By Jemma Fong

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

A referral recently emailed me feeling very overwhelmed with the details and options she needed to consider with getting a website. (At this point this was my first contact with her). Already feeling flustered with the the day to day operations of getting her business up and running, her thoughts to wade through endless material online and having to understand what it all meant was not what she had in mind. So she explained to me, she just wanted some quick and easy information on what she needed to do to get started.

Finding the right professional to work with

So I asked her some basic questions, whether she was looking to do something herself (yes there are people out there who believe that they should be delving deep into understanding of how to develop a website themselves) or is looking for a web professional to help them with this process. Luckily for me, she said the latter.

Discovery/Assessment

So the first thing I shared with her, were some guidelines on how to choose a web developer to work with. Next I asked her about her business and how she saw how a website would fit into her overall business plans. I call this part of the discovery/assessment stage, so I can get an insight into how she believes a website will work for her, as well share with her how some other competitors may be using a website in their similar business model or industry.

Budgeting

I also asked her if she had thought about what type of budget she was thinking of allocating towards her website. As her website was mainly to support her other ongoing offline marketing and sales efforts, I suspected that it wasn’t going to be her main thrust as it may have been if it were an e-commerce or publishing site where the web site was her main business.

Once I got an overall feeling for what she was looking for, the budget range she expected to be investing, I suggested that we sit down in a FREE 1-hour consultative meeting, so that we could explore and learn more about where and how she wanted to proceed. I assured her over the phone, that I would be happy to learn more about her business and see whether we would be able to meet her objectives. With that, we booked a convenient time for her to come to our office. I call up or email my referree and thank them for thinking of me, and sending this potential client my way.

So stay tuned to learn more about what happens next in the initial 1-hour FREE consultation…

I telephoned and my referrer and thanked them for having the confidence to work with us and their client. Respectfully if I have the opportunity I will refer clients to them as well.

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Categories : Web works

The Importance of a Title Tag

By Jemma Fong

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Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

The title tag, one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. Title tags are equally important as your visible text copy. It defines the title of the document and is required in all HTML/XHTML documents. First of all let’s not get it confused with your main heading on the page. It is actually located in the top line of your browser (blue background for IE and black background for Firefox, right beside their icons). This can either be inserted by your developer through the meta tags, or you can use content management applications that may have this function.

Sample of title tag and where you can find it

Here are some guidelines in its usage:

Google currently displays less than 64 characters, some longer in other search engines
The title should contain your most important keyword phrase first, along with some other relevant keywords that best describe what the page is about
Each page should have its own unique title
Use your visible text copy as your guide to writing the best title, however, don’t use exact copy taken straight out of your copy
If you use CMS like WordPress, use the SEO Title Tag plug-in to get around the automated feature of WordPress
For other CMS, ask your developer if they can give you control over the Title Tag editing
Each title should be typed in the proper case, see http://www.writersblock.ca/tips/monthtip/tipmar98.htm for discussion on Capitalization of Titles
The title must be able to stand on its own and clearly communicate the contents of the page to the reader.
Home page titles should clearly indicate what is available on the page and your organizations name

Extra Title Tag considerations:

Sampling of Title displays in Search Results:

On Google, the title tag above will appear like this:
Creating Title Tags for Search Engine Optimization & Web Usability …

On Yahoo, the title will appear like this:
Creating Title Tags for Search Engine Optimization & Web Usability – Search Engine Marketing FAQ

Yahoo! has an absolute cutoff in presenting titles of exactly 120 characters, which is substantially longer and gives the webmaster much more room to present longer titles. If your title exceeds 120 characters, the title will simply be cropped, whether the display title ends in a complete word or not.

AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Google, MSN, and Yahoo! will display the copyright symbol(©), the trademark symbol (™), and the registered trademark symbol (®) in titles. You can use © or ™ to put the Copyright symbol in your title, ™ or ™ to put the Trademark symbol in your title, and ® to put the Registered Trademark symbol in your title, and all will appear correctly in AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Google, MSN, and Yahoo!, as well as others.

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Categories : SEO Search Engine Optimization

The Importance of Good Meta Descriptions

By Jemma Fong

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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

So you’ve been working hard at re-writing your copy to be naturally optimized for the search engines, and finally got listed in the search results; but how can you boost it to the front page? Ask yourself this question, “does your description really summarize what this page is about in (150 characters), or are you seeing a bizarre bunch of words that make no sense to the overall picture of the page.”

Sample of a bad meta description

Many site owners overlook this very important element to their website. The meta description is important as it allows search engines like Google to either utilize a well written meta description written by you or it will take snippets of your copy – this is why it is important to have relevant keyword terms either placed in your description, or strategically placed on your website – but remember it must be end-user friendly and make sense to the visitor of your site.

Take control of this process. Review each of your site pages and give your developer the wording that you feel best suited for that page. A lazy developer may just automate this process by using the same description on every page.

Summary:

Each page should have its own unique description
No precise rule, but best to keep to no more than 150 characters in length
Utilize keyword phrase and relevant keyword phrase for the word you are trying to optimize from the page in your description
This is what the code should look like in the page source; META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”informative description here”
If you don’t have time to do all pages, the very least, create a description for the critical URLs

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Categories : SEO Search Engine Optimization

Current Projects

By Jemma Fong

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Monday, August 31st, 2009

Here is a sneak preview of some of the new web projects, whether they are brand new web site designs, re-design of a current previous design perhaps done by other developers, or an SEO project whereby we help the client understand how to better optimize their site or training. Here in this section I will be posting some of our latest and current projects we are working on.

: Lupus Canada

: Parker Simone LLP Port Credit Accountants

: Mico Systems Your IT Outsourcing Partner

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Categories : Latest Works

Choosing a Professional Web Design Company

By Jemma Fong

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Thursday, August 27th, 2009

When choosing a professional web design company to design your web site, it is important that you ask the following questions:

Are they using template designs or custom designs? Not all designers work specifically with web. Many will either download an existing template or then just fill in your information – this makes it difficult for customization or future changing of the layout. Others may custom design but may be graphic designers who will offer their great graphic services, but you need to be cognizant of their skills with respect to designing an optimized site for the Internet and search engines. They should have a good understanding about site architecture, accessibility and usability etc. Make sure to work with or consult with a professional web designer.

Does the web design package include search engine optimization and submission? Ask them the process in which they take to submit your website to the search engines. Do they mass submit, or manually? Do they include an XML site map? Is there any follow up in 6 – 12 months to see if you are meeting your objectives?

Do they charge extra for setting up your web host server? This is where your site files reside in order for people to see your website online. Do they set this up for you as part of the package, or is this an extra fee? Find out what is involved and their maintenance plan.

Do they do the work themselves or do they outsource? This is critical in knowing whether the budget is including an extra fee to cover the “middleman”. Or do they themselves do the work themselves? If they outsource is it local or overseas? If they do it themselves, how many projects can they take on at a given time?

Look at their portfolio, do you like what you see? Do they have a variety of industries they work with, or is it all the same?

Are they courteous on the phone or email? Do they quickly return your emails or calls? Can you access them easily either by phone or email? Are they local?

What kind of business & marketing education do they have? Are they techies or do they have good business acumen and approach your web site design with sound business objectives?

Do they have good customer testimonials? What kind of feedback do you see? Case studies?

Are their web site and portfolio web sites easy to navigate?

Do you like their creative style? Or do their client sites all look alike?

Are they familiar with your industry? This isn’t necessarily imperative, but do they have the experience with sites that are either service oriented, consumer oriented, charity or business to business formats.