Tips for Ensuring Your Company's Website Continue to Rank High in Search Engines

Most businesses are worried about keeping their high position in search engines. This is a valid worry due to the fact that Panda and Penquin can move a top ranked website and push it down to a lower ranking. There are some good tips that you can implement that will help to stay to the top on the web.



Search Friendly Structure:

For dynamic website address URLs (like the default URL links used in WordPress pages) it is important to use the "Permalink" settings. For example, “mysite.com/page-name” vs. “mysite.com/?page_id=123” can be easier for users to remember and better “symantically” for search engines. Another good suggestion is to create a Site Map to help search engines “crawl” the company website. This can be especially important for larger sites with complicated navigation. Also good for Search Optimization is a well thought-out web page description for every page on the site.

Content

Integrating great web content in 2013 is paramount for not only communicating with site visitors, it also helps a website get a boost in rankings. Good content helps build brand awareness and authority in a sea of competitors all trying to convey why they are the best at what they do. Ensuring the site has an up-to-date list of company ethics, privacy policies and product/service guarantee’s, can go a long way to build loyalty. The web page content should include a “sprinkle” of important key phrases related to the company business for search engines, but more importantly, good content should convey information that will prompt site visitors to return to the website at regular intervals, guide visitors to make contact with site owners or perhaps make visitors want to "bookmark" site pages for return visits.

Site Promotion


There are many ways to promote one’s website which can include writing articles with a link back to one's website, creating a company blog to post updates and events, participating in online forums within the company niche, creating quality press releases and listing a site in local web directories, just to name a few. Business owners must also understand that when it comes to "links", quality, trumps quantity. In other words, understanding what a quality back-link is, will ensure owners look to gain links from web pages that are important, relevant, newsworthy or "nich" sites, rather than trying to obtain a mass quantity of low-quality links.


Don't Put All the Eggs in One Basket

There are many search engines on the internet today. And although Google controls the market share in traffic, those website owners that follow all search engines guidelines and utilize other methods of generating qualified traffic by not depending on just one or two search engines for business, will never see major declines in business. This is especially true when Google decides to make a major update in their algorithm.

Analytics

In weather circles, they say "if you don’t analyze it – you can’t track it". The same principle apply to website statistics. Knowing how much traffic a site is getting, how many visitors are “returning” and “new”, how long visitors stay or how quickly visitors leave the site, are just a few important statistics to consider reviewing, on a regular basis. These statistics allow web developers to make small subtle changes to websites to generate positive results.

These are just a few suggestions to help business owners maintain good website positioning in an ever changing Internet landscape. Contact a local web developer for more suggestions on how to improve one's website and search positioning to take on new business this year and in 2014.

FM Web Services offers Responsive Web Design, website analysis, SEO Press releases, Search Optimization and Facebook pages for businesses. Located in the Toronto area (GTA), IFM has helped business achieve an effective online presence and has helped clients as far away as Bermuda and Mexico. For more on Social Media, SEO or Web Design for businesses, visit IFM at http://www.ifm.ca


http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/9/prweb11152104.htm

Would You Like to Know Who Has Been Named One the Top Bloggers in the U.S.?

                                           www.uwalumni.com

UW professor and author Deborah Blum was named one of the best bloggers in the country by a Time magazine technology writer.

Her blog address on the internet is" www.deborahblum.com".  If you are a blogger then you definitely will learn from just reading her posts.

Blum's blog, Elemental, was listed by Harry McCracken, a Time magazine editor at large, as one of the "25 best bloggers, 2013 edition."

Blum is a professor in the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Pulitzer-Prize winning science writer.

McCracken writes: "'Macabre' is not an adjective that applies to many blogs of any sort, let alone ones by Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalists. In the case of Deborah Blum’s Elemental, one of Wired‘s science blogs, it fits — because her primary subject is poison, and most often poison that’s intentionally administered in the hopes of killing someone. But Elemental is informative and fascinating as well as a tad unsettling. Blum’s recent topics include the possibility that Yasser Arafat was murdered through radiation, the world’s dumbest poisoners and the death of 23 children in India who ate pesticide-laced food at school. She’s also written five books about poison, with another in the works."

Investigating Science One Story AT A Time is the theme of her blog. Her posts are very interesting and current.

Don’t miss Deborah’s #1 Amazon Kindle best-selling single, Angel Killer, a true story of a cannibal killer who stalked New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. Published by The Atavist, this is a tale of a killer who knew how to stay invisible, a detective who wouldn’t give up, and a trial that shocked the country. 

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/university/uw-prof-deborah-blum-named-a-top-blogger/article_7c7105da-fdf5-11e2-ac90-0019bb2963f4.html 

Top 10 Best Practices for Multilingual Websites

Worldwide communication is at the fingertips of business websites. In America alone the Hispanic language is on many products that we purchase on a daily basis. Learning what makes a great multilingual website is important in the business website marketing.  The following article will be of great help to you.

 Prepared by GobiernoUSA.gov and Government Multilingual Websites Group based on theHispanic Online Best Practices developed by Lee Vann.

1. Language: Online communications must address the language preferences of users. The use of machine or automatic translations is strongly discouraged even if a disclaimer is added. If government agencies decide to use software assisted translation, have the translation reviewed by a qualified language professional before posting it to the website to ensure that the translation correctly communicates the message.

GobiernoUSA.gov, the trusted source for government information in Spanish, offers users a complete experience in the Spanish-language. Content, navigation, and all functionalities and features in GobiernoUSA.gov are in Spanish.

2. Culture: Conduct user research to understand the cultural considerations for your target audience. Regardless of language used, the online experience must be culturally relevant to achieve an emotional connection with the audience.

Although GobiernoUSA.gov and USA.gov, its English-language counterpart, have the same structure and look and feel, the Spanish site offers content, images, and a color scheme that resonates with the Hispanic community.

3. Access: Enable users to find your multilingual website via prominent access on the English site. Access to multilingual websites should be made available on the global navigation on the top right of every English page.

The Federal Trade Commission provides the "En español" link as part of their global navigation on their English site.

4. URL Strategy: Use a stand-alone, dedicated URL for marketing and search engine optimization purposes. That URL can then re-direct to another one more in line with your agency URL convention.

The Social Security Administration uses http://www.segurosocial.gov to market and drive traffic to their Spanish language site.

5. Comparability and Maintenance: Ensure that your multilingual website provides a comparable user experience to your English site. Plan for regular updates and maintenance to ensure that your multilingual website remains comparable to the English site.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide a comparable experience on the English and Spanish sites through consistent maintenance of site content and experience.

6. Users' expectations: Manage user expectations by providing notice when a user is going to navigate to an English-only area, external website, or require a special program or software to view an application.

EPA.gov's Spanish site denotes English-only content by putting "en inglés" next to links only available in English.

7. Toggle: Enable users to toggle between comparable content or features on the English and multilingual websites if available.

Users on MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en español can go back and forth between the English and Spanish sites on a page-by-page basis without having to go through the home page.

8. Online Features and Functionality: Provide interactive features and functionality on multulingual websites.

The CDC site in Spanish offers basic features such as Print and Email This Page and gives users the ability to subscribe to email alerts, RSS feeds, podcasts, and more.

9. Integrated Operations and Marketing: Integrate your multilingual website initiatives with internal infrastructure and external consumer touch points, and into your overall online-offline strategy.

GobiernoUSA.gov provides phone and email support in Spanish through 1-(800)-FED-INFO, as well as PSAs and other marketing materials in Spanish. In addition, GobiernoUSA.gov is an integral part of the overall online and offline strategy of the Office of Citizen Services in GSA. This was especially evident in 2007 when a name change and redesign were implemented at the same time for both USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov.

10. Online Marketing: Develop and execute a targeted multilingual online marketing program, including social media, and track results.

Many agencies conduct dedicated online outreach for their multilingual sites includingGobiernoUSA.gov, MedlinePlus en español, CDC.gov, and EPA.gov, among others. In addition, many of these sites are using social media tools to reach out to Hispanics: EPA's blog Greenversations has regular bilingual entries; CDC.gov offers RSS and podcasts; andGobiernoUSA.gov has a presence on facebook.com and twitter.com.

http://www.howto.gov/web-content/multilingual/best-practices

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