There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon… They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffíc and consumers to their website.
The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.

When it comes to SEO not all of us have the time to be experts. At some point the real “gurus” of SEO and other topics are the people with a whole lot of time on their hands. This list, put together with the everyday webmaster in mind, drives home some absolutely crucial points that you should keep in mind when optimizing your pages for valuable search rankings.

1. Check Search Engine Crawl Error Pages

Goodmail Systems announced last week that four major Internet service providers will be adding CertifiedEmail to their repertoire of email filters. The sweeping partnerships give Goodmail automatic access to some 65 percent of US inboxes.

Microsoft has yet to join the program, a deal that would boost that number to 85 percent. Bulk email senders wanting to bypass the spam filters at Yahoo, AOL, Time Warner Road Runner, Comcast, and Cox, can now do so for a quarter of a cent per email.

Or, as Goodmail competitor and third-party reputation service Habeas’ CEO Des Cahill puts it, at a cost of $2.50 CPM.

When I joined my first London ad agency 40-something years ago, the copywriting department was presided over by a lapsed genius who beat into me a number of immutable copy principles. These precepts, which are as valid now as they were then and which have helped me shift truckloads of product worldwide, apply to all types of promotional writing. They apply even more so to selling on the Internet, where do-it-yourself copy is the norm rather than the exception. In the old days, very few serious advertisers wrote their own material. Today, they do so as a matter of course simply because the technology allows it.

Before I get started, it is worth defining social media. It has become a widely used and abused term that means different things to different people.
My definition of social media is:

‘online technologies and practices that people use to share their opinions, insights and experiences with each other. Information can be shared as text, images, audio or video via blogs, message boards, wikis, RSS, podcasts and social networking sites’.

At the heart of social media is the ability of individuals to interact with other people so that they feel involved and part of a community. A big part of this phenomenon is the activity of finding, sharing and recommending products, services, events and experiences to like-minded people. This is where social media crosses over with marketing.

You would think that everyone in business would be able to tell you what they do and why you should be doing business with them; unfortunately the sad truth is many business executives can’t. In fact one of the biggest problems in designing websites has always been getting appropriate raw material that can be turned into meaningful presentations: a handful of badly written brochures and a few out-of-date photographs are not going to make much of an impression.
And now that the Web has involved into a sophisticated communication platform, able to deliver audio and video content, the problem has become even worse; not only do websites need to deliver appropriate copy and image content, they need to present audio dialog and video performances that demonstrate how products and services improve the business or personal lives of website visitors.

By now, you’ve all heard about Google’s new Universal Search concept, which combines all the information within its vertical databases into one index to serve a single set of Web search results. As you can imagine, this will require some adjustments to standard search engine optimization techniques. If you have been following the Bruce Clay methodology, then you should already be on the right track to optimizing every aspect of your Web site that is under your control. With the arrival of universal search, it’s not just a good idea; it’s a necessity.

The Google PageRank Toolbar in SEO circles is a hotly debated item, as are most issues dealing with Google. Some say it’s useless, others say it gives you a general overview of your site’s standing in Google. Regardless of who is right, this Toolbar shouldn’t be ignored nor worshipped, just closely watched.

The Google PR Toolbar is a simple tool you can download and place on your browser. When you surf the web, this toolbar will give you Google’s PR or Page Rank for that particular site or page. Google ranks all web pages from a scale of 0 to 10. This Toolbar is more like the Richter scale than an ordinary scale. There’s a big difference in the rankings as you go up and they are not proportional.

WNW Design are proud to launch Albion Motorcycles redesigned site recently, with an active set of pages listing used and new bikes available for purchase through the store. Albions website lists the motocross bikes they have for sale, as well as detailing their range of other services including bike repair, motocross clothing and gear, and expert off-road competition advice.

You can find Albion’s newly designed site here: http://www.albionmotorcycles.co.uk

How successful is your website? Do you really know how well it is performing for your business?

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that the more traffíc they get to their website the better, and they work towards this end. It is better to focus efforts on bringing in targeted traffíc that will convert to salës or enquiries. To understand more correctly how well a website is performing, and who is visiting the website, a good website statistics package is required, as well as an understanding of the data these website reports produce.