill – clean and contemporary, works for personal and professional use.

Getting Your Web Site Working – (free paper)

carl — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:15:56 +0000

Getting Your Web Site Working

I stopped by a client a few weeks ago who was using my hosting, with a Web site from somewhere else. He was keeping the Web site up; but it wasn’t drawing customers. What was wrong?

The rules for getting a Web site working today are dramatically different from those a few years ago. Sure, the small business needs a Web site; but the reality is you need a Web presence. What does that mean? Here are eleven pages of top-level advice. All free. Get your copy today just by contacting us.