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What Should I Know About Web Page Backgrounds?

Just like anything related to web design, there is a bit more to choosing web page backgrounds than initially meets the eye. There are multiple things to consider when selecting the right website background, some obvious and some slightly less so. Here’s what you should know about web page backgrounds.

Color Is More Than Aesthetic.

Selecting the right color scheme for your website—including the background color—is an extremely important task. Whether you realize it or not, the background color of a website seriously affects your visitor’s mood and attitude. Some colors will make your site feel clean & elegant; others trendy. Some colors will put visitors in a mood to buy; others will just irritate them. So there is a lot of psychology behind website color selection—and with the background being such a large portion of the site, the color select here is vital.

Web Page Backgrounds Impact Readability & Usability.

Using low contrast background and text color combinations is a really bad idea when it comes to making your site readable and usable by all visitors. The last thing you want to do is make your text virtually unreadable by trying to do something outside the box in this department. And at the same time, some background colors are more apt to work well than others—in particular, some web page backgrounds can make the eyes to funny things or even cause discomfort.

Not All Images Will Work For Site Backgrounds.

Just as colors play a major role in the design of a website’s background and overall feel, the same goes for background images and graphics. What might seem like a perfect image to tile and repeat as the background of your site might actually turn out to be horrendous once it’s actually implemented. Other times, it will look really great. Getting this just right is kind of a process of trial and error sometimes.

A few things here to keep in mind:

· Some background images don’t scale correctly.

· Some are too large in file size and become distorted when “shrunk down.”

· Many images are way to busy for background use.

Choosing the right background images is definitely more of an art than a science. One thing that might help is simply browsing through the sites that you like most to see what you like about their background images and what might work well on your own site.

In the end, it’s all about finding a balance of what you like, what looks great, and what will be appealing to your visitors. Here at WSpider, we’ll suggest to our web design clients time and time again that sometimes simpler is just better. After all, the top 100 sites on the web overwhelmingly use plain old white for their web page backgrounds!

Small Business Website Advice – Starting A New Business Website?

Starting a new website for your small business? If so, congrats on taking this big step in advance—your business’s website will very often become one of your most important marketing tools. With that in mind, here is some helpful small business website advice to think about as you proceed in getting your new site up and running…

Keep It Simple.

Getting started on the web is complicated enough. If there’s one single piece of small business website advice that works for every single type of business out there, it’s definitely this one. Figure out exactly what you need on your site ahead of time. Narrow the list of “features” or “widgets” down to the bare necessities and then go for it. Remember, you can always go back and add additional functionality later—the goal right now is to get something solid up to build on. And remember, no one has ever complained about websites created with simple, clean, and elegant design principles in mind.

Work With A Trusted Partner.

Why overwhelm yourself with trying to get your new small business website created all by yourself? Do it yourself websites are great for the hobbyist or those with the time and desire to learn how all of the graphic design principles and complex coding that goes into a website works. But for already busy small business owners and entrepreneurs, professional looking websites are a must in every case. They will save you time, effort, and plenty of lost sleep—all while portraying your small business in the best possible light. The professionals at WSpider can help you with your small business website design and stay within your budget…please contact us for a free proposal at any time.

Build For SEO From The Beginning.

This is another indispensible nugget of small business website advice. Focus on search engine optimization from the very beginning and you’ll save tons in the long run when it comes to going back and retrofitting search engine optimization (SEO) into a site that wasn’t build for it at the start. Naturally, designing for SEO right from day one will also help you get a head start in this department. The day you go live with your site, you’ll be well organized and optimized for attracting ultra-beneficial search traffic.

Starting a new business website is certainly a big step for many—and when all the ducks aren’t exactly in a row, it can be overwhelming and confusing. Be sure to do your due diligence ahead of time and be prepared for creating the best small business website possible within your budget. Follow this small business website advice—and be sure to seek competent advice from web design pros like WSpider—and your new site will be off to an extremely successful and competitive launch.

Search Engine Marketing Planning – Saturday Q & A Session

Search engine marketing planning is not always as simple of a task as it might seem to be. Brainstorming and coordinating the right balance of organic search engine optimization (SEO) and the more immediate pay per click (PPC) advertising is a challenge even for those with lots of hands on experience in the business. Today, let’s take a look at a few search engine marketing planning questions and answers…

Question #1: How do I know what keywords to optimize organically and which to invest in PPC with?

Well, it really all begins with accurate keyword research related to your website’s overall niche. Choosing which methods to use for what keywords is impossible without revealing the facts and figures for each individual keyword phrase term being considered. In general, long-tail keyword terms (those with 3 or more keywords in the search phrase) tend to work well either with organic search optimization or with PPC.

You definitely don’t want to use PPC for terms that are not pre-qualified—in other words, using PPC to attract potentially uninterested “tire kickers” to your site is just a way to rack up costs quickly with very little to no return. It’s probably best to save these kinds of more generalist terms for SEO. PPC often works well for very specific keyword inquiries—such as model numbers, product names, and so on.

Question #2: When doing search engine marketing planning for my website, how important is social media?

As things stand right now, building a rock solid base of long-term SEO is probably priority number one. Competition is fierce here, and it does take time to realize great results—so the sooner the better. And of course, setting up per click advertising campaigns can bring immediate results to the table. So this is another high priority search engine marketing planning task. After these two aspects are accommodated, social media would probably come in next (unless you have a cutting-edge social media campaign under development). Social media promises to become more and more important as an overall part of SEM.

Question #3: How can professionals help me with SEM planning?

Let’s preface the answer to this question with another vital question…do you have access to the latest keyword statistics, metrics, and other vital data that goes into planning a search engine marketing strategy from the ground up? As we mentioned earlier, having complete access to this up to date data is essential for planning purposes and designing successful campaigns. There are some consumer resources available out there—such as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool—but that’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to the data that SEM professionals have access to.

Have additional search engine marketing planning questions (or need some help pronto)? If so, please don’t hesitate to give us a ring here at WSpider today—our SEM experts are eager to lend a hand.

The Pros & Cons Of Do It Yourself Web Design

When people thing web design, it is pretty normal for a good portion of them to consider do it yourself web design. Of course, the rest default to hiring a web design professional instead. Both are viable options, but there is quite a bit more to the story that you just usually will not know about DIY web design until you actually dig in and start doing it—it can be very challenging!

So, let’s start with the pros of do it yourself web design:

· First and foremost, do it yourself website design can be more affordable than hiring a professional. It does take significant time, knowledge, and effort—but with an investment in these areas, hard money can be saved.

· For experts at designing websites, going the DIY route can sometimes be faster to launch. For simple sites especially, an experienced self-designer might be able to get a site done over the weekend before even being able to call in the pros on Monday morning. This is probably a rare situation though.

· Do it yourself web design is a good way to learn both design and code like HTML. Although it will take a significant amount of learning if starting from scratch, they always say that the best way to learn something is often to just dig in and start doing it. Web design is no exception.

Now, we need to take a couple minutes and review the cons of do it yourself web design:

· Generally, the final results will be much less professional than hiring web design experts. The pros have lots of practice—after all, it’s what they do day in and day out. There’s a lot more that goes into website design than meets the eye.

· Optimization will be a focus with pro design, but it’s very difficult with DIY websites. Most pro web designers these days pay extra attention to on-page search optimization factors as a common practice of good design. There is a significant learning curve to what works for SEO and what doesn’t, meaning there’s really no good substitute for the professional here.

· Your time is worth something. Do you really have 100 hours to spare to learn and create a simple website that will take the professionals about 5 hours to create? This is a very common scenario, and most would-be do it yourself web designers decide that their time is much too valuable to tackle a huge project like this (yet alone to achieve professional results).

So clearly, there are benefits to do it yourself web design. But in almost all cases, the cons outweigh the pros. Creating a website from scratch can be a very demanding project—for peace of mind and best results, it’s best to call in the web design pros at WSpider.

Know What Questions To Ask Your Search Engine Optimization Consultant (Part 3)

Building upon our previous two posts here on the WSpider blog, here in Part 3, we’ll conclude our mini-series, “Know What Questions To Ask You Search Engine Optimization Consultant.”

Can you share your 5 most recent SEO projects and their results?

When asking for SEO examples of past work, don’t just ask your consultant for the most successful hand-picked cases—you might consider asking them to share as much detail as they can about the most recent campaigns. This way, you’ll be getting a better picture of the real world scenario. It’s probably important to note here that due to confidentiality and/or non-disclosure agreements that are frequently used in the business, search engine optimization consultants might not be able to share everything (but it’s always worth asking).

What makes a successful search engine optimization project?

Everyone in the business probably views the definition of SEO success just a little bit differently from each other. It’s worth asking the search engine optimization consultant you’re considering working with what their own picture of success happens to be to make sure it meshes closely with your own goals and vision of success. Talk specifics, including visitor count goals and even customer conversions statistics to get a good feel for what is realistically possible (and to screen out the impossible).

How will we measure the results from an SEO campaign?

As with any type of marketing campaign, tracking and measuring complete statistics is vital for success. The standard these days for website traffic analysis is Google Analytics—and you’ll probably want to make sure your search engine optimization consultant is very familiar with this free service. The only way to understand what is working and what isn’t is by looking at the behind the scenes facts. Never just take SEO’s effects for granted.

How long will it take to see real results?

This is probably one of the most important questions to ask your search engine optimization consultant because it’s usually indicative of their level of experience and their policy towards honesty. Let’s face it—SEO results simply do not happen overnight. It’s not unusual for the earliest initial results to begin happening at about 6-8 weeks, but even then, this isn’t exactly a science. The bottom line here is to look for honest answers from your SEO consultant when it comes to the timeframe of expected results. Don’t choose to work with someone only because they tell you just what you want to hear. What’s worth doing is worth doing right—and real appreciable results that continue improving over time do take some time to achieve.

Hopefully, by asking these questions of your search engine optimization consultants, you’ll be able to get a better feel for the way they do SEO and if it’s going to be a good match. If you’d like any additional search optimization advice or have any search marketing questions that you’d like an answer to, please contact one of our expert professional search engine optimization consultants here at WSpider—we’re eager to help!

Know What Questions To Ask Your Search Engine Optimization Consultant (Part 2)

Continued from our last WSpider blog post, we’ll continue our look at some of the important questions you should be asking your search engine optimization consultant before launching your SEO campaign…

Should I be optimizing multimedia features on my website?

Traditionally, the biggest value in SEO has been optimizing written content based on specifically targeted high-value keyword phrases. This value is as true as ever, but at the same time, to get the most significant exposure online, it’s also becoming increasingly important to cover multimedia with your search optimization plan. This means that paying extra attention to images and videos within your site needs to be part of the overall strategy. Be sure to ask your search engine optimization consultant how they’ll go about this.

What is your link building policy?

One way to tell who the best search engine consultants are is to gauge their policy on link building. Specifically, it’s well known that you can launch and all out backlink “assault,” getting even hundreds of incoming links to your site in just days. This might have incredible short term results for your site’s traffic, but in the end, it will significantly damage your site’s credibility with the search engines. Professional SEOs know very well that it’s important to focus on a slow but steady link profile strategy—only a couple of highly relevant, natural links at a time. And also, a well rounded link profile will include some outgoing links from your site too. Don’t settle for a short term link policy that will ultimately hurt your site in the long run.

Will SEO be part of an overall SEM campaign?

It’s important to understand the difference between SEO and SEM (and to ensure it’s clear that your consultant does too). SEO is search engine optimization—it’s all organic and only goes after the “free listings” portion of the search engine results. On the other hand, SEM, which stands for search engine marketing, is more about the overall approach to building traffic. SEM does usually utilize some SEO, but it also works heavily with Pay Per Click (PPC) and other online marketing techniques. Both SEO & SEM are good, but you’ll definitely want to be working with an expert that understands the pros and cons of each and how they fit together as part of the overall puzzle.

Next up is Part 3 of “Know What Questions To Ask Your Search Engine Optimization Consultant”

Know What Questions To Ask Your Search Engine Optimization Consultant (Part 1)

If you’re planning to use a professional search engine optimization consultant to assist you in your quest for top search engine rankings for your website’s base of keyword terms, chances are probably good that you already know most of the ins and outs of SEO. However, sometimes, even those with a good degree of SEO experience still end up becoming confused in the search for an honest, results-producing search engine optimization consultant.

It always helps to ask the consultants or SEO companies that you’re considering hiring a few tough questions to get a deeper feel for how they go about doing business. Some of the right questions to ask might look like the following…

Will you guarantee specific search engine optimization results for my keyword?

This one is kind of a trick question, but should help you determine the ethics of your chosen SEO consultant. We all know that legitimately guaranteeing specific placement results for a given keyword is just not possible. Even when everything is done exactly the right way, even with a 99% success rate, there’s still no way to actually guarantee that the search engines will do what the consultant expects or desires them to do. Thus, specific result guarantees are inaccurate and impossible to provide. The only exception is when the search engine optimization consultant clearly states that they can’t promise specific results, but will take the risk of providing a guarantee on their own because they’re confident they can do a good job.

What keyword phrases should my site optimize for?

Long tail keyword phrases—usually those containing 3 or more words per phrase—are much easier to achieve respectable SEO results for. But even then, the competition out there is definitely still growing. Today’s accessible long tail keyword phrases are beginning to look more and more like 4 and 5 word keyword phrases. So what matters is that you’re actually optimizing your site for keywords that are actually going to get searched for. Anyone can get a first place ranking for a 10 word “keyword phrase,” but the chances of a real human actually searching for something like that are slim to none. It’s a good idea to find out how your SEO consultant proposes to strike this balance.

Which search engines should I primarily aim to optimize for?

The major 3 search engines these days are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Probably 90% of all site traffic will come from these three sources combined (with the healthiest chunk of the pie coming from Google). Your search engine optimization consultant might very well recommend covering these bases and then shooting for an entire slew of second line search engines. This can be a good thing with a solid plan in place, but if the point of going after bunches of B-list search engines isn’t clear, then it can just end up racking up costs with no real benefit. Find out what your consultant’s plan will be to deal with this scenario.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this WSpider search engine optimization post coming right up next!

3 Helpful Blog Writing Tips To Help You Overcome Writer’s Block

Are you charged with the task of brainstorming and writing new blog posts for your website on a regular basis? Hey, we all know that writing can be a challenging task from time to time—especially when a good old fashioned case of writer’s block sets in strong. Today, let’s take a look at some helpful blog writing tips that will hopefully make the task a little bit easier…

Blog Writing Tip #1: Use Keywords.

Preparing a long list of keywords and keyword phrases that fit your website’s niche to a “T” makes for an awesome resource to have in hand in times when the writing doesn’t exactly come easily. When trying to discern what that next blog post should talk about, simply scan the list of keyword phrases already in hand and pick one from the list that’s suitable. You’ll be amazed how quickly writer’s block will disappear when you review the keywords—plus, as a bonus, using valuable keywords has a notable benefit to your SEO strategy too.

Blog Writing Tip #2: Answer Questions.

This is a super-helpful way to launch an informative blog post that is fairly easy to write. Simply think of a few recent questions you’ve been asked that pertain to your business and work through them one by one in your blog post. Or, for that matter, if your answers will be packed full of detail, use one expansive blog post to cover each of the questions with the time and patience it takes to fully provide a clear answer.

Blog Writing Tip #3: Be Conversational.

Practicing your conversational skills might not necessarily sound like it’s compatible with writing a blog post for your website, but in reality, this is what most visitors want to read. Simply talk to your visitors—your customers or prospects—through the keyboard of your computer. Think of what you’d say to them in a professional conversation and just let it flow as you type. Conversational web writing has been proven to be a great way to connect with a variety of readers.

Sometimes, it can also be beneficial to review your competitor’s blogs or just other industry blogs that might be relevant in some way or another to your own. Doing this will often help to build a refreshed sense of energy to get that next blog post inked out. And of course, if you’d rather just not have to worry about it all, please know we’re always available here at WSpider to cover all the bases on your behalf.

Search Engine Marketing Ideas & Tips To Consider

Looking for search engine marketing ideas? Here at WSpider, SEM is our specialty…we are pleased to share a few SEM ideas and tips here with you today. Here goes…

One. Look beyond Google AdWords. While AdWords is indisputably the largest and most active “pay per click” style marketing tool available today, the intense completion for keyword positioning has led to rather high per click charges. Keeping AdWords as a part of your PPC portfolio will be necessary, but adding additional programs like Yahoo Search Marketing to the mix will help you achieve cost-efficient search engine marketing balance.

Two. Opt into a fully managed SEM solution. Maybe you’ve had enough of trying to find and implement search engine marketing ideas on your own and could just use a little bit of extra help. If this is the case, look for a professional SEM provider (like WSpider) that can manage your entire campaign from A to Z with an attractively positive ROI.

Three. Focus on long-tail SEO. The time and effort required to achieve a top search engine ranking for just one very competitive keyword phrase term could be put to use to achieve a couple dozen long-tail keyword results that ultimately provide more search engine exposure. Long-tail SEO is much less competitive.

Four. Don’t underestimate the power or multimedia. Search engines are increasingly using video and other multimedia within in their search listings. Producing and publishing a well-optimized video might get your website to the top of the search engine results page (SERP) where working the same angle with traditional text-based content might be impossible.

Five. Social media can boost results as well. Just like multimedia, using social media with SEM-targeted goals is another great way to work your way to the top of the SERPs when keywords alone won’t quite do the trick. Search engines are listing social media results more and more within their listings.

Six. Optimize your landing pages. Getting your landing pages tweaked and tuned for optimal results is certainly worth the effort in increased conversions. But also worth considering is the benefit that better landing pages promote when it comes to your bounce rate. Keeping visitors on your site gives it more merit in the eyes of the search engines.

Seven. Refresh your website design. What’s popular in the world of website design seems to change almost from one night to the next. While it’s nearly impossible to always keep ahead of the curve, if your site is getting a little dusty around the edges, it’s probably time to modernize and improve. Competition is fierce out there—a winning SEM strategy revolves around a winning website.

Hopefully these 7 search engine marketing ideas and tips will provide some inspiration to help make your SEM strategy find growth in a new direction.

Web Design: USA Versus Outsourcing Overseas

When it comes to USA-based web design, it’s not really all that different than the standards of web design done anywhere else in the world. But even though many folks don’t give much thought to whether their web design should be done domestically or outsourced overseas, it can be a bigger factor they might imagine.

Why So?

Well to begin with, many so-called web designers actually do nothing more than broker the deal with a service buyer and then broker the actual design work to an assigned overseas provider for a significant discount in labor fees. This is something that everyone should be aware of when reviewing bids from web designers for a new site—do they outsource their work or not?

Again, with web design, USA vs. overseas in comparison isn’t really that big of a deal one way or another. The big deal comes when you’re paying, for example, $5,000 for a US designed website and your US-based designer is contracting the work to be done internationally for $250. That’s not exactly fair and full disclosure to the buyer.

Other USA Web Design Vs. Overseas Design Outsourcing Factors To Consider…

If there are any downfalls to outsourcing your design work overseas, they most likely are not going to be found with the look & feel of the design itself. Sure, sometimes some of the communication and design specs can be “lost in translation.” And this is something to really think about indeed.

But the real issues come when there are disagreements or misunderstandings. In the US, when you mutually come to an agreement on your web design bid and a contract is inked, the protections of contract law do apply. And this is defiantly a good thing for both the buyer and the creator of a website.

However, when working overseas, this kind of protection is hard to promise—your designer easily run off with your deposit payment and never be heard from again. And working internationally, it’s nearly impossible to seek recourse in such a circumstance. So this is one thing to factor in to the decision process.

And there are other rare but consequential things to think about too when internationally outsourcing your web design instead of keeping it here in the USA. For example, if your designer, unbeknownst to you, would copy or otherwise infringe upon someone else’s trademark or copyright, at least in the US there is some form of recourse. Internationally, this again is not as simple. And in some locations in the world, this type of “borrowing” is even the norm—it’s not considered a bad thing there at all.

So there are a few “buyer beware” situations to keep in mind if thinking about overseas outsourcing. When it comes to web design, USA designers are your best bet indeed.