Website Tips

White Hat or Black Hat SEO Tricks – What Is Your Choice

Deepa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:35:42 +0000

Of recent, the SEO industry has adopted the terms white hat and black hat to categorize the various SEO strategies employed by webmasters. These terms basically describe the ethical and non-ethical SEO practices prevalent in cyberspace.

Without doubt, search engine optimization is an absolute necessity in today’s web world. It is the sure way to ensure online visibility and improve online sales. Both the black hat and white hat techniques help in achieving these goals but it is the white hat method that pays off in the longer run. Black hat SEO tactics produce impressive results which are often short lived. Moreover, websites employing black hat tactics run the potential risk of being banned by search engines either temporarily or even permanently. So it is only a matter of time before the cat is out of the bag and the damage done.

Black hat SEO methods optimize web page content for search engines rather than humans. Sometimes websites have content hidden from visitors and visible only to search engines. Such content will be over-stuffed with keywords aimed to improve ranking on the search results page. Matt Cutts from Google gives a classic example of a black hat method of hiding text. As he says, when you have good relevant content why hide it from a visitor. If the content is not worthwhile for a surfer, it’s probably best to leave it out of your site!

Use A Favicon To Get Noticed

Savitha — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:54:20 +0000

What can you do to have a web site that attracts people to it? Having your web site designed in attractive colors, stylish and apt designs that speak about your business, easy and intuitive navigation between pages, fast loading of pages and an impressive logo are without doubt the main areas to focus on.

You can also make your web site stand out from the rest of the web sites that are in a web browser’s favourite list, by adding a small and attractive image to your web site’s URL. This image is called a favicon which is short for favorite icon, web address icon or bookmark icon.

Although most modern browsers support favicon, there are small differences in the way these browsers display a favicon. For example, Firefox 1+ (Mozilla-based) displays the favicon on the address bar and browser tab whereas Internet Explorer (7+ version) displays it on the Favorites menu as well.

How to Create a Favicon in Windows

There are two steps involved in making a favicon. 1) Designing the favicon and 2) Converting it to an icon resource file.

Designing the Favicon

You can use any graphic program to design your favicon. However, do ensure that your graphic program is able to save files in PNG format.
Create an image in 16X16 pixels size. This is the ideal size for most browsers. You can start by designing on a larger size and then reducing it to 16×16 pixels size. Limit your color to standard Windows 16 colors.
Once your design is complete, save the file in PNG format (example, yourfavicon.png).

Convert to Icon File

You now need to covert your PNG file to a Windows icon resource file. This means you will need to change your icon’s file extension from .png to .ico. Here’s a web site that can help you make the conversion
Now copy your favicon graphic saved in PNG format to the same directory where you saved png2ico.
Open an MS-DOS (Command Prompt) window to run the png2ico program.
Navigate to the directory where you saved the png2ico program and your favicon file.
At the command prompt, enter png2ico favicon.ico logo.png.
Use png2ico’s color switch to keep the number of colors below 16.
The resulting icon may be created against background colors. If you do not want your icon to appear inside a box, use binary transparency instead of solid background colors.
Once the program is run, your favicon.ico file would be created in the same directory.
Upload your favicon.ico file to the root web directory of your web site using an FTP software.
You can also add the HTML code to your web pages between the (x)HTML tags which will read as follows:

Your browser may not immediately show the favicon you uploaded. If you are using Internet Explorer, don’t forget to bookmark your web site first. Only bookmarked web sites will display a favicon in Internet Explorer. If you have already bookmarked, remove the old bookmark and bookmark it again. You could also try cleaning your browser’s cache. Either of these actions usually helps.

Here’s a last piece of advice – Design a favicon based on your existing business logo. This gives it instant recognition from existing customers. Using a recognizable favicon also makes your web site more professional and with many people bookmarking thousands of web sites, it’s smart to have a distinct favicon that can give you a cutting edge by standing out among others.

Email Marketing – The Success Rules!

Deepa — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:23:38 +0000

Any professional website would seem incomplete without an online newsletter subscription feature. This has come to be one of the most cost-effective ways to build a large customer database and maintain regular contact with them. Email communication can market your new products and announce special offers, discounts and other promotional news while adding strength to your search engine optimization efforts. However, for this online marketing strategy to show the desired results, there are some etiquettes to be followed. It is how effectively you observe these simple rules that decide whether your email ends up as spam or not. Here are a few tips to increase the open rates of your emails.

The most vital fact is that the email should reach the right audience. Otherwise, it will just end up as trash. An understanding of your receivers’ age group, interests etc will definitely help in maintaining a targeted customer database.
Another important factor is the subject line and the “From” address of the mail. People tend to delete mails from unknown senders fearing spam and virus. Entering a short but catchy subject line and signing off with your company name will lend credibility to the email.
Keep it simple. A highly formatted newsletter design with various styles, color codes and custom templates may take longer to open up; thereby increasing the possibility of being dumped during the loading stage itself.
Once the email is open, the next step is to pin the recipient’s attention onto it. Of course, content plays a major role here. Be brief and precise to create a positive impact. Among the many mails in an inbox, your E-newsletter may get at the most a few seconds of your receiver’s attention. Capitalize on these few seconds with short texts that link to the relevant pages on your website.
For opt-in emails, there must be an easy and efficient opt-out facility too. When people sign-up for newsletters, they expect to be able to unsubscribe at any point in time. A hassle-free, one-step procedure to unsubscribe would be ideal. If the process is complicated, users tend to brand your emails as spam rather than unsubscribing from the list. This will eventually lead to one or more of the ISPs blocking you.

So while E-newsletters help create a closer bond between the recipient and your company, the downside is that even small problems in usability will reflect sharply on customer relationship. Hence utmost care should be maintained in running email campaigns. Tracking the emails, analyzing their open rates and finding out how often the messages lead the recipients onto your website further steps-up the success rate of these campaigns.

A Professional Website Can Boost Your Business

Savitha — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:18:15 +0000

Have you just built a terrific website that you’re waiting to flaunt to the world? You’ve put in good content, attractive colors, cool and catchy graphics and easily navigable pages. You’ve also implemented a couple of SEO strategies to draw traffic to your website. Your website seems ready for launch

Well, almost ready. Besides making your website attractive, does it also look professional? This is important if you want people to take your online business seriously. Let’s do a quick check in case you’ve left out a few important components that add a degree of professionalism to your website.

1. Disclaimer / Privacy Policy: Every website needs a disclaimer document and a private policy document. The Disclaimer prepares your visitors in advance of what they will be agreeing to before using or accessing your website. The Privacy Policy on the other hand, informs account holders what you intend to do with the personal data they have entrusted you with.

2. Newsletter Subscription: When you provide a newsletter sign-up feature in your website, it helps you to reach out to your audience with information on new products, special offers and other updates to your website. When people receive newsletters via email from you, they are encouraged to return to your website to check out new information provided in your newsletter.

3. RSS Feed: There are two ways you can use RSS feeds for your website. You can create your own RSS feed by pooling all your web content together or display other RSS feeds in your website. Both are advantageous in terms of search engine optimization.

4. Bookmark / Share Button: Adding a bookmark / share button in your website is a good way of getting people to bookmark your articles and also sharing them with others friends in their social media circle. This in turn can give more publicity to your website.

5. Google Analytics Tracking: Google Analytics can be used to track visitors to your website and to learn more about them. You’ll get to know the keywords that attract the most response and landing pages that convert visitors into customers. Equipped with this information you would be able to work out marketing strategies to generate business to your website.

6. Contact Information: Many websites tend to omit this information in their website. Contact information makes it easy and convenient for your visitors or customers to get in touch with you should the need arise. You should provide a phone number and email address at the very least.

Once you’ve ensured that you have all the above elements in your website, you are ready for launch. Your visitors now know they are dealing with a professional. This in turn instills their confidence in your product or service making you the preferred choice among many!