Home | Site Map

5 Tips For A Better Website

Having an eye catching website is great, but are you optimizing your website to allow the best performance possible? I receive several emails a day from clients asking how they can get more hits to their websites, what can be done to increase sales, and how to prepare their sites for search engines. There are very simple things that can be done to help your website perform its best.

First of all, a websites load time is important for many reasons. No one wants to site and wait a minute for a page to show up. Slow loading websites can attribute to lost sales for your business! Many customers will actually avoid a website that takes a long time to load. You can keep your websites load time down drastically but keeping the size 26kb or smaller. If you are unsure of the size if your site you can calculate the size of your web page by highlighting the HTML document, then click on 'File' and 'Properties' and see your file size. Then repeat same step for each graphic you have on that page. Add each file size together to get the exact size of that page. One of the easiest ways to get a faster loading page is to shrink the images on your website. A GIF graphic can normally be reduced by around 30-40% without loosing any sharpness.

A site that contains broken links gives a bad impression to your visitors and can be a cause of lost visitors. Aside from the fact that broken links look unprofessional, some of the major search engines and portals may not index your page if it has broken links or missing images. You should check your website once it is complete to make sure every link is working properly, to avoid a possible business loss.

Search engines do not index images, so it is a good idea to always add ALT tags to your images to make sure the search engines recognize all of the content on your site. ALT tags that contain keywords can also be used to increase your keyword frequency and help you achieve better rankings.

When creating meta tags do NOT repeat the same key word several times. This is called 'keyword spamming' and it is disliked by the search engines. Let's say your website offers gift baskets, use the keyword 1 or two times and that is it. If your keywords are baby gift basket, hostess gift, wedding basket, corporate gift basket, holiday gift basket, you have repeated the keyword gift and basket to many times. You can minimize your keyword characters by using gift basket, wedding, gifts, baby, wedding, corporate, and holiday. This way your website is not considered keyword spamming.

Many designers often separate keywords with commas. Instead of separating each keyword with a comma, just separate them using a space. By doing this, it will allow the search engines to combine your keywords into phrases, for people who use phrases to search.

These are very simple things that will help you see a big difference!

About The Author

Tara Grant, owner of http://www.designbytara.com, http://www.southernmomsonline.com, and http://www.wahpnetwork.com.

Tara is a mom of two small children and a warm-hearted entrepreneur. An avid networker in the WAHM community, Tara's website designs and promotion packages are reasonably priced and geared toward female entrepreneurs and small business

info@designbytara.com

MORE RESOURCES:

Yahoo! News Search Results for website design
Yahoo! News Search Results for website design

• Finally a Complete Solution: Hosting, Custom Website Design, Custom Logo, Fla...
Only $19.99 a month gets you instantly scalable hosting and UNLIMITED custom website design/logo design/flash design services. First 100 signups receive 1 year domain registration free (PRWeb Aug 29, 2008) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/website-design/domain-registration/prweb1257484.htm
• NADCA Launches NADCA Design Website to Assist Die Casting Product Designers (...
Located at http://www.diecastingdesign.org/, NADCA Design website uses video modules to visually illustrate practical information designer needs for day-to-day development of die cast products, as well as advanced topics to assist designers in determining if die casting is appropriate for product design. Modules range from animations of basic die casting process to how die casting material ...
• Review: Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro design software (Computer Active)
Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro gives users everything they need to create their own websites without any prior experience. Not only will it create and manage web pages, it will also deal with all the additional administrative issues you may not have known about before starting.
• Vistrex Adds Web Design/Hosting Plan (Web Host Industry Review)
August 29, 2008 -- ( WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Vistrex, owner and operator of custom web design firm BestSiteDesign.net, announced on Friday it has launched a complete solution that includes both website design and hosting services for a business or individual's website.
• LG expands London design team (Mad.co.uk)
South Korean electronics giant LG is expanding its London design team, ahead of the launch of its first fully European-designed mobile phone handset.

RELATED ARTICLES

Creating a Sticky Web Site
When used to describe a web site, the term "sticky" refers to a site that is able to get viewers to stay at the site longer and come back frequently. Sticky web sites are more likely to turn viewers into customers.

Free Webmaster Tools - 7 Things Every Webmaster Needs in Their Toolbox
Webmaster tools are vital to becoming both efficient and effective in your online efforts. The following are my picks for the top types of webmaster tools:Tool #1 Link FindersEvery webmaster needs this free tool.

Web Site Optimization: How To Speed Up Your Web Site By Minimizing Your GIF and PNG Image Bit-Depth
Are bloated images slowing down your web site and causing you lost business? Images comprise over 50% of the average web page so putting them on a diet is essential to improving web performance. One of the best ways to optimize GIFs and PNGs is to minimize the "bit-depth" or the number of colors within your images.

Make Your Web Site Stand Out
When visitors add your web site to their Favorites or bookmark your site, what shows up in their list of sites? There are at least two things you can do to make sure your site stands out on anyone's list of Favorites, including a great idea that very few sites use. If you have a webmaster, he or she should be able to make these changes quickly, and those who maintain their own sites can easily handle these simple tasks.

What Hosting Companies Dont Tell You, Could Hurt You?
Did you know that hosting companies overcrowd their servers despite all the issues caused by servers running hundreds of accounts? Are you aware of what happens if your website is hosted on a server that's overcrowded? You're probably thinking to yourself, "what do you mean overcrowd their servers?" Overcrowded servers mean big money for your hosting company, but also big problems for your website.Hosting companies are willing to sacrifice the success of your website in order to build their own profit.

Growing Your Meetings In CyberSpace
As increasing numbers of people search for information on the Internet, it becomes more imperative to have a compelling Website to promote and support your meetings.Here is my list of "The Seven Most Important Things You can do Online":1.

Web Sites - Should I Learn or not?
A common dilemma most small and medium businesses face when coming to their web site is if they should take the time to learn how to build a web site or not? Here's my honest thoughts on this topic.If you read my previous article you would know that a web page is fundamentally written in HTML (let's leave the dynamic stuff out for now).

My Yahoo Search - Beyond Bookmarks
Yahoo has long offered email, an online calendar, notes, bookmarks, and more through their free My Yahoo service. Now Yahoo has expanded this service even more by adding My Yahoo Personal Search to the mix.

Web Accessibility Myths
With more and more countries around the world passing laws about blind and disabled access to the Internet (including the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK), web accessibility has been thrown into the spotlight of the online community. This article attempt to put a stop to the misinformation that has been thrown around and tell you the truth behind web accessibility.

What is The Google Toolbar?
No matter what browser you may want to use, you should consider using Google's toolbar. Google.

10 Tips For Running A Profitable Web Site
1. Address your targeted audience on your business site.

Why Every Small Business Owner Needs Two Websites
Every small business owner knows that they need a website, right? Well the truth is what they really need is at least two websites.One website that is specific to their business, product, service, name, etc.

Running An Effective Website
Running an effective website is a continuous process. I have compiled five (5) ways of doing it on a regular basis.

Effective Webdesign
D.zigns dzignerwebs The Basics Before starting on how to design a website effectively, how about clearing some basic web design concepts? Designing Effectively Now that you know what web design and related terms mean, lets get down to the real thing: Designing Effectively How to balance artistic design with practicality and functionality.

Things to Consider Before Starting a Website
In the time that I have been using the Internet, (since 1996) I have seen a lot of websites.� I have seen a lot of good websites and I have seen a lot that were just plain awful.

CSS - Maximum Benefits
What is CSS?CSS is a simple file which controls the visual appearance of a Web page without compromising its structure. Using CSS we can control our font size, font color, link color and many other attributes on our web page.

Better Web Site ROI: Efficient Online Business with SEO, PPC, Split Testing, and Forums
If you're looking for better web site ROI, chances are, the web is only one part of your business, you have a specific budget for your web site, and you want the site to not only carry its own weight, but why can't it make you some extra dough, too?The corporate situation: budgets need to be closely watched, and tech people can't get carried away with unnecessary frills.My own experience making money online and becoming and SEO expert was more guerilla than corporate.

Web Coach Tip: What You Should Know About DIY Web Sites
Recently, a friend asked "What's the deal with those DIY companies that advertise "How to get a website with everything your business needs for under $20 bucks a month?". "How can they do that?" she said.

Ever Wondered What Challenges Other People With Their Web Site?
Have you ever wondered what challenges are faced by other webmasters and owners in the design and promotion of their websites, well I certainly have and so I decided to try and find out.I created a short survey which asked the following questions:1.

Optimal Website Design
Optimal website design is the art of logical navigation.It will offer consistency while providing useful, quality information that is attractive to the eye and easy to understand.