You Can Build it, But Will They Come?

Written by Alan Stewart


We have all been there. Our masterpiece is finished, and we sit back and breatha sigh of relief. Finally, and even if you say so yourself, it is really good. So you load it up on your server, and sit and wait forrepparttar people to come.First you wait forrepparttar 128091 search engines to list your site. You wait a week.. nothing.. then you wait another week.. still nothing. A month goes by, and you see thatrepparttar 128092 engines have you listed, but if you do a search using your keywords, your site can't be found. Why is this? Actually,repparttar 128093 answer is easy. If your site is optimized for your content, and you are usingrepparttar 128094 best keywords, logically speaking you should be atrepparttar 128095 top ofrepparttar 128096 listings. But, that is notrepparttar 128097 case. Google, Yahoo, and just about every search engine worth mentioning, takes into account how many links point to your site. These are called incoming or backward links. With out them, you are just another web site amongst millions. There are plenty of ways to get links. Some are really good, some are not so good. One ofrepparttar 128098 programs onrepparttar 128099 market today for getting links is called Arelis you can check it out hereArelis Link Promotion Or you can visit website after website contactingrepparttar 128100 webmaster asking for a link. Most of these websites require a link back to them. Some are honest,while some are not. They put up a link, for you to see, then in about a week ortwo, take it down, but your link to them is still up there. So after you getrepparttar 128101 links, you have to weekly, or monthly visit all these sites again, to make sure your link is still up there. This can be very time consuming, and if you have any type of life, can be very hard to do on a regular basis. The links you want to get, should be related to what your site is about. If you have a website about flowers, a link from a site about guns, doesn't help you very much. You do want more links pointing to your site, but they should be related links. Unrelated links do account for something in their philosphy, but not very much. EnterShared Link Traffic The idea behind this is so simple, it is amazing that others have not done it.

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 6: Human Testing

Written by Mary Davies


Welcome to part six in this search engine positioning series. Last week we discussedrepparttar importance of internal linking. In part six we will coverrepparttar 128090 obvious and yet often overlooked importance of its appeal to a real-live human being.

While not directly related to SEO it is so often overlooked inrepparttar 128091 quest for higher search engine positioning that it has become a fundamental step in our ten step series.

Over this series we will coverrepparttar 128092 ten key aspects to a solid search engine positioning campaign.

The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are:

  1. Keyword Selection
  2. Content Creation
  3. Site Structure
  4. Optimization
  5. Internal Linking
  6. Human Testing
  7. Submissions
  8. Link Building
  9. Monitoring
  10. The Extras

Step Six - Human Testing

The most important part of your website is to reachrepparttar 128093 visitor. You have taken allrepparttar 128094 steps to create a great design and added SEO elements to your site, you have createdrepparttar 128095 perfect online presence. Now to see if all that hard work has attainedrepparttar 128096 main goal, to reachrepparttar 128097 visitor and steer them inrepparttar 128098 direction most desirable.

First things first, now'srepparttar 128099 time to check forrepparttar 128100 careless errors that happen alongrepparttar 128101 way, things like spelling mistakes, paragraph breaks, incorrect wording etc. Once you have given your new beauty a once over pass it around and get others to dorepparttar 128102 same, preferably people who have never readrepparttar 128103 content before. The problem with relying on yourself to proof read is that you already expect what you are going to see and do not read it in its entiretyrepparttar 128104 way someone would at first glance.

Oncerepparttar 128105 text is out ofrepparttar 128106 way have some fresh eyes again take a look atrepparttar 128107 site. Are there images that they find appealing, unappealing, distracting? Is there anything inrepparttar 128108 layout ofrepparttar 128109 content that is too busy or confusing? Once you've done a check ofrepparttar 128110 visual appeal ofrepparttar 128111 site you will move onto navigation.

When having someone test your site navigation it is again very important to use fresh eyes, make sure these people have no idea what to expect or where to find anything - this way they will be free to follow your beautifully laid out website or fumble and stumble into some dark hole of your site, lost screaming for help. Okay, perhaps I may have givenrepparttar 128112 worst-case scenario however, how many of us can say we have never been in that horrid place? These human testers will be sure to let you know just how your site navigation works for them. They arerepparttar 128113 average visitor and if they find what they are looking for easily then you can congratulate yourself on having such great intuition and move on torepparttar 128114 rest ofrepparttar 128115 tests to come. If there are problems inrepparttar 128116 navigation I cannot stress enough how very important it is that you address these immediately. You must getrepparttar 128117 desired information across as easily and quickly as possible.

While onrepparttar 128118 topic of navigation let's discussrepparttar 128119 different possibilities ofrepparttar 128120 placement of your main navigation. The majority of sites out there either have their main nav onrepparttar 128121 left orrepparttar 128122 top ofrepparttar 128123 page. Is there one that is better? Well, they both have their perks, either is good, anything else is bad. The majority of visitors look in these two places to navigate because that is where it always is. There will be other navigation elements throughout your site that will not be listed in your main navigation area, these internal text and image links should be well placed and easily followed IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. It's great to giverepparttar 128124 visitorrepparttar 128125 option to check out information further into your site but you really want to be sure they can get back to where they came from, especially if you are sending them off to information and away fromrepparttar 128126 product pages. Ways to achieve this are to haverepparttar 128127 information open in a new window, add a "back to previous page" link or add breadcrumb navigation. What you choose will depend onrepparttar 128128 overall structure of your site as well asrepparttar 128129 size of your site. Ifrepparttar 128130 main nav includes all of your pages (as in some small sites) then there is no need to add these nav elements however in larger sites it is easy for a visitor to get lost ifrepparttar 128131 navigation has not been tried and tested and designed specifically for ease of use. All in all, play withrepparttar 128132 navigation and test and retest it until there are no problems. The site navigation is so very important - your visitors MUST be able to browse through your site easily and without frustration.



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