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 »

A women’s article directory site, WAHM articles, recently announced plans to develop and sell a Spirit of Christmas e-book using compiled stories generated from their site’s contributing authors.

The website’s owner, Denise Willms, announced “[We are] publishing a Christmas e-book, and you’re invited to be a part of it!”

As a way of encouraging submissions, WHAM articles is offering the first 15 authors free advertising on their website for two weeks during the Christmas season. The ads will be viewed on nearly 1,500 pages throughout the site.

With thousands of articles and hundreds of article subscribers, this is a lucrative offer that could generate an impressive amount of traffic for your site this holiday season.

But Willms points out that even if you miss out on the free advertising opportunity there is still plenty of Read the rest of this entry »

In real estate, when asked what matters in buying or selling a home you’ll often hear this old adage: location, location, location.

Well your website “home” requires the same approach, but in this virtual environment the appropriate correlate would be content, content, content.

Original and interesting content cannot be stressed enough. But even good content isn’t enough; you also Read the rest of this entry »

Titles can be a rich way to bump your traffic. Do a Google search for any of the phrases or key words related to your site. Look at the top 10 results and think about how compelling the titles are. Do they make you want to click on them to see what the page is about?

Good website page titles will be optimized for both humans and search engines, so the text should be quick, crisp and compelling, just like the content on your page. But titles have the added importance of being the very first thing many people will see before visiting one of your pages.

After you’ve researched some of the better page titles, rewrite them to fit your website’s needs. Make improvements if possible, and combine lessons from several pages into “super titles” for all your web pages.

You can do this for all the tags on your web pages as well, including meta tags, ALT tags, and heading tags.

Your domain name is something you will want to spend a bit of energy on. Your name choice is a permanent part of your business’ identity, so be sure to choose wisely. Some things to keep in mind when choosing a name:

1) Try to choose a name that will work well with both human visitors to your site, as well as search engines looking for key words on your pages.

2) Choose a name that is easy to remember and that is easy to express in advertising campaigns. If your business name is already established, using that name can work well unless there are potential syntax Read the rest of this entry »

Online marketing is an essential component of web business success. It is used to attract new and potential customers, provide an image of professionalism and expertise for your brand, company or ideas, and to display trust and compel potential customers to do business with you.

Whether your are a beginner or just looking for more ways to market your business online,  I’ve compiled a list of Top 10 Online Marketing Tips that can help you with your marketing efforts. These tips are not all inclusive, but they are what I consider to be primary efforts for marketing your business online.
Read the rest of this entry »