Computer Solutions in the greater brisbane area.
January, 2011
Archive for January, 2011
Top SEO Tips for WordPress Websites
Bringing traffic to a website is the most important goal of every internet marketer. In order to realise this goal, it is essential that the website should be placed on the first page of each search results in every major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing to fully maximise the site’s earning potential. Setting your site on the first page of search engine results can be made possible through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. SEO consists of different strategies that, if followed consistently, will bring the site to the top of search engine results. If you have a WordPress website that is not showing good performance in search engine results, then perhaps the following techniques below can help you.
1. Create A Great Content. Nobody wants to visit a site with nonsense articles. Well-crafted contents will surely increase your site’s visitors and will keep them coming back for more. Because of your good content and good volume of visitors, asking for a link from a successful webmaster to his site would not be difficult.
2. Create Backlinks For Your Site. Visit forums and other blogs which are related to your niche and post helpful opinions or ideas and don’t forget to include a link to your site in your profile or signature. You can also ask other webmasters if they allow guest posting on their website. Guest posting is also a way of getting backlinks for your site.
3. Be Mindful of Your Keyword Density. Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears, in proportion with other words used in an article. Keywords should be used for a few times within the article; otherwise, search engines will likely give you a red flag for keyword stuffing.
4. Place the Keywords In the Title. Use the keywords in the article title if possible; but don’t force it. It would be confusing to your readers to have a title with incorrect grammar structure. Properly place the keywords throughout the article. Well-placed keywords will surely drive traffic to your website.
5. Enable Pretty Permalinks. The WordPress default permalink format is short, ugly and it’s meaningless to anybody and even to search engine.
(Default permalink format: http://www.yourwebsite.com/?p=507 )
“Pretty permalinks” are more user-friendly and search engine friendly because they provide more information about the page to the search engine.
(Pretty permalink format: http://www.yourwebsite.com/title_of_your_article)
Your internet marketing success depends on how persistent you perform your search engine optimization tasks. These tasks may be small but doing them correctly will help your business to stay on top of the competition.
Choosing an ISP for your business.
Whether you’ve been in business for a while, are just starting out, or planning on moving your business, you should take a good look at your internet service provider (ISP), and see if you are getting the most from your provider. Most businesses choose an ISP based on one of two things; Either they go with Bigpond because it seems easier, or they shop on price. More considering needs to be given to both the choice of ISP, and the choice of plan;
Support IS important
There will come a day when you need to call your ISP for help figuring out why your connection has stopped working. You need to consider how good the call centre is for a given ISP. Believe it or not, it’s possible to get your internet connection from a company with a local australian call centre staffed with trained engineers. We can tell you from a load of experience that his makes a big difference to how fast problems get resolved.
Network Quality
You should also think about the quality of the ISP’s network. Some ISP’s have very basic networks, and many many customers, and that means each of their customers gets a substandard connection. What they don’t tell you, is that the data YOU want to get at has to come down the same wires that every other customer of that ISP uses, so if they don’t have very many connections to the rest of the internet, and if their connections are small, it doesn’t matter what speed your local connection is, you will be shackled by the poor quality network further up the chain.
Email is critical
Nobody does, but you should read the acceptable use policy of your chosen ISP. There are often serious gotcha’s in these conditions, than can impact your business. A good example is Optus, who have this as part of their acceptable use policy;
7. (a) You must not use the service to spam, send bulk and/or unsolicited messages. This includes, but is not limited to commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, chain letters and political or religious messages. You must only send such a message to those individuals who have explicitly requested it.
Clauses like these are a red flag, because once they publish it, they have to find some way to enforce it. In the case of Optus, they simply monitor your email volume, and if you send too many emails, they cut off email service, and more recently, cut off the internet connection completely.
As business owners will always need to communicate with their clients, ISP’s who are not email friendly like Optus must be avoided.
Uploads should be free
Many ISP’s now charge for both data you recieve, and data you SEND. This never used to be the case, but many ISP’s see this as an easy way to improve their bottom line. You should make sure your ISP, and the plan you choose, does NOT penalise you for the data you send.
The price should be fixed
The other trick some ISP’s use is to give you a cheap monthly rate, and charge you a very high rate for usage. Make sure your chosen plan is a flat rate plan, with no extra charges for data. These plans might seem more expensive, but are not, because the rate for excess usage is extremely high and will be many times more than the monthly fee.
Contracts should be avoided
Most ISP’s will lock you into a 2 year contract, but if you can find one you are happy with that give you the option of month to month, you should take it. Being locked into a contract for any communications product means you will likely be stuck paying too much later on, and you lose a lot of flexibility.
The hardware matters
As part of the 2 year contract, most ISP’s will give you the router you need to get online. You should consider getting your router from your IT Support provider, because you will almost always get a better unit with more features, and you will also benefit from the support of your IT provider, which is almost always going to be better than the ISP, even great ISP’s like Internode.
Computers for flooded families
The recent devastation wrought by the flooding in Ipswich and Brisbane was a great tragedy, with loss of life, and many people losing their homes.
As a local business, based at Redbank Plains, we are looking for ways we can help the local community. We’ve been doing a lot of work helping local business owners setup temporary offices, replace equipment destroyed by flood waters and recover data from machines.
We’ve come up with a way we think we can help a lot of local families too. It’s estimated that over 600 homes were flooded in Goodna alone, so we think there are many families who will be starting from scratch.
We are collecting computers that people have replaced with new units, and plan to refurbish them, building them into complete working systems, which we can then give to families who have lost everything. A great friend of ours, Trevor Hold (freecollect.com.au) has offered us around 30 computers he has to kickstart the effort. We’ve got a few machines in the office we are adding to the collection, and from there, it’s over to you!
You can help by donating equipment you no longer need. We are after computers and monitors, and we’ll take them in any condition; Even non working machines may have a part we can use to get another one up and running.
We will also need some help identifying people who would benefit from a computer, so if you think you can help in this regard, please get in touch.
Contact Mathew Taylor, either via email – mathew@shiftsolutions.com.au or by phone on 0419 688 266.
Your New Website’s Number 1 Feature
Are you ready to get started with a new website for your business? There’s plenty to figure out, but the funny thing is how many business owners miss the most obvious, and most important feature of their new site.
When you get the first draft for your new site, have a look at the top. Do you see your main contact details featured prominently? If not, it’s probably time to consider a new designer, because unless you feature your most important contact details right at the top of EVERY page on your site, you are wasting time and money.
What do I mean by “most important contact details”? These would be the ways you MOST want visitors to get in touch with you when they are ready. For most small businesses, this is your phone number. Email address is good to, and if you are more of a retail store that you want people to come and visit, make sure your address is up there too.
Your website is about answering the questions of your prospects, and when they have enough answers, make it super easy for them to get in touch, and buy your product or service!
