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Here’s a search engine optimization concept that most people don’t think about: make sure you have keywords and key phrases in your TITLE tag. You know what the TITLE tag is, it’s the tag that gives you the name of the page on the Window frame in your browser, and it’s remarkable how few sites pay any attention to what’s in that critical search engine optimization (SEO) field.

Let’s take a quick tour of some big sites and have a look, shall we? HBO.com has a title tag of “HBO Online”. ESPN.com has “ESPN.com” as their title. No kidding. NYTimes.com is better, with “The New York Times > Breaking News, World News & Multimedia”, Microsoft has “Microsoft Corporation”, though, and, finally, BMW.com has “BMW International Website”.

What’s wrong with these? The problem is that each and every word in a TITLE tag is considered quite important by search engines (e.g, Google) when they figure out what your page is about and how relevant a given topic is on the page. Keyword density is definitely important in this regard, but one of the easiest ways to become more relevant to a given search result is to ensure that the keywords or key phrases you want to match are in the TITLE tag.

The downside is that sometimes the TITLES look a bit weird - as is demonstrated on this very site - but the upside is that if you want to have a site that Google thinks is an excellent match for, say, “acupuncture information”, then having a TITLE like “Acupuncture Information for Everyone” will yield a definite improvement.

If nothing else, please, do me a favor and don’t use “Welcome to”, “Home Page”, “Website” or any other empty words in your TITLE. After all, with all due respect to BMW, I think it’s pretty obvious that if I’m looking at their information on the Web with a Web browser that it’s a Website. So why bother saying so in the TITLE?

Frankly, for BMW, I think I’d suggest that they have a TITLE more like “BMW:Luxury Automobiles and Sports Cars from Germany for over 80 Years” which is still readable and friendly, but now it includes other keywords that can help with searches, making it a more relevant match for “luxury cars”, “luxury automobiles”, “sports cars”, “German cars”, etc. See how that works? Simple, but surprisingly effective.

So take five minutes and think about your TITLE tag. Is it doing the job you want? And keep in mind that Google and other search engines look at pages, not sites, so you need to ensure that the TITLE on every page of your site is helping your relevance with search engines.

This is still just search engine optimization (SEO) 101, but it’s important.

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I bumped into the following tips and ideas about maximizing your placement of affiliate / pay-per-click advertisements on your page and thought they were some very sensible suggestions. The source of this material is the Equifax Affiliate Newsletter, which highlights a valuable, if rarely considered, additional upside to joining some of the major affiliate programs too: it’s in their best interest to help you identify how best to position and present your affiliate links, so they’ll often help you create the best possible pages for their products.

On with their suggestions:

While there are many different ways to place affiliate links, placing links in context with the theme of your site or within a specific category is a very successful technique for many affiliates.Smart sellers know that product placement is essential to generating sales. This same rule applies to affiliate links on your site. Evaluate your site and organize your links in a way that makes the most sense for your audience to see, click, and take action. Keep the following guidelines in mind when designing your pages:

• Links placed in the upper right-hand corner of a site are more likely to be seen and clicked. Include special offers and new content in this location to maximum exposure.
• Try adding descriptive content around a link to improve link performance and let visitors know why the link is there.
• When incorporated into content, text links and product links have been proven to be much more effective link types than banner ads. When placed in context, product links can be closely matched to a visitor’s interests. Similarly, text links can be included directly into site content or product recommendations, providing a direct and simple transition between information that you provide and a product that you are advertising.
• Add a call-to-action in your site text or within the affiliate link. The words “buy this here,” “order now,” and “click here,” alert visitors to a commerce opportunity.

While the savvy among you may be saying “that’s pretty obvious”, it’s surprising how many sites offer affiliate links like this:

Unsure about your credit rating? We highly recommend that you check out the service today. It’s the best $9.00 you’ll spend this week!

You can clearly see the difference, I’m sure. In publishing it’s the difference between “advertising” and “advertorials”, and the latter performs quite a bit better than the former.

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Ajax examples (XMLHttpRequest examples), code snippets and proof of concepts - the links below should help get you started on building your own functions with XMLHttpRequest and Ajax.

Loading XML into a page with xmlHttpRequest

A cool little blog post and demo that Retrieves an xml atom feed and xsl stylesheet with XMLHttpRequest().

XMLHttpRequest, REST and the Rich User Experience : Paul James

Paul James gives the basics of getting started with XMLHttpRequest and using REST for attaching the client-side to the server.

He builds an example where, upon entering a postal code and pushing a button, a form queries the server for the rest of the address information and fills in the appropriate fields when the data is returned.

Using the XML HTTP Request object

Jim Ley provides his overview of the XML HTTP request object, getting into some browser details and detection before providing some examples and getting into using XMLHTTP with google’s SOAP API.

Very Dynamic Web Interfaces - XMLHttpRequest

Drew McLellan provides an excellent overview of the basics of using XMLHttpRequest offering up a simple, well documented example used for checking if a username is available (similar to g-mail).

Client Side Validation Using the XMLHTTPRequest Object

An example of using XMLHTTP to perform real time data validation, in this example for validating data entered into a user registration form. The example focusses on Microsoft and ASP.

XMLHttpRequest Demo

Three examples of XMLHttpRequest in use: autocomplete, live search, and live action.

To Do with Ta-da List: Simple sharable to-do lists.

A free web based to-do list application provided by 37Signals, makers of Basecamp. Sign-up and try it out; XMLHttpRequest in action.

XHConn - A Simple XMLHTTP Interface

From the site: This library is meant to simplify and unify the code necessary to successfully send and receive simple data via XMLHTTP.

XMLHttpRequest API madness

Two scripts that use XMLHttpRequest: 1 - a javaScript interface to the languid.cantbedone.org API and 2 - a javaScript interface to the del.icio.us API.

Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object

Apples page on the the XMLHttpRequest object, covering object creation, methods and properties in addition to security issues. They build an example for reading XML data, by retrieving iTunes RSS feeds that you select from a dropdown menu.

LiveSearch - Bitflux Blog Wiki

The wiki page for the livesearch function. From the page: On the client side, we use XMLHttpRequest for sending the request to the server. There we have a little PHP script, which returns a small HTML file (http://blog.bitflux.ch/livesearch.php?s=PHP ) . This is then inserted into the page with some DOM manipulation.

XMLHttpRequest and innerHTML

XMLHttpRequest is one of modern DHTML’s best kept secrets. - Haha, not anymore! Simon Willison offers up a little code that takes an HTML fragment, fetched via xmlhttp.open, and inserts it into an element with a specified id. Some good links and comments follow the article.

Google Suggest feature with ASP.NET 2.0

This article provides an ASP.NET 2.0 angle of Google Suggest along with a short little look at the history of javascript, frames, remote scripting and XmlHttp + XMLHttpRequest.

A nice overview of the history and a good breakdown how the Suggest feature works.

SAJAX - Simple Ajax / xmlHTTPRequest Toolkit for PHP

From the site: Sajax makes it easy to call PHP functions from your webpages via JavaScript without performing a browser refresh. Worth checking out and having a play with.

Amazon Zuggest

From the site: This is my take on Google Suggest only with Amazon so I’ve called it “Amazon Zuggest”. Head on over and give this a try.

Francis writes “The Javascript runs in the browser and fires every so often, looks for something to search on, it shoots a request using XMLHttp to my webserver, which in turn creates a SOAP message that gets sent to Amazon. They send back the content and it’s formatted on the server, then streamed to the browser. All in the blink of an eye.

This is a cool little app. When you are done searching, have a hover over the “History” list in the left hand column… The site comes up a little messy in Firefox…

Instant Edit

Manolo Guerrero sets up a little app that allows you to click on a form field and edit the text, which is automatically saved to the server via xmlHttpRequest. Worth a look, though the commented Javascript is in Spanish.

AJaX for weblogs

A neat little script to play with (not sure what it has to do with weblogs especially tho). From the site: It uses Javascript to get data from a remote source and then loads that into a specified target. Whatever content you like to wherever you like on the page.

AJAX Login System Demo

A proof of concept, Ajax based login script that, in this case, uses a php/mysql backend. The author provides all of the scripts involved and lists some advantages and dis-advantages of his method.

Usable XMLHttpRequest in Practice

Thomas Baekdal gets back into accessibility and Ajax. From the site: Let’s look at what we can do to turn an otherwise user-hostile XMLHttpRequest application - into a usable one…. An excellent write-up.

XHTML live Chat via XMLHttpRequest

An excellent proof of concept and something I was waiting for someone to code up ;-). This XHTML live Chat uses XMLHttpRequest to post chat messages and to periodically check the server for new messages and update your chat window.

This is simply a proof of concept, and would work really well in a blog commenting setting or for forums when those fast threads start happening.

Ripped Tickets - Live Search

Here’s an excellent application of the livesearch idea that has been seen around the web. Type in your search (a band name) and the results show up in a nice table below the search box.

Running XMLHttpRequest with Java on Google’s API

Similar to other livesearch functions out there, only this one plugs into Google’s API and has a Java backend, returning a list of results and descriptions for your query.

SproutLiner

From the site: Sproutliner is a free web service that helps you manage your projects and ideas. This tool looks to be very promising, and to be honest you have to try it out to ‘get it’. It is a sort of Ta-da list on steroids, so to speak, in that it is very simple yet a user can add to it and tailor it to their needs.

Very cool…

The Fonz uses XmlHttpRequest and AJAX to spy on you.

While makaing some excellent points in the article, the little adventure game “The Search For Fonzie’s Treasure” built using Ajax technologies is pretty cool. The author discusses user profiling as an “evil use” of Ajax. I’m not so sure that I would say that it is evil…

Backbase - Rich Internet Applications

A very impressive piece of Ajax work, with some context provided here. Have a click thru the site and try out that back-button. Also be sure to head in and check out the demo section.

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When programming for the web, sometimes the need arises to test a function on the fly without being too intrusive. You may be debugging and need to test for a result, or simply testing. The following is a simple strategy that can help in those cases.

Firing a function from your browser

The concept is as simple as firing a function from your browser, and it leans on PHP’s call_user_func_array.

I’m going to outline the concept as I have implemented it. This exact implementation may not work in your case, but perhaps you can adapt it to do so.

if(isset($_GET[’f']) && function_exists($_GET[’f'])) {

$func = $_GET[’f']; // Get function name.

unset($_GET[’f']); // Drop function from from get.

// Fire and print function, passing

// remaining GETs as function parameters.

print_r(call_user_func_array($func, $_GET));

exit;

}

In our CMS/Framework, we set up a controller with the code from above to respond at a given URL, for example http://www.example.com/__FOO. By passing a function name as a GET variable, in this case ‘f’, and the parameters necessary for that function to work as subsequent GET parameters, the result of that function will be printed to the screen.

So, http://www.example.com/__FOO?f=hello_foo&a=world would fire the function hello_foo(’world’), perhaps printing Hello World! to the screen.

This allows for a quick and dirty test of a given function, and can be done remotely on a live site, if necessary, without touching any files or whatnot.

We hide this behind an authorization wall and also clean our parameters before they get to this level, so if you try this, keep these points in mind.

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Search engine optimization, or “SEO” in the biz, isn’t only for people trying to turn their Web site into a revenue machine, to make money online, but can really be useful for everyone building Web sites. There are lots of different facets to writing, designing and adjusting your Web pages to maximize the chance of them being a top result for search terms, but one of the best - and easiest - is to work with keyword density.

What is keyword density? It’s basically a measurement of how relevant a given keyword “topic” is to a page of material. For example, this page is quite relevant to the word ‘keyword’ and the phrase ‘keyword density’ because both occur many times. More importantly, the ratio of their occurances to the total number of words or phrases on the page is reasonably high because, well, they occur a bunch of times.

That’s what keyword density is about. The keyword density of the word “keyword” is calculated by counting the total number of words on the page, then figuring out how many of them are “keyword”. Typical highly-ranked sites have at least a 2-3% keyword density for the key search word or search phrase.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out the keyword density of your favorite Web page at Search Engine World with their terrific - free - keyword density analyzer. To keep your sanity, I suggest that you set it to ignore words of five letters or less.

Of course, SEOs will tell you that keyword density isn’t the only factor to consider when building your page. Among the other important search engine optimization topics are so-called keyword prominence, that is, where on your page the keyword or keywords appear. A title tag is considerably more prominent than the alt text of an image, for example. :-)

Nonetheless, it’s quite informative to search for a key phrase that you would like to have match your own site and then use the keyword density analyzer to see the density of top matched pages versus your own. Then add the phrase a few more times on your page, perhaps in the title or a h1 tag or similar, and try again.

And don’t be surprised if this change all by itself helps boost your site ranking on the search results.

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You want to get a presence online. You want to tell the world about yourself and your family, start an online business, promote your offline business or just for the fun of it! You don’t want to spend a vast fortune on your online presence but you want to create a good looking website. The good news is that it is possible to create web pages with a real wow factor using just a free website builder. Find out how…

You can start with just your computer!

You can get your website started using just your computer. To create a website in this way you will have to write your pages using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language - but don’t worry about that!). HTML is the standard way that web pages are coded for transmission to any computer in the world. Your web browser takes an HTML file and turns it into the image you see on the screen.

Learning and using HTML may sound pretty daunting at first - and there is a large learning curve to get started. But it’s not impossible. Try this:

Open a text editor on your computer (e.g. Notepad or Wordpad if you’re on a PC) and type in Hello - that’s all you’ll need. The trick is to save this file using “save as”, select “all files” in the “save as type” box and save it as test.html. When you look at the folder where you’ve saved the file, you should see your file showing up as an HTML document. When you double click on this document, it will open in your web browser and display the word Hello on a white background - you’re first webpage!

…Of course things get a bit more difficult when you want to create a good looking page with an attractive layout and lots of graphics!

Luckily there’s a load of free resources on the internet - including several excellent HTML primers - that can help you to learn to do everything you want to do. Just set aside a good chunk of time for learning.

The benefits of learning HTML are:

* You will get a good understanding of how web pages really work
* There are time when being able to tweak a page directly is by far the fastest way to get the result you want!

Use A WYSWIG editor

Just like the word processor you use on your computer, there are What You See is What You Get (WYSWIG) editors for HTML documents. You may have been put off in the past by the high price tag of industrial strength products. The good news is that there are some excellent new products around that you can download for free from the internet.

While these free products don’t have all the features of the expensive commercial products, I have test driven one or two of them and I have found that they are perfectly ok to create good quality websites. The benefits of a WSYWIG editor are

* You don’t have to learn HTML if you don’t want to.

* You can create good looking web pages quickly - I’ve put together pages literally in minutes!

* Some of the editors come with very helpful video tutorials that cover all the important stuff you need to know to create professional looking websites

* Good editors have facilities to help you manage an entire website

* If you do decide to familiarise yourself with HTML, good editors will include a facility that lets you look at the HTML you’ve created

Perhaps the only disadvantage of using a WYSWYG editor from day one of your online career is that you may never find out how to tweak a web page by editing the HTML – but that’s a small price to pay for the overall convenience of using an editor!

Summary

You can create a good looking, professional website without having to spend a penny on expensive software to help you. It’s possible to start with just your computer and a bit of determination, teach yourself HTML and build a website from the ground up.

If you don’t relish the learning curve you’ll need to get familiar with HTML, you can download a free WYSWIG editor and get started within minutes! I’ve tried both and I would recommend you start with a good WYSWIG editor such as My Free Website Builder. You can use it to create your own high quality, professional looking website.

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These twenty mistakes are the difference between a very poor website and a very good website. You may know some of these mistakes already, but if you have avoided or corrected all of them you are almost certain to keep visitors coming in and coming back.

This list is especially important for new designers, amateurs or the experienced but sloppy who need a list to work from for a website spot check.

1) Bad Layout and Design - Yes, there are some ugly, unbalanced or overloaded webpages out there. Make your page a pleasant viewing experience. If you are not sure about the looks of you design, then let some people see a screenshot of your webpage.

2) Non-Standard Links - Why confuse your visitors with links that are different colors or fonts that vary from page to page. Don’t frustrate your visitors, it shouldn’t be a guessing game.

3) Iffy Navigation - Take it easy on the moving objects, trailing images and other stuff you see on kids websites. It’s just not that entertaining and it can get in the way and distract your visitors. Keep it stable easy to find and read.

4) Slow Pages - Who wants to watch your dumb load meter rack up the percents of loaded kilobytes or megabytes? Keep your pages lean and fast, under 50k if possible. Do not bore your visitors.

5) Wild and Crazy Color Schemes - Some pages look idiotic with overly bright colors, maybe even revolting. Your texts must be easy to read, not a sensational nightmare.

6) Spelling and Grammar - Errors in spelling and grammar make your page look amateurish or childish - always spell check.

7) Page Text - Keep your pages easy to read. Break texts into paragraphs or blocks. People scan pages more than they read them, make it easy on them.

8) Font Style and Size - Choose easy to read fonts and use the right size - not micro reading or headlines on every line.

9) Dumb, Out of Control Music - select background music that fits the subject matter and make sure it can be turned off easily.

10) Under Construction - Avoid having a visitor coming to you closed or not yet opened website. What’s the point? Give them a single page of content with a notice as to when the whole site will be available.

11) Untested Web Site - Always look at your website in multiple browsers and make changes accordingly before uploading your site to the web.

12) Sloppy Texts - Make sure all the right words are in all the right places - “Content is King” for readers and search engines.

13) Old Content - Updating your website is important, visitors need to see something new once in a while.

14) Too Many Clicks - Why should a visitor have to jump through page after page to find anything on your website. Make sure everything is only 3 clicks or less from the homepage.

15) No Contact Information - Keep your contact information easy to find and easy to read.

16) Free Hosting Service - When you see a webpage that has a name so long that it has at least one period in the middle of it you know it’s a free hosting situation. Everyone knows the limitations of free hosts and the limitations that they place on a webpage. Don’t use a free web host if you want to be taken seriously.

17) Advertising - Do not overload you page with ads, especially the big grotesque banners. Well placed, well designed ads are okay if you don’t overload the page.

18) Bad Images - Don’t make a visitor suffer missing graphics file or badly shaped or cropped images. Optimize your images and use the best heights and widths, and keep your files in the best formats - jpeg for Photographs and gif for artwork.

19) Website Best Viewed - Don’t say this on your website, it looks like a beginner’s website.

20) No Prices - If you sell something don’t waste your time hoping you will get email inquiries on your prices - just include a price with the item description.

That should do it. Follow these directions to correct the 20 most common mistakes in website design to make sure your webpage is in good shape.

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