And knowing is half the battle.

Thanks, Joe. So with that, here are just a few SEO terms explained to help out along the way:

1. Algorithm

This is best described as the formula or process a search engine uses to rank web pages. Search engines use algorithms to decide where a page should rank in search results.

Why it’s important: Understanding how or why search engines do things the way they do allows you to develop your website accordingly and achieve the highest possible ranking.

2. Analytics

A collection of data that shows how users are interacting with a website, including what search terms they used to reach the website, how much time was spent on the website and which pages were viewed.

Why it’s important: Knowing how your users are finding you and what elements of your website are working or under-performing is extremely valuable data. It allows you to make improvements and better calculated overall decisions.

3. Backlink

A backlink is essentially a link coming into a website from an external website. For example, someone might link to your website on their blog or share your website on Facebook. These are considered backlinks.

Why it’s important: Backlinks allow search engines to sort out content that is popular. Be careful though. It’s not enough to just have any Tom, Dick, or Harry linking to your website. Your goal should be to build quality backlinks from more reputable sources.

4. Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO techniques are those that don’t comply with best practice guidelines. These are the methods that attempt to trick search engines into giving a website a higher page ranking than it deserves. More often than not these techniques can backfire and damage your ranking.

Why it’s important: As long as there are rules, there will be people around to break them. Don’t get caught up in trying to trick the search engines and risk damaging your online reputation.

5. Bounce Rate

A ‘bounce’ in web terms is when a visitor arrives at your website and leaves before visiting another page. This means that the bounce rate is the percentage of people who only visit one page on your website.

Why it’s important: A high bounce rate can mean that the content on your website is just not enticing enough for your visitors. High bounce rates can also have a negative effect on search engine rankings.

6. CMS

A Content Management System (or CMS) allows website owners to manage copy and pages on their website, without the need for them to understand or know how to code a website.

Why it’s important: Many Content Management Systems have various SEO tools built right in, allowing you to take advantage of page titles, keywords and the like.

7. Conversion

This is the ultimate goal of your website; when a user does what you want them to do. If you have a call to action on your website like “Buy Now” or “Download a brochure”, the conversion is reached when this task is completed.

Why it’s Important: Pretty much the entire idea of doing business on the web is conversion oriented. Of course you’re going to want to know how it’s all going down and how certain search terms are enticing people to reach you.

8. Meta Data

Meta Data includes a variety of brief information pieces like page titles and descriptions that show up in search engines and at the top of browsers.

Why it’s important: These pieces of information are essentially the selling point when someone sees your link on a search results page. As mentioned previously, many content management systems allow you to maintain this information quite easily.

9. Page Rank

A series of algorithms that determine how relevant a search engine considers your page to be in relation to keywords searched. It runs on a scale of 1-10.

Why it’s important: Your Page Rank is ultimately your ranking amongst your competitors. When someone types in a search term, the relevant sites with a higher Page Rank will be listed first.

10. Unique Visitor

Visitors and unique visitors are measured differently. If your analytics show that you’ve had 20 visits to your website but only 1 unique visitor, then that means that 1 person visited your site 20 times.

Why it’s important: Unique visitors are a good indication of how traffic is growing and what is keeping them around. By growing traffic and increasing return traffic, your site will begin to climb the rankings.

Search Engine Optimization involves constant testing, experimenting and improvement. It’s not something that you can just set and forget. Remember, even though SEO is typically one of the highest return marketing investments, measuring success and studying the results is still critical to the process.

If you need help improving your search rankings or making your website more SEO friendly, contact Point Click Media.

Or even the information you don't want. Like this giraffe's patoot. But since it loads quickly you probably don't even care that we just wasted the last 10 seconds of your life.

That’s why the load time of your website is perhaps the leading factor tied to its usability. If we don’t encounter a fully loaded page within seconds or even milliseconds, most of us just simply move on. Making sure your website loads quickly is paramount in keeping people on the site. Here are just a few quick and easy tips to help achieve this goal:

1. Reduce HTTP Requests

When loading a web page, every object on the page will require a trip to the server to load each part of the page. This goes for scripts, images, etc. A page that needs to load a list of scripts the length of the U.S. Patriot Act is going to really drag out the load time and make people impatient. If your page is summoning too many HTTP requests and your site is receiving even a moderate amount of traffic, this could be a recipe that takes the site down altogether. Be sure to minimize the amount of objects on the page wherever possible and combine style sheets and scripts together.

So which one loads the weather app?

2. Optimize Images

Even if you don’t have any knowledge of photo or image editing software, there’s really no excuse to throw a 10 megapixel image up on your website expecting it to load quickly as if nobody will notice. There are plenty of free websites out there that will resize images for you. This is one. A properly sized and optimized-for-web image will work wonders for your page load times.

3. Optimize your CSS

Whether you’ve hired someone to build your website, or you’re a do-it-yourselfer, it’s important that the backend of the site is just as clean as the front. Make sure that your code and your style sheets are tidy and streamlined. There are also plenty of online tools to help you clean up your CSS including this one.

Keep in mind that a clean design doesn’t always mean clean code. Certain design elements can often wreak havoc on page loading so make sure that between you and your designer, you have a clear understanding of how key design elements will need to be created during the development phase. We’re a spoiled bunch, this society of ours. Don’t keep us waiting.

If your website is crawling along at the same pace as you before your Monday morning coffee, contact Point Click Media to drop some caffeine in that bad boy.

You wouldn't put a Harrier jet engine in your pickup would you? Alabamans need not answer.

Truth is, the design of your site can incorporate many of the same usability factors that we’ve talked about in the previous portions of this series.  Develop a design that caters to your prime audience first and foremost, but be sure not to alienate smaller target audiences.  Here are a few tips:

16. Avoid Strong, Harsh Colors and Low Contrasts

Your color scheme is a key component in setting a tone for the content of your website.  Bright red text on a fluorescent green background not only tells your audience “Welcome to my 1980’s arcade and meth lab”, but it will also have all the inviting feel of a rusty 10-inch ice pick to both corneas, especially after several minutes of focusing.  In addition, low contrasting color can be just as hard on the eyes.  White text on yellow or light grey for example, forces strain on your vision just to make out the text.

17. Avoid Crazy Animations

Animation can be a useful tool for your website when used in moderation.  Simplicity works best with animation, particularly in things like drop menus or fading between images in a photo gallery.  It’s important not to use animation as a gimmick.  Your content should always be the focal point on the page, not the 79 objects you have flying around the screen at all times.

18. Choose Fonts Wisely

Elaborate novelty fonts can certainly look sophisticated, but often times they are unreadable.  Sans-serif fonts typically work best for readability on the web.  These are fonts that don’t include any sort of structural details (like Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, etc.).  It’s just plain old text with no frills attached.

Also make sure that your fonts are large enough to be legible at the default setting.  Although most web browsers have a built in zoom function, you can’t necessarily rely on the user to know where it is or how to use it.

19. Make Sure Your Site is Cross-Browser Compatible

Not all browsers display web content the same, and there are truckloads of them out there.  By making sure your design looks the way it should in the most common browsers (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera) you’ll cover the majority of your audience.  Don’t forget to test for mobile as well.

20. Make Links Visible and Text Should Be Text

Your users should be able to easily identify links and recognize what parts of the site are active.  Links for example should either be bolded, underlined or of a contrasting color to the rest of the regular text on the page – at least something to differentiate it from other content.  Your regular text should also be just that.  Don’t try to create elaborate text-based images.  Not only can search engines not identify text within an image, but users with images turned off won’t be able to see anything at all.

Overall, these guidelines should help your design fit in nicely on the front end with our previous technical tips on making the most of your website.  If you’re looking for additional dos and don’ts or for a more effective way to manage your site, contact Point Click Media.

11. Avoid splash pages if at all possible

Search engines determine the importance of the content on your website by doing just that – reading the content of the site, starting with the homepage.  If the most important first page of the site is nothing but a graphic or intro animation and perhaps an option to choose either English or French, then there’s nothing substantial there for a search engine to grab on to and that will in turn hurt your ranking.  Many content management systems now can detect what language operating system your visitor is using and default to that language.

12. Spell-check that bad boy

Not only do spelling mistakes look bad and unprofessional but they can also affect how search engines index your content if the quality is poor and key search terms in the content are misspelled.  Additionally, to reiterate a previous point about broken links, a simple spelling mistake within a link renders it pretty much as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

Fantastic. Now I get to read over this article 9,000 more times to make sure there's no spelling mistakes.

13. Include a search if necessary

A search box on your website isn’t always necessary.  If your website is as simple as some product and contact information, then the site is probably going to be pretty easy to get around.  However, as soon as your site begins getting into pages of content that go several clicks deep, adding a search is going to save you a whole lot of inquiries.  If someone is having trouble finding something on a website, the first place they’re trained to go to is the search box.  If there’s no search, the next place they’re going to go is straight to the source – you.  Prepare yourself for a flood of emails and calls from people who are still trying to find the “Any” key.

14. Avoid complex URL structures

Search engines don’t just scan the content on your website in order to determine its quality.  They also look at how your site is structured and how you’ve named files and directories.  Think of your site structure as a family tree.  You’d start with yourself (the content) placed in a folder called “parents” (a sub directory), placed under your grandparents (a main directory), etc.  A website should work much the same way.  When you visit a website and end up on a news article for example, the web address should include keywords indicating where they are and it should read something like http://www.mywebsite.com/news/article.htm. This allows search engines to effectively map out the structure of your site without running into a bunch of wacky file names that they have no idea what to do with.

15. Use Alt and title tags for images

A small but often overlooked detail in optimizing your website for search engines is to take advantage of the tags that the nerds of our forefathers gave us for indexing web content.  When placing images in your website, make sure to fill out the image title and alt tags so that search engines can develop a functioning description for the image.  Don’t just stuff them with keywords either.  Blind users typically have software that reads a web page aloud, so try to include a proper description that isn’t going to confuse the bejesus out of them.

"…and Lassie went to the park to play with Billy... Image Description: Lassie, Billy, fun, park, Viagra…"

The behind-the-scenes structure of your website can be just as important to search engines as the content that you put into it, so make sure you don’t ignore it, and keep it as simple as you can.  By avoiding some of the mistakes we’ve outlined above you can make sure that your website structure is as fool-proof as possible for any search engine to find.  In the final part of this series we’ll take a peek at the look of your website.

Now that we’ve cracked into that crunchy candy shell, let’s take a look at the ooey-gooey nougat filling that’s the main reason for your audience visiting your site in the first place.  Of course, this means the content.

6. Keep Advertising Placements Tasteful

Naturally, you’re expecting a return on your website investment and there are many ways to achieve this.  One method is by placing advertising throughout the site.  Keep in mind, though, that people aren’t coming to your site to see a bunch of blinking tiles telling them how to lose weight overnight on the Cheetos and Dr. Pepper diet.  Advertising has its place and when integrated properly can even improve your earning rates.

This also goes for advertising content of your own.  If your audience likes what they see they’ll browse around and look for more content themselves, so there’s really no need to clutter up your website with large banners reading “Contact Us Now!”  If you are keen on placing networking badges throughout the site, it’s a good idea to keep them consistently in one place, like a sidebar or footer and not fired out of a slingshot on the page from 40 paces.

7. Don’t Post a Novel

This is the internet, you know.  Nobody is coming to your site to read about how the founder of the company had a cat named Mittens who was born on a cloudy Tuesday morn in the back of a South Hampton, Virginia milk truck.  Keep your opening information concise and scan-able.  If you really want people to read your entire 3-hour screenplay that you wrote at Starbucks, let your audience make the choice and don’t force it down their throats.  Things like bullet points, lists, headers and sub headers all allow for your audience to easily filter and process the information being presented.

"There. My 500,000 word memoirs are finally complete. You know who's gonna love this? The internet."

8. Don’t Force Registration and Don’t Automatically Sign Me Up

The easiest way to tick off your audience is to lock off all of your content.  People hate having to sign up for stuff, even if it’s free.  It pushes their brains just one more username and password combination closer to picking off school kids from a bell tower.

In addition, when someone visits your website, they should be able to do so without worry of receiving 12 emails a day for the rest of their lives after being put on your mailing list for no reason.  Not only is this a good way to summon a lynch mob, it can also be downright illegal.

9. Down with Autoplaying

Any time you visit a website, you usually aren’t expecting to hear an audio file come blaring out of the page at 140 decibels when you’ve got your speakers up full blast.  Background music or speaking tracks are not only overplayed, but they are also a big time nuisance.  Allow your users to choose whether or not they want to listen to the audio or even video content that you’ve provided.

Every year, thousands of children like our friend Billy here are exposed to the dangers of midi files. You can help end this injustice.

10. Make Sure There is Contact Info

We’ve told you not to overdo it in plastering your contact info all over the place like a NASCAR racing machine, but that information has got to go somewhere and it should be fairly prominent.  If the most important purpose of the website is to generate leads, then you’re going to need some form of call to action to open up a more formal dialogue.  Even a simple web form can do the trick.

Always remember that the content of your website is a representation of your product, so you’ll want to massage it just right to ensure maximum impact.  By avoiding some of the mistakes we’ve outlined here today, you should be able to keep your website content concise, easy to process and most importantly, enticing.  Simple is better.

Over the course of the next 4 articles however, we’ll be listing some of the most universally accepted problems that often plague many a doomed website, including navigation, content, structure and design mistakes.  We begin this week with the circulatory system of your website, navigation.

1. Don’t Hide Things

Don’t treat your website navigation like the hidden entrance to King Tut’s tomb.  Links are the only way for people to get around your site and to interact with it – so make sure they are visible and don’t require an expedition of 50 British explorers to unearth the ancient mystery of the almighty home button.

2. Use Text Navigation

Text links ensure reliability and speed.  Text not only loads quicker than images, but it is also a key factor in search engine indexing.  Also, even in the today’s world of high speed internet that’s quicker than Roseanne on a glazed ham, there are still some people out there who browse the web with images turned off.

But how will they enjoy lolcats?

3. Double and Triple Check Navigation Links

This should be among the very first exercises during your usability testing phase.  There should never be any broken links on your website.  Every time a user gets a 404 or “page not found” error from a main link on your website, a puppy gets bludgeoned with a sack full of grapefruits.

4. Don’t Screw Around with the Browser Window

The last thing people want to see when visiting your site is 14 pop-ups to meet transgender singles in their area.  Additionally, when navigating the content of your website, try not to open a new window every time they go to a new page.  New browser windows or tabs should be reserved for linking to an external source.  There’s also no need to automatically re-size the browser window with funky JavaScript functions.  For one, most people will just full screen the browser again anyway, but also those JavaScript links don’t always work either.

Greetings, friend! Instead of using all the awesomeness of your brand spankin’ new 17-inch monitor today, I’m just going to go ahead and re-size this bad boy to the size of a Game Boy for your viewing pleasure.

5. Avoid Horizontal Scrolling

Unless you’re trying to display a 95-megapixel image of Neptune straight from the Kepler telescope, there shouldn’t be any reason to implement the browser’s dreaded horizontal scroll bar.  It just isn’t user friendly.  There’s no horizontal scrolling-wheel on most mice which requires the user to physically drag the scroll bar across the window.  Having to perform this task is akin to the desire of sticking your tongue into the blades of an Apache helicopter.

These first 5 tips are a good start in ensuring that your website functions the way it should and allows your users to navigate your website without launching a whaling harpoon through the screen.  In part 2, we’ll look at what to avoid when placing content on your site.

I'm givin' free readins at dee Valleyfield Rec Centar, Tursday trough Sunday, mon

A common question that often arises when meeting new clients for the first time is “how can I tell if my website should be redesigned?”  The shelf life a website can vary.  Some websites hold up quite well aesthetically over time while others date themselves pretty quick with trendy interfaces.  In the end though, the content of your website and what it does for you should be the determining factor in how you approach the future of your website and there are some tell-tale signs that could be hinting at the notion that it could be time for a refresh:

Site metrics are suffering

The web is always evolving.  New techniques for marketing and encouraging calls to action are constantly being developed and popularized.  If site traffic and page views are down, conversions are non-existent, and your contact form has gone drier than Steve Carell in the Kalahari, it’s a pretty clear indication that you’ve reached a disconnect with your audience.  It may be time to take a look at what can be done to get those rivers flowing once again.

Feedback tells you it’s time

Numbers are great for painting a metric picture, but there’s no better feedback than that from your actual customers.  Not everyone may be inclined to fill out a giant survey on the ins and outs of your website, but encouraging your users to provide feedback, be it through the site or even through social media, you’ll quickly begin to realize what is working and what’s not.

The fix-it list is longer than a Ritchie Blackmore solo

Remember that old jalopy you had back in college?  That beauty was forged from pure molten steel and the chiseled hands of the heart of middle-class America with enough clicks on her to get you to Mars and back.  She got you around and served you well, but after awhile it just made more sense to replace the old girl rather than keep changing the quarter panels and fuzzy dice every 6 months.  Your website could be in the same boat.  If the laundry list of tasks to get it up to snuff is worth more than the resources that you’re willing to put toward it, sometimes starting over is more cost effective than trying to keep up with the growing list of priorities.

No matter what direction you take with the future of your website, your focus should depend on the goals you’ve set for it and whether or not those goals are being met or have the potential to be met.  If the answer to either of those questions is no, then it should be pretty obvious that the current version of your website is not doing what you want it to do and it may be time to start planning for a new direction.  If you’re in need of help in identifying your metrics, deciphering feedback or even knocking off a few items from the honey-do list, contact Point Click Media.

All of these facts and more mind blowing social media statistics can be found here.

So what’s a company to do with all of this Social 2.0 MySpaceBooking at its fingertips?  There are many different theories and methods being employed by businesses everywhere to try and maximize the advantages of social media.  What we’re doing today is looking at a few dos and don’ts by busting a few of the more commonly employed tactics that you’ve probably encountered at some point.

Exxon Mobil wants to find out which type of gasoline I am. I hope it''s 87-grade unleaded!

Myth #1 – I’ve Built It, So They Will Come

You can set up all of the profiles you want on a bajillion different platforms, but in order to maintain a successful social media campaign there needs to be an active presence with the audience.  Networking is what social media is all about, so you’ll need to get out there and interact with people if you expect to see valid results.

Myth #2 – It’s A Public Relations Free-For-All

There seems to be this idea with social media that anything goes.  We can bombard whomever we want with advertising and censor whomever is giving poor feedback.  While social media does put you at the controls of the ship, it’s not necessary to kamikaze that baby into a sea of humanity.  Social media is designed for networking and interacting, not for pumping out offers, games and contests every 20 minutes.  When presented tastefully, marketing your business with social media through an online promotion or contest can yield extremely lucrative results, however there needs to be credibility associated with the campaign.  Would you purchase an item from a vendor in a trench coat that keeps shouting offers at you while you walk down the street?

Get out the pocketbook, honey! This guy looks legit.

Myth #3 – Each Channel Is Its Own Audience

It’s important not to alienate your audience in any way.  The reach of your social media efforts is maximized when you cross-pollinate between all of your different platforms.  Don’t just present an offer ‘for our Facebook group only’.  Make sure that same offer is available on your website, on Twitter, YouTube, or wherever else your online presence extends.  Forcing people to ‘like’ your Facebook page in order to take advantage of a promotion is not only short sighted, but in some cases is also against Facebook’s Terms of Use.

Myth #4 – The More The Merrier

There also seems to be a fascination with gaining more and more followers and ‘likes’ until your Facebook page turns into the Blob, absorbing everyone it touches.  Sure, the ultimate goal of getting into social media is to expand your audience, grow popularity and gain an extra avenue to interact with these groups, however you should be looking for ways to engage these people to interact with your business in some form and not simply clicking a ‘like’ button.  Additionally, once you’ve reached your target following, it’s important not to maintain the status quo.  It certainly should not be taken for granted that the audience that follows you today will still be there tomorrow.  Focus on building the relationships you’ve developed with the followers you have – not on gimmicks – and people will ‘like’ you for all the right reasons.

Social Media gives your business a whole new avenue to reach new audiences and generate legitimate leads.  The potential is too great to ignore.  It can be enticing to get roped into distractions when we see the success of various brands and you just want to get a piece of the action, so make sure that your efforts are concentrated on the goals you’ve set for yourself.  If you’re having troubles getting your social media presence off the ground, contact Point Click Media.

Hey look, it's GeoCities!

A great domain name can be the catalyst to a successful online presence.  So what makes a great domain name and how do you pinpoint them?

They are short and easy to remember

It’s not a coincidence that pretty much every 3 or 4 letter domain name has been gobbled up.  They’re usually quick and easy to remember, quick to identify, and quick to type out.  It’s all about convenience here, so the shorter the better.  But keep in mind too that a domain should be easy to remember.  Zqhgy.net may only be 5 letters, but it’s not easy to pronounce and even harder to recall.  Unless you’re using the domain name for an already established and well branded acronym, try to stay away from non-words.

They are easy to spell

Aardvarkattorneys.com may be a memorable domain name, but it is difficult to spell correctly.  Avoid words with complex structure or words with foreign origins.  What you don’t want to happen is for somebody to misspell your domain and end up going somewhere else.  Also try to avoid using hyphens, numbers or spelling out the extension because the name you really wanted wasn’t available.  If you have to explain to someone how to type out your name, then it probably wasn’t selected very well.

Hey Dave, check out my site. It’s Batman-RulezDotCom.com… That’s right, rules, with a Z… NO, no, don’t spell out dash, use the hypen! … Ok, dot com, dot com, spelled once then once the regular way. You know what? Screw it, I’ll send you a link.

They are descriptive and easily brand-able

Social media companies are a perfect example of how a good domain name can be memorable, easy to spell and highly brand-able all in one shot:  Twitter, Reddit, Blogger, Facebook, etc.  You pretty much know what you’re getting before you even visit Facebook or Blogger, and even though Twitter and Reddit are not necessarily real words per se, they are appealing and roll off the tongue easily.  Twitter has built an entire social media platform based on ‘tweeting’, and their domain reflects that perfectly.

It’s certainly not easy to find the perfect domain.  If you can’t find your dream name, don’t get discouraged.  You just need to be a little more creative.  There are plenty of highly popular websites whose domain name doesn’t reflect all of these characteristics, so it’s not like Charlton Heston is going to strike you down with a thunderbolt from the heavens if you don’t follow the 3 commandments of domain names.  However, by using these tips as a guide you should be able to find a great little location to set up your online web presence.  For additional help in finding the perfect domain, contact Point Click Media.

1. Poor Navigation

If users are having a hard time finding what they need or can’t manage to navigate around your website in a timely manner (read:  instantly), confusion quickly sets in and they will be quick to move on.  Navigation should be prominent, easy to follow, and grouped together in a logical spot on every page.  Also make sure that text links within your content are clearly styled differently from normal text so that users can quickly identify them.

It's kind of like hiding Easter eggs. You don't want to forget where you put it and find it 4 months later after it's too late.

2. Advertising Overload

Perhaps the biggest shock to the system on the first visit is seeing your site lit up like a Christmas Tree with ads popping up all over the place.  Of course, advertising may be one of your main methods of generating revenue from your website, but it’s important to be tasteful when displaying ads.  Generally, ads should not be the first thing that a user sees when visiting your website.  Remember that your content is what people come to see, so don’t cover it up with blinking banners for Cialis and Warcraft.

3. Intrusive eye candy

Video, audio and animation can be a great way to enhance your web content, however people would much rather have the ability to choose their media.  A video that automatically pops up and starts playing, or an audio track that auto plays in the background can be very distracting and certainly over stimulating if the user is forced into it.  Avoid media that intrudes on the browsing experience.

4. Poor Content Structure & Legibility

Your website may in fact be functional, but it has to look the part, too.  Visitors rely on a memorable experience to return or interact further with your website.  Minimal design can work great when done correctly, but you still need to make sure that all of the proper tools and utilities are in place.  Other key elements like type faces, color choices and simple grammar and punctuation are all very important in creating a great web experience for your users.  Your website should look consistent with your brand.

5. It’s Growing Cobwebs

Your site can look like a million bucks, but if it never gets updated then there’s really no reason for anyone to return.  What’s worse is visiting a website that’s had a ‘coming soon’ message for 7 years now.  It’s a common misconception that your website needs to be updated constantly with new content to keep interest and gain valuable search engine rankings.  In reality, as long as your content is updated with some form of scheduled regularity, you’re still keeping brand awareness in peoples’ minds and not being too intrusive into their regular browsing habits.  Even if the website is only updated once per month, at least people know that you haven’t been blown up in a silo explosion.

Pictured: The Bates Motel of silos. Just don't take a shower. Ever.

Web trending has evolved into visitors having developed certain expectations with their browsing experience.  To make sure that your traffic is getting the real deal, contact Point Click Media.