No Title! No Business!

Without exception – everyone who owns a web site should know these three SEO techniques. If not to work on your own web site, at least to make sure that your web designer has completed the most rudimentary, yet most vital elements of your web site.

1. Title
2. Description
3. Keywords

If your web site is missing these three KEY elements the chances of it ever getting minimal attention by search engines is practically ZERO.

Spring 2010: I talked to a man who asked me to look at his web site. He asked me if I could help him get better rankings in the search engines. I told him that I would look at it and get back to him with a quote.

When I looked at the web site – I was SHOCKED!

The web site (which I will not reveal at this time) was apparently built in 2009. 2009! Let me add a small disclaimer at this stage because I do not know yet if the client created it (from one of those DIY packages), or he paid a professional web developer to create the web site for him. Also, the screenshot above is not from his web site but another that I was also asked to look at for a free web site analysis.

Aesthetically, the web site wasn’t bad. If it was a freebie template, it was a simple design. Not necessarily a modern design. It didn’t really ‘pop’, but it wasn’t bad.

The outside visual appeal was simple. A header graphic across the top. The navigation was easy and concise, and the contact information was clearly visible.

However, if I hadn’t been given the web address I never would have found it on the Internet.

This web site is a prime example of one of the three types of web sites on the Internet that I always talk about. [see types of web sites]

This web site would fall under the second category: an advertorial web site that you send people to visit. It is like a big business card with indepth information. A business card only works if I give it to someone. And this web site only works if I tell someone:

1. That it is there, and
2. How to get to it

As I looked through the web site page-to-page, I found numerous ways in which our company could help them.

However, the first major hurdle I saw was that it had NO ‘title’ inside the Title Tag, on any of its pages. As I said before, I was shocked. It had absolutely NO ‘description’ tag and NO ‘keywords’. You could try to market this web site until you were blue in the face, but unless you changed these three things – people would probably just call you “blue boy”.

Unless those three things are changed, or in this case at the very least added to your web site, it’s like a car with four flat tires – you can push and push and push but you’re not going to get very far.

<meta keywords=”insert primary keyword, secondary keyword, one additional keyword </ >

Search Engines have been using ‘keywords’ to index your web site into ‘relevant’ topics since the beginning days of the Internet Boom.

A Brief History

Early web designers, and programmers who were savvy to keyword tags, used this technique to prosper early in the online revolution, shooting their way to the top. Other, less reputable programmers used a technique known today as “keyword spamming”.

Email Spamming

We have all heard of email spamming – the process by which individuals, collect and mass market email offerings to thousands and millions of email addresses unwanted and un-ask for. For a short time a similar technique was used in the keyword meta-tags.

Keyword Spamming

Developers, marketers and programmers of that time, believed that the more words you had in your ‘keyword meta-tag’ the better. They would use hundreds of keywords (many of which were not relevant to the content of that individual web page), and they would even go as far as putting the entire text content in the keyword section.

Search engines collecting data about web sites were getting inundated with lots of (for lack of a better word) garbage text – spam. It was slowing down search results, filling up servers, increasing their bandwidth usage and giving poor or unrelated results.

Relevant Search Results

As search engines became familiar with unsavory programming techniques, they quickly changed the way they seek, store and post results. Relevant search results are results that relate to the specific terms you put into the search engine in order to get a specific result.

Search engines began to vary the amount of ‘keyword’ data it would collect. Google.com even implemented human follow up on web sites as they were getting indexed. It was (and I believe that it still is) kind of a hunt-and-peck system of human verification as new web sites were being discovered, but when a web site was found that was using less than reputable SEO practices it often resulted in either a ‘time-out’ in the infamous “Google Sand Box” (which they still deny exists), a bad ranking (if any) or banishment from the Google database – oooh!

How to format your ‘keywords’ meta-tag properly:

1. Keep them concise
2. Make sure each one relates to the topic of the web page you are using them on
3. Use no more than 3 or 4 keywords or phrases – see example below
4. Choose at least one major keyword or phrase – be specific
5. Choose at least one minor keyword or phrase – be specific
6. Choose a general topic phrase – more general to your topic
   A specific search term might be
   “#search engine optimization” or
   “#seo strategies“;
   “#internet marketing” or
   “#internet marketing services” is a more general category, but still related.

A good keyword meta-tag for a search engine optimization company may look something like this:

<meta keywords=”#search engine optimization, seo strategies, internet marketing services, oklahoma</ >

This short set of keywords is actually crammed full of useful variations. A search engine can put words together like:

• search engine strategies
• seo services
• internet marketing
• internet marketing strategies
• seo oklahoma
• etc…

Although as we mentioned, the first keyword has more weight to the search engines than the last keyword, they can be helpful in almost any of the combination’s that you can think of. So without repeating words, and using strategically chosen words or phrases, you actually increase your marketing ability.

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Business Consulting:

Our business consulting services range from:

• Business Analysis
• Marketing Schemas -
  (identifying your market)
• Target Implementation
• Advertising
• Online Business Development
• Post Market Analysis
• Accessibility
• Customer Perception (how do your customers think about your business)

Outsourcing an analysis of your business, structure, marketing and current business plan is a great way to get an impartial look at the road you are traveling. A third eye is always good for a new perspective and at CIDA Enterprises we will give you our honest, unbiased and professional experience in order to put you and your company in the fast lane for profits.

Business consulting services range from business plan analysis, structure analysis, marketing schemas (identifying your market) and advertising (targeting your market). All of these services are attributes of the major focus of CIDA Enterprises. It all works together to achieve one goal – customers – getting new customers and holding current customers. Afterall, customers are the lifeblood of a business.

When you hire CIDA Enterprises, we consider ourselves partners with you – working together for your success. In this highly competitive world that we live in – it is no longer possible to do business by yesterday’s business model. You have to think outside of the box.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is it like to be a customer doing business with your company?
2. Are you satisfied with the level of service you are receiving?
3. Do you feel like everyone in your business is working together as a team to deliver complete customer satisfaction?

From upper-management, sales, IT, marketing, R&D, to customer service does everyone participate and contribute to the entire customer satisfaction experience?

If you would like more information about our business services or would like to schedule an appointment – call: 405-471-7753

“‘#Web site designs’ that are well formatted, and well formed, are foundational to your ultimate success in relevant search engine results on the Internet.”

SEO secrets are all over the Internet. And every Internet marketing service believes that they hold the “KEY” to fast results. But are they lasting?

Truth be told, there is only one ‘key’ that will continue to give quality, relevant search engine results when all others have failed. Have you guessed it yet? I gave you your first clue in the opening paragraph.

Web site designs that are well formatted, and well formed, are foundational to your ultimate success in relevant search engine listings. And let me add this, they MUST be integrated in your internet marketing strategy early or all of your SEO tactics and efforts will ultimately fail.

Well formatted web site design is not a SECRET - it is common sense.

Step 1: Make your description no more than 27 words or 160 characters. Not much bigger than a tweet.

Why?
Because when you do a search in a search engine, they DO NOT DISPLAY any more text than approximately twenty seven words. Other description text is wasted, so don’t bother. In this case more is not better.

Step 2: Make your description compelling. The description metatag is slightly more detailed than your ‘title’ tag. They need to compliment each other but not be exactly the same.

Both your ‘title’ and your ‘description’ work in harmony to give the searcher a “REASON” to click on your link to get more information.

***** Keep in mind that Google does not use the ‘description tag’ when they show a listing of results in  their search engine. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be good. Yahoo does use your description tag (if you have one). If you don’t, they will use the first available text. *****

Step 3: Use one keyword or phrase in your description. It can’t hurt, but remember – don’t over do it.

Step 4: Make sure each page of your web site has a UNIQUE description of what you can expect to find on that specific page.

The more specific you are, the better your response will be.

Here is what a good description metatag might look like:

<meta name=”description” content=”"#Web Site Design” & “#Internet Marketing Services” – empowering your business for the next technological wave!” />

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WordPress development platform is one of the most dynamic web site design platforms available for creating a professional looking business or personal web site. This tutorial takes you step-by-step through the process of using cPanel to install WordPress.

If you liked this video tutorial, you may also like:

Other Tutorials:

You can view more great tutorials on our new CIDA Tutorials – Do-It-Yourself instructions to a better web™ web site.

If this article has helped you in any way, leave a comment – tell us about it. And don’t forget to Subscribe to our Article Feed so you can get the latest in our Web Site Design and Internet Marketing Tips, Tutorials and News.

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<title>Do You Know How to Format Your Title Tag?</title>

A well formatted ‘Title’ tag is the first step in a well formatted web site design. Without it, all the SEO (search engine optimization) techniques in the world aren’t going to help you for long.

Well Formatted 'Title'? Not!

If you have hired a web developer to build your web site and he doesn’t put in a good, and unique title for you on every page of your web site, then he hasn’t done his job.

What is a ‘Title’ tag?

Your ‘title‘ tag is:

• your title tag is an html code in the top of every web page
• the first descriptive text that a person sees when they do a search in the search engines
• the descriptive line of text that appears at the top of your web browser when you open up a web page. Make it memorable.
• the text line that is saved in someone’s browser when they save your site under their most favorite bookmarks
• it is databased by search engines to help people search for relative search terms. If those search terms are in your title, you will have a better chance at being found. If you don’t have a title, it is highly likely that when it comes to search engines, your web site will be passed over for a well-formatted web site with a relevant title.

How to Format a Web Site ‘Title’

Understanding the roll that your title plays in search engines is key to formatting good title text. If you ever hope to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, then creating unique text on every page of your web site is going to be tantamount to success.

1. Keep your ‘title’ text under 6-7 words – which equals approximately 74 typed characters. Seventy-four typed characters equals approximately half a Twitter – no more.That seems so short.It doesn’t matter. Any longer and it will be cut off by the search engine database system and be lost anyway. So when you go to Google and put in a search term – the first line result you see will be your title.
2. Make it memorable: it is the first thing that your new potential client is going to see you want to catch their eye long enough for them to read your description and click on your link. It doesn’t have to be fancy or cute – straight forward and precise is usually the best. A simple title for a web site design company in Oklahoma City might read:
   <title>Web Site Designs for Oklahoma City Businesses</title>
3. Use keywords or phrases in your title tag. A word of caution. The title is NOT the place to load up on keywords or phrase. It is necessary to use ‘a’ keyword, or ‘a’ phrase. Notice in the above title I used the keywords ‘web site design’ and ‘Oklahoma City’ and I still kept the entire title short and simple.
4. Try not to repeat word. You don’t need to repeat yourself in your ‘title’ tag.

Check Your Web Site

Now is the time to go check each page of your web site. If you ‘title’ tag is the same on all of them, you will want to create unique titles for each page if you want to rank better in the search engines. If you had a web developer make your site and they didn’t do it properly – go back and make them finished the job.

I hope that this has helped you understand the value of your ‘Title’ tag. It is just one step in the ladder to search engine success.

Don’t forget to Subscribe Now to our RSS feed so you won’t miss the next installment of how to format your description metatags and your keywords for optimal search engine results.

CIDAEnterprises.com Tutorials for cPanel | Creating a Subdomain

Creating a subdomain on your hosting account can be a valuable asset. You can use a subdomain to add a separate directory for your blog on a business web site, or you can install your shopping cart or newsletter platform under your subdomain.

One of the biggest things that people are doing today is creating a subdomain to make a short URL that can be redirected to their Facebook account. It makes it easier to remember something like: Facebook.CidaEnterprises.com – instead of that long URL that Facebook gives you. Whatever your reason this tutorial will walk you through the quick and easy steps on how to create a subdomain if you have cPanel administration on your hosting account.

1. Login to your cPanel Account
2. Scroll down to the icon that reads “Subdomain” and click
3. Type in the word or phrase you would like to represent your subdomain. In this case we used ‘wordpress’ since we will be creating a series of tutorials on how to use WordPress platform for your web design.
4. Click “Create”

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When I talk to any new client that is looking to build a web site for their business, I like to share with them the fact that there are two kinds of domain names to choose from:

• People friendly domain names, and
• Search engine friendly domain names

Rarely, but sometimes they are the same thing. So when you are thinking of choosing a domain name, I suggest you choose one of each.

People Friendly Domain Names

A domain name that is people friendly is short, easy to remember and is usually easy  to spell. It fits nicely on your business card and any other hard copy advertising that you are using – newspaper ads, yellow pages, radio ads – that type of thing. Like: joes.com. What a great domain name if your name is Joe and you have a web site.

The problem is that most people will not look on the internet using your name to find your products or services. Joes.com is very specific if you are looking for Joes.com; however, even that can be detrimental. When I did a search in Google for Joes.com I got back 3,450,000 results – with every type of product from sports stores, restaurants, grocery stores, to audio equipment – and that was just on page one.

That question that needs to be answered in a search engine is: Joe’s what? What is Joe trying to sell or what service is he offering?

People friendly domain names are the names that you tell people when they ask you for your web site, or you place on your business card.That leads us to the second type of domain name.

Search Engine Friendly Domain Names

If you were Joe, and you sold sports and outdoor equipment or gear, then you might pick a domain name like: outdoor-sports-equipment.com; or sports-and-outdoor-gear.com. See how it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue? Especially if you were trying to tell someone your web site address – go to outdoor hyphen sports hyphen equipment.com. Whew! That one just got past me like a fast moving train. And imagine trying to put that on a business card. Not a good professional look.

But search engines love it! Why? Because people use those words to specifically look for that type of product and you have just planted major keywords for your business in your new domain name.

The key is: this type of domain name is only for the search engines. When someone does a search for sports equipment, outdoor sports equipment, outdoor gear, sports gear – you have a distinct advantage when your web site comes up because a new client will see your web address and know that that link will take them to a site that has what they are looking for. Can you start to see the benefit?

So here is what you do. If you are starting a new web site:

1. Get two domain names – one people friendly and one search engine friendly
2. Build the search engine friendly domain name as your main site on your hosting account
3. Park the people friendly domain to point to your search engine friendly domain name
4. And Market the search engine friendly domain name for new clients who are specifically looking for your product or services.

If  this article has helped you in any way, leave a comment. And don’t forget to Subscribe to our Article Feed so you can get the latest in our Web Development and Internet Marketing Tips and News.

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Since 1998, we have been creating web sites that are fast, intuitive, pleasing to look at, functionable and marketable. We pride ourselves on working closely with you to bring your concepts to life.

From concept, to creation; CIDA Enterprises is bringing design and visibility together. After all, what is a web site that looks good but can’t be found on the Internet? You’ll never know!

All web sites begin with these basic elements:

• Idea
• Concept
• Marketing
• Design
• Creation
• Visibility
• Profits

To Find out more about how CIDA Enterprises can help you and your business – call us to schedule your FREE Web Site or FREE Marketing Analysis – call: 405*254*3767

A formula for greater success: Original Content + Valuable Content = Increased Visibility.

Every web site on the Internet today needs fresh original content in order to survive. But original content without being valuable to your clients is a sure recipe for failure. You may get a quick burst of new hits to your web site for a short time but unless you give them something of value they can sink their teeth into, they will have no reason to stay, or return.

Original Content

We have developed our NEW “Original Content” writing and editing department. CIDA Enterprises expert writers and editing staff will write original articles for your business, specifically for your industry products and services. We can help you focus on new clients who may not have found you yet through the Internet.

By building value laden, content rich articles that are specially designed to give your readers the type of information they need to help them make informed buying decisions and keyword rich content that appeals to the ardent Internet search engines – you can attract more business from the Internet and increase your profit margins.

Valuable Content

Not all content on web sites today is valuable. Consumers, when searching on the Internet, are looking for something – valuable information to help  them make a buying decision. They are going to purchase. The questions is: “Are they going to purchase from you?”

In the easy access world of information it is important to listen to your customers and give them the type of information they are looking for. They want to hear from you. They want new information. They want to be better informed. So, inform them.

Fresh articles can do just  that. Whether you are demonstrating how to do something or revealing a new product line. Statistics show that web sites that reach out to their customers with new and informative information, build greater customer loyalty and a higher chance that they will come back again and again. They will also tell more people about their experience – which in turn will generate a new customer base.

What Kind of Content Do You Need?

• Good Web Content
• Product Reviews
• Information Articles
• How To’s
• Blog Content
• Press Releases
• Instructionals

For more information call us: 405*254*3767 CST