Blacks Design

Understanding Links, for Search Engine Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:30:00 +0000

Understanding how links work, from a search engine's perspective, can be a bit confusing for some. My experience has been that many people think of links as bi-directional entities – sort of like, "gee, if I put a link from my site to yours, then that link will benefit both of us because we're linked, right? Which means the benefits go both ways, right?"

Actually, no. That's because links are basically uni-directional entities – they take you in one direction (forward), but they don't take you back. Yes, I know what you're thinking – you can go "back" using the back arrow in your web browser, right? Yes, but that's different ... it's important to understand that the link itself is not what's taking you back – it's the web browser software, which has been designed to remember the last page you visited so that you can go back.

It's best to think of links as being either inbound or outbound (from your perspective). So if you link to me (an outbound link, from your perspective), then you help my search engine rankings because by linking to me, you're signalling to the search engines that you think I am a valuable source of info – so my ranking goes up. The only way I can really help you in return is to create a separate link from me to you (an inbound link, from your perspective). This signals to the search engines that I think you are a valuable source of info. (And linking to each other like this is called "reciprocal" links.) It's important to note: having outbound links doesn't hurt your site rankings, it just doesn't help. (Or if it does help, it only helps a little.)

As I've discussed before, having inbound links to your site (that is, links from other sites to yours) is by far the most powerful way to get great search engine rankings. If you get 5 other sites to point (i.e., link) to your site, that tells the search engines that a few people think you're an important source of info, and your rankings will be helped a bit. But if you get 100 sites to point to yours, or 1000, that tells the search engines that A LOT of people think your site is a valuable source of info, so your rankings will benefit much more.

*However* before you run off to start asking other site owners to create inbound links to your site, please read my previous blog post about how to raise Google search rankings ... there are right ways and wrong ways to get inbound links, and if you manage to get a bunch of the wrong type of inbound links, Google just might blackball your site, which is something that nobody wants to happen.

Wed Design Ideas II: Using Photos and Illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:24:00 +0000

In this article, I talk about design (that is, web site design) and content : Design includes the parts of your web page that show up repeatedly throughout your site – typically, this includes the header area, navigation bar, footer area, and maybe the background. Content includes only the bulk of your text, which is typically located somewhere in the middle of each page.

When talking about design, I cannot stress enough: High quality photography and/or illustrations are the best way to create visual interest in your design – they will really, really increase the level of professionalism of your web site. And it is especially important that you invest in high-quality photography or illustrations rather than using low-quality snapshots you might have lying around ... the difference between the two is stunning, and your site visitors will notice. If you are unable to buy or create high quality photography or illustrations, then it is probably better to leave photos out completely than to use low-quality snapshots in your design.

On the other hand, snapshots are a great way to supplement your content: You can use snapshots to convey meaning, to show something specific (a person, place, pet or an object), or to help illustrate an idea. Plus, they add visual intrest to what is typically the most visually boring area of the site (long paragraphs of text).

In a design, photos or illustrations can be displayed as they are, they can be cropped to show only specific parts, they can be blended into a background (example: the blue lights photo at the top of the BlacksDesign.com pages) – obviously, photos can be used in numerous ways.

For professional photos and illustrations at fairly reasonable prices, check out online sources such as Corbis.com and Shutterstock.com. Another source that tends to be a bit more expensive but often has a bigger, higher-quality selection is GettyImages.com. All of these sites offer low resolution photos and illustrations, which cost less and load faster than high resolution graphics, so they are perfect for use on the web. (Note that I said "low resolution" -- not "low quality"!)

Web Design Ideas I: Home Page Content

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:47:00 +0000

Every web site should have certain qualities, such as easily-understood navigation links and a clear, up-front description of purpose. But it is also critically important that a site's home page capture a visitor's attention by being visually interesting – but not cluttered – and by offering something of value to the visitor.

A web site is not read like a book!

Most of the time, people skim the home page of a web site much like they skim the front page of a newspaper – quickly, looking for any "headlines" that indicate there may be something of value to them, something worth reading in-depth. And just like with a newspaper, people start reading more carefully once they find an interesting "headline" and click farther into your site to read more about it.

So when you think about the home page of your site, think about posting content and/or images that will capture your visitors' attention and – most importantly – that will show your visitors what terrific value you can provide for them.

Search Engine Optimization - High Quantities of Site Visitors May Not be Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:39:00 +0000

The primary goal of most new web site owners is to get their site registered with as many search engines as possible in hopes of getting as many site visitors as possible. The idea behind this is "the more visitors my site has, the higher my sales will be." Surprisingly, however, this is often not true.

The e-commerce industry is leading the way with a new discovery that applies to all site owners -- e-commerce or not -- and this "new discovery" is something that Marketing people have known for years: When it comes to site visitors, your best bet is quality, not quantity, and there is no substitute for using good, old-fashioned targeted marketing methods to attract high quality visitors to your site.

People in the e-commerce industry study every aspect of the online shopping experience in detail, and they have created statistics for just about everything -- number of visitors, time on site, shopping cart abandon rate, number of page views -- you name it. But one of the most important statistics is turning out to be conversion rate, as in "how many site visitors convert into actual, paying customers?" By studying this, the e-commerce industry has discovered that higher quantities of visitors often do not translate into higher sales -- what is more important is attracting high quality visitors to your site: Visitors who have a higher chance of actually wanting to buy what you are selling, rather than just lots of random visitors.

To attract higher-quality site visitors, you should consider using a combination of targeted marketing methods, including online ads, pay-per-click schemes, personal referrals, print ads or even direct mailers to appropriate mailing lists (I am talking about legal snail mailers sent to carefully targeted customer lists, NOT spam).

I wanted to share this information with you because I believe that the concepts of "conversion rate" and "targeted marketing" do not apply only to e-commerce sites -- I believe it applies to all of us who want to attract paying customers to our sites, no matter whether we're selling goods or our own services. Happy selling!

Are You Over-Paying for Your Web Host Service?

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:26:00 +0000

The decision to start a web site is usually accompanied by a great sense of pride, excitement and anticipation - as it should be! But sometimes that excitement and anticipation can lead you to an unrealistic assessment of just how much "service" you need from a web host service. Almost all web host service companies break up their service offerings into three packages (at minimum): a basic package, a mid-level package, and a high-level package. The names of these packages run the gamut, such as "bronze," "silver," and "gold," to "value," "business," and "pro." Basically, there are as many different names for these packages as there are marketing people to dream them up. But almost all packages have the following traits in common: a basic package will typically cost less than $10/month, a mid-level package will cost about $20-$50/month and a high-level package will cost maybe $100+/month.

What's the difference? Well, usually the higher level of service you buy, the more amenities you get, such as larger disk space and greater bandwidth, right up to the point where you can rent a full server all to yourself (those would be the highest-level packages, typically costing well over $100/month).

The fact is, most people only need a basic level of service because most web sites just aren't as complex as their owners believe (I am NOT talking about e-commerce sites - that is a whole different story, for a future article). Below are some of the most common mistakes I've seen with respect to choosing a web host package:

1. Thinking you need huge amounts of bandwidth from the start - a sort of "build it and they will come" mentality. The fact is, web host services offer plenty of bandwidth with their basic packages, and even a 100-page site that has many photos on it will usually only cause a blip on the radar (with respect to bandwidth usage). What web host companies are really looking for:

(a) Web sites that offer massive downloads files, such as mp3 files, video streams, or any other type of massive data transfer. A regular web site, even if it's packed with photos, is rarely a concern.
(b) Web sites that receive massive numbers of hits. Even a regular web page can take up a lot of bandwidth if it receives a massive number of hits - but keep in mind, we're usually not talking about "thousands" of hits per month; we're usually talking about "hundreds of thousands" of hits per month before you start pushing the edge of your bandwidth needs.
(c) Web sites that have a combination of (a) and (b) above.

2. Thinking you need huge amounts of disk space. The fact is, most web host companies offer anywhere from 3-15 Gigabytes of disk space with their basic packages nowadays - there is simply no need to pay extra for more disk space, unless you happen to be a professional photographer who needs to keep thousands of high-resolution photos on your web site. Photos used on web pages are usually quite small - 10-30 Kilobytes or so. Web designers use low-resolution photos so their pages load quickly; otherwise, you would be singing the Jeopardy song while you waited for all the high-res photos to load. The point is, a regular site is hard-pressed to use up even 1 Gigabyte of disk space, let alone 15 Gigabytes.

3. Going with an e-commerce web host service when you don't need to. Web host services that specialize in e-commerce charge more $$ per month because they bundle shopping cart services & support into their packages - fair enough. But if you go with one of these companies and you aren't doing e-commerce, then you're paying too much.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have big dreams of having 100,000 visitors/month to your web site - of course you should! What a great problem to have! Just keep in mind: Your web host service will be delighted to upgrade your service package to whatever level you wish, anytime you wish, and they typically need only a few minutes to upgrade you. Therefore, all I'm saying is: don't pay for a higher level of service until you actually need it.

All the best!

Web Browser Caching, or: "Why Can't I See the Changes My Web Designer Just Made?"

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 23:48:00 +0000

OK, here's another AOL situation. Let's say you're an AOL user. You ask your web designer to make a change to a graphic on your site. She says "OK, the change is done." You go to view the change, but cannot see it and assume that the web designer has made a mistake, when in fact she has not.

Here is what's happening. All web broswers temporarily store the graphics of recently-visited web sites on their local hard drive, so that if a site is visited again within a short period of time, a browser can just pull the graphics off the hard drive vs. pulling them from across the Internet. This allows web browsers to load web pages much faster, because graphics are slower to load across the Internet than text. This process is called caching, and all web browsers do it.

After some time (typically about 4-6 hours), a web browser will toss out it's locally-stored copies of a web site's graphics and will download fresh copies because if the browser continues to load the old graphics, the user will never see new changes made to the site. This process is called refreshing the cache.

But here is where AOL is the exception. By default, the AOL browser takes about 24 hours to refresh it's cache - a lot longer than any other web browser. No other browser holds graphics in it's cache for so long.

You can easily force most web browsers to refresh their cache on-the-spot, just by clicking the refresh button (so you can immediately view new graphics). But I've never seen this work for the AOL browser - it just keeps on using the old, cached graphics no matter how many times you click refresh.

Fortunately, there is a setting in the AOL browser that users can change so that it refreshes it's cache more frequently. I changed this setting once for a client, but this was quite a while ago so I'm not sure the process is the same anymore. Suffice to say, it wasn't hard, so if you use the AOL browser, just snoop around the settings menus a bit and you'll find it.

Domain Registration: Keep It Separate From Your Web Host Service

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:05:00 +0000

Some words of wisdom regarding domain name registration and web hosting.

Keep your domain registration company separate from your web hosting company.

Here's the deal: Let's say you (or "the son of a friend") got both your web host account and your domain registration through the same company (let's call it "XYZ Company"). Let's say you did this because XYZ Company offered you a "free domain for life" or some other tantalizing deal. Later, you decide to move your web site to a better web host service. So you close your web host account at XYZ Company. But you don't realize - when you close your web host account at XYZ, you also lose access to your domain, and you can't get domain control back unless you re-open your web host account. Gotcha! "Free" has suddenly ended up costing you a lot. So keep your domain registration company separate from your web hosting company and you'll always be in control.

To be fair, there are many decent web host companies out there that don't behave this way -- if you have a web host account + domain registration through a good company and you choose to close the web host account, you will still have access to your domain. However, the scenario I described above is real -- I've seen it first-hand, more than once -- and I've found it to be especially prevalent with Australian companies, including Hostway.com and HostOnce.com.

Domain Registration: Register It Yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 18:37:00 +0000

Some more words of wisdom regarding domain name registration and web hosting.

Register your domain yourself. Whether you hire a web designer to build your web site for you or not - register your domain yourself.

Here's the deal: To a domain registration company, the person who registers your domain is automatically the owner of the domain, whether you paid that person or not. So if you hire "the son of a friend" to do your web site and he registers your domain for you, he is the legal owner - not you. His name, address, phone, email, credit card and mother's maiden name will be used to identify the account owner - not yours. So when "the son of a friend" gets a real job and suddenly can never be reached anymore, you call the domain registration company and tell them "it's my domain - I paid the son of a friend to register it - now give me access." They will say to you "OK, we'll give you access if you can provide the following:
(a) the account login id and password and/or
(b) the last 4 digits of the credit card used to open the account and/or
(c) the mother's maiden name of the person who opened the account."
Of course, this information belongs to "the son of a friend," not you, so now you're stuck.

You get the picture. So if you can't get "the son of a friend" to respond, your only two options will be to start legal proceedings or to give up and register a different domain - both of these options stink. (This really does happen, folks - you wouldn't believe how many clients were stuck in this situation before they came to Blacks Design.)

So register your domain yourself. Carefully record
(a) the company name/web site used to do the registration,
(b) the login id you chose, and
(c) the password you chose.
When you have all this information, then you can go ahead and give your web designer access to the domain registration account, if necessary, so she can get your site up and running (or you can modify the DNS yourself - but that's another topic).

Why Can't I Forward Email from My Web Site to My AOL Email Address?

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:19:00 +0000

These days, it's unlikely you can find a web host service that will allow forwarders from your domain to an AOL email address. When I first discovered this problem, I checked with several web host services and they all said the same thing ... here is the problem:

You setup a forwarder from your domain to your AOL account (you@yourdomain.com -> you@aol.com). Your customers happily send email to you@yourdomain.com and everything gets forwarded to you@aol.com. Life is good!

Then one day you receive spam at you@yourdomain.com which, of course, is forwarded to you@aol.com. You open your you@aol.com email box, see some spam, then click "This is spam" - but you don't realize that this piece of spam was forwarded to you from your you@yourdomain.com account. All you know is, the spam is gone, and life is good!

However, here is the problem: AOL's spam filter (wrongly) does not mark the originator of the message as the spammer - instead, it marks the last place the e-mail came from as the spammer, and the last place the e-mail came from is YOUR server (yourdomain.com). So now, without realizing it, you have marked yourdomain.com as a source of spam with AOL. But the story doesn't end there ... AOL does not simply block yourdomain.com - they block the entire server that yourdomain.com is on, which means all the other web sites that share your server (maybe hundreds of others) are now blocked by AOL, too. Then all those web site owners who share your server begin to scream at your web host service's tech support guys because they are being blocked by AOL, and your web host service has to beg, plead and cajole at AOL to unblock the server (this is no simple task because AOL is notoriously difficult to deal with).

The result is that web host services have basically just given up and made a rule: "We are not going to allow anyone to forward email to an AOL address anymore."

There are several options you have to solve the problem:

1. Don't use you@yourdomain.com at all - just use your AOL e-mail address for all correspondence.
2. Use web mail to read you@yourdomain.com, and use your AOL browser to read you@aol.com.
3. The most flexible solution of all, but more technically challenging: Setup Outlook (or whatever e-mail software you use) so it reads e-mail from both you@yourdomain.com and you@aol.com.

One e-mail software reading two email boxes - take my word for it - it makes life soooo much easier. But I know that setting up e-mail software can be challenging for some (and I don't think Outlook Express will do this - it has to be the full version of Outlook). So if you have a computer whiz friend or family member who can help set this up for you one time, it would really be worth buying him or her a dinner and a movie to do so.

Of course, there's always a 4th option to solve the problem - maybe the best solution of all:

4. Leave AOL and go with a less problematic ISP .
;-)

How Do I Change Web Host Services?

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:10:00 +0000

This is yet another question I get routinely - if a client wishes to find a new web host service for any reason (price, number of services offered, quality of support, etc.), the question becomes "how difficult is it to move my site to a new web host service?" The short answer is: not difficult at all.

Generally, you can move to a new web host service with no interruption to your web site - no one will even know that you've moved. Below is a description of the process most people will be able to follow. However, I would be remiss if I didn't give a caveat: "your mileage may vary," so please contact me before you move your site, just to make sure there aren't any "gotchas" that might pop up and bite you.

The steps are as follows:

1. You provide me with your domain registration information - that is, the company name/web site where you registered your domain, along with the login id/password for your domain registration account (if I don't have this information already). There's no need to give me access to your domain registration account if you prefer to change the DNS information by yourself.
2. You open an account with a new web host service and send me the new account login/password.
3. I upload your web pages into the new web host account and setup email boxes for you (if necessary). I will provide you with the new email server info.
4. I login to your domain registration account and re-direct your domain from from your old web host service to your new web host service (that is, if you don't do this step yourself).
5. After about 24 hours, the re-direct will take effect. Once I verify that your domain name is pointing to your new web host service, I will call you and let you know. At this point, the world will be viewing your web pages at the new web host service and your email will be flowing into your new email box, so you can call your old web host service and close the account and change your email settings on your computer to start reading email from your new email box.

The one thing you must be prepared to do on your own is change your email settings. I will give you all the new information (new email server name, email box login id and password), but you must know how to change these settings in your email software yourself or have someone on hand to help you. I can try to guide you, but it is very difficult to diagnose email problems over the phone, so this method should not be depended on to resolve your email issues.

PayPal - A Common Question

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:04:00 +0000

Here is another question I get often, so I'll share the answer here. The question is basically, "how do I put a PayPal button on my site?":

1. You have to have a Pay Pal account.
2. You have to specifically identify each item or service you want to sell, along with it's price.

3. You have to generate a Buy Now button inside your PayPal account - generate one button for each item. Go to "Merchant Services" tab, then click the link that says "Buy Now buttons" on the right side of the page.

4. Follow the instructions to describe your item, the price, and the button style. I suggest you click the link that says "choose a different button" and select the one that says "PayPal Buy Now". I think it's better to have the PayPal name on the button, but that's just a personal preference.

5. After you create the button, you have to cut-and-paste the code they give you - exactly as-is - into your web page.

6. You have to decide where on your site you want to put this button (or buttons), and what descriptive text should go next to each button you create.

Some HTML formatting will be necessary to make the button(s) look nice, but these are the basic steps.

Google Rankings - A Common Question

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 05:55:00 +0000

Here is an excerpt from an email I recently sent to a client, talking about Google rankings. I share it here because I often get asked whether it is a good idea to buy software or services that promise to "submit your site to 10,000 search engines" or "raise your search engine rankings" for you. My response is always the same: Don't. Most of these unsolicited claims are worthless, and some are downright unethical in their tactics, which can actually get your site rankings lowered or can even get your site blackballed by Google.

First, there is absolutely no value in having your site on 10,000 search engines. The goal is to be highly ranked on the top 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Excite, Alta Vista, Hot Bot, Ask!, etc. – I know there are more than 5 listed here, but the "top 5" list fluctuates periodically. Regardless, Google and Yahoo! remain consistently at the top). For all intents and purposes, nobody uses the other 9995 search engines, so being on them is useless.

Second, raising your rankings – and keeping them high – requires thought and effort on your part, and there is no getting around it. Google openly tells people how to improve their rankings – it's never been a secret. It is in Google's best interest to get people to play by the rules. Here is the page to read: http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The #1 thing that raises site rankings is letigimate inbound links TO your site FROM other sites. Google assumes (rightly) that: The higher the number of legitimate inbound links to your site (from other sites), the more your site is being referenced as a source of valuable information by others, so the more important your site must be - consequently, they will raise your rankings.

But the keyword here is legitimate. Software that promises to "raise your search engine rankings" will do things like put your site onto link farms. Link farms are web sites created solely to list hundreds of links ... the idea is, if you pay someone to put your site onto several dozen link farms, Google will see that you have several dozen inbound links to your site and will raise your rankings, right? Wrong! The problem is, Google knows about link farms and considers them to be cheating – they will actually punish your rankings if you put your site onto a link farm. Who will tell you that? Well, Google will, if you read their policies. But these "buy our software and raise your rankings" companies sure won't tell you. Inbound links to your site must be legitimate and relevant – that means they must come from other sites that have some related business or topic. The outbound links that I create from www.BlacksDesign.com to my clients' sites are considered legitimate and relevant by the search engines, because I am the web designer - Google can detect that there is a relevant relationship between us, so my links to my clients' sites helps their rankings.

(A side note: You know those Links pages that many of us have on our web sites? Well, offering your customers a page full of helpful links is a nice thing to do, and I encourage it. However, don't be fooled into thinking that this is helping your rankings. Looking at it solely from Google's perspective, when you have a Links page, you are helping the people you link to, but not yourself, because you are providing an outbound link from your site to theirs, which signals to Google that you think they are important. That will help raise their rankings, but do any of those sites have inbound links back to you? THAT is the key to raising your rankings.)

The point is, there is no software I know of that will do the top 3 things you must do to raise your site rankings:

1. Figure out which sites are legitimate and/or relevant to your business, then contact the site owners to see if they are willing to create "reciprocal" links (meaning: you create a link to them if they will create a link to you).

2. List the keywords you think people will use to find you on Google, then plant those keywords repeatedly throughout your site's content, especially on the front page.

3. Change your site's content around a little every 6 months or so - Google knows how old and stale your content is, and will lower your rankings accordingly.

No software can do these things for you - that's why these spam claims are pretty much all bogus. To raise your site rankings, there simply is no substitute for putting in a little personal time and effort.

Choosing a blog platform

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:53:00 +0000

There are 4 different blog companies that I've seen recommended: Typepad.com, MoveableType (owned by Typepad), WordPress.com, and Blogger.com. Of the 4, I've found Blogger.com to be the best option because

1. it's free (Typepad and MoveableType cost $. WordPress is free but technially difficult to use)

2. it's easy - no software installation is required (WordPress and MoveableType have to be installed into your web host account)

3. it's the most user-friendly (Typepad doesn't allow you to publish your blog pages directly to your web site, so your blog gets a link like "yourblogname.typepad.com". With Blogger.com, you can publish your blog pages directly to your own web site, so the pages will be under YOUR domain name: www.yourdomainname.com/blog. Also, Typepad doesn't allow you to customize your blog page template unless you buy one of their high-priced service packages).

Typepad, MoveableType and WordPress have some better features than Blogger.com, but I think it's better to learn about blogging on a free and simple system; if you really get into blogging and decide you can't live without the enhanced features, you can always switch. Keep in mind - Blogger.com is constantly improving it's software, so new features are being added all the time (Blogger.com is owned by Google, by the way).

How Your Business Could Benefit From Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Vivian Black) — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:52:00 +0000

One could be forgiven for thinking that web logs (blogs) are the latest Internet fad, ranking right up there with online chat rooms - just another way for people to express their opinions (or rantings!) on any topic they wish to discuss. Indeed, when blog sites first started appearing a few years ago, the people who signed up for accounts on these sites were primarily using them to record personal daily journals online, making them available for all the world to read.

Since that time, however, a new and powerful use has emerged for blogs: they are increasingly used by businesses as a tool for improving both marketing communications and search engine rankings. How? Well, the idea is simple - instead of using a blog to record a personal daily journal, businesses are using blogs to provide product information updates, news, tips and hints, or even personal commentaries. OK, now you might ask, "This is just standard marketing communications that I can do on my regular web pages - why do I need a blog to do this?" Well, there are several advantages to using a blog.

First, blog communications have a very different style than standard marketing copy. Blog communications are usually more punchy and concise, less formal and more personal in nature. It is a great way to speak more directly and openly to your customers.

Second, blogs are cheap and very easy to update. You can create new blog entries (called "posts") within minutes after setting up an account at a blog site. The text editors that the blog sites offer are wonderfully easy to use - no need to know HTML or any other code in order to update your blog page!

Third, blogs allow you to interact with your customers. Blogs offer the ability for readers to post comments or questions to what you've written, and you can respond to them either via a comment of your own or via e-mail. It's a great way to facilitate customer relationships.

Fourth, blogs allow you to position yourself as an expert. You can use the blog to articulate your opinions, knowledge and expertise on a given subject or industry - providing useful information to others can lead people to create links from their site to yours (called "cross-links"). Cross-links are the single most powerful way to improve your search engine rankings - the more cross-links there are to your web site, the more relevant Google will assume your site is, and the higher your Google ranking will be.

Lastly, blogs can help improve your search engine rankings in other ways. Many search engines - and Google in particular - use automated software that periodically scans the contents of your page looking for keywords or phrases. The more times your keywords or phrases are used on your site, the more highly a search engine like Google will rank your site for those keywords or phrases. A blog gives you just one more opportunity to use your keywords or phrases on your web site as you discuss your product, business or industry.

So remember: Your blog should be well-written and concise, with a friendly, personal tone. It should include your keywords and phrases as often as possible. The information you provide should be of value to your readers. And it should be updated at regular intervals because search engines like Google can detect how old your information is - old information will lower your rankings, so keeping your blog updated at regular intervals will only help your search engine rankings.

This blog post is a lot longer than a typical post should be, but I have a lot of information to convey. If you have any questions or want help in setting up a blog on your site, let me know.

All the best!