Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

http://feeds.feedburner.com/searchengineguide (03.10.2008 12:42:09)

The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Content Appearance

by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This list covers aspects of how content appears on the website, focusing on the visual aspects of the content rather than the words.

Why this is important: Great content can get lost if it's not easy to read thrown into an otherwise cluttered page. Ensuring that your content fits visually into the site is just as important as having good content to begin with. If you want the sales message to get across, your visitors will need to read it.

What to look for:

Short paragraphs: Keep paragraphs relatively short. No more than seven lines each.
Uses sub-headings: Break content up using headings and sub-headings as warranted.
Uses bulleted lists: Use bulleted lists wherever possible to break up monotony of the text.
Calls to action on all pages: Make sure each page has a distinct call to action, both visually and textually. These can be littered throughout the content.
Good contrast: Make sure content can easily be read, contrasting well with the background color or image used. Keep images in content unobtrusive.
No overly small text for body: Font size should not be too small. No less than 10pt but bigger is better.
No overly small text for headings: Headings and sub-heads should be visually bigger than the rest of the body content.
Skimmable and scannable: Text should be very easy to skim read and scan for important/interesting bits of information.
Keep link options in close proximity: If you link to something referenced in the copy, keep the link in very close proximity to the reference.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.

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09.09.2008 19:26:44 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Website Content

by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This checklist explores the development of your site's web content including readability issues, message and overall effectiveness.

Why this is important: Content is an essential part of the persuasion process. Pretty, image-based sites may be appealing to the eye, but it's the content that appeals to the emotional and logical centers of the brain. The inclusion of content as well as the effectiveness of the writing are all crucially important to the sales process.

What to look for:

Grabs visitor attention: The headline and very first sentences should get the readers attention and make them want to keep exploring.
Exposes need: Explain to the visitor what their need is for your product, service or information really is.
Demonstrates importance: Explain why their need, and therefore your solution to it, is important to their way of life.
Ties need to benefits: Talk about the benefits the readers gets from your solution. Put it in their terms.
Justifies and calls to action: Justify the purchase and provide clear calls to action to compel the reader forward.
Gets to best stuff quickly: Don't "save the best for last". Once you have their attention, get to the good stuff ASAP.
Reading level is appropriate: Talk at your audiences reading level (or below it without talking down to them). Don't talk above them.
Customer focused: Stay focused on meeting the customers wants and needs. It's about them, not you.
Benefits and features: Explain all the important features but also tell how those features will benefit them.
Target personas: Develop personas for your target audience and write in a way that speaks to those personas specifically.
Provides re-assurances: Always reassure your visitors that what you offer is important/necessary/helpful/satisfying, etc.
Answers WIIFM: Always explain to the visitor what's in it for them. Don't make them guess.
Consistent voice: Speak in a clear consistent voice throughout the site. Don't change "personalities" from page to page.
Eliminate superfluous text: Get rid of any text that doesn't specifically assist with the sales process.
Reduce /explain industry jargon: Avoid using industry jargon that is unintelligible to the average person. Talk in terms your visitors will understand.
No typo, spelling or grammar errors: Eliminate all errors throughout your text.
Contains internal contextual links: Look for opportunities to link to other pages and content withing the body copy.
Links out to authoritative sources: When warranted, link out to other authoritative websites that backup your content.
Enhancing keyword usage (SEO): Know and use important keywords throughout your body copy.
Date published on articles/news: Timely articles should contain a date in which they were published and/or updated.
Web version of PDF docs available: Convert PDF documents into HTML for easier accessibility.
Consistent use of phrasing: Don't change how you reference certain things. Be consistent on a page by page basis.
No unsubstantiated statements: Don't make claims that you can't backup and prove to be true.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.

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09.09.2008 17:11:46 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Website Navigation

by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This list covers issues related to a site's primary and secondary navigation menus, their effectiveness and how they are implemented from both a search engine and user perspective.

Why this is important: A strong, user-friendly and search engine friendly navigation is essential in helping people and bots through your site. You visitors need to find information quickly with minimal hunting and the search engines need to be able to follow the navigation to reach all site pages with the fewest number of jumps (clicks) necessary. If the navigation is broken or doesn't get people (or search engines) where they need to go, the performance of a site will suffer.

What to look for:

Located top or top-left: Typically primary navigation is found along the top header and/or down the left side of the page (except blogs which typically falls on the right.) Be consistent with convention.
Consistent throughout site: Don't move or change the navigation from page to page. Be consistent in its implementation.
Links to Home page: Make sure you have a link to your home page in an obvious location near the top-left.
Links to Contact Us page: Keep an obvious link to a Contact Us page in a consistent location.
Links to About Us page: Make sure site has and links to an About Us page.
Simple to use: Navigation should not require much thought to use. Use headings that are easily identifiable and understandable links.
Indicates current page: Through breadcrumbs or other means, make sure current page is easily identified in the navigation.
Links to all main sections: Main navigation should contain links to all of site's primary areas.
Proper categorical divisions: If navigation is robust, divide into sensible categories.
Non-clickable is obvious: Make sure non-clickable category headings don't look like the clickable navigation links.
Accurate description text: Link text should adequately describe the destination page.
Links to Login: If site has a login area, login link should be readily available in an obvious spot.
Provides Logout link: Once logged in, a logout link should be readily available in an obvious spot.
Uses Alt attribute in images: Any image-based navigation elements must use image alt text.
No pop-up windows: Don't use pop-up windows. Please.
No new window links: Navigation links should not open into new windows or tabs.
Do not rely on rollovers: Don't rely on mouse-over changes to indicate a link is a link. Should be obvious without mousing over.
Avoid cascading menus: Avoid complicated fly-out menus that go several levels deep.
Keep scent from page to page: There should be a natural progression from page to page, even if multiple paths are used to reach a destination.
Targets expert and novice users: Navigation should be workable for newbies just as well as for those who have more experience with your industry.
Absolute links: Always use absolute links in navigation.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.

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08.09.2008 19:00:42 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Website Architectural Issues

by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This list covers several elements regarding the architectural aspects of a website that focus on building a more search engine friendly site overall.

Why this is important: Website architecture can make or break the performance of a website in the search engines. Poor architectural implementation can create numerous stumbling blocks, if not outright roadblocks, to the search engines as they attempt to crawl your website. On the other hand, a well-implemented foundation can assist both visitors and search engines as they navigate through your website, therefore increasing your site's overall performance.

What to look for:

Correct robots.txt file: Make sure robots.txt file is free from errors that can otherwise block search engines from indexing important pages.
Declare doctype in HTML: Implement proper doctype declaration across all site pages and code accordingly.
Validate HTML:You don't have to have 100% compliant code, but eliminate as many errors as possible throughout site.
Don't use frames: Find alternate ways of displaying framed content.
Alt tag usage on images: Every visual image should use alternate text.
Custom 404 error page: Make sure broken links lead to a custom 404 page to keep visitors on the site.
Printer friendly: Print a few pages to ensure that the result is readable. Create alternate CSS if necessary.
Underlined links: Hyperlinks in body copy should always be underlined.
Differing link text color: Linked text in body copy should be a different color than standard body text.
Breadcrumb usage: Be sure breadcrumbs are used and are effective at letting visitor know where they are in the site.
Nofollow cart links: Any links pointing to shopping cart, or adding products should not be followable by the search engines. Add nofollow attribute if necessary.
Robots.txt non-user pages: Any pages that are not intended to be listed in search results should be dissallowed in robots.txt.
Nofollow non-important links Don't send link juice to pages that you don't want to appear in the search results.
Review noindex usage: Consider necessary usage of the robots meta tag for pages that should not be indexed.
Validate CSS: Use proper markup for CSS to ensure proper rendering.
Check broken links: Perform a broken link check and fix all broken links.
No graphics for ON/YES, etc.: When using yes/no, on/off comparisons, don't rely solely on images to make the point.
Page size less than 50K: Keep pages small for fast loading.
Flat directory structure: Keep page/url directory structure as flat as possible while still intellectually organized.
Proper site hierarchy: Ensure navigation and directory structure adhere to a sensible hierarchy structure.
Unique titles on all pages: Each page should have its own distinct title in the tags.
Title reflects page info and heading: Title tag should reflect page content and uppermost page heading.
Unique descriptions on pages: Each page should have its own distinct meta description.
No long-tail page descriptions: Pages capturing long-tail keywords may not need a description at all.
Proper bulleted list formats: Be sure bulleted lists use proper markup (i.e.

Hard link

Site Clinic: The Most Important Question You Need To Answer

by Jackie Baker

When I ask for website submissions for this column, the very first thing I want to know is what is your goal for your website?

"My daughter says I need to have one", or "everybody has one so I should too" definitely don't count. I'm talking tangible, profitable goals. And these goals ultimately come down to just one question: what do you want people to do on your website? This is the most important question you need to ask yourself when building a new site or revamping an old one.
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Do you want people to buy something? Do you want them to contact you? Do you want them to subscribe to your news feed or blog? Or do you just want to educate people about your organization or service (aka page views)? These are the basic, tangible, bottom-line type of goals you need to determine ... and then focus your content, navigation, and design in that direction.

This week's website for review is The Riding Centre, which has just recently undergone a redesign. The goals of the organization for the website are to educate and solicit support (financial and volunteer) through contacts. While the new site is definitely better than the old one, it doesn't display these goals or paths to reaching them in the content, navigation, or design.

Drive Visitors To Your Goal Through Strong Content
As website owners, it's very easy to get hung up on a "pretty" design. We focus too much on what our homepage looks like and too little on what our copy says about us. The backbone of every effective website is its content. Before you even begin to think about coming up with a navigation scheme or design, you need to draft your content.

Comprehensive Content
The content on the Riding Centre website is basic. While it covers a lot of the key areas of the organization, it is not in-depth, complete, or particularly compelling. Before you begin writing content for your site, make a list of all of the topics you need to cover. For the Riding Center I would suggest:

About: include information on location, facilities, philosophies, non-profit status, how it is run/supported. The mission statement can be incorporated here.
History: biography of Louise Solberg, the founder, as well as information on how it has grown and changed over the years.
Staff: bios of Carolyn, the manager, as well as key staff and instructors so that visitors can learn who is caring for the horses and instructing and what their experience is.
Lessons: explain disciplines, levels, class size, when they are offered, a yearly schedule, and cost, while emphasizing that there is a waiting list. Part of the purpose is to educate potential donors of the program, so this information is necessary without advertising for more riders. Be sure to include how people can get on the waiting list.
Camps: need more details on the types of camps, the schedule for the upcoming summer, what is covered in the camps, an example of what each day looks like (even just a bullet list), costs, times, required attire, etc. Let people know how they can sign up.
Therapeutic Riding: what it is, why it's beneficial, how it works, how you can get involved as a student or volunteer.
Testimonies: from therapeutic riding students, regular lesson students, camp students, horse show participants, volunteers, and donors. Sprinkle these throughout the website on the appropriate pages. They are one of the easiest ways to add a compelling message.
Volunteering: need a page just for volunteers. Provide lists of ways they can help with descriptions of those activities including leaders and sidewalkers, horse care, facility maintenance, fundraising, etc.
Financial support: explain why you are worth supporting financially and how people can do so.
Adopt a Horse: create a separate page with pictures of the horses and cute bios of each. Give potential donors something concrete to latch on to. It doesn't even matter if more than one adopt the same horse, it's still providing the support you need.
Riding Facilities: the Riding Center has great facilities between the large outdoor ring, the cross-country course, and the availability of trails in the Glen Helen. Use pictures and descriptions of each, and include information for people who may want to trailer in for the day.
Horse Shows: dates for the year, schedules, classes, entry fees, and info for competitors on trailering in, parking, etc.
Contact: you need more than just a phone number! Be sure to include address, phone number, and an email where you can be reached. It's also a good idea to incorporate a contact form right on the site that visitors can fill it out and automatically generate an email to you.
Special Events: Always be sure to add pages for special events that answer the who/what/when/where/why questions potential participants will be looking for.

This is just a list of content to include to get started. There may be more that I am missing, but this is more than is currently available on the website. When your goal is financial support particularly, you need to have very good information about the organization and how it is benefiting people. Your donors and volunteers want to know how their money and time are making a difference.

Call To Action
If you want your visitors to reach your goal, you need to ask them! "Contact us today to adopt a horse." "Call us at _____ to inquire about volunteering." "Email _________ for more information about the Riding Centre." There needs to be a call to action on every single page of the website, and it needs to be obvious. Tell them what you want them to do, and make it easy for them to do it.

Logical Navigation
Part of driving visitors to your goal is creating a navigation scheme that is logical, descriptive, and easy to use. Once you've made a list of all of the content pages you are including on the site, organize them into logical sets. You will want to use a top level navigation and a subnavigation, and neither should be more than 5-7 links in a set. The key here is that it needs to be easy to scan so that visitors can get an idea of the content available on your site; if it's longer than 5-7 links it's too difficult. For example:

Home

About the Riding Centre

About
History
Staff
Facilities
Community Bulletin Board

Riding Programs

Lessons
Camps
Therapeutic Riding
Horse Shows
Event Calendar

Support the Riding Centre

Donate
Adopt a Horse
Volunteer

Contact Us

It's simple, easy to scan, and makes sense based on the information your visitors will be looking for.

In addition to your main navigation, be sure to incorporate links to other website pages throughout your content. If you mention therapeutic riding on the donate page, link to the therapeutic riding page. This makes it even easier for visitors to get to relevant information.

Principles of Good Design
Now that you've got solid, compelling content and a logical navigation scheme, it's finally time to look at your design. The most critical reason to pay attention to good design practice is that studies have shown that a professional looking design makes a website seem more credible to visitors ... and this will make them much more likely to reach your goal.

A few issues I see right off the bat are:

Color scheme: While the mixture of bright colors and pastels are the right shades to work well together, they appeal more to a younger audience instead of a more mature one that is most likely to be your donors and volunteers. The Riding Centre blue would be better complemented with earthier, more neutral colors to reach that older audience. There are also too many colors in general. 3-4 different colors used in consistent ways will be much more effective.
Search box: because the website isn't all that big, the search function is not really necessary. In addition, it doesn't work very well. Visitors much delete the words "search this blog..." to type in their own query. Then, the search terms aren't always included in the list of results, so it's difficult to determine if you found what you are looking for.
Website name/logo: one of the most important elements of a website design is the name or logo. Visitors may not always enter at the homepage, so it's important that it be very clear whose website this is. While having the horse jumping the logo is clever, the logo itself is much too small to be noticed. It really needs to be one of the most prominent elements on the page. The logo should always link back to the home page.
Events and bulletin board: first, check spelling! You lose credibility very fast when "bulletin" is spelled "bulliten" on every page of the website. Secondly, these are great features to include, but they have very little information. How can I post to the community bulletin board? The horse show is listed as an event, but if I click on it, there is no additional information. Make sure that your extra functionality adds to the website and is easy to understand and use.
Footer: add basic contact information, including your address, to the footer along with links to several key pages such as "about" "donate" and "volunteer" (there I go with the calls to action again!).
Missing calls to action: if getting visitors to contact you about donating or volunteering is your main goal for the website, make that very obvious and easy to do.

Make your calls to action very obvious. Incorporate them in your navigation and your content as we've already discussed, but also make them an integral part of your design. Instead of using that right hand column to display the local weather, use it to drive visitors to your goal. Use graphic buttons that grab attention and ask people to donate or volunteer, and link to the appropriate pages. Make sure the request is compelling and appeals to visitors' logic and emotion; for example "Adopt a horse today and put a smile on a child's face tomorrow."

Are They Reaching Your Goal?
Not everybody who comes to your website is going to do what you want them to do. But a good portion of them should if you are helping them along. If you haven't already, determine what the actionable goal is for your website - exactly what do you want your visitors to do - and then focus all of your content, navigation, and design efforts on driving them to it.

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05.09.2008 20:39:41 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklists for Website Design Considerations

by Stoney deGeyter

What this is about: This checklist covers multiple elements concerning the visual aspects of the website development. Some of the information here can be dismissed, depending on the type of site, but overall these are good points to consider during the design process.

Why this is important: The site design is essentially the first impression that someone gets when they land on your site. You may have all your usability and SEO elements in place, but if the design is lacking then your visitor's impression of you will be lacking as well. A visually appealing site can not only bolster trust and credibility, but it can make you stand out among other less-appealing sites in your industry.

What to look for:

Instant site identification: As soon as landing on any page the visitor must be able to tell what website they are on.
Crisp, clean image quality: Don't use old or blurry images. Keep them neat, clean and sharp.
Clean, clutter-less design: Avoid trying to do too much at once. Keep navigation and content areas clear of unnecessary clutter.
Consistent colors and type: Use the same colors and font styles from page to page.
Whitespace usage: Don't pack too much in, allow some breathing room so important areas stick out.
Minimal distractions: Be careful of images, animation and even links that pull the visitor into unwanted directions.
Targets intended audience: Make certain that your design targets your audience with appropriate colors, layout and wording.
Meets industry best practices: Design to be the best site in your industry. If there are industry-specific guidelines to be followed, be sure to do that.
Easy to navigate: Make it is easy for your visitor to find the links they need to take them to their desired pages.
Descriptive links: All links should accurately describe the destination page.
Good on-page organization: Put page information together in a logical way and keep information where it is expected to be found.
Easy to find phone number: Phone number should be easy to find regardless of page the visitor is on. The header is a great place for the phone number.
Don't link screen captures: It's not a good idea to link screen captures to other pages. Use text links or buttons.
Skip option for flash: If you use flash animations, have an option to skip it or turn it off all together.
Consistent page formatting: Use a consistent layout from page to page so the site feels like one cohesive unit.
No/minimal on-page styling: Use external CSS for all on-page styling. Only keep on the page what is specific for that page only.
Avoid text in images: Don't place quality keyword rich text in images.
Font size is adequate: Don't use excessively small fonts. Larger fonts increase readability of content.
Font type is friendly: Use fonts meant for the web, rather than fonts designed for print.
Paragraphs not too wide: Don't allow paragraphs to get too wide. Use absolute widths if necessary.
Visual cues to important elements: Be sure important links and action items stand out visually from the rest of the content.
Good overall contrast: Make sure text can be read (black on white) and colors don't bleed into each other.
Low usage of animated graphics: Avoid animated graphics unless absolutely essential to the user experience.
Uses obvious action objects: Calls to actions, links and subscribe buttons should be obvious at a glance.
Avoid requiring plugins: Don't use plugins that visitors have to download before getting the full site experience.
Minimize the use of graphics: Don't make your site graphic heavy to the point where the visitor is overwhelmed with visual eye-candy.
Understandable graphic file names: Name your images and other files in a way that makes sense if read.
No: /images/BDJ2330.jpg
Yes: /images/boys-denali-jacket.jpg
No horizontal scrolling: Make sure the design is not so wide that horizontal scrolling is required.
Non-busy background: Keep site background unobtrusive to the main content areas of the site.
Recognizable look and feel: Your site design should be distinctive to you alone. Avoid templates that are mass reproduced.
Proper image / text padding: Give enough room between images and text so they don't bump up against each other.
Uses trust symbols: Better Business Bureau, site security and other trust symbols should be in obvious (and applicable) locations.
Works on variety of resolutions: Test site to be sure it works on a variety of different screen resolutions.
Works on variety of screen widths: Test site to be sure it functions correctly on different width screens and browser windows.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
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04.09.2008 18:48:08 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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Four Good Reasons to Use the Alt Attribute

by Jennifer Laycock

The ALT attribute is one of those bits of code that's been abused since day one. People can't remember it's name, they stuff it full of keywords or they ignore it entirely. So with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, I thought it might be fun to create a graphic that tells you what you need to know about using the ALT attribute.

With that in mind, here's my visual representation of the four primary reasons to use the ALT attribute.

Let's break these down a bit further by quadrant.

Text Only Browsers

Back when the ALT Attribute was originally created, its primary purpose was to serve users of text only browsers like Lynx. Surfers would browse a site and would be served up text-only content. Where an image might have appeared, the text browser displayed the alternative text.

While it's true that very few people surf the web with text-only browsers these days, there are people who still pay for their Internet usage by bandwidth who choose to turn images off. Since it's always a good idea to design for the masses but consider the minorities, it's simply good practice to make proper use of this attribute.

Accessible Browsers

Perhaps the most important reason to make use of the ALT attribute these days is to assist visitors who rely on accessible browsers to help them navigate the web. Visually impaired readers rely on software that reads the content of a site to them. When this software comes to an image, it checks the content of the ALT attribute and reads the content as part of the page.

(Note: This is why it's essential to make proper use of the ALT attribute instead of trying to shove it full of keywords to help your rankings. Imagine the frustration of a visually impaired user being forced to listen to an endless string of keywords every time their screen reader runs across an image on your site.)

Matt Bailey of Site Logic Marketing does a great job of showing what happens when you try to stuff keywords into your ALT attribute during his talks on accessibility by playing an audio file of a screen reader on a keyword stuffed site.

Mobile Browsers

While it's true that smart phones are quickly equipping the Internet addicted public with true browsers and quick access to the web, a good deal of web-enabled phones still rely heavily on the ALT attribute. There are several reasons for this.

First, many web-enabled phones operate with an extremely limited browser. Second, some of these browsers time out early on images and some simply don't display them at all. Third, a decent portion of people who own these phones still pay for Internet access based on bandwidth so many choose to surf with images off to keep their phone bills down.

Search Engines

Of course web enabled phones and accessible browsers and text only browsers still aren't going to be enough to convince everyone to use the ALT attribute. That's where search engines come into play. Yes, the search engines read and consider the words in your ALT attribute. No, they don't play a major role in impacting your rankings.

That said, they certainly aren't going to hurt your rankings and a well crafted ALT attribute will serve the three groups I mentioned above AND will be considered by search engines, so why on earth would you ignore them? Even beyond the standard search engine listings, you need to consider image search. More and more people are taking advantage of image search these days and the engines look to things like the ALT attribute, image tags, surrounding text and the like to decide which images to display.

There's a long tail of image search as well and making proper use of your ALT attribute can go a long way toward helping you pick up the traffic.

A Few Final Notes About the Alt Attribute

1.) While it's a good idea to include a descriptive alt attribute for the graphics on your web site, it's perfectly fine to leave the alt attribute blank for an image that is purely decorative. (When I say blank, I don't mean leave it out...I simply mean leave it empty. You need an ALT attribute if you want your code to validate.) There's no reason for those decorative images to find their way into image search engines and users with accessible browsers likely don't want to hear "pretty image" repeated over and over as they surf your web site.

2.) No, the alt attribute is not called "the alt tag," despite what you'll hear coming out of the mouths of otherwise code savvy individuals. (Even I slip up and call it that now and then.)

3.) ALT is short for "alternative." The alt attribute is for offering up a word-based alternative to the image you're presenting. Imagine you're reading the page to a friend out loud. What would you say to describe the image when you get to it? There's nothing wrong with having some keywords in there, but remember the primary function of the alt attribute is to describe the image.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.

Worst - 1

Best - 5

04.09.2008 18:40:21 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist for Your Site Logo

by Stoney deGeyter

What this is about: This list contains a few items that pertain to site logo, how it's placed and its functional implementation.

Why this is important: The logo lends directly to brand identity and site identification. It also creates a certain element of appeal and professionalism in the mind of the visitor. It holds an important role in visitor assurance and navigation.

What to look for:

Displays company name clearly: Your company name should not be lost in the logo. Eliminate unnecessary eye-candy so company name is proudly displayed.
Isn't hidden among clutter: Don't clutter up your top navigation to the point that the logo is lost in the mess. Make sure it stands out from the rest of the header info.
Links to home page: Logo should always link to the home page. Even if you have a "home" navigational link many users attempt to click the logo first.
Unique and original: Make sure your logo isn't copied or near-duplicated from others. Create one that is original and unique to you alone.
Use tag line consistently across site: If you don't have a tag line, make one and use it wherever your logo is displayed.

Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.

Worst - 1

Best - 5

04.09.2008 18:39:10 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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Google Flashes Its Wares and Microsoft Ups the Keyword Ante

by Sage Lewis

According to Sage, the best things about Google's new web browser Chrome are how speedy it is and the ultimate usability of the address bar. Now, we're just waiting for the add ons and plug ins. Search Engine Roundtable talks about Google's increased ability to search Flash sites, and Microsoft updates their adCenter Keyword Research tool.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.

Worst - 1

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04.09.2008 13:40:37 - Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

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Chrome Baby!

by Sage Lewis

One word says it all this week, Chrome! Will September 2, 2008 go down in history as the day Google launched not just a mere web browser but a new operating system? Sage thinks so. He foresees Google's Chrome as a complete departure from we have used and something that will one day come pre-installed on small computers, EPCs, etc.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
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