In today’s vast array of internet happenings, a successful website nearly always requires a blog, some social media efforts, and lots of TLC. Blogs are especially important for many reasons.

First, they create an atmosphere in which you can communicate with customers, potential clients and Read the rest of this entry »

One important search engine optimization mistake made by novice web creators is hyperlinks on generic or unimportant content like “click here” or “see more”. Hyperlinks are special content, according to search engines, and should be considered carefully.

Content with hyper links, or even content that is bold or in italics, will get more consideration from a search engine when determining relevance of your page or for a particular search term or topic.

Listed below are the types of “emphasis” content search engines consider more important than other content on a page:

• content that is linked to another page on your website;
• content that is linked to an external page (though this could reduce your page rank if you have too many);
• content that is italicized;
• content that is bold;
• words that are included in any heading or subheading block.

To get the most out of a search engine crawl you must carefully analyze the content on your page and Read the rest of this entry »

One of the best things about the internet is the multitude of free tools, software, plugins and other productivity toys that can help even novice web users improve their website and visitor experiences.

One example of this is the Website Grader, found at http://www.websitegrader.com/. This marvelous tool will analyze your website and provides you with score, between 0 and 100, that tells you how web savvy your site is. In other words, it gives you an indication of how useful your site will be for others.

Obviously the higher the score the better, but lower scores do not mean that your site is not useful. A lower score just means there are lots of opportunities for you to improve the online experience for visitors.

This is actually a blessing - if you had a 100, the only place to go would be down! And also just keep in mind that these are all arbitrary numbers, based on someone else’s determination of what “works” and what doesn’t. Your site may vary from the norm but if your score is 30 or Read the rest of this entry »

This tip is specifically for all the bloggers out there. If you have a web blog, like WordPress, installed on your website, then you will want to be sure to tag each of your blog posts with relevant key words.

Although at first blush it may appear that this effort is just a waste of time, in the long run, you will be developing category and key words strength for your blog site. Each time you use a key word or phrases that corresponds to your chosen meta tags, it adds to the reliability of your web content. Search engines check this, and often your page rank can be improved by tagging appropriately.

These tags are used for numerous purposes. Not only will the tags be embedded into your blog page, but Read the rest of this entry »

One simple way of getting your products and services “out there” is to let people know about them in a very informal way. The best way to do this is to find forums, or bulletin boards, discussing things relevant to your business or expertise area. When you join one of these forums there is an area for you to customize what is called a “signature”. Just like with e-mails, the signature will show up at the bottom of each and every post you create on that board.

Register for the forum and start participating in the discussions. Once you have several threads of discussion under your belt, contact the forum’s administrators and see if you could help moderate the board. Moderating isn’t necessary to help improve your traffic, however.

This technique is especially useful for service providers.  One of the best ways to earn trust from potential Read the rest of this entry »

Have answers just looking for someone with the right questions? Chances are you’ll find those someone’s at Yahoo! Answers. This social media site has become a popular place for individuals to get answers from other community members. It can also help you direct traffic to your website and potentially find new customers.

To get started, sign up for an account ( you can use an existing Yahoo! account if you want). Once you have your profile information set up the way you want it, start looking for “questions” that others have posted, and that you can help them with. Ideally these questions will relate to the products and/or services that you provide.

When you finish answering a question you’ll be prompted to provide “sources” for your answers. Use this opportunity to place a link to your website where further information can be found.

Be careful not to abuse this source link, however, or your account could be banned. If you have a blog, Read the rest of this entry »