Why Pay For A Custom Website Design?
What’s So Bad About Using a DIY Sitebuilder?
There is no getting around the fact that we are in a very fast moving age of internet technology. This includes the way websites are evolving and the level of interaction between the sites and their visitors. There are so many more things that a website can “do” now, as compared to even a few years ago.
As things started getting more technical as far as building a website is concerned, a lot of pre-built scripts started being offered. These scripts are better known as “site builders”. Companies like Yahoo!, GoDaddy and many other web hosting companies offer them. You can also purchase programs that you can load onto your own computer.
In the time it takes to choose a template and figure out where to put in your content, you can almost instantly have a presence on the World Wide Web. Nowadays, almost anyone can have their own website without knowing a lick of HTML coding or having any graphic art skills. Nope, it’s not like back in the late ‘90’s when everything was accomplished by hand coding and the like.
And yes, tens-of-thousands of people use these site builders and are quite pleased with them. However, there’s a big “but”, and that is …
How Easy is it to Integrate New Software or Scripts? Or is it Even Possible?
I can assure you from personal experience, that even if you find a website builder that looks like it’ll be more than what you need, in not too much time, if you are serious about having a real online presence, you will invariably want to customize your site in probably more than one way.
Maybe you’ll want to add the really neat interactive chat box you saw offered for $100.00 and is said to increase sales conversions by 20%. Maybe you’ll want to add a PHP script that allows for easy banner ad rotations. Maybe you’ll want to be able to make simple font color changes to your sub-headers across your entire site with the click of one button, instead of having to go into each page and manually change the coding. I think you get my point.
Most all the people I know in this group (myself included back in the beginning of my online marketing experience), think “No big deal. I’ll just tweak this program without much trouble at all! I can do it!” Do you know HTML? Do you know about CSS? Do you have the graphic editor to change image sizes? Etc., etc.
How Much Time Do You Have to Devote to the Learning Curve Involved?
The honest truth of all this is most of these add-ons are usually NOT easy to install, or easy to customize, or easy to get to work seamlessly with other functions on your site. So, let the many many hours of your new learning curve begin (groan). This truth is based on my very own personal experience with my very first website.
Or another issue which is all-too-true: I discovered (years ago with my first website – I paid a company good money in order to utilize their site builder and hosting program) that I couldn’t use a rather simple PHP program I wanted to purchase and integrate into my DIY site because I was told PHP wasn’t compatible with the site builder program.
The light bulb on just how limiting this site builder website was, and how incapable I was to move ahead with necessary improvements to the site now went on for me.
Why a Custom Built Website is Really Quite Cost Effective in the Long Run
So now, I realized this affordable website builder wasn’t really so affordable, because it couldn’t be integrated with what really was a very simple PHP script. It couldn’t do what I wanted it to, and there was no way I could integrate the software I wanted to have on my site.
But sometimes issues aren’t even as complicated as this. Perhaps you begin realizing that your “amateur” designed website is looking like just that … amateurish! If you’re serious about a professional, online presence, and you’re like the vast majority of us, you’ll soon realize you don’t have the skills, nor the TIME to spend in order to learn everything it will take to build out a good looking and user friendly website.
Honesty, all that I’ve shared here is exactly what happened to me.
Even more importantly, you and I are NOT a professional web developer! So no matter how hard we might try, we really haven’t a clue as to how to build a properly coded, W3 compliant, SEO friendly, and easily navigable website! Did I forget professional in appearance, also? 
As example, do you know:
- The ramifications of having a confusing navigational hierarchy?
- How to easily collect the email addresses of everyone that visits your site in order to help build up your mailing list?
- The proper width a website should and shouldn’t be?
- Why you should never design a site using frames?
- Why having a splash page for your intro page is a bad idea?
- Why using some of those fancy fonts in your content you like so much might not be a good idea?
- About browser compatibility issues?
- And this list could go on and on …
Are You Really Serious About Your Online Presence?
There’s a saying “put your best foot forward”. This saying also truly applies to your website. I don’t care if it is only a three page site that showcases your brick and mortar store and is meant to only attract local traffic; or an e-commerce store selling your handmade products; or a site to promote your professional services; or a blog where you hope to generate some AdSense income.
No matter what the marketing purpose is of your website or blog … if you’re serious about a long-term online presence, then a custom site will prove to be a winner for you in every way you can imagine. No kidding.
I’ve laid out these all too true scenarios for you, because professionally I encounter this “I can do it myself much cheaper” mentality too often than not. Hey I told you … I too was basically guilty of that attitude when I first got into online marketing. In defense of myself, and for lots of other people too, I’ll admit it … I didn’t know any better that I should do some online research about custom versus site builder sites. Newbies really don’t know. I understand that now.
I can only encourage you to investigate the option of starting out your new online marketing business with a custom-for-you website design. You don’t have to spend a lot. You can get a simple custom site, from honest designers, for around $500.00 on up (depends upon your needs).
Now granted, there certainly won’t be lots of bells and whistles if you’re only paying $500.00 to begin with. But the point is that you’ll have a cleanly coded site that can be improved upon easily as your needs grow. And there are ways your designer can include a built-in HTML editor for you, so you can pretty much do everything by yourself to keep your site updated with new content, ads, etc.
The bottom line here is this: I encourage you to investigate your options before you jump in head first with only MONEY – the “how much can I save?” mentality – ruling your decisions. Again, it is true that you do most times get what you pay for, and even if a custom design is only $100.00 more than what a DIY site builder site will cost you, I’d vote for spending the extra $100.00 now, and forego the daily Starbucks or Seven-11 slurpees for a month or two.
I’d love to discuss how I might provide you with your very first website or how I can revamp, update and improve your existing site. Please visit my Custom Website Design Services page for more information.
Positive Thinking – Are You A Positive Person?
Changin’ Our Mindset – No More Stinkin’ Thinkin’
Do you REALLY believe that by focusing your thoughts on positive expectations … meaning your hopes, dreams, desires, wishes and the resulting outcomes … that you will REALLY receive and experience positive results? Hmmm?? Do you practice positive thinking in your life?
Well, I do! I didn’t used to a few years ago. Honestly. Oh sure, I would say I wanted this or that good thing to happen to me, or that I wished my finances would improve, or that I hoped that new opportunities of one sort or another would come knocking at my door, but I just didn’t have a true spirit of positiveness and positive thinking instilled into the deepest core of my thought patterns.
Because I am now such a believer of the power of our thoughts, and how our thoughts really color and affect our entire life’s circumstances, I feel it is very important for me to begin to add posts containing words of positive thoughts and encouragement to my blog. And so, today marks that day! 
Here’s what I’d like to share with you today to start off your week:
~~ “Your life will go in the direction of your MOST PROMINENT thoughts! ~~
Google’s Best Practices SEO Guidelines Document
Wondering What Google Suggests About Properly SEOing Your Site?
You know that I write about many aspects of how to SEO your website or blog, and so many of my posts are geared to the beginner-to-intermediate level person who wants to learn more about SEO and/or handle the optimization of their site themselves. That’s fine and I love to help educate and give you proven ethical tips and techniques to achieve higher rankings.
Today I’m keeping it short and sweet. I thought I’d provide a copy of Google’s SEO guideline recommendations. I hope you are aware that Google brings all of us the bulk of our organic traffic – so we really must pay attention to what Google approves of, and doesn’t approve of, as far as optimization practices are concerned.
We don’t want to do anything that will send up a red flag to Google which will make them ignore our site. As example, are you aware that using an “autogenerated SEO” program is a big no-no as far as Google is concerned? As a matter of fact, they state:
Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. (Source page: Webmaster guidelines.)
In addition, though not stated in the above quote, it is a known fact that Google ALSO frowns upon automated programs that fill your content pages with targeted keywords and that optimize pages using their so-called “built-in expertise”. Really. Don’t put your money into one of these programs hoping to inject keywords in the “right places” and to “properly” optimize your site! Do it the right way – by your own brainpower, research and personal know-how!
On a side note, WebPosition Gold is still maintaining a website that sells a number of products – and for many hundreds of dollars too, I might add. Don’t use programs like this. Again … PLEASE save your hard earned $$ and perform SEO yourself … or hire me. My professional SEO and web development services are very reasonable, I provide top-notch service and I’m a nice person to deal with, too!
Anyway, here is a darn good guide that Google put together outlining some best practices that webmasters can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing. Google SEO Starter Guide. Save yourself a copy. There’s good information in here and even an SEO beginner will be able to understand it and will certainly get educated from it.
How To SEO Your Blog Posts For High(er) Rankings
Make Your Blog Posts Search Engine Friendly – My Best Tips to SEO Optimize Your Blog
To make your posts properly optimized for a better chance at higher search engine rankings and to be more SEO friendly, I can offer a number of suggestions. Surprisingly, many bloggers don’t pay any attention to SEO issues, so their blogs are basically lost in search-engine-land.
That’s a shame, as it’s really not hard to attain decent (or even top) organic search engine positions by following some basic SEO guidelines. But I must briefly mention that to keep any blog in the top SERPs (search engine results pages), you need to continue to add quality content on a regular basis, and you also need good quality incoming links.
My SEO Suggestions to Optimize Your Blog Posts
The Title: Here’s the first SEO step. Your main keyword phrase must be incorporated into your post’s title, and it should be at the beginning, rather than the end of the Title if at all possible.
Post Slug: The slug (one of the built-in tools in your blog) is found over in the right hand side column of the WordPress editor. By default, if left empty, the slug will automatically be filled with your entire title when you publish the post, but with the words all in lower case and each word separated by a dash. As example, this post’s slug is: how-to-seo-your-wordpress-blog-posts-for-high-rankings.
The slug is just like the page name of a traditional HTML coded website. But, you can manually type in whatever you wish the slug to be (it will not alter your Title). Many people, myself included, will alter the words in the slug to be shorter than their Title, or maybe a little more keyword focused than what their post’s Title happens to be. I don’t make a habit of doing this, but every now and then do alter it for one reason or another.
Blog Post: Following “traditionally taught” SEO techniques, you should use your keyword phrase in the very first sentence of your post.
Contrary to a lot of information floating around the internet, it is not necessary to use H1, H2, bold, or italic codes as examples, on your keyword phrase in order to gain higher rankings. But, for aesthetic reasons, you may wish to use one of these HTML codes to bring attention to the actual keyword phrase in your copy.
I suggest you sprinkle your keyword phrase throughout your copy. Use the keyword phrase a little bit more than you would in normal conversation. But don’t overdue it … you’ll look like you’re spamming. Also, incorporate your keyword into the very last paragraph.
Tags: Tags are a misunderstood, thusly often overlooked, part of optimizing your blog. Make sure to use the tags at all times. Include your main keyword phrase and then some keyword variations or modifiers. Tags are sort of like labels, but in this situation, they are keywords that pertain to the content of your post. Tags help make it easier for other people to find blog posts relating to a specific category, or subject for instance. So include keywords that you think would help your post be found if someone were searching for it
Hyperlinks: If your posts contains hyperlinks to other posts (or pages) in your blog, to web pages on other sites, or to affiliate programs that are related to the topic, it is a good SEO tactic to include a keyword phrase to hyperlink to them. Of course make sure it is a keyword that pertains in some way to what your post is about.
Images: I like using images in my blog posts whenever I can, since a picture often speaks a thousand words. Make sure you include the “alt” tag in the image’s coding, and make sure you’ve placed the keyword phrase in there. This helps give you a small rankings boost.
For Serious WordPress Bloggers, I Suggest and Use this Great SEO Plugin
All in One SEO Pack: This free SEO plugin for WordPress is an absolute must-have for any blogger who is serious about SEO-ing their posts. You can provide information for a Title tag (yes, it can be completely different from the title that starts off your post); the Description meta tag and the Keyword meta tag. Whatever you enter will be shown in the SERPs. Download it and I promise you’ll love it.
NOTE: Since I use WordPress exclusively for my blogging needs, I’m not able to suggest plugins for other blogs built on the many other platforms available. Sorry …
A Free SEO How-To eBook for Anyone Who Has a Website or Blog
That’s right! Free information and guess what? I wrote this primer and if you’d really like to learn search engine optimization basics to help improve your website or blog’s chances at better rankings, then read it over. I’m told I did a great job providing clear easy-to-implement optimization techniques. So why not download a free copy of my “The SEO Edge: Get Ahead of Your Competition EVERY Time!” right now.
Best of luck in gaining higher rankings with your blog posts.
Keyword Strategy For Beginners: Understanding Keyword Competition Levels
How Search Engine Ranking Competition Affects Visitor Traffic
Just the other day I received an email from someone complimenting one of my websites and saying that she was adding a link to it on her site. She also shared how she wanted to make money from her site, but was struggling to understand how in the heck to “get found” online in order to get lots of visitor traffic.
I clicked over to check it out and oh dear … it was pretty much what I expected to see. Sadly, though I saw a website that was built around excellent efforts and perhaps a pretty good niche, I saw blunder after blunder in every aspect one could imagine IF INDEED one wishes to not only appear in the search engine results which brings the visitors, but more importantly wishes to make some serious money from that site.
So … why are some people smiling about their search engine rankings and the levels of traffic they receive, and others are bemoaning about trying to figure out how to get traffic? My best assumption is easy to make. If anyone is wondering how to “get visitors”, then right there I know that the individual is unaware of even the most basic of SEO and keyword strategy fundamentals.
I’ve got lots of great posts about keyword research and such in the Keyword category, so please check it out and read the posts to educate yourself. But today I want to touch upon a very important aspect that needs to be considered when doing your keyword research.
Keyword Strategy – Research the Competitiveness Level
Let’s define what competitiveness of a keyword phrase is. It means how many other websites on the internet are using that exact keyword phrase – such as “vegetarian recipes” – that you want to target in the content of your web page.
There are a number of ways to perform keyword phrase research, and this post isn’t attempting to tackle all of them, rather I want to easily show one way that beginners can use to help figure out what keywords they should target.
Remember now, I said this is but one of many ways to help determine keyword strategy. But it can give good insight to those of you starting out.
As a very general rule, when you type your search term into Google a page of results will be returned. You will see this (click image for full size):
**Note the areas I’ve circled at the top of this image. You see the SERP (search engine result pages) result for the keyword phrase.
On the following chart, let’s look at some numbers:
- If there are less than 100,000 SERPs returned for a keyword phrase that phrase can be considered low competition.
- If you find between 100,000 and 1,000,000 SERPs for a keyword phrase, that phrase is considered a medium level of competition.
- If you see SERPs over 1 million … I’d recommend you not try to go after that keyword phrase until you’ve got a good sized site that utilizes lots of medium to low competition phrases.
|
SERPs In Google |
Competition Level |
|
< 100,000 |
Low |
|
100,000 – 1,000,000 |
Medium |
|
1,000,000 > |
High |
However, if you’re entering into a highly competitive niche – such as “computer equipment”, a keyword phrase with 50,000 results can most likely be considered highly competitive. Much does hinge upon the niche and the other websites attention to SEO and other factors.
It is necessary to formulate keyword strategy on a site-by-site, niche-by-niche basis. Everyone wants their website to achieve top rankings for targeted traffic. One must come up with a well researched and thought-out list of keywords to target, whether you’re a beginner or expert. In the case of most online marketers who are just starting out, keyword strategy means they should start building content around slightly less competitive phrases, and then work their way up to including web page content on higher competition phrases.
Good traffic boils down to proper keyword research coupled with effective keyword strategy coupled with great content.
