Improve the Web

Back in the days, to get into the search engines you only had to submit a site to them and it'd show up in the results (or you could just get listed in the Yahoo directory). Nowadays, doing that doesn't warrant anything and you have to work hard to be visible from the search engines.

Is it only the search engine algorithms that have affected the amount of energy one needs to invest in a website, or there are other factors at work? Let's see.

There have long been various myths, by which starting site owners or optimizers live by. Unfortunately, some of the myths are quite persistant to perishing (like the meta tags one), so it may be worth it to dispel some of them right here.

It is about two years that I have been studying copywriting, SEO, SEM, HTML/CSS, usability, accessibility and all that and I noticed a couple of interesting things.

The learning process

As it always happens when learning something, some things evolved and some things remained constant. A lot of information (articles, tips on forums, blog posts, etc) illuminate a certain aspect of website optimization and you either become more confident in your current knowledge or update it with the new information.

Webmasters who believe that there is no need to optimize web design are on a state of SEO confusion. This belief will lead to the failure of the overall search engine optimization process. It is important to optimize your site's design along with other factors like your site's content, links, page titles and Meta tags.

When everyone and their cat knows what SEO is, few people remember about making their websites usable for their own visitors. Unfortunately, they are missing a goldmine here, as website usability can have as positive effect on a website as quality search engine optimization.

What is website usability?

Anyway, what's this usability thing?

Put simply, usability is about making the site easy for your visitors. The easiness is about understanding what the site is about, navigating to what the visitor needs and doing what both site visitor and owner want.

Last week on the Cre8PC blog Kim Krause Berg mentioned two new usability documents released by Larry Constantine. The post led me to one of Larry's older documents entitled Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience: Designing for User Performance, which I have just recently read. The previous link will take you to a page where you can download the PDF.

Once done with creating and improving a website, you can very well spend your time on improving your online business. Apart from providing a useful product, you can consider building more trust with your customers to become more successful.

Directory submission seems to be one of the popular SEO services, as it is sometimes only one of the few ways a starting website can get incoming links. But is it worth spending your time or even $100-$200 for submitting your site to 500+ directories?

There are different types of directories: paid directories, free directories and free reciprocal directories. Each of them differs in how much value it can give to you and how much they take from you.

When launching a website most people don't really pay attention to the market they enter. As the online market is really huge and it is really easy to take part in it, the most crucial thing to do when launching a product or service is to find and enter a niche. Read on to know what you need to analyze to make sure you find the right niche for your product or service.

Back in the early days of the Internet, promoting a website in the search engines was as easy as editing one line of code. To promote your site, you simply send an e-mail to a friend and ask him to a friend. Not to mention the websites were more like Christmas-trees other than sophisticated booklets.