One thing I’ve noticed, is that while working on other companies web sites, the one web site which tends to get updated the least is…. my own. This apparently isn’t specific to me, as I’ve talked with many other web designers who have the same issue. I’ve even heard of web designers hiring other web designers to do their web site.

Since it has been a little while since I did a major update to my site (this past summer when I added the blog), I decided I should be performing some updates. Some are for aesthetics, others provide speed enhancements, and some improve search engine ranking and results.

• Simplified my right column on the blog. This has done several things.
  • It makes the site faster to download. Fewer widgets to process and download, result in faster page loads and less work for the server to perform.
  • It reduces “duplicate” content for the site. When the same content can be accessed from several different links, it makes it harder for search engines to determine which is the best one to display, so the results get spread thin, instead of showing a stronger single page more often.
• I’ve edited my pages to make them more efficient. By reducing the processing on the server, I’ve increased the responsiveness of the web server.
• Gearing my pages to be more about web design instead of web development. Why? Well in searches web design is searched for about 4 times as often as web development. So while I technically do more web development work, most of my customers will know it as web design, and I need to cater to them. This has included adding more and better meta tags, re-writing some of my menus, and adjusting my content.
• What you can’t see yet is adding more images to my site. After working and reading about how I’m optimizing my site to be faster, you might wonder why I’m adding images and flash content. Simple - it aligns with giving users what they want and expect. By giving them more of what they want, I expect to see higher conversion rates from my prospects.

Everyone wants to be ranked in Google - and who doesn’t.  As the #1 search engine, people go there before the other search engines over 50% of the time.  This means that a lot of Search Engine people will focus on trying to get their customers on Google.  This can be relatively easy for niche-markets, but harder for more general terms.

For example, I have a customer who ranks in the top ten for about 11 search terms on Google.  It varies depending upon what shows on the Google report. He sells portable jewelry display cases, so since there isn’t a lot of competition, it is easy for him to rank.

I was looking through my sites today, and saw something that made me both happy and sad.  I currently rank #2 for Web Development on Google.  This may change slightly day to day, and based upon geographic preferences.  This is a general term, so it is harder to rank for it.  So why am I sad.  Because Web Design is a much more common search term - and I’m not ranking for that.  Because more people search for it, more people try to optimize for the term - therefore it is harder to rank for this term.

Some people will  recite stats on how they got a ranking for a key word or key phrase, but they use only obscure phrases, or niche market phrases, so it doesn’t have as much effect.  Your search engine efforts need to focus on how your market searches, not what you can rank for.

So what am I going to do?

1. Work on reducing Web Development mentions, and increase Web Design on the site
2. Add more pages showcasing this type of work
3. Improve link structure on internal and external sites to showcase what I do better

I’d love to come back in a few months with being #2 in web design on Google.  We’ll see…

In our last posting, three things that make up a website, we mentioned the three things that you need to have a website, your domain name, your host, and your files.

We also talked about picking and getting your domain name. Remember to talk to your web designer/company, they should be able to help you come up with some good names. If not, you might need to consider a different web design company.

Get some web server space

This is the next item that needs to be taken care of. Your website, while a virtual thing out on Internet, has to reside on a physical server some place. When you request a web page, a computer will send the page and accompanying files that are requested. Most modern servers will also handle databases, sending e-mail, and e-commerce activities.

Web hosting will vary in cost from $4/month on up to tens of thousands of dollars a month. The reason for this difference is the levels of service that are provided such as:

1. Number of tech calls
2. Applications loaded on the server
3. Number of servers
4. Type of server
5. Etc.

Most web servers have multiple sites on the same server. The cheaper the cost of the server, the more sites they have to put on each server, which can cause the performance of your web server to degrade as more and more additional websites are loaded on the server.

In my experience with different hosts, working with different companies, I have found that host charging less than $7 or $8 a month are not worth having if you are going to host your company on it. This does not mean that more expensive is better; it is just a general rule to follow. Cheaper hosts may work wonderfully for a little while, or be fine for personal websites, but I generally do not trust them for a professional website.

I usually recommend this to be second, because until you have a host, the company that you register your domain name through will put up a “parking page”. What this means is that you will see a page that looks like the image on the left. This is allowing the domain registration company to earn money until you have web server space of your own, and update the DNS servers. (Your registration company should be able to tell you how to do that.)

You can always have a “temporary page” what is displayed while you have your main site being developed. This is something I commonly do for companies, that way we can express some information, while allowing your company to build a brand for itself on-line.

Depending on the type of site, as well as your host, you might have the choice between several different hosting “packages”. Each will provide you with different options for different prices. The two biggest line items to change will be your storage space and your transfer amount. You will probably want to find a host that will allow you to upgrade your hosting package easily, if you need the extra space/transfer allowance, as your website grows. This will allow you to save some money while your site is young and not as popular, and then expand as your on-line needs grow and you can afford the changes.

Publish the website file(s)

This is the only step that many people think is required. However, while it is important, without the previous two steps, it is for naught.

This is where you go and hire a web designer, or do it yourself, to generate and create a website. Now you upload the files that make up a website to the server space that you acquired in step two. Now when someone accesses your domain name (acquired in step one), they will see your website.