Great domain names fall into two major categories. The “branded” name is related to the company’s name or main product. A “discoverable” domain name may consist of keywords or a phrase that visitors who aren’t familiar with the company or service might enter as a search term. As an example, consider a company called Streno’s that sells aftermarket automotive parts with a focus on specialty tire rims. A discoverable domain name may be “CheapRims.com.” A branded name would be “StrenosAftermarket.com.” Both of these domain names are likely to attract visitors. However, the owners of this company should consider what type of traffic they want to attract. If they’ve been in business for decades at a brick and mortar location where people are familiar with their name and product, “StrenosAftermarket.com” is a much better choice. If they are a relatively new company without a significant customer base, they may want to choose a discoverable name that incorporates the key words “rims” and “cheap.”

The Domain Might Already Be Taken

The problem with both of these names, branded and discoverable, is that a competitor or so-called “squatter” may have already taken them. Luckily, there are several websites that allow interested parties to find out whether or not a domain name is being actively used or if it has expired. “Snapnames” allows users to input a domain name and then see if they can bid on the name. A minimum bid for each domain name is listed. Depending on the desirability of the site name, the minimum bidding price can begin at several thousand dollars. “Whois” provides a list of affordable domain names that are similar to the original domain name. Whois also provides a listing of the registrar of the name and contact information where it is applicable.

While the company owners have the option of tracking down the current owner of their ideal domain name and attempting to purchase it, this usually can become very expensive or tedious. “Squatters” are people who buy a domain name specifically for the purpose of selling it at a highly inflated rate to an interested buyer. Competitors rarely want to give up an excellent domain name unless they’re going out of business or can sell the name for a large amount of money. This is where creativity and a certain Internet savvy are needed to design the perfect domain name. The best solution is to design a new domain name that conveys the nature of the company in a visually appealing way.

As the Old Saying Goes: Think Outside the Box

The domain name should be a hybrid of a recognizable word or a play on linguistics. To return to the above example, “CheapRims” is two keywords joined together. But what about the hybrid “Wheelies” or “LugNutter”? Some of the most successful websites, such as YouTube or Facebook, combine a description of the site into a catchy and visually non-threatening domain name. In some cases, making up a “nonsense” word is the best way to not only to locate an original domain name but also to create a new brand. “Google” isn’t exactly an ordinary word, but has become synonymous with search.

It’s important to realize that even “nonsense” words have certain guidelines. Nonsense words should be easy to read and avoid using too many consonants. Vowels are easier on the eye, although using too many in a row can create similar problems. Think of the names of popular websites. The most memorable have a balance of consonants and vowels and roll easily off the tongue. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Photo-sharing website “Flickr” has a pleasing sound and visual look while also functioning as a clever play on words. It also has only one vowel and five consonants.

Choosing An Appropriate TLD

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, recently announced the formation of several hundred new TLDs specific to company brands or services. TLDs such as “.car” or “.sugar” will be available to bidders who have $185,000 for the initial application fee and another $25,000 for annual maintenance fees. For small business owners who want to have a viable presence on the Internet without spending several hundred thousand dollars on a domain name, there are far more affordable alternatives. Generic TLDs such as .net, .com, and .org can be used by anyone.

While buying a custom TLD is beyond the range of most small business owners, choosing between more traditional and affordable TLDs like “.com” and “.org” can make a huge difference in the type of traffic a website attracts. People expect a certain experience from a commercial website versus a non-profit website.

For businesses that want to make a profit, the best TLD is usually “.com.” Some businesses will choose “.org” but this can be a misleading choice. In a commercial context, “.org” looks unprofessional. Only non-profits or groups that have created a website to promote a particular cause or dispense information should use “.org.” The third unrestricted generic TLD, “.net” is a safe neutral choice, although it is not nearly as popular or well known as “.com.”

The best domain names are easy to remember. Webmasters should choose a domain name that rolls off the tongue.

How can I see who is the owner of a domain?

Have you ever searched the Internet and wondered who owns the sites you’re visiting? Maybe you are thinking about starting up your very own online business and want to find out what domain names that are taken and which ones that are available. Well, if this is the fact then there is an easy way to get the necessary information.

Through the service of “Whois”, provided by several sites, you can get all the information you’re looking for. Whois is an Internet user name directory service. When using this service you type in whatever domain name you want to have a closer look at. If the name is already taken you get a list with similar names that might be of interest to you. If the domain name that you want already is taken you can get a hold of the owner via Whois (as you can obtain their e-mail and phone number with Whois) and maybe contact them and negotiate about buying the name.

Each computer is given a unique address, IP-address. The address consists of numbers, divided into different groups and separated by full stops. It can for example look like this: 145.97.39.155. If you want, you can also make a search on a certain IP-address on Whois.

Several uses of Whois

As we’ve mentioned there are several sites where you can search on domain names and one good example is www.domaintools.com. This site offers everything from a search directory to DNS tools and domain history. Having a look at the domain history might be important if you find yourself in trademark and/or copyright disputes. By viewing Whois history to see who owned the domain at the time of the infringement you can easily resolve this issue.

Another service this site provides is what they call a mark alert. This means that they alert you when someone registers a domain name with any term or phrase in it that you specify. A mark alert will help you keep track of your competition and trademarks can be proactively monitored.

Owning a domain name that helps to successfully “magnetize” a flood of incoming traffic is like gold to any online business. But the increasing scarcity of domain names that are simple to remember, short and suggestive have turned them into red hot commodities.

However, while some of these domain names may have been sold for millions, corporate buyers backed by large bank accounts are not alone in the domain name game. Even entrepreneurs are making a great living in purchasing and selling their own domains.

Not a day goes by, that a domain name sells for as less as $100 or as much as $1 million on public auction sites. For example, eBay.com recently featured actual bids for as little as $500 for “golegs.com” to as much as $20,000 for “arlington.com” — and thousands more drifting anywhere in between.

Some people seem to know where to get these “nuggets of gold.” In fact, a small handful know about an untapped goldmine that lies discreetly tucked away in the dark corners of the vast Internet. And the awareness of this source has helped these “lucky” individuals earn either outrageous fortunes or monstrous levels of traffic for their website.

The goldmine to which I’m referring is the pool of recently expired domain names. While only a few knows it exists, regardless it is expanding with every passing day. There are literally tens of thousands of unclaimed, non-renewed and expired domain names that become available on a daily basis.

An expired domain name is one that was registered previously but was not paid for in time for the renewal date, thus returning it to the listing of available domains. There are many probable reasons for non-renewal (e.g., forgetful owner, no more interest in site, no longer in business, no longer active or didn’t pay for whatever reason).

However, you may be asking, “Sure, but I’m never going to find good domain names before some other person snatches them up.” For a long time, being “lucky” also meant being alert for the numerous domains that become available, and being quick in registering them before anyone else does.

New tools are becoming available, making the process of searching, finding and registering great domain names much easier. In fact, some of them assist you to become aware of the near expiring domains, giving you an advantage over your competitors that permits you to grab names seconds after they’ve been dropped.

Nevertheless, a compelling domain name can help an online business become more visible, credible and accessible. And it will help someone earn a rather large fortune. While in the past, finding one was very prohibitive, with the help of tools that are now at your disposal, you now can be a part of the gold rush, too.

Using words like “greatest”, “best”, or other exaggerated terms in your domain name is thought by some to be a disadvantage and penalized by search engines. Search algorithms change often and likewise that theory, and although you may not be penalized for using such words, consider the reaction of your human visitors. They may not stick around if they feel you boast without the content to back it up. For a serious small business commercial enterprise, my advice is avoiding adjectives in the domain name entirely.

In some cases new clients approach me to redesign an existing website, and it surprises me that some of the basics are overlooked. For example, a commercial enterprise in business for profit should not select a dot ORG domain simply because the dot COM was taken. This was the case from a conversation with a client interested in a site makeover. Their ORG version was online for two years with little or no backlinks or serious indexing from search engines. The mindset of getting one particular name should be reconsidered especially if it’s your first online venture.

Here’s a breakdown of the most desirable domain extensions and the usual purpose of each:

COM – Commercial for profit enterprise
INFO – Information only related website
NET – Companies providing internet services
ORG – Non-profit organizations

Certainly there are many more like BIZ, US, WS, and others which are all reasonable choices, but for your commercial small business my recommendation is always acquire a dot COM www domain name. The client mentioned earlier did not realize a dot ORG was intended for a non-commercial enterprise, and they decided the poor website SEO performance was something that justified getting a new dot COM. We easily found an available www domain using their company initials and one key word about their target market which is medical. Despite my advice that they keep the existing site and simply change the theme, they decided to just let it go when it expired.

My commercial site choice was my first and last name, and very unique at that. Using your name is okay, and expected if you’re famous. There is, however, little or no value as far as keywords in my www domain to attract visitors, so is that a mistake for search engine optimization? Certainly not. The fact that I have collected more than 100 screenshots of generic phrases relative to my business that made Google page one is evidence the content, not the domain, is key.

Here’s some advice to help you when choosing a new dot COM small business website domain name.

Start out with a list of about 10 domain names that you would like to have. Next, make a list of market related single word terms about what you do and the customer base you service. If your market is localized, consider geographical terms that relate to where you sell or provide services. Spend 30 minutes brainstorming to come up with the initial names and additional lists of single word terms. You may want another list of significant initials.

Next, search for “WhoIs” in Google to find free online services that keep a database of available domain names, and follow the link in the search results. Each database has a search box which allows you to input the domain name and extension. Begin with your first choice and work down the list and keep track of available names for review later. It may not be easy, so try combinations of the key terms as you continue to search, and keep in mind you want a domain name that is easy to spell and remember. By the time you’re done you should have a half dozen or more available names, so take your time and select the best one, and then register the name immediately.

Tip: The domain name may not be significant for search engine optimization, but the length of your registration can be. My advice is registering domains for 2 years minimum, and 5 to 10 years if that’s in your budget. Search engines consider that the length of your registration reflects your commitment to be online long term, so at today’s prices 5 years is practical and should cost less than $50 USD.

There’s nothing wrong with getting the dot COM domain name you want, and then registering the other major extensions that are available for the same name. If you are highly successful in your online venture, having the other extensions registered in your name prevents others from attempting to take advantage of your reputation by association. In conclusion, the concept that all the good domain names are taken is a myth. You may not get exactly what you want, but practical options are available with a little research and due diligence.

Google Instant does not change the ranking process of Google’s search results (says Google engineer, Ben Gomes). However, SEO techniques are continuously changing and although Google Instant Search will not kill SEO, there might be a few changes to your SEO strategy.

How will Google Instant affect your SEO/PPC strategy?

Google Instant will now change how many people see and click on your site because for all you know Google Instant could be persuading searchers to enter a completely different keyword than what they had actually set out to search for.

The first major change is in the drop down “suggestion box” that tries to predict queries even before they are completely typed. Depending on the query, the search result occupies one and sometime up to three of the advertisement positions on the first page. Google is bringing the paid and universal search listings as high as possible, but is simultaneously pushing the SEO results “below the fold.”

So you need to plan out your SEO strategy keeping in mind:

• Your page Titles are going to need to be even more compelling than before.

You need to not only attract the searcher to your listing, but you have to get them to commit to the search query. That’s going to take a lot of engagement on your part.

• Take a close look at what long tail keywords Google Instant suggests.

Make sure you have a page ranked for all the important variations. Show up, no matter what final keyword string the searcher commits to.

• Top ranking is now more important than ever.

Users are less likely to scroll below the fold as related results are instantly reconfigured as the search query is completed.

Good & bad news for PPC advertiers:

Google’s Johanna Wright says there will be no change to the ranking of ads under Google Instant, however ad impressions will change (for the better). Google will now record an ad impression if a searcher types a partial query and clicks within the search results page or if he stops typing for three seconds while an ad is displayed.
For PPC campaigns it will calculate as an impression (affecting CTR) only after a pause of three seconds.

Showing PPC ads on “predictive queries” that may or may not be relevant to what the user is ultimately searching for could push down the click-thru-rates of these ads.

Here is what Google’s Advertiser FAQs say:

• When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

• The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).

• The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
• The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.

At an average of 9 seconds per query, that’s 2 additional add impressions before a customer actually tells Google exactly what they are looking for. This should give your business even more exposure to searchers.

While Google Instant is great for searchers by giving them faster results, it will certainly pose a challenge for business owners and search marketers.

Unlike the chicken and the egg conundrum, this one is easy to answer – your keyword research should always come first.

Researching your keywords (not guessing) is vital if you are going to get the most out of your web presence. The words you target will have a big effect on your website’s structure, which is why it’s vital you do it before thinking about your design.

It’s not until you have your keywords that you can:

Create your SEO Copywriting Plan your anchor text link building strategy.

What keywords do you choose?

Choosing the right keywords/phrases is paramount, so here are a few tips on making sure you find the right ones.

1. Open your mind

First up, you’re looking for the words other people will use to find your products/services. They are not necessarily going to be the same ones you’d choose.

They must be relevant to what you do, after all, loads of traffic is useless unless is converts into buying customers.

Also think about using ‘long tail keywords’. For example, if you sold laptops, targeting ‘laptops’ would be very competitive, but it would also bring ‘browsing’ traffic. When people are ready to buy, they are more likely to use a term that includes the make and model of the specific laptop they want. Therefore it is important you also aim for these longer keywords too.

2. Word groups

Start off with words and phrases that relate to what you do. Then, add to that list words used within your industry. Expand it again to include words used in the media for your products and services. Then, for good measure, throw in some geographically specific phrases too.

Once you have your (long) list, use Google’s keyword research tool to refine your list.

3. Competition

Once you have your list, you then have to decide which are the best ones to target. That means looking at their relevancy and competition.

Basically you want a term  that brings lots of traffic, but not one that is highly competitive, because trying to rank for it will be a long hard slog.

As you can see, your whole website’s design and marketing campaigns are going to be focused around your keywords.

That’s why it is essential that, before you start any design or marketing, you research and find the keywords you want to target.

I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the perception of good content. When someone reads good content, there is this feeling that “I could have done that.” As a result, there is a perception that developing good content is easy.

Well, it’s not. In fact, because of the deafening noise of the Internet marketplace and the need to rise above the din of the fantastically average (and WELL below average) content that makes up the vast majority of the Internet, you have to do a few things well to create good content. Here’s what I think they are. If you agree, great, and if you don’t, then go create some content around your argument.

Create Consistently – This is the one that makes everyone queasy. Businesses in the SMB (small and medium business) and SME (small and medium enterprise) space absolutely hate this fact. They want everything to be “one and done,” but content doesn’t play that game. Denying that fact will only hurt a business in the long run. If you are serious about Internet marketing, you have to be serious about consistently generating content AND placing the correct value on it, so it can continue to be developed at a high level.

Create Passionately – Even if you are selling the most boring product or service on the planet, you have to be passionate about your content or else no one will be. Boring content breeds bad results. Sure, you might still sell things, but you will not sell more than if your passion for your work were evident for all to see. By the way, if you need to hire someone to convey that passion, you are not alone. It is something you need to consider very seriously.

Create Creatively – Kinda goofy, I admit, but if you are just doing one thing over and over (like writing and just providing that kind of content), then you run the risk of losing those who would like to see some pictures or video or something else. I am very guilty of this at times, and need to start drinking my own Kool Aid, so to speak. The written word is powerful but it takes time to ingest and digest. The nice thing about it, though, is that the search engines find it to be the healthiest food for their spiders.

Create Intentionally – I once again will blow the whistle on myself here. Planning your content and the delivery of that content will produce more predictable results. In other words, you can start to tell stories, create themes, and do other things that keep content consumers coming back to you. If you just leave everything to the idea of being “inspired in the moment,” you will have some rough days and some gaps in content. I know where from I speak.

So, despite my claim in the title, developing good content for the Internet is NOT easy. It just looks that way. I challenge you to think about your own content efforts in a brutally honest fashion and decide whether you are serious or not. If you are serious, you will be rewarded and if you are not then I honestly don’t know what will happen to you. Now that’s scarier than anything isn’t it?

So how good is your website content?

Once upon a time, we would pick up the phone or pop round for coffee when we wanted to catch up or arrange outings.

Today, it’s a whole different ball game. You can maintain relationships through outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. But there is one major difference with the social media age compared with the ‘olden days.’

91% of employers use social media to screen applicants

When you post a comment on Facebook or send out a tweet, it’s not something that just disappears after your conversation has ended.

Before, you could say anything to anyone (within reason) and you could get away with it. Your private life and social life were completely separate from your employer. Unless you told them about the bender you went on at the weekend, they were unlikely to find out.

But, social media changes everything.

The rather sobering statistic above was recently reported by The Drum.

Because your status updates on your social media sites are there for all to see, they are an invaluable source to perspective employers.

Let’s face it, when in an interview situation, we all just tell the panel what they want to hear, so the impression they get of us isn’t always the whole truth. But now, by using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, they will see the bigger picture.  In fact (according to the Reppler survey):

• 47% of employers check social networking sites to screen prospective employees immediately after receiving their job application

• 69% have rejected a candidate based on something they saw

• 13% of candidates were rejected because they’d lied about their qualifications

• 11% were rejected because of posting inappropriate comments, inappropriate photos, posting negative comments about a previous employer or demonstrating poor communication skills.

But before you head off and delete all your social media accounts, it’s not all bad.

68% were found to have employed someone because of what they saw about them on a social networking site, with a positive impression on their personality and organisational fit being at the top of the list.

The moral is…

Social media is great, but be careful what you post.

As the above shows, more and more employers can use these channels to dig below the surface and discover the type of person you really are.

So next time you are about to post in haste, stop and think about what you’re typing.

Adapted from an article by Sally Ormond

Websites are two-way, interactive communication systems. You communicate your company’s marketing message to potential customers and make it easy for them to reciprocate by communicating with you. The better the communication, the more trust increases, and customers feel comfortable to do business with you.

Of course, on your contact page, include full contact information — name, address, phone number, etc. I’m amazed at the number of sites that don’t include any contact information, but still expect people to do business with them. Full contact information builds trust — even if your customers never need to use it.

One key communication tool is the “Contact Us” response form. Such a form includes fields that ask for your visitor’s name, contact information, and his question or comment. When the form is submitted, it sends an immediate e-mail to you as well as an e-mail assuring your customer that you’ll be reading the message and responding soon. And you need to keep your word. Respond to your customers’ e-mail promptly!

The poor man’s response method is a mailto link (such as username@domain.com) that allows the customer to use his own e-mail program to send you an e-mail message. The problem with this approach is that you often don’t get vital contact information from the customer, such as his phone number. With e-mail that comes from a form, you can easily filter it via the subject line into the appropriate folder for immediate viewing. E-mail that comes through a general e-mail address, on the other hand, easily becomes confused with spam and could be overlooked.

However, there are other ways you can make it easy for customers to communicate with you. These include

• Instant text chat systems such as LivePerson (www.liveperson.com).
• Instant Messaging (IM) systems are in widespread use by your customers. Why not list all your usernames and numbers on your site for quick response to customer questions?

One excellent way to save time for yourself and your customers is to develop a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. It’ll cut down on your customers’ need to contact you. See my article “The FAQ Answer to 80% of E-Mail Overload,” Web Marketing Today, 5/1/1998 (www.wilsonweb.com/articles/faq.htm).

Excellent customer service is the basis of any successful business — on or off the Internet.

The design decision here is to incorporate multiple ways for your customer to contact you.

10. Create and Test Effective Sales Pages

Every business site — and many organization sites — have a Most Wanted Response (MWR). Your Most Wanted Response is probably one of the chief purposes you listed under Point #1 (above). For many business sites, the purpose is (1) to sell a product, (2) to have the visitor go through an affiliate link to buy a product on another site, or (3) to generate contact information for a future lead or follow-up. For organizations, success may be measured in memberships or subscriptions. Whatever your MWR, you must work to optimize responses.

Good sales pages result in a high ratio of sales to visitors — called the “conversion rate.” A good site might have a conversion rate of 3% to 5%, some higher and many lower. Over the past few years, marketers have developed the art of increasing the conversion rate. This is especially important when you are purchasing Pay Per Click (PPC) ads to drive traffic to your site. Your profit is closely related to (a) the cost of the click and (b) the conversion rate of the “landing page,” that is, the sales page to which you direct interested shoppers.

To scientifically and systematically increase your conversion rate to the maximum, you must carefully track sales percentages for each product your sell. Then make incremental changes to the landing page or the order system and see if the conversion rate rises or falls. Over a period of careful study and change, you’ll maximize your sales. A useful free testing tool is Google Website Optimizer (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer).

Here again are the steps you’ll go through:

1. Set up an ordering system (e-commerce capability)
2. Create a landing page
3. Boost sales on your landing page by testing

What’s the design decision here? To commit yourself to seriously working to increase the response rate.

11. Conduct Usability Trials and Incorporate Changes

We’ve almost finished our survey of 12 Website Design Decisions. But before you quit, you need to test your site thoroughly. All newly constructed websites contain unseen glitches — especially those created by inexperienced developers.

Here’s how to conduct your first few usability trials. Ask to meet with a friend who is an Internet novice. Seat him in front of a computer, stand near him, and direct him to your site. Tell him that you’d like him to talk out loud to you about what he is thinking and the questions that occur to him as he pokes around your site. Explain to him that you won’t be able to answer any questions at this time, but you want to hear them just the same. Now watch and take copious notes. Observe what confuses him. See where he gets hung up. Listen to his questions.

After 10 or 15 minutes of this humbling exercise, you’ll detect plenty of small changes to make. You’ll also learn how effective your navigation system is. If you have built your site with SSIs, as recommend in Point #6 above, navigation system changes will require you to modify only one or two of the boilerplate SSI files. Upload the changes and the whole site will be easier to navigate.

To discover 85% of the usability problems on your site, repeat the usability exercise a total of five times, each time, of course, with a different person who can look at your site through completely new eyes. For more information on website usability, consult Dr. Jakob Nielsen’s UseIt.com site (www.useit.com) and subscribe to his free AlertBox e-zine.

What’s the design decision here? Submit your site to simple usability testing with five subjects. Your site will be much better as a result.

12. Plan to Maintain Your Site for the Long Haul

Building a site for the first time is exciting. Maintaining it for the next two or three years can be extremely frustrating unless you’ve set it up with maintenance in mind. By maintenance I mean:

• Changing the content of existing information, such as upcoming events, new industry directions, new personnel, etc. Life isn’t static. Websites shouldn’t be either.
• Adding new webpages, such as archiving copies of your newsletters, adding new products and services.
• Changing the content of your home page so your site looks active and up-to-date.

I strongly recommend that someone in your own organization learns how to make the everyday website changes that an active organization requires. Community colleges and adult education curricula often offer training in webpage design and HTML. A person in your business can also learn a great deal by studying the books recommended in Point #2 above. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to make maintenance easy is to have your website designer build the site with a Content Management System (CMS) mentioned in Step #2 above.

Yes, you want to have a website designer available to back you up on occasions when the change needed is beyond your person’s abilities. But webpage maintenance is something you definitely want to keep in-house, like word-processing and desktop publishing. Learn how! Otherwise, changes aren’t likely to happen in a timely manner and you may put off requesting changes that should take place immediately.

What’s the design decision? Make sure that you plan for site maintenance rather than let it fall through the cracks.

Why should a website look good? Why should it look professional? Because like the sign hanging over a store in the strip mall, your website reflects upon you and your business. If the sign’s lettering looks crude and homemade, people won’t say, “The thrifty shopkeeper is trying to save money by making his own sign.” They’ll say, “How tacky! If this is how the sign looks, then the products and services can’t be of very high quality either!”

You owe it to yourself to make your website look top-notch. To succeed, you’ll need some artistic flair, or perhaps you should hire a graphic designer’s talents for the basic design and site graphics.

I’d like you to look with me at IBM’s homepage. It is a well-designed page, but it isn’t “graphics heavy” and doesn’t take a long time to download.

IBM’s US homepage as of 8-Jul 2003.

• The site is clean and understated, not gaudy or in-your-face. Few colors with lots of white space contribute to this light, airy feeling.
• The page is designed with colored cells of HTML tables that take practically no download time. Most of the parts that are blue, black, dark grey, and light gray are table cells.
• Graphics are few. The largest is a gif image 25K in size. Other gif images are small, with some reusable “go” and “search” buttons.
• The left-side menu is text.
• The navigation system consists of: (1) left-side menu, (2) site search in the top right corner, (3) four major categories in the black bar at the top, (4) solutions (browse by industry), services, and shopping in the gray blocks, (5) recent news releases, (6) selected popular products highlighted with graphics, (7) company-oriented menu in a black bar in the bottom left corner.
• Photographs contribute to the classy, professional look. Photos can be very effective on business websites.

I could take you to many websites, but you can do that yourself. Become a student of how to create a simple, clean business look. It takes a lot of skill to design a site this well and with this kind of restraint.

Let me tell you a secret. Some graphic designers like to build sites with lots of graphics. They have fast LAN or DSL connections and have no idea how long their sites take to download on a 56K modem. Try to keep your homepage to 60K maximum, counting the file sizes of all the graphics and the HTML. (It’s a hard, but an important exercise.) Resist a designer’s yen to show off his skills. Quick loading — that’s important.

There’s no way I can educate you on complementary colors, warm and cold colors, heavy and light colors, etc. But bear in mind that everything you do has some effect on your visitor’s perceptions of your company, her state of mind, and her emotional response.

One of your best website investments will be in a few excellent, royalty-free stock photos. Well composed photos add a touch of class to your webpages. They provide a visual center of interest in an otherwise plain webpage. They add spice and color. You don’t want just dull pictures of business people in suits. To create a sense of energy and maximum effort, you might use a theme of photos from competitive sports, for example. Use your imagination. For high quality photos you can license and use on your website for $35 to $60 each, look at PhotoDisc (Getty Images, www.photodisc.com). I subscribe to ClipArt.com (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/clipart.htm) and have access to hundreds of thousands of photos (some great, many good). I can use anything I can download for $14.95 a week. Such a deal!

What’s the design decision here? To develop a quality, professional appearance for the website that represents your organization.

6. Build Basic Webpage Templates

Commercial websites are built from templates. You or your designer will create a template that constructs each part of a typical webpage, with a “hole” in the center for the unique page content. This takes many hours to build from scratch, but it’s worth it. Now you can create page after page from the template. For each webpage you’ll insert a page title, meta tag content (see Point #7 below), a headline, and the text content, each in its appropriate spot. Have fun!

But let me take this a step further. Take a look at the sample webpage from my site. I’ve simplified it here, but the article content is surrounded by four sections, each of which is shown when a web browser comes to the webpage:

• top.ssi — inserts the masthead graphic, a banner ad, and some of the “tabs” navigation system at the top of the page. This is a separate file, called “top.ssi” that is inserted at the top.
• menu.ssi — inserts the complex left-side menu plus a database search feature.
• bottom.ssi — inserts a subscription form for my newsletter, plus more navigation links, copyright and trademark information.
• right.ssi — inserts cover shots of my books, plus links to purchase my e-books and affiliate links to products and services in the field of web marketing and e-commerce.

Each of these files is called a Server Side Include (SSI) file. On the webpage a single line of code calls one of these files and places it where it belongs on the page. Here’s what it the code looks like:

<!–#include virtual=”/ssi/top.ssi”–>

The beauty of this kind of modular system is that a site built with SSIs can be modified or completely altered by just changing one of the SSI files and uploading it to the server. Now all the webpages in the entire system reflect the change. When I discovered how to do this it cut my maintenance time dramatically. Yes, it takes a learning curve to make it work, but it’s well worth the time you spend!

It is possible, of course, to use a template for your pages that doesn’t employ SSIs. But if you anticipate a site that could grow to more that 8 to 10 pages, you’re much better off building your site with SSIs. If your designer doesn’t know how to use SSIs, find another designer.

Modern websites control the font sizes and colors using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). When you change the font size on a single master CSS file, it changes the fonts and colors in all your webpages. Cool! Make sure your website designer builds webpages using a single CSS file, since it saves maintenance costs in the long run.

The design decisions that you need to consider here are many, since they involve every detail of the look and feel of your basic template. Hopefully, you’ll decide to employ both Server Side Includes (SSIs) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that make your entire site easy to modify and maintain. Also consider features available with XHTML.

7. Construct Your Site to Be Search Engine Friendly

With a little practice, anyone can build a webpage. But a webpage that search engines love to visit and index — vital if you expect your site to get traffic — that’s another story. So many, many business websites don’t have a clue how to do this. Let me mention two important aspects of building a search engine friendly site:

A. Make Each Webpage a Search Engine Siren

In Greek mythology, as you know, partly-human female creatures called Sirens lured mariners with their singing. Your webpages ought to entice search engine spiders or robots to index your site. Each webpage you construct needs to contain the following elements. Note the careful placement of keywords, the search words people would use to find this particular webpage.

• Title – provocative and descriptive, containing the most important keywords from that webpage, no more than 80 characters. This is what shows up hyperlinked in search engine results, so make people want to click on it.
• Meta tags — The description meta tag should include one or two sentences (up to about 250 characters) describing the contents of this particular webpage. Work into the sentence the most important keywords and keyphrases that occur on this page. Some search engines will display your description. I still include a meta keywords tag, since Yahoo currently uses it for indexing, though Google doesn’t.
• Headlines — H1, H2, H3 in HTML parlance. Your headline and subheadings should include your important keyword at least once.
• Body text — The first paragraph of the content of your webpage article or text should contain the main keywords for that page.
• Hyperlink text and filenames — Search engines believe that the words contained in hyperlinks on your webpage (such as widget) are important, and thus rank them higher. If the filenames contained in the hyperlink URLs contain important keywords (such as widget.html for the filename of your widget order page), so much the better.

Don’t emphasize the same keywords on every page. Let the actual content on that page dictate what keywords should stand out.  Your goal is not to trick the search engines in some kind of bait-and-switch scam, but to help the search engines recognize and index appropriately the actual content of your webpages. Construct every webpage with search engines in mind, and it’ll help your rankings. Of course, search engine rankings are heavily influenced by incoming links to your site, but constructing your webpages with an eye to search engines is very important, too. You can find much more information in the search engine optimization section of my website.

B. Search Engine Savvy Navigation Systems

Navigation systems are built to help actual humans find their way around your website. But these navigation systems had better be designed carefully or the search engines will throw up their hands in disgust, with the result that actual humans will never get to your website. Search engines need a chain of hypertext links — starting at your homepage — that will take them, page by page, to every webpage in your entire site. But let me explain two common navigation design problems that can disrupt search engine indexing of your site:

1. Frames (mentioned in Point #4 above) produce a navigation system where the menu on the left scrolls independently of the page content on the right. Unfortunately, frames can wreak havoc with search engines. (a) Unless you are careful to include <NOFRAMES> tags, search engines may not be able to find the content pages. (b) Even if search engines do find your content pages, these pages can show up in response to a search engine query all by themselves, without the navigation system and links necessary for a visitor to find the rest of your website. Don’t use frames. If your current site has frames, make plans to rebuild the site without them. A menu constructed from SSIs (mentioned in Point #6 above) is just as easy to maintain — even easier, once you learn how to do it.
2. JavaScript and Flash are programming languages that can make very classy, animated menu systems. For example, a menu item might have a drop-down sub-menu that will wow your visitors (you hope). The problem is that if JavaScript and Flash systems replace plain hyperlinks, the search engine may not be able to find the underlying pages. Most search engines have posters on their walls saying, “I don’t do Flash.” Stubborn creatures, these search engines. One solution: retain your fancy menus, but include hypertext links at the bottom of the page to your sectional pages, with links on your sectional pages to all the subpages in that section. You can also submit a site map webpage to the search engines that contains a link to every page on your site.

What are the design decisions regarding search engines? A commitment to design (a) each webpage and (b) the site navigation system with search engines in mind. This is a marketing, not a techie priority, so you may have to insist that your website designers work with search engines on their minds.

8. Write and Fine-tune Focused Content Pages

If you’ve ever been in charge of building your company’s website from scratch, you’ve learned that one of the most time-consuming tasks is to write the copy or words that appear on the website. It’s plain old hard work. It’s easier to build the second or third version of your website, since the writing is already done.

Or is it?

One of the keys to generating search engine traffic is to get your site into the top 5 or 10 positions on the search engines for the keywords and keyphrases that matter to your business. It’s often hard to get your home page to score high for specific keywords or keyphrases, since it is the most general entrance to your entire website content. Your best strategy is to write a series of focused content pages, each of which features a particular topic and keyword or keyphrase. These pages aren’t general, but very specific.

Once you’ve written your first draft, test the webpage against search engine optimization software tools that study keyword density and many other features. They’ll help you tweak your webpage wording, title, meta tags, headlines, alt tags, etc., so that the page has a better chance of ranking high on the search engines.

For competitive words, you can’t rank high on Google and other search engines without lots of incoming links, so work on linking strategies, too, such as reciprocal linking with complementary sites. Nevertheless, these focused content pages should be an integral part of your website strategy to boost rankings. For more information, see the linking strategies section of my website.

The design decisions? A functional website must generate traffic, so you must intentionally include focused-content webpages in your site to pull that traffic to you.

See Part 3: Sections 9 – 12