A blog to discuss web marketing…
Websites
AWG Unveils New Website Design for Light Impressions
Feb 3rd
Light Impressions, which offers the world’s largest variety of fine archival storage, display and presentation materials for negatives, transparencies, CDs, photographs, artwork and documents. Light Impressions, recently acquired the services of Active Web Group to redesign their corprorate website.
Active Web Group, Long Island’s leading web marketing firm, specializes in Web Design, SEO, PPC Management, Email Marketing, and other online marketing solutions. With a focus on a strong, user-friendly e-commerce feel, an eye-pleasing design and integrated SEO, AWG’s expert creative and technical staff redesigned the Light Impressions website to attract and increase web traffic and sales, as well as appear more modern, while still maintaining the essence of a respectable, professional website.
For more information about website design services, please contact AWG today.
What Search Engines Don’t Like About Your Website
Nov 11th
You may not know it, but you could be hindering or preventing your website from being crawled by search engine spiders. As spiders crawl the web, they rely on the architecture of hyperlinks to find new web pages and revisit those that may have changed. Complex links and deep site structures with little unique content may act as “speed bumps” in the process by slowing down the spiders. Even worse, data that cannot be accessed by web crawlers are really like “walls” in that they completely prevent your web pages from being ranked.
Beware of the Following “Speed Bumps”:
- URLs with 2+ dynamic parameters; i.e. http://www.url.com/page.php?id=4&CK=34rr&User=%Tom% (spiders may be reluctant to crawl complex URLs like this because they often result in errors with non-human visitors)
- Pages with more than 100 unique links to other pages on the site (spiders may not follow each one)
- Pages buried more than 3 clicks/links from the home page of a website (unless there are many other external links pointing to the site, spiders will often ignore deep pages)
- Pages requiring a “Session ID” or Cookie to enable navigation (spiders may not be able to retain these elements as a browser user can)
- Pages that are split into “frames” can hinder crawling and cause confusion about which pages to rank in the results.
Beware of the Following “Walls”:
- Pages accessible only via a select form and submit button
- Pages requiring a drop down menu (HTML attribute) to access them
- Documents accessible only via a search box
- Documents blocked purposefully (via a robot meta tag or robots.txt file)
- Pages requiring a login
- Pages that re-direct before showing content (search engines call this cloaking or bait-and-switch and may actually ban sites that use this tactic)
In order to avoid the above pitfalls and ensure that your website’s contents are fully crawlable, be sure to provide direct, HTML links to each page you want the search engine spiders to index. Remember to make every page of your site accessible from the home page, since the home page is usually the place spiders begin their crawl. It’s also a good idea to add a sitemap to your website in order to increase its navigation.
For More Information CLICK HERE
This article was written by David Montalvo, Senior SEO and Director of Business Development at Active Web Group.
New Website Launched
Jun 19th
I am excited to announce that Active Web Group launched a new website for Hall’s Boat Corporation. We completely redesigned this historical landmark’s website, transforming Hall’s from a wooden boat manufacturer and restorer to the wooden boat site online where those who have a passion for wooden boats flock to find out what’s new, what events are happening, and what boats are for sale. Take a look and tell us what you think – http://www.hallsboat.com/
Do you test before launch?
May 21st
Here is a great article from Christian Neuberger, SEO Wed Developer at Active Web Group on the importance of testing out your website before launching it.
Testing.1-2-3.Testing
When it comes to website optimization, you can’t always take the obvious for granted. With the ability to create limitless versions of your web pages, you have an opportunity and a duty to your business to test everything, even that which seems obvious. Follow these guidelines for best results:
1. Make calls to action stand out
What’s the most noticeable thing about a stop sign? Its bright red color? Its octagonal shape? Or the word STOP in all capital letters? Maybe it’s a combination of all three of these characteristics that makes a stop sign so unmistakable to drivers.
The same kind of logic should be applied to your website. Your “submit” or “buy now” buttons should stand out from the rest of your website, eliminating all confusion surrounding your call to action. With its ease of use and abundance of information, the Internet invites laziness and preoccupation. Don’t allow your users to become preoccupied while on your site. Give them clear, easy-to-follow instructions.
Simply brightening the color of a submit or buy now button can increase your conversion rate by several percent. Or perhaps try making it larger, with a unique shape.
2. Give visitors a warm and fuzzy feeling
Everyone likes feeling like they got a good deal, or the inside scoop on something. Web visitors appreciate saving money and getting valuable information not everyone is privy to. Indulge your visitors by making them feel positively about their decision to sign up for your services or purchase something from your site.
You can do so by telling them how much money they saved by shopping with you, or by letting them know that the services or information you are providing them can’t be obtained anywhere else.
If you offer free shipping, make that benefit stand out to customers. Remove any clutter around the positive message you are presenting. Some sites are clogged up with so many “benefits” they hide the true differentiator between them and their competition. Be sure to choose a feature that will set your product or service apart from your competition. Make that offer the most prominent on the page.
3. Don’t make them have to guess
Predictability can be a wonderful thing when it comes to the web. Luckily, it’s also an easy thing to establish on your website. Let your visitors know what to expect when completing your sign-up form, request for information, or other processes. Simply telling them how long it will take to get through the process can increase conversion to your thank-you page by 5 percent or more. For example, add “in one easy step” to your “sign up for our newsletter” above your website’s email sign up box. Quite simply, the more predictability and transparency built in to the process, the easier it is for users to commit their time.
Testing is essential for anyone who maintains a website. It’s the only way to know for sure what works and what doesn’t. It should be a manageable task if you start out by testing the basics and work your way into more advanced testing. You can learn a great deal about what makes your visitors tick by testing seemingly obvious things.
Another new website…
Mar 26th
Active Web Group has been selected to redesign the website for Light Impressions, the nation’s top archival products supplier. Our goal is to emphasize the fact that when the Library of Congress, the Getty Museum, the Smithsonian or the Metropolitan Museum of Art need to store film or frame photos, artwork or historical documents, Light Impressions is the first call they make.
We plan to launch the new Light Impressions site by early summer 2009. We’ll keep you updated.
