Good SEO, Sacramento Search Engine Optimization

Your Website: Results are Compliments You Don’t Hear By David Lucht (Edited by Karen Di Piazza)This morning was my granddaughter’s birthday. She came running up to me, all dressed up, and obviously excited about something. She began tugging upward on her sleeve, exposing her armpit. She said, “Look, papa!” I had no idea what she was trying to show me. She proudly showed me her other armpit. I was still dumbfounded, but thankfully, her mom and grandmother explained that she was showing off wearing deodorant. Everyone commented what a big girl she was. She walked off brimming with pride. I thought to myself, I wear deodorant every day and never get special attention. I thought about why, as children, we get so much attention for the smallest of details. As adults, recognition for the smallest achievements seems to go away. Or does it?Let’s take your website designYou’ve just finished your site design and published it to your hosting company. It’s drop-dead gorgeous. You know this because you designed it or oversaw the development. The entire site is designed using Flash and the show itself is breathtaking. It moves, shakes, has a lot of cool features and has great audio, too. Everyone you give your domain address to say it’s beautiful. Those are the compliments you hear, but what’s deafening is that no visitors are finding your site; Flash is pretty much invisible to search engines, especially content-the most important thing. Although your site is ‘pretty,’ visitors who stumble across it leave without buying or contacting you.It’s amazing how many sites are designed to look good but fail miserably to monetize. Techie nerds-design masters-rarely have strong business sense. We all need computer technology engineers, but sometimes it’s best to consult with a website marketing expert before, during and after site development. Five important, often neglected site development tipsThe very first thing is choosing the domain name. Website names, like marylewisrealty.net, are generally a tough task to place in the search engines. Why? Because people aren’t likely to search the words Mary Lewis when they’re looking for residential property to purchase or to sell. However, people are likely to search, say, “Los Angeles homes for sale.” Your domain name should answer viewers’ questions and describe your products or services. Content is king! Most sites fail to offer good content. We live in a what’s in it for me world. You have to offer something that’s worthwhile in the visitor’s eyes; you only have seconds to capture their attention. Content must be up-to-date and proofread, a common mistake website managers miss. Make sure that all links are working. Dead links will chase away viewers forever: search engines will penalize your site. I once had a client come into my office who thought being able to clip a floppy disk on to someone’s shirt pocket was his ticket to wealth. Mine was the electric fork to go with the electric knife found in so many households. I suggested that he should first try to sell his clip-floppy disk idea to 10 people. He said that he was having trouble selling it locally. I told him he could show it on the Internet to millions of people that don’t want to buy it. He soon realized that spending money on a product that no one wanted was a waste of money and time. Do research and find out if there’s a demand for your offering.