"Content is King! If you want a website to generate back-links and have quality content the search engines love, be sure to make it readable by both people and search engines. Search engines are working to give people quality results. Thus, they are looking for sites with quality content. So - by building site content for people, not only are you getting back to basics (information dissemination to people via the Internet), you are creating a site search engines will love. So, build sites for people - and the search engines will come.

When creating a new website or redesigning an existing site, there are four critical rules which should be followed to make the site effective, functional, loved by search engines - and successful.

1. Easy to Read

When building a website, the first thing you need to be sure of is that your website is easy to read. When you write content, remember that most web site visitors don't read every word of a page - in fact, they only scan pages to find what they want.

Break up Your Content

Break up your pages and use headers between major ideas so people scanning your site can find what they want quickly. Use meaningful headers between each paragraph or major idea - this helps with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always use good writing structure. Additionally, avoid long paragraphs that run on. You should break up any long paragraphs.

Color and Fonts

To help readability, use high contrast colors between font and background. Black text against a white background may seem stark, but it is very readable. To make a website easy on the eyes, try an off-white background and a dark gray (almost black) text color.

Things to avoid with content color:

    * Avoid vibrant background colors like purple or yellow. Such back colors make text difficult to read.

    * Avoid using an image behind your text.

    * Avoid using bright text colors on bright backgrounds.


Fonts Matter

One simple statement covers the font issue:

Simple fonts are the best; the more fancy the font, the harder it is to read.

Since many browsers only have the standard font set, use standard fonts. In reality, there is no "standard", but there are certain fonts that are installed on most browsers. These include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. Your readers will see something different than you see if you use other fonts.

Standard Compliant Browser for Development

When developing and testing your site, use a Standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your site to be standards compliant, it will work in most browsers, including MS Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you test your site using the latest and last browser versions of IE (IE6 and IE7). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft.com has a free installer that will install multiple versions of IE. It works great!

Keywords in Content

Of course, when writing content, not only should it be formatted to be readable, but it must also be consumable by not only people, but by search engines. One way to make the subject of the content known to search engines is to use the keywords that people use to search for your site in your content. Be sure to use keywords in your header tags, your first paragraph and throughout your text. The keyword density should be between 4% and 7% - but any more than that could 1) be hard to read and still make sense and 2) be considered spam by search engines and banned. Keywords should also be used in your TITLE tags and your Meta description.

2. Simplify Navigation

The menus and links make up the navigation that the visitor uses to get from page to page in a site. Always plan a site around how people will get from page to page. A visitor to your site should be able to get to what they want within three clicks of their mouse.

Multiple navigation points makes it easy to find things. Repeat the top menu and at the bottom. Also create a left or right menu.

Using links within your text to other areas on your site. You can create links so that they are good for search engine optimization (SEO). There are generally two ways to create links within your text:

   1. The wrong way: "For search engine optimization techniques, click here."

   2. The right way: "Good techniques for search engine optimization are important to use."


Using link text (anchor text) that describes what the link is about is the best way. Search engine web crawlers (programs that automatically index the contents of websites) visit your site, they "read" links. Spiders can index descriptive links into a subject or keyword category. Spiders have nothing to work with when reading a "click here" until it reaches the linked page.

This is Cross Linking - use it as much as possible when it makes sense to do so when writing your content.

3. Consistent Design

At most, one or two layouts should be used in your site design. As a reader browses your site, they should be able to get used to looking in the same place for your navigation, for your sub-navigation and for your content. That's all there is to say about that.

4. Lower Page Weight is Better

Page weight is the total size of a page on your site in bytes - code, text and images. Your site's page weight makes a big difference to your viewers. Lighter page weight is better for your readers because the page will download faster. The faster a page downloads, the faster they will get to the content.

What is Means to be Light

    * No large images.

    * Fewer images are better.

    * Optimize images for the web at no more than 72 dpi

    * Use as small an image dimension as possible for the given design.

    * Use a table td bgcolor attribute or a background-color style attribute for solid color backgrounds.

    * Make gradients horizontal or vertical (not diagonal) so that you can use a small image "strip" and repeat it.


How "Heavy" Should a Web Page be?

Certain studies show that 64K is a good maximum webpage size. 64K is a maximum, however it is still, in my opinion, really big! The smaller the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between design and function. It is a good idea to focus more on function.

Try putting pages on your web host server as you build your site so you can test it as you go. For pages online, you can test the page weight at www.quasarcr.com/pageweight/ to be sure you are on track.

Ways to make pages lighter:

    * Use linked style sheets

    * Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible

    * Use simple repeating backgrounds for effect


Summary

Visitors to your website should be able to find what they are looking for within about three clicks. Search engines should be able to navigate easily through your site. Making a site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to navigate will make it easy to find information. When people can find information, they are more likely to refer your site or link to it - which is exactly what you want to encourage. You will be on the way to building a readable and hopefully successful website that is loved by search engines if you follow these principals. 

Paying a website design company to design and develop your website is really dependent on what type of site you need. You can use free web design services if you are using a personal site and maybe want to impress you friends or family. If you are a business or corporation this is not the case.

By paying a professional to design your website you are not only saving time you can be saving your business as well. Nowadays websites can be built with a CMS (content management system). This means that you do not have to pay your web design company to make updates for you. With a CMS you can update your website from any web browser. This not only saves time and frustration but also saves you money as well. By using free web design services you will can also use a CMS but most are not user friendly and are template based. This means that your site can look cheesy and not professional.

More downfalls to using free web design services is you do not own your website. At any time the company allowing to you to use their free server space and service can shut down without notice. This means you are left high and dry without a website. By paying a professional to do the design you will receive all the files and databases that you own and can take to any web hosting company. This is by far worth its weight in gold. If you spend countless hours updating and adding to your free site and then its shut down the next day all that work and time is wasted.

Web design companies are a dime a dozen now online. You will need to research the best options for you. Ask questions and always shop around. By paying a small price for a professional web design company to design and develop your site, you can save your business hours of work and they can deliver that professional design needed to compete in the 21st century of the world wide web.

If your serious about your business take my advice and do not use free web services.
I guarantee your competition doesn’t!

I have been doing some research lately and not really finding a good amount of quality designers in Las Vegas. I see alot of the same thing. Old cheesy looking web design sites. These sites have not been updated probably in months or even years.

Finding a quality web designer in Las Vegas can be tricky. Just by going online to google typing in Las Vegas web design you are bombarded with over 23 million sites. There is a couple good local listings on google but thats it. If you are looking for a web design in Las Vegas or any area be sure to do your homework.

A majority of the so called designers out here are weekend web designers. What’s a weekend web designer you may ask? Well, its one of those designers that do not dedicate their design full time. They may be good at what they do but are they reliable and can they be reached at normal business hours or even after hours? This is a main problem my clients have when hiring a web designer.

Some designers start and then never finish or even are not dedicated to full process. Creating a website is not just slapping some code up on a domain. You need to have your site optimized and targeted to either sell your product or drive leads. Getting the appropriate traffic is one major importance. If your site is just designed and not planned you might be setting yourself up for a huge disappointment.

So keep in mind, hire someone that is in it for the long haul. Hire a designer that is dedicated to making his clients happy and also being reliable. This way its a win win situation.

Web Design Company

Website builders are becoming popular among many clients. Is a website builder right for your business? You may be seeing the low price tags and low monthly fees associated with website builders. In this article we will go over the advantages and disadvantages of website builders.

Some advantages of website builders are as follows.

    * you can make changes at any time with usually no extra costs.
    * Plenty of free tools such as blogs, photo galleries, shopping carts and guest books.
    * Low price tag and monthly fee

Now some disadvantages of using a website builder.

    * Most website builders claim you do not need to be computer literate or web savvy. This is a true misconception. If you have no idea how a website works then you most likely have no idea how a website should generate leads.
    * Making a website user friendly and not have that self made look to it is very difficult when using website builders.
    * Making changes is easy but so is using a Content Management System with a custom design.
    * Should you be building and managing the website? As a business owner leverage is key. By hiring a professional web design company to create your site and print materials you will save time and frustration. (Most likely your site will look more professional and be able to compete with larger scale businesses)
    * Higher monthly costs. You are paying a monthly fee to use the website builder. By having a design firm setup a custom website with CMS you can make changes anytime and have much more flexibility.
    * No layout flexibility and more self made look
    * If you need additional functionality and its not in the website builder system then it cannot be done.
    * If ecommerce is supplied most likely you can only use certain merchants and is not a full functional shopping cart like customized carts.
    * Some free website builders will put ads, logos and links on your site making it look very unprofessional.
    * You don’t own the design of your website.
    * You cannot move your website to other hosting companies to save money.

Bottom line is using website builders is great for small projects or someone who is on a tight budget. Will you be successful using a website builder? Most likely not. You still need to consider SEO, marketing, navigation structuring, user friendly designs, load time, professional look, updating content, someone having the same design as you, looking cheap etc etc. I can go on for a long time giving you reasons why not to use a website builder. If you are a serious business owner and looking to generate serious buyers or serious leads you should have a professional custom designed site.

Many people have been asking me this very question, how do i market my website online? Well there are many answers and in this post I am going to explain some of the most popular old and new ways to market your website online.

Write Articles/Blog
Setup a blog or write articles and publish them the article houses such as ezinearticles and more. By writing articles on topics of your services or products this can help achieve some pretty good rankings in the search engines. Make sure you are using your keywords in your title of the article and also inside the body as well. The more articles you write the better your chances are of your website getting found online. This also creates credibility branding for your website.

Twitter
This goes along with writing articles. Twitter is a social engine that people use to post articles or just keep abreast of what the user is doing at a particular time. There is a great tool that connects your RSS blog to twitter automatically. This tool is called http://www.twitterfeed.com. By using this FREE tool every time you post an article to your blog it automatically gets posted to twitter as well. Its a great little tool and automates the blogging process.


Link Building
Link building is still the most popular way to market and increase your ranks in the search engines. The more inbound links you acquire to your website the higher achieved rank you will get.  There are numerous ways to increase link popularity. One way is to simply type your main keyword into a search engine and whatever sites pop up simply ask them to trade a link. Explain to the webmaster that by having a link on both your site and theirs can benefit both parties. Another way to increase link popularity is to use an article submitter. In the first section we spoke about articles and how this helps increase your popularity. This also can help increase your link popularity as well. By using an article submitter such as http://www.articlemarketer.com , you can include a link with your keyword in the title back to your website. This article marketer submits your articles to thousands of different article houses, in turn you increase your link popularity thousand fold!


Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories.
Some directories are based on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.

Marginal directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.

SubmitWolf (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/submitwolf.htm) is a directory submission tool I’ve used with good success . You complete a listing form in the software interface. Then they submit your listing to all the appropriate directories they know of, plus links to sites that require manual submission. It’s a time saver and works well. Just be careful to submit only to actual directories, not “linking sites.”

There are many more ways to market your business online. In the next article i will list some of the best FREE ways to market your website!