Improve the Web

Lately, I've been re-reading the masterpieces about creating link-worthy content. It is sometimes useful to recall what you know to be more efficient. Thus, you may as well either remember what you've heard about linkbait or learn new things from the links below.

What is link-bait?

Nowadays, linkbait is some kind of content, created with the intent of getting links. Most effective linkbaits are build on delivering great content, tools and such.

Some may be thinking that simply creating any product, setting up a website and starting selling will bring them lots of money and make their accountants smile from ear to ear. Some may just be thinking that outsourcing customer support is a viable option. What is it that any business can do to actually succeed, when it comes to customers?

Value for the people

You only buy something, when you need it (mostly). Would you expect your customers buy they don't need, then? Suppose, you have answered "I wouldn't!", so we could go on. If not, read the piece, nevertheless.

Lately, Steve has tagged me to write three tips on improving one's blog. I don't want to write only a part of what I know on improving blogs, so I'll present as many as I can think of.

Lately, when one of my stories got popular, I not only have had an insurge of visitors from Digg and other social sites, but also some comments both on the Digg page and under the post itself. Some comments were about the subject, but some revolved around making the article readable.

The whole experience of having a popular article allowed me to gain a better understanding of how I could improve my articles, as well as site and hosting performance.

Overall, using text is more preferrable, than using graphics (images, pictures, Flash and so on) on a website, because it is easier to understand and remember - and also accessible to the people and the search engines. But there are some cases, when using graphics is the right thing to do.

When to use graphics

As mentioned in the earlier article, graphics should only be used, when it is absolutely necessary, such as:

Getting local search engine traffic is one of the things that small businesses aspire to. Some even don't know they can increase the amount of local visitors by improving their website. So what can a local small business do to get the long-wanted local traffic?

What is local search?

Before we list things to do on your site to improve your local search engine traffic, we need to define what we want. This will help us to actually get what we want.

Some are not aware that there's a h1 tag. Some use is as they please. Others try to think what makes the most sense and act accordingly.

Let's see what is the best way to use the h1 heading tag on your website to appease both the humans and the search engines.

How is it supposed to be used?

Judging by the HTML 4.01 Strict specification:
A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section* it introduces.
*- bolding mine.

For the whole lot of posts on SEO or usability, here is one on usability humor, for a change. If you aren't a usability consultant, have a chuckle at the rare spicies lifestyle, too.

Online, people have the amount of memory span rapidly approaching zero. They have a lot of things to learn, more things to do and some things to share. And all that during a single day.
Writing your material using simple language will make it easier for your readers to understand your ideas and read your article to the end.

When you write for your customers, you'd rather address them directly in your site copy, instead of speaking about the product, vague benefits or even your company.

Address directly

Actually, this is all pretty simple. People are only interested in them - even when they are seemingly interested in others. Oh wait. Let's put it this way: you are only interested in yourself - even when you are seemingly interested in others.

Notice the difference?