SEO Training

It can seem like an impossible choice. SEO or Usability. Where is the compromise?

SEO is vital to the success of any website.  After all, if you can’t get found, then you can’t give your message.  However, once you have been found, it would be nice if people actually stayed on your site and read some of your content instead of clicking off somewhere else within seconds.  Content writing skills are extremely important.

Why are SEO and User Experience often opposites?

It all comes down to how the human mind works and how algorithms work.  Take pictures for example.  Google can’t “see” your graphics in the same way as humans do.

Despite huge improvements in search algorithms, the bottom line is that they still place a massive emphasis on original text content.

This contradicts what humans like to read.  We are the exact opposite.  We don’t really like reading online.  We like pictures and lots of them.

Heuristics – what have they ever done for us?

Jakob Nielsen is regarded by most as the father of usability heuristics (heuristics simply means that the rules are only loosely defined rather than strict).  It is worth reading through them.  What usability heuristics do is give us a rough template on how to not annoy users of both applications and websites (websites being a type of application really).

Keep Visitors Longer

By sticking to heuristic principles we have more chance of keeping our visitors for longer on our site, and of giving them an experience that in all probability they don’t particularly notice.  Not getting noticed in this case is a good thing.  We have all been frustrated on websites by not being able to simply navigate to where we want to go.  Mostly we just look for a new site when that happens.  This is the converse of heuristic principles.

This eye tracking study shows how we tend to read in a vaguely f shaped pattern online. This shows the importance of top google ranking too by the way.

How humans read web pages

We, as humans, read web pages quite differently to how we would read a book.  Broadly speaking, we scan down the left hand side of a web page, reading headings and only some of the words in the paragraphs below them.  How much depends on the level of interest the headline and the first few words invoked.

Thus, the way I wrote that last paragraph was not ideal from a heuristics point of view, since I essentially repeated the heading in my first line.  However that was ideal from an SEO perspective.  I train people to write like that.

Humans like short and snappy text, preferably backed up with pictures.  Google likes text, text and more text.  This is why content writing is such an artform.

How to please both humans and search engines with your content

I was recently working on a site relaunch for a recruitment agency specialising in Medical Jobs.  The website ranked really well for their chosen keywords within a very competitive niche market (no prizes for guessing who does their SEO!). However, the front page had a LOT of text on it that 99% of visitors would never read.

For the relaunch user experience was high on the list of priorities.  But we were faced with a problem.  A good user experience and lots of text on the front page do not good bedfellows make.

The solution was to turn to javascript and make the front page into a slideshow.  Not any javascript will do, and Ajax will not do at all.  The key to this is to make sure that when you view the source of your page, all the content is visible.  This means that search engines get to read all of your text.

Users get movement and interaction (which are plusses) while having the information broken down in such a way that they are more likely to read more of that text.

Did making a slideshow help keep visitors?

Yes it did.  Putting the information into a slideshow increased the average time on the front page of the site by 16 seconds straight away.  This means that people are actually staying to read the information, which is what you want if you have a website.

Benefits of Heuristics to SEO

Google take things like bounce rate and time on site into consideration for SEO too.  So, by providing a better user experience and keeping visitors longer through the use of heuristic principles, you are also improving your standing with the search engines.

How do I know if I should break up text on my page?

It is not always the case that text needs to be broken up for humans to appreciate it properly.  It is very simple to find out if your page needs help.  Use your analytics.  The key factor here is the amount of time spent on the page.  If it is really low on a page that has a lot of text then it stands to reason that your users are not reading it.  If that doesn’t upset you it should.  The only reason it would not upset you is if the content is really only there for the search engines.  In other words it’s spam content.  There should be nothing on your website that you do not want people to read.  Spam content can be recognised by search engines simply by measuring the time your visitors spend on your page.  If it’s too short for the amount of content, then the quality of the writing must be really bad. Thus at the very least, the page does not deserve to be ranked highly.

I don’t like slideshows (other ways to break up text)

If you have a lot of text on your page that you realise could not possibly be read in the time your analytics say people are taking to read it then you need to make some changes.  The following are ways of breaking up text in a page to make it more accessible…

• Lists.  Put your content into lists.  They are easier to read than straight paragraphs.
• Plenty of headings.  These hugely increase the chances of people reading more of your content.
• Boxes.  Place your content into bite sized individual boxes.
• Pictures. Pictures and picture captions are about the only thing that will distract us from reading down the left hand side of a page at the speed of light.  We love images.  However, stock images that we have seen before tend to be ignored.  Your pictures have to get attention too.
• Ruthless editing.  Big long sentences are bad.  Get rid of your verbose ramblings and stick to the point. (I could do with remembering that one).
• Highlight text. Using bold or italic text helps to get pertinent points noticed.

As always, remember that keyword stuffing is really annoying to users.  I don’t want to read about seo training in the latest seo training article on this seo training website.  Neither do search engines.  It may work to some extent, but it’s effect on users is to make you look bad, so don’t do it!

Eternity Jewellery Online Shop using OScommerce

I have been working on a site for a jewellers for the last while.  I decided to go with OScommerce as the ecommerce engine.  The reason for that was that it was recommended to me by several people. I decided to check it out.  I was delighted when I saw that it was w3c standards compliant, so I dived right in.

About OScommerce Version 2.3.1

OScommerce V2.3.1 is an open source online shopping solution.  Open source software is developed by a network of developers in an open community.  Therefore it is free.  That means I can charge less to my clients than if I buy a shopping cart solution or have to develop it from scratch myself.

OScommerce runs on PHP and mysql – which themselves have tons of online support available.

OScommerce comes with an impressive feature set which you can look through here.  It seems like they have everything covered. I particularly liked things like unlimited products and multi-currency support (although I since found out that exchange rates are only automatic if the US dollar is your primary currency).

Working with OScommerce 2.3.1 (let the review begin)

Installation

Installation was straightforward and there is plenty of online help if you get stuck.  It’s not as easy as wordpress, but it is not as hard as a multisite wordpress install.

Modification

This is where things get a little less rosy.  Unless you want to use OScommerce as it is then you are going to have to make some modifications.  It will work perfectly well as it is and you can upload your store logo etc, it’s just that I have yet to meet anybody that wants their shop to look like anybody elses.

OScommerce is not a theme based platform.  There are people out there selling “themes” but these all go further than just some changes to the CSS.

Any modifications will affect future updates! This is because just about every mod requires changes to more than one file.

There are thousands of modifications available though.  Be warned.  A lot of modifications require you to upload files, overwriting the ones that were there before.  If you have made modifications already you may well find yourself overwriting some of those.  The upshot of that would be at best stopping your original modifications from working, and at worst breaking your whole site.  Backup, backup, backup!

File Structure

It’s a nightmare.  To do something simple like adding a page requires changes to 3 pages (or maybe 4 I forget).  Once you get used to the file structure it’s not as bad, but you can forget about putting in a page called something.php and just linking to it.  It will not work.  The side menus are module based.  This is great in that you can position and reposition individual modules like the shopping cart and product categories easily from the admin.  It is not so great when it comes to adding to a module (extra pages for example) or creating a new module (box).

OScommerce SEO

SEO is a foreign concept to OScommerce.  I made the stupid assumption that because they had gone to the effort of making the site standards compliant (markup, but not CSS) that they had also put some effort into SEO.  This is absolutely not the case.  Problems with the SEO include:

1. Multiple pages with the same meta title (the store name).  Products and categories have separate page titles but all the other pages default to the shop name.  I confess that I got frustrated trying to work out the structure to change this and resorted to a switch statement in the header to change the page title of the other pages based on the url of the page.  God help me when it comes to doing mod-rewrites of the urls!
2. Links to index.php.  This is one of my pet hates.  Why link to www.whateversite.com/index.php when www.whateversite.com is perfectly acceptable and removes a duplicate page issue.  A quick mod-rewrite sorted out that.
3. Canonical URLS.  that sort of goes with the above.  Again sorted with a mod-rewrite.
4. Search Engine Friendly URL’s.  There is an option in the admin to display search engine friendly urls.  The trouble is that the solution is worse than the problem. The original url to a product could be http://www.eternityjewellery.ie/product_info.php?cPath=24_39&products_id=42.  Turning on Search Engine Friendly URL’s makes this http://www.eternityjewellery.ie/product_info.php/cPath/24_39/products_id/42.  What the advantage of that is supposed to be I don’t know.  There is no product name in there (in this case an eternity ring).  Worse than that it appears to add 4 folder levels to the url.  The further away from the home page a page is (sub folders) the less important it is. Needless to say I have turned that off.
5. There is no description meta tag.
6. There is no built in sitemap (although there are mods available).
7. There is no auto update to google et al when a new product is added.

Another issue I have is that there is no visual editor when putting in product information.  If you want to put in a list with your product then you have to code it.  No problem to me, but not nice for a client who doesn’t know html from abba.  Frankly that is a bit embarrassing.

There are SEO mods available, but you will need to install these first, before other mods since making an OScommerce site truly SEO friendly is not a simple task.  I decided not to because they mostly include stuff that is outdated or not necessary.  I’ll do it myself.

Things I don’t like about OScommerce v2.3.1

1. OScommerce allows you to add attributes or options to a product.  they were clearly thinking of options like available in red or blue.  This part of the admin is a disgrace.  Each attribute has to be added in separately.  With the Jewellery shop I was working with they had things like ring sizes.  There were 52 different ring sizes.  To individually add 52 options to each ring would take a long time and leave me with royally P***ed off clients.  I spent a day making some modifications to this page including allowing multiple selection of attributes for a product and re-ordering the lists.  They were ordered by id number from the database.  I changed it to be ordered alphabetically or I would never be able to find anything!  A search function would have been nice here too.  What you end up with is pages and pages of options and then more pages of which options are assigned to which products.  Oh, and similarly named products are a problem there too.  You can input a code for each product, but that code did not show up in the attributes page.  So two “Eternity Ring”s with different ring sizes available would get very confusing.  I had to modify that to show the product code too.  While I was at it I modified the breadcrumb trail navigation too.
2. Shipping.  There are lots of shipping methods available.  Combining them is not so easy.  My client wanted free delivery on orders over x amount, but only in Ireland.  This was achievable only by setting up two different shipping methods, one by price and the other by weight.  I further had to limit the price method to only come into effect in Ireland.  The documentation was skimpy and shipping took a full half day to sort out.  Part of the process of setting up shipping was to input the country code of every country in the list, along with the shipping price by weight.  Having a maximum of 255 characters per line in the inputs meant that I had to split one segment of countries into 4 (at the 255 character mark).  A headache!
3. Shipping part 2. If you work in lbs, then weights are not a problem.  For those of us who are metric it is not so straight forward.  The database is set to two decimal places.  So if you use kilos then you only get two decimal places of grams.  This is a problem on light goods like earrings for example.  You can change the db to reflect 3 decimal places or you can just measure everything in grams.  After trying both I went for weighing in grams.  OScommerce allows you to specify maximum weights for packages and increases overall package weight by a percentage after that to compensate your shipping charges.  From Ireland, even if it actually worked it would be inaccurate and useless.  I turned that off and just put in prices for larger weights in my main shipping section.
4. No wishlist.  I didn’t mind that so much, but my client would have liked one.  The only mod I could find for 2.3.1 to do this was on sale for $850 (which rather goes against the spirit of open-source).

Would I use OScommerce again?

Yes I would.  Now that I know my way around it, it is not a bad piece of software.  It is not nice to work with but it does what you want it to do at the end of the day, so it gets a reluctant thumbs up from me.  I only say reluctant because for a time I felt it was ruining my life!

When starting out on an SEO campaign where do you actually begin? How do you organise and prioritise? What is more important: social media, link building, content?

These questions are valid for everybody. They are particularly relevant if you have been charged with your company’s online marketing and are not 100% sure exactly what to do in order to get results that will get you a clap on the back.

Your SEO campaign needs planning to make you look good.

It all has to start with SEO analysis.  My granny used to knit a lot.  The house was littered with knitting patterns.  Try building a house without blueprints.  The same is true for online marketing and SEO.  Without a clear picture of what has to be done you will end up with a proverbial one armed jumper (an itchy one at that) or a house with architectural properties similar to that of my own (and the builders actually had plans!).

SEO analysis allows you to work out exactly where you stand right now and provides pointers for where you can achieve that all important traffic and Google rankings. Think of an SEO analysis report as an SEO blueprint.  A good SEO analysis report will tell you:

• What keywords am I using currently?
• Is my website standards compliant? (good code base)
• How can my site structure be improved? (for ease of use and for SEO)
• How does my site compare to that of competitors for SEO?
• What keywords are competitors using?
• What sites link back to my site?
• What sites link to my competitors sites?
• What are my sites Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats? (SWOT analysis)

A really good report will also bring in social media and assess what can be done there too.  It will also explain the effects of these different aspects on your websites online performance.

Webshed offer a SEO Health Check that incorporates these features.  That is because it is the essential building block of any online campaign.

If you are about to start an SEO campaign, do not go into it blind.  Have a clear plan based on facts and your life will be made that much easier and there is less possibility of spending lots of time on little return.

The default way that Wordpress displays your page/post/comment/tag pages title is to have the blog name, followed by two >> marks and then the post title, tag title, comment title, or just the blog name if it is the home page. Here is how to do some simple optimisation (ok ok optimization just for you Americans) on your Wordpress site or Blog.

As you can see, on this blog things are a little different.  The home page displays the blog name “SEO Training” and also the site description (small text below the blog title).

On the other pages I have made the blog name go to the right.  Why?  because it is better to have the more important keywords near the beginning of the title for SEO.  This is particularly true when the blog title is repeated on every page as it is in this case.

This is another issue.  Should I have the blog title showing on every page?  Jury is out on that one here… so I’m experimenting.  Another blog I write on my home site about online marketing does not have the blog title on every page. If it is a tag page then the page title will be just the tag.  If it is an article then just the article title will appear in the meta title tag.  The blog is new, so I will give it six months and see if I can notice any discernable difference in performance.

Anyway, I digress a bit. Here is how to change your title tag in wordpress.

1. You need to open the header.php file in whatever theme you are using.  You can do this directly from Wordpress, by clicking on the appearance menu item on the left of your Wordpress dashboard and then clicking on Editor which will show up below it.  Once you are in editor you can select Header (header.php) from the list of pages on the right.  Your files must be writable though or it will tell you it could not save your changes.  Alternatively, if like me you prefer to use ftp, then the path is wp-content -> themes -> (whatever theme you are using) -> header.php.
2. Find the title tag. It will look like this: <title><?php wp_title(’&laquo;’, true, ‘right’); ?> <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></title>
3. Change it to this: <title><?php if ( is_single() || is_page() || is_tag() || is_category()) {  wp_title(’&raquo;’,true,’right’); bloginfo(’name’);} else {
   bloginfo(’name’); echo ” &raquo; “; bloginfo(’description’);
   } ?></title>
4. Save it.  You’re done!

If you would like the blog title not to appear on every post then you want to use this instead: <title><?php if(wp_title(’&laquo;’,false, ‘right’)){wp_title(false);} else { bloginfo(’name’); echo ‘ &raquo; ‘; bloginfo(’description’);} ?></title>

That is all there is to it. Better SEO for your Wordpress site and it’s not even difficult! Enjoy!

Online Dating is becoming ever more popular in Ireland.  There are absolute parallels between those seeking partners online and those who are potential customers for your business.

They are all looking for something that attracts them.  Think of an online dating site as a shop.  Some of the products have pictures (and according to Jill McGrath over at MaybeFriends.com, these are the ones that get most attention).  If you are looking for a potential dating partner online, then you are most likely to click on a picture of somebody who is attractive and has a nice picture.  Translate that back to your business.  What can you learn from that?  It’s simple.  Good product pictures are essential to boost sales of that item.  I have seen far too many sites that use pictures they have taken themselves under bad lighting conditions.  Even the most lovely packaging is going to look shoddy if the lighting is bad and the background is not clean.  Get pictures from the manufacturer, or invest in hiring a photographer for product shots.

Same product, but if you were buying speakers which picture would you click on? The professional photograph or the one I took using my mobile phone on my desk?

What about if you sell a service rather than products?  Pictures are still important.  In fact, the links between online dating and selling your business can be even closer here.  People are attracted to people.  Getting stock images of attractive people to associate with your product makes sense, and costs practically nothing.

Back to our online dating analogy.  Once a hopeful browser has clicked on somebody they like the look of, what comes next?  (slow down, slow down).  Next comes finding out more about that person.  This is where text comes in.  In the case of dating, this is the text that somebody writes about themselves as a profile.  It is where the person has an opportunity to sell themselves as a person to a potential partner.  There are two ways in which this can be approached.  You can just put in your information, or you can actively sell yourself.  Indulge me for a moment while I give an example:

Bare Information: My friends say I am attractive.  I am easygoing, have a good sense of humour and like nights out and nights in too.

Selling: Thanks for clicking on my picture!  I’m a passionate about music, and love my nights out clubbing or going to gigs.  When it comes to romantic nights in, I like to cook with soft music playing in the background , and if it all goes wrong I know some good take-aways!

I think the difference is fairly obvious there, and the same goes for products / services…..

Bare information: Desktop speakers with volume and tone controls

Selling: Discreet desktop speakers that provide surprisingly good sound quality worthy of much higher end speakers.

Of course, from an SEO perspective, both contain the keywords “desktop speakers”.  Selling does not mean forgetting your SEO… it is about increasing conversions from visitors to sales.

Here is the difference between online dating and selling products or services: If you are on a dating site, and you have not put up a picture, and your profile does not sell you, it is not necessarily the end of the road.  You can still contact people, and possibly overcome the bad first impression you gave.  If you are selling a product, that’s it… you’re out of luck.  It is sale or no-sale time, and if you have not done it already now, you are never going to sell to that customer.

Just as dating is about getting to know someone, learn to trust them and developing a bond, before the sale goes through of your product online, you will probably need to earn some trust too.

If you are getting to know somebody you like and they seem to be holding back things, then you are going to be wary of them.  Likewise, if a customer cannot find your contact information, privacy policy, returns policy, registered business number or delivery information, they are less likely to trust your site.

First impressions last.  If you meet somebody you have met online, then how they present themselves on that first date will form a lasting impression. the same goes for your website.  If it looks even slightly less than professional then that is the lasting impression you are giving of your business.

This may all seem a bit far away from SEO training, but SEO and Online Marketing are linked.  There is no point having a site that ranks well if it does not appeal to your target audience.  Your customers come first. Those who forget this in the pursuit of SEO alone run the risk of becoming the internet equivalent of the old cat lady! (I’m not sure exactly what that is – suggestions in comments please).

So you own a small business.  You probably have much larger competitors and gaining a foothold seems like a huge uphill battle.   Rejoice – the internet is here.

Competing as a small business can feel like an uphill battle, but the internet is the great leveler

The internet is the great leveler.  Contrary to the opinion of several women I know. . . .size does not matter.  What matters is how well you use the (largely free) resources at your disposal. A SMF can punch way beyond its weight online, helped by the fact that budgets are nothing like as large as those needed for traditional media.

Small business’ tend to be run by experts in their fields.  If you did not have unique selling points you would not be in business.  Those unique selling points may be superior service or a superior quality product.  You know it, you believe in it.  How do you get the world to sit up and take notice?

SEO is essential.  If your website cannot be found you will not gain any attention.  Further more, it is important that your website reflects your core values.  People buy from people.  This is still true on the internet.  You must make a personal connection.  A shoddy website will have all your hard earned visitors leaving as quickly as they arrived.

There is a temptation to use cheap web publishing services.

I am all for value, but not at the expense of professionalism.  Your website MUST reflect your business.

SEO is not rocket science.

A small amount of SEO training will get you a long way.  This is particularly true in the Irish market where there is far less competition.  A company with 3 employees can compete with a company with 300 employees with a little time and effort.

My small business does not have the budget for online services.

Here is where you have to ascertain how useful internet traffic can be to your business.  Your budget for advertising in traditional media is spent on what works for you.  The same rules apply to the internet.  There must be a return on investment.  The beauty of the internet is that shoestring budgets are often more than acceptable.  It all depends on the amount of time you and your staff can dedicate to promoting your business.  I have got business’ off the ground for under €3k.  That includes a SEO friendly website, online marketing training and a solid foundation in SEO theory and practice.  More than that, the full amount does not have to be paid up-front.

We at webshed believe in training for small business.  We can show you how to make the internet work for you.  This gives you control and reduces costly errors.

Small business owners are passionate about their companies.  This makes small business’ a joy to work with.  Enthusiasm is infectious.

Make an emotional connection with your customers . . . but overdoing it could get complicated!

SEO training rarely incorporates the word emotional.  It should.  Your website is your shop window online.  It is where you sell your products and services.  It is where you market your ideas to a much larger audience than your actual shop (if you have one).

So how does the word emotional fit with SEO?  SEO is search engine optimisation.  It is making your website accessible for robots.  Not humans.  It works too.  Get it right and you will soon gain traffic through increased search engine rankings.  SEO is cold though.  It is concerned with keyword ratios, link text, and other non-human-friendly terms.

If you want to sell to search engines then SEO is for you.

If however you want to sell to a real live human being you are going to have to make some changes.  You have to reach a human emotionally.  Let me give you an example.  I want to sell SEO training.  I’m good at it and my customers get return on their investment.  Thus my prime keyword for this site is “SEO training”.  How do I write that to attract customers but keep my SEO efforts intact?

• Keyword – SEO training
• Search engine friendly – SEO training
• Customer and SEO friendly – Holistic SEO training – taking the pain out of connecting with your customers.

There are lots of other phrases that appeal to us people on an emotional level:-

• Liberate your website with Holistic SEO training
• Learn to love your website again
• Holistic SEO, Feelin’ good online
• Website Makeover – This time it’s personal

Different to the usual “Get first page on Google” offered by most SEO trainers.  Of course I could use that too.  The point is not to lose sight of who your customers are.  You are connecting with one individual person when they land on your site.  Do you make them feel welcome or do you give them a FAB overview of your products with no feeling for them to connect with?

Web sites tend to be written by technical people.  Thus lots of websites are more like technical manuals than sales brochures.  Get your marketing department involved in your website.  If you do not have a marketing department, at least make sure you are using a web designer that understands marketing and selling.  Most of all make sure they understand people.  Every business is a people business – particularly online, where it is that bit harder to make a personal connection and build loyalty.

Design your Website with SEO in mind. It is childs play really. . . . honest.

Web design and SEO should be symbiotic. After all, there is no point having a wonderful looking site if nobody can find it.  This site, by contrast, has no design whatsoever.  It can however be found.

Am I saying that SEO is more important than Web design?  Not really.  A good web designer will incorporate basic SEO into a site as they build it.  Not having any design (wordpress default style) is not a good thing though.  While the content on this site is good (or at least I try to make it good) a lack of design leads to me losing traffic.  This shows up as my bounce rate which is high enough for me to be embarrassed to print it here.

Of course there are other factors.  My writing style could do with an overhaul most of the time for starters.  There is no getting away from the fact though, that the first impression of this site is that it is unprofessional.  Nothing could be further from the truth in reality, but it is not a warm, inviting, friendly site.

This is not because I am not a warm, friendly or inviting type of person, it is purely down to how the site looks.

SEO will get a site noticed.  It will get visitors.  Keeping those visitors requires a little extra though.  Both Web design and SEO are extremely important.  The reason this site does not have any design is because I wanted to see the effects of bad design. The wordpress theme is not necessarily bad, but it gives an impression of little effort.  It also firmly aligns itself with spam blogs (splogs) by not altering the theme.  This is because the majority of splogs do not bother altering the theme either.

When I change the theme I expect to see a change in my stats.  That will not be for a while yet though.  I am not finished collecting data on the current setup.

For me, SEO is more important than design, but it is a mistake to ignore web design.  Equally it is a mistake to ignore SEO.

Of course to really market your web site online, holistic SEO is the way to go.  Do not look at the web in terms of SEO vs Design, Adwords Vs SEO or Social Media Vs Adwords.  Look at it in terms of a marketing medium and bring in everything.  There is no more cost effective medium for marketing.  Use it to its full potential to sell your business.

Using pictures that include a female eye will draw attention to your page.

To date none of the posts  on this blog have contained pictures.  Why?  Frankly there is not good reason for it whatsoever.  In fact it is really inexcusable, lazy, and nearly guarantees that I do not get anybody reading much, if any of what I write.

Pictures speak a thousand words as the saying goes.  It is true, but not the whole story.  If you realise that good Search Engine Optimisation is not purely about search engines, then you have to look beyond text on a page.

Search engines love text.  That is how I got away with not putting any pictures into previous blog posts.  To a search engine a text only site is a sort of nirvana.  To real live humans, a site without pictures is boring, uninteresting, bland, heavy…… in short, it is not going to hold the attention of the average web surfer.

What sort of pictures should I use?

You need to captivate your audience.  Your pictures should be relevant to the text on the page.  They should also draw your readers to the page.  The rules for pictures online are no different to the rules for pictures in magazines.  Go into a newsagent and look at the magazine rack.  You will be met with row after row of faces looking back at you.  The reason is that people love to look at people.  I used an eye as the picture for this post to prove a point.  The human eye is about the most universally alluring image you can use.  Female eyes in particular.  This is because men are not as drawn by other mens eyes, yet women do not blank other women in the same way.  We all crave eye contact – even online.

But that is not the end of our story.  Pictures are all very well for people, but what about those search engines?  This is an area where many many web publishers fall down, all through not following W3C standards.

All images must include an alt attribute!

The alt attribute is where you get to tell the search engines what your picture is of.  Search engines can’t see pictures, they can only read the text that is attributed to them.  By leaving out the alt attribute, you are putting a blindfold over any search engine that crawls your site.  That’s plain stupid!

In the case of this post the alt text is the same as the picture title.  The line starts with the words “using pictures” which is the same as the blog post title.  In other words I have just managed to get some keywords into the page again without being spammy.  The alt text is descriptive.  It gives an idea of what the picture is about.  It could be better, it could say “picture of a single female eye”, but that would not work as a caption.  This post is all about people, search engines come second (but they still receive all the attention they need).

Even the file name of the picture is “eye-picture.jpg”, lest there be any confusion.

Choose your pictures wisely.  A few more minutes sourcing your pictures could make quite a difference to your site.  Try to use your own pictures (or make up your own if you are a dab hand at photoshop).  That way you are serving up original content which is a good idea.

How many pictures? Well this post could have done with at least one more picture.  That should give you an idea.  A lot of surfers will only look at pictures and captions.  They will only read the text if the caption of the picture gets their attention.  If you have got this far, then the picture did its job!

The other benefit of pictures is that they get indexed by Google images.  It gives another route in to your website that you have worked so hard on.  It’s all about using pictures to drive traffic, keep interest and in the case of original and eye catching pictures, get links.

You have a business, you need a website.  Where do you go from there?

Prices for web design vary wildly.  You can get a website for a few hundred euros up to several thousand. So who should you pick and why?

Website design is about much more than just design.  Your site needs to sell your business.  To do that it has to be found.  So you should budget for some SEO work as well.

The wool can be pulled over your eyes in many ways.  A good website design will incorporate many elements that come under the SEO heading too.  There are far too many website designers that are happy to knock out frankly substandard work and charge handsomely for it.

Picking a web designer is a quagmire.  Here are some points that may help (or scare you off completely)..

1. Your Website should conform to standards. Use the W3C standards checker to assess sites previously done by prospective designers of your site.  Your business has standards.  So does the Internet.  Unfortunately, because most customers are unaware of those standards they are ignored by many designers.  If a designer tells you this is not important, remind them that Google webmaster guidelines say that it is important.
2. Qualifications don’t really count.  Even in our universities web standards are not top of the priority list when teaching web design.  Previous work that includes designs you like and are standards compliant are the best gauge you can use.
3. Do you need a CMS (Content Management System).  A content management system allows people with no web experience to write and edit their own content.  If you do not have personnel in your organisation that can edit a web page then this is really a must.  Otherwise you are stuck with having to get your web designer to change your site every time you need to update it (and it should be updated often).
4. Word of mouth referrals are not worth a damn.  Lots of business customers are very happy with their websites and should not be.  The site looks good to them and they have been told by the designer that it is great.  The reality may be far from that.  Looking nice and performing well are not synonymous.  Many even have basic errors like not working properly on all web browsers.
5. A web designer should not be charging extra for some forms of SEO.  SEO is essentially following standards guidelines and link building.  A good web designer will include good practice in the design.  There should be as little code on a page as possible (javascript, ajax and css all kept off page).  In english: There should not be any code on the page that does not absolutely have to be there.   There are “designers” that are still making websites in tables (It is now done through <div> and Css (Cascading Style Sheets).  That does not mean that there should be no tables on your site, just that the structure should not be made up of tables.

When you approach web designers you should find out exactly what they are offering for the money.  Get them to write out a proposal for you.  Then when you have several you are in a better position to make a choice.

Remember, Cheap is probably just a template that has been used on other sites and with no CMS or some flaws in the coding.  But… Expensive does not necessarily mean better.  You could pay over five grand and still end up with a pile of poo as far as SEO or usability are concerned.  Just make sure you know exactly what you will be getting for your money before the project commences.

The proposals are not the end of the line.  You can still go back to each company/individual and ask questions.  If you don’t understand something get it explained.  If something is included on one proposal and not the others ask the others about it.  I hope this was useful to some of you.