Lead Gen, Associate, and SEO Guru Adam Torkildson

In the matter of website design what to do first, a person who is contemplating starting a website or some sort of blog and who thinks that he or she might like to take a crack at designing it needs to keep a few things in mind. First of all, anyone interested in designing a website should sit down and come up with a plan or a concept for what it should look like.

This means, of course, that no small amount of research is going to need to be done beforehand. What is meant by research is the fact that a person will need to correctly identify the market or niche that the website is going to be targeted at. Eventually designing a site that gives the viewer or reader the impression that it is about bicycles when it is really about motorcycles is just one example of intelligent website design.

Along with deciding or determining the kind of niche that the website will be targeted at should be a realization that the site must, above all else, be usable and logical to any visitor or reader who happens to land there. This can create a bit of tension between the desire to make the website look space-age or really relevant, graphics wise, and the need to also be functional and easy to maneuver around.

Those who fail to realize this simple requirement (usability) tend to have websites designed that require multiple plug-ins or that end up taking a really long time to load on a user’s computer because they are extremely heavy with graphics that cause images to load very slowly. Studies show that most viewers of a website will quickly move on if they have any sort of issue viewing that site.

This is why it is important to do the research, identify the market or niche, and then — first of all — design the site so that it is extremely usable. Most experts recommend that websites should try to make use of black text on white backgrounds if possible. If a background is desired, designers should also try to use a plain-color background or go with something that is very subtle.

This is why it will be vital to make sure that the text itself is in a printable color, meaning that while white text on a black background looks good, if it doesn’t print in some other color other than white they’re going to be many user complaints or visits to the website will quickly drop off.

In the end, the matters of website design what to do first come down to research and then usability. Conduct your research to make sure that you are coming up with a thoughtful and relevant website and then make that website extremely easy to use when visitors arrive there.

Before you start a search engine marketing campaign, go to The Brilliant Assistant’s site for information on website design and graphic design services.

I’ve been focused on helping web sites rank in the number one position for nearly a decade. As a result I’ve read and seen a lot of information published on SEO that is either totally inaccurate or validated with actual research. The good news is that I’ve sorted through a lot of this information to help you identify the best SEO strategies.

Having worked directly with hundreds of web sites I have discovered techniques for optimizing web sites that actually work. I often get question about SEO such as, “what is the one technique that works better than all others?” A difficult question to answer because I have found a number of techniques that are truly effective.

The first search engine ranking factor has to do with the anchor text of all inbound links to your website. Google and other search engines use the anchor text from other sites linking in to determine what your site is about and what it should rank well for. If websites link in only using a URL, and not your keywords in the anchor text, email them and ask them to update your link. The link should always appear with your most important keywords.

The second most important ranking factor is using keywords in your title tag and other meta tags. Meta tags still have an impact on your search rankings. Although the weight of meta tags may be minimal, they are effective in categorizing your page and identifying what search engines should expect to find when they spider web site pages. Make sure your tags are constructed properly and include you keywords.

The third ranking factor to consider for your web site is link popularity. This phrase has been talked about in search engine circles for a while but can be equated with Page Rank. The concept of Page rank or link popularity for that matter take a number of factors into consideration to identify the quality of web pages from an external perspective. The largest factor that influences search engine rankings is the number and quality of links that are pointing to a web site or web page.

The fourth ranking factor is the diversity of domains that link to your web site. For many search engines, its not only what links you have to your site but making sure they are from different domains. This represents more popularity associated with you web site and therefore is judged to be a better search result. When link building, try to focus on generating inbound links from different websites.

The fifth ranking factor you want to consider is having your keywords in your domain. I know that it’s pretty difficult to do so, but at the very least, make sure that your keywords are in the subdomain or folder one step away from your domain. This place the keyword in proximity to your page and can support higher rankings.

Each of the five factors mentioned above are some of the most effective I have seen over more than a decade of online marketing. Focus on inbound links that are formatted properly, link popularity, and domains. By doing so you can dramatically improve the overall effectiveness of your search engine optimization efforts.

Michael Fleischner is the Author of SEO Made Simple and offers SEO training for small and medium sized businesses. Be sure to get free search engine optimization and Internet marketing support at the Internet marketing forum