By David Hannes

On-Page optimization is of essential importance when it comes to Search engine optimization (SEO) and having a website and its pages indexed favorably on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. It is the practice of proper web page development both for the content a reader sees and the code that is seen only by search engine spider bots, micro programs written by search engines that review and index registered web pages.

On-page optimization encompasses several elements that make up a web page including the page title tag, page meta tags, the inclusion of header tags and page styles within a page’s body content, link optimization, image optimization and the appropriate targeting and implementation of keywords and keyword phrases. We’ll address the importance of optimizing each element below.

Optimizing Title Text

As of the writing of this article, of most critical importance are title tags, i.e. the title text of a webpage. Not to be confused with a page title, which is generally defines a page link and the page’s main header, the title text of a page is defined within the <title></title> tags in HTML code.

The title text is located at very top of a browser window. (Look carefully at the very top of the page you are reading now. See it?)  The title text is also what is displayed as the main link for each website listed in the organic region of a search engine result page.

The title text is your first, best way to indicate to a search engine how you would like a page to be found. Try to include within the title text the most essential keywords that you are trying to target for a particular page. It is generally good practice to keep a page’s title text within 70-80 characters as longer strings are generally ignored and truncated by search engine result pages.

Optimizing the Description Meta tag

The Description meta tag is used both as a way to further define your targeted keywords and keyword phrases and, in some search engines, is drawn from directly to define the description of a web page in a search engine results page listing.

Defined within the content quotes of this strip of code, <meta name=”description” content=”add description text here”>, the description text should be written for humans to read and include the targeted keywords and keyword phrases for a particular page. It should be no longer than 150-200 characters or it too may be truncated or ignored by search engines.

When writing the description meta tags, include the most relevant keywords first, appending your secondary keywords later in the text. If it applies, you may also want to include your key promotional point, company name for branding and a business phone number to better grab the attention of the person that is reading your listing in a search engine results page.

Optimizing Keyword Meta Tags

Once considered of great importance in determining placement of web pages by search engines, keyword meta tags are considered of little relevance as of the writing of this article. Still, they are seen of as some value to some search engines and since we never know what the future of search engine optimization will be, it is good practice to include keyword meta tags in the code of your web pages.

Defined within the content quotes of this strip of code, <meta name=”keyword” content=”keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3,”> , each keyword or keyword phrase should be separated by a comma. The keywords should be relevant to the article itself and appear in the body content of the page. Keyword meta tags should be limited to 10-20 keywords and phrases and contain no more than 500 characters.

By David Hannes.

Read part 1 of 2

When it comes to implementing a new organic marketing campaign, Creative Developments Web Design and Internet Marketing Specialists located in Scottsdale, Arizona near Phoenix, AZ, suggests optimizing all initial pages of a website, registering the site on search engines and local business directories and then giving the registered site a month or two to observe where the preliminary analytics level out.

The second thing Creative Developments recommends is engaging in a blogging or article writing campaign. This is useful for two reasons, it informs the search engine that your site is active with lots of activity and it helps build multiple landing pages to your site. Web sites that are constantly active derive more attention and are seen more favorably by search engines than sites that are static and never changing.

Each article or blog also enables you to build up a database of targeted keyword phrases that your site may be indexed and found by. Every page, post and article published has the change to act as a landing page into your website. Product reviews, opinion blogs on issues that are topical, informational how-to articles and event blogging for specific events like Easter or Memorial Day all have the potential to draw traffic to your site beyond the initial pages of your website. Over time, as your landing pages grow, so too will the number of visitors to your site per day. It may not be an overnight process, but over time, it can bear fruit.

Example one: A pool cleaning company may have basic pages such as a Home page, an About Us page, a page for each service that they provide, a Locations page and a Contact page, but if the site owner follows that up by writing a series of informative blogs articles such as an article titled “how to clean a green pool” and optimizes that page specifically for “how to clean a green pool” , inevitably people who have green pools are going to query a search engine with that exact question. When they do, there’s a good chance they will find this informative blog article on the page of search results. Once visitors click on this blog article and enter into the site they may very well decide, “Hey, this company knows their stuff, I’ll call them”.

Example two:   A trauma therapist practice who engaged in a blogging campaign with Creative Developments wrote articles focused on topics of interest that they felt prospective clients may be interested in searching for. Beyond just optimizing their basic services pages for keyword phrases such as “trauma therapist in Mesa”, they also wrote articles such as “I don’t want to hate myself anymore” thinking along the lines of a depressed person typing that phrase into a Google search box at two in the morning, depressed.  The results; www.aztraumatherapy.com is found at the top of page one nationally without resorting to a geographic keyword anchor.  Moreover, unlike AdWords, this article has had staying power; published in February of 2010 they are still drawing traffic for this keyword phrase to this day. That’s a pretty good result for an optimized post long since paid for.

Note: it took writing 30-40 articles and optimizing each page of their site but the trauma therapist’s site averages 40 visitors a day via organic marketing alone. The initial campaign that was implemented took 4-6 months to develop.

Conclusion

An optimized, registered website with no activity may draw 5-10 visitors per day. That very same site, which engages in a blogging/article writing campaign proper optimized has the potential to draw 20-30-40 or more visitors per day organically.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

By David Hannes
Recently a prospective client, interested in Creative Developments web design and internet marketing services in Scottsdale, Arizona, inquired “How many site visitors would you estimate me getting in a month with a professionally made website? Also how many new clients would you estimate me getting through an SEO presence?”

That is a complex question to answer. There are many factors to consider.

What is the nature of the business? Where is the location of the business? What are the local demographics?

An informational website should be seen as an extension of your business, internet marketing a way to generate traffic to your on-line presence. Creative Developments approaches an organic marketing campaign in stages. If all of your pages are optimized, each page concentrating on specifically targeted keyword phrases and your site is registered and indexed on search engines you have the opportunity to be found by prospective clients that are seeking your products or services out. However your demographics will determine much of your success upon your initial launch.

If you have an audio electronics store with only a dozen competitors in your area and your site is optimized for your targeted geographic location, chances are good you may land on page one for your targeted keyword phrases relevant to your business. If you search for “car audio in Tempe” in a Google search, you’re likely to find one of our clients, www.soundzgood2me.com.  This is due to the inclusion of a geographic anchor “Tempe” in the keyword phrase and the limited number of competitive sites for the category of business they serve.

If, however, you type in a more simplistic search such as “car audio”, chances are the audio electronic store will not be found unless they resorted to a Pay per Click (PPC) AdWords campaign. This is because there is no geographic anchor. You’re not being location specific in your search. If you are looking to have your site found for basic searches such as “car audio” or “dental practice” or “therapist”, your best bet to be found is via PPC.

Regional competition and geography do matter when it comes to organic marketing. If a company is a dental practice in New York City, even if they optimize their site for the keyword phrase “dental practice in Manhattan”, they probably wouldn’t have much luck being found on page one or two without first having a high page rank or engaging several months in a comprehensive, multifaceted internet marketing campaign.  Don’t be discouraged though. Most markets are not so competitive. If this dental practice was optimized for “dental practice in Great Neck, NY”, chances are, their site, if optimized, registered and indexed, can be found on search engines and local business directories. The reason is the different geographic regions have far different levels of competition for that particular business.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

Read Part 1 or 2

By David Hannes.

Recently an internet marketing client at Creative Developments web design, located in Scottsdale, AZ, contracted us to develop her WordPress website.  She was developing a site that would require extensive use of custom menus posts and categories.

WordPress 101: A WordPress website enables web developers to add custom menus for nav. bar development from the dashboard under appearances…menus. This is good tool, enabling one to create navigation bars that consist of more than just pages, but rather a combination of page, post, category and custom links.

While reviewing the work of my client it soon became clear that she did not quite comprehend menu architecture and when it is that she should declare a link on the custom menu to be a category a page or post.

The golden rule: If you intend to showcase multiple posts under a specific topic then it may make sense to develop a custom menu link from a category. If your menu bar link is intended to be a single, stand-alone article, there is no reason to add a category to your menu, link to the page or post instead.

Think of a category as a list of posts or an archive of articles. Example: If I were writing multiple news articles on the New York Yankees, I would create a category called New York Yankees and associate all posts that are related to the New York Yankees with this category. That way when I click on the category link “New York Yankees” on the menu bar I would see a list of posts and the preview of each article on the category list of Yankee Baseball posts. This is quite common architecture when visiting a newspaper website.

Let’s take another example; suppose I wanted to develop a list of links to several of my videos on YouTube. Should I create a page or a category? Was your first thought a page? Not so fast. If I wanted to create several links on a single page that in turn linked to my YouTube videos then yes, I would create a page, set up a list of links that pointed to external YouTube videos.

But what I wanted site visitors to comment on each of my videos without visiting my YouTube Channel?  If that were the case I may want to create a post for each video with the comments option turned on and embed the YouTube Video into each given post. The posts in turn would be associated with a specific category. In my example, instead of creating a page of links to all my videos I could develop a category called “Video Gallery” that in turn would showcase a list of posts, each one associated with a specific video.  It takes more time to develop but what you end up with is a more refined presentation that is less dependent up external linking.

Remember, categories are not posts, categories are not articles. You can manipulate a category to include html in order to showcase more than just the archive of posts but a category is still just that, an archive of posts. Treat it as such.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

Easter is almost upon us and Creative Developments web design in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ is ready to celebrate with our Easter Day Sale in Scottsdale Arizona.

Easter Sunday means it’s time to celebrate spring in Scottsdale, AZ by saving you green in your wallet. Check out what we have in store for you:

If you found this Easter Day blog by searching for Easter Day Specials in Scottsdale, AZ or Phoenix Arizona, Tempe, Mesa and surrounding areas, wouldn’t you want to be found on page one for your Easter Day Specials as well? You can!

Are you celebrating Passover in Scottsdale, Arizona? We haven’t forgotten you! Just as the Last Supper is tied together forever with the Passover Seder so too are the April Holiday Specials at Creative Developments web design near Phoenix Arizona.

If you have a business or are promoting a service, Creative Developments internet marking specialists in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, Arizona can help you get placed on search engines and draw traffic to your website just like you found this page here.

Save now on our Easter season search engine page placement special. Have your website found for Easter or any major holiday! We can place you at the top of Google for your geographic region for any holiday.

Easter Day Website Sale in Scottsdale AZ:

Don’t have a website, or is your website underdeveloped, well, that what we do. Creative Developments web design can develop a website for you and upgrade your existing website. Take advantage of our Easter Day special, 20% off all new website development in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, AZ. What a deal.

All sales last thru Easter Sunday and the end of Passover so let’s make your Easter Sunday special with these incredible deals at Creative Developments Website Design.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, Tempe, Mesa, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

March Madness is not only on the court…it’s at Creative Developments web design in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ.

Forget about your broken brackets and broken dreams of winning that big jackpot on Duke or Missouri. Earn your money back on our money saving specials.

March Madness SEO Sale:

Free Registration of any website and sitemap on Google and other major search engines with purchase of any search engine optimization package. $150.00 value!

Creative Developments SEO Specialists in Scottsdale, Arizona can set up your server accounts on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask, establish a Google Analytics account, develop, register a sitemap, and install SEO WordPress Plugins and add the search engine tracking code to your website. A $150.00 value, FREE with any web site optimization package.

If you found March Madness blog by searching for March Madness in Scottsdale, AZ or Phoenix Arizona, Tempe, Mesa and surrounding areas, wouldn’t you want to be found on page one for your March Madness Specials as well? You can!

If you have a business or are promoting a service, Creative Developments internet marking specialists in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, Arizona can help you get placed on search engines and draw traffic to your website just like you found this page here.

Check out our deals and ask about our holiday season search engine page placement special. We can place you at the top of Google for your geographic region for any holiday.

March Madness Website Sale in Scottsdale AZ:

Don’t have a website, or is your website underdeveloped, well, that what we do. Creative Developments web design can develop a website for you and upgrade your existing website. Take advantage of our March Madness special, 20% off all new website development in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix, AZ. What a deal.

All sales last thru March and the duration of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament; let’s get crazy with these incredible deals at Creative Developments Website Design.

Check back on our blog often for more specials, new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, Tempe, Mesa, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

By David Hannes.

Recently an internet marketing client at Creative Developments web design, located in Scottsdale, AZ, called me requesting help on her WordPress website. Apparently the pages of her site that were previously optimized no longer retained their title tags and meta tags and her analytics were dropping. “I lost my SEO!” she said “Why is my website no longer optimized? Why did my website lose its metatags?”

On the surface of things nothing seemed to be amiss. I optimized her pages and posts using the All in One SEO Pack plugin by By Michael Torbert in conjunction with the Category SEO Meta Tags plugin By Bala Krishna and each page, post and category configuration page had their tags in their proper place.

It had been a couple of months since I worked on this account, though, and the client had made several changes to her WordPress web site since I optimized her initial pages and posts.

I tried an effective way to identify and resolve the issue by first disabling all plugins then reinitializing just the two SEO plugins to check to see if she was still incurring this problem. The problem persisted. I then uninstalled the present version of both the All in One SEO Pack plugin and Category SEO Meta Tags plugin, erasing all files from the server. Next I uploaded an older copy of each plugin, the versions that worked together when I first worked on this account. When I did, the client’s WordPress website once again displayed its tags.

So what happened? Well, the client had updated her plugins as prompted when updates became available. What she did not do was check to see if there was a readme file with installation instructions upon updating her WordPress plugins. If she had, she would have been informed that she needed to patch a file from the All in One SEO Pack plugin in order for it to work in conjunction with the latest version of the Category SEO Meta Tags plugin.

Note: these two plugins are written by different authors.  The Category SEO Meta Tags plugin, although developed to work in association with the All in One SEO Pack plugin, is not produced by the same developers. This can cause incompatibility issues when one plugin is written to a specific version of the other plugin and that dependent plugin in turn has been updated with code modifications. The two plugins may no longer be compatible with each other on the outset. Additional file patching may be necessary in order to synchronize the two plugins.

Conclusion: Beware and be aware; back up your WP database and WordPress files before updating plugins, themes and the WordPress software itself and remember to view the readme documentation that may come with each plugin after each update. It was included with the plugin and its’ update for a reason.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

By David Hannes.

If you own a WordPress developed website, chances are you’ll probably run into some sort of a problem that will make you ask yourself one question: What is wrong with my WordPress website? You may follow that up with a long list of expletives. Believe me, I’ve been there.

If your WordPress website is incurring display issues, page breaks, feed breaks, image uploading problems or other system glitches that just suddenly showed up, chances are you are incurring a problem stemming from one of two sources: an incompatible theme or plugin.

If you are incurring site structure related issues having issues such as uploading an image file correctly, aligning an image properly, the most likely culprit is your active theme, specifically the style sheet.

Note: the default theme that is installed with WordPress was written with CSS tags that are tied together with the software (for example WordPress Default 1.6 theme by Michael Heilemann).  If this code goes missing from cascading style sheet(s) within the theme you have installed, layout glitches and breaks may result. Try comparing style.css that is packaged with the default theme with your theme’s css. If any crucial lines are missing in your CSS that are called from WP, try adding them back to your theme’s style sheet code.

If you are incurring system glitches and page breaks, the culprit is more likely an incompatible plugin or update to it. The plugin may be incompatible with the theme, with an updated rev of WordPress or with other plugins.

An effective way to identify and resolve the issue is to first disable all plugins. (Note: you do not need to uninstall the plugin to do this). Then check to see if you are still incurring this problem. If not, you have confirmed that it is one of your plugins that is incompatible. Next, activate plugin one at a time, staring with the most passive plugins, testing to see if the site break is reintroduced after each plugin is activated. Once you have isolated the corrupting plugin, uninstall it and try to find an alternative plugin solution written by another author.

Check back on our blog often for new WordPress tips and advice. Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

By David Hannes.

Yesterday one of my clients had a near disaster with her WordPress website. She hosts her WordPress website on a shared server GoDaddy account, which does not offer any comprehensive technical support. After installing new plugins, modifying the PHP files under “Editor” and making changes to the database the site began to malfunction.

It was a WordPress disaster on their end. The site would no longer display in Internet Explorer, the layout was offset in Firefox, something was wrong and they called GoDaddy for help and support. The tech support agents at GoDaddy informed my client that although they do back-up the files on their account, they do not make back-ups of the WordPress database. My client was beside herself. She had made no backup copies of the database, the brains behind any WordPress website.  She had no idea that GoDaddy does not make a back-up copy along with her files as standard practice and policy.

The client requested that GoDaddy do a system restore of her account to the previous day but was denied her request as her account was on a shared server. She pleaded for someone to look at her database, only to be told that GoDaddy policy states that they do not offer WordPress technical support for the dashboard or database. They ended the conversation instructing her to refer to forum help boards, which was as helpful as telling her, and most non techies, to hit her CPU with a baseball bat. She was on her own.

My client then called me at Creative Developments, a website design company in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ, for assistance with the WordPress website.  I had seen variations of this disaster on multiple occasions. In the case of this client, she installed an incompatible plugin. She was fortunate that this was a resolvable problem without having to spend a small fortune hiring a database consultant to investigate and fix her DB error.

This problem was entirely avoidable. Be smart. Be preemptive and proactive. Be able to repair WordPress errors, glitches and bugs. Before you develop a WordPress website, host on a server that will offer some modicum of dashboard and database support and will offer back-up support of your database.

For new and existing accounts, install a WordPress plugin or two that automates a database backup procedure and backup your database often, at least once a week and before doing any major revisions to your website. You’ll be so happy you did so when a disaster arises.

Recommended WordPress database back-up plugins:

WordPress Database Backup: An automated and on-demand backup of your WordPress database. By Austin Matzko.

EZPZ One Click Backup: a very easy way to manually do a complete backup of your database and your entire WordPress site. By Joe ‘UncaJoe’ Cook.

Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing company providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.

By David Hannes.

What do I blog about if I have nothing to say? I’ve heard that asked often. You might be surprised how much you have to say on any number of topics.

I do not accept the comment “I can’t write” from my clients. Yes you can! Let’s start off with what’s relevant to you and your business, industry or service. Chances are that if you were asked “what do you do for a living” you can talk at length about exactly what you do, what problems you may be having and the issues of the day that you may be addressing or resolving. We can talk ad nauseam about what we know and what we do for a living.

If you can talk about it, you can write it down. Don’t tell it to me; tell it to your computer. Go ahead and rant and write it down in a blog. It doesn’t have to be much.Writing  2-3 paragraphs from your smart phone while you are bored and killing time or 300-500 words sent by email should suffice. If you have more to say, by all means rant and get it out of your system, just sit down and type it out and leave the editing and optimization to Creative Developments internet marketing specialists in Scottsdale, Arizona, near Phoenix, AZ.

Other topics to blog about:

Write a review about a specific product that you sell that was just released or is  relevant to your business.

Write a blog providing a tip or advice on a service that you offer.

Comment about something topical in the news that is relevant to you and your industry.

Write a blog related to any upcoming holiday. Never let an upcoming event pass by without piggybacking on top of it. Holidays are a great time to promote a sale or service.

Now get at it and start blogging.

Creative Developments is a multimedia website design company, video editing house and internet marketing business providing on-line solutions with a creative edge.

To inquire about our web design, video editing, website search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing services for your website or blog or business, call us at (480) 968-5096 or email us at dhannes@develop4u.com. Creative Developments is located in Scottsdale, AZ, servicing the entire Phoenix area, the East Valley, Maricopa County, Arizona and beyond.