Dont forget to Flickr

One of the great things about Flickr is that not only is it owned by Yahoo, but you can also use the site to create backlinks and other seo functions just by uploading your images.

First things first - when you have created your account, you will have the option to create a unique name for the accounts url. Make sure you use something that is related back to your company - I have heard some users put in their website address as the unique name...not sure if this makes any difference to be honest, so best to keep it simple.

When you upload your photos there are Four things which can really help your SEO.

Tag it correctly
Each photo can have tags or keywords associated to it. Use keywords that are associated with the photo and your business.

The tags work with spaces in between so using Sussex based web Designers will give the keyphrases sussex, based, web, designers - great for keywords but no for keyphrases. To use the keyphrases uses as "sussex based web designers" "horsham web designers" and so on.

Use HTML in your description
Flickr allows html coding in the description for each photo. Ok so not everyone knows much about HTML, but the only real code you need to know is how to link back to your website / webpage

For example

A great photo of our offices at Opnes Website Solutions

Would be

Simply replace the web address for yours and replace Opnes Website Solutions with your company name

Set it out
Create sets for your photos - a bit like a mini gallery. Again these can have a description associated to them and ideal for managing your photos.

Map it
You can now link photos to specific locations on the maps. Using a suitable description and tags will ensure your image comes up when users are using maps online

All sounds good....but is this for everyone?

Well yes and it just take a little imagination as to what you can use it for - so for example

Bootcamps / Fitness - uploading images of training / classes
Web Designers - uploading portfolios
Entertainers - uploading images from their latest event
Builders - uploading different building projects
Business Coaches - uploading images from their latest confierence / seminar

and so on....have fun and go Flickr

Breaking the 7 Second Rule

When a visitor comes to your site you have 7 seconds in which to get them to do something eg call, signup to a newsletter, enquire about a product, etc.

Apparently this time is reduced to 4 seconds if the visitor is a female and Im refuse to be drawn into a discussion on why this is :D

In short, your site has to break at least the 7 second rule to grab a potential client and any visitor to your site will ask themselves two simple questions during that time:

"Do you have the product / service I require?" and "Do you have the product and service I require at the price Im willing to pay?" - get these two questions answered and your halfway there.

Your next task is to make it as easy as possible for a client to contact you - some visitors are comfortable with say a phone call, others a contact/enquiry form - either way you need to make sure you cover all the possible bases:

1 - make your phone number visiable and obvious on all your pages. If someone calls you from seeing you website they are saying they are more than happy to talk to you, you just need to make the final sale...or as we say a 'Hot Lead'.

2 - ensure you have a contact / enquiry form...not everyone is willing to pick up the phone so a form is the easiest way for a client to say im happy to talk to you but placing the ball in your court and you will have to contact me....or as we say a 'Warm Lead'.

3. Use other forms of contact - email links, call back systems, Skype and online support chat will all help.

4. Return calls within 5-10mins max of any contact

So what to avoid on the site?

- Flash intros...nice to look at but lets face it after 7 seconds everyone is bored
- slow sites....make sure images are not too big. Between 100kb-200kb should be ok
- messy and cluttered sites...keep copy to no more than 150 words
- difficult navigation....keep menus clear and use call to action banners.

For more information on this our any of our services at Opnes Website Solutions, please visit http://www.opnes.com/

Re-building a website - 7 SEO considerations

When rebuilding a website there are a number of basic SEO considerations that you need to make during the build. This will help the website maintain its current rankings within sites such as Google:

1) Keep all meta titles and descriptions in-tact as much as possible. Add to if need be, but make sure the exsiting information remains

2) Keep as much of the copy intact as possible. Most designers will reduce or miss copy out from the old site which might make the site look nicer but will affect the sites rankings. Typically try and keep copy to less than 150 words per page.

3) Make sure any links within the copy remain or if they are pointing to an old page no longer required, then point it to the new page created, but keep the link name the same

4) Any wording in bold then make sure this is also kept intact along with any H1 H2, H3 tags

5) Try and keep the same file structure of the site along with the page names and extensions eg Contact.htm should be the same on the new design. If you are using different extensions of relative URLs then keep the same format eg www.asite.com/contact-us.htm would be www.asite.com/contact-us.php or www.asite.com/contact-us

6) If the page names / extensions are changing then use 301 redirects on the site to point them to their new named page extension

7) If the page no longer exists (due to changes on the design or) or no longer has a relevant page then redirect these to a 404 page or use 301 rediect to the home page.

For more information please visit http://www.opnes.com/

Division with DIVs

It still amazes me how many people are told by scrupulous Marketing and Web companies that if their site is not "W3C compliant" or that their site is not built using DIVs (divisions) that the site would not be indexed correctly by Google or optimised for the search engines.

So, with the help of Google themselves and some of the top SEO companies in the world, I would like to put this to bed once and for all.

DIVs vs Table
There has been a clear divide (sorry) within the web world over which is the best to use. The short answer is both are fine. Tables have always been used since the start of the World Wide Wed, with DIV coding coming later. Some sites work better in DIVs others in table and both are spiderable by the search engines.

A recent article by an SEO expert which went through the "8 Myths of SEO" had this to say about tables and divisions:

"This one makes me want to scream. HTML tables have been easily spiderable by search engines since the search engines were newly hatched. As far as I know, table code has never been anything that choked the search engines. I think this myth was propagated by website developers who advocate tableless designs to make you think you’ll somehow get better rankings out of their designs. You won’t."



Interesting that this made number 3 in the top 8! The main key for any website is to ensure that it is using clean semantic coding so that it can easily be spidered.

I have seen many sites that use either tables OR divisions that are not clean code and have issues with being indexed. 
 
W3C Compliant
Firstly what is it - well the official definition is "W3C was created to ensure compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards. Prior to its creation, incompatible versions of HTML were offered by different vendors, increasing the potential for inconsistency between web pages. The consortium was created to get all those vendors to agree on a set of core principles and components which would be supported by everyone."
 
Great, but will a site that is W3C compliant be ranked better than a site that is not? Answer is no - and that answer comes from Google themselves!
 
For more reading on this I would suggest looking at this interesting article on W3C http://yoast.com/w3c-validation-seo/
 
At the end of the article is a video by Matt Cutts who is a Software engineer for Google who not only says there's no bonus for validating, but why.

I said at the start of this blog about scrupulous Marketing and Web companies talking about DIVs and W3C. These companies will band about phrases and techinical jargon to make it look like they know what they are doing in order to get your business........so becareful please.

Give anyone time, its easy to pick holes in a website and Im sure if I had a spare 5mins I can totally trash the BBCs website design and coding; But I wont and the real question you should be asking yourself is "Does my website do what I want it too?
 
So Finally - want 3 top tips to help get your site ranked?
 
1 - Content - make changes to your site with new and relevant content on a regular baisis
2 - Linking - get links with relevant companies and organisations. This will not only help your SEO but will also drive traffice to your site
3 - Social media - checkout and use these free services such as blogs, twitter, linkedin and even facebook to drive traffic to your site.
 
And if you really need help - then please call us and we can recommend and good honest SEO company that will give you impartial advise. They have done work for us and our clients, with their results being outstanding.

Making it easier for your customers to make contact

In one of our signup ezines, we outlined how a website should be setup to make it easier for customers to contact you as easily as possible, and in way that they feel comfortable

I outlined how the different ways relate to their sales potential, in the sameway that lead generation in business networking groups show how "hot" a lead can be, so for example:

Contact Number - customer calls you from the website is a hot lead. They are interested in your services and may have a few questions, but the sale is almost complete.


Contact Form - Customer is interested in your services and is a warm lead. They are placing the ball in your court to contact them to complete the sale.

Its a fact that over 90% of visitors will complete a contact form rather than call, so ask yourself this question..."If you dont have a contact form on your site, how much potential business are you now loosing?"

Opnes Click2Call is another solution which helps your visitors contact you directly from your website using forms and contecting you to your visitors at a time that suits them!


The system currently being used by major call centres such as RBS, British Gas and Barclays, allows the client to complete a simple online form on your website and then you, as the website owner, gets connected to the visitor via a phone call, at the time the visitor specifies.
This video provisioned by British Gas in the past few weeks, backed by TV and Radio advertising, demonstrates that businesses are now committed to delivering a great customer experience using call-back services -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgM8mdu86ds

How to Integrate Linkedin into your Outlook

To use the feature, users can follow these steps:

1.Download the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector from Microsoft (Outlook 2003, 2007, or 2010 is required)

2.Once that is installed, download the LinkedIn Outlook Connector

3.Restart your Outlook and follow the instructions to connect your LinkedIn account to Outlook

LinkedIn for Outlook is still in beta, and may require some tweaks before it's perfect, but LinkedIn is actively encouraging feedback, so users can voice their concerns easily.

Not only do moves like this reinforce how important social media has become to business, but they also reinforce the staying power of email. There has been a great deal of discussion in the past about how social media could kill email, but to the contrary, we're seeing more and more moves by social networks to become more integrated with the email channel. For email marketers, this is great news.

Image and Video Gallery Options

This week saw the latest funcationlity on Opnes with the launch of a image and video gallery page for websites.

Users can simply upload images or link to videos from sites such as YouTube to create image galleries and video galleries on their site.

The system uses a light box application simular to those found on popular sites such as Facebook, giving a professional look and feel to the users site.

Images are uploaded and image titles and descriptions can be added giving visitors a user friendly front end to the galleries.

Users can flick between photos / videos easily enough or just click on a thumbnail for larger viewing.

Most websites offer photo galleries but very few offer photos galleries AND video galleries as standard to their clients.

For more informaiton about Opnes and the latest feature available, please checkout the website at www.opnes.com