5 Tips For A Better Website

Having an eye catching website is great, but are you optimizing your website to allow the best performance possible? I receive several emails a day from clients asking how they can get more hits to their websites, what can be done to increase sales, and how to prepare their sites for search engines. There are very simple things that can be done to help your website perform its best.

First of all, a websites load time is important for many reasons. No one wants to site and wait a minute for a page to show up. Slow loading websites can attribute to lost sales for your business! Many customers will actually avoid a website that takes a long time to load. You can keep your websites load time down drastically but keeping the size 26kb or smaller. If you are unsure of the size if your site you can calculate the size of your web page by highlighting the HTML document, then click on 'File' and 'Properties' and see your file size. Then repeat same step for each graphic you have on that page. Add each file size together to get the exact size of that page. One of the easiest ways to get a faster loading page is to shrink the images on your website. A GIF graphic can normally be reduced by around 30-40% without loosing any sharpness.

A site that contains broken links gives a bad impression to your visitors and can be a cause of lost visitors. Aside from the fact that broken links look unprofessional, some of the major search engines and portals may not index your page if it has broken links or missing images. You should check your website once it is complete to make sure every link is working properly, to avoid a possible business loss.

Search engines do not index images, so it is a good idea to always add ALT tags to your images to make sure the search engines recognize all of the content on your site. ALT tags that contain keywords can also be used to increase your keyword frequency and help you achieve better rankings.

When creating meta tags do NOT repeat the same key word several times. This is called 'keyword spamming' and it is disliked by the search engines. Let's say your website offers gift baskets, use the keyword 1 or two times and that is it. If your keywords are baby gift basket, hostess gift, wedding basket, corporate gift basket, holiday gift basket, you have repeated the keyword gift and basket to many times. You can minimize your keyword characters by using gift basket, wedding, gifts, baby, wedding, corporate, and holiday. This way your website is not considered keyword spamming.

Many designers often separate keywords with commas. Instead of separating each keyword with a comma, just separate them using a space. By doing this, it will allow the search engines to combine your keywords into phrases, for people who use phrases to search.

These are very simple things that will help you see a big difference!

About The Author

Tara Grant, owner of http://www.designbytara.com, http://www.southernmomsonline.com, and http://www.wahpnetwork.com.

Tara is a mom of two small children and a warm-hearted entrepreneur. An avid networker in the WAHM community, Tara's website designs and promotion packages are reasonably priced and geared toward female entrepreneurs and small business

info@designbytara.com

In The News:

pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


How Disabled Users Access The Internet

In 1995 a new era of accessibility for disabled people... Read More

Make Your Web Site User-Friendly!

Making a web site is easy. Making a good web... Read More

Unlocking the Power of Your Website!

Why do some web sites reap huge benefits while others... Read More

The 2 Most Common Web Site Mistakes

When we review the sites of potential clients, there are... Read More

MySQL Database Handling in PHP

Most interactive websites nowadays require data to be presented dynamically... Read More

Improving Usability for Screen Reader Users

Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users... Read More

Creating a Sticky Web Site

When used to describe a web site, the term "sticky"... Read More

Web Site Promotion: How To Advertise Your Website For Profits

Making money with your web site is the dream and... Read More

Why Local Service Companies Should Have a Website

The Internet is being used by local service business to... Read More

How to Create a Professional Web Site in 24 Hours

While creating a Web site may seem like... Read More

Making Your Websites More Compelling

The Internet is a remarkable publishing medium. With just a... Read More

Direct Sales and Your Corporate Website - A Creative Marketing Plan that Works!

Creatively marketing your corporate site takes time in the set... Read More

You Need To Treat Your Website Like An Employee - Heres 5 Ways To Do It

People often come to me in a state of crisis... Read More

10 Tips For A Successful Website

Have you ever thought the secret behind the success of... Read More

What is The Google Toolbar?

No matter what browser you may want to use, you... Read More

Thinking Of Taking Money Online? Whats Best For Merchants? PayPal, WorldPay or Something Else?

It's now easier than ever to take payments on the... Read More

Flash Deadly Sins (That Can Kill Your Web Business)

Looks like every client wants a Flash site these days... Read More

Having a Domain Name And Web Site Gives Your Business The Key To The Door

Just like all things in life, the ways to run... Read More

3 Reasons Why You Need URL Rewriting Module To Enchance Your Web

URL rewriting are major needs for your sites that produce... Read More

Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand?

What happened on your website yesterday? What about last week... Read More

Build a Strong Foundation for Creating Your First Online Identity ? Notes for Beginners

If you are looking for creating your online presence you... Read More

Beautiful Web Sites Seldom Make More Sales

Designing an E-commerce Web site is not as simple as... Read More

The 5 Biggest Mistakes Almost All Web Designers Make

Huge Mistake #1: Creating a Website with Flash -- Did... Read More

Five Essential Questions to Answer Before Creating Your First (or second...or third) Website

Right after the thought, "I need a website," people usually... Read More

Link Trades That Waste Your Time

Never has competition been so difficult in the Internet world.... Read More

Tell me what your website does!

You know exactly what your organisation does and what your... Read More

HTML Editors 101 - Smaller Is Better

SiteSpinnerSiteSpinner is a user-friendly web site development tool that includes... Read More

What is SQL?

What is SQL? SQL stands for Structured Query Language and... Read More

Five Reasons You Have to Stop Your Web Site

That's right. Your method, behavior and strategy you are now... Read More

Benefits Of An Accessible Website: Part 2 - The Business Case

The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers must... Read More

How Worldly is Your World Wide Web?

The growth in Internet usage around the world is astounding... Read More

UK Online Shopping with an Edge, for Buyers and Sellers Alike

Any new website competing on the internet, needs to take... Read More

What ROI You Should Expect From Your Web Site

Is Your Web Site an Expense or an Investment?Why don't... Read More