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Search Engine Optimisation is often considered a black art - but there are some straightforward Search Engine Optimisation techniques that can make a difference.

SEO Tip 1. Newsletters and articles. A powerful Website Optimisation technique that assists Search Engine Optimisation is to offer articles and informative writing to e-zine publishers. Links often stay live in archives for years, maintaining your website optimisation for searches.

SEO Tip 2. Multiple Domains. Search Engine Optimisation can be enhanced by having multiple domains if you have a range of topics that could justify their own website. Search Engine Optimisation can result in the listing of only one page per domain for any given search. A good website optimisation tip is that you can get more directory listings by having more domains which improves your overall website optimisation.

SEO Tip 3. Article Exchanges. Article exchanges are similar to link exchanges, only much more powerful, so great for Search Engine Optimisation. Giving and receiving high quality links can really help with your Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO Tip 4. Titles For Links. A top Search Engine Optimisation tip is to title links using keywords and phrases as some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page. This will help to maximize your website optimisation.

SEO Tip 5. Site map. Large sites need a site map to maximise Website Optimisation, linked to and from every page on the site. A site map is an excellent Search Engine Optimisation tool. It enables search engine robots to locate every page in just two clicks. The navigation bar can also act as a site map proving a useful Search Engine Optimisation technique on small sites.

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Solution

“Deactivate” WPAU (Wordpress Automatic Upgrade), and then try again to upgrade from within Wordpress

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A few weeks ago I found myself in the subway of New York City. Posters and billboards from a prominent bank promoted credit card decaled the underground landscape.

These well-crafted advertisements promised ten dollars back for every $100 spent on subway fares. It gave the current economic crisis and recession as the explanation for their incredible generosity and compassion.

Everybody around me seemed thoroughly impressed by this overwhelming gesture of selfless charity; many discussed in earnest how they were planning to sign up for this card to enjoy these charitable savings. It seemed I was the only one, the Christmas Grinch of the crowd, who perceived this advertisement strategy as more cunning and brilliant than selfless and generous. What an ideal time to hook people on yet another credit card, especially with the holiday season already upon us. Obviously the long-term interest this credit card company was anticipating far overshadowed their likely short-term promotional costs.

Indeed it was a cunning and brilliant strategy, much the same, I thought to myself, as Google’s page rank system.

At first glance it seems a very wise, fair and indeed brilliant system for determining positioning within the search ranks. On closer inspection, however, it is even more brilliant and cunning than most are giving it credit.
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A website is a handy and trendy marketing tool for business. For a good website, the visual web design must be attractive and must be able to grab the attention of a large number of visitors.

Web designing is an art and has to be done with interest and involvement. When done with involvement, the user-friendly feature will automatically get incorporated in the design. Stunning web design with good programming and marketing strategies will greatly increase the visibility of the website to the Internet browsers.

From this introduction it can be easily understood that web design is the key aspect of a website. For designing a user-friendly website here are a few tips which I gained through my experience in web designing. These useful tips, when implemented, will yield good user-friendly web designs.

Here we go.

1). What does the website convey?

Your answer to the question will lead you all the way to a good and meaningful web design. For designing a website, one should have a theme. On getting to know more of what the website is about, as a designer or as a Webmaster, it will be easy for you to design accordingly.

2). Planning for the web design

Planning makes work proceed smoothly. The first step in planning is research. Surf through the web to find sites similar to yours. Do a simple yet meaningful research to understand the pulse of the visitors. On doing so, your first impression will always be the best one.

3). Setting theme and layout

After your research and planning, the vital part of your web design is the collection of assets. The first step will be theme selection and webpage layout. There are personal websites, informational websites, ecommerce websites and service providing websites. It is all in the hands of a designer to select a matching theme to satisfy the need and implement it attractively.

4). Web Page Design

Neat and informative web pages are the most visited pages on the net. To design such a web page, the important elements to be taken note of are the header, footer, text area and the navigational area. Avoid using animated/flashy headers and navigational icons. Use a uniform header and footer to give a professional look to the website. These, when designed with care and when followed, will result in good web design.
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Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing to do in business is to get things done: so little time, so many obstacles. And when it comes to marketing it gets even worse, after all there are all those administrative details that need to be dealt with, emails, inquiries, suppliers, and on and on. Finding the time to devote to creating a sustained, focused marketing effort seems like it’s near impossible. But the biggest obstacles of all are some of your trusted colleagues and advisors; you know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that are a royal pain-in-the-ass. So lets just call them on the proverbial carpet and fire their butts; but first let’s check the files and find out who they are.

File One: Mr. Inertia
Everybody knows this guy. He’s the one who hasn’t had a new idea in five years. This is the fellow who thinks everything is just fine the way it is, so let’s not rock-the-boat, everything is just hunky-dory, thank you very much.

You have to treat your business like it’s a shark: no standing still, if you don’t keep moving forward, you won’t survive. It’s a competitive world out there, and in the Web-centric marketing environment, you’re not only competing with the shop down the street, you’re competing with the whole world, so standing still is not an option. Mr. Inertia, you’re fired!

File Two: Mr. Know-It-All
I love this guy, he knows everything, he’s done everything, and if you ask him he’ll tell you he invented it. It doesn’t matter what it is or even if it relates to your business, he’s done it all and seen it all, or so he says. This is Mr. Know-It-All; he stopped learning, stopped improving, and stopped listening years ago.

Despite all his self-proclaimed knowledge and insight, this guy hasn’t contributed anything meaningful to the marketing effort since a Blackberry was something you ate. Mr. Know-It-All, you’re fired!

File Three: Mr. My-Business-Is-Unique
We all like to feel that we have created something unique, something different, something that no one else does. The fact is business is business; it’s very dangerous to think that your company is so unusual that it’s irreplaceable, so different that you don’t need to market, so special that branding isn’t required, and so singular that positioning is a waste of time.

Don’t be fooled, finding your ‘mark of differentiation’ is just as much an exercise in marketing as it is an exercise in product development. Mr. My-Business-Is-Unique, you’re fired!

File Four: Mr. We-Always-Do-It-This-Way
At one point in my career I ran a company that manufactured photo albums. We had a large competitor who always undercut our price no matter what we sold our product for. In an effort to find out how they were gaining this advantage, we cut open one of their new albums and found that they were using cheap corrugated cardboard as a stiffener instead of the more expensive traditional 80-point board everybody in the industry used.

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If you have a web-based business or if a significant portion of your business is performed on the internet through your website, then the best advertising and marketing is completed by submitting your website to a search engine.
No amount of press releases, newspaper or radio ads, banner ads, spam emails or newsletters will achieve the same results, although it may be effective in a small proportion.
Beware of companies that promise an automatic submission of your website to hundreds of search engines which are most times nothing more than false promises. The best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and inclusion is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine companies and directories.

As with many things, researching or getting referrals from other companies that have had great success with an SEO company is always the safest way to ensure that your website is going to be in genuinely caring hands. There are so many websites on the internet trying to make a quick buck by any means necessary.
Business dealings with the wrong types of people can be very cut-throat if you’re not careful in considering and researching where you decide to go in finding your marketing partners for life.

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Most small business owners/operators would probably agree that developing a stand-out brand identity is an essential part of the marketing package for corporates and large companies.

Many would add that branding is not that important for small businesses and see it as an additional expense on the P&L. So they head off to the local printer or graphic designer who designs a logo (sometimes even for free) that gets used on stationary, vehicles and other marketing materials.

From our experience in this field, we find that most logos designed for small businesses are simply graphic devices and not actually brands in the true sense of the word, and portray little about the value proposition of the company, its personality and service promise.

In actual fact, development of a meaningful, representative and outstanding brand identity is just as critical for small businesses and if properly executed, can actually be a powerful competitive advantage.
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Doing business in the 21st century will eventually require every company to have a website in one form or another. Whether your site is interactive or simply informational, there are steps you can take to ensure you’re on the right track to creating a successful web presence, seven to be exact (at least from our humble perspective).

While following these steps will not guarantee a successful website, it is certainly an intelligent place to start.

1. Perform a Business Analysis.
What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan? What… no business plan? Develop a business plan first before you go any further into the process.

Your business plan will be your roadmap to success, so make sure the objective of your website fits into your overall business plan. I’ll say it again, BUSINESS PLAN, don’t have one? GET ONE!

2. Perform some research, also known as, the Research phase.
Research your competition and industry sites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Don’t look to “reinvent the wheel”, take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.
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When we last left Yahoo!, Jerry Yang (CEO) and the rest of the board had just spurned Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid for the supposedly greener pastures of potential deals with AOL, News Corporation, and/or Google. The rejection of Microsoft’s bid also put the current board on a collision course with Carl Icahn in what looked to be a battle for control of Yahoo!’s board of directors.

Trials and Tribulations

After spending millions to buy 68.7 million shares of Yahoo!, Icahn was set to nominate his own slate of directors for Yahoo’s board at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Icahn would use Yahoo! shareholders’ fury over the botched Microsoft deal to win votes for his board nominees and take over Yahoo!’s board. Yahoo! made a preemptive strike however and managed to appease Icahn by granting him three seats on Yahoo!’s board of directors in July. But what of the purported deals with AOL, News Corp, and Google?

Top Positions in the Web’s Largest Article Directory

Well, to date, the AOL and News Corp deals never materialized, at least publicly. However, Google and Yahoo! agreed to a partnership whereby Google would deliver ads on Yahoo!’s network. The kicker in the deal was that Google would pay Yahoo! more than Yahoo! could make with its own ads, meaning Google was essentially buying market share from Yahoo!.
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