Tag: seo services
Startup Priorities: Is Design More Important Than Engineering?
by neetika on Feb.09, 2010, under Graphic Design, Trends
We are all told to never judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it, when we find ourselves at an ugly website, we automatically make assumptions about the quality of the services that site provides. A topic we have begun to cover more often, and one that we strongly believe in, is the importance of design for startups. In the last several weeks we’ve provided tips and best practices for sign-up buttons and registration processes, as well as an inside look into at Boxee’s user experience overhaul.
According to Silicon Valley angel investor Dave McClure, design needs to be one of the top priorities for Internet startups, not an afterthought. These days, as McClure explains in a recent BusinessWeek.com article, the technical expertise it takes to engineer a basic back-end framework is at a much more accessible level than it was in years past, which means payroll dollars can be better spent on masterful designers.
“It’s actually pretty easy to write a Web-friendly app or Web site these days,” writes McClure. “But it’s still incredibly difficult to create visually appealing interfaces and, beyond that, to design them in ways that are compelling and engaging, drive calls to action, and are measurably adept at getting more customers to use your products.”
While coding languages can be learned through study and practice, having an eye for design is more of an innate talent. This isn’t to say that there aren’t people out there who are code masters and were probably born to practice their craft, or that solid engineering isn’t critical to the success of a startup, but design is a more artistic and creative talent that you either have or you don’t.
More importantly, the design of your product is what your users will interact with directly on a day-to-day basis. Opinions will be formed, rightly or wrongly, within seconds of laying eyes on your site and before they even have a chance to put your code to use. So before you go hiring a crack team of code monkeys, make sure to reserve some roster slots for design all-stars.
Website Promotion and SEO
by White Shaarks on Jun.08, 2009, under Latest Web Technologies
Website Promotion through Strong SEO.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s the best thing since sliced bread in terms of free website promotion. Search Engine Optimization is the procedure of making website pages attractive to search engines, and the great thing is that it’s not hard to learn and apply the basics to your own website(s).
Through working on SEO, you can improve the page rankings of your web pages and drive more traffic to your site. And isn’t that the definitive goal of free website promotion? Get started with my 5 Basic Rules of Search Engine Optimization.When you’re ready, move on to some of the finer points such as Applying Keyword Density.
2. Website Promotion through reciprocal linking.
When other people put a link to your site on their site, you get free website promotion. You also get a shot at a better search engine ranking for your page. All of the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) use inbound relations as an important part of the formula that determines a page’s rank.
Be aware though that this variety of free website promotion is not a numbers game; it’s the quality of the links that really matters. So you want to focus your reciprocal linking efforts on relevant quality links. The standard procedure is to search for and identify relevant sites that you would like to have link to yours and then send each webmaster an email requesting a link on their site, offering a link on your site in return.
3. Write articles to get free website promotion.
The beauty of this free website promotion strategy is that once again someone else is promoting your website for you. And if you get your articles published on popular, prolonged websites or in well-known magazines, they can be sitting there giving you free website promotion for a long, long time with no further effort on your part.
However, there are catches. First, you have to be able to write well on a topic or topics that other people will want to read and/or publish. Second, you have to find the quality places for your articles to be published and sway the people making the decisions to publish them. When you find them, send an email asking if they can use a particular piece, with your article so they can look at it right away if they’re interested. Be sure your email mentions that they are welcome to publish the piece for free. Also be sure that your piece ends with a resource box or ‘blurb’ that promotes you and your website.
