Clean Web Design
Does your website have a clock, a local weather conidition, news headlines, stock market updates, a visitor counter, a guest book, or background music? If it does, get rid of these meaningless additions that can only do harm to your website.
- First, these additional features slow down the page download. Visitors hate slow pages more than anything. They often leave before the page download is complete.
- Second, these "cool" features serve only as distractions. Do you want visitors to focus on your informative content or do you want them to look up the weather forecast? A visitor spends about 20 seconds at a website. If they spend 10 out of the 20 seconds looking at the weather or news, will they have the time to read about your content?
- Third, these additional features may confuse search engines on what your site is truly about, thus negatively impact your natural search engine rankings. Why would national news headlines or stock market info have anything to do with your products and services?
- Fourth, none of these "cool" gadgets adds any value to your website. If you add a local weather condition on your site, do you believe visitors will come back to your site to check out the weather?
Some of these useless features are provided by your web hosting company for free. Just because they are free, it doesn't mean they are good for your website. As a website owner, by all means to avoid these website add-ons that can only give your visitors a bad experience and lower your search engine rankings.
Search for SEO Experts
There are many search engine optimization (SEO) firms out there. They all claim that they can increase your website's rankings at Google, Yahoo and MSN. However, 70% to 90% of those firms have absolutely no clue on how design search engine-friendly websites and how to increase the natural search rankings of a website. Even worse, many of such companies employ old spam techniques that can lead to severe penalty including delisting of a website from a search engine's database.
As a business owner, how do you find the true SEO expert?
- Start by Googling for SEO experts in your location. For example, Google the term Twin Cities SEO. If a SEO firm can't get its own website ranked at the top, do you think they can give your site No. 1 ranking?
- Ask for Google ranking samples of their client websites. If they have never worked with any clients on search engine optimization, chances are they are new to this. SEO is an art and science. You truly want to work with someone who has the skill and experience.
- Check for references! If a SEO firm has a happy client, the client would LOVE to tell you how much they appreciate the service. When done right, SEO can make a huge difference in bringing in more leads and sales.
Google Search Dominance
The latest search market share numbers are in from Hitwise: in the four weeks ended March 31st, Google racked up fully 64.13% of all US searches. That’s up more than 10% since March 2006, and, if trends hold, Google’s share will pass the two thirds mark by August. In the same period, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask all lost share. As the old Wall Street hands like to say: “Liquidity begets liquidity.” More from: Google Corners Nearly Two-Thirds of US Search Marketing
From monitoring our own web sites and our client web sites, we have seen the same trend. If you get No. 1 ranking for a certain keyword phrase both at Google and Yahoo, you will see that Google brings 5 to 10 times more visitors than Yahoo.
Another trend we have noticed is that visitors referred by Google tend to stay at the site longer, which may indicate they are more serious about either looking for info or looking into making the "Buy" decision.
Domain Name Registration
If you buy a house, do you want your house under your realtor's name? If you have your domain name or web address registered by your webmaster, it is no different from having the deed of your house under someone else's name.
The ultimate control of a web site is in the hand of the person who has direct access to domain name control. If you have your webmaster register your domain name, here are some of the potential risks.
- If you decide to fire your webmaster, your webmaster could hold your domain name and website hostage;
- If your webmaster is not reachable anymore, you may lose your domain name or website;
- If your webmaster forgets to renew your domain name, your website will be off-line.
Many web designers register domain names for their clients without explaining these risks to their clients. Some dishonest web designers do so to ensure their job security.
If you already have your domain name registered by your webmaster, it is time to have the domain name transferred to you. This can be easily done, but it does need the coopration of your webmaster.
It is also important to know that you should NEVER register a new domain name with a web hosting company. If in the future you decide to switch to a different web host, the web host which you register you domain with can hold your site hostage. This has been a very common problem for business owners who are new to website building.
Bottom line: when it comes to your domain name registration, do it yourself with a reputable domain name registar, such as
Godaddy.
