Design Your Site For Traffic In 2005 – Domain Name
Design Your Site For Traffic In 2005
Elizabeth McGee
What better way to start the new year than with more traffic to your web site. Web traffic is a critical part of your internet business and it is imperative that you design it to bring you the most amount of traffic possible.
Designing your site for traffic includes offering good content, easy navigation and a logical flow. Additionally you must also build your site to draw traffic from the search engines because if you can obtain high search engine ranking, you can enjoy free traffic.
Its important to note, however that good ranking wont do you much good without a well designed site and a well designed site cant bring you visitors if no one knows its there. Both high ranking and good design need to work together.
How do we pull all this together Lets take a look.
-A word about Design-
A huge mistake I see many website owners make is that they get caught up in making their site cute. They love the little animations, buttons and dramatic backgrounds. What they fail to consider is that these things are worthless if you dont offer good content, easy navigation and a logical flow.
First of all dont try to be everything to everyone. Design your site around a theme, preferably a niche theme. Dont confuse your readers with links all over the page. Design a logical flow. Lead your viewers to where you would like them to go. Leave plenty of white space and keep your pages organized. Clearly state at the top of your pages what you are about and what you would like your viewers to do.
Secondly, I dont recommend pop-ups. I find that the majority of internet users find them annoying. The demand for pop-up blockers is a good indication that viewers dont want to see them.
Thirdly, offer good content. Provide information on your site that will help viewers solve a problem. Offer information that they might not get elsewhere. Write reviews regarding your products. Write newsletters and articles and most importantly offer something of value for free. Give your viewers a reason to come back. It will also build trust in you.
-Traffic builders-
Good search engine ranking can bring lots of visitors to your site. It often takes a few months to rank well but the payoff is lots of qualified traffic. While its not practical to depend solely on search engines for traffic it can complement your other advertising campaigns nicely. Aiming for high search engine placement is always a plus.
Keep these in mind when developing your site for the search engines:
- Domain names
Choose a domain name that has your site keywords in it. For example, if youre a site about pet care, try to include the words "pet care" or words related to pet care in your domain name if you can.
- keywords
Keywords require research and there are several tools to help you out in this area. Here are my favorites:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
I suggest focusing on only one keyword or keyword phrase per page of your website. This may not seem like a lot but if your site has 20 pages you can focus on 20 keywords. Each page should be considered a landing page for your site. If you have proper navigation on your pages it will easily allow viewers to see everything you have to offer.
Include your keyword or keyword phrase at the top of your page as well as in at least one header phrase. Also work the keywords into the body of your text as often as you can without sounding redundant.
Your keywords should be in the Title tag as well as in your page description tag. Many search engines no longer look at the keyword tags but I recommend using them and including the plural forms as well.
- Alt Tags Search engines dont index images, therefore any text on your site that is presented in image format wont get indexed. To solve this problem, you can enter the image description in the ALT tag. To be sure that the search engines recognize all the content on your site, fill in your ALT tags with your keywords. This will boost your keyword frequency and help your site achieve better ranking.
- Linking Search engines will rate your site by who is linking to your site, so its important to establish quality, related links. This can be accomplished in a few ways. One way is to establish reciprocal links with other like sites. When exchanging links be sure to include your keywords in your site title.
Review the page you are exchanging links with. Be sure it is a site that you find easy to navigate and informative. I also recommend that the sites index page have a Google PR rating of at least one. This ensures that the site is not being penalized by Google. If it is a penalized site then you could be penalized as well for linking to it.
- Include a tell a friend and bookmark script on your site. This gives viewers an easy way to bookmark you and most of all return to your site.
- Include a Site Map Site Maps let visitors know what information you have, how its organized, where it is located with respect to other information, and how to get to that information with the least amount of clicks possible.
Site maps also provide spider food for search engine robots. This can increase your chances of becoming indexed because a site map allows the search engines to easily visit every page of your site.
A site map works best if you include a link to your site map in the navigation of every page on your site.
Finally, dont let your site become stale. I have found that my search engine rankings improve when I periodically add new pages to my site and keep the content new and fresh. Follow these tips and 2005 may be your year for traffic.
About The Author
Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can visit Elizabeths sites at:
http://www.homenotion.com
http://www.pro-marketing-online.com
2005 – The Year of Patience – Recreation
2005 - The Year of Patience
Paul Wilson
2005 has me going into my 15th year teaching golf. From day one, I thought that if I could come up with a technique that was fast and easy to learn I would be a pretty popular guy. Well, I did ... and I am. So what is fast and easy Does it mean that if you take one lesson with me I can get you to shoot 72 Well ... if I could get you to shoot 72 in 1 lesson I would charge $10,000 per lesson and the line up to see me would be down the street. I do get lucky sometimes but for the most part it usually takes me a little longer.
Typically, I say that I can give you a pretty good swing in 5 lessons, a great swing in 10 and a phenomenal swing in 15. Thats 1 lesson per week for that length of time with practice in between lessons. Considering it took me over 10 years to develop a swing I was happy with, it seems like such a small price to pay. Unfortunately, many people wont wait that long. Its not because they dont have time its just that they want results immediately.
The funny thing, is that people dont bat an eye at the length of time it takes to learn how to play a musical instrument. They know before they even start that it takes years to be able to play a song half decently. How about learning a new job Training is going to take you up to 6 months. How about other sports Other sports take a while to get good at but youre OK with it. So whats so different about golf Well ... there are many reasons. Maybe you want to impress your friends. Maybe you want to take some money off of your friends on the weekend. Maybe you hit that one brilliant shot and you think you should be able to do it all of the time. Maybe you just think golf looks like a simple sport. Whatever the reason, creating a great golf swing takes some time.
If youve played golf for 15 years and you still shoot in the mid to high 80s or 90s the first thing you have to realize that the golf swing you are using doesnt work. If you played a guitar for 15 years wouldnt you be able to give guitar legend, Eddie Van Halen, a run for his money Now, Im not saying you should shoot 72 every time you go out but after playing for 15 years shouldnt you be able to shoot in the 70s regularly Knowing that you have a golf swing that doesnt work is the first step to playing the best golf of your life.
The second step to playing the best golf of your life, is knowing that if you decide to change your swing, it will be like starting all over again but this time it wont take you that long. Initially, changes to your game will cause you to hit some very poor shots. This is because youre learning a totally different way to swing. You are un-learning years of bad habits. It is this critical moment in time that you must decide to press on. No matter how bad your game gets ... the future is bright.
The third thing you must do is practice. You have to ingrain your new movements until they are second nature. The best way to make changes is to do consecutive repetitions. What I mean is you have to do the same new movement time and time again. If you do consecutive repetitions of the new movement you will master it faster than if you do old swings in between. In the early stages its all about making the changes. The faster you can change the faster you will get better.
The fourth thing you have to do is work with a qualified instructor. This does not mean taking 1 lesson. You have to find a teacher that teaches a method and stick to it. I, myself, have a vision of what I want the students swing to look like before we even start. There are certain steps that must be followed to get to this end goal so no matter what it takes, see it through. Some people learn faster than others but with a few weeks you will get used to the changes and you will see some amazing shots. This is the sign of things to come in the future. Keep at it and keep practicing and you will soon reach your goal.
The final thing you have to do if you havent figured it out yet is have patience. It takes time to change you swing. Work hard in 2005 and pretty soon youll be breaking 80.
Paul Wilson
Director of Instruction
Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate
http://www.paulwilsongolf.com
About The Author
Paul Wilson is a nationally recognized golf instructor with numerous appearances on the Golf Channel and in major golf publications. He is the creator of "Swing Machine Golf" which teaches people the 3 elements of the Iron Byron Swing Machine. Please visit http://www.swingmachinegolf.com to find out more about his teaching method.
More Hybrid SUVs in 2005 – Auto
More Hybrid SUVs in 2005
Jenny McLane
It is common knowledge among car enthusiasts and car owners that the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the amount of fuel it consumes. With this in mind, several automobile producers have begun diverting a big chunk of their efforts to producing more hybrid 4x4s in the year 2005.
Taking on the Fleet First. The big three - Ford, Dodge and General Motors have seemed to agree that 2005 is the perfect opportunity to introduce the hybrid versions of some very popular vehicles.
Ford Introduces the Ford Escape Hybrid, the first vehicle to combine SUV capability with the outstanding fuel economy and low environmental impact of a full hybrid. "Full" hybrid means it automatically switches between pure electric power, pure gasoline or diesel engine power or a combined operation to optimize efficiency and performance. The no frills Escape Hybrid drives normally, performs superbly and offers all the features youd expect from the SUV leader. The Hybrid Ford Escape features lots of room, comfortable seating for five, an adaptable cargo area, 1000-pound towing capacity, and an optional Intelligent 4WD System which produces the same all-weather grip and off-road competence available in conventional Escape models.
Full hybrids can achieve 50% or more improvement in fuel economy during traffic induced stop-and-go type of driving, wherein the electric motor is most efficient. The Escape Hybrid delivers more than 75% fuel economy improvement in city driving when weighed against a conventional V-6 powered Escape XLT. The Escape Hybrid can travel more than 400 miles in city driving on a single tank of gasoline.
Ford has already manufactured and sold the 4,000 units Ford Escape Hybrid in 2004 and its resounding success has prompted it to build a