Search Engine Optimization Basics

From ozwebim.com.au

Companies are catching on that search engine optimization (SEO) is fundamental in creating an online presence. SEO allows websites to be discovered when it counts--whether that may be to make a purchase or to find information on the company and its services. Where potential customers find your website on Google and Bing search results can make or break profits. SEO can help you to make sure that your site is as high up on the results page as possible.



Essentially, SEO is the process of creating ways to increase your website’s presence in web search results, creating more traffic to the site.


So here are five SEO basics that every company should consider.

1. What are search engines are looking for?

According to Victoria Edwards, search engines look for content, performance, authority, and user experience. Content is the theme, text on the pages, and the titles and their descriptions. Performance has to do with how quickly your site loads and that it functions correctly. When it comes to authority, Edwards asks, "Does your site have good enough content to link to or do other authoritative sites use your website as a reference or cite the information that's available?"
The user experience includes the visual appeal of the site, ease of navigation, safety, and high a bounce rate.

2. What are search engines not looking for?

Edwards continues to say that keyword stuffing, purchased links, and poor user experience will not help your SEO. Keyword stuffing happens when keywords are overused, and buying links will not help in terms of SEO. Poor user experience can easily be avoided by making the website easy to navigate, not overwhelming your visitors with ads, and making it simple to find desired content. Otherwise the bounce rate of the website will only go up, up, and up!

3. What are “search-friendly” URLs?

Bianca Male explains that search-engine-friendly URLs are those that are named with clear and

obvious keywords. For example, when you see a URL such as 'www.tea.com/healthbenefits/greentea,' you can expect to find the health benefits of green tea easily. If it were to say, 'www.tea.com/5456/4534.html,' that would not be the case.

4. How do you use image descriptions?

Because the text in images cannot be searched, it is important to make descriptive word associations for your images. You can name your image and then add an "ALT" tag to include descriptions using keywords. Curtis Friedl advises adding captions to all images using descriptive text around the images.

5. Make friends!

 Richard Morochove suggests that companies ask the webmasters of respectable sites to include your link on their site. Then you can do the same for the perfect win-win situation. However, it is important to be sure that they are reputable so their bad image does not rub off onto you!





Conclusion

These five points can help any business better perform in basic SEO and build its online presence. SEO should be on the minds of all those involved in e-marketing to ensure success for their websites!

Color Theory in Website Design

We all know that colors affect us. They bring out emotions and they have their own energy. 

Color Theory observes these effects and can thus help us design and market our products effectively by tapping into the consumers’ emotions. This is especially true in website design (where I’ll be focusing on) where a lot of the “selling” in e-marketing occurs, including both e-commerce and just promoting a product! 

 According to Thomas Cannon, Color Theory is the study of “the interaction of colors in a design through complementation, contrast, and vibrancy.” 

Complementation is how colors are viewed in relationship to other colors. One way to use complementation is to use two colors that are on opposite sides of the color wheel. This forces designers to create a way to balance out the colors to we are happy to be looking at the design—not leaving us begging for an aspirin. 

Contrast is used to help cut eyestrain and keep the viewer focused. Using a light background with dark text, and vice versa, is a great example. Another thing to note is that reserving the brightest color for the text cuts eyestrain and focuses the reader’s attention the most. Using complementary colors is not exactly the Golden Rule of contrast though. If one of the colors is too bright compared the other color, eyestrain will still be an issue. Ouch. 

Vibrancy is what controls the emotion that is brought out by colors. Brighter colors bring out energy, while darker colors lead the viewer to feel relaxed. This leads us to color psychology. According to this source, here are the common emotion-to-color relations:

Brown – warmth, coziness

Black – power, sophistication

Grey - somberness, stability

Blue - trust, confidence

Red - excitement, passion

Pink - youthfulness, romance

Purple - luxury, wisdom

Orange - energetic, vibrant

Green - natural, growth

White - purity, simplicity 

Yellow - happiness, joy

Using this colors, and the emotions that come with them, we can convey a distinct image and reputation to the viewers of our websites. 

Examples 

In-N-Out Burger, like many other fast food restaurants, uses red and yellow which bring out excitement and happiness. This conveys the friendly and enthusiastic service of its associates. It also makes the customers excited to be there. 

Skype predominantly uses the color blue for its website to go along with the iconic logo. Blue represents trust, so Skype is sending the message that its communication services can be trusted and dependable. 

 Starbucks emphasizes the naturalness of its products through the use of green and the simplistic design of the website. 

Conclusion

• Using complementary colors will create a balanced color scheme
• Using contrast will focus your viewers' attention and keep their eyes happy
• High vibrancy will bring high energy
• Specific colors entice certain emotions 

With these tools in hand, every color scheme can be attractive, attention-keeping, and an effective e-marketing tool! 

How Simplicity Boosts Sales in E-Commerce

Online shoppers and window shoppers are two completely different groups. That is what I learned in researching how to design an effective e-commerce website.

Online shoppers want to see what they are looking for and nothing else. By reducing the number of products shown on one page, web companies can put more focus on a single product. This will make the shopping experience simpler for the online shopper, someone who was “willing to wait longer and spend more money if the shopping experience is simple and fast,” as described Glen Stansberry, a Web development blogger and contributor to Smashing Magazine. One company that is known for doing a great job at this is Apple. By dedicating the landing page to a single product, Apple effectively de-clutters its websites and allows the shopper to make a purchase with less clicks.

Minimalist design is one of Apple’s great assets. Its homepage only shows three things: the header navigation, one product to showcase, and some info links below the fold. What is something you won’t see on an Apple page? Irrelevant junk. There are no unrelated products or ads, useless text, or clutter.

Another effective e-commerce site is the Lush site. It also has a simple navigation header. Just below that is a large banner slideshow that shows its current news.

 Another great thing about this simple site is its use of whitespace. It looks like the products are jumping out at you and you can’t help but click!

Something else I discovered about Lush’s site while writing this is that the design changes with the change in window size. When I made the site a half-screen window, its header navigation became a drop-down by clicking the icon with the 3 bars. How convenient!

How awesome is that?!

As much as I love window shopping at Macy’s, I would hate to shop online on its website. It is the perfect example of clutter. Above the fold, we already see two promos. Under that is a slew of banners.

This is a cute image that would have been more effective above the fold.

More banners...

Still more...

Oh my goodness...

Thank God it's over.

Let’s conclude with a list to help ease the clutter by Glen Stansberry.

1.       Only show what you need to make the sale.

2.       The less clicks a shopper needs to buy, the better.

3.       Design the site to be simple enough for your grandma to use.

4.       Reduce the number of columns used to avoid cramming content into smaller spaces.

5.       Give less options to reduce the stress of the web shoppers.

With this list in hand, any e-commerce site can become both appealing and effective.