2014 Predictions from Brand Builder Websites

Published on 5 Jan 2014 at 7:56 pm. Comments Off on 2014 Predictions from Brand Builder Websites.
Filed under Marketing,Mobile,Search Engine Optimization,Social Media,Web Design.

2014 Predictions from Brand Builder Websites.

It’s the end of the year and thus time for Brand Builder Websites to make our 2014 predictions on mobile, social media, marketing and more.

2014 Predictions from Brian LePore

  • Google will expand their actions when they penalize a site to also penalize their social profiles.
  • Microsoft will further grow Bing search with more strategic partnerships like they have with LG Smart TVs and Apple for Siri.
  • Android will see a slight dip in world-wide market share as Windows Phone and Firefox OS expand in areas such as Latin America, Spain, and other non-English speaking countries.
  • Apple will continue to try to expand in countries such as China, but will see little growth due to demands of high cost.
  • The web community will finally agree to a common, workable solution for responsive/DPI dependent content images. Browsers may not support the solution this year, but they will at least agree on a solution and begin development.
  • Scroll sites/vertical sites/whatever you want to call them will either fall out of favor, or designers will get better at testing them. Right now we have large companies like Google that have trouble with designing pages for an HD monitor.
  • Better browsers on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will lead to further growth of browsing on consoles.
  • Continued growth for web browsing on Smart TVs.
  • More sites move to adaptive delivery as they will realize that a responsive design-only solutions fail to deliver an ideal experience for a user. I feel like the point of contention is that consumers are using more devices lately where screen size (the only controlling factor in responsive design) is not the controlling factor in the design (e.g. Smart TVs have the same resolution as an HD monitor, but the difference in average sitting distance affects the design).
  • Google will face further legal troubles in the US. Potentially being investigated for abusive monopoly practices for trying to use their search engine market dominance to expand Google+ and Android.
  • Companies will push for more hybrid mobile apps where the app is really just a special wrapper to a specially created site.
  • The Buffalo Bills will … you know what, after a few years of trying to make predictions for them I should just stop. It hasn’t gone well.

So will our 2014 predictions come true? We’ll have to wait a year to find out. But next week we’ll see how we did in 2013.

This post was originally published as 2014 Predictions from Brand Builder Websites for Brand Builder Websites.

Alt Text For Photos

Published on 5 Jan 2014 at 1:57 pm. Comments Off on Alt Text For Photos.
Filed under Google,Informative,Search Engine Optimization,Web Design,Wrestling.

Alt text is a short text description for a photo on a web page. This description explains the photo to search engines and the disabled.

Before I dive much further I want to clear up some confusion you may have. “Alt text” is short for “alternative text”. It is also commonly called the alt attribute or the alt tag. Calling it the alt attribute refers to the technical method of assigning alt text to a photo. Calling it the alt tag is a misnomer. There is no such thing as an alt tag. I would love to know where this misconception originated. It goes back long before I started building websites.

The Role of Alt Text in SEO

Photos are a critical part of SEO. Your imagery helps separate you from your competition. This wow-factor will impress your average visitor, but a search engine cannot see the image. Think of a search engine as a blind person. They need a text description to understand the meaning of the photo. Providing a description for the photo makes them more discoverable on the web. If a user sees your photo in Google Image Search they can then browse to the original page for that photo.

YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE ALT TEXT ON YOUR PHOTOS SO WE PUT ALT TEXT ON YO PHOTO SO YOU CAN READ ALT TEXT FOR A PHOTO WHILE YOU READ ALT TEXT FOR A PHOTO.

Tips for Writing Alt Text

  • Keep the description short. I recommend you keeping it around the length of a tweet (but don’t shorten words since there is no limit).
  • (more…)

Headers Help SEO

Published on 14 Dec 2013 at 10:19 pm. Comments Off on Headers Help SEO.
Filed under Google,Search Engine Optimization,writing.

Getting the right page headers is critical to SEO. Do them right to tell search engines your keywords. Do them wrong and lose their power.

Using Page Headers Correctly

Page headers ranked by importance in SEO.Think of a web page as a legal document. These documents have one main header that covers the main topic. Under this header are sub-headers and which may also have sub-sub-headers. This basic concept of a web page as a document is how the web was first designed.

These headers have such a critical role in SEO that they Google explains them in their SEO Starter Guide to make sure they’re used correctly:

Heading tags (not to be confused with the HTML tag or HTTP headers) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are six sizes of heading tags, beginning with <h1>, the most important, and ending with <h6>, the least important.

Since heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them understand something about the type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document.

Google makes great points about the normal display of these heading tags and what they mean to the user. The header tags that have the most important meaning to the user will also have a the most important meaning to your site in regards to SEO. Above all it comes back to the basic concept that you need to design for the user. Producing content that tailors the result to a user’s need will produce the best results in your SEO.

Using Page Headers Incorrectly

Over the years I have seen a lot of web pages produced by a Content Management System (CMS). This is great because it lets people who know nothing about HTML create their own web page. It’s also terrible because it lets people who know nothing about HTML create their own web page. Why is that a bad thing? Most people are visual designers. Many times this will lead to one of two scenarios:

  • The content writer will select text and make them bold and increase the font size, rather than selecting a header tag.
  • The content writer prefers one of the header tags to the default design. They will then use that tag throughout the page.

The first scenario is bad because it does not actually create semantic meaning for content. Making the text bold will give it some SEO value, but it’s nowhere near as importance as an <h1> or <h2> tag. It also produces more HTML code that wastes bandwidth and makes more work when you try to update the page. Use header tags instead since they are the right tool for the job.

The second scenario is bad because it waters down your ability to distinguish between important and unimportant topics. By doing so you have little ability to optimize your content. Instead you should look into your options to alter the default content produced by your CMS. Don’t forget to alter that header tag so that a user can distinguish between the header and your normal content.

Both of these scenarios suffer from the natural instinct to make the page “look good”. Of course everyone wants to think they know what they’re doing and what looks best. While there is some truth to this, you must remember that consistency between pages is important. Keep things similar so that visitors don’t need to re-learn your site on every page load. By keeping things consistent and adjusting the defaults to your liking will optimize content for users and search engines alike. As always, we are very familiar with this aspect of Natural Search Optimization. If you’re having trouble please contact us and we can help you with your site.

Thank you and keep building your brand.

This blog was originally published as Headers Help SEO for Brand Builder Websites.

Holiday Marketing 2013

Published on 2 Dec 2013 at 6:14 pm. Comments Off on Holiday Marketing 2013.
Filed under Marketing,Social Media.

The end of the year is fast approaching. We are here with a holiday marketing run down to help your small business finish strong.

Holiday Marketing: Search Engine Marketing

With online holiday sales expected to rise to $82 billion it is critical that you come up in search. SEO is a very worthwhile practice that you should engage in, but it is also time-consuming. It takes a while to build your rep. It’s not something that you can just flip a switch and automatically rank better than everyone else. If you do not already rank well for a given term then you need to turn to search engine marketing. By employing search engine marketing as part of your holiday marketing you will show up on the first page of searches today.

Holiday Marketing: Social Media Marketing

Be sure to make social media marketing part of your holiday marketing in 2013.Social media a huge thing in people’s lives. Many people cannot escape it if they wanted to. By increasing your social media marketing you can increase sales. Not just during the holiday season, but with people looking for gifts it’s a great time to ramp things up.

There are a few ways that you can go with social media marketing. You can use it to draw more business to your retail store. Alternatively you can use it similar to search engine marketing.

If you are looking to draw more customers to your retail location I suggest focusing primarily on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Instagram. Your should heavily focus your posts on clear, high-quality photos on the products in your store. You will naturally have the urge to immediately post all your photos. Resist this urge and instead just post a couple. Spread out your posts and post them at a different time each day. This will increase the range of customers who will see your posts. (more…)

Prerender Pages to Improve Browsing (video)

Published on 20 Nov 2013 at 8:41 pm. Comments Off on Prerender Pages to Improve Browsing (video).
Filed under Google,Informative,Search Engine Optimization.

Visitors want to browse your site quickly. In this video we explain how you can use HTML5 to prerender the next page to make it load fast.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlYN57McpL8]

Prerender Pages to Improve Browsing Video Transcript

Greetings Brand Builders. This is Brian from Brand Builder Websites and I am here to explain the benefits of using the prefetch and prerender features available in HTML5 compliant browsers. These benefits include faster load times, better ranking in search engines, and possibly an easier browsing experience. But before I get into that let me first explain what I mean by prefetch and prerender. (more…)

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