Firefox is growing to be the majority in web browsing, but it still has it's quirks. When you design a new web site you HAVE to test it in different browsers. Most people have noticed that Firefox will put a dotted border around links that have been clicked on, here is a simple bit of coding to stop that annoyance.
a:active, a:focus {
outline: 0
}
Today a guy asked em where I got the energy to manage a graphic design firm that creates 4 publications weekly, manage a web design company, and run my own business, Goatsmilktavern Stusios. I gave him some spill about it being about the "end goal". I have thought about his question all day and would like to thank him for forcing me to reflect on the topic of "bustin' ass". The true answer is love of what I do and ambition. I would like to talk about the effort involved in design and SEO.
The job of a designer is to constantly study, surf the web and notice cool things and effective things. You can never stop improving your trade, I don't know everything, and I know that. I don't think I will ever know everything, but I am always willing to learn. Designers should spend a little time everyday in the many tutorial sites across the web trying to learn a new trick everyday. This goes for print design and web design.
SEO is a different creature all together. Your job as a SEO provider is never done, rankings change hundreds of times each day. At 5pm I had the top 2 positions for "new orleans seo" and 2 minutes ago one of my SEO pages fell to page 3. I will work on it, that is what we do. SEO is a constant battle and you need to strap in whenever one of you pages falls behind and pull it up.
In the world of design and SEO, hard work and constant education can go a long way, never get complacent. Technology and methods are constantly changing, if you stop to breathe for a minute, you may get lost.
Read industry blogs and participate in the community, become part of the movements ahead. People will begin to recognize your name, and if your input is valued then so are you.
Keep "bustin' ass" and your efforts will pay-off.
Check this out! I just checked my rankings in the Google. SERPs, I am doing pretty good. I haven't really done that much offsite SEO to the Goatsmilktavern Website.
I had intentions of really slamming the search engines when I was done writing all of the content for the site, but I am creeping up without any links. I really thought it would be harder than this considering I am competing with other, larger SEO companies. When I start my link campaign I should be on top of every key phrase I am targeting. It appears that "New Orleans web design" will be the hardest nice to bust into simply because of the age of the other sites (mine is only a year old). I would like to concentrate on SEO, but I still love being a web designer.
I made a post on my other blog that is more fitting for this one about how to get indexed in Google in 24 hours. you can find it here. The company I work for is now selling websites and I had to get one indexed fast, and it only took me 1 blog post and about 4 hours of waiting to do it.
I am working on a series of tips to move your site up the search engines, so look for them here soon.
I have added a new blog to the Goatsmilktavern website. This blog will be for posts dealing with projects by Goatsmilktavern Studios. You can find it at http://neworleanswebdesign.wordpress.com.
Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits.
There are 9 main points you should focus on:
• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description META tags
• TITLE tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Header tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks
The focus of these 9 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.
Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site, this formula is:
Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density
Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.
Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Web Design", I want my site to include the words "Web Design" as many times as possible.
However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in New Orleans, I would include "New Orleans web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.
URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not se a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.
Description META tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.
Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.
TITLE Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don't put anything between the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.
Image Names
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don't call it "some_dude.jpg", call it "web_site_design.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.
ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.
Header tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:
Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs…
Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your META tags follow.
H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag…
Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.
Content
As every expert will tell you, "Content is King." Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.
Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.
You don't have to be a vi or emac expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:
• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an
Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.
Murry Daniels is the owner of Goatsmilktavern Studios, a web design and internet marketing company in New Orleans, Louisiana.
