Web Design

SEO Web Site Templates

Mark
Mark Oct 18 2005

There are many sites on the Internet that sell web site templates. Web templates can be a cost-effective way to start a web site if you are not a web designer. Many of the web templates out there are not very well optimized for search engine optimization, however. Hiring an SEO consultant to optimize a web template would cost much more that the web template itself.

It is for these reasons that I have started a site dedicated to providing SEO Web Site Templates. I have only posted 3 templates so far, but more will follow soon. The templates, which are very similar to each other, have been specified and designed with the primary objective of being optimized for SEO. Based current SEO best practices, the layout and HTML structure are optimal for search engine rankings. Of course, you still have to fill them with good content and build links to your site -- but with a solid SEO-optimized web site template, you can be off to a great start. For more information, click here

By the way, if you like the idea but you don't find a template that meets your needs, let me know. I am open to suggestions as to general and specific "themes" for future templates.

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search marketing

very useful articles…..I think seo off site more important and power full for geeting free traffic than seo on site, I already implemented for my web……so I am focus on off site optimisation…thanks

Oct 16 2008 Like
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search marketing

Great post. Blogs are a very natural way to attract links. I’d love to see a post on how to get your company to blog. Particularly if you are dealing with a large, conservative company.

Oct 16 2008 Like
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noor

ابغى سكس

Nov 19 2008 Like
 

Content Targeted Amazon Ads

Mark
Mark Apr 11 2004

I recently came across a tool that displays Amazon product links that are targeted at the content of the page - much the same way that Google AdSense targets ads.

The tool, which is offered by Alexa, works by adding some javacript to your page like this:

<script src="http://quicklinks.alexa.com/ifreq_server?return_js=1&store=books&tag=dvdplayers
&ad_geometry=14&url=http://www.markcarey.com/
content-targeted-amazon-ads.html">
</script>

Here it is in action (as I write this I am not sure what books will be recommended):

I have started a test with these ads on several of my sites. I wonder how good the targeting will be. Compared to AdSense, the range of products that can be displayed is much narrower, especially since you have to specify only one amazon store (books, dvds, electronics, etc.). By the way, that's number one feature request for Amazon associate links: ads boxes that span more than one store. This would be especially useful for Amazon Web Services (AWS) - enabling you to display a book, a dvd, and a dvd player in the same ad box. I am interested in feedback on how good the targeting is -- please reply in the discussion for this entry with your comments.

You can pass the following arguments with the script:

store - books, dvd, electronics, etc.
url - the URL of the page to target
tag - your Amazon associates id
ad_geometry - a code associated with the size and dimensions of the ad box

There is also an XML output option, which returns a series of keywords and a single key phrase based on the target URL. The idea is that you can then use the key phrase to display links using AWS. The XML method take the following form:

http://quicklinks.alexa.com/ifreq_server?n_terms=3&url=http://www.markcarey.com/content-targeted-amazon-ads.html

The tag n_terms enables you to limit the maximum number of terms that are returned. This actually affects the target phrase as well, so it would be interesting to test the optimal number of terms to achieve the best targeting.

To see what books would be recommended on your site, use the form below:


URL:
Ad Geometry:

Submit:

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Mark Carey

The Alexa service can be on and off. A lot of times is just isn't working :(

Aug 29 2004 Like
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Hashim

looks like they took the service away completely. Dag.

Jan 21 2005 Like
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Brian DeSpain

I friend of mine coded something similar awhile ago. There are no limitations on catalog and he has crawler index the page to determine the content. It's very effective and I use it across all my sites.

http://ejelta.com/sapiads/

Take a look. I use it on quite a few sites.

Jan 26 2005 Like
 

Simple and Interactive Web Design

Mark
Mark Dec 11 2003

I believe that web design should be kept simple, communicating clearly with customers and other web site visitors. Visitors should be able to easily navigate the web site in order to find what they are looking for. For smaller web sites, everything should be no more than a few clicks away from the home page.

I also believe that web sites become much more useful when they are interactive. Interactive web sites engage the site visitor to contribution information, questions, or comments. An integrated discussion forum can be an effective way to make a web page a true communications tool.

While I believe that easy-of-use is the most important factor in web design, I also consider search engine rankings when creating the structural elements of a web site. I design web sites that are both user- and search engine-friendly.

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Tom Sonsuwan

Alexa seems to load very slow when the code is added to the page. Anyoneelse is seeing the slow page load when adding the codes?.

Apr 10 2005 Like
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shraftali

I was just having a question in my mind that why a person needs a website that is running a very small business like catering, so I decided to write an article on this title "why do I need a good web designer". After going through every pros and cons of having a website I realized that web designing is good for every business no matter it is small or big, as it give the business increased number of prospective buyer or you can say customers, it not only gives the customer but also help the company to develop it's unique branded image. Having a website is worthless if it is not well designed. You should hire a professional web designer that can design your site perfectly in every aspect. Aspect of a well designed website includes a perfect user interface which includes the feature of attractive user-interface and user friendly navigation, so that each and every user can access there website no matter which platform he is using. Website that includes these entire features can be designed and developed by only that professional guy who is having in-depth knowledge of every aspect of the website designing and development. In the end I would like to suggest only this that quality doesn’t come cheap so never go for web designer just by looking at the cost that he will incurs to you stress on the quality of the product that he is going to deliver.

Jul 27 2006 Like
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SEO Expert - Priyanka

yes, thats true!! And I have something more to say as to how SEO and web design are related.

Search Engine Optimization is a method to allow search engines to access your website by honing in on your meta tags. Therefore, you must ensure that your tags are properly worded and placed, i.e., using a specific number of characters for your title, keywords, and description, on every page of your website as this will ultimately increase your traffic flow.
But before all this, you must be aware of that Web Design is an important aspect for SEO. Therefore, you need to design your website in such a way so that it is much more appealing to its visitors than the others out there. After all, Good website designs allure visitors to at least visit through the whole site.
Hence here are some web design tips to make your site look more attractive.
• You must choose carefully, a professional color scheme for your website as it represents your company's image. Stick to two or three complementary colors.
• Try to use images and graphics in your website. This will prove to be highly beneficial for you in case the visitor is not free to read your content but if you can attract them by images then you can convey your important message clearly. This will also help in capturing the visitor's attention and recall your site to visit again and again. But remember, do not over use Flash and other animation tools as this leads to an increase in page’s loading time and also looks unprofessional.
• Try to use bullets and numbering to make your content more crisp and lucid. Your visitor might not read every sentence of your content but can read the bulleted points easily.
• You must ensure that your visitors can read the text on the background i.e. if the background is dark always use light color for the writing a text and visa versa.
• You don't need to fill the whole screen with text and graphics instead use the white space effectively, and allow elements to breathe.
• Try to create a simple logo to identity your website. And this very logo explains everything about your business, hence you must take utmost care in not to use more than three colors and not to make it too wide or too tall. Also, have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.
• You must provide a way back to your home page on every single page of your site and give your customer the information they will be looking for and help them find it easily and quickly.
• You must keep your site's navigation consistent. What you do on one page, should be done the same way on the rest of your site's pages. Keep the colors consistent as well.
• You must make sure that your page loads faster. If viewers have to wait for a page to load then they will switch over to somewhere else. It is estimated that if a page doesn't load in 8 seconds you will lose 1/3 of your visitors.

Oct 17 2007 Like