Making your Web Site Effective:

Metatags    Page Content     Contact information    Menu     Conclusion

Metatags: 
These are the hidden title, description and keywords. 
Most search engines use these to position you.
Every page on your web site should have different tags or the search engines may penalize you.
We will use the example of a company called John Doe who is a Club Car Dealer in Ohio.
This is a simple example for concept. Proper metags takes time to evaluate the competition, the target market, region and many other factors.

Title Tag:
Short and concise  - 6-10 words.
Example:  John Doe - Ohio Club Car Dealer
  
Description: 
Describe your services - 10-20 words.
Example: Providing new and used Club Car golf cars, service, parts and accessories located  in Ohio.
  
Keywords:
keep them simple and few. The more you have, the less value there is.
Example: trying to get listed under the keyword of golf cars is near impossible as you are competing against over 1,300,000 other sites that do golf cars. Get specific. Use phrase's like "golf cars in ohio" If you are a specific dealer for a manufacturer like Club Car use: "ohio club car dealer, club cars in ohio, etc. Do not use words that are not related to your site. Example: using the keyword horses has not relevancy to golf car site, you can get negative brownie points for that. 

Completed Metatag Example:
<TITLE>John Doe - Ohio Club Car Dealer</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Providing new and used Club Car golf cars, service, parts and accessories. We are located  in Ohio">
<META NAME="keywords" http-equiv="keywords" CONTENT="ohio club car dealer, club cars in ohio, golf car dealer in ohio, ohio golf car dealer, club car parts, club car accessories, ohio">

Metatags    Page Content     Contact information    Menu    Conclusion

Page Content:
One of the biggest problems are sites that look great but have no real content.
Sites done completely in Flash or images are not effective on the search engines but a little flash can add a nice accent.
  
Flash:
Use of flash should always have a static link to go to the next page. If not then the search engines cannot continue to list all of your pages.

Page Text:
Search engines look for text on the page. This is text that is readable by the visitor.
An image that has text in it, is an image, not text. 
The text on the web page must be relative in content to what the metatags states. 
The text should contain most of the same words/phrases that are in your metatags.
More text, better listings.

Metatags    Page Content     Contact information    Menu    Conclusion

Contact Information:
One of the hardest things for a visitor seems to be how to contact you.
Put this on the bottom of every web site page or have a link to a contact page that is easy to find.
Company name
Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Fax Number
Email Address

Metatags    Page Content     Contact information    Menu    Conclusion

Menu:
This is how visitors navigate thru your web site.
One of the common mistakes is having a link to a page that is only found by going thru another page. 
This makes it difficult for visitors to find what you have available.
A menu with links to each of your pages should be present in the same place on each page. 
This makes it easy for your visitor to move around and makes it easier for you to make changes on your site. 

If the menu is an image map some search engines may not see the links, thus place static text links at the bottom of each page just above the contact information. This will help the search engines see your other pages, provide another means for the visitor to navigate and allow you to use fancy image type menus without the chance of losing search engine exposure.

Metatags    Page Content     Contact information    Menu     Conclusion

Conclusion:
1. Insure that your web site is properly designed for your visitor.
    Metatags
    Easy to navigate
    Informative Content
    Complete Contact information

2. Define your target Market.
    What is your product?
    What clientele do you want to market: age, income, locality?
    Which search engines market more to that clientele?

This is a lot of information. Everything listed here with the exception of the search engine submittals should have been taken into consideration when your site was designed. Those are normal parts of web site design and development. If you paid a low cost for your site then they probably were not done and should be reviewed.

We will do a free no cost analysis of your web site and make recommendations as to what can be done. We will also provide a reasonable quote for doing it right.

Email:  g-hwebdesigns.com   for a free look at your site design.