If you pay attention to online marketing, you are constantly inundated with people who sell the so-called “secrets” to brand new marketing techniques on the Internet. Each and every day you are bombarded with new e-books, teleseminars and software alleging to hold the “secrets” of blog and ping, or the “secrets” of the death of Google Adsense or the “secrets” of content is king for Search Engines.

However, the truth of the matter in nearly all cases is that most of these products are expensive and endorsed solely by the gurus who get paid for every item they sell. Real testimonials are rare and the pressure you are under to purchase these products is enormous.

When we talk about the relationship between SEO and web design, it’s usually the technical part of the website design art that’s relevant, not the visual part (though certain aspects of visual design have their impact on SEO/SEM, as will be shown below).

One of the latest trends in the SEO industry is to put more and more emphasis on quality web design in the overall SEO process. If you aim at a long term success online, you need to know exactly how design and SEO integrate.

Make Your Design Work For You

Last week, Google made a startling claim, one that begs explanation even after close examination. Faced with lingering questíons about clíck fraud, Google released a blog post stating actual clíck fraud charges are ridiculously lower than those projected by third party analysts from the search marketing community.

According to Google, actual clíck fraud only accounts for 0.02% of all clíck activity found when Google’s team is asked to audit an advertiser’s account. If correct, Google’s 0.02% assertion places the perceived dollar value of actual clíck fraud in their system somewhere in the range of $2,100,000.

This might seem like an obvious statement. Of course the look and feel of my web site matters but how much does it actually matter and what can I do to improve my web design interface?

Many companies are constantly tweaking their web site with a view to capturing the attention of potential customers. Although not all web sites are commercial in nature, the majority of web site owners are targeting potential customers with the ultimate aim of securing online leads and sales.

Link popularity is by far the most important factor for determining your search engine ranking. You need to know what link popularity is, why it is so important, and how Google measures your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top of Google, you will rise to the top of all the other search engines as well). But, before we talk about how Google measures linking, we need to cover some basics.

I’ve looked at a lot of websites over the years and helped a lot of clients, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who is totally committed to making their site as successful as it could be.

This is particularly true when it comes to search engine optimization. Most online businesses make a half-hearted attempt to get better search engine rankings, but rarely implement anymore than one or two things that could really help make their site a success.

Which of the following does your website have?

1. Unique Page Titles.

Your website has gone from being in the Google search results for several years to not even being included in Google’s index.

What happened?

I generally spend a few hours a week taking part in discussions and lending the occasional helping hand at the Google Webmaster Help group, a forum set up to help address the problems and technical queries of frustrated webmasters, designers and SEOs with regards to anything from site verification to indexing & crawling; in fact, just about any Google related issue imaginable.