Keep online enquiry forms down to essential info only. Keep it simple but get information you need. Quick and easy signup forms can still be effective and you could always chose to offer a short form and a longer option - that way user can decide which option is best for them.

5. Complex rollover navigation systems

Complex rollover navigation bars using JavaScript or a similar code can seem like a great option and you can be excused for wondering why this is seen as a bit of a no-no.

The reason why these rollover or drop downs are not always such a hit is that after analysing user behaviour on a number of websites, it shows that very few people seem to use rollover button options more than one deep. In essence idea that these navigational tools made things easier for users seems a little flawed.

The simpler navigation is, more it will connect with users. Limit options and use clear common sense descriptive labelling for buttons and this will often out-perform a complex roll over approach. Keeping navigation simple also makes for smaller file sizes and quicker loading pages.

6. Excessive movement & animation

Contrary to popular belief, constant movement and flickering may not be a successful way to engage a website user. The reason being is that web users are developing a level of ‘advertising immunity’ or what Jakob Nielsen of www.usit.com has referred to as ‘banner blindness’.

Banner Blindness is a technique surfers have developed to filter out adverts and promotional material. They have learned after some experience that these types of ads are generally unhelpful and so are less likely to click on them. So if you use a lot of moving pictures and flickering images on your website you can run risk of key areas of your website being ignored.

Where once banner ads got reasonable click through rates, number has fallen dramatically in last few years. A safer way to promote important areas of site is via static buttons that are clearly identifiable and use descriptive language to tell user which page they lead to.

7. Lots of links out to other sites from your homepage

When time and effort is put into attracting a visitor to your site why would anyone want to give that user a chance to leave website on arrival? It makes sense to avoid placing lots of links out from your homepage to other sites - unless you’re an advertising or affiliate website.

Visitors are your prospects. You work to get them there and your job is to keep them there and direct them to your key destination pages. If you need to link out to partners from a top-level page on your site, then think about creating an internal page for this purpose and link to that from your home page.

Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to site as well as numerous inbound links because of link created in article byline.

As for search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.

In mid-January, site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.

Can we go on cruise control now? No! With end of tax season, traffic to articles page of site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.

Over next six months, we will focus on long-term goal of jumping over tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for client.

Creativity is often key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results. It did in this case.