More site design Issues

One of the biggest mistakes beginning web entrepreneurs make is trying to over-design their new sites. Many times, basic SEO techniques are simply left out. A perfect example is a brand new site selling a DVD workout tape. The site, Fit Pack, is a GREAT looking site! No doubt the owner worked many hours on it or paid a designer quite well. The problem is that the site is done totally in Flash. Go to the site and click on "view" in your browser then study the page source code. This code is all a search engine sees. Google does not see how great the site looks. All it sees is the code. Flash does not offer Google any content to index since the text written in Flash is invisible to a search engine. This DVD site will never be easily found in simple searchs in Google.

Be sure your site is designed with simple HTML. Text, images, and a few tables are all that are needed to create a site the search engines will index well. If the web designer knows CSS that is even better for the search engines. (CSS is not required. But if possible, use it.)

When using basic HTML, keep it simple. Do not try to "dress up" your site with moving images, background colors, scrolling text, etc. Simplicity helps builds trust in your visitors. Incorporating "cheesy" features into your pages makes your site look cheap.

Note: Do not fall for the many Internet scams out there which promise you great rankings or mega traffic!

Your site should be clean looking and easy for visitors to navigate. And most of all, the site needs plenty of keyword rich, original content. There are copyright reasons for not copying others' content. But more importantly, Google does not like duplicated content. your content must be original. If you have someone create the content for you, check each page in www.copyscape.com. Copyscape will scan the page and tell you if there are any pages with too similar content.

Use keyword tools to find effective terms to optimize the content with. Content is "King" with Google, and it is the only chance a new site has in showing up well in the search engines. For example if your site sells just one line of soy candles, it could have content pages written about the candles themselves, candle safety, the advantages of soy candles vs. wax, the history of candles, etc. Each page should be 300 to 700 words with the keyword phrase density of 2 to 7%. Before writing the articles be sure to study search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

If the site requires a shopping cart, I suggest the free PayPal shopping cart. It is not a full featured shopping cart by any means. But the beginning web entrepreneur has far more important things to worry about than the administration of complicated shopping carts. PayPal makes the process VERY easy. And the free cart accepts major credit cards as well as PayPal payments. Once the site is making 2 or 3 sales per day, it will be time to upgrade to a more robust shopping cart.