SEO­Moz has a help­ful arti­cle dis­cussing on web page opti­miza­tion for e-commerce web­sites. The arti­cle is pretty in depth with­out being too tech­ni­cal — per­fect for my clients.  Hope you find it helpful!

Per­fect­ing On-Page Opti­miza­tion for Ecom­merce Websites

Prop­erly deal­ing with expired con­tent is impor­tant. I have a few clients who reg­u­larly update their web­site and remove con­tent that is dated or obso­lete.  Usu­ally I notice the con­tent is miss­ing and send them an email along the lines of “never remove con­tent!” along with some expla­na­tion. But is just keeps hap­pen­ing, and it is hurt­ing their vis­i­tors expe­ri­ence and their website’s search engine ranking.

The con­cern with remov­ing expired con­tent, or not remov­ing it, is that  vis­i­tors will con­tinue to come to your web­site, directed by search engines and out­side links, and will not find what they are look­ing for.  Either what they wanted is miss­ing, or it is old and out of date.  You have just made a bad impres­sion.  Fur­ther, search engines are in the busi­ness of direct­ing vis­i­tors to use­ful con­tent.  If they detect that send­ing vis­i­tors your way isn’t help­ful they will rank you lower in their search results.  Search engines want the pages and con­tent they think you have to be sta­ble and reliable. So what to do? (more…)

Web­site Ars Tech­nica has com­piled vis­i­tor browser use sta­tis­tics updated for March.  Inter­net Explorer con­tin­ues to be the most pop­u­lar browser with roughly 50% of users.  The next two most pop­u­lar are Fire­fox and Chrome.  The two graph­ics here show over usage includ­ing mobile, and desk­top only.  Note that Safari use dou­bles as you move from desk­top to over­all vis­i­tors — this reflects iPhone and iPad.

Track­ing vis­i­tor browser usage is impor­tant as each browser and plat­form has its own par­tic­u­lar con­sid­er­a­tions.  Mobile browsers have tiny screens, iPads and touch based, desk­tops have large screens.  All of these must be con­sid­ered in web­site design.

SEO pro­mo­tion of your web­site must con­sider both fac­tors inside your web­site, the design of your web­site, and out­side on web­sites that refer to you.  Search engines will look at where your web­site exists in the inter­net — who is link­ing to you and how rep­utable are they.  These are called back-links.

Good qual­ity back-links require a lit­tle work, but are worth­while.  One source for back-links are web­site direc­to­ries.  They will list your web­site and a descrip­tion.  There are bet­ter types of back-links, but direc­to­ries are cheap (free) and easy.  You do, how­ever, need a lot of them. There are ser­vices that can sub­mit your site auto­mat­i­cally for a fee, and you can also pay these direc­to­ries to pri­or­i­tize your list­ing.  Just be ready with your website’s address, title, and description.

This VERY long list has more direc­to­ries than you could ever need.  PR refers to PageR­ank and is a mea­sure of the direc­to­ries reputation.

(more…)

Blender has started the design process for new client fash­ion designer Mag­gie Coulombe.  Pic­tured is the first step in a pro­gres­sive launch that will include deep social inte­gra­tion and sub­tle but ever present shop­ping cart e-commerce.  The object is first to sup­port and pro­mote the Mag­gie Coulombe brand and sec­ond allow vis­i­tors to pur­chase her cloth­ing.  The site is based on the Word­Press con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem (CMS) sup­port­ing a Shopp plu­gin for e-commerce.

visit maggiecoulombe.com

Web Design Ledger (WDL) has a short arti­cle on includ­ing a social com­po­nent within the design of a web­site to encour­age vis­i­tor interactions.

Social web 2.0 trends have taken over many of our mod­ern sta­tic web­sites. Nowa­days it’s dif­fi­cult to find a com­pany who isn’t on Face­book or Twit­ter or Foursquare, or any of the other increas­ingly pop­u­lar social net­works. It’s impor­tant to con­sider this expe­ri­ence and how you can por­tray social con­nec­tion in the eyes of your visitors.

Opti­miz­ing your Web­site for Social User Experience

Shortly after hav­ing Blender give his web­site facelift and back-end over­haul long­time client Gary Mitchell learned his book was being pub­lished.  He decided a com­plete re-design was in order to focus in this new direction.

As part of the pre­vi­ous update Blender had con­verted Gary’s web­site to Word­Press based con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem (CMS). This meant we could now change the entire appear­ance of his web­site with­out touch­ing the con­tents.  Gary would edit and update his con­tent while Blender restyled the appearance.

Tech­nolo­gies: Word­Press, PHP, CSS, Javascript, jQuery

visit OnTracCoach.com

Web Design Digest lists 4 rea­sons your great look­ing web­site isn’t gen­er­at­ing any heat — tar­geted land­ing pages, clear call-to-action, direct home­page, and per­sonal connection.

Top 4 Rea­sons Your Beau­ti­ful Web­site Doesn’t Convert

SEO­Moz have cre­ated a great begin­ners guide to SEO.  I rec­om­mend all my clients read this guide, espe­cially the chap­ters on grow­ing in bound links and key­word research.  This guide will help you to under­stand what I am talk­ing about…

Begin­ners Guide to SEO