Today every client expects that their website HTML and CSS code is error free and valid. To ensure this, their website code should be checked using an Internet based, HTML and CSS validation service. If errors are indicated then these need to be fixed.

If no errors are encountered most of the Internet based HTML and CSS validation services encourage you to display either icons or links on the web page stating that its HTML and CSS code is valid. These icons / links can be clicked and the page will be validated immediately and the results displayed in real time.

Nothing seems to assure a client like a web page whose HTML and CSS code validates correctly each time it is checked. This also helps build the coding reputation of the website development house as well. A win:win situation for both client and service provider. While having invalid HTML and CSS code within a web page does not mean that the webpage will not be displayed properly in a Browser, there is the strong likely hood that the webpage will not look exactly the same across multiple Browsers and platforms.

Read more…

Twitter is a great marketing tool that is – Free to use. The only cost is your – Time.

If you are short on time ( and you should not be when working to promote your business ) you can always hire one of the many competent social media marketers available to Tweet about your business for you. Make a plan for marketing your business via Tweets, then stick to the plan.

Your business can get some great exposure when you do.

There is a downside ( isn’t there always – sigh ) you can also damage your business via social media marketing pretty quick if you are not careful about what you tweet.

Here are a few tips for making your business successfully visible via Tweeting.

Read more…

All too often businesses do not fully understand and exploit – Social Media – to expand.  Having said that as of today there are very few businesses that deny the social media marketing is important for their growth.  Whether a business has the ability to understand and exploit – Social Media – for business expansion social media marketing is here to stay.

It’s really up to each business to make sure that it uses social media to its best advantage. There are a ton of advantages to using Social Media Marketing (SMM) for growing business:

• Enhanced customer service
• Brand recognition
• Lasting customer relationships
• Multiple fans and followers that can be converted to paying customers
• Multiple – Likes – that will help push the business deeper among customers

Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) is yet another technique used by business for marketing themselves online.  Millions of customers use search engines like Google, Bing, ( among others ) to locate what they are searching for on the Internet.

Any business that cannot be found in a search engine is invisible to millions of potential customers. Such invisibility is detrimental to any business. SEO and SMM do not exist in complete isolation of each other.  There must be a strong blend of SEO techniques applied to all SMM material created and deployed. The SEO techniques blended in help the SMM material to get found by potential customers. This does translate into money in a bank account at the end of the day.

Here are a few useful tips that you can apply to your SMM activities which aids SEO.

Read more…

Links Tweeted on Twitter Matter for SEO

Google and Bing, currently include the links within Tweets when determining a website page rank. Several authority sites have posted on this issue of late.  Do have a look at the post made by Danny Sullivan in his December 1, 2010 post on Search Engine Land.

Let’s keep firmly focused on Google ( with a quiet eye on Bing ). Google uses hundreds of different signals, delivered via the Internet, to determine how it should rank a website page. Some of these signals would be:

• The number of inbound links to that page
• Its webpage title tag
• Site load speed
• Visitor bounce rate
• And so on.

The theory is that only if your website really has great content, will people want to share such content on their Blogs and websites or via a Tweet on Twitter. As Google increasingly identifies and marks social activity such as the links contained within Tweets, having a good social media presence, with multiple links contained within such content becomes increasingly important for the website and it’s pages.

Now that Google and other search engines are paying attention social media content, i.e. factoring the number of times that a website’s page URL appears in Blog posts, Tweets, or finds a mentioned in comments on Facebook and LinkedIn, many companies are employing creative social media posts as part of their marketing strategy to get their website pages to rank well within Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Just for those not completely familiar with Twitter, Tweets are 140 character ( or less ) content, that people post to their Twitter accounts. This 140 character ( or less ) content then becomes immediately visible to all the followers of that specific Twitter account.

Can Twitter Help With SEO?

Read more…

It´s that time of the year when resolutions are made. Cut down ( or stop ) visiting the pub, Join a gym, run the half marathon, Lose 15Kg, all great stuff, but if you run an E-Commerce website maybe it’s time to review your privacy policy.

FTC has enacted several new laws which help protect an individual’s on-line privacy and their data security. Failure to comply can have a disastrous financial effect on a website owner.

Two Cardinal Rules Regarding Privacy And Data Security

When crafting your website’s privacy policy it´s important to focus on the following fundamentally important rules. They are:

Rule No. 1: The purpose of any website based, privacy policy, is to:

• Disclose clearly, the categories of information collected at the site
• How this information will be used
• With whom the information is shared ( or who will have unfettered access to this information )

Rule No. 2: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) treats a privacy policy as though it was a contract being entered into with your website´s visitor. If the website promises certain practices in its privacy policy, but fails to deliver on such a promise, the FTC says the website owner is liable for damages.

Read through your website´s privacy policy, keep these cardinal rules in mind. Understand and document all that your website does regarding the collection, use and sharing of personal information belonging to any website visitor.

Do check if:

1. The privacy policy discloses all categories of private information collected?
2. Does it describe all the ways you use the information?
3. Does it describe with whom such information is shared ( or who has the means to access it )?

Once done, sit down and compare what is promised in the privacy policy and how the website´s products and services are actually marketed.

Privacy Policy Checklist

Here´s a privacy policy checklist which can assist during the review of your websites online privacy policy.

Read more…

Marketing a brick and mortar business is driven by seasons. What this means is that business processes that determine income are not constant year round, but morph depending on seasons.  Hence, marketing processes for a brick and mortar business are not identical across all seasons in the year, but change to create varying seasonal – Client appeal – for the business as the business process change.

Internet delivered businesses are no different. Marketing techniques used for Internet business need to change seasonally as well. This means that Internet marketing campaigns run to market any Web / Blog site should change to fit the season of the year.

Web / Blog site business seasonal cycles must be understood, documented and referenced when deciding on an SEO strategy.  The site’s SEO strategy has a direct impact on the success of its marketing campaign.  What one must bear in mind is that a seasonal business cycle will vary greatly across business models, for example  seasonal / cyclical changes within B2B business and B2C businesses. Once this is known and pegged, an effective SEO strategy needs to be built around such information.

Among the multiple business cycles that support businesses, what should be tracked carefully is their:

• Sales cycle
• Conversion cycle
• SEO cycle

Read more…

A staggeringly huge number of people use search engines like Google as their primary source of information. Hence, it’s absolutely necessary to ensure that your website delivers a satisfying experience to your site visitors.What’s amazing is that in the face of such fact, about 90% of all websites are deficit in delivering a satisfying experience to their site visitors often in ways that can be easily rectified. All too often such websites deliver a less than ideal visitor experience because: When the website is being built there is a lack of strategic planning in understanding all the different types of people that would visit the site, their needs and aspirations, with a focus on what they would want from the site The website’s main menu system, that seems to have been created – On Demand – appears to have a lack of clear logic when delivering relevant content to a site visitor This is little or no connection between the website and its owner’s social media presence Seemingly little done about the – Call To Action – content on the site’s Home page. Either such content does not exist or the content itself is confusing Apparently senior / experienced management personnel were not involved when designing the structure, design, content and so on of the website, which leads to the failure of the web site landing pages to engage the site visitor. This can and does cause significant loss of potential revenue.

Read more…

When site visitors fail to stay on your site long enough to realize how much value you site adds to them it’s a lose:lose for both the website owner and the visitor. The website owner just cannot connect with the site visitor, build trust, which helps get the site visitor to purchase products and services available on the website.Here are some tried and tested – free ways – to get a site visitor to stay longer on your website, which can become a win:win for both.

Site Search:

Once your website has exceeded about 15 pages or so, it’s a great idea to add a – Search Facility – to your website. Place the site – Search – text box prominently on the website. Some where in the top right hand corner of the website’s head section is the usual position.

Label the search text box clearly and simply use – Search it´s a great label for the website´s search text box.

Definitely test the website Search system. Establish whether the site search process works accurately or does not.  If it does not, then get it fixed.  Having a site search system that works erractically is a lot worse than having no site search system at all.

Read more…