Once you get your new customers to your website you want to keep them there. Make sure you have a website that will keep them interested. There are so many online businesses that you are competing with. You want to make sure your website is the one potential customers want to visit. By designing your website in an interesting way, you will be assured of having interested people looking at your website. Some online businesses use website designers to help them get the perfect website. If you are unsure how to create an interesting web page this is the way to go.

Remember to use search engine optimization to draw customers to your web store and get a web designer to make your web page interesting and worth visiting. It won’t be long before your website is drawing and keeping plenty of business.

When setting up your website one of the most important aspects will be to choose a domain name.  It’s that domain name that will stick with you for the lifetime of your site.  You can change the template, change the purpose of the site, fire a designer, hire  a designer, but you just cannot change that domain name (unless you scrap it and do a redirect).  Finding an available domain name that you like and that is appropriate for the purpose of your site is complicated.   Here are a few things to think about when choosing a domain name:

1. Match the domain name to actual name of your site

One of the easiest and best alternatives is to get a domain name that matches the actual name of your site.  It’s a duh statement but so many people forget to match the site.  You will increase your branding as well as make it easy for visitors to remember the name of your site.  The worst thing that can happen is if people fall head over heels for your site but can not find it again simply because the domain name is not the same as the name of your site.  For example if you have a bakery site, don’t call it StubbornNelly.com.  No one will have a clue what your theme is.  Call it, TastyPastry.com, or even Anne Cookies around the corner.com.

2. Keep it short – and Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)

Keeping the domain name short is a challenge if you are looking for a .com domain as all three and four letter words are already taken.  Yep, and all standard English words are gone too (designer.com, awesome.com).   Coming up with a name that is short will be easier to remember and pass along by word of mouth.   But remember, a domain name should however not be kept short just for the sake of keeping it short.  Do not use acronyms as a url if they look bad as an acronym.  Think of all those failed websites because people did not see different words as one word.  Like don’t come up Patterns, Octogons and Other Pics and give it POOP.com.  That’s a failed domain name.

Some great short named domains:

• IBM.com (why call it international business machines)
• digg.com (i dig you, you dig me)
• Match.com (find a matching partner)

3. Use keywords

Optimizing your domain name for search engines is a big help.  In using one or two of your single most important keywords you will have better chances of getting a higher rank on the search results, thus increasing traffic.  This will not be easy, as most “natural” names already are taken.  Combine an important keyword then with something secondary. These sites came up with great names:

• GraphicDesignBlog.com
• TutorialMagazine.com
• Dev-Tips.com

4. Describe your site

Your domain name is an excellent way of describing what your site is all about.  Say for example that you manage a site about fishing. Your domain name should in some way describe that fishing is exactly what your visitors will find on the site. Again, fishing is a major keyword of your site, so exploit it with a well picked domain name.

5. Avoid confusion

In general, domain names are not expensive.  Register domains with misspellings of your original domain if you want to make sure you catch most type in domain traffic.   Redirect those misspelled domains to the main website.  This is a great for sites that use hard to spell words or need to protect their brand identity. Examples:

• Google.com
• Googel.com
• Gogle.com

6. Consider alternative domain extensions

If it is impossible to find a good domain name with the prefix .com you might want to consider using an alternative domain extension. Many countries have opened up their country code top level domain for international registration.  This is perhaps your chance to create the perfect domain hack. Examples:

• Del.icio.us
• Ma.tt
• Designm.ag

Picking a domain name will take time, energy and some creativity from your side but its worth it in the end. The last tip is to checkout recently expired domain names at snapnames.com – many names will be awful or cost a fortune, but once in a while you will be able find a real gem at a reasonable fee.  Good luck on finding the domain of your dreams!

Clearly, a sufficient amount of search engine optimization is necessary for this to work, especially for the really famous and common-name brands. But this behavior of accessing websites did not arise because these companies have told us to do so. Neither is it limited to this Asian country.

I am sure you have at least one friend or loved one who has not grasped the concept of URLs and remains highly dependent on Google for finding their way around the web. If you’ll take a closer look at their web browsers, you’ll see why it really isn’t their fault.

Google invades the browsers

Most of the weird behavior we observe from other people is because they have Google as their homepage or built into their browsers. (You can also change the word “Google” to your favorite search engine of choice.) This usually comes in three flavors:

1. the Google homepage (whether it’s plain vanilla, a Firefox-Google hybrid, or iGoogle)
2. the Google search engine add-on (a common feature in all modern browsers)
3. the Google Toolbar

As a result, users now have several blank input bars staring back at them—the address bar, the browser search bar, the Google Toolbar search bar, and the Google homepage search bar. Guess which one they’ll choose?

With the icons and text that draw one’s attention toward the Google search bars, the address bar fades more and more into the background. And since non-techie people are usually afraid of “breaking the computer”, they stick to a method that works well, which is to keep using Google.

Ignore or eradicate?

We can’t blame Google for trying to be the #1 product in our virtual lives; we can only be wary. But it should share the responsibility of educating users of how to use the Internet (how silly does that sound?) with the browsers. Unfortunately neither parties seem to care because: (a) Google would much rather have users search for sites than visit them through URLs directly; and (b) the browsers are earning money precisely because Google is paying them to have their search bars built-in.

Now, learning how to use the interface that lets one use the Internet is only halfway of the journey; choosing to use Google to wade through the Web is not necessarily a bad practice, as Jakob Nielsen predicted that this would become commonplace. But he also believes URLs will have to go.

In the long term, it is not appropriate to require unique words to identify every single entity in the world. That’s not how human language works.

The very nature of URLs seems to be another major stumbling block. Ordinary people don’t understand the use of a “www” and a “.com”, or that the “@” symbol is used only in e-mail addresses. They don’t know how to share websites through URLs either—unless there’s a button with explicit instructions that tell them how.

Add to that the explosion of all the domain suffixes like .me, .travel, and even .xxx. Not to mention all the malicious parties that wish to take advantage of their ignorance—stealing and spoofing personal information through misspelled URLs, search keywords, and deceptive e-mails.

The question is, if normal people aren’t using URLs anymore, what system can be built to replace them? Will it work? Or is Google doing a fine job already?

A few weeks ago Google announced that it can now extract and index textual content from Adobe Flash files. We all know that creating websites in pure Flash is a big no-no if you care about being found through search engines. So is there nothing left that’s stopping web designers from switching from plain old HTML and CSS to rich interactive Flash? I have yet to find somebody who agrees with a resounding “yes!”

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, believes that this new development isn’t compelling enough to start building sites with Flash.

Flash content is fundamentally different from HTML on webpage URLs and being able to parse links in the Flash code and text snippets does not make Flash search-engine friendly. I think it’s great that Google’s digging deeper into Flash, but I don’t believe web developers should be any less wary than they’ve been in the past about Flash-based websites or Flash-embedded content.

If anything, I commend Google for continuing to convince web designers and search engine marketers alike to embrace web standards by pushing for the best practices in coding websites. Of course it’s the most logical thing both parties: search spiders need to parse content properly so that they can index it, and a well-formed webpage makes this possible; webmasters need not wade through nested tables and unnecessary tag soup when there’s a better way. And Google should, since it’s way more influential than Opera or any other web company out there.

However, Google’s efforts to read Flash still seem to be in the premature stages. Typical Google, they always release their products in beta without being wary of the consequences.

By consequences I mean clients who are now running around telling their web designers to create animated intros and the extravagant interfaces for their websites. I can’t really shoot down this little achievement by Google—except that it’s getting scarily smarter everyday and should try to have more features than issues when they launch a product.

More importantly, I can only continue to condemn those who misuse Flash without any regard for accessibility, much less usability, whatsoever.

Will you use it?

Personally, I can see ranking algorithms and services filling a purpose in the blogosphere, and online overall. Google’s PageRank is far from an ideal solution to value a blog’s worth, and don’t even get me started on Alexa… However, the problem with services like this is that they’re not worth anything until a lot of people are using it, and people won’t be doing that in large numbers until the service is seen as reliable, fair, and independent.

That’s a problem for IZEA, I’d say, especially in the blogosphere, with all the ruckus around PayPerPost.

IZEARanks is in alpha. Check it out, and tell me what you think.

PS. Do check out what Darren over at ProBlogger, and Paul over at Mashable thinks. Two good posts on this topic.

I believe the blogosphere is too focused on PageRank, and it’s advertising services such as Text Link Ads fault.

Personally, I’ve got nothing against buying and selling text links, it’s an ad like everything else. I do prefer relevant ads on my sites, so just because a car company wants to SEO their way to the top doesn’t mean that I want them advertising with me. At least not as long as I’ve got the luxury of advertisers lined up to take their place.

Which most of us don’t.

So what if bought text links usually are just for Google juice, if it brings in the dollars needed to keep a blog floating? So what?

Well, Google is what. They don’t like it, and they recently slammed down on a lot of sites, devaluing their PageRank. This hurts, because a lot of things are controlled by your PageRank. You can’t even get into Text Link Ads (or you could, I guess, but you probably won’t) unless you’ve got PR4 (out of 10, you know that!), and a lot of publishers believe that they won’t be able to make money until they’ve got a decent PageRank.

The really big problem with PageRank and the way the blogosphere sees it, in my opinion, is how it’s used to value a blog’s worth when buying and selling. A high PageRank means a higher price.

I think it’s silly. There are a lot of other things to take into account when it comes to buying or selling a domain. In my opinion, PageRank is a metric that hurts the blogosphere. It’s controlled by a company with their own motives, and it takes the focus from a more relevant things.

Such as great content. Good design. Monthly revenue. Strong brands. Spinoff services, projects, and earnings. Possible evolution of the site/blog.

I can understand why EatonWeb is valuing PageRank less after the recent text links slamdown. It’s a search engine metric, nothing more, and nothing less.

PageRank isn’t a value for success. The sooner the blogosphere starts to align to that point of view, the better.

Webmasters are outraged over the recent change in Google’s policy, now specifically targetting what they refer to as “Link Schemes”:

Examples of link schemes can include:

• Links intended to manipulate PageRank
• Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
• Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
• Buying or selling links

Item #1, #2, and #4 have long been questioned as ethical behavior when it comes to using the hyperlink, all of them somehow gaining the reputation from webmasters and publishers who now largely consider them as inappropriate ways of link building. #1 though is always an after–effect of a hyperlink, be it positive or negative in an SEO context, unless when used with the rel="nofollow" attribute which is typically ignored by search engines. On the other hand, #3 is a different discussion altogether.

Changing the Web’s Nature

Google’s action is significantly questionable since it is posed to alter the way the world wide web behaves, something that already existed even before the birth of the search giant. In a way, it tries to take away our freedom to link meaningfully; your blogroll of friends who most likely are also linking to you is now a possible violation that could get you banned from the Google index!

Google’s Matt Cutts acknowledges the ramifications of their policy update, even suggesting that webmasters may do as they please, continue reciprocal linking and all, just as Google can have their way with regards to their index and the search results they produce. Though all of these actions are indeed meant to produce better results for their users, it is also irresponsible to pass the burden of weeding out unethical linking to the publishers themselves. In their effort to completely remove spam sites from their index, they are effectively asking for a change in behavior from the majority of users and publishers. It’s like regulating and telling us how to use an icepick since it can also be used to do bad things. So maybe my example was a little off, but you get my drift.

Information Monopoly

I think it’s now time for us to realize that Google has some sort of “information monopoly,” based on the fact that it is the preferred tool people use to find anything they need, now both online and even offline. It has too much power at its hands that no publisher or webmaster would dare Google’s ire, since a great deal of sites rely heavily on search engine traffic, in most cases, Google. To be fair, the search giant isn’t to blame since none of its competitors have provided compelling technology to suggest a trend that moves toward a democratized search market. At the end of the day, almost everyone will still be using Google for almost everything they do.

With this in mind, all the more do we need a more understanding Google, we need it to practice its “don’t be evil” mantra pro–actively without adversely affecting those who always try to play fair.

Nurturing Responsible Publishers & Webmasters

Taken in a positive context, though Google’s move may appear over–zealous, their actions should help nurture a more responsible breed of publishers and webmasters. By suggesting that we do as we please, they may be daring us to behave within the bounds of what we think is right, with or without reciprocal linking or the other schemes they cited. By doing so, they can adjust accordingly and learn what parameters to give weight on and what to disregard, to produce the most appropriate search results and discard what shouldn’t be there. However, the process may not be straightforward, it is likely that many of us publishers may be affected in the short–term. And the bad ones weeded out in the long run.

It’s gonna be rough, but what choice do we really have? In the end, both users, publishers, and webmasters will benefit from all this. Hopefully.

Written by Markku Seguerra, rebelpixel.com.

Months later Mahalo has seen the daylight and after some weeks, I must admit that Mahalo could impress. But does the service really stand a chance or is this another A-list hyped platform?
As Google fan, I must admit that last years I have always found what I was looking for and who will tell me what the best result is. Other than that best result a purely subjective factor is.
Who delivers me the best search result? Social platforms such as del.icio.us where I can see how many times geeks have bookmarked certain sites and not other ones. Or is the best result that blog entry written by a guy who has only 300 page views every month?

So far I see two major problems with Mahalo, and in analyzing I obviously kept in mind that Mahalo still in alpha stage is. If an operational, public site really alpha can be, unless alpha the label is to apply when your wiki hasn’t enough of entries yet.

Humanly edited

The top argument to use a humanly edited search engine is at the same time its weakest factor. Human editors make the results slow, slow in update rate. Who guarantees me that Mahalo will be able to keep up with the ever changing internet content and deliver up to date results.
Together with human editors comes bias. And bias can influence search results, especially when I look for commercial results. Just have a look at the results for wedding rings. Who guarantees me that the top 2 results, shops really are the best results? And how could I make it in to the top 7 if I had a wedding ring shop? Offer Calacanis some dollars or a ring?

Google Implementation

The excessive Google implementation can be a burden and degrade the quality of results, sometimes even be the prove that Mahalo’s human factor is contra effective. Best example of this is the news page. Although Mahalo offers many outlets for actual news, if every time I am confronted with Google News at #1, I might as well just use Google News.

Other times I am happy that at least there are some Google results implemented on the site. Even though I know that Mahalo’s aim is to manually write the results for the Top 10000 search terms, when I need a search engine, it also happens to me to search further than the Top 10k search terms. And when I google, I will most of time dig deeper and deeper, using more and more narrowed down search queries.
Mahalo does the opposite for non existing search queries and offers related entries, broadening the results again. What is a better example than a search for Calacanis SEO? Although the first Google result didn’t exactly lead me to Jason’s rant, it had a link to the page I was looking for. Mahalo results are non existing, and related results are everything except related in this example.

The sad thing is that both problems send me back to Google. And that can’t be the purpose of a new search engine, unless I miss the broader picture.

Some popular gurus in the blogging scene like to run around spouting their wisdom in the SEO scene, most of the time they are entirely wrong. I won’t point out any blatant wrongs but will share with you a few things that will take your blogging to the next level.

Let’s go over a popularly debated topic. Paid Links.
Links are like the intercourse of the internets. Do you really want to pay for links? Just asking. Didn’t mean to offend anyone. Google doesn’t like prostitution but more than likely they won’t penalize those who buy links they will just totally discredit those who are out there selling their link space.

Why don’t they discredit link buyers?
If Google started discrediting bought links then it would be pretty easy for the competion to go out and buy links on obvious link sellers. And then report the link buyers as spammers and watch Google nail em.

Next Question, Site Wide Links or Post Level Links?

Google does not penalize site wide links on new sites. This is a myth. Again it’s a speculated rumor and not proven fact. It could effect your sandboxing only because of the rate at which the links grew. So don’t worry no need to run around asking bloggers to take your new blog off their blogrolls. It doesn’t hurt you. In fact the more links the better. I know some would disagree but the logic just isnt their. Then all the competition would have to do is buy lots of site wide links and wait until Goog punished you and rake in the gold. This is another anti-seo myth. That is full of mularkey. Don’t panic. Take another shot of whiskey and get back to building links.

First in a series entitled SEO is not for Morons