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Ameravant Offers Tips on How to Maximize Web Presence
Ameravant Web Design, sponsor of the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce’s April Business 2 Business Breakfast, shared tips on how businesses could maximize their presence on the Web. Ameravant founder Michael Kramer noted that of the 114 business attending the breakfast, approximately 80 percent said they were dissatisfied with the performance of their Web site to produce business.
He offered a number of guidelines to help businesses bring more traffic to their sites.
How do I attract more visitors to my Web site?
First, you need to understand the basic elements of good Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and then modify the text on your site to meet the guidelines of search engines like Google. Most common text areas are:
» META Title. Displayed in the browser header bar, this is the text you see if you bookmark or save a Web page as a Favorite. Guidelines include starting with a geographic location such as “Santa Barbara;” adding vertical keywords such as “Santa Barbara Small Business;” and adding horizontal keywords such as “Santa Barbara Small Business Web Sites.”
» META Description. Use the same Meta Title but make a sentence out of it, including a period at the end. Example: “We build Santa Barbara Small Business Web Sites.” Not more than two brief sentences.
» META Keywords. These are not used by Google but are used by other search engines. Do not use the same word over and over, such as “Santa Barbara” multiple times. For example, don’t say “Santa Barbara Small Business, Santa Barbara Small Business Web Sites.” Not more than 25 words.
» Perma Link URLs. Try to put your keywords into the URL of the page. For some Web sites this will be impossible. You may need to upgrade the technology of your site to do this. For example, http://www.ameravant.com/Santa-Barbara-Small-Business-Web-Sites.
» “H1” Heading Tags: The body content of your page would optimally have large title text, containing the keywords for that page. For example “Santa Barbara Small Business Web Sites.”
» ALT Text: This is the text you see when you hover your mouse over an image. All images should have Alt text. Hover your mouse over the image and you will see the Alt text.
» Flash Web Sites: Stay away from all Flash Web sites. In general, Flash sites are not visible by search engines.
» Click here to check your Web site for current development standards. Enter your Web address and click the “Check” button. Fixing the errors is for programmers, not for site owners.
What is Search Engine Marketing “SEM”?
You can use SEM to drive traffic back to your Web site from outside your domain. To view how Google ranks each page of your site, you will need to install the Google Toolbar. Click here to download it, click “Install Google Toolbar 6” and follow the download and installation prompts.
The Easy Solution:
If you find it difficult to modify the text on your Web site to meet the Google guidelines, contact Ameravant for a free consultation. Ameravant offers business Web sites that start at $1,000, including a full content management system, allowing you to easily update all areas described above.
The Business 2 Business Breakfast is a monthly event of the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce. Click here to register for the May 2 breakfast.
Valerie Kushnerov is operations director at the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce.
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