Above Ground Designs

SEO Essex: Using a Blog as a Search Marketing Tool

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:54:07 +0000

So your website is up and you're planning to set up a blog to support and help promote it. There are two major ways on how to utilize the power of blogging to boost search rankings. One, you can host the blog right in your main website. This basically means that your blog becomes a page/section of your main website. And two, you can host your blog in a totally different URL. These two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. A lot of these are dependent on the niche where your main website belongs. For instance, most SEO firms seem to prefer hosting their blogs as a page in their main websites. This is due in part to the fact that SEO companies are service-based firms. Majority of service-based websites prefer hosting blogs right in their sites.

The great thing about blogs is that the search engines seem to rank them higher in the SERPS compared to static websites. This is because blogs get updated regularly with new content. This means they get crawled and indexed by the search engines on a regular basis as well. For our example of an SEO Essex website, having a blog attached to it will make it look updated and active. A lot of online users get turned off by sites that don't get updated often. A blog also allows visitors to participate in the discussions on your site via comments. This is a good way to establish personal relationships with your established and potential customers.

Of course, you still have to follow the rule of quality over quantity. One high quality post is much better than a dozen crappy posts. Write for people first, search engines second. Also, always stay on-topic. For our example of an SEO Colchester blog, 99% of the blog posts you write should revolve around SEO and online marketing.

Various Web Hosting types, shared, vps and dedicated server

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:55:26 +0000

Web hosting has become a core element of World Wide Web. A person having a website needs a web host in order to get his site online. Without a web host it’s not possible to make your website accessible worldwide. As the trends of website technology are keep on changing, the web hosting companies have to introduce various different plans according to the nature of websites. Initially there was only a shared hosting plan which is still the most commonly used hosting plan. Later on they introduced virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated server hosting plans to meet the requirements of latest website technology. All these plans have different features which suits different type of websites, so in order to select one you have to define your requirements first. By defining your website requirements you’ll be able to pick a suitable hosting plan. I’m going to discuss the features of various hosting plans which surely going to help you out.

Shared Web Hosting:

As I said shared web hosting plan is the most commonly used plan. In shared plan you have to share a server space and bandwidth with other websites with certain restrictions. Using this plan you are being provided with user friendly control panel which allow you to add or remove content from your website quite easily. So if you are a newbie and planning to host a personal website you should go for shared plan and get familiar with the hosting environment. People are more into it because of its affordability but at the same time security is a big concern. As you website is on shared server so you can’t ensure 100% security and privacy that’s why people having business website don’t prefer shared hosting.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting:

VPS is based on a single physical server which is subdivided in to various virtual dedicated servers (VDS) based on software. It provides you with a virtual dedicated environment having your own operating system and server configurations even you are sharing a physical server. It is considered to be more secure reliable because of its virtual dedicated environment and controls the website traffic efficiently because of its scalability and efficient resource utilization.

While using VPS you can utilize all the server resources when needed. Whenever there is a rise in traffic it scales up and can utilize all the available resources of the server to fulfill your traffic needs vice versa when the traffic goes down it automatically scales down and leave the extra resources. Using this feature it keeps your website stable and prevent it from being crashed. So people having business websites should opt of VPS hosting plan.

Dedicated Server Hosting:

Dedicated server is a big computer system reserved for a single website or account, which means you don’t have to share anything. It provides more security and privacy than any other hosting plan. Dedicated server comes with a cpanel which provides you more control over server you can have your own OS, can install desire application software’s and configure your security according to your requirements. It is considered to be the most expensive hosting plan that’s why people having large business websites use dedicatedserver hosting as they require more space, bandwidth and security.
So based on their features you can select a suitable hosting plan for your website.

Promoting your website: Increase traffic to your website

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:58:22 +0000

Although it is not strictly web designing, promoting your website in the right way is the key to increasing the traffic to your website. Promoting a website involves placing ads in the right classified services and so forth. However, there are several things that you can do to your website that will make it among the top listings in popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

The first aspect to consider when optimizing your site for search engines is the content. You will have to maintain unique content with a high keyword frequency so it shows up as a relevant search. In addition, if you place ads with Google, your website can even be listed as Sponsored Search when the appropriate keywords are searched for. Apart from maintaining keyword frequency, you should have several back links to your website. This is possible with a layout that has a specific section of back links to various sites that will return the favor by having your referral in their homepages.

There was never a case when an attractive website wasn’t successful in attracting traffic. If visitors like what they see, they will come back for more. However, they need to find it in the first place, and preferably in proper places on the internet. Before designing your website, look at websites that are listed high on search engines and learn from their designs.

Flattering Designs: The key to higher traffic

admin — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:54:27 +0000

One of the first things people notice when they visit any website is the design. Bland and run of the mill designs are not very eye catchy and usually put off visitors. That being said, having too many colors or using a lot of pictures in unnecessary places doesn’t do you much good either. There is no such thing as an ideal design for a website. It all depends on the target audience of it. For example, if you are having articles that are informative and act as a guide for something professional, best go for a simplistic layout or design with only the necessary amount of pictures. On the other hand, a website aimed at kids should be colorful but only within acceptable limits as even kids can be put off by an overdose of bright colors.

Coming to the layout, if you want the site to be professional, best go for a simple one that has content in sequential order or any order that you see fit. It is frowned upon if there is no logical progression in the content for readers. In addition, websites get more traffic and are listed higher on search engines when they have unique content. While this has got nothing to do with design, it is helpful to have the best content in quality design to make a lasting impression on viewers.

Website structure: Laying out every page of your site

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:53:38 +0000

When designing a website, the first and most important thing to consider is the structure of it. By this, we do not mean the layout of the page but the whole structure of the website and how various pages of the website are linked to each other. Depending on the content of your website, you will have a variety of pages and it is important that all of them are properly accessible for your visitors so you get the best out of your traffic.

Usually, websites have a homepage leading to the main categories which lead to the sub categories and so on. However, with a structure like this, too much isn’t given away but a visitor to a website wants to get as much as possible from the homepage. One alternative is to design a menu that categorizes everything properly and perhaps even lets out a brief description of the various pages. There are several web software that offer menu building options and it is a good idea to go for one unless you can script the entire code by yourself.

When sorting the pages for your website, have a sitemap that will guide visitors to exactly what they are looking for. In addition, a referral back to the main category or the homepage on every page is a wise idea.

How To Save Money On Web Hosting

admin — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that web hosting is not as expensive as you might think? The problem that a lot of people have is they don’t know what web hosting package to get and on top of that they don’t want to pay the fees no matter what they cost. The first thing you need to understand about web hosting is there is one very easy way to save money on the fees without having to do much.

The best way to save money on the cheap web hosting is to simply pay the full yearly amount upfront. What most people don’t know is that just by paying the full amount upfront you will pay roughly the amount of 7 months of payments. The nice thing about only having to pay for 7 months of hosting upfront is that you will get a full years worth of hosting because of it. My advice is to pay for as much hosting as you can because the more money you give a hosting company the less you will have to pay in the end. I know this may be a little more than you had in mind at first but just think about it, you will save a bundle.