Free Website and Graphic Design Advice

All too often, when  I redesign websites for clients who have previously paid for a website, tried to do it themselves or have had their “nephew” do it, I find very few methods for visitors to contact the business behind the site.
Make it easy for your visitors to find what they’re looking for and then contact you with questions or orders. Put your contact methods on every page. At the very least include an “email us” option or a phone number or fax number on each page. Make it easy for people to access you and your products or services. If you have a storefront include a link people can use to get directions to your location and include your hours of operation.
Your navigation should be thorough and clear and it should be on every page.  If you link out to your blog make sure there is a link to get back to your main website or, as an alternative, have the blog open up in its own window (although you should still have a link to your website on your blog). If visitors can’t quickly find what they want or can’t easily get in touch with you they are very likely to leave your site immediately. I do.
When it comes to website navigation and user-friendliness remember to keep it simple and make it clear. Do all that you can to help your visitors get what they’re looking for.

Two major factors resulting in better search engine placement are relevent content and the correct use of keywords.

The importance of the relationship between keywords and content cannot be understated. Your keywords should appear in your content but please don’t “over do it”! Your site could be rejected by a search engine if you have too many keywords in a page’s content. Keep the percentage of keywords to between 5-10% of the page’s overall content. You should also keep the number of keywords in your code to somewhere around 20-25 words maximum. Too many keywords in the meta tag will dillute their value.
Content should be relevent and informative while including those all important keywords. Check you content and keep it current by updating it regularly. Finally, don’t forget to include a keyword or two in your page title and meta description section.

Here are a couple of hint to help you make your website even more “crawlable” by the search engines. Why? Because it’s the key to better search engine return ranking. You want people to find your site!
1. Spiders like html and lots of content related text. Keep the Flash but don’t go all Flash and use alt tags on your pictures. Make sure you have enough html and content related text to keep the spiders happy.
2. Include a sitemap in your website. Spiders love a good sitemap and ifyou’re not sure how to set it up, Google will give you all the help you need. Take a look at their Webmaster Tools.
3. Update you site. Putting up a website and never updating it is the wrong approach. The spiders want to crawl new stuff and your visitors want new reasons to return. Do yourself a favor and make the time to update your website.

You can register your domain name from any one of the many sites designed this purpose. Two examples of such sites are: Register.com and Simple URL.  It is important that you review their services when comparing. Cost should not be the only deciding factor. Typically, you will be asked to enter the name you desire and if it’s available, you can purchase it right then and there. If your first choice has already been taken you will have to submit alternate names until you find one that’s available.  
You can also purchase your domain name from the hosting service you will be using. This is usually the better approach. If you register your domain name and utilize hosting services from the same company there will be less confusion. If you choose to register and host with the same company make sure that if you decide to change to another hosting service in the future that you can “take the domain name with you”. It is important that your domain name is registered to you not to your web developer, designer or hosting service!

Keep your website visitors coming back. A “sticky” site gives its visitors reasons to return to the site and since the number of visitors a site gets has a large impact on its ranking…you want as many visits as you can get! With that in mind, take a look at Freesticky.com. This is a site where you can get lots of free content to help make your website “sticky”. You’ll find items like horoscopes, games, software, educational material, maps, tools and tips. Just follow their simple directions and you’ll be making your site even more appealing to your visitors.