Seattle Website Design

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Rankings are determined by various factors such as:

1) On page SEO factors –
Such as composition, keyword density (the number of times a keyword is used divided by the total number of words). Succinct titles (65 characters) description tags with no more than 185 characters. The use of h1 tags, bold and italics sparingly to emphasize keywords and the links and the text in the link (anchor text) is a summation of the most common on page SEO factors.

2) Link Popularity –
Who links to you, what is in the text in the link (anchor text), the age of the link and if it has link juice (meaning a do-follow link vs. a no-follow link).

3) Age of the domain –
Despite speculation of a sandbox that quarantines your site, until it reaches a specific age, the fact remains that as your site ages, it gains more trust. Trust is a ranking factor that can trump page rank or links, as a trusted domain can get spidered and indexed (scanned and added to the search engine) in minutes after a page is introduced and literally hit the top 10 in an hour, vs weeks or months for less trusted sites.

4) The domain name and what keywords are in it –
Domain names that have your main keywords in the name can save you thousands of dollars in advertising and SEO. The reason is, anytime you use absolute links (the entire domain name) you are essentially building a link for those terms in search engines. So just through natural promotion or hardly any SEO at all, you can rank for variations of the domain name for this reason.

5) Authority links –
Authority links are typically a result of writing great content or having something that is editorially link worthy. As a result an industry authority such as a trade publication a national magazine or syndicated news source may link to you as a result. In this case, your entire gets a pat on the back from search engines as a result of elevated trust.

SEO is not something which you can take up once and then forget. The search engine algorithms change quite often. As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. So you need to be committed to continuously strive for improvement.

Here are some time-tested ways to ensure you are always on the top of the search engine results page for your chosen keywords.

Regular Updates
Make sure that you update your website regularly, since the search engines always favor those sites which are always up-to-date. Nobody wants stale content.

Write for your visitors
Always write articles which cater primarily to your visitors. Yahoo!, Google and others have people visiting all the time, but hardly anyone has ever responded positively to singing up for a newsletter, buying anything online, or even calling up for enquiry purposes. People visit search engines to find information. So provide quality information.

Meta tags
Use Meta tags. They are the invisible tags and the search engines can identify them for categorization of content. Do not stuff your meta data with keywords. Use your commonsense and put whatever is necessary.

Heading tag
Always use a heading tag, and most importantly, make the heading tag a keyword which should be relevant to the base of the matter that you are writing. H1 and H2 tags are treated differently by the search engine spiders than the rest of the text on your website.

Site map
A site map should always be considered. Using the site maps, the search engines can navigate through each page of your website to index every single page.

Keywords
Use keywords in the articles and make them bold. But don’t overdo this; it is really a big put-off! Find out which keywords your website visitors are like to be searching for and use in your text, anchor text, body copy and image alt tags.

External links
Make sure that there are external links to almost all the pages of your website. If there are links to many pages of your website, then the search engines will feel that your site has a lot of good content to offer, and it will add value to your site. But if most of the external links head to your home page, then the conclusion will be that your site has nothing worthwhile to offer.

Web page design is a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of technologies (such as markup languages) suitable for interpretation and display by a web browser or other web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

1. Conserve bandwidth wherever possible and start with your photographs and images.
Broadband Internet access is still not universal, and even though current estimates point to nearly 80 percent of US households having Broadband we must still optimize our web pages simply as a matter of courtesy. Always use an image editor to reduce the size of images down to the exact size you want them to display on your web page. Never use HTML comments to make a large image squeeze down into a smaller package. Also, make certain that all images are down-sampled to only 72dpi in resolution. Computer monitors can only display images at 72dpi so anything higher is wasted bandwidth. Another great rule of thumb is to attempt to keep the total page size (including all images and scripts) to under 50k. This is very difficult to do, but small web pages load incredibly fast and get your information to the reader much more efficiently.

2. Think about the way you align text and images on each page.
Centered alignments are very weak visually. They are difficult to read, and simply don't use the space well. Left justified or right justified texts create smooth, clean lines that give the viewers eyes something to lock on to and focus their attention. You can further accentuate the alignment of the elements on your page by carefully using the edges of your images as guides for these alignments. Have your image be the left or right hand border of a text block. The image captures the attention of the viewer and the neatly aligned text makes the viewer want to read the information on the web page.

3. Pick a graphic or logo and design your web page’s color scheme based on that graphic.
At the same time don't be afraid to break with the color scheme of your company, school, or organization. Some colors look great on paper but look lousy on a computer screen.

4. Don't create it if you are not going to update it!
Nothing says "WE DON'T CARE!" as much as an organization’s web site that has old, stale, and outdated information on the home page. If you know that you will not have the time to update regularly then create a web page that will not go stale after a certain date. Present your information in present tense without any reference to dates or times. For more detailed and time critical web sites consider using a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla in place of writing raw HTML web pages.

When you are looking for a professional web hosting service, you want to look for certain features and services. Do not worry about knowing exactly what all the technical terms mean, just look for them! You should always shop around, phone the hosting companies and ask questions as part of your qualification process.

1. Reliability and Speed

Look for a hosting service that owns their own equipment, with high-speed connections to multiple Internet backbones, backup power generators and backup systems in place. The hosting company will generally brag about their high-speed connections and will usually guarantee 99% or better availability of your web site.

Many hosting services are operated by resellers. This can be a good thing if they bring better and more knowledgeable support to their resold services. Unfortunately, many resellers do not really have the resources or knowledge to adequately support you.

Years in business are something you should take a look at. Three years or more is a pretty good yardstick of reliability.

If they offer a trial period, take advantage of it and actually try the service out.

2. Operating Systems

Do they use a standard operating system configuration that they keep updated on a routine basis? If they do not, you may have trouble getting newer scripts to work. On Linux servers, look for Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and CentOS. On Windows servers, look for recent Windows operating systems with all patches kept current. If they do not publish this information, email or phone them to find out.

3. Language and Database Support

They should support the key programming languages and databases that are used by newer scripts and should keep these up to date as well. On Linux you should look for PHP and Perl at the least. For a database, look for MySQL. You should be allowed at least one database. You should have your own CGI Bin. On Windows systems, look for MS Access at the least and MS SQL Server for power and speed. If you want to use the Microsoft NET framework, your hosting will need to support that.

4. Support

Check their support. The minimum support is email support. The better hosting services provide 24/7 email, ticket system and live telephone support. Actually try their support and see if they respond quickly enough for your needs and if their support staff is helpful and knowledgeable.

5. FTP Access

Many inexpensive hosting services do not provide FTP access. You will need FTP access if you plan to add much material to your website or if you need to install scripts on your website. Also check that you can change permissions on your files via FTP or through SSH.

6. Email

How many email accounts do they provide? Are they POP email accounts? Can you add forwarders and email aliases? Look for web mail access as well. The better the service, the more options they will provide for email.

7. User Control Panel

Look for a comprehensive user control panel that allows you to manage your hosting account. The better control panels also provide automatic script installers like Fantastico or Elefante. Cpanel, Ensim and HSphere and Plesk are all well known and well supported. There are many more control panels than these and they are good too, but you should probably check them more thoroughly and take a look at their demo system if they have one.

8. Domain Names

You should be able to host at least one domain name. The better hosting companies will generally allow you five or more domain names. There should be no restrictions on sub-domains.

9. Statistics

Does your hosting service include a statistics program so you can monitor your website traffic?

10. Disk Space

The absolute minimum is 50 MB, but you should be paying very low prices for that little disk space.

More and more businesses these days are beginning to sell and distribute their products and services via the Internet. Its a win-win situation consumers get the best selection at the lowest prices, and retailers get access to markets outside their geographic location. But depending on the type of e-commerce website the business is pursuing, the cost to implement the project could range from a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars. There are some less professional but more cost efficient solutions, as well as some high-end solutions that will have your website rivaling the best e-commerce sites around.

1. Affiliate programs.

When working affiliate programs, you act mostly as a middleman or woman between your partner company and the buying public. You promote the goods and services that your partner merchant company sells.

In return you receive a percentage of the sales you generate. Also, you can advertise your partner merchants site, and will be paid according to the number of people who you can redirect.

The affiliate programs are honestly ranked on Click Bank and you can pick the genuine best one from many different categories. Affiliate programs are the best money makers for you to work at this time.

2. Paid Surveys.

All companies who want to stay competitive have to constantly conduct market research. The internet allows these companies to conduct these surveys at sharply reduced costs.

If you fit the demographic profile that is required for a particular survey, you may choose to participate and be compensated accordingly.

While most paid surveys do not pay much, participating in a bunch of them is a good way to make some extra money.

Tip. Keep signup fees extremely low for paid surveys because many of them simply do not work.

3. Email processing.

You will be asked to perform a few tasks concerning emails, maybe a lot of email messages. You will most likely be paid according to the number of emails you process. Another easy job that just about anyone can do.

Tip. Keep any sign up costs extremely low in this endeavor and do not sign up for a lot of them. Seek out the best and the cheapest.

4. Home Data Entry.

Home data entry is considered to be a great work at home opportunity, and it clearly deserves a spot in the top 10 home businesses.

You will be doing mostly clerical work, inputting information that your clients will require. However, this sort of job usually pays well, provided that you can find a good employer.

This one is good but do not pay a lot of money for a start up fee for this.

5. Typing.

This is a pretty straightforward job. People who do not have the time or the inclination to type their work may ask you to do it for them.

This is a real opportunity. The hard part is finding jobs. Advertise for them on public bulletin boards.

Of course, you will receive a fee for completing such jobs. Considering that this job does not require too much skill from the outset, it could be a great way to earn a little extra cash.

6. Medical Transcription.

In medical transcription, you will be asked to type up, on paper, what doctors have recorded on tape. This particular work at home opportunity requires a little bit of training. A basic knowledge of medical jargon is required.

Some people are charging a lot of money to get into this. Paying big fees, to get started, is not necessary.

7. Legal Transcription.

Doing legal transcription, you will be asked to type out, on paper, what lawyers have recorded on tape. Like medical transcription, this requires some training.

An understanding of legal terms is often necessary.

This will require some schooling and expense but if you like it that is what really matters.

8. Online Store.

If you have something to sell, you can set up an online store on your website.

EBay has local certified trainers all over the USA and other countries who will help you to do and learn this for a reasonable fee.

9. Call Center Agent.

In the booming call center agency, there are many positions that are open to people who can speak English, or any of the major foreign languages, well.

As long as you are willing to undergo some training and work at specified hours, you are most likely qualified to work in this growing industry.

10. Miscellaneous Freelance Work.

If you have a salable skill that commands a price outside, then it is probably a skill that you can sell online as well.