Useful Tips For Getting Your New Site Indexed And Ranking In The Search Engines

Launching a new site is often a proud moment for the individual or business concerned, as months of planning, preparation, work and testing have all been completed and you are now ready to show the world. But, the newest problem now emerges, how do you get the people to see your site if it is not in the search engines?

We offer some useful advice, tips and methods of getting your site indexed, which if you follow most or all; you should be able to see your site in the major search engines before long.

Holding Page – Once you have the idea for a new site and have the domain name, get it hosted and put a simple holding page up. The biggest problem for getting indexed is getting that first page indexed, so if you can manage to let the engines know about your site months before launch via a holding page, they will already know about you and come round to play much quicker than if launching a new domain name with no background.

Tell The Engines – Although not used as much these days, all of the engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing still have a screen where you can “submit” your site to the engine, letting them know a new kid is on the block. Simply go to the engine of your choice and look for a “Submit Site” page, where you then enter your URL, hit the submit button and wait for the robots to come crawling.

Webmaster Control Panel – All of three major search engines have a Webmaster control panel, which you can add your site to. Once you have signed up and verified your site, you can then submit a sitemap to each of the control panels, which helps to the search engine about your new site and therefore send the robots to crawl the site. The Google Webmaster control panel even lets you set the speed of crawling rate, which can help in getting a site with lots of pages crawled more quickly. You will continue to use the webmaster control panel for the rest of your site’s life, so this is well worth doing straight away.

Google Analytics – If you add Google Analytics to your site, because the code is on every page of your site, then Google will know about your site in much more detail than without. We have seen sites get indexed just by adding the Google Analytics code, so not only will you get the best statistics package on the internet, you will also hopefully help to get your site indexed quicker.

Links From High Page Rank Sites – The engines follow links from other sites to find new sites. If you have a link from a really important site or a site with a high page rank, you can be sure the engines will find your site much quicker, as they assume a link from an important site is well worth following, as it will be deemed to be important and have authority, simply because a site with a good ranking and authority is linking to it.

Press Releases – There are many paid and free press release sites on the internet and by getting your press release, including information about your site, contact details and of course that all important link back, you can let the engines know about the site and what it does and by having a link to your site, means they will follow this to help get your site indexed quicker.

Article Submissions – Pretty much the same as Press Releases, most paid and free article submission sites allow you to give some good advice, but in turn reward you with a link back to your site. If you then release a load of articles about your niche and relevant information, all of which have your name and link, the engines will then come along and not only know what your about, but see the link, follow it and also use it to help with your rankings, as you will begin to pick up authority.

Pay Per Click – All three of the engines, Yahoo, Google and Bing offer paid advertising. As anyone who has used or is using Pay Per Click will know, you have to give each engine your link to spend money on PPC. So, this is great way of getting your website known about to all of the big players, and in the meantime you will also be getting early traffic from paid advertising.

Hopefully, if you implement some of the above, even if they are only the ones you can realistically achieve, you should stand a much better chance of getting your site indexed and ranking in the engines quicker than if just waiting for it to happen by chance, which could take a long time.

When Should You Employ The Services Of An SEO Specialist

Many businesses who have their own websites reach a point where their website stops pulling in as much new traffic as it used to. The other common occurrence is over spending on PPC (pay per click advertising) when once upon a time they didn’t spend as much and got more results.

Usually the factors that determine the above is competition, maybe when your website first went live there wasn’t many competitors on the internet, now however there is more all trying to get the traffic from potential customers. This means that PPC keywords you previously bid on are now more expensive and the traffic of new customers is spread between you and your competitors.

If you have got to this stage or your website hasn’t really attracted enough traffic in the first place then employing the services of an SEO specialist is a good idea. They will be able to identify what your competitors are up to with regards to their website and what you could be doing to improve yours when compared.

The type of things that will be identified during an analysis will be:

• Page keywords
• Page descriptions
• Page titles
• Website footers
• Page ranking
• Indexed pages (through various search engines)
• Links (inbound and outbound)

With these identified an SEO specialist can make suggestions on how to improve your own site optimisation by finding elements that your competitors are doing well with and what they may have missed. This is very important information for your website. They can also recommend amendments to be made to your website such as new content, blogs, change of navigation and also identify what isn’t working and how to correct it, this could mean in some cases a site change or update which sounds like a tall order but normally isn’t and can dramatically help your traffic increase.

An SEO specialist can identify you PPC campaign, if they are worth their salt they can either cut the costs of your current campaign to make it more cost effective but still pull in traffic or maintain your current spend but target it into better areas so you will receive higher levels of traffic.

An SEO specialist will not only be able to increase your traffic but to make that traffic one you can turn into business due to the targeted nature of the SEO.

How Important Is Good Website Navigation

If you are in the process of having a website design or are maybe thinking about updating one you currently have then one thing that has to be considered carefully is site navigation.

Navigation is how easy is your site to navigate? Can users easily find the information they want and fairly quickly. This sounds very simple but it is sometimes something that is forgotten when a website design is in progress. When you are getting the website designed you can so easily get over involved with the look and feel of the site and overlook things such as:

• Menus
• Footers
• Sitemaps
• Image links

Menus are one of the main components and things to consider with menus are:

• Where are they going to be positioned?
• Will they be text based or images?
• Will they link to the right page?

When we look at positioning of menus I believe that you have three options, you can place it at the top of the site, the left hand side or the right hand side. The strongest options are definitely along the top and the right hand side. You can actually choose both options if you have a lot of pages to navigate. They have to go where the user will look for them naturally making navigation simple.

Will the images be text based or an image, remembering that search engines cannot read images. So text based is the best option but if it will compromise the look of the site using images is fine but just make sure that they look right and are Alt tagged, this way you get the best of both worlds.

This sounds like a simple one but the menus must link to the correct pages, there is nothing more frustrating than a site that has broken links, you click onto the page you want and a 404 page comes up. This can at times happen so make sure you have a well designed 404 page so users do not automatically leave your site and go elsewhere. Testing of links must be rigorously done in the early stages of the site going live so that any faults can be adjusted.

Footers not only give you the opportunity to write some text about yourself (good for search engines) but you can also place a small text based menu there. This gives users another option but also helps the menu to be read by search engines. Only make the footer a maximum of two lines though.

Sitemaps are very important to both navigation and search engines. A sitemap has listed within it every page on your website; this can be included in the footer menu. Users can use this as a means of navigation if they want to and believe me with some sites it is by far the quickest way to find out information. Sitemaps are also crawled through by search engines to pick up information, if you don’t have one you are definitely missing a trick. They must also be updated every time the site is changed with content to enable the search engines to know about it.

Lastly make sure that any images used are not only clear and relevant but if they are supposed to be linked to a page or are anchored then make sure that it works, again broken links are frustrating to users as it stops them from accessing what they require.

Make sure you mention the above to whoever is designing your site, don’t automatically think that it will be done as not all designers put sitemaps in. Hopefully this small guide will help you to understand navigation and allow you to create a user friendly site which will have them coming back for more.

How Using A Content Management System (CMS) Can Save You Time And Money

Content Management Systems, like Wordpress and Joomla have taken the ability to make and maintain a website to a new level for people and clients without any web design skills and also the most experienced web designer and coding expert. The ability to allow people to make simple changes to their website, without having to pay extra money for the privilege has transformed the whole aspect of running a website for business owners who previously thought that it was simply to expensive and time intensive to really make it worthwhile.

Wordpress and Joomla have both allowed websites to be delivered to clients allowing them to make simple changes and add or delete content with ease, meaning the client does not end up having the pay costly invoices just because they want a simple change to be implemented on their own website. It also means you can make the changes instantly, instead of having to fit into someone’s schedule and end up waiting much longer for the change than you expected.

A Content Management System allows you to:

• Make Changes – A decent CMS will allow you to make quick changes easily and efficiently, meaning that if you wake up at 3am and spot a spelling error, you can fix it, publish and then hopefully sleep a little easier knowing you don’t have to wait for your web designer to make this change for you, and charge for it.
• Add Content – There is nothing more frustrating for a budding web entrepreneur than having to wait for someone else to do something. A CMS allows you to add the content within seconds of entering your admin area, and it will be live on the internet for your public to see within a few seconds of clicking the publish button!
• Instant Access – Because the CMS sits behind your website, as long as you have an internet connection you can login and access the system, meaning wherever you are in the world, on holiday or travelling on a train, you can access your own website, make changes and do whatever you need to do. Adding your latest article or uploading your photos can be done from anywhere in the world, meaning more control and quicker updates for your personal website or commercial offering.
• Optimisation – A good CMS allows you to not only control the content, but also control your keywords, title and description tags, per page, which means you will have the chance to really optimise your site. Although content is always the most important thing for getting traffic, you still need to make the pages optimised, and a good CMS will give you full control of this as well.

When most web designers first started designing websites, they would of used programs like Frontpage and Dreamweaver, and then have to upload the new pages via FTP. This caused major issues if you had more than one person in more than one location working on the site, due to content control issues. A CMS will take this issue away, as everything is done online and most decent ones will also lock the page, meaning only one person can open it at one time.

A CMS will save you time and money because you can do things quickly and do them yourself. When you take people you rely on out of the equation, you then take back control, which any business owner will tell you is a must when it comes to trying to stream operations to make them more cost efficient. It is also much more rewarding once you have got to grips with a CMS, as it just means you are now in control of another aspect of your business, which is vital in this day and age.

Will a CMS ever replace the need for Web Designers and Developers? The answer is no, not at all. It just means that we can give our clients more control over what they can do on their own website, something we feel is very important for clients and customers. A good CMS actually helps web designers and developers to do their job more efficiently, as the coding aspect is normally really good; leaving them to concentrate on making sure the website is perfect for the client.

Optimised Web Site Design

Many people believe that just having a website is enough to get their business off and running online, this however just isn’t true. If you have committed to having a web site designed then of course you have made a good start but don’t just go for a flashy design with lots of features.

In order for a website to work correctly there are many things to be considered:

• Site download time
• On page optimisation
• User Friendly design
• Page dimensions
• Content
• Install an analytics package

The above are all very important in the process of building a site and should be considered carefully.

Site download time is becoming an important issue and rumours have it that search engines are going to be looking at this more and more. Visitors to your website will not want to wait a long time for it to download; research has shown that users will only wait on average 8 seconds for a page download. If your site is too slow you will lose visitors to competitors. To speed up your site don’t add too many images and limit the amount of flash involved.

On page optimisation is crucial if you want search engines to find your website. With more and more people using search engines to find websites and information you really need to carefully select what keywords, descriptions and page titles you use. Think about what words people will use to search for you and make sure that they are included in the title, description and keywords. By doing this you will be found by search engines. An SEO specialist can help you with this.

Make sure your website has a user friendly design; you need to think about where certain things should be such as menus and content. Most people get used to looking in certain places for menus and links so if you put yours in an unusual place they won’t be able to find it and will leave. Other things to consider are colour schemes don’t over do it as it will confuse your users, do make it appealing though.

Page dimensions can be a difficult one, if you are using a large widescreen monitor then your design may look good but to someone who is using a smaller screen it can be a bad experience. Do not make the page too wide because users with smaller screens will have to navigate horizontally which is a big turn off for most users. Height isn’t such a big issue as users do not mind scrolling down a page, but this said don’t go over board.

Content is probably one of the most important components of any site. Search engines love content and it looks like they always will. New updated content gives them something to read and makes your website more important to them helping you become more visible. This said don’t just write any old thing on there as the most important aspect is that users who come onto your site want to find what they are looking for and easily so don’t babble. Content can also come in the form of blogs so make sure your website has an integrated blog as this way any updates are new and fresh and on your site. Content can also contain good keywords which again will appeal to search engines.

Obviously you will want to know how many visitors your site has and where they have come from; you would be surprised at the amount of websites designed without this in mind. Without analytics you do not know what is going on, it is like having a store and not knowing how many visitors are coming in. If you have an e-commerce site then by not knowing your visitors you will not know your conversion rate of sales. If you know that 1000 people visit your site each week but you are only selling 10 items something is wrong, you can then look at your site design, products and pricing to understand what is putting people off. Analytics is vital to understanding your web site.

Having a website is a great way to showcase your business or personal interests but if it isn’t optimised then nobody can find it and it will be just out there not creating any interest.

Cult and Boutique Wines Ltd Prepare For The Upcoming Annual Trade Tasting

Cult and Boutique Wines Ltd specialist wine merchants and members of Wine Australia, prepare for the upcoming Annual Trade Tasting “World Class Australia” on the 3^rd February 2010 to be held at the Saatchi Gallery London.

Paul Evans Senior Wine Buyer at Cult and Boutique Wines will be showcasing a range of the premium and cult Australian wines that have helped Cult and Boutique make a huge impact within the UK market over the last three years.

Evans say’s “We really have received some great feedback whenever we show our wines at these events. Not only have we seen our wines featured in various respected wine publications but we have also seen them listed alongside blue chip Bordeaux and Burgundies in respected establishments such as Knightsbridge Hotel, Mandarin Oriental and the Michelin starred Fat Duck Restaurant in Bray.

We focus on Low production high quality wines, something a little bit different to the mass production wines that you tend to find on the shelves of your local merchant”.

Trade shows are a great way for specialist merchants such as Cult and Boutique to showcase their Premium Cult and Boutique wines within the UK, drawing attention to wines that would not ordinarily be available to the trade.

Below are some of the ‘crowd favourites’ from the extensive list that were shown at the 2009 London International Wine Fair held annually at the ExCeL centre London.

• Two Hands Zippy’s Block Shiraz 2004
• Clarendon Hills Astralis Syrah 2004
• Kay Brothers Block 6 Shiraz 2004/2005/2006
• Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz 2001
• The Colonial Estate Émigré 2006

For more information in regards to these products and the services that Cult and Boutique Wines can offer please contact Paul Evans on 0208 948 9433 wines@cultandboutique.com or visit our website www.cultandboutique.com

Things To Consider When Choosing A Host For Your Website

Choosing where you are going to host your website is important, even if you think that you can just choose any old host, as long as they work. To some degree, making sure your website is always visible is a pretty important factor of choosing a host, but in this day and age, most website hosting companies offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee anyway, so there are other considerations to think about when choosing your host.

Price – We have all been here when choosing a host, we simply look for who is the cheapest, a mistake most of us make with our first few websites. Although getting a good price is undoubtedly important, sometimes the cheapest is not always the best, and if you can afford it, it can sometimes be a good idea to spend a little more to gain a little more, in terms of service, reliability and standards.

Location – This is quite often a common mistake made by many new webmasters. The location of the server ( or computer ) that your website is hosted on is critical if your website or service is location specific. For example, if you sell products to the UK and have a .co.uk domain name, you need to make sure the server your site is hosted on is in the UK. Google takes the location of your server into consideration as part of the whole of SERPs process, so make sure you host your website in the country in which you operate.

Reputation – The internet has made it very easy to find out about any company in the world, simply with a quick a search in Google. You can find out user reviews, information about the company, read reviews and find out if there have been any previous issues with a host. You can also buy magazines which rate and rank hosts and you can always have a chat to other local businesses, friends and family to see if they have any overall recommendations.

Reliability – A car that doesn’t start is about as much use as a website that is never online, so check out the web hosting company’s previous service status announcements, up time and read all the reviews you can about other webmasters experiences with the company. Most web hosts guarantee a 99.9% uptime, some of them deliver, some do not, but you will need to do your research which you can do via independent forums and website magazines.

Support – It is Monday night, you are the only one in the office and your website is down and emails stuck in a black hole. Your web host doesn’t offer 24 hour support, and your orders have dropped to zero. You have to go to bed and try to sleep, knowing you wont be able to get anyone to fix it until the morning. Once again, we have all been there, and it is so important you choose a host with 24 hour assistance, as at some point over the period you will need to contact them, that is a guarantee.

Technology – Try to make sure that the web hosting company are using up to date servers and technology, as if you are paying for a hosting account you want something that is the latest technology which will also be more reliable than older technology. As servers evolve and develop, they are slowly becoming more reliable, faster and stable, so it is well worth a quick phone call to ask the company about how old their servers are etc and what technology they use.

Range Of Services – Some web hosting companies do just that, host websites for people. But some offer a lot more than others in terms of what you get. Some control panels are better than others and some of the hosts often through a few free services into the mix is you commit for 12 months, so it’s worth shopping around to make sure you get the best value for your money.

Windows V Linux – The operating system of your server can have an impact when it comes to how your website operates. Make sure you know what platform your website needs to run, as sometimes you will be automatically assigned to a server operating system that might not suit you.

To conclude, it is important to research who you host your website with. If your website is your business you need to make sure the host you choose is what you need and offers you all of the support and commitment you require. For the sake of a few hours research on the internet and by phoning around, you can end up saving yourself hours of heartbreak further down the road.

Clear Web Services Begins SEO Campaign For SL Clothing

Clear Web Services, based in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, are proud to announce a new partnership with Gloucester based SL Clothing, who offer PPE and promotional clothing for hospitality, healthcare, schools and corporate.

SL Clothing are an established company who have been operating since 1999 offering the highest quality products and service at competitive prices. This speaks for itself with the good amount of repeat custom that they receive.

Their website offers a wide range of products such as hi-visibility clothing, safety boots, school clothing, printed t shirts, caps and corporate wear with most of these items available to be customised for you.

Choosing from the items available couldn’t be easier with the online catalogue available on the website. Here you can choose exactly what products you require for customisation and then contact SL Clothing with regards to your logo, quantities and budget. On the website you can purchase many items directly through the available shopping cart function, items available this way are safety boots, hi – visibility clothing and PPE.

Clear Web Services Managing Director Will Smith commented:

“We were approached by Gloucester based SL Clothing to give a free initial review of the website and after suggesting some ideas SL Clothing agreed to start working together, we are delighted to be working with a company with such a strong view towards good personal service and price.”

With the Health and Safety regulations in place it is vital for all companies participating in industry to have a good system in place to ensure the safety of their employees at all times. SL Clothing offers all types of PPE clothing and a wide range of safety boots in various styles, not to mention both metallic and non metallic, you are sure to not only look after yourself and your employees but also look the part with your company logo easily seen.

Clear Web Services offers SEO Services and Web Design in the Forest of Dean, serving Coleford, Lydney, Cinderford, Clearwell and many other areas in the Forest. We also cover Gloucester, South Wales, including Chepstow and Monmouth and Hereford, in particular Ross on Wye.