Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

The first variable to examine when developing pages is the <title> tag. This tag displays the information at the top of the window in a web browser and also provides the title for listing in the search engine. A webpage <title> should be keyword rich and reflect the content of the page. Minor changes in <title> tags can have a major impact on traffic. Using plural versus singular words can impact how many visitors find your site. It is important to utilize the keyword research discovered during the planning phase of the site to maximize the benefit of site’s potential. Good <title> length is around 40 characters and should not exceed 70 characters. (Webmasterworld.com, Best Title Length). Following good practice for the <title> tag alone will improve rankings for less competitive phrases, and can sometimes bring a substantial amount of traffic to a site. A page should never be left as “Untitled”, no matter what the subject matter of the page.

Another HTML element variable that can dramatically improve SERPs is the use of heading <h#> tags. Heading tags range from 1-6 in descending order of importance. Many sites do not use heading tags at all, and this can be a mistake. Heading tags were not used for several years because they appeared large, ugly, and unstyled if they were not modified. Through the use of CSS, heading tags can be made much more visually appealing and can be used to increase the significance of a page to the search engines. Using primary keyphrases within the heading tags improves rankings and is good planning for the promotion phase of a website.

Keeping the ratio of “behind the scenes” code to visible text is another important variable in earning high SERPs. When viewing nearly any webpage, a visitor can “view source” to see the “behind the scenes” code. This code tells the computer how to interpret a webpage to the visitor. The more markup that is used in backend code the higher the ratio of code to text will be. It is much more beneficial to have a high text to code ratio (See Appendix 2-10). This variable put in place by search engines promotes streamlined code writing by rewarding efficient writing and penalizing unnecessary back end code. Keeping code streamlined relative to the visible on page text is important to gaining high SERPs.

Appendices
(All in a single document) Appendix 1-1: Overture Search Term
Research Tool

Appendix 1-2: Wordtracker Search Query Research Tool

Appendix 1-3: Google Sets Website Theme Research Tool

Appendix 1-4: Reach/ Acquire/ Convert/ Retain

Chart Appendix 2-5: Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth Information Architecture Flowchart

Appendix 2-6: Search Engine Themes Pyramid Information Architecture Example

Appendix 2-7: Webpage Download Time by File Size Chart

Appendix 2-8: Expected Locations for Common E-commerce Elements

Appendix 2-9: Website Usability Checklist

Appendix 2-10: Text Vs.Code Ratio/ Content Near the Top of Souce Code Examples

Appendix 3-11: Overture Bid Price Tool

Appendix 3-12: Webalizer Website Visitor Tracking Tool

Appendix 3-13: AW STATS Website Visitor Tracking Tool Appendix

3-14: Clicktracks Website Statistics
Analysis Tool

References
Author Notes

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Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites Table of Contents

Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Small Business Website

Search Engine Optimized Websites for Small Business Page 32

Title and Heading Tags

Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

Search Engine Optimized Websites for Small Business
Page 32