Wyospace.com

My website hits stink! How can I make people see me?

By Elizabeth Parks, Researcher, Wyoming Market Research Center

I’m not getting much traffic to my website; it seems to be “lost in space”.  How can I attract new customers through this venue if no one can find it?

There are several things you can do to make your site more visible on the web, first let’s begin with a definition. Web optimization means increasing your chances of having your website found by customers on the Internet. When you purchase a domain, you are competing with millions of other websites to display on the first 3 pages of search engine results.

Search engines use a method of indexing to organize the millions of web pages existing in cyberspace. Simply put, they send out indexing “robots” to scan pages looking for similarities in keywords, URLs, page descriptions, titles and content and then organize pages according to content.

The key to optimizing your website is to build the pages in your site so keywords, page titles and descriptions are picked up by search engines. Behind these elements of your site is HTML source code. Indexing bots scan the source code for these elements and rank web pages according to what they find in the code.

When developing a website, the first thing to consider are keywords or phrases visitors may type into the search box to find you. Each page of your website should have keywords, much like a paragraph is written around a topic sentence.  Keywords should reflect the text on the page and capture the attention of indexing bots, which in turn give you a higher ranking on the results pages of search engines.

Content keywords are becoming increasingly important as businesses compete for customers, as well as search engine visibility. Keywords are your connection to customers on the Internet. Write your content with customers in mind, then go back and insert keywords and phrases into the text you think searchers will type into the search engine box. Customer optimization, or writing for customers, should come before search engine optimization. After all, search engines don’t buy products, customers do.

Page titles work much the same as keywords. They are found at the top of each page and are one of the first things seen by indexing bots; therefore, they should include principle keywords. Titles are a marketing opportunity and should be thought of as a form of advertising. Consumers look for product benefits, so titles should be directed to the benefit derived from the product (or service); for example, “Learn how to ski over the weekend”.

The page description is the two line announcement appearing on search engine result pages. This description is a customer’s first exposure to your business and should be used to “hook” them into clicking on your site. Use compelling text to cause them to explore further. Like titles, your description should include your keywords and read like advertising copy for your business.

If you would like more information on web optimization, the services of WYOMING ENTREPRENUER.BIZ or the Market Research Center contact Elizabeth Parks, eparks@uwyo.edu.

Can your site be found and used by everyone (and everything)? Part 4 of 4

By Stan Grabowski, Website Coordinator for Manufacturing-Works

Please visit the previous articles for some background:

1. Intro
2. Web standards
3. Testing your site

Make your website “fail gracefully”

"Failing gracefully..." It's like tripping over a crack and instead of landing on your face, you do a cart-wheel and land right back on your feet. You never intended to trip, but you didn't get hurt. But how could a website "trip?" Depending on how fancy your website is, with all its bells and whistles, your site may be set up to fail in a browser that doesn't work properly. The bigger they are the harder they fall...

...but it may not hurt as much if you have a safety net to fall into.

I was recently talking to someone who's website has drop-down menus. Their menu had the top most option, such as "About Us" and more options would show up when you put your mouse over the "About Us". From there you could navigate to the other sub-categories of the About Us section. It seemed to work just fine, until I disabled JavaScript. I was then stuck on the home page. I could not reach those sub-menu options, and there was no "About Us" page either. The visible "About Us" option was there merely to trigger the sub-menu; it did not link to anything.

So I'm stuck on the home page...

Now this was a deliberate problem I got myself into. I disabled the JavaScript. But JavaScript is not always available for everyone in every situation. The script may not work in a specific browser, or maybe the user is on their Blackberry or other handheld device. Maybe the user is a search engine! Search engines can't utilize JavaScript or Flash, so it would be stuck on the home page with me.

Drop down menus are often done with either JavaScript or Flash; neither of which are search-engine friendly. When a menu is built with JavaScript, it only exists in a visitors browser. Search engines don't use a mouse to navigate your site, so they will never see those drop-down options, and cannot follow those links to those pages. Search engines also cannot use Flash. If a search engine can't navigate your site, then your pages will not end up in the search engine's index, and no one will ever see those pages when they search.

You should think of JavaScript and Flash as "added frills," not a "required feature" of your site. All the information and content of your site should always be accessable with, or without Flash and JavaScript.

Solutions:

If your site must have drop down menus, consider these options:

1. Have a site map linked off of every page. The site map should have links to every page on your site. If a search engine finds your site map, it can find every page on your site.
2. Have a "text only" version of the menu at the bottom of the site. Make sure every page can be reached through a normal text link.
3. Use a CSS drop down menu. The downside of this is that the drop down options won't work in old versions of Internet Explorer (IE6 and before), but they are search engine friendly. Read this article on CSS Dropdown Menus for a good example.
4. Learn proper JavaScripting methods (which can be a bit of a task) and check out this article on Dropdown Menus.

Basically, you need to plan to fail sometimes. Make sure your site is still usable when Flash or JavaScript does not work.

See this topic in action:

I've built a demo of what I've been talking about in this article. Please visit the demo to see how a properly coded menu works versus an improperly coded menu. Please read the notes for clarification.

Again, this is an extensive subject that cannot be completely covered here. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more.

Making a Good Thing Even Better

By Sanya Carson

The Internet allows anyone to sell products anywhere in the world. In order to reach out to the millions of customers all over the world, you set up a great Web site and sit back for the floods of people to come rushing in to buy your products.  So…are they?  Hello?  Why isn’t anyone visiting my site?

One of the biggest problems with Web sites nowadays is that most are invisible to search engines. Nearly 70 percent of people access Web sites via a search engine. If search engines cannot find your site, chances are no one can find your site.  You don’t exist in the cyberspace.  What can you do to improve your site so you can finally get the floods of people to you?

Here are a few tips to improve your Web site:

• Titles: Each page within your Web site should have a unique title, which helps search engines find you. The title should be descriptive, but not too long (no more than 50 characters).
• Content: Your Web site should have enough text on a page to explain who you are and what you sell, but try to keep the content short because people hate to scroll.  When search engines search the Web, they search the content to find out what your site offers.  Insert specific keywords and key phrases throughout your text.  Try to write in third person—don’t say something like, “We are so happy to sell you our great products.”  No one cares about that.  Just explain what it is you sell.
• Links: Never have more than 100 links per page. Search engines tend to think that sites that have more than 100 links are just spam and will not search them.
• Images: Make sure that your Web pages are not just made of images.  Search engines cannot read images, so if you only have images, your site will appear blank.  It is okay to have image-based navigation (images that link), but make sure that you put the name of the link in the “Alt” tag. Also, if the name of your business is in an image, make sure you put the name of your business in the “Alt” tag.
• Meta tags: Use Meta tags (invisible lines of code that use keywords to help search engines find you). Keep Meta tags short and specific to what your site offers.
• Search Engine Tracking: Search engines track how many visitors go to Web sites and the more visitors you have on your site, the higher your ranking will be. Increase the traffic to your site by including it on all of your printed materials (business cards, etc.). Another way is to try to get other businesses or organizations to have a link to your Web site on their site.

These suggestions may seem simple, but they can make a world of difference.

Putting Your Business on the Web

By Sanya Carson

When building a Web site for your business, you have two options:  You can build it yourself or get a professional to build the site for you.

If you build it yourself:  remember that the “look” of the site should be consistent on every page.  Pages should have a clean look and provide useful information.

• Avoid distractions such as blinking text, scrolling text, animated images or sound files.  People hate flashy things on web sites and they will run away.
• You would be amazed how many businesses put absolutely no contact info on their pages.  Put that info or a link to it on the top or bottom of every page.
• People have short attention spans, so you need to break up content into short, concise paragraphs.
• Text should be easy to read (not too small, not too large). Do not use all caps. Use a common font.  And please, please, please, DO NOT use red or yellow text on a black background—ick!
• Hyperlinks should look different than other text (i.e., should be different color, underlined, bold, etc.).
• Your web site is not a treasure map; don’t make people search for things.  Visitors should be able to find what they want in less than three clicks.
• When you have finished making the site, view it on different computers. The site should load in 15 seconds or less even if you still have dial-up.

If a web company builds it:  shop around, obtain quotes from several vendors and compare them.  Doing your homework will save you a lot of heartache.

• If you want to sell your products directly online, setting up a “storefront” will cost extra.
• Ask to look at a portfolio of Web sites built by the designer. Do you like the sites? Do they load quickly? Do they all look the same?
• Make sure you know the hourly rate and get a quote in writing.
• The size of the company does not necessarily affect the quality of their work.

Once designed, the Web site will need to be hosted on a server. Depending on the size and complexity of your Web site, Web hosting prices can vary greatly.  Once again, you will need to do your homework.

Building a Web site can be a big task, but it can have a huge payoff in the end.