Designing Your Way Out of a Downturn

2009 was certainly a challenging year for most businesses as the global economic slowdown took hold. When times are tough and revenues are falling there is a temptation for businesses to cut ‘discretionary’ budgets – money allocated to activities such as design.

However design is a powerful tool in a downturn. During hard times investment in design can give a business a competitive edge over rivals who are reigning in their design and innovation budgets in order to save money.

According to a recent survey by the Design Council, over half (54%) of firms thought design would contribute to a large or great extent in helping maintain their competitive edge in the current economic climate. Similarly, 53% thought that design had become more important in helping them achieve its business objectives over the last three years.

There are many ways design can help your business perform more strongly, from improving your image (internally and externally), innovating your products or services, through to enhancing your overall efficiency and saving you money.

Brian Jenner, a self-employed speechwriter comments: “People use images and style to project who they are. There is a certain type of customer I want to attract and I do this by getting a designer who gives my marketing materials the right look and feel. When I didn’t spend much on my website, I got lots of timewasting enquiries. Even in a recession people will buy with their emotions, not their rational thoughts, so branding is more important than ever.”

An investment in design can be instrumental in turning the corner to renewed growth. Design can elevate a business or its products from the ordinary, the tired or the predictable – demonstrating that the business is alive, dynamic and responsive. And in a declining market, that can make the difference between growth and collapse.

How To Choose a Designer

The cost of design will vary according to who you employ, what they do, how experienced they are and where they’re based.

Design skills are available from many types of providers, ranging from individuals to large agencies capable of providing a wide range of specialisms ‘under one roof’.

The way those services are charged for will depend on the type of project. You may pay a day rate, for instance, for work on an advertisement, while a more complex fee structure would apply in the case of product development, accompanied by a brand review. In certain cases, help is available to fund design costs. Contact your local Business Link for more information.

As with other professions, you will find that fees vary according to factors such as location – London, for instance, may be markedly more expensive than other parts of the country – specialism and experience. Nevertheless, it’s possible to give general guidelines based on types of service provider.

Large agencies

Large, well-established agencies usually provide and, more importantly, integrate, a variety of design disciplines. For example, they could provide an integrated response to a brief combining contributions from hardware and software designers, design psychologists and researchers. Agencies usually have brand and business expertise rolled into their design process as well.

Having an interdisciplinary design staff allows agencies to offer one-stop product or service development. They are able to deal with the research concept development, testing and engineering of the product or service. This ‘one stop’ approach can offer considerable communication and time saving opportunities.

Such agencies tend to represent the upper end of the market, with fees averaging £700 to £1,000 per person per day. Naturally, you would  expect to pay more for very senior, renowned or experienced staff, but these people are unlikely to bill large numbers of hours for a project, delegating most of the less strategic work to less senior (and less expensive) staff.

Single discipline agencies

Well-established, single discipline agencies tend to charge day rates at around £400 to £600 per person. They specialise in a particular field, but most are able to bring in suppliers with different expertise should the project require it.

Newcomers

Another option is designers who are just starting out in their careers. They can provide good value for money at rates of perhaps £200 to £300 per day. However, you are likely to have to work hard at briefing them, as well as paying close attention to the project management process.

In the ball park

Design fees are usually quoted in advance as either an estimate, fixed price or on a ‘price-not-to-exceed’ basis. These prices usually relate to the amount of time a consultancy thinks it will spend on a project, multiplied by an agreed day rate. Fees are then usually billed in day or half-day increments. Make sure you discuss with your chosen designer how they will tell you about any additional costs they may incur, as although costs may be agreed at the outset, you may discover that additional services are needed later.

To estimate how much a design project might cost, discuss with your designer how long a person or team might need to:

• Understand the background, context and goals of the project
• Carry out the research
• Generate early design responses

Your design consultancy is an important partner to your business. Finding the right partner and ensuring that both you and they have a solid understanding of the expectations and a firm brief and contract in place will pay dividends for your business.

Information provided by the Design Council www.designcouncil.org.uk

How Much Does a Website Cost?

Design is not a cheap commodity. Often it feels expensive as you are buying a lot of time and expertise in one chunk where other professional services might be spread over a 12 month period, such as accountancy. However, unlike accountancy or other professional services your design consultancy most often has a direct impact on your sales income. Thereby it is one of the most important facets of your business.

Over the past 6 years we have developed websites for companies with budgets ranging from £1000 to £10,000.

Websites don’t just happen. They are the result of a streamlined methodology, based on years of experience, in which there are usually six major milestones:

1. Discovery – The goal of this phase is to gain a deep and intuitive sense of your goals, competitors, and business plan
2. Planning - We take what we learned in the ‘Discovery’ phase and transform it into an actionable plan. We also define the budget, timeline, technology, and deliverables (such as briefs, sitemaps, and content outlines) needed to complete the work
3. Interface Design – Strategic plan in hand, we move to the drawing table — this is where the design and concept begin to take shape. We keep sifting and refining our ideas until we’ve found the best possible solution
4. Integration – With our vision and solution nailed down, we start building the site. In this phase, all the pieces fall into place
5. Testing
6. Launch/Maintain – Once the project is launched, we establish a roadmap for constant improvement and future enhancements. We discover the true results of our work as we monitor the project’s growth over time.

The above process can be modified to fit a smaller project by reducing the amount of effort spent on different steps. For example, the ‘Discovery’ process can involve just one simple phonecall with a client to learn about their requirements. It could also cover several all-day meetings.

The ‘Planning’ process can involve a short document that addresses the creative and technical requirements or it can involve days of research into the competition and building matrices of features and functionality.

You can see how each step in the website design methodology is flexible and can be modified to fit a target project budget and requirements.

So how much does a website cost?

It depends on what you are trying to build. When we estimate a project we try to get a good understanding of the project requirements and then estimate the number of hours required to arrive at a successful result. Once we have estimated the number of hours for each task we multiply that by our hourly rate. We then provide a final project estimate. During development, if there are any new requests, the budget is adjusted accordingly.

If you search for website design and development services you will find a wide range of fees. Keep in mind there is a world of difference between the experience of a £15 an hour developer (offshore companies/students) and a £200 per hour developer. Our rate is highly competitive and is based on what we believe is reasonable for the bulk of our clients which are small to mid-sized businesses. Our methodology has been tailored to deliver design and development services based on that cost.

Spending money on a well-run design project is an investment in your company. If you’re running a business which has never previously commissioned design it may be hard to see it that way. But it’s likely to make for a smoother, more productive (and possibly cheaper) project if everyone involved views the expenditure as an investment, with positive effects for your business. For some people, this may require a shift in mindset and it may fall to someone in your business to champion the design project to other members of staff and management.

For a free consultation and quotation, please contact us with your requirements.

SEO Checklist

There are over 100 SEO factors used by search engines to rank pages in search results. Here is a checklist of some of the most popularly cited factors. Please be aware that these rules are ever-changing. What may help you today may hurt you tomorrow!

For information on how to drive more traffic to your website through Google and other search engines, contact us.

Positive On-Page SEO Ranking Factors

Note: The term “Keyword” below refers to the “Keyword Phrase”, which can be one word or more.

• Keyword in URL – First word is best, second is second best, etc
• Keyword in domain name – Same as in page-name-with-hyphens
• Keywords – Header
• Keyword in title tag
  • Keyword in Title tag – close to beginning
  • Title tag 10 – 60 characters, no special characters
• Keywords in description and Meta tag – Shows theme
  • Less than 200 chars.
  • Google no longer relies upon this tag, but frequently uses it
• Keywords in keyword Meta tag – Shows theme
  • Less than 10 words
  • Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body. If not, it will be penalized for irrelevance
  • NO single word should appear more than twice in the Meta tag as it is considered spam
  • Google purportedly no longer values this tag, but others do
• Keywords – Body
  • Keyword density in body text – 20% (all keywords/total words)
  • Individual keyword density 6% – (each keyword/total words)
  • Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 – Use H1 font style
  • Keyword font size – In strong, bold, italic, etc.
  • Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) -  Adjacent is best
  • Keyword phrase order – Anticipate query – match word order
  • Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) -  Most important at top of page, in bold, in large font
• Keywords – Other
  • Keyword in alt text  
    • Should describe graphic – Do NOT fill with spam
  • Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text)

Navigation – Internal Links

• Link should contain keywords
• The filename “linked to” should contain the keywords
  • Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones
• All internal links valid
  • Continually validate all links to all pages on site
• Efficient – tree-like structure
  • Two clicks to any page – no page deeper than 4 clicks
• Intra-site linking
  • Appropriate links between lower-level pages
  • Breadcrumb style links where possible

Navigation – Outgoing Links

• Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms
• Outgoing link Anchor Text – Should be on topic, descriptive
• Link stability over time – Avoid “Link Churn”
• All external links valid – Validate all links periodically
• Less than 100 links out total
  • Google says limit to 100, but readily accepts 2-3 times that number

Other On-Page Factors

• Domain Name Class
  • .edu seem to be given the highest status
  • .org sites seem to be given high status
  • .com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google
• File Size
  • Absolutely do not exceed 100K page size
  • Small files preferred <40K (lots of them)
• Hyphens in URL
• Preferred method for indicating a space, where there can be no actual space
  • One or two= excellent for separating keywords
  • Four or more= BAD, starts to look like spam
  • Ten = Spammer for sure, demotion probable?
• Freshness of Pages – Changes over time
  • Newer the better – if news, retail or auction!
  • Google likes fresh pages
• Freshness – Amount of Content Change
  • New pages – Ratio of old pages to new pages
• Frequency of Updates – Frequent updates = frequent spidering
• Page Theme – Page exhibit theme? General consistency?
• Keyword stemming – Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer, stemming, stemmist, stemification
• Applied Semantics – Synonyms
• URL length – Keep it minimised – use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE – less than 100 is good, less even better

Other On-Site Factors

• Site Size – Google likes big sites
  • Larger sites are presumed to be better funded, better organized, better constructed, and therefore better sites.
• Site Age (URL AGE) – Old is best
  • Age of page vs. age of site
  • Age of page vs. age of other pages on site

Negative On-Page SEO Ranking Factors

This is list of things to avoid when designing and/or grooming a site for SEO. Keep in mind that a lot of these items are not only unhelpful but in some cases they can be harmful to page rank.

• Text presented in graphics form only
• No ACTUAL body text on the page
• Text represented graphically is invisible to search engines
• Affiliate site are not all good
  • Recent Google updates went after affiliates with a vengeance.
    • Avoid flower, real-estate and travel affiliates.
    • Avoid cookie-cutter sites with massive inter-linking, but little unique content.
• Link to a bad neighbourhood
  • Don’t link to link farms, FFAs (Free For Alls)
  • Don’t forget to check the Google status of EVERYONE you link to periodically. A site may go “bad”, and you can end up being penalized, even though you did nothing
• Redirect thru refresh metatags – Don’t immediately send your visitor to another page other than the one he/she clicked on.
• Vile language
  • Ethnic slurs
  • Foul language
  • Also, avoid combinations of normal words, which when used together, become something else entirely – such as the word juice, and the word love.
• Excessive cross-linking – within the same C block (IP=xxx.xxx.CCC.xxx) The client have many sites with the same web host, prolific cross-linking can indicate more of a single entity, and less of democratic web voting
• Stealing images/text blocks from another domain
• Copyright violation – Google responds strongly
• Keyword stuffing threshold in body, meta tags, alt text, etc. = demotion
• Keyword dilution – Targeting too many unrelated keywords on a page, which would detract from the theme, and reduce the importance of your REALLY important keywords
• Page edit – can reduce consistency
  • Google is now switching between a “Newer” cache, and an “Older” cache, frequently drawing from BOTH at the same time. Did your last edit substantially alter your keywords, or theme? Expect noticeable SERP bouncing
  • Frequency of Content Change – Too frequent = bad
  • Freshness of Anchor Text – Too frequent = bad
• Dynamic Pages are problematic – know pitfalls – shorten URLs, reduce variables, lose the session IDs
  • Use mod_rewrite
• Excessive Javascript – Don’t use for redirects, or hiding links
• Flash page – NOT GOOD
  • Most (all?) SE spiders can’t read Flash content unless accompanied by an xml feed.
  • Provide an HTML alternative, or lose out
• No Frames
• Robot exclusion “no index” tag Intentional self-exclusion
• Single pixel links – A red flag – one reason only – a sneaky link
• Invisible text (Google is now devaluing some pages) – Google advises against this. We see this all over the place – but nothing is ever done unless someone reports it. (The text is the same color as the background, and hence cannot be seen by the viewer, but is visible to the search engine spiders.)
• Gateway, doorway page – Google advises against this
• Multiple entrance pages in the top ten SERPs – Google advises against this
• Duplicate content (YOUR’S) Duplicate content (THEIR’S) (Highjack)
  • Google picks one (usually the oldest), and shoves it to the top, and pushes the second choice down. Currently a big issue with stolen content – the thief usurps your former position with YOUR OWN content
• HTML code violations – Google advises against this

Positive Off-Page Google Ranking SEO Factors

Incoming Links

• Page Rank – Based on the Number and Quality of links to you
• Total incoming links (“backlinks”)
• Historically, FAST counted best
• Incoming links from PR4+ pages

For Each Incoming Link

• Page rank of the referring page
• Based on the quality of links to you
• Anchor text of inbound link to you contains keyword, key phrase?
• Age of link – Old = Good
• Frequency of change of anchor text – Not good
• Popularity of referring page – Popularity = desirability, respect
• Number of outgoing links on referrer page – Fewer is better – makes yours more important
• Position of link on referrer page Early in HTML is best
• Keyword density on referring page – For search keyword(s)
• HTML title of referrer page – Same subject/ theme?
• Link from “Expert” site – Big time boost
• Referrer page – Same theme BETTER
• Referrer page – Different theme WORSE
• Image map link – Problematic

Directories

• Site listed in DMOZ Directory – HUGE boost
  • Google’s directory comes STRAIGHT from the DMOZ directory
• Site listed in Yahoo Directory – Big boost
• Site listed in inktomi – Use Pure Search to check your inktomi position
• Site listed in other directories (About, etc.)
  • Directory listing boost (If other respected directories link to you, this must be positive.)

The Google Sandbox

Spammers generate thousands of new pages daily, along with millions of new links to go with them. Consequently, Google witholds high ranking ability on new sites, by ignoring any new links for 2-4 months. If the domain and backlinks have existed for a certain length of time (4 months), then you are ok and escape from the sandbox. This penalty is new-site based. Long-standing sites have no trouble ranking new pages. Over time, the newly generated links are given weight, and eventually the sandbox effect is lifted.

Solutions

Two methods are currently being used to get around the sandbox penalty for new sites. One method is to join the Google Adwords or Adsense program, in which case your pages get spidered in minutes. Your site will be checked initially with an algorithm or human test. Good rankings will follow (provided of course, that you have good on-page SEO, and a few good backlinks). If you are a Google partner (“approved”), then you are not going to be penalised, unless you subsequently “go bad”. The second method is to buy an old domain, just for it’s longevity, and old backlinks. Many have bought up old domain names for this purpose.

Advantages of a Dedicated Hosting Server

If you are relatively new to the world of the Internet, you may wonder at the price difference between a shared web hosting service and a dedicated Windows and Linux web hosting service. These days, many websites opt for shared web hosting. The reason for this is simple. Shared web hosting services are generally very cost-effective. But it is important to know why a dedicated hosting service is more expensive.

What are the advantages of a dedicated Windows and Linux server?

Shared web hosting services are inexpensive because they make use of a single physical server to host more than a thousand web sites. Since the resources of a single server are shared between all the websites hosted on the server, the cost factor comes down. However, certain other factors like performance, reliability, disk space, bandwidth and security may also be compromised. Shared web hosting services are recommended for those people who have minimal web needs. Individuals and very small business enterprises can consider making use of shared web hosting services.

In a dedicated server, your web site rests entirely on a single server. All the resources of the web server work to keep your web site in good running condition. You will be leasing pre-configured, state-of-the-art equipment. Unlike virtual servers where a particular technology is used to share the web server in such a way that each website seems like it has its own virtual server, in the case of a dedicated server, your web site actually has a web server servicing it. Some dedicated hosting solutions also allow for hosting multiple sites on a single machine. In such a case, a world-class network connection is used so that continual network monitoring is possible to ensure the availability of the website.

In case you need custom software or require greater server control, then a dedicated hosting service is highly recommended. A dedicated Windows and Linux server allows you to have complete control over your web server. You can pick the operating system of your choice, configure it, individualise settings and customise it to answer all your ecommerce needs.

Users with high end web needs will be happy with the performance of dedicated servers since these can easily accommodate the deployment of complex applications, streaming media and high end email solutions. Dedicated servers are highly recommended for those people who have some degree of knowledge in web technologies. Advanced users can select specific features such as CPU speed, hardware competence and other requirements. This maximizes your ROI since you only need to make use of those resources that your web site needs.

Website Accessibility Checklist

Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality.

A growing number of countries around the world have introduced legislation which either directly addresses the need for websites and other forms of communication to be accessible to people with disabilities, or which addresses the more general requirement for people with disabilities not to be discriminated against.

The needs that web accessibility aims to address include:

• Visual: Visual impairments including blindness, various common types of low vision and poor eyesight, various types of color blindness
• Motor/Mobility: e.g. difficulty or inability to use the hands, including tremors, muscle slowness, loss of fine muscle control, etc, due to conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, stroke
• Auditory: Deafness or hearing impairments, including individuals who are hard of hearing
• Seizures: Photoepileptic seizures caused by visual strobe or flashing effects
• Cognitive/Intellectual: Developmental disabilities, learning disabilities (dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc.), and cognitive disabilities of various origins, affecting memory, attention, developmental “maturity,” problem-solving and logic skills, etc.

Use the following checklist to evaluate the accessibility of your website. For more information, see http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Markup

• Separate structure from presentation and use proper markup for that structure. For example, mark up lists as lists (<ul>, <ol>, <dl>) rather than text with a <br> tag after each list item
• HTML headings (e.g. <h1>) are very helpful for blind users. Properly mark up the sections of a page and body copy with HTML headings rather than something such as a <p> tag with CSS styling that makes it look like a heading
• Give pages meaningful and accurate titles using the <title> tag
• Indicate the primary human language of the document using the lang attribute in the <html> tag, and indicate any passages in a secondary language using the lang attribute on other tags wrapping the relevant text (e.g. “<span lang=”es”>Hola</span> means Hello”)
• Provide “Skip to content” links at the top of the markup order in pages with large numbers of navigational links before the main content
• Always indicate headers in data tables using <th> tags, and associate all data cells with their header.
• Be sure tab order is logical using tabindex, if necessary. (If your HTML is in the proper order, then using tabindex isn’t necessary).

Visual Appearance and Content

• Be sure your page is still usable when images are turned off. (This may include making sure that contrast is still sufficient if you happen to be using a background image and that image is removed)
• Be sure pages remain usable when users enlarge text up to twice its original size.
• Be sure each element on a page is reachable and can be manipulated via the keyboard.
• Whenever possible, write descriptive headings and link texts which can be understood when read out of context (e.g. no “click here” links)
• For color-blind and low-vision users, be sure your content and background have sufficient contrast
• Do not use content that flashes or blinks more than three times a second
• Do not hide the focus indicator. When a user uses the keyboard to tab from element to element, it should always be apparent where they are
• Do not require users to perceive font, color, or other styling changes in order to understand meaning. For instance, don’t say,”The highlighted word in the previous paragraph is the most important,” or “Items marked in red are errors and need to be corrected”, unless the word or items are indicated in some other way.

Dynamic Content

• Do not use JavaScript events that radically alter the page or load a new page when fired

Images and Multimedia

• Be sure all images have an alt attribute, leaving the text for decorational images blank (e.g. alt=”")
• Always add alt text when images are also links
• In general, be brief with alt text (e.g. “Notre Dame Cathedral”), but provide detail when it conveys meaning (e.g. “Son standing at his father’s graveside with mother in arms”)
• Provide a transcript, captions, and/or sign language translation for all audio and video with speech
• Provide a “described” version of a video when description is necessary for unsighted users to understand content. (The described audio track can either be distributed with the video content, or as an audio only file)
• Be sure that all videos, if they don’t autoplay, have, at the very least, an accessible Play control
• When text can be rendered just as well by the browser as it can in an image, avoid using images for text. (Image replacement techniques are often an acceptable alternate, but also consider translation requirements when using text in or as images)
• Avoid CAPTCHAs unless you have no other choice, and even then they should be avoided. However, if you must use them, provide an audio CAPTCHA alternative.

Forms

• Always label all form fields with the <label> tag. If a form field has no specific text label on the page, add one, and hide it with CSS or use the title attribute
• Use fieldsets (<fieldset>) with legends (<legend>) to associate prompts with radio buttons and check boxes. For instance, a form asks “Gender:” and offers radio buttons that say “Male” or “Female”. Then “Gender:” should be enclosed in a <legend> tag, and all three elements (<legend> and the two radio buttons with their label text) should be enclosed in a <fieldset> tag
• Identify all input errors in text (in addition to any images or icons), and place the error notification either next to the affected field or in a prominent location such as the top of the page with an anchor link to the affected field
• Provide help links or inline instructions for completing fields when necessary
• Do not permit users to complete important actions without a confirmation or a way to undo
• Avoid using HTML elements in nonstandard ways (e.g. form elements for navigation, links for form submission, etc).

Testing

• Test all pages for markup validation (http://validator.w3.org). If your page does not pass validation, there should be a good reason for it
• Test all pages for color blindness using simulators or browser plug-ins. (Recommended: http://colororacle.cartography.ch or http://www.vischeck.com)
• Test all pages for accessibility using an evaluation tool (http://wave.webaim.org), but only after you have done all you can to ensure it is accessible using the recommendations here
• Have your pages reviewed by an accessibility expert

Increase Your Email Open Rate By Improving Your Subject Lines

Just like a direct sales letter, the subject line of your email is usually the most important part of getting your readers to actually read your email. If you have a compelling subject line the chance of your email improves dramatically.

According to a recent MarketingSherpa.com survey, 40% of email marketers said testing changes to just their subject line had a high impact on their return on investment (ROI). 45% said subject line changes accounted for a medium ROI and only 15% said that testing changes to their subject line results in a low ROI.

For every email you send you’ve got room for about 50 characters in your subject line so use them wisely to improve your open rates. Below are some tips to help improve your subject lines:

1. Test the subject line – Take a look at email campaigns you’ve sent in the past. Which subject lines worked the best and gave you the highest open and conversion rates? You might find that for a particular topic there’s a general trend or subject style that resulted in higher open rates.
2. The subject of importance – Try and put as much important and relevant information into your subject lines as possible. For example, if you’re sending out an email about a special offer make sure the product name and details on the offer appear in the subject line in a clear and concise format such as “£40 off ACME Widget Until – Today Only”.
3. Personalise the subject line – If you have details about your contacts then you can use them in your subject line to get their attention. A subject line containing the contacts first name can sometimes out-pull one that doesn’t.
4. Avoid spam keywords – Most email servers automatically filter out any emails that contain spam keywords in their subject line – Words such as free, stock, ebay, password, mortgage, etc all trigger spam detection software so keep them out of your subject lines at all times.
5. Trigger curiosity – The best way to improve your open rates is to pique the interest of your contacts. A compelling headline that entices them to open and read the contents of your email can do wonders for your conversion rate. Headlines that trigger curiosity can sometimes work well for example: “Hi [First Name] – I have a question for you.”.
6. Make the offer clear – If you’re making a special offer to your contact then be upfront and include it as part of your subject line. People love bargains and special offers so let them know about it before anything else.
7. Emphasise the benefits – We use this technique for our newsletters. We always use the format of “Newsletter – [Benefit]“. In our case, benefit is always the title of an article contained in the newsletter, such as “Company Newsletter – 10 Tips for Better Subject Lines”.
8. Easy identification – Make sure your contacts know the email is coming from you. Deceptive subject lines can confuse people so always try and including your company name in the subject line. Also, make sure you set the “From” attribute of your email to include your name and your companies name, such as “From: John Smith “.
9. Exclaim nothing – Avoid using excessive punctuation at the end of your subject lines. Google bans punctuation from AdWords ad’s for a reason – too much hype can annoy and confuse people.

For more information on email marketing, click here or contact us.

Standard Web Banner Sizes

Below are some of the standard banner sizes used on web pages.

NOTE: All dimensions are in pixels.

Size	Style	Gif Weight	Flash Weight	Example
468 x 60	Full Banner	20 KB	30 KB	View Example
728 x 90	Leaderboard	25 KB	35 KB	View Example
336 x 280	Square	25 KB	35 KB	View Example
300 x 250	Square	25 KB	35 KB	View Example
250 x 250	Square	25 KB	35 KB	View Example
160 x 600	Skyscraper	20 KB	30 KB	View Example
120 x 600	Skyscraper	20 KB	30 KB	View Example
120 x 240	Small Skyscraper	20 KB	30 KB	View Example
240 x 400	Fat Skyscraper	25 KB	35 KB	View Example
234 x 60	Half Banner	15 KB	20 KB	View Example
180 x 150	Rectangle	15 KB	20 KB	View Example
125 x 125	Square Button	15 KB	20 KB	View Example
120 x 90	Button	10 KB	20 KB	View Example
120 x 60	Button	10 KB	20 KB	View Example
88 x 31	Button	10 KB	10 KB	View Example

The Benefits of a Professionally Designed Website

My cousin/nephew/brother/neighbour’s dog is a web designer – why do I need you?

Although it plays a big part, effective web design isn’t just about the aesthetics – it’s also about the code behind the website. Your website may look professional, but how does it perform within search engine results?

Whereas well written, standards-compliant code will boost your search engine rankings, badly written code can have the opposite effect, causing information to be technically unavailable to search engines, despite being visible to most of your visitors.

Additionally, your code may have left serious security loop holes, or cause your website to display incorrectly in some web browsers. Remember, not everyone uses Internet Explorer and not everyone uses a PC!

Although there are many people that dabble in it, we recommend that you consider the following issues before entrusting your professional image to someone who isn’t well-versed in creating and delivering professional, high-quality web solutions.

• Is the person you are going to hire knowledgeable about search engine optimisation or other methods of driving traffic to your site?
• Do they understand browser compatibility issues and how the site will appear to various visitors?
• Can they advise on hosting services, registering or transferring a domain name, legal issues and accessibility?
• Can they balance usability with an efficient, aesthetically pleasing design?
• Obtain, create and manipulate high-quality graphics and images?
• Create a site that is easily updatable by you?
• Understand new access technologies such as mobile phones, PDAs and RSS?
• Create a website that communicates your branding and sets you apart from your competition?

What is RSS?

RSS, or ‘Really Simple Syndication’, is a way of broadcasting/syndicating your website content to all interested parties. In other words, a way to notify people that there is new information on a website. It is a rapidly growing technology which hundreds of thousands of weblogs, news-related sites and other online publishers use every day to keep their readers connected.

By signing up for web content that has been syndicated by using RSS, people can browse through a list of new content. Typically, they can click on a URL (included with most entries) to go to a corresponding page on the website for details. For example, a news site might use RSS to syndicate headlines. Users who subscribe to the service on that news site receive an email message regularly with the latest headlines.

For the consumer, subscribing to feeds makes it possible to review a large amount of online content in a very short time. For the publisher, RSS permits instant distribution of content and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers. It also offers significant improvements to search engine rank and increased traffic from search engines.

Reading RSS Feeds

In order to read an RSS feed, you will need a news reader, also known as an aggregator. There are all kinds of news readers, some web-based and used through your browser, some downloaded and used on your desktop. Most of them are completely free but it is worth mentioning that modern browsers such as Mozilla Firefox have an RSS reader already built in. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Windows Mail also include features for subscribing to RSS content, reviewing and managing RSS items, and managing subscriptions.

Once you’ve found a reader you like, you simply have to choose which sites you’d like to be kept up-to-date on. Sites that offer feeds will often display the RSS icon (see above) or a link that says ‘Subscribe to our feed’. If you click it, it will send you to their feed. You can subscribe by cutting and pasting the URL (web address) of the feed into your news reader. Each news reader will be able to tell you in more specific detail how to make the most of its features.

RSS will most likely see a surge in uptake in 2009, moving into majority usage thanks largely to built-in support in the new IE 8 browser.

Publishing RSS Feeds

If you have a website, blog, audio/video content or even photos, you can offer a feed of your content as an option. Popular blogging platforms and publishing tools like TypePad, Wordpress or Blogger allow you to publish a feed automatically. There are also tools on the market that can help transform traditional web content into the right format for distribution.

There are three main advantages with RSS for both users and marketers:

1. Users only get data they’ve subscribed to, thereby avoiding any spam issues
2. Users can increasingly select segmentation of newsfeeds so they only receive specific topic information
3. The user can receive RSS newsfeeds in a plethora of ways – with their Internet browser, an email client, desktop or web aggregator or on a mobile or handheld. This freedom to receive the feed in any number of ways means the user is in control, making recipients a more qualified audience than those receiving email marketing.

To learn more about how RSS can benefit your website, contact us.

The Problem With Outdated Web Browsers

Have you ever come across a site on the Internet that didn’t quite look right? Perhaps there were random borders and line breaks, gaps, things not lining up, etc. The chances are you may be using an outdated web browser which doesn’t support current web technology.

What is a Web Browser?

A web browser is the software which you use to look at web pages. You are using a web browser right now to look at this page! There are lots of different web browsers, but the two most popular ones are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

All web browsers are free so it is important that you make sure you install the latest version. This will ensure you get the best experience whilst viewing the web. If you are using Internet Explorer 6, upgrade to version 7. Or even better, install Firefox. It’s fast, secure, reliable, and has the ability to add lots of useful plugins.

Unfortunately a lot of companies, especially those in the public sector, still use outdated browsers such as Internet Exporer 6. To be fair to Microsoft, IE6 is 7 years old. However, there are countless bugs and errors in the final release that have never been fixed. Web designers spend a lot of time trying to work around problems that appear when testing pages in IE6. It doesn’t support transparent graphical elements and web standards are implemented very badly.

By upgrading your browser, you will not only benefit from a whole host of new features like RSS feeds, tabbed bookmaking, faster speed and extra security, but almost every modern website will look a lot better too.

How to Avoid Unsolicited (Spam) Email

There are many ways you can avoid unsolicited email messages (spam), but here are some of the most effective ways.

When you create your e-mail address, ensure that it isn’t predictable. Having an email address such as webmaster@yourdomain.com can make it easier for spammers to send you these unsolicited email messages. Another way you could try and avoid spam is by never publicly submitting your email address online. If you post your email on your website, bulletin boards etc, spam bots can easily find your email, and you’ll instantly be added to a spam list.

If you need to provide a method of online contact for your website visitors, use a contact form rather than publishing your email address.

Usually, it’s always best if you have two email addresses. When you sign up for a service which requires you to submit your email, and if you aren’t too sure on how their email policy operates, you can submit them a second email address, which will ensure that your primary mailbox remains spam-free. Remember, if at a later stage you feel you can trust the company you have submitted your secondary email address to, you can always change it back to your primary mailbox.

One of the more important ways to prevent spam is by having spam protection on the server. All Europa Studio hosting servers come with SpamAssassin, which is very effective at identifying spam email messages, and removing them before they reach your mailbox.

Strategies for Email Marketing

For more information on email marketing, click here or contact us.

While the main value of email marketing is to drive traffic to your web site, there are other important reasons that emails can be used in promoting your business. Here are some strategies to develop that will help your email marketing be even more successful.

Establish Brand Identification

Nothing is more fundamental to marketing than branding. Using emails to strengthen your brand is easy – and essential. This is achieved through appropriate use fonts and graphics. The vast majority of email users have the ability to receive HTML email – graphic email. And HTML email more than doubles the response rate of plain text email. Be consistent in your tone and always choose content that will matter to your customers.

Build Good Customer Relations

Use your emails to establish and reinforce a positive image of your reputation for services and attentiveness. Include ‘testimonials’ from satisfied customers. Make sure your customers know how to reach you – and how to get a prompt and polite response. Customer service is the difference between customer loyalty and losing a customer – much more than modest differences in price. ‘Value’ is rarely defined by cost alone. Remember, SERVICE. Make your good service part of every email you send – from the auto-responders you send when clients fill out an order form, confirming that their order was received and is being processed, to the product updates you send your email list.

A contact number for those customers who feel that they need to reach you immediately goes a long way to establishing and maintaining your professional credibility.

Making your commitment to quality service evident in all your communications can go a long way towards creating positive customer relations. Make sure that your emails are grammatically correct and have no spelling errors! Keep the tone polite and businesslike.

Let the nature of your business define the ‘tone’ and informality of your email.

Use emails to answer customer questions, and overcome objections to buying from you.

Answer – or anticipate – customers questions or concerns in a clear, easy-to understand manner. Give your customers useful information, information that they’ve either already asked for or information that you anticipate will make it easier for them to use your products or services. Include articles that help address common customer concerns that may make them resistant to buying products from you.

While your website might include a section devoted to ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ why not include one or two of these with every email you send out? At the very least, doing so communicates that you are dedicated to addressing your customers’ needs. And that can never be bad for business.

Use Your Email Signature Everywhere

Always include your website URL and email address in your signature. It’s free advertising for your business, and is an effective method of letting people know that you’re online, and ready to receive requests from them.

Send Greeting Cards

(Or, if you’ve managed to include the information – Birthday and Anniversary Cards.) Your regular email client list will welcome a friendly greeting card from you. A greeting card is a nice gesture and a friendly reminder to let them know about seasonal promotions.

Hold a Contest

People love to compete, especially if there’s a modest prize for the winner. So, take advantage of human nature and use email to hold a contest, and to offer prizes to winners. You increase interactivity and, in the process, increase interest in your newsletter or ezine. (Be sure to encourage contest participants to get others to sign up as well-and watch the interest grow. You might even create a contest where a prize goes to the person who signs up the most names!)

Create your own newsletter, online course, or ezine

This suggestion, of course, demands the most creatively, time and effort but it might also be the most effective way to increase the benefits of your email marketing campaign. After all, don’t you want people to perceive you as an expert in your field, or your business as the ‘best’ resource for products and services? Don’t you want to market your online business effectively? Then consider investing in the time and effort to create your own ezine or newsletter.

• You will be building your email list
• You create a forum to place your own ads, and promote your services or affiliate programs
• You will get your website address, your logo, and a link to your programs in each email that you send.

Use email as part of your overall marketing plan. By doing so, you help your customers form a positive image of your business, improve customer relations, and help get the word out about your business.

Why Do I Need a Website?

(and other frequently asked questions)

Making a decision about investing in a website usually involves many new questions: How does website hosting work? How are changes made to the website? How much will the website cost? Having answers to these questions makes it easier to decide what kind of website your business really needs.

Can’t find the answers to your questions here? Why not contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

Why do I need a website?

Every day the Internet becomes more and more integrated with business. After all, a decade ago, e-mail was rare. Today, it is an essential tool that most businesses cannot operate effectively without.

Your website has a powerful impact on a potential customer’s confidence in you. A professional design, well-written copy, helpful product information, and good contact info can tremendously increase trust in your company. It lets people know you’re knowledgeable and up-to-date. Your website will open yourself up to a world of opportunity in reaching people who might not otherwise find you. With the click of a mouse, anyone can get to your company’s website 24/7.

Will having a website solve all my marketing needs?

A website should never be used as a replacement for the marketing and promotion you already do. Websites work best when used together with your existing marketing and promotion techniques. There is still nothing that really beats traditional printed materials (which we also do) but the more value you can add to them, the better.

What is web hosting?

Web hosting is the storage space your website requires on the Internet. Without any hosting, your website would no longer appear on the Internet.

The more pages in your website, the more room it occupies on the Internet, therefore the more it costs to keep it there.

The other major piece of hosting is the bandwidth allowed for visitor traffic. If you require high bandwidth, your website will cost more to host on the Internet.

Like print ads in magazines, you need to renew your lease on the space. Europa Studio provide Internet hosting on an annual basis at highly competitive costs.

Static or dynamic?

Deciding whether you need a static or dynamic site depends on what you need your site to do. If you are using your website to keep visitors informed of what you are doing on a regular basis, you may want to consider a dynamic site (although it costs more initially, there is no expense for maintaining the frequent changes). If you are using your website to provide mostly unchanging information to visitors, than a static site may be right for you.

What do I need to get started?

We will need all the information that you wish to include in your website. Making changes to a website after completion is very time consuming, so we must have all images and copy before your project is commenced.

How much will the website cost?

There are a huge number of factors that affect a quote – all of which are taken into account when forming a quotation. But generally, the cost of the website will depend on its size and how often it needs to be updated. After set-up, the expense of maintaining a website depends on the cost of changing it, the hosting fees and domain renewals. Contact us for a free quotation.

How will people find my site?

We optimise your web pages for search engine ‘friendliness’ by using carefully selecting contents, keywords and META tags. These will help search engines like Google find your site. Also, after your site is finished and online, we will manually submit the site to all the major search engines. Search engine rankings can never be guaranteed, but we will do everything possible to ensure your site has the best chance of success.

What else can be done to promote my website?

Marketing your website offline is of vital importance to attracting new business and enhancing your company profile. To maximise the effectiveness of your new website, we recommend that you include your web address on all company literature, business cards and brochures.

For more information, see our article on promoting your website offline.

What is ecommerce?

Ecommerce is the practice of selling products and services online. The Internet provides many advantages over traditional selling, purchasing and marketing procedures. It enables a company to showcase its products, provide up-to-date information, specifications and applications, as well as sell products all in one place.

The Web is good for business on both ends of an exchange because of the convenience and speed. Products can be sold or ordered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without the need for support staff.

Do you offer a photography service?

We offer a high quality digital photographic service. All digital images are taken in high resolution and optimised for the web. We also work closely with a professional photographic studio to ensure your photography is of the highest quality.

What is a domain name?

Your domain name is your website ‘address’. Every computer on the Internet has a unique address – just like a telephone number – which is a complicated string of numbers. It is called it’s “IP address” (IP stands for “Internet Protocol”). IP Addresses are hard to remember. The Domain name makes using the Internet easier by allowing a familiar string of letters (the “domain name”) to be used instead of the IP address. It is a “mnemonic” device that makes addresses easier to remember.

How do I ‘register’ a domain name?

Domain names can be registered through many different companies (known as ‘registrars’) that compete with one another. The registrar you choose will ask you to provide various contact and technical information that makes up the registration. The registrar will then keep records of the contact information and submit the technical information to a central directory known as the ‘registry’. This registry provides other computers on the Internet the information necessary to send you e-mail or to find your web site. You will also be required to enter a registration contract with the registrar, which sets forth the terms under which your registration is accepted and will be maintained.

How long does domain registration last?

Each registrar has the flexibility to offer initial and renewal registrations in one-year increments, with a total registration period limit of ten years.

Can we update the site ourselves?

Europa Studio can provide you with a content management solution suitable for your site and your business requirements.

If you are interested in maintaining the site yourself, static websites are typically written in HTML. HTML may be modified with FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or similar programs that are available to anyone – thereby making it possible for you to change the content of your website (if you are familiar with HTML and have one of these programs). Be advised, however, that it is easy to change the website interface along with the content – so be sure that someone experienced with HTML makes changes to your site. If you are reluctant to change the website on your own, Europa Studio has reasonable rates for site maintenance.

Dynamic websites are written with a considerable amount of programming that makes it possible for you to modify the content of your website at any time. They are a very convenient means of managing your website, but are costlier than static websites. For this reason, they may become cost prohibitive and should only be considered in situations where website content needs to be updated on a regular basis – or when paying someone to update content would cost more that having the dynamic website programmed.

What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.

Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.

When designing accessible websites, Europa Studio adhere to the guidelines of W3C, the Web Accessibility Initiative. Their guidelines are widely regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility.

We are not based in the South – Can you still design a site for us?

Absolutely. Europa Studio have undertaken several projects for companies that are not based in the South of England. Contact us to find out more.

Promoting Your Website Offline

Put Your Web Address On Everything

A fundamental method of offline site promotion is to ensure you put your website address onto every scrap of paper, every client CD, every invoice, contract, envelope, brochure and advertisement. The more eyes that view your web address, the more likely you can harvest visitors through passive advertising.

Partake In Forums

Forums are an excellent source of information, opinions and assistance when it comes to information. They’re also a great place to advertise your site. While most forums forbid blatant self-promotion (which keeps the forums interesting) most are not opposed to active URLS in your signature line. This gets your web address out there, and also helps develop search engine relevancy.

Blogs

Google and other search engines love Blogs. The content is fresh, very relevant and various linking mechanisms (RSS for example) are great for SEO. One warning – a Blog is very time consuming, and is only effective if constantly updated. Also, news Blogs tend to get much more traffic than niche Blogs – so be realistic in your efforts.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Sometimes effective. But almost always very expensive. Pay-per-click links are supplemental links that are added to main search results, and can usually be identified as “sponsored results” or “sponsored link”. The premise is quite simple – you bid on keywords, and the higher bids are served at the top of the most relevant search engine results. It can get very expensive in a hurry and the return on investment can be staggeringly low. Also, only the first few pay-per-click results (the highest bids) are effective as lower bids are only served on the third, fourth and fifth (etc) pages of the main search results.

Submit Your Site To Important Directories

An excellent way of creating more traffic to your site is to list yourself on various business directories such as Thompson, Yellow Pages and related industry websites.

Google views a listing of your site in these directories as an important “vote of confidence”. Therefore it’s imperative that you submit your site to these directories as soon as possible. Keep in mind that your site needs to be completed. *NEVER* use the words “under construction” on ANY page – this will notify search engines that your site is incomplete, hampering your efforts to get listed, and in true terms, every web site is always “under construction” anyway.

Other factors to be aware of – certain search engine waiting lists are in the months, and some charge commercial sites an “inclusion fee” of several hundred pounds.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

It doesn’t matter how good your site looks if people can’t find it. Once you’re website is designed and online, you can then begin promoting it through methods that are appropriate to your budget:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings.

It is light years away from an exact science and results do not happen overnight (despite those promising a “top ten” placement). There are, after all, only ten spots on the first page of any search engine result. That’s heavy-duty competition. One thing that everybody tends to agree on is that it requires patience, perseverance and a thick skin.

There’s evidence that illustrates Google gives new sites a “bump” in indexing (followed up fairly quickly by a settling down to a “natural” position). There’s evidence that older sites get a premium “bump” simply on the merits of being around for a longer period of time. Google uses a multitude of data centres (results may vary in a Google search depending on which data centre you connect to) and their index is constantly in a state of flux (check the total search results on any given Google search – they vary from time to time, sometimes wildly). Accordingly, half of your SEO activities will be a waiting game. If you don’t immediately get the desired results, changing your site in a fire-fighting fashion could actually hamper you, especially as you’re not always going to be sure what fire you are fighting. However, as part of an overall marketing campaign, SEO will lead to more visitors, more targeted inquires and more than likely, some new clients. And that’s what it’s all about.

It’s never been the case that people just “find” web sites and it’s become more difficult over the years. To complicate matters, most search engines don’t want you to know how to optimise your site. This is attributable to the rise in spam. Spam has made the job of getting search engine relevance harder. Over the years, spammers have abused every search optimisation trick available. When a new technique is found, spammers will jump on it, abuse it, and the search engines will respond by factoring it into their algorithms and penalizing the sites that are using the technique. Search engines see anything that is done to manipulate results as cheating. Most search engines also have spam reporting forms, so if your competitor sees that you’re doing something unseemly, it’s highly likely that they’ll turn you in.

The Internet is awash in SEO information, however the best long-term option is to use legitimate and recognised techniques to optimise your site. Accordingly, you should never view SEO as the be-all and end-all to marketing your site. There are other ways to help your website’s profile.

Here are but a few search engine optimisation techniques:

1. Domain Name

If you’ve already registered your web domain, feel free to skip this section. Like everything involved with search engine optimisation, it is but a piece of the puzzle. There’s one simple point about a domain name – it helps if what you do is in your web address. It used to matter more until people starting using repetitive names. Search Engines took appropriate measures, so this is not as crucial as it once was. Google still seems to favour hyphenated names, but if you’re also going to market your web site through traditional methods, keep in mind that the more hyphens added, the more difficult it is for clients to remember your address when typing it in by hand. As usual, relevancy is the key.

You may not even have a choice about what to call your web site. Certain domains may probably be more effective in terms of search engine optimisation, but not in the real world (plus you run the risk of weakening your brand). At the end of the day, common sense has to be your guide.

Note: Any form of free hosting service should be avoided if you want to promote your web site online. Most free web host services are spam havens (get rich schemes, porn, etc) and have probably been tagged by search engines as a “no-go areas”. As such, these sites are looked upon skeptically, if they’re indexed at all. Go with a reputable web host from day one. It’ll make your overall web site management a better experience. You won’t have to worry about bandwidth restrictions and you won’t get penalized by search engines for sharing an IP address with a lot of spammy sites.

2. Keywords

Keywords are the focus of Search Engine Optimisation. When you type a query into a search engine text field, you’ve submitted a set of keywords and asked for the most relevant web pages from all the sites that the search engine has indexed.

It is important to select, and optimise your site for, certain keywords that are relevant to your web site (and therefore presumably your business). These are not simply keywords that we place in the META tags of our pages. These are the words that best describe what your web site is about. One critical point to keep in mind – you need to select keywords that your potential clients will use to find you, not the keywords you’d like to be found under. The entire mission of any SEO campaign is to help potential clients find your site, not so that you can announce to the world what you think you do. Accordingly, it’s critical before you begin to optimise your site for search engine performance that you decide which design related keywords you’re going to concentrate on. Perform searches on Google (and other engines) to see what’s what. How others are performing. Here’s some rules of thumb – the less competitive the category (based on the total number of results served) the better, and faster, results you can expect. Also, the fewer keywords that you select, the better. Search engines are downplaying META tags, and even then, are only indexing a certain number of characters in the HEAD portion of HTML documents. It’s always better to specialise, rather than casting the widest net possible. A large choice of keywords (especially if your site does not have lots of pages to “play with”) only leads to you competing with the top players of every single category that you’ve selected. Not the best idea, especially when you’re going to have to compete with people whose sites have been established longer, are probably using suspect optimisation techniques and probably have more time, and more resources than you. Better to pick your keyword targets carefully for maximum results.

3. Page Titles

When designers put together a web site, they invariably title their web pages with something that LOOKS good and is suitably artistic. This is useless in terms of SEO and promotion. This is exactly how the clickable text is going to appear in Google and other search engines. It’s one thing getting your site listed in Google. It’s another thing convincing people to click on the highlighted text. Any page title should be highly relevant to what you want to be found under.

Also, minimise the use of the words “and”, the, it, etc. Google ignores these words in a search but the use in a title can dilute keyword relevance (Google only indexes so many characters). Be selective in the categories you want to go after. Many businesses fall under extremely competitive key word searches (over 58 million results on Google). Highly competitive keyword categories also tend to be the most heavily “spammed” and attacking this category (especially if you’re just starting out) will be an exercise in futility. Better to narrow your efforts. If you have a specialty or niche – Medical Graphic Design or Medical Illustration for example – this will certainly cut down on the competition for the keyword.

It is important to make sure that whatever keyword you want to be found under is at the beginning of your title. Search engines look for key words left to right, top to bottom. Especially in heavily competitive searches and related key words. Always start with the most important stuff. Put the waffle at the end (or in terms of text on your page – at the bottom).

4. HTML Document Names and Links

The actual names of your HTML documents can have some bearing on how your site performs on search engines. It’s much easier to begin planning your site with file-naming conventions in mind, than it is to retrofit SEO solutions to a pre-built site. For example, you may have named your page featuring illustrations illo1.html or sample1.html, sample2.html, etc. Not good (unless someone is specifically looking for the term “illo1″ or “sample2″). It’s much more effective to name the document “illustration-1.html” and your page on photography as “photography.html”. This gives search engine spiders something to go on when they search your site. Once you’ve named your HTML documents appropriately, it’s very beneficial to hyperlink the pages with the key word in the link. For example – many designers will set up links as follows – “see examples of my photography here “. It’s much more helpful to set up your links as “see examples of my photography”. This will then link to a document called “photography.html” that features a title of “Photography by Bob”. Search engine spiders will see this page as being highly relevant to “photography” and will therefore be more likely to serve up your page when queried for the term “photography”.

5. Image File Names and ALT Tags

Most sites contain lots of images and they will probably be named so that they make sense. This may make it easier for you to stay organised but certainly doesn’t help Search Engine spiders to index your site. It’s better to name your image files as whatever keyword you’re trying to be found under. A file called illustration_clientname.jpg is much more effective that a file simply called clientname.jpg. Many of the search engines are now starting to serve up keyword relevant image results at the top of text search results and this technique can also help you get listed there. One think to keep in mind here – while search engines love relevancy, they hate repetition. Mix it up a little. You can also use ALT tags (the text descriptions of images that appears as an image is loading into a browser and when you “mouse over” the image itself). Use your keywords to describe the image, but use keywords judicially and as “naturally” as possible.

6. Images and Search Engines

If there’s one area in which most sites hamper their search engine performance, it is in the use of images to control the “look and feel” of the site. Some designer’s sites do not have a scrap of “real” text. Not one word (and they wonder why, despite all their online promotional efforts, their site remains off the charts in search engine relevance). Some designers tend to use images for everything on a web site, including large blocks of text (and even design example captions). At the current level of browser development, web design is fairly restrictive, in terms of what fonts we can use and more importantly, how we can lay text out. Designers generally pick the same solution – creating a graphic and inserting it into the web page. It looks nice, however, it’s important to keep in mind one thing – search engine spiders are completely blind when it comes to the content of any image. Other than the name of the directory in which it sits, the file name, and the ALT tag (which we’ve already covered). The graphically depicted text does not mean anything to the search engines when it’s part of a .jpg or a .gif. Unless search engine Spiders can read them, they are uselessly irrelevant.

While search engines like Google will index links it finds embedded in graphics, it seems to prefer text links and besides, unlike a graphic interface, text links allow you to utilize keywords that are relevant to your site.

7. Splash Pages

The “splash page” on most web sites effectively kills any chance of real SEO performance. Splash pages are usually laid out the same – a logo that sits on the home page of the site and perhaps an “enter site” button underneath (despite the fact that your visitor has already entered your site by going to your www.yoursite.com address).

Your top directory page (the page that is served when someone types in your domain name only – it’s actual directory name is probably index.html) is the most important page on your web site. It is the page that Google and other search engines see as the most relevant to the contents of your site. It is vital to put keyword dense text on the page. Along with keyword dense text links.

8. Text and Content

Google loves text. As do most other search engine spiders. So you have to give it to them. Images are fine, but as we’ve pointed out earlier, search engine spiders are blind to pictures and artwork (other than file names and ALT tags), so nicely written text is a must if you want to place well with indexes and directories. Your text should be written to include your keywords (which match your page title, description, ALT tags and file names) without it reading like you’re trying to spam the engines. Overused and overwrought keywords can make it appear that your site is poorly written, so it’s critically important to keep a basic principle in mind. Once your visitors are at your site, you want to “sell” yourself through effective copy. Overused keywords will turn your visitors off, and they may just hit the back button after they’ve read a paragraph that uses the term “illustration” 15 times. Well-written copy (how-tos and tutorials for example) also helps you obtain “organic” linking (linking from other sites that is not part of a reciprocal arrangement). If a visitor to your site finds an interesting article or tutorial, it’s likely that they will link to it as a way of sharing relevant resources. That’s a big bonus in terms of SEO.

9. Linking

In order to discuss linking (the essence of the web) it is necessary to understand a few types of links:

• Inbound links – links that are pointing TO the page/site in question.
• Outbound links – links that point somewhere else FROM the page in question.
• Text links – the underlined links that are featured on most web sites.
• Graphic links – when the links is tagged to a graphic (.gif, .jpg and/or Flash) and does not feature editable text.
• Reciprocal links – sites that your web links to, and they link back to your site.
• Non-reciprocal links – sites that link to you WITHOUT an outbound link to their site, or sites that you link to WITHOUT an inbound link to your site.

Search engine spiders find pages by following links and adding those new pages to their indexes for deeper investigation at a later time. The text in the link helps set up the expectation of what the linked page is all about and when combined with the page title, description and keywords, helps a page be found when someone is performing a particular search. But that’s only a small part of linking, and how it relates to your overall SEO campaign. Link relevance also counts heavily in the search engine’s algorithms in which sites are more relevant for what. The number of “quality” (very important) links that point towards your site is an indication of how much your site is “respected” (a link to your site is almost considered a vote). The formula is relatively simple – The more quality links to your site, the more “votes” for your site, ergo your site must be an important source of material for your keywords.

Where linking TO your site becomes a little more complicated is the matter of WHO is linking to your site, and HOW they are linking. You want relevant sites to link to your site (in this case, websites that are relevant to graphic design) and you want these sites to link with a text link that contains one or two of your main keywords. The best kind of link is an inbound link (without a reciprocal link from your site) that is from a relevant site. Many designers already harvest PR from this basic premise (whether they realise it or not).

Another aspect of linking and page names that many people underestimate comes from within your own web site. You may have 5, 10, 50, 100 or more pages in your web site, all with varying degrees of page relevancy and SEO penetration. Each page represents a linking opportunity to your “home page” and the ability to “bump” keyword relevance.

A site map is also very helpful as it allows the Search Engine spiders to quickly add ALL your links and pages in one fell swoop (rather then trolling around your site and running the risk of missing one link or another). Important – place a link to your site map on your home page (your home page “votes” for the site map, which subsequently “votes” for all the pages in your site). Having a site map also allows you to quickly index new additions to your site, from both human and search engine points of view. While there’s no guarantee, articles and information on your site can help create organic inbound links. If your material is interesting and varied enough, people will link to it on their own accord, as they share their Internet “finds” with friends and associates.

While inbound links are the most effective, you’ll probably have to encourage people to link to their site by agreeing to link to theirs. And that’s fair enough. Known as “reciprocal linking” this too can have staggering SEO implications. The key to reciprocal linking is relevancy.

10. META Tags

META tags have been left near the end of this article because in terms of SEO importance, that’s where the discussion belongs. META tags (title, description and keywords) have become less and less important in terms of search engine relevance.

The Title META tag dictates how you page will be presented in a search and will help in relevancy.

The description META tag is how your site will be described in search results.

These two META tags are critical in convincing someone who is presented your site in a search result (along with nine others), to click on YOUR link. These two META tags need to be very descriptive, relevant and hopefully feature some form of “call to action”. Your keywords should be featured in both the description and title tags, but use them as judicially and as “naturally” as possible. Repeating keywords over and over again in either of these tags will not help your placement (there’s some evidence that it will hinder search performance) and if your site does get placed, a spammy description or title will do nothing to convince anyone to select your link over the others presented on the search result page.

That’s not to say that keywords and META tags should be avoided – just understand their lessened importance to overall SEO.

SEO Friendly Hosting

Website hosting plays a hidden role in any site’s search engine optimisation work. Choosing a bad hosting provider can affect your site’s search engine ranking.

There are a lot of web hosting providers who offer cheap website hosting to attract customers, but it is important to be aware of certain factors which affect SEO.

These are some tips for choosing an SEO friendly web hosting services.

Unique IP Address: Some website hosting providers host multiple domains on the same IP address, which is not SEO friendly. Search engines may take it as spamming and can blacklist the server.

Choose a Local Data Centre: If you are targeting a particular location for your online business promotion then you should make sure you choose a web hosting company that have a data centre in that country. Search engines give more priority to the local hosted website than the hosting provided from any other country in the results based on local search engine results.

Choose a Server with SEO Friendly Settings: Your web hosting should have the facility for redirecting such as mod_rewrite, mod_alias, 301 redirect, 302 redirect, custom 404 page errors and more.

For more advice on hosting your website, contact us.

Why is my site not #1 on Google?

According to statistics, as of June 2008 there are over 103 million websites on the World Wide Web. With this kind of competition, you might think you need a miracle to be found in search engines. In fact, it just requires some hard work, time and some realistic expectations.

Which Search Engines Do I Need?

The first step to getting your website found is to submit it to the major search engines. Only three sites – Google, Yahoo!, and MSN – generate the results seen on all primary search engines. According to research, Google is responsible for nearly 50% of all searches, Yahoo 24% and MSN 10%.

With its dominance of the search engine landscape, Google makes its own rules for ranking sites in search results and changes them often. Some changes result from its own continuing research or from competitive pressures. Google also shakes things up to prevent large, well funded companies from dominating results permanently or to counteract the dynamic of people gaming the system to enhance search engine results.

Google usually doesn’t index sites with new domain names for up to six months after the site goes live. The delay allows time for development and avoids wasting search resources on fly-by-night sites, but it can be very frustrating if you have a site that needs to be active by a certain deadline.

Type your URL into the search box at www.google.com – if your site appears in the results, Google has indexed it. If not – and it’s been more than a few months since you originally submitted – resubmit your URL. Even if you have an existing site, it may take a few weeks for Google to fully index a redesigned site.

Go to each of these URLs to start the submission process by hand.

Google feeds six other search engines:
www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Yahoo! feeds two other search engines:
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
MSN is independent, feeding only HotBot:
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2

Buying ads from Google AdWords (Pay Per Click) can provide a presence on Google until your site is indexed.

Building a Search-Engine-Friendly Site

A well-structured, search-engine-friendly site allows search engines to index your site easily. Up to half of all sites are so badly structured that search engines never ’see’ them in the first place.

Getting good rankings is done with a combination of content optimisation and standards-based web building. This means that if your site is well structured, accessible and has concise, relevant content, then you’re already halfway there. Sticking to web standards will give you another boost, with the last push coming from developing reciprocal links with other sites.

Requirements for search-engine-friendliness change over time as technology and search engine algorithms improve, however the following details best practices to help you compete against all the other sites struggling for the same visibility.

01. Choosing Keywords

Google returns results from pages featuring keywords entered in its search box. To get into those results, you need to determine your keywords. Keywords are the word combinations and phrases that people use to search for sites. If those keywords appear in your site, and your pages have been indexed by Google, then your site should appear in the returned search. The problem is, so will every other site containing the keywords. Google employs a ranking system to decide the order in which sites are returned, and keyword relevance is one of the primary components in that system.

Essentially then, keyword optimisation is all about skewing those results in your favour. You do this by making sure that your page contains a good balance of appropriate keywords to relevant content.

02. Make Sites Accessible

Sticking to web standards and the principles of accessible web building will help ensure that your site ranks highly. Many people new to search engine optimisation are surprised by how much of it is based on fundamental design principles, with rule number one being that you should follow accessibility guidelines outlined by the World Wide Web Consortium and other organisations.

Start by making sure that images in your site are correctly and descriptively labelled throughout. Also ensure that every page in your site has its descriptive title using the <title> tag. If you can include one or more of your keywords in that title in a way that doesn’t seem forced, then that’s even better.

Hyperlinks should be clear and easy to follow too. If your human visitors can’t find them, then Google can’t. This means making sure that there are text alternatives to all navigation options – and that images used for navigation are properly labelled using the ‘alt’ tag. The same advice applies to image maps. Don’t forget the ‘title’ attribute in hyperlinks either – it’s another opportunity to include relevant keywords naturally.

In the same way as you provide alternate links for images, you should provide descriptive text in pages that include plug-in content. The ‘object’ tag that’s used to embed media files and Flash content, for example, takes the ‘alt’ parameter. There should also be an adequate and clear description of content in the body of the page too. Try to avoid linking directly to rich media files if you want Google to index them, and always embed media files in an HTML page.

03. Keyword Calamity

Keywords are important, but there’s a wrong way and a right way to deploy them. While seeding content with keywords is useful – there are mistakes that everyone makes when trying to get their sites noticed by the search engines. Be careful not to repeat these errors; at best you may alienate users, at worst your site will be excluded from search engine databases. The ‘relevance’ of a page is decided by a number of factors, including the number of times a specific searched for word appears. Search engines are also designed to seek out and ignore deliberate repetition. So, if you have a site about garden gnomes and you place the words “gnome, gnome, gnome, gnome…” in your keywords, your page may get filtered out. Similarly, it’s not a wise idea to put keywords in your pages that attract hits that don’t have anything to do with the content within.

04. Black Hat Techniques

Beware of using the optimisation techniques that could get you banned. Some techniques recommended by SEO sites may give you an advantage – but only in the short term. In the long run, some methods can actually damage your Google page rank.

Doorway pages – pages crammed with keywords that link back to a main site – are frowned upon and should be avoided. Double that advice if your text is hidden, rendered at tiny font sizes, coloured to match the background of page or tucked away at the bottom of the page that’s had scrolling disabled. This trick tries to fool search engines into thinking there’s more content in a page than there actually is, but Google’s too clever for that.

Google also frowns on pages that redirect you to other pages, whether used legitimately or not, because this has been used as a technique to forward users to sites with content they weren’t actually looking for. Similarly, the practice of cloaking – a trick where you try and fool the search engine with fake content – won’t get you very far either.

While half the search engine optimisation battle can be won with carefully optimised content that contains keywords, don’t go overboard. Stick to the 15% rule and always make sure that keywords and phrases fit naturally into your content. Long lists of keywords without context are inadvisable.

05. Do your Research

Find out what your visitors are searching for with help from your log files.

Do some digging to discover how your current visitors find your site, and you’ll be able to refine and optimise your content further. It can be as simple as asking your visitors how they came to find your site and what phrases they entered into a search engine. And the question can be incorporated in your registration procedure quite easily.

Alternatively, you can look through your site logs to find out what search terms visitors are already using. If they came from a search engine, the terms should be embedded in the referring URL. Once you know what keywords people are using, you can expand on that, optimising the use of them in prominent areas within your site. Your log files will also reveal the pages in your site that are most popular – enabling you to identify neglected sections. When you’ve found them, review them and look for reasons why they’re not working. It could be due to broken links or weak navigation. Think about each section within your site as a mini-site, with it’s own unique content, and seed keywords in the content. When done, resubmit the pages back to the search engines.

06. Optimising Content

True search engine optimisation is based on your content. Poor spelling and grammar will decrease the probability that your site will appear high up in Google’s search results. And perhaps worse, these errors may appear in the description snippet that accompanies your site, making you look bad and destroying your optimisation work. It’s also important to bin the jargon, so aim to create content that’s written in clear English.

Journalists often use a structure in their writing called the Inverted Pyramid. Simply put, this means that they ensure that all the important information appears in the first paragraph. After that comes detail and description. It’s good to follow this pattern to make your content more readable, but it also improves your chances with Google. The search engine puts more weight on content higher up in your page, so it makes sense to put the most important keywords early in your text.

While embedding keywords in meta tags is less effective with Google than it is with other search engines, placing the kinds of words and phrases your visitors might search for in your content is essential. In fact, it’s the most important factor in search engine optimisation. Preparation is essential and begins with a hunt for keywords that potential users might associate with your site. Start with a simple brainstorming session on paper. Write down all the keywords and phrase combinations you can think of that fit your content. Comb your server logs for keywords your visitors have used and flick through a thesaurus for further inspiration.

SEO experts recommend that between 5 – 15% of the textual content of an optimised page should be keywords included naturally in your content. And just adding a list of keywords to a page will make your ratings plummet. Remember, you’re aiming for that magic figure of 15%. Getting the density figure too high may have a detrimental effect on your site’s placing.

07. Adding Meta Tags

Google decides what order sites appear in in it’s search engine results using a patented set of algorithms that go under the umbrella title of ‘PageRank’. The company claims that there are over 100 different factors in this secret recipe. Many sources claim that meta tags – the descriptive hidden tags embedded in the head of a page – aren’t one of those factors. But not so, says Google. In particular, it claims that although the keyword and description meta tags are just a small component in the PageRank algorithm, they’re still in there.

Other search engines use both tags to influence ranking. Yahoo!, in particular, searches through the description meta tag and will display the text in the results it returns. Optimising for Google alone is folly, especially when your site is partially ranked according to the number of quality links back to you.

The meta tag code includes title, description and author information for your page. Your list of relevant keywords should be separated by commas. Don’t bother with plurals or alternate spellings and try not to repeat words.

The title should be descriptive and concise – remember that some search engines will return this as the descriptive snippet. A couple of sentences will do. Try to include your most important key phrases and keep to under 150 characters.

There’s little evidence that search engines query the category meta tag, but selecting a category won’t do any harm.

08. Site Structure

The hierarchical arrangement of your pages and the directories they’re contained in, can have an influence on your Google rankings. To be precise, it has an impact on how effectively your site is indexed by Googlebot*, the search engine’s software spider.

The key is to be organised. Arrange the content of your site into distinct categories and make sure that each category is accessible through your primary navigation system. Your front page should provide direct access to each category, and to choice content within those categories. To help keep URLs shorter on static sites, you can store pages from each category in separate, descriptively named directories, and include an index file in each category with a frequently updated list of all content – like a mini site map. Bloggers will be familiar with the technique of listing archived pages in a navigation sidebar, and most content management systems enable you to generate those lists automatically.

* For more information on how Googlebot works, visit http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=8843.

09. Page Layout

Clean layouts and a lack of clutter will help Google index your site. You’d be surprised the difference a clean, well organised page layout can make to your rankings in Google. To get an idea of how Google sees your pages, try looking at them in a text-only browser. If your page breaks, then Google won’t be able to make the most of it either.

Your web pages are indexed in the same way a person reads, from top to bottom – so important content should go near the top. A common layout problem is cluttered code preventing spiders from finding your content. Tables, for example, make life difficult for Google – and nested tables add to it’s woes. As for frames, Google only copes well with frame-based pages when they’re well formed and conform to standards. This means embedding your full page content in the No Frames section as text. It is advisable to use CSS to layout pages, separating form from content. And if you do use CSS, use standard HTML mark-up rather than creating custom classes.

Look at your pages in a text-only browser to get a good idea of how a search engine spider sees them.

10. Links Matter

Links from other sites can improve your PageRank significantly. It’s well known that a major component of Google’s page rank is the number of ‘quality’ links back to your site. Ironically, you can help boost this by submitting to directories other than just Google’s. Target web directories that deal with the subject matter or service provided by your site. These are in turn indexed by search engines and can help to boost your page rank.

It’s equally important to nurture real links back to your site from similar ones. Ask partners, suppliers, industry-related portals and friends to link back to you, and offer reciprocal links in return. There’s some evidence to suggest that having a page of links to other quality sites with similar content can improve your rankings.

For more information on optimising your site for Google, contact us.

What are Google AdWords?

In a nutshell, when someone searches on Google for something you offer, as long as you’ve used the right keywords in your campaign, your ad can appear next to the search results.

Millions of people use Google every day, and AdWords is a great way to tap into this potential customer base. And you only pay when someone clicks your ad.

AdWords is easy to use; you don’t have to be an IT expert and it only takes 15 minutes to register and set up your account.

Creating an AdWords Starter Edition Account

If you’re new to online advertising, AdWords Starter Edition is the easiest way to set up an account and get your ads running. You can graduate to the more powerful Standard Edition at any time.

Here’s how to create an AdWords Starter Edition account and begin running text ads.

1. Visit the Adwords homepage at www.google.co.uk/adwords and click ‘Start now’.
2. Select ‘Starter Edition’. If you’d like Google to set you up with a free webpage, be sure to select ‘I don’t have a webpage’. Google assumes you do have one so complete your information and click ‘Continue’.
3. Select your ad location and language. Choose the country, region, or even local area where you want your ad to appear. Select the language in which you want to write your ad. Your ad appears to users who have selected this as their primary language (Google does not translate your ad).
4. Write your ad. Enter the website that the ad will link to and enter a headline and two lines of text. Click ‘Editorial Guidelines’ for advice on writing your ad and to ensure that your ads and keywords comply with Google’s guidelines.
5. Choose your keywords. These are the search terms that can trigger the display of your ad.
6. Choose the currency that you’ll use to pay Google for your AdWords ads. This currency only affects the way you pay Google; it’s unrelated to any currencies you may use for transactions with your customers.
7. Set your monthly budget. Select one of the pre-set monthly amounts or select the box at the bottom and enter your own amount. When you reach your budget allocation, your ads no longer appear, meaning you won’t go over your set budget. Click ‘Continue’.
8. Follow the instructions on the ‘Set Up Account’ page to either enter your existing account information or to create a new Google account. When you’ve finished, click ‘Create AdWords Account’. A confirmation page appears, saying that a verification message has been sent to your email address. Your ad won’t start running until Google have verified your account.
9. Follow the instructions in your verification email. Enter your billing information. Set the time zone for your account, and agree to the AdWords terms and conditions. On the final setup page, click ‘Save and Activate’.

After you complete this process, your ad can start running almost immediately.

Creating an AdWords Standard Edition Account

The Standard Edition AdWords account has greater functionality. It is recommend it for more experienced Internet users and small to medium-sized businesses. Here’s how to set up your account:

1. Visit the AdWords homepage at www.google.co.uk/adwords and click ‘Start now’.
2. Select ‘Standard Edition’, click ‘Continue’, and follow steps 3-5 in the previous section ‘Creating an AdWords Starter Edition Acount’.
3. Select your billing currency (the currency to pay for your AdWords) and enter the amount that you’re willing to spend on your ad campaign each day. The daily budget controls how often your ad appears on Google. If your daily budget is low, Google spread the delivery of your ad throughout the day to stay within the amount that you set.
4. Enter the maximum amount that you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Your cost per click (CPC) influences the position of your ad on the search engine results page. Google’s AdWords Discounter automatically monitors your competition and reduces your actual CPC so that you’re charged the minimum necessary to maintain your ad’s position on the page. Google also offers pricing on a cost-per-1000 impressions (CPM) basis if you’d like to place your ads on targeted websites. Find out more about other pricing options at www.google.co.uk/adwords/pricing.
5. Click ‘View Traffic Estimator’ to view your average CPC and cost estimates and click ‘Continue’.
6. Review all your ad selections so far. Click ‘Edit’ to change any selection; you can return to this review page after you make your edits. Click ‘Continue to Sign Up’.
7. Follow the instructions on the ‘Set Up Account’ page either to enter your existing account information or to create a new Google account.
   If you don’t have a Google account or do but prefer to use different login information for your AdWords account, select the second radio button. Enter your email address and password for your AdWords account. If you see the error message ‘user already exists’, see the FAQ for instructions. Click ‘Create Account’.
   If you used your existing Google account login information to create your AdWords account, you can now sign in to your AdWords account. If you used new login information, you receive an email asking you to click on a link to verify your email address. Click on the link in the message and then sign in to your AdWords account with the email address and password you submitted on the registration form.
8. Activate your account. When you first log in to your account, you see a red message box at the top of the page. Click ‘Billing Preferences’ and complete the account setup process by entering your billing information. Set the time zone for your account and agree to the AdWords terms and conditions. On the final setup page, click ‘Save and Activate’.
   If you choose to pay by credit or debit card, your ads appear on Google almost as soon as you enter your billing information. If you opt to pay by direct debit, Google may need to receive and process your debit authorisation before your ads start running. If you elect to prepay for your AdWords account, your ads run after you submit your payment information and Google receive your first payment.

Writing Ads to Get People Clicking

Writing ads may well be the hardest part of AdWords to master, but at least you know what works and what doesn’t right away, because your clicks tell you. The best way to see which ads bring you the greatest results is to write three or four at one time and then check your clicks. Ads with the highest clickthrough rate (the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown) are top performers.

Here are some tried and true tricks:

Include keywords in your ad headline, because that’s what people are looking for. Doing so makes your ad more relevant.

Relate your ad to the content on the website users see when they click on your ad. This means they’re more likely to purchase from you.

Get to the point – fast. Include the most relevant information about your business first. Make your ad concise and encourage the user to take action.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines such as Google, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser’s website.

Advertisers specify the words that should trigger their ads and the maximum amount they are willing to pay per click.

When a user searches Google’s search engine, adverts for relevant words are shown as “sponsored links” on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results.

The ordering of the paid listings depends on other advertisers’ bids (PPC) and the “quality score” of all ads shown for a given search. The quality score is calculated by historical click-through rates and the relevance of an advertiser’s ad text and keywords, as determined by Google. The quality score is also used by Google to set the minimum bids for an advertiser’s keywords. The precise formula and meaning of relevance and its definition is in part secret to Google and whose parameters can be dynamically changed.

The auction mechanism that determines the order of the ads has been called a “generalized second price” auction.

Further information on Google Pay Per Click Advertising can be found here.

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