Blogs

If you have read any of my blogs, you will know that when forming a strategy for your website, you must have 'traffic' in mind - specifically, how you plan to attract traffic to your website. Google, Bing and other search engines remain the single most potent source of traffic delivery to all websites.

For this reason, it is important that when you are typing content for your website, you consider Google and other search engines as much as your customer, who will eventually read it.

Here are my top 3 tips to consider when typing copy for your website:

1. A page for each keyword

   It may seem an attractive proposition to litter your Homepage, or Services page, with all your important keywords.
   
   This will only confuse search engine spiders. It is important to give each of your keywords their own page, and by showing these keywords such respect, you will encourage search engines like Google to do likewise.
   
   
   

2. Repetition of keywords

   It is a fact that the more times you mention a keyword on a particular page, the more likely it is that page will be indexed by Google.
   
   But this is one people tend to get a bit silly with. You don't want to do so much repeating that when a human reader lands on your website, they think the copywriter has some sort of weird condition that makes them repeat stuff nonsensically.
   
   
   

3. Inter-linking OR Contextual Linking

   Within your content, if you refer to a keyword that has its own page, link that keyword to that page. For example: I am mentioning search engine optimisation but am actually writing about something else, so I have linked search engine optimisation, which is a keyword, to KayWeb's search engine optimisation page. Please click the keyword to see for yourself.
   
   The reason this is good is because search engine spiders will click those links to navigate through your pages. You end up mapping a route for these spiders.

The web has evolved a lot since its boom in the late 90s. Especially web typography. Web typography deals with the font usage among websites. The clearer the font, the better.

Web typography deals with the line-height, text-spacing and colour, which are all text properties. Font styles and usage will greatly affect the design of a website as a whole. It can be boring or exciting.

There are still advancements in web typography, including using the image replacement technique. Using css, some use images rather than web type fonts. It enhances someone's site significantly. Of course the negative of this option is that text within images are not readable by search engines.

Regardless, good old web type fonts are best for corporate websites after a clean look.

With fonts like Arial and Times New Roman considered "default" fonts for some, there are other alternative fonts that web designers should consider. Here are my Top 4 (in no particular order):

• Verdana - A good sans-serif font with good width and readability. It's pretty versatile, looking nice at small and big font sizes. It may have become too common though.
  
  
• Georgia - The 'New Age Times New Roman'. I think the mistake most web designers tend to make is they use this as their base content font. Georgia works well as headings, but it's too stylized in my opinion. Here's a tip: Use this font with high line-height properties in your CSS if you plan to make this your base font.
  
  
• Tahoma - Very similar to Verdana, but I think this is more effective in small sizes. The Windows feel to this font makes it good for footer text and comments.
  
  
• Lucida Sans Unicode - A relatively narrower sans serif font compared to Verdana and Tahoma. It relies too much on the smoothing of the system. This works well for modern-looking templates.

At KayWeb, we are all about guiding clients to embrace what is good on the web to advance their business.

Recently I blogged about Twitter. That despite Facebook being the best social networking ticket for individuals, the benefits of Twitter far outweigh those of Facebook when it comes to business.

The chief reason is that while Facebook pages are private to non-members, Twitter pages are public. Both are very popular websites, but by being public, there is greater chance your business will be exposed by Twitter to a wide audience.

Further, a link to your business website, blog, etc posted on Twitter, and clicked through from Twitter, will win you kudos with search engines like Google and Bing.

Here are my top 5 tips to get you and your business tweeting effectively:

1. Create account

   You have to be in it to benefit. Go to www.twitter.com and take the 5-10 minutes to register, add a picture and dress up your background.
   
   
   

2. Follow people

   Use Twitter's search feature to follow businesses and individuals that may be interested in your business' services or products, with the hope that you following them will entice them to follow you back.
   
   Also follow friends, as they will more certainly follow you back. Then their friends will see that you are being followed by someone they like, and thus, your network of followers begins to grow.
   
   
   

3. Be interesting

   The point of someone following you is because they want to read your status updates. Each status update is a micro blog post by you. This means you only have 140 characters to relay your thoughts, pitch, etc.
   
   Make those 140 characters as interesting as possible, or you will notice your legion of followers will end up dwindling.
   
   Smart ways of being interesting is by being short, including interesting links in tweets, including Twitpics in tweets, etc.
   
   
   

4. Link, link, link

   Include links to your business blog, website, etc as often as possible. People clicking through may end up clients/customers to you and search engines like Google will notice that a popular website like Twitter is linking people to your website! Kudos to you...
   
   
   

5. Take part in Trending Topics

   Trending Topics appear on the right side of your Twitter page, and they include topics that people are tweeting about most on Twitter at that particular moment. EG: Iran Elections and Michael Jackson most recently.
   
   You can identify trending topics and attract people to your post by including the relevant hashtag. Click here for more information on Twitter Hashtags.

Now, I hope you enjoy your Twitter experience. The above is enough to get you started.

Don't forget to follow me - Haig Kayserian - by clicking here.

And please follow KayWeb by clicking here.