Has your website lost its rankings in Google? Did your rankings drop or did your website vanish completely from Google? Many things can cause a ranking drop. This article explains what you can do to get your rankings back.Three reasons why your Google rankings might have droppedThere are several reasons that can cause a ranking drop:1.You changed your web pages. After a web page change, Google temporarily downranks web pages. This process has been described in a Google patent. In that case, you don't have to worry about the ranking drop and you'll get your old (or better) rankings back after some time.2.Other web pages are better than yours. No web page can keep its rankings forever. Your competitors might have built better web pages with better content and better inbound links. In that case, optimize your web page content for your keywords and try to get better inbound links.3.Google thinks that you use spam elements on your web pages and applied a penalty to your website. In that case, you have to file a reinclusion request. How to find out if your website has been penalizedSearch for your domain name on Google. If your website does not come as the first result, it's likely that it has been penalized.If Google cannot find any page of your website if you search for "site:yourdomain.com" (replace yourdomain.com with your own domain name) then it's nearly sure that your website has been penalized. Action plan: what you can do to get your rankings backBefore you ask Google to reconsider your website, you should make sure that everything is okay with your site:1.Fix all on-site issues that might have caused the problem.If you use hidden text or nearly hidden text on your website then remove it. Reconsider any use of display:none and visibility:hidden that you use in the CSS code of your website.If you use keyword lists or any other form of keyword stuffing on your web pages, then remove these elements. Check your web page titles, the meta tags and even HTML comments.Remove any unnecessary redirects, unrelated links and all duplicate pages. If you use cloaking or bot blocking scripts on your server, disable these scripts. Make sure that your HTML code is clean and that your web pages look nice. Don't use any automatically created doorway pages. 2.Fix all off-site issues.Off-site issues are often the reason for ranking penalties. If you participated in automated link exchange systems of if you paid a cheap overseas link building service to get links to your website then it's likely that these links have been flagged as spam links by Google.Google does not like automated link systems at all. Remove all automated link systems from your website and try to make sure that these linking systems do not link anymore to your site.If you purchased links to improve your rankings, try to get rid of these links. Google has officially stated that they consider paid links spam. Do not buy links. How to file a reinclusion requestWhen you have removed all on-site and off-site elements that could have been flagged by Google, you can file a reinclusion request.Keep your reinclusion request short and to the point. Be friendly and explain what exactly you have done to clean up your website. Ranking drops can cost your business a lot of money. For that reason, you shouldn't use any search engine optimization services that promise quick-fix solutions. If something looks too good, too inexpensive or too easy to be true then it probably isn't true.If you use ethical search engine optimization methods to optimize your web pages then you can be sure that your website gets high rankings without offending Google. It can take longer to get high rankings with ethical methods but you will also keep your high rankings much longer.
web design liverpool
Monday, 15 December 2008
rankings test
In an online webmaster forum, a webmaster described the link experiment that he did with his websites. He tried to find out how linking to the home page affected his rankings.
What did the webmaster test?
The webmaster tested the effect of links from sub pages of his website to his home page. He tried links to the home page of his website from the navigation and from the content and he tried links with and without keywords.
The test was done with a 4 year old domain name with a dedicated IP address. The web pages were HTML only. The website ranks top 5 in Google for its main, second and third keyword phrases and it has a total of 90 pages with unique content.
What were the results of the test?
It seems that too many links to the home page of your website can have a negative effect on your rankings:
1.Linking to the home page from every page in the content with the same keyword caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).
2.Linking to the home page from every page in the content using keyword variations caused a three pages drop in rankings (-3 pages).
3.Linking to the home page from the navigation with "main keyword" also caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).
4.Linking to the home page from the first 10 pages listed on Google.com for "site:domain.com/*" increased the ranking from 5th to 3rd (+2 positions).
The webmaster also observed the following:
•Linking from the content using keyword variations was effective to a point, after which the rankings dropped.
•There seems to be a page threshold. If the number of pages that link is even slightly above the threshold, the rankings will drop.
Does this mean that you shouldn't link to your home page?
It's hard to tell whether the results of this experiment are valid because there are too many
other variables that influence the rankings of a web page.
It doesn't sound sensible that Google will downrank a web page that has a link to its home page on every page. Most users expect a link to the home page on every page of a website and even Google has a link to its home page from every page.
As Google's usual webmaster advice is to focus on the website user, it seems implausible that Google would penalize home page links.
We think that it's more likely that the ranking drops are caused by Google's change filter. If you change your web page contents, Google will temporarily downrank your web pages. This has been described in a Google patent
What did the webmaster test?
The webmaster tested the effect of links from sub pages of his website to his home page. He tried links to the home page of his website from the navigation and from the content and he tried links with and without keywords.
The test was done with a 4 year old domain name with a dedicated IP address. The web pages were HTML only. The website ranks top 5 in Google for its main, second and third keyword phrases and it has a total of 90 pages with unique content.
What were the results of the test?
It seems that too many links to the home page of your website can have a negative effect on your rankings:
1.Linking to the home page from every page in the content with the same keyword caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).
2.Linking to the home page from every page in the content using keyword variations caused a three pages drop in rankings (-3 pages).
3.Linking to the home page from the navigation with "main keyword" also caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).
4.Linking to the home page from the first 10 pages listed on Google.com for "site:domain.com/*" increased the ranking from 5th to 3rd (+2 positions).
The webmaster also observed the following:
•Linking from the content using keyword variations was effective to a point, after which the rankings dropped.
•There seems to be a page threshold. If the number of pages that link is even slightly above the threshold, the rankings will drop.
Does this mean that you shouldn't link to your home page?
It's hard to tell whether the results of this experiment are valid because there are too many
other variables that influence the rankings of a web page.
It doesn't sound sensible that Google will downrank a web page that has a link to its home page on every page. Most users expect a link to the home page on every page of a website and even Google has a link to its home page from every page.
As Google's usual webmaster advice is to focus on the website user, it seems implausible that Google would penalize home page links.
We think that it's more likely that the ranking drops are caused by Google's change filter. If you change your web page contents, Google will temporarily downrank your web pages. This has been described in a Google patent
Monday, 8 September 2008
Web Design Questions
If you have started, or are just thinking about starting a business then you will probably have thought about a website as part of your marketing strategy. Finding and hiring the correct web designer can be a confusing task if you don’t really know what you are looking for. As a web design company, we have outlined a few basic questions you should be looking to ask any competent web design company before comencing with a project.
Examples of work
You should begin by asking any prospective designer the following question: “Can I see some examples of your work” preferably ask them to provide an example that has been completed on a similar budget and time frame as your own project, this will give you a good indication as to the quality of work they produce for your price range. It also allows you to ask further questions i.e. “was this example completed within budget and on time?” Seeing and enquiring about a prospective web designer’s portfolio is usually the first and most obvious method to appraise their web designing capability. However don’t forget to ask to see a similar project with a similar budget and scope of work, otherwise they will show you their most expensive and inspiring site, possibly leaving you feeling short changed on completion of your own site. This should provide you with a clear expectation of what you'll get for your money.
It may also be helpful to ask for any testimonials or case studies that have been prepared. You could even go the whole hog and contact one of their previous clients.
Deliverables
What you are looking to ask for here is basically what will be delivered, when I can expect it and what will the TOTAL cost be.
Ideally you want to look for a design company that will turn over the complete design and code upon completion, finish your project on-time and within your budget, however from experience the client will also need to lend a hand here, you should be aiming to have the information your designer requires i.e. web content, when they require it.
Cost
This is an important one. In short the final cost should reflect your requirements. If you want a small brochure site that does nothing more than provide information about your company and services it's likely the cost should be reasonably low. However, if your site needs more functionality you should expect the price to rise.
Remember, you get what you pay for. It is vital to determine whether the project has a fixed price or is billed hourly. It is probably a good idea to negotiate a fixed price deal based on all your requirements and timescales. If you ask for something extra after a price has been agreed, then expect to pay more. In most cases, a fixed price is preferred because it sets your payment expectation and motivates the design team to complete the job quickly.
Content Management
Will you be doing this yourself? Or will this be a job for the design team? If you are doing it yourself make sure you are up to speed on how to do it, the last thing that you want is for your site to be designed and launched and then not know how to manage or update it. Ask the web design company what content management solutions options are available; you may get a better deal if you negotiate this as a package along with the design. If you enquire about this as an after-thought then the company will probably charge you more as they know you need the service.
It’s also worth remembering if you are managing the site to determine if there are any software that you will need to purchase in order to manage the site, this will probably cost more in the long run.
In plain English please!
Ask the web design company to use a language you can understand. The more unscrupulous ones are often overly keen to try and baffle you, usually in an attempt to find your level of knowledge to determine the price they can charge! Ask them to explain some of the technologies that they plan to use. Make sure your web designer can explain their work in a way that you understand.
Any questions
If your chosen web design company is worth their salt then they should have a host of questions to ask you. Possibly the most important question that you can ask a web designer is if they have any questions, if they say no then there is trouble ahead, after all how else are they going to develop an understanding of your requirements?
Asking this question puts the onus on the designer and allows you to see what their project plan is going to be. Hiring a designer that doesn't have a solid grasp on your expectations is a recipe for web design disaster. If they don't know what you want and need then you aren't going to get it.
Examples of work
You should begin by asking any prospective designer the following question: “Can I see some examples of your work” preferably ask them to provide an example that has been completed on a similar budget and time frame as your own project, this will give you a good indication as to the quality of work they produce for your price range. It also allows you to ask further questions i.e. “was this example completed within budget and on time?” Seeing and enquiring about a prospective web designer’s portfolio is usually the first and most obvious method to appraise their web designing capability. However don’t forget to ask to see a similar project with a similar budget and scope of work, otherwise they will show you their most expensive and inspiring site, possibly leaving you feeling short changed on completion of your own site. This should provide you with a clear expectation of what you'll get for your money.
It may also be helpful to ask for any testimonials or case studies that have been prepared. You could even go the whole hog and contact one of their previous clients.
Deliverables
What you are looking to ask for here is basically what will be delivered, when I can expect it and what will the TOTAL cost be.
Ideally you want to look for a design company that will turn over the complete design and code upon completion, finish your project on-time and within your budget, however from experience the client will also need to lend a hand here, you should be aiming to have the information your designer requires i.e. web content, when they require it.
Cost
This is an important one. In short the final cost should reflect your requirements. If you want a small brochure site that does nothing more than provide information about your company and services it's likely the cost should be reasonably low. However, if your site needs more functionality you should expect the price to rise.
Remember, you get what you pay for. It is vital to determine whether the project has a fixed price or is billed hourly. It is probably a good idea to negotiate a fixed price deal based on all your requirements and timescales. If you ask for something extra after a price has been agreed, then expect to pay more. In most cases, a fixed price is preferred because it sets your payment expectation and motivates the design team to complete the job quickly.
Content Management
Will you be doing this yourself? Or will this be a job for the design team? If you are doing it yourself make sure you are up to speed on how to do it, the last thing that you want is for your site to be designed and launched and then not know how to manage or update it. Ask the web design company what content management solutions options are available; you may get a better deal if you negotiate this as a package along with the design. If you enquire about this as an after-thought then the company will probably charge you more as they know you need the service.
It’s also worth remembering if you are managing the site to determine if there are any software that you will need to purchase in order to manage the site, this will probably cost more in the long run.
In plain English please!
Ask the web design company to use a language you can understand. The more unscrupulous ones are often overly keen to try and baffle you, usually in an attempt to find your level of knowledge to determine the price they can charge! Ask them to explain some of the technologies that they plan to use. Make sure your web designer can explain their work in a way that you understand.
Any questions
If your chosen web design company is worth their salt then they should have a host of questions to ask you. Possibly the most important question that you can ask a web designer is if they have any questions, if they say no then there is trouble ahead, after all how else are they going to develop an understanding of your requirements?
Asking this question puts the onus on the designer and allows you to see what their project plan is going to be. Hiring a designer that doesn't have a solid grasp on your expectations is a recipe for web design disaster. If they don't know what you want and need then you aren't going to get it.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
ecommerce
What is E-commerce? In one sentence E-commerce can be defined as On-Line Credit card transactions where a payment is made through a website.
The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the spread of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
Making money from online sales is a realistic ambition for many organisations large and small as it is both cost effective for the business owner and the consumer. As more and more website users convert to online shoppers E-commerce business owners ultimately will benefit. ECommerce websites have their own unique character that is designed to lead the visitor to one simple task – make an online purchase. However, a web designer needs to consider a variety of online philosophies while designing an eCommerce website.
Ecommerce work flow
The consumer moves through the internet to the merchant's web site. From there, the consumer decides to make a purchase. One the purchase is added to the shopping basket it is moved to the online transaction server; this is where all of the information concerning the order is encrypted. Once the order has been finalised, the information moves through a private gateway to a Processing Network of the merchant’s choice, where the issuing and acquiring banks complete or reject the transaction.
Design Principles
So, what web design principles need to be followed when creating an eCommerce enabled website? An ecommerce website fundamentally acts as the online storefront for the products and services the merchant is selling online, where the website visitors are in effect window shoppers and browsers. So obviously the storefront needs to be attractive enough to entice the visitor to take a closer look – after all the aim is to convert these ‘browsers’ into buyers. The site also needs to be designed to with a seamless format – one which maintains a smooth passage through the website that leads the visitor to the appropriate page. Images are important for ecommerce websites, they can encourage a browser to make a purchase and assist in the online sale of the products on offer. Above all it is imperative that an ecommerce website offers absolute security for the transactions that are carried out using credit cards. For the success of any ecommerce website it is necessary that a proper choice of payment gateway is made.
A well designed and thought through ecommerce application will lead the visitor to the product they are looking for in one or two clicks at most. There are many other advantages to ecommerce websites;
Shrinks the Competition Gap
An ecommerce application has helped to reduce marketing and advertising expenses of many online companies, this enables them to compete on equal footing with much bigger companies; allowing them to compete easily on quality, price, and availability.
’Always open’ Market
The Internet gives customers the opportunity to browse and shop at their convenience and in their own time. They can access the services on offer from home, the office or when mobile, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Internet allows the merchant to reach consumers around the world, often offering their products to a global customer base from a small office in the UK.
Lower Cost
ECommerce can help reduce inventory, employees, purchasing costs, and order processing costs associated with faxing, phone calls, and data entry, ecommerce even helps to eliminate the ‘middle man’ meaning you can reduce the employee wage bill by selling direct to your customers, this also frees up existing staff, allowing them to concentrate on the jobs that will drive you business forwards.
If you are about to open an eCommerce website or you are already own one, make sure you understand ecommerce web design principles. Consider consulting an experienced website designer preferably someone who has experience with eCommerce websites.
Visit us at www.optimassolutions.co.uk
The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the spread of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
Making money from online sales is a realistic ambition for many organisations large and small as it is both cost effective for the business owner and the consumer. As more and more website users convert to online shoppers E-commerce business owners ultimately will benefit. ECommerce websites have their own unique character that is designed to lead the visitor to one simple task – make an online purchase. However, a web designer needs to consider a variety of online philosophies while designing an eCommerce website.
Ecommerce work flow
The consumer moves through the internet to the merchant's web site. From there, the consumer decides to make a purchase. One the purchase is added to the shopping basket it is moved to the online transaction server; this is where all of the information concerning the order is encrypted. Once the order has been finalised, the information moves through a private gateway to a Processing Network of the merchant’s choice, where the issuing and acquiring banks complete or reject the transaction.
Design Principles
So, what web design principles need to be followed when creating an eCommerce enabled website? An ecommerce website fundamentally acts as the online storefront for the products and services the merchant is selling online, where the website visitors are in effect window shoppers and browsers. So obviously the storefront needs to be attractive enough to entice the visitor to take a closer look – after all the aim is to convert these ‘browsers’ into buyers. The site also needs to be designed to with a seamless format – one which maintains a smooth passage through the website that leads the visitor to the appropriate page. Images are important for ecommerce websites, they can encourage a browser to make a purchase and assist in the online sale of the products on offer. Above all it is imperative that an ecommerce website offers absolute security for the transactions that are carried out using credit cards. For the success of any ecommerce website it is necessary that a proper choice of payment gateway is made.
A well designed and thought through ecommerce application will lead the visitor to the product they are looking for in one or two clicks at most. There are many other advantages to ecommerce websites;
Shrinks the Competition Gap
An ecommerce application has helped to reduce marketing and advertising expenses of many online companies, this enables them to compete on equal footing with much bigger companies; allowing them to compete easily on quality, price, and availability.
’Always open’ Market
The Internet gives customers the opportunity to browse and shop at their convenience and in their own time. They can access the services on offer from home, the office or when mobile, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Internet allows the merchant to reach consumers around the world, often offering their products to a global customer base from a small office in the UK.
Lower Cost
ECommerce can help reduce inventory, employees, purchasing costs, and order processing costs associated with faxing, phone calls, and data entry, ecommerce even helps to eliminate the ‘middle man’ meaning you can reduce the employee wage bill by selling direct to your customers, this also frees up existing staff, allowing them to concentrate on the jobs that will drive you business forwards.
If you are about to open an eCommerce website or you are already own one, make sure you understand ecommerce web design principles. Consider consulting an experienced website designer preferably someone who has experience with eCommerce websites.
Visit us at www.optimassolutions.co.uk
The Benefits of web design
The benefits of having a website designed and submitted to the internet depend on the nature of your business; and to the extent of which you choose to utilise the technology available to you. The degree of technology you decide to use often depends on a number of factors, the main one being budget restraints. However when setting a budget for web design it is worth noting that the internet is fast becoming the main channel for advertising and promoting your business to potential clients anywhere in the world on a 24/7. This means you should aim to make or have designed for you the best possible website to showcase your business products and services. It is worthwhile remembering that internet shoppers are not dissimilar to that of high street shoppers, if they like the product in the window they will venture into the store. In essence your website is your shop window, so it is important to have the most attractive and easy to use site you can possibly have.
As I have mentioned, a website gives you an online presence 24/7. All a consumer needs is your websites address, whether they find that from a business card, an advert, letterhead, email or found from a search engine. Your website provides a cost effective and convenient means of keeping in touch with your existing client base and keeping them informed of developments within your business, this helps to promote company branding and customer loyalty. A website will maximise your marketing investment, by leveraging this versatile and dynamic marketing channel which is the internet.
There are three main points your website will help you cover;
Creativity
Your website allows you to be more creative in how you present your information/products and /or services when compared with printed material.
Point of Contact
Your site is always live. If a potential client has heard about you but can’t find your business card, they may turn to the Internet to try and locate your contact information or to learn more about you and what you do. If your site is ecommerce enabled, your products are ready and waiting to be sold.
Expansion
Your website opens the door to a larger market of prospective clients. Even if your service or product is normally only performed locally, there is always the potential to expand. And, you are more likely to increase your local client base if your website is available for them to research your service.
Compete
If you are a relatively small company, your site becomes your virtual shop window enabling you to compete on much more equal terms with much larger organisations.
Many people use the Internet to find out more information about products or services that they are in need of. Your website is a means of offering information to those who may be researching online before buying. If you don’t have a website, how are they going to even get a chance to see what you have to offer?
The Internet is a powerful way of developing lasting sales opportunities for your business. Opportunities you didn't think possible or could afford with the usual forms of advertising. Your website will provide your business with the ability to reach thousands of potential customers through this increasingly dominant marketing channel. With more and more people switching online every day, the exposure your business receives with a website is far greater than with conventional forms of advertising.
If you wish to be competitive in your market place and are asking the question ‘do I need a website?’ you are already behind the competition. The question is no longer should I? A website is a must. With your own website your business will become a member global marketing medium, your website will showcase your business, it will provide you with a professional image, it can make a small business appear large and increase awareness of your businesses products and services.
For more information on web design services visit us at optimas internet solutions.
As I have mentioned, a website gives you an online presence 24/7. All a consumer needs is your websites address, whether they find that from a business card, an advert, letterhead, email or found from a search engine. Your website provides a cost effective and convenient means of keeping in touch with your existing client base and keeping them informed of developments within your business, this helps to promote company branding and customer loyalty. A website will maximise your marketing investment, by leveraging this versatile and dynamic marketing channel which is the internet.
There are three main points your website will help you cover;
Creativity
Your website allows you to be more creative in how you present your information/products and /or services when compared with printed material.
Point of Contact
Your site is always live. If a potential client has heard about you but can’t find your business card, they may turn to the Internet to try and locate your contact information or to learn more about you and what you do. If your site is ecommerce enabled, your products are ready and waiting to be sold.
Expansion
Your website opens the door to a larger market of prospective clients. Even if your service or product is normally only performed locally, there is always the potential to expand. And, you are more likely to increase your local client base if your website is available for them to research your service.
Compete
If you are a relatively small company, your site becomes your virtual shop window enabling you to compete on much more equal terms with much larger organisations.
Many people use the Internet to find out more information about products or services that they are in need of. Your website is a means of offering information to those who may be researching online before buying. If you don’t have a website, how are they going to even get a chance to see what you have to offer?
The Internet is a powerful way of developing lasting sales opportunities for your business. Opportunities you didn't think possible or could afford with the usual forms of advertising. Your website will provide your business with the ability to reach thousands of potential customers through this increasingly dominant marketing channel. With more and more people switching online every day, the exposure your business receives with a website is far greater than with conventional forms of advertising.
If you wish to be competitive in your market place and are asking the question ‘do I need a website?’ you are already behind the competition. The question is no longer should I? A website is a must. With your own website your business will become a member global marketing medium, your website will showcase your business, it will provide you with a professional image, it can make a small business appear large and increase awareness of your businesses products and services.
For more information on web design services visit us at optimas internet solutions.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
CSS Web Design Basics
So, what is CSS? CSS is the acronym for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is a simple mechanism for adding style and describing the presentation e.g. fonts, colors, spacing and other aspects of web presentation. Cascading Style Sheets were developed as a means for creating a consistent approach to providing style information for web documents.Most Web authoring tools provide some sort of support for CSS style sheets, such as the ever popular Dreamweaver™.
Using CSS design allows your pages to download more quickly, makes your website much easier to manage, and has numerous web usability, accessibility and search engine optimisation benefits, in fact in order to validate your XHTML pages with the w3c, you are required to use css.
Style sheets have been in use for years. They are the technical specifications for layout, whether print or online. Print designers use style sheets to insure that their designs are printed exactly to specifications. A style sheet for a Web page serves the same purpose, but with the added functionality of also telling the viewing engine how to render the document being viewed.
However, the cascading bit for web page design is the special part. A Web style sheet is intended to cascade through a series of style sheets, like a waterfall. Every Web page is affected by at least one style sheet, even if the Web designer doesn't apply any styles. This style sheet is the user agent style sheet - the default styles that the Web browser will use to display a page if no other instructions are provided. But if the web designer provides other instructions, i.e. specifies a specific link color, the browser needs to know which instructions have priority, the cascade defines the style sheets set by the designers to redefine the color and supersede the web browser's defaults.
Using CSS you will find your web pages will be smaller; increasing your site download time, something that will appeal to your website visitors and, to boot your mark-up will be cleaner, appealing to the all important search engines. Once a site has been created using CSS maintenance of the site becomes much easier, making life simple for the web designer or persons in charge of web maintenance. How? The presentation of an entire web site or web document, for example the color of links, can be changed by altering just one file, greatly reducing the time and money spent on upkeep.
Using CSS your content will be accessible to all browsing devices, incorporating everything from Lynx based systems to mobile phones and PDA’s
When you're first learning to build a Web site, you often don't think much about style sheets, as you're too busy learning to tell a
Using CSS design allows your pages to download more quickly, makes your website much easier to manage, and has numerous web usability, accessibility and search engine optimisation benefits, in fact in order to validate your XHTML pages with the w3c, you are required to use css.
Style sheets have been in use for years. They are the technical specifications for layout, whether print or online. Print designers use style sheets to insure that their designs are printed exactly to specifications. A style sheet for a Web page serves the same purpose, but with the added functionality of also telling the viewing engine how to render the document being viewed.
However, the cascading bit for web page design is the special part. A Web style sheet is intended to cascade through a series of style sheets, like a waterfall. Every Web page is affected by at least one style sheet, even if the Web designer doesn't apply any styles. This style sheet is the user agent style sheet - the default styles that the Web browser will use to display a page if no other instructions are provided. But if the web designer provides other instructions, i.e. specifies a specific link color, the browser needs to know which instructions have priority, the cascade defines the style sheets set by the designers to redefine the color and supersede the web browser's defaults.
Using CSS you will find your web pages will be smaller; increasing your site download time, something that will appeal to your website visitors and, to boot your mark-up will be cleaner, appealing to the all important search engines. Once a site has been created using CSS maintenance of the site becomes much easier, making life simple for the web designer or persons in charge of web maintenance. How? The presentation of an entire web site or web document, for example the color of links, can be changed by altering just one file, greatly reducing the time and money spent on upkeep.
Using CSS your content will be accessible to all browsing devices, incorporating everything from Lynx based systems to mobile phones and PDA’s
When you're first learning to build a Web site, you often don't think much about style sheets, as you're too busy learning to tell a
from a
. But once you've mastered the basics, CSS is a great place to go to make your pages more user friendly and controllable.
The Benefits
By editing a single CSS file, you can make site wide design changes.
CSS lets you output to multiple formats quickly.
CSS lets you use logical names for page elements. You can, for example, give a DIV the name "header", or a H1 the class "headline".
External CSS files are cached by browsers, improving load time.
CSS eliminates the need for lots of confusing code making the web developers lives easier.
CSS lets you do things normal HTML doesn't, for example better font control, absolute positioning.
Practical use of CSS encourages proper HTML structure, which will improve accessibility and search engine placement.
If you want valid XHTML Strict you have to use CSS
Summary
CSS design represents a much more powerful way to lay out websites, using CSS design in yor web applications allows your pages to download more quickly, makes your website much easier to manage, and has numerous web usability, accessibility and search engine optimisation benefits.
How to build Search Engine Friendly Web Pages
Many web site designers still do not design the websites the build to work effectively for the search engines. This is a huge mistake. Why? Because they miss out on attracting lots of visitors to their client’s sites, visitors they can attract for free by designing a search engine friendly site that promotes high ‘organic’ listings. You may have spent a great deal of your marketing budget on your delightfully designed web, however you find your self needing to use pay-per-click advertising to attract visitors! This is because your website does not rank well enough organically, i.e. your sites search engine optimisation (SEO) does not promote your website well enough to display on the first pages of search engines.
We have put together some helpful tips on what you and your web design firm should be doing to help your sites SEO, tips you should be implementing from the start of your web project:
1. Keywords - Research highly targeted keywords. You should be before you ask your designer to create your website. Use a keyword research tool to research the most popular applicable to your industry. These keyword research tools will show how many people have searched for that particular keyword over the last 12 months. You should aim to create a list of around 100 keywords and phrases that you can include within your web pages.
2. Content – You should aim to create your web copy so that is keyword rich, i.e. you should include between 3 – 8 of your chosen keywords per 100 lines of text. Most importantly is to include a paragraph of up to 500 words of text for the top of each page within your site. This strategy is favoured among search engines and should help you in the log term aim for good, organic based SEO.
3. Meta tags – Optimisation of certain Meta tags within the code of your website can aid SEO, although not as much as it used to do. The most significant meta tags are the title and description and to a lesser extent, the keyword Meta tags. Include your keywords within each of these Meta tags. The title tag should be a short sentence of no more than 80 characters. The description should be no more than 150. Your keyword tag should include the most frequently used keywords contained within your web pages.
4. Heading Tags – These tags separate each section of your web page with headings and subheadings. You should include keyword phrases in these tags, in particular in the H1 – H3 tags as these are given most weight by search engines. You should also make a point of giving your websites images a title tag, this is achieved by using the alt image tag. In the alt image tag add a brief description of the image using some of your most important keywords, helping with SEO. The alt tag helps visitors to read the description if they can't see the image and allows screen readers to convey what the site is showing for the visually impaired.
5. Inbound links - web sites that link to yours raise your link popularity, especially those from ‘authority’ sites i.e. high ranking websites. Search for web sites that are compatible with yours and have a PR 4 or more.
6. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – your web designer should be using these. CSS helps to implement a clean design throughout your web site. CSS helps you to easily update your whole site by changing on or two elements in the CSS sheet. CSS also help you to create a XHTML valid website, favoured among search engines.
7. Place any script code into external files – if you use javascript for menus/linking it will create code between the header tags, pushing down the text that search, engines would spider first. Placing the script code in an external file reduces the code to just one line. The tips above will help you to develop a search engine friendly web site, but do not expect instant results. SEO is a long term marketing strategy that will, if carried out in the correct way, greatly benefit your websites chances of attracting targeted traffic.
We have put together some helpful tips on what you and your web design firm should be doing to help your sites SEO, tips you should be implementing from the start of your web project:
1. Keywords - Research highly targeted keywords. You should be before you ask your designer to create your website. Use a keyword research tool to research the most popular applicable to your industry. These keyword research tools will show how many people have searched for that particular keyword over the last 12 months. You should aim to create a list of around 100 keywords and phrases that you can include within your web pages.
2. Content – You should aim to create your web copy so that is keyword rich, i.e. you should include between 3 – 8 of your chosen keywords per 100 lines of text. Most importantly is to include a paragraph of up to 500 words of text for the top of each page within your site. This strategy is favoured among search engines and should help you in the log term aim for good, organic based SEO.
3. Meta tags – Optimisation of certain Meta tags within the code of your website can aid SEO, although not as much as it used to do. The most significant meta tags are the title and description and to a lesser extent, the keyword Meta tags. Include your keywords within each of these Meta tags. The title tag should be a short sentence of no more than 80 characters. The description should be no more than 150. Your keyword tag should include the most frequently used keywords contained within your web pages.
4. Heading Tags – These tags separate each section of your web page with headings and subheadings. You should include keyword phrases in these tags, in particular in the H1 – H3 tags as these are given most weight by search engines. You should also make a point of giving your websites images a title tag, this is achieved by using the alt image tag. In the alt image tag add a brief description of the image using some of your most important keywords, helping with SEO. The alt tag helps visitors to read the description if they can't see the image and allows screen readers to convey what the site is showing for the visually impaired.
5. Inbound links - web sites that link to yours raise your link popularity, especially those from ‘authority’ sites i.e. high ranking websites. Search for web sites that are compatible with yours and have a PR 4 or more.
6. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – your web designer should be using these. CSS helps to implement a clean design throughout your web site. CSS helps you to easily update your whole site by changing on or two elements in the CSS sheet. CSS also help you to create a XHTML valid website, favoured among search engines.
7. Place any script code into external files – if you use javascript for menus/linking it will create code between the header tags, pushing down the text that search, engines would spider first. Placing the script code in an external file reduces the code to just one line. The tips above will help you to develop a search engine friendly web site, but do not expect instant results. SEO is a long term marketing strategy that will, if carried out in the correct way, greatly benefit your websites chances of attracting targeted traffic.
Web Design with PPC
With so many companies vying for business on the internet today, maintaining a competitive edge requires your businesses website to be on the first page of the most frequently used search engines, these ‘top’ search engines include Google, MSN, AltaVista and Lycos. To be truly at the forefront of competitiveness on these engines your website is required to be in the top four or five listings on the first page. Achieving this first page ranking takes search engine optimization (SEO), submission to all major search engines, dedication and above all patience, if you can manage the above, you increase your chances of assuring the very best search engine listings
It would seem, if you ask the majority of web designers and webmasters, that the most converted position within the search engines is the number one position on Google (although you can achieve a great deal of success without Google!): This is something that most web designers, SEO specialists and web administrators try to achieve.
However, in their pursuit of the Holy Grail, many webmasters, SEO specialists and administrators do not take the time to find the best keywords to achieve the position. The failure to recognise their most valuable keywords creates further implications, especially if they are running pay per click (PPC) campaigns as part of a search engine optimisation drive.
A recent study into PPC trends suggests that it may not be profitable to occupy the first positions for one to two word keywords phrases. The most profitable positions in the paid ranks for shorter keywords were actually found to be the fifth and the sixth positions on the first pages of the search engine. The websites whose main profit generating keywords, consisting of three to four words, were most profitable when the website was listed in second or third positions.
How can that be?
The reason for this is that one to two word keywords can be very general in what they are advertising. Companies are choosing these short keywords because they think that they are the most relevant to their website, meaning that they think these short keywords are what their customers are using to find them amongst the hundreds of websites offering similar services. If you are using shorter keyword phrases the chances are you will be one of many using the same keyword phrase, this helps to drive up the prices of the keyword per bid, costing you more per click, leading to a very expensive PPC Campaign.
Furthermore, short general keywords do not attract targeted visitors: targeted visitors are the kind you want visiting your site. This is because if they are specifically looking for a service you are supplying, they are more likely to make a purchase. For example, a general search maybe somebody entering photography in a search engine: they might be looking for a camera, or they might be searching for photographic images. Either way they might not be searching for a product you have, but if you show in the listings they will still click on your link – costing you money each time.
This all means that general one to two word keywords are expensive and the visitors that you receive to your site using these short keywords are not targeted to your site. In comparison keywords or more specifically keyword phrases (typically three to four words in length) generate targeted traffic. They do this by purposely picking out the services or products you have and provide a precise ‘keyword phrase’ that a customer looking for your services is likely to type into the search engine. Therefore keyword phrases have less competition and cost less on average than short phrases. In addition, fewer webmasters bid on keyword phrases.
You will lose a lot of time and money if you optimise your web pages for the wrong keywords. Take some time to find the best keywords for your website and then optimise your pages for keywords that deliver targeted visitors and buyers.
Visit us at www.optimassolutions.co.uk
It would seem, if you ask the majority of web designers and webmasters, that the most converted position within the search engines is the number one position on Google (although you can achieve a great deal of success without Google!): This is something that most web designers, SEO specialists and web administrators try to achieve.
However, in their pursuit of the Holy Grail, many webmasters, SEO specialists and administrators do not take the time to find the best keywords to achieve the position. The failure to recognise their most valuable keywords creates further implications, especially if they are running pay per click (PPC) campaigns as part of a search engine optimisation drive.
A recent study into PPC trends suggests that it may not be profitable to occupy the first positions for one to two word keywords phrases. The most profitable positions in the paid ranks for shorter keywords were actually found to be the fifth and the sixth positions on the first pages of the search engine. The websites whose main profit generating keywords, consisting of three to four words, were most profitable when the website was listed in second or third positions.
How can that be?
The reason for this is that one to two word keywords can be very general in what they are advertising. Companies are choosing these short keywords because they think that they are the most relevant to their website, meaning that they think these short keywords are what their customers are using to find them amongst the hundreds of websites offering similar services. If you are using shorter keyword phrases the chances are you will be one of many using the same keyword phrase, this helps to drive up the prices of the keyword per bid, costing you more per click, leading to a very expensive PPC Campaign.
Furthermore, short general keywords do not attract targeted visitors: targeted visitors are the kind you want visiting your site. This is because if they are specifically looking for a service you are supplying, they are more likely to make a purchase. For example, a general search maybe somebody entering photography in a search engine: they might be looking for a camera, or they might be searching for photographic images. Either way they might not be searching for a product you have, but if you show in the listings they will still click on your link – costing you money each time.
This all means that general one to two word keywords are expensive and the visitors that you receive to your site using these short keywords are not targeted to your site. In comparison keywords or more specifically keyword phrases (typically three to four words in length) generate targeted traffic. They do this by purposely picking out the services or products you have and provide a precise ‘keyword phrase’ that a customer looking for your services is likely to type into the search engine. Therefore keyword phrases have less competition and cost less on average than short phrases. In addition, fewer webmasters bid on keyword phrases.
You will lose a lot of time and money if you optimise your web pages for the wrong keywords. Take some time to find the best keywords for your website and then optimise your pages for keywords that deliver targeted visitors and buyers.
Visit us at www.optimassolutions.co.uk
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
The key to good web design
The key to good web design
The objective of any reputable, proficient web designer is to create an aesthetically pleasing, easily accessible and navigable website which has the clients best business interests included from the start of the project. The web site should convey trust; it should inform the website user that the webmaster is trustworthy and that the website can be used safely, therefore the website will convince the visitor to either; register with the site and make a purchase if the site is ecommerce enabled and/or make an enquiry if the website is offering a service.
A good web design is easy to achieve – if you choose the correct web designer. The web designer you choose should be able to demonstrate good graphic design capabilities, be able to create instinctive site navigation by developing the site with the user in mind and be able to optimise the website for good initial search engine results as part of the design. This can be achieved through developing a clear logical site layout, site structure and a clear internal linking strategy.
The following suggestions offer some precious web design guidelines.
Site Navigation
Prepare your site navigation before designing the site, a clean-cut and uniform navigation system is a must to prevent cluttering up the site with forgotten links. Site navigation should be well thought out, as well as being simple and intuitive; this is quite often overlooked by website designers. Remember the three click rule: Research has shown if a visitor cannot access the information they want within three clicks, they will leave the site. Every area of your website should be reachable within three clicks from anywhere else on the site. If you use anything other than simple text links, make sure to test your navigation in all the major browsers.
Maintain a site map to help people and Search Engines robots (SE’s) find, and index in the case of SE’s, what they are looking for with ease. It is worth while remembering that navigation should be flexible enough to accommodate additional links in case you will be adding pages periodically. Link Check: Test all site links and navigation to be certain that they are valid. Nothing chases a visitor off faster than broken links. Be sure to specify link colors otherwise the user’s browser defaults will determine what color the links are which can make them unreadable.
Use keyword ‘anchor text’ for your links, this will help you with site optimisation, I also recommend using absolute links;
(,
As opposed to relative links;
().
Cross Browser Compatibility
There are many variants of browsers in use, and of these browsers there are many different versions being used, many users do not necessary take the time to upgrade to the latest versions. A good website will be required to render properly in all. Your website won’t be much use if it works well in Internet Explorer but is all over the place when viewed in firefox! It is also worth while remembering that the user may well be using a MAC, a Linux, a PDA and a mobile phone as well as the good old PC. As a guide you will need your website to work, and work well in;
Microsoft Internet Explorer (all versions)
Netscape
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Web Standards Compliant
In order for you website to reach its full potential, the most fundamental web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the website to work together. When a web site or web page is described as complying with web standards, it usually means that the site or page has valid or nearly valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The HTML should also meet accessibility guidelines.
Web Images
Remember the three click rule I mentioned? There is also the 10 second rule; Web surfers are increasingly intolerant of delays and research has show that most people will click away if a webpage takes longer than 10 seconds to load. Your websites images should be optimised i.e. their file sizes should be compressed as small in size as possible, without sacrificing picture quality. Your images should also be optimised to for keywords, the ALT tag should be used so people with graphics turned off and those using hand held devices know what the image is supposed to be, i.e. name your logo ‘logo’!
Frames
Avoid using frames, frames can easily confuse readers who wish to print material on a page or bookmark a page for later reference or navigate using the browser's "Forward" and "Back" buttons. Screen space also becomes an issue with frames; if you use frames to divide the browser screen, you will force many readers to scroll both horizontally and vertically to see the full contents of each frame.
The current consensus among Web design and usability experts is that frames should be used only in the rare instances when their limited advantages clearly outweigh the many problems they can cause.
Web Content
Content is king! Not just plenty of it mind, your content needs to be informative and keyword rich. You want the visitor to see you as a valuable information resource. People use the internet to find information. Whether you are selling a product or service you must provide valuable information to the visitor or they will click away and find a website that gives them what they what they want. Good content within your site will help your page rank, search engine placement and inbound links – if you a proven to proved good quality content , the likelihood is other sites will want to link to yours.
Summary
Good Web design is a combination of common sense, good website structure and internal linking, oh and a good designer is a must. Your site should be attractive and easy to use and most importantly, your website should provide a simple and easy navigational system to aid the user’s experience.
Author: optimassolutions.co.uk
Web Design Liverpool
The objective of any reputable, proficient web designer is to create an aesthetically pleasing, easily accessible and navigable website which has the clients best business interests included from the start of the project. The web site should convey trust; it should inform the website user that the webmaster is trustworthy and that the website can be used safely, therefore the website will convince the visitor to either; register with the site and make a purchase if the site is ecommerce enabled and/or make an enquiry if the website is offering a service.
A good web design is easy to achieve – if you choose the correct web designer. The web designer you choose should be able to demonstrate good graphic design capabilities, be able to create instinctive site navigation by developing the site with the user in mind and be able to optimise the website for good initial search engine results as part of the design. This can be achieved through developing a clear logical site layout, site structure and a clear internal linking strategy.
The following suggestions offer some precious web design guidelines.
Site Navigation
Prepare your site navigation before designing the site, a clean-cut and uniform navigation system is a must to prevent cluttering up the site with forgotten links. Site navigation should be well thought out, as well as being simple and intuitive; this is quite often overlooked by website designers. Remember the three click rule: Research has shown if a visitor cannot access the information they want within three clicks, they will leave the site. Every area of your website should be reachable within three clicks from anywhere else on the site. If you use anything other than simple text links, make sure to test your navigation in all the major browsers.
Maintain a site map to help people and Search Engines robots (SE’s) find, and index in the case of SE’s, what they are looking for with ease. It is worth while remembering that navigation should be flexible enough to accommodate additional links in case you will be adding pages periodically. Link Check: Test all site links and navigation to be certain that they are valid. Nothing chases a visitor off faster than broken links. Be sure to specify link colors otherwise the user’s browser defaults will determine what color the links are which can make them unreadable.
Use keyword ‘anchor text’ for your links, this will help you with site optimisation, I also recommend using absolute links;
(,
As opposed to relative links;
().
Cross Browser Compatibility
There are many variants of browsers in use, and of these browsers there are many different versions being used, many users do not necessary take the time to upgrade to the latest versions. A good website will be required to render properly in all. Your website won’t be much use if it works well in Internet Explorer but is all over the place when viewed in firefox! It is also worth while remembering that the user may well be using a MAC, a Linux, a PDA and a mobile phone as well as the good old PC. As a guide you will need your website to work, and work well in;
Microsoft Internet Explorer (all versions)
Netscape
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Web Standards Compliant
In order for you website to reach its full potential, the most fundamental web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the website to work together. When a web site or web page is described as complying with web standards, it usually means that the site or page has valid or nearly valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The HTML should also meet accessibility guidelines.
Web Images
Remember the three click rule I mentioned? There is also the 10 second rule; Web surfers are increasingly intolerant of delays and research has show that most people will click away if a webpage takes longer than 10 seconds to load. Your websites images should be optimised i.e. their file sizes should be compressed as small in size as possible, without sacrificing picture quality. Your images should also be optimised to for keywords, the ALT tag should be used so people with graphics turned off and those using hand held devices know what the image is supposed to be, i.e. name your logo ‘logo’!
Frames
Avoid using frames, frames can easily confuse readers who wish to print material on a page or bookmark a page for later reference or navigate using the browser's "Forward" and "Back" buttons. Screen space also becomes an issue with frames; if you use frames to divide the browser screen, you will force many readers to scroll both horizontally and vertically to see the full contents of each frame.
The current consensus among Web design and usability experts is that frames should be used only in the rare instances when their limited advantages clearly outweigh the many problems they can cause.
Web Content
Content is king! Not just plenty of it mind, your content needs to be informative and keyword rich. You want the visitor to see you as a valuable information resource. People use the internet to find information. Whether you are selling a product or service you must provide valuable information to the visitor or they will click away and find a website that gives them what they what they want. Good content within your site will help your page rank, search engine placement and inbound links – if you a proven to proved good quality content , the likelihood is other sites will want to link to yours.
Summary
Good Web design is a combination of common sense, good website structure and internal linking, oh and a good designer is a must. Your site should be attractive and easy to use and most importantly, your website should provide a simple and easy navigational system to aid the user’s experience.
Author: optimassolutions.co.uk
Web Design Liverpool
Meta tags unravelled
Meta tags first appeared and where used in web designs in the 1990s. Meta tags where initially created in order to make sense of the increasing number of web pages listed on search engines. However the popularity of Meta tags quickly began to shrink. The reason? Unethical webmasters.
Some of the more unscrupulous webmasters began abusing the keyword Meta Tag, overloading this tag with unrelated and sometimes immoral keywords, for example someone operating a pornographic website would enter keywords unrelated to their industry in order for their site to appear for totally unrelated searches, this in particular caused outrage when juvenile and underage children where exposed to adult material when searching for totally unrelated subjects.
Obviously this was wrong and one by one, the major search engines discontinued the use of Meta tags as part of their main website indexing criteria. Google disregarded Meta tags altogether, however several search engines that still read Meta tags, giving some weight to the argument that they play a part in the placement of your website within search engines, (Google will still look at your description tag).
There are still a few Meta tags that add value to your website, and I believe they are still worth spending a small amount of time on to get right. The Meta tags that are worth getting correct I will describe in detail in this article, however in brief some of the more worthwhile tags that are of use and can prove to be good for website organisation are;
Meta Content Type - Declares the character set, Always use this tag along with the DTD declaration format from the World Wide Web Consortium. Failure to do so may cause display problems. For example, this tag helps properly display the page.
Meta Author Tag - declares the author of the webpage or website, this tag is optional. This tag can be of use to track the content author for the website, especially if there is more than one web author. This tag has no bearing for your search engine ranking, but it is known as a “standard” Meta Tag.
Meta Copyright - To include copyright, trademark, patent or other information pertaining to intellectual property (shouldn't use this instead of a copyright notice that is visible on the Web page)
Meta Content Language – Used to declare the language of the document.
Meta Description – Gives a description of the web page that appears under the title of the ‘serps’ (search engine results page) for your website. This tag consists of a short, plain language description of the document, usually 20-25 words or less, anymore and the crawler making its way through your site will stop indexing the tag.
Meta Keywords- Many website owners or web designers tend to leave this tag out nowadays believing it to have no relevance to page rank or search engine listing. However I believe this tag still has some relevance no matter how small.
meta name="keywords" content="web design, website design, etc"
The following Meta tags provide information to the web server, web crawlers or robots and web browsers that visit web site or web page - the browsers and servers can take action based on the Meta tags and content within.
Meta cache-control - Control how your pages are cached. The options you have are: public - allows the page to be cached; private - the page may only be cached in private caches; no-cache - the page should never be cached; no-store - the page may be cached but not archived.
Meta expires - If the content of your page has an expiration date, you can specify this in your meta data. This is most often used by servers and browsers that cache content. If the content is expired, they will load the page from the server rather than the cache.
Meta Pragma No Cache – Developed and used to prevent visitors from seeing a cached version of a specific page. This tag forces the browser to pull information from the server each time the page is viewed.
Meta robots – Created to control search engine robots on a per-page basis. This tag tells the Web robots whether they are allowed to index and archive this Web page. You can include any or all of the following keywords to control what the robots do. The robots can do anything on the page; none - robots can do nothing; index - robots should include this page in the index; noindex - robots should not include this page in the index; follow - robots should follow the links on this page; nofollow - robots should not follow links on this page.
Author: optimassolutions.co.uk
web design liverpool
Some of the more unscrupulous webmasters began abusing the keyword Meta Tag, overloading this tag with unrelated and sometimes immoral keywords, for example someone operating a pornographic website would enter keywords unrelated to their industry in order for their site to appear for totally unrelated searches, this in particular caused outrage when juvenile and underage children where exposed to adult material when searching for totally unrelated subjects.
Obviously this was wrong and one by one, the major search engines discontinued the use of Meta tags as part of their main website indexing criteria. Google disregarded Meta tags altogether, however several search engines that still read Meta tags, giving some weight to the argument that they play a part in the placement of your website within search engines, (Google will still look at your description tag).
There are still a few Meta tags that add value to your website, and I believe they are still worth spending a small amount of time on to get right. The Meta tags that are worth getting correct I will describe in detail in this article, however in brief some of the more worthwhile tags that are of use and can prove to be good for website organisation are;
Meta Content Type - Declares the character set, Always use this tag along with the DTD declaration format from the World Wide Web Consortium. Failure to do so may cause display problems. For example, this tag helps properly display the page.
Meta Author Tag - declares the author of the webpage or website, this tag is optional. This tag can be of use to track the content author for the website, especially if there is more than one web author. This tag has no bearing for your search engine ranking, but it is known as a “standard” Meta Tag.
Meta Copyright - To include copyright, trademark, patent or other information pertaining to intellectual property (shouldn't use this instead of a copyright notice that is visible on the Web page)
Meta Content Language – Used to declare the language of the document.
Meta Description – Gives a description of the web page that appears under the title of the ‘serps’ (search engine results page) for your website. This tag consists of a short, plain language description of the document, usually 20-25 words or less, anymore and the crawler making its way through your site will stop indexing the tag.
Meta Keywords- Many website owners or web designers tend to leave this tag out nowadays believing it to have no relevance to page rank or search engine listing. However I believe this tag still has some relevance no matter how small.
meta name="keywords" content="web design, website design, etc"
The following Meta tags provide information to the web server, web crawlers or robots and web browsers that visit web site or web page - the browsers and servers can take action based on the Meta tags and content within.
Meta cache-control - Control how your pages are cached. The options you have are: public - allows the page to be cached; private - the page may only be cached in private caches; no-cache - the page should never be cached; no-store - the page may be cached but not archived.
Meta expires - If the content of your page has an expiration date, you can specify this in your meta data. This is most often used by servers and browsers that cache content. If the content is expired, they will load the page from the server rather than the cache.
Meta Pragma No Cache – Developed and used to prevent visitors from seeing a cached version of a specific page. This tag forces the browser to pull information from the server each time the page is viewed.
Meta robots – Created to control search engine robots on a per-page basis. This tag tells the Web robots whether they are allowed to index and archive this Web page. You can include any or all of the following keywords to control what the robots do. The robots can do anything on the page; none - robots can do nothing; index - robots should include this page in the index; noindex - robots should not include this page in the index; follow - robots should follow the links on this page; nofollow - robots should not follow links on this page.
Author: optimassolutions.co.uk
web design liverpool
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
E-Commerce Upgrade?
With the advent of new personalization technologies and the integration of user-generated content, social networking, RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, multichannel interaction and Ajax-based user interfaces, online retailers are rushing to upgrade their e-commerce sites to provide better user experiences and increase customer acquisition, retention and loyalty. These upgrade projects can be large and often involve deploying a new e-commerce platform. The success of an upgrade project begins with a good project plan. However, unexpected events can happen, especially in large projects. Despite the perfect plan, a project can fall significantly behind schedule, resulting in a loss of time and money. The capacity to have visibility into unplanned issues and then adapt the plan to respond to these issues can enable the project manager to bring the project back on track -- and therein lies the challenge. Traditional project management tools were not designed for this since they enable you to create a good project plan -- that gets you 20 percent of the way -- and the rest depends on seamless execution, which they do not address. Challenges With Traditional Project Management Systems A desktop-based project management system is not well-equipped to drive flawless execution. Systems are usually designed for full-time program managers, and its complexity can be frustrating for line-of-business managers, for which managing projects is only one of the several things they do on a daily basis. An e-commerce project is likely to involve internal employees from IT, marketing and merchandising, as well as external consultants from the design agency and the e-commerce vendor. The project manager typically spends a few valuable hours every week chasing team members to gain visibility into the status of their tasks so they can establish the current status of the project. If there are any surprises, the manager creates a revised plan and then spends an inordinate amount of time communicating the new plan back to team members, so everyone knows the new schedule and due dates. This process alone can become a huge drain on time if the team is distributed across multiple time zones or organizations due to a combination of offshoring and outsourcing . The traditional project management tools were designed in a pre-Internet era, to be used by the project manager on their laptop/desktop. They do not have the capability to automatically query team members in the background and capture the status of their tasks, so when the manager looks at the project status, the project status is always up to date. Such a capability can free many hours every week from a project manager's busy schedule for higher value-added tasks.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
End of the Road for E-Commerce Patents?
For years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted patents covering e-commerce business methods, and companies have exploited such patents to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.In one famous example, Amazon.com sued Barnes & Noble just before the 1999 holiday season, alleging infringement of Amazon's "1-click" shopping cart patent. The court granted Amazon's request to force Barnes & Noble to modify its Web site, giving Amazon a leg up during the holiday season.Although the validity of Amazon's patent was later called into question, there are thousands of other e-commerce patents held by companies doing business on the Internet . Such patents have provided a valuable resource for companies to obtain venture capital and to protect research and development investments.
A Rare Hearing However, an impending decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington may soon change things. That court, which decides all patent appeals in the United States, held a rare full-court hearing on May 8 to decide whether to limit "process patents." At issue in the case is a decision by the PTO to reject a patent application for a business process involving transactions designed to balance risks associated with commodity costs.The invention did not involve a patentable process because no machine was involved, and the various process steps merely manipulated data instead of transforming something tangible, such as a plastic or metal, according to the PTO. The Federal Circuit invited the public to file briefs in the case, suggesting that the court might completely rewrite the law of business method patents. It specifically asked for comments on whether the court should overrule its controversial 1998 decision involving State Street Bank in which it upheld the validity of a patent on a computerized method of managing mutual funds.At the full-court hearing, which hundreds of patent attorneys attended, Bernard Bilski's attorney argued to the court that a process should be patentable as long as it produces a practical result, regardless whether it is tied to a machine or transforms something tangible. The various transactions in the patent were very specific and involved real-world activities, according to Bilski's attorney. Several of the judges appeared to have difficulty agreeing with Bilski's proposed "real-world" test for patentability and wanted a more clear-cut rule for it.
Some of the judges also appeared to question whether the "useful, concrete and tangible" patentability test applied in its earlier State Street case provided a workable standard to judge patentability. Bilski's attorney endorsed the continuation of that standard, which has paved the way for tens of thousands of business method patents since the late 1990s. A 'Factor-Based' Test
A law professor hired by Regulatory DataCorp, one of many companies that filed briefs in the case, argued that the PTO has taken too narrow a view of what is a patentable process, and urged the court not to draw any bright-line rules. Instead, professor John Duffy proposed that the court look at various factors to determine whether a process was patentable, including the extent to which the patent was connected to real-world activities. He also criticized the requirement that there must be something tangible and physical in order to constitute a patentable process. Some of the judges appeared to have difficulty accepting the lack of any concrete standard under this "factor-based" test.The PTO argued that the U.S. Supreme Court years ago had made it clear that a patentable process must either be tied to a machine or must transform something physical. The judges explored whether throwing a baseball "transformed" the baseball in a patentable way, a position that the PTO rejected. Some of the judges expressed concern that adopting a rigid rule might eliminate patents on software-related inventions, but the PTO responded that most software implemented on computers would still be considered to be patentable. Questioning Patent Validity
The financial services industry, represented by various companies, argued that the court should adopt a factor-based test for patentability that required tying the process to a physical machine in a non-conventional way. Several of the judges questioned whether "non-conventional" should be an added requirement for a process, given that every process must already be novel and non-obvious in order to qualify for a patent.
Although it is difficult to predict how the court might rule, it seems poised to issue clearer guidance regarding what types of processes can be patented. While some of the judges appeared to be concerned about eliminating patents in large sectors of the economy, such as computer software and the financial industry, other judges seemed to believe that the patenting of business methods has gotten out of hand and should be restrained.Depending on how the court rules, the decision may have a wide-ranging effect on the patenting practices of e-commerce companies and may call into question the validity of tens of thousands of patents granted on business methods over the past decade. A decision is expected within a few months.
More> http://www.optimassolutions.co.uk/ecommerce-news/index.php?news=E-Commerce%20Patents?
A Rare Hearing However, an impending decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington may soon change things. That court, which decides all patent appeals in the United States, held a rare full-court hearing on May 8 to decide whether to limit "process patents." At issue in the case is a decision by the PTO to reject a patent application for a business process involving transactions designed to balance risks associated with commodity costs.The invention did not involve a patentable process because no machine was involved, and the various process steps merely manipulated data instead of transforming something tangible, such as a plastic or metal, according to the PTO. The Federal Circuit invited the public to file briefs in the case, suggesting that the court might completely rewrite the law of business method patents. It specifically asked for comments on whether the court should overrule its controversial 1998 decision involving State Street Bank in which it upheld the validity of a patent on a computerized method of managing mutual funds.At the full-court hearing, which hundreds of patent attorneys attended, Bernard Bilski's attorney argued to the court that a process should be patentable as long as it produces a practical result, regardless whether it is tied to a machine or transforms something tangible. The various transactions in the patent were very specific and involved real-world activities, according to Bilski's attorney. Several of the judges appeared to have difficulty agreeing with Bilski's proposed "real-world" test for patentability and wanted a more clear-cut rule for it.
Some of the judges also appeared to question whether the "useful, concrete and tangible" patentability test applied in its earlier State Street case provided a workable standard to judge patentability. Bilski's attorney endorsed the continuation of that standard, which has paved the way for tens of thousands of business method patents since the late 1990s. A 'Factor-Based' Test
A law professor hired by Regulatory DataCorp, one of many companies that filed briefs in the case, argued that the PTO has taken too narrow a view of what is a patentable process, and urged the court not to draw any bright-line rules. Instead, professor John Duffy proposed that the court look at various factors to determine whether a process was patentable, including the extent to which the patent was connected to real-world activities. He also criticized the requirement that there must be something tangible and physical in order to constitute a patentable process. Some of the judges appeared to have difficulty accepting the lack of any concrete standard under this "factor-based" test.The PTO argued that the U.S. Supreme Court years ago had made it clear that a patentable process must either be tied to a machine or must transform something physical. The judges explored whether throwing a baseball "transformed" the baseball in a patentable way, a position that the PTO rejected. Some of the judges expressed concern that adopting a rigid rule might eliminate patents on software-related inventions, but the PTO responded that most software implemented on computers would still be considered to be patentable. Questioning Patent Validity
The financial services industry, represented by various companies, argued that the court should adopt a factor-based test for patentability that required tying the process to a physical machine in a non-conventional way. Several of the judges questioned whether "non-conventional" should be an added requirement for a process, given that every process must already be novel and non-obvious in order to qualify for a patent.
Although it is difficult to predict how the court might rule, it seems poised to issue clearer guidance regarding what types of processes can be patented. While some of the judges appeared to be concerned about eliminating patents in large sectors of the economy, such as computer software and the financial industry, other judges seemed to believe that the patenting of business methods has gotten out of hand and should be restrained.Depending on how the court rules, the decision may have a wide-ranging effect on the patenting practices of e-commerce companies and may call into question the validity of tens of thousands of patents granted on business methods over the past decade. A decision is expected within a few months.
More> http://www.optimassolutions.co.uk/ecommerce-news/index.php?news=E-Commerce%20Patents?
Monday, 21 April 2008
PCI Standards
Since 2005, millions of citizens have been affected by reported and unreported data breaches at payment processors, banks and retailers -- but the nation was still stunned when news broke out about the TJX data breach.This has indeed been a larger problem than most recognize, with some 88 million consumers affected by data breaches in the past two years alone, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The only positive outcome of these unforgivable security lapses has been that enterprises large and small are beginning to re-evaluate their security posture.During the last 10 years, there has been an explosion of Internet-based commerce and a drastic increase in credit and debit card usage in the physical storefront. Despite warnings from security watchdogs and the best efforts of organizations to protect customer data, consumer fraud and identity theft have hit new highs, with attacks becoming more sophisticated and damaging. The number of identity thefts and fraudulent credit card charges reached more than 4 million in the United States alone in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.In response to the increased threat, governments around the world have been considering an array of new laws and regulations to systematically combat the problem. In addition, the banking and credit card industries have spearheaded their own initiatives, including the newly revised Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Since 2005, millions of citizens have been affected by reported and unreported data breaches at payment processors, banks and retailers -- but the nation was still stunned when news broke out about the TJX data breach.This has indeed been a larger problem than most recognize, with some 88 million consumers affected by data breaches in the past two years alone, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The only positive outcome of these unforgivable security lapses has been that enterprises large and small are beginning to re-evaluate their security posture.During the last 10 years, there has been an explosion of Internet-based commerce and a drastic increase in credit and debit card usage in the physical storefront. Despite warnings from security watchdogs and the best efforts of organizations to protect customer data, consumer fraud and identity theft have hit new highs, with attacks becoming more sophisticated and damaging. The number of identity thefts and fraudulent credit card charges reached more than 4 million in the United States alone in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.In response to the increased threat, governments around the world have been considering an array of new laws and regulations to systematically combat the problem. In addition, the banking and credit card industries have spearheaded their own initiatives, including the newly revised Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
More> http://www.optimassolutions.co.uk/web-trends-news/index.php?news=PCI%20Standards
More> http://www.optimassolutions.co.uk/web-trends-news/index.php?news=PCI%20Standards
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Web Trends
Mobile Web is another Next Big Thing on slow boil. It's already big in parts of Asia and Europe, and it received a kick in the US market this year with the release of Apple's iPhone. This is just the beginning. In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night. Look for the big Internet companies like Yahoo and Google to become key mobile portals, alongside the mobile operators.Companies like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Palm, Blackberry and Microsoft have been active in the Mobile Web for years now, but one of the main issues with Mobile Web has always been usability. The iPhone has a revolutionary UI that makes it easier for users to browse the Web, using zooming, pinching and other methods. Also, as Alex Iskold noted, the iPhone is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.So even despite the iPhone hype, in the US at least (and probably other countries when it arrives) the iPhone will probably be seen in 10 years time as the breakthrough Mobile Web device.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Property super-store
Interested in property?? Got property to sell? looking to buy? Or are you an estate agent looking for a new advertising medium?
Over the last couple of months we have been developing a brilliant piece of software that allows an estate agent to purchase (although the service is free for the first 12 months!) and access a part of this software. Once you have purchased the software, as an agent you will be able to log in to the website back end and manage and advertise your properties to the WWW via the attractive front end website. You will be able to interact with potential buyers, both sending and receiving information and requests. You can list as many properties as you have to offer, in full detail with high res images of the property. Our aim is to develop this web site so that it is shown within the top five of all search engine searches - displaying your properties to the mass markets.
As a customer, you will be able to view, in your own time, detailed and descriptive lists of suitable houses. You can find the property that is perfect for you by using our easy to follow search mechanism. You can find out information on mortgaes, surveying, HIPs and request viewings and appointments and more all through the one website!
We will be launching this website this comming April. If you are an agent and would like to find out more before the Launch please contact us on 0845 257 0997.
To see a pre launch preview of the site, please visit:
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
It may not have been noticed in the whirlwind of online transactions on Web sites like eBay or Amazon , but e-commerce turned 25 on Tuesday.
On March 4, 1983, the husband-wife team of Alex Randall and Cameron Hall quietly launched a business revolution that was then the stuff of dreams, when their year-old company, Boston Computer Exchange, sold a computer "on line" to a buyer in South America.
Randall and Hall had started their company as a clearinghouse for buying and selling computers at a time when PCs like the Apple 2, Tandy, IBM PC and Sinclair were first becoming available.
"Almost nobody outside of universities had computers,". "But we could see it coming. It's like Bill Gates' story of having a computer in every home: We recognized that eventually you'd be able to trade all kinds of things this way."
The Long View It required a long-range vision, Randall said.
"In 1983, the only people who had computers were bleeding-edge aficionados," he recalled. "The only thing we could trade was computer equipment. There was no market for fresh fruit delivered to your door. The only people out there were computer users and people looking to buy computers."
Randall said he and Hall developed a marketplace where computer users could upgrade from old units.
The two started at a meeting of the Boston Computer Society with trading cards and conducted hundreds of transactions over the phone. They began to dominate trading in used computers as a paper and pencil company, Randall said.
Read More > http://optimassolutions.co.uk/
On March 4, 1983, the husband-wife team of Alex Randall and Cameron Hall quietly launched a business revolution that was then the stuff of dreams, when their year-old company, Boston Computer Exchange, sold a computer "on line" to a buyer in South America.
Randall and Hall had started their company as a clearinghouse for buying and selling computers at a time when PCs like the Apple 2, Tandy, IBM PC and Sinclair were first becoming available.
"Almost nobody outside of universities had computers,". "But we could see it coming. It's like Bill Gates' story of having a computer in every home: We recognized that eventually you'd be able to trade all kinds of things this way."
The Long View It required a long-range vision, Randall said.
"In 1983, the only people who had computers were bleeding-edge aficionados," he recalled. "The only thing we could trade was computer equipment. There was no market for fresh fruit delivered to your door. The only people out there were computer users and people looking to buy computers."
Randall said he and Hall developed a marketplace where computer users could upgrade from old units.
The two started at a meeting of the Boston Computer Society with trading cards and conducted hundreds of transactions over the phone. They began to dominate trading in used computers as a paper and pencil company, Randall said.
Read More > http://optimassolutions.co.uk/
Monday, 25 February 2008
Latest News
Hi there,
For all you people that are at all interested in the World wide Webs latest news, we have recently added a news feed to our web site. This news feed is updated on a daily basis and pulls in news from around the globe. We update the following catagories daily to keep you up-to-date with the industry.
Ecommerce
Internet Marketing
Online News
Search Engine Optimisation
Website Usability
Website Design
Website Hosting
Web Trends
For all you people that are at all interested in the World wide Webs latest news, we have recently added a news feed to our web site. This news feed is updated on a daily basis and pulls in news from around the globe. We update the following catagories daily to keep you up-to-date with the industry.
Ecommerce
Internet Marketing
Online News
Search Engine Optimisation
Website Usability
Website Design
Website Hosting
Web Trends
Thursday, 21 February 2008
E-commerce boom not bust
The UK will account for at least 40% of 2008 online sales in Western Europe as internet penetration continues to grow, a report by eMarketer has found.Last year was another boom year for the internet in the United Kingdom. Almost 37 million people went online in an average month.This proportion will decline slightly as e-commerce becomes better established elsewhere in the region, but the UK will still represent the greatest single share of the European market in 2011."Britain has one of the most experienced and active online populations in the world. Confidence in e-commerce is high," says Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, UK Internet: Users and Usage."Merchants have been careful to establish excellent security for transactions and reliable delivery services," said von Abrams. "And online prices are very competitive, particularly for books, travel tickets and items bought at auction sites."
With this in mind, we at optimas wish to help this "boom" to continue - we are offering 10% off the cost of all new ecommerce web sites we design.
Just visit our site (link below) to find out more.
With this in mind, we at optimas wish to help this "boom" to continue - we are offering 10% off the cost of all new ecommerce web sites we design.
Just visit our site (link below) to find out more.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Re-Launch
we have been working really hard at the start of this new year - 2008 - on a ne look for our own web site. We have given the new site a fresh, clean look and added a latest news section - updated daily - this news section workes to keep all our customers, freind and visitors up to date with the latest news on the web...
mastersound - Record production
We have recently been working in partnership with a company named mastersound. The Mastersound Record label has worked with many of the famous bands from the sixties - The Beatles is one for example. Mastersound contacted us to help them to create an on-line store for them as a web retail output for their products - the range includes george formby, frank sinatra & Liverpool fc products to name a few. This partnership has so far been a real success - with interest in the site comming from far and wide, from the US to east europe.
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