Our Monmouth Blog

comScore Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

According to the May 22nd comScore press release “April 2008 saw Americans conduct 10.6 billion core searches, with Google Sites continuing to gain market share as the leading search engine.”

The report continued:

In April, Google Sites extended its share of core searches to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 20.4 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.1 percent), AOL LLC (4.6 percent), and Ask Network (4.3 percent).

There is no doubt Google is the steak and the potatoes in the search industry. If you are serious about improving your Internet marketing ability you need to strongly consider how you can improve your Google search results. Search Engine Marketing should be a part of any businesses marketing plan. Local businesses can make their mark in search if there is a focused effort.

Hugo Vidal Teixeira of Compenent House recently wrote a fantastic blog post on the importance of good user interface design titled “Ten UI Lessons from the Real World”. Through excellent pictures of real life examples Hugo demonstrates how bad design can hurt your brand, confuse, or even be offensive. It is not only good information but really funny and entertaining. As you read the post I am sure you can think of a few frustrating websites where ultimately you did not do business with because of a poor UI.

A well designed website can increase your credibility and improve sales conversions.

Best wishes!

When was the last time you did basic website maintenance to your website? Basic website maintenance should be on your calendar to complete quarterly. There are four basic tests that eliminate the majority of client experience issues and bugs that sneak they way into your site over time. I recommend executing a complete visual review, browser test, link check, and html validation.

A complete visual review will catch several types of issues. I recommend that your complete this test using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). For most websites IE is the predominately used browser so it is important to start there. Every page should be reviewed for layout, imagery, and typography.

Once you have completed the visual review then you should test your website in other browsers. Browsers such as Firefox, Safari, and Opera have gained in popularity and your site should function correctly in all of them. It is important that you are aware of how your site functions and looks in other browsers.

There is a quick and easy tool that you can use to check links automatically on your website. Its a great tool that saves a lot of manual work. W3C link checker is simple to use and extremely effective. All you have to do is enter the URL of you site and watch it work. When the results are returned you have a complete report of what needs attention.

The last part of your manual website maintenance should be a markup validation review from W3C. Any issues should be addressed. Valid code will ensure your site is healthy as well as help your search engine results by certifying that your website can be properly crawled.

If you follow this routine regularly you will have confidence that users of your site have the experience you expect. Web errors will lead to loss of subscription and user dissatisfaction. Following these steps regularly will ensure that your site functions like a well oiled machine.

Tell us your web maintenance tips.

Regards,

Howard

Your electronic store window. How does it look?

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking February-April 2006 survey, 73% of American adults use the Internet. At the time of the survey this represents approximately 147 million people. 91% of those Internet users used a search engine to find information online. Are you ready to develop business and leads online?

There are four important components to an effective website:

Esthetics: How does your website look? A finished website must have a professional appearance. The branding elements and color scheme should be well coordinated and visually appealing. All individual visual design elements must fit into the overall design and be presented within a visual hierarchy. Clear visual cues and accents identify key content and help the user navigate the site.

Content: What is this website about? The message must be clear and concise. All text should be fine tuned for the web as its own form of media. Brochures and other printed media must be converted into a format that engages users to action on the web.

Usability: Is this website easy to use? All websites should follow the established set of standardized best practices for building websites which enhance accessibility and intuitiveness. For example, does a web link look like a web link? Sounds like an obvious statement, but far too often this web standard is neglected and replaced with over-styled elements. A usable site is one that provides consistency in experience without making the user wonder “how do I do that?”

Marketing: Will they find us? People must find and use your site for it to be effective. The most elegant website that goes unused is worthless to its owner. Marketing a website has a technical and traditional facet. A website must be developed in a specific way in order for search engines to easily index its content and determine what categories and keywords apply to it. This is extremely important because the majority of Internet users use a search engine to find what they are looking for. Traditional marketing is equally important. Advertising your business or website should not be limited to the Internet only. ourmonmouth.com believes that any marketing campaign should use multiple media channels to effectively deliver your business message.

Regards,

Howard