Have a glance at the simple steps that you can follow to have a good SEO friendly domain name:

Insert Keywords in the domain name: Keywords trigger the success of domain names by playing an active role in making the entire SEO process run at a higher speed and at a better Click Through Rate (CTR). These keyword-rich domain names serve as sign post and build strong website-niche relationship. Also if the URL of the website is constituted by keywords, Google indexes it fast and the website theme also appears uniform throughout.

Choose a top level domain (TLD) name: TLDs continue to rule the Internet business, especially .com (the most extensively used TLD). Since it is the most popular domain extension, you must try to get your domain name ending with .com as it would make your users recall it fast. Although there are instances of many successful websites with other domain extensions too, yet .com happens to be the most preferred choice of netizens across the globe.

Insert SEO friendly Inbound Links: Links are highly recommended since these play a considerable role in SEO. The keyword-rich domain names give way to SEO friendly inbound links as many netizens try to connect with your website using your domain name. If your website is devoid of SEO friendly inbound links, the search engines draw an inference that your website has no relevant content. However, the inbound links that you acquire must be quality links as poor links can adversely affect your SEO endeavors. Hence, stay away from ‘Black Hat SEO’.

Easy-to-remember domain names: A domain name must be short and easy to remember so that the users recall it fast and there is heavy web traffic to your website. There would be increased scope of conversion and online sales for your business. Avoid tricky and complicated domain names as they might work against the success of your online business.

Avoid hyphenated domain names: It’s recommended that you must avoid hyphenated domain names as these give rise to a large number of complications and users tend to forget the positioning of hyphens in the domain name very easily. The results can be very detrimental since a large number of your visitors can be misled to other similar named websites, all without any hyphens.

Attract great Type-In Traffic: Some of the users have a tendency to type the keyword directly into their URL bar and add a ‘.com’ extension to the same. Hence, I’d advise you to select a domain name that comprises of an exact keyword that matches your business as the chances of higher web traffic get a remarkable boost.

The thing to bear in mind about most web team managers is that they hate the process of hiring people. That’s why we don’t work in the HR department. I would much rather be working on something to do with our web sites than wading through a sea of resumes.

I’m also really busy. It’s a sad fact, but you probably have about 30 60 seconds for me to review your resume, before I make a snap decision as to whether to put you in the shortlist category or the discard pile.

That’s the reality of the situation. As an applicant you’re dealing with someone who’s doing something that they really don’t want to be doing and doesn’t have the time to do it either. So you have to make sure that your application stands out.

1. Be Focused

Don’t tell me everything you did since you started working – I’m sure your life’s story is interesting to someone, just not me; especially with a pile of resumes to plough through on top of my regular work load.

Focus on jobs that are relevant to the position (preferably leave out ones that are not web-related). And within those jobs, focus on the activities that are relevant – make sure they’re not hidden among projects and work about which I am not interested because it doesn’t relate to the position.

Don’t worry about accounting for every working moment since you left college – I really don’t care about that. I just care about what you’ve done that is relevant to the position.

2. Use Lists

As I mentioned, I receive a lot of resumes for positions I post and so I tend to skim over them initially to get a sense of whether the applicant has the general skills and experience.

Lists help me to easily scan through your resume and pick out the highlights.

3. Sell Yourself!

Make it obvious why you’re right for the position. If the position is for a web producer, tell me about projects you managed, the tasks you were responsible for and how everything ran like a well-oiled machine.

If you’re a developer, tell me about your expertise in whatever programming language and the amazing applications you’ve built.

4. Be Human

Stay away from business speak and talk to me like a real person. Try to inject a little personality into your resume in order to differentiate it from all the others. Too much business jargon just makes my eyes glaze over.

5. Be Concise

Remember, it’s quality not quantity. It’s hard for me to see the important stuff if it’s hidden in a forest of words.

Feel free to use appropriate abbreviations and acronymns (e.g. IA rather than information architecture – if I don’t know what IA means, do you really want to be working for me?)

6. Provide URLs

If you want to work in the web industry you are going to need to provide examples of work you’ve done or sites you’ve managed. Unless you’re applying for a job as a graphic designer, providing me with screenshots, no matter how pretty, isn’t going to cut it – I need to be able to look at real sites that you’ve worked on.

Provide links to your sites so that I can look behind the scenes at the code, check out the IA and see how usable they are. Don’t forget to point out the highlights within those sites so that I see the things you are most proud of.

If you haven’t got URLs to provide me, then frankly, you haven’t got much of a hope.

Interview Tips

Congratulations, you made it through to the big day. Here’s how to win me over in person.

1. Dress Appropriately

Once I’ve hired you, I really don’t care what you wear as long as you do great work. However, if I don’t know you, part of the impression I form about you will be determined by your appearance.

You don’t have to wear a suit – business casual is fine. Do stay away from jeans and trainers. Just look smart, okay – it shows you care. If you’re not sure what to wear, remember that as a rule of thumb that it’s better to be overdressed than underdressed.

2. Sell Yourself!

Are you detecting a theme here? For goodness sake, sell yourself. This is probably the most important tip once you get through to this stage, and the area in which most candidates fell down. In a couple of interviews it became a real struggle for me to stay interested in the conversation.

Make sure that you tell me why it is that I should hire you. If I don’t ask you about a particular piece of experience, make sure you tell me about it. Believe me, I want to know – however, I may not ask the right questions to bring it out without you helping me.

3. Ask Questions

The interview is a two-way conversation. I want to see if you will be a good fit for my team and my organization, but you should also want to see if the job and the company will be a good fit for you.

Don’t appear as if you’ll take the job without properly understanding what it entails and what the organization is like. So ask questions, both about the job and the immediate team/department and the organization in general.

4. Do Some Research

Research the company. Research the web site. Come up with some ideas about improvements you might make or areas you might look into, in case you’re asked (but, see #5, below, first).

See if you can find anything about the members of the web team – perhaps they have personal blogs or have developed other web sites (Google is your friend here).

Don’t forget to show me that you’ve done some research – drop it into the conversation somehow. It shows me that you’re interested enough in the position to go the extra mile. Also, show me that you have a strong interest / passion for the web.

5. Don’t Criticize My Site

Come up with ideas about improvements you might make to the site, but don’t critique my web site unless you’re asked. Don’t start telling me what’s wrong with my web site or what you would change unless I ask you for some ideas.

You don’t know what process we have gone through to develop the site, what issues we’ve faced, who our audiences are, or the goals of our site.

Developing any large web site is an exercise in organizational politics and compromise, and to critique it without knowing the history of why things were done as they were will only succeed in getting my back up. Believe me, this one is important.

6. Bring Stuff to Show

Bring a portfolio of your work and be prepared to leave some examples with me. Depending on the position, you could bring screenshots of sites you’ve designed, code samples, process flowcharts, IA diagrams, functional specs, creative briefs, writing samples, and so on.

Make sure they look nice (color, nice paper, in a plastic folder or something similar). Don’t bring too much, just enough examples to provide more evidence of the quality of your work and to show that you are prepared and organized.

Just whatever you do, don’t turn up empty handed.

7. Follow Up Afterwards

Send me an email saying how you enjoyed meeting me, how keen you are and reemphasize how your skills fit the position.

It’s probably not going to make a great deal of difference if I didn’t like you that much, but it might help swing the balance if I am weighing you against another candidate.

Websites Date

Just like hairstyles, websites date. What was all the rage a couple of years ago is now seen as passé.

Sometimes this is down to design trends – like the 3D buttons and interfaces that were so popular a few years back when graphics tools made it easy to create bevel and emboss styles. Other times it’s because the web is maturing and web designers develop a better understanding of what visitors want. For instance, Flash intro pages were all the rage until web designers realised that users didn’t like them and wanted to get straight to the content. Flash introductions are the beehive hairdo of the web design world: dated, impractical and utterly pointless.

So if your site is looking a little old, tired and sporting a beehive, it’s probably time for a makeover!

Stay ahead of your competition

The web makes it easy for people to find information about your company and services at the click of a button. The down side is that this holds true for your competitors as well.

It’s important for your website to make an impact and stay ahead. Surfers are an impatient and fickle lot and usually make up their mind about a site in a few seconds. Your website needs to out-do your competition or you’ll face losing valuable clients. Spend a bit of time looking at your competition; analysing competitor’s sites is one of the most important parts of the redesign process. How does your website compare to theirs? If they are ‘better’ than yours it’s definitely time for a redesign. If your site is of a similar standard you may think it unecessary to redesign, but it’s much better to be leading the pack than following.

A timely redesign could enable you to steal a march on your competitors rather than waiting for them to redesign and then having to play catch-up.

The design does not reflect your brand or the aspirations of your clients

When people visit your site, they see it as a reflection of your company. If your site looks professional and is full of helpful content they will see you as professional and helpful. Likewise, if the site looks amateur and out-of-date they’ll make the same assumptions about you. This is why it’s so important for your site to reflect the identity and ideals (brand) of your company.

But your site shouldn’t just reflect how you wish to be seen, it’s important that it also reflects the ideals and aspirations of your clients. People like doing business with people they can relate to, feel they are similar to or who make them feel good about themselves.

Sending a strong clear message about who you are and what you stand for makes clients want to do business with you. If your site is sending the wrong messages, it’s time to get a redesign.

A site that reflects where you’re heading, not where you’ve been.

It’s a bit of a cliché, but we do live in a fast paced world these days. Markets change, clients get more savvy and businesses evolve to meet new demands. If your site is more than a couple of years old the chances are it’s more a reflection of where you’ve been than where you’re heading.

Redesigning your site not only gives you the chance to align it with your current message, it also gives you the opportunity to think about where you’re heading and to plan for the future. It allows you to sit down and really work out a strategy, learn about your clients, your competition, and set new business goals and success criteria.

Your website should be a reflection of where you are now and where you are heading, not where you have just been. After all wouldn’t you prefer to do business with somebody who is looking to the future rather than being stuck in the past?

You want to update the content yourself, to keep your site fresh

One of the best things about using the internet rather than traditional channels is the ability it gives to respond to market changes, new business opportunities or customer requirements. You don’t have to wait until your current brochure run is used up before you make changes; you can simply update your site whenever you want. Well that’s the theory at least, but how many websites have you seen where the content looks like it hasn’t been changed in months, or even years?

Often this is because the websites have been built so they can only be updated by the person who designed them. This is fine for some small sites but it really doesn’t make the most of the benefits of doing business on the web. If your site’s content is stale and out-of-date, it’s certainly worth having your site redesigned to enable people in your organisation to update content themselves.

Fresh website content is an extremely important factor in encouraging people to revisit your site and can help give you the edge over your competition. Why would anybody come back to your site if it hasn’t changed in months?

Attract more visitors

“If you build it, they will come” may have held good for Kevin Costner, (Field of Dreams) but it doesn’t cut the mustard where websites are concerned.

Just because something is there doesn’t mean people will come and use it. If people have never heard of your site, don’t know what’s there and don’t know how to get there why on earth would you expect them to visit it?

A site redesign can help you attract more visitors in a number of ways. Building search engine ‘findability’ into a new site is much more effective than trying to increase your findability once a site has been built. Your site also needs to offer visitors useful information that helps them achieve their goals.

If your visitors’ goals – and your business objetives – are not the focus of your website, it’s time to think about a redesign.

Increase your turnover, get prospects to convert, shoppers to buy

It’s amazing to think how many websites still get built without any goals or success criteria being set. These sites will get visually “designed”, existing content will be “dropped in” and then 6 months later it’ll be dead in the water.

If this is ringing any bells then it’s time you thought about having your site redesigned.

While it’s relatively simple to build a basic website, it’s a much more involved proposition to build a website that actually performs.

The first step is to set some goals and success criteria for your site. What exactly are you trying to achieve and how will you know how when you’ve achieved it? Who are your users, what do you want them to do and what do they want to do?

With firm goals and an understanding of your visitors you can make informed decisions on how the site should look, work and sound. Does the site design back up your goals? Does the navigation encourage people to click on the section you want them to click on? How about the content – does it have the right tone? Does it encourage people to buy that product, register for that newsletter, read that article?

Make the site easier to use, help clients find what they (and you) want

We’ve all been there before. You’ve found a website through a search engine or by following a link on a site. You’re after something specific but try as you might you just can’t find what you’re looking for. It’s almost as though the site is conspiring against you and you come away feeling that it’s your fault that you couldn’t work out were the thing was.

Well here’s a news flash: It was not your fault, it’s the fault of the website! First and foremost, a website should be easy to use and easy to navigate. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, if the site navigation frustrates you or makes you feel stupid, the website is not doing it’s job.

Site designers and site owners sometimes fail to see these problems because they are so familiar with the site design, content and navigation. Other times it’s simply down to a lack of planning and bad design.

Whatever the reason, a site redesign will enable you to listen to your users, find out what helps them (and what frustrates them) and build a site that is easier to use and thus more effective.

Make the content more relevant, communicate with your clients more effectively

You may have noticed a common theme appearing amongst our top reasons for a redesign and now it’s now time to hammer this home. Having relevant content is one of the most important things about having a web presence.

Relevant content does not mean just repurposing old brochures, leaflets and adverts. It means providing content that is interesting and useful to your site users while supporting your core goals.

Content needs to be written specifically for the web. Why? Simply because people don’t read a website like they read printed material. Most people scan over web pages trying to determine if the page is going to be of any use. Only once they have decided it looks useful will they start to read the page and even then many people just skim read.

This is why web copy has to be short, punchy and to the point. The main concepts need to stand out and not get hidden halfway down the page.

People tend to use the web to get factual information, not marketing blurb. Nobody wants to feel like they are being marketed to (even when they are!), they want to feel that their needs are being understood and met.

Does your site force visitors to wade through pages of marketing fluff? A site redesign would give you the opportunity to re-address how you communicate with your clients and to write copy that is simple, on target and more effective.

A great marketing and PR opportunity

People have short memories and attention spans. They need to keep being reminded about things. There is a common belief that it takes around seven ‘touches’ (interactions between your brand and a potential customer) before they become a client.

Having a site redesign is a great opportunity to contact your existing customers, potential customers and the press. It gives you an excuse to contact them and let them know what you’re doing, what’s new and that you’re keeping things up-to-date.

Simply put, a site redesign can be a great marketing and PR tool for your business.

No catch, other than my asking you to “Retweet” and let folks know about this freebie.

And my motive is transparent and rather simple.

I want to meet and network with new folks on Twitter, and I figure the best way to do it is by giving away something of value with no strings attached.

Perhaps later, when you’re interested in web development or any of the services I offer, you’ll remember me and decide to do business with me.

But that’s about it.

Here’s How To Get Your FREE Copy Immediately…

1. Follow @chancelay on Twitter (that’s me!)

2. Re-Tweet this exact message:

RT @chancelay is giving away a must-have collection of photoshop styles, graphics, and fonts. Get it FREE: http://bit.ly/AEvUb

You MUST re-tweet the exact message above, with no changes, or this won’t work. To open up Twitter with the message already pre-filled for you, click here (then all you have to do is click “send”).

3. Within 10 minutes or so of your RT, I’ll send you a Direct Message with the download link. That’s it! I won’t ask for your email. I’ll offer you the option of getting Master Resale Rights if you wish, but you don’t have to do anything else for the Personal Edition.

Forget article marketing or other free methods of building your traffic empire – with twitter, it takes only a few minutes to set up a high powered, automated system that will generate an unstoppable flood of traffic to your website, at absolutely no cost.

And this isn’t just generic, “throwaway” traffic … with twitter, you can instantly dig down deep into your niche markets and suck in as many targeted leads as your server can handle.

Better yet, with just a few simple tweaks to your twitter account, you can instantly start building massive lists of flaming hot prospects, people who are desperately searching for the very products or services you offer.

Here, let your reader know that you understand their problem and how it feels to have that problem, or to want to achieve a particular goal. Build empathy with them by telling exactly how it feels to have that problem, or to want that goal. 

Don’t just tell them you understand – show them by describing their actual feelings!

Emphasize that their problem could get a lot worse, or how their frustration will build if they don’t do something about it. Paint an ugly picture.

“Twitter is a fool proof marketing tool”…

You’ve been told how profitable pay per click marketing can be, right? It sends an instant flood of traffic to your website, and “if” you structure it properly, tweak it daily, monitor it regularly and keep your account consistently funded with hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, you can actually make it work for you.

But who wants to pay for every click or visitor to your website? Who has time to split test, monitor results and stay on top of your campaigns so that you aren’t throwing money away on poor converting advertisements?

Well, here’s the thing, Twitter has the power and global outreach of a laser targeted PPC advertisement, but with one stark difference:

TWITTER IS FREE!

But social marketing hasn’t always been easy, has it?

With other sites, you have to consistently stay active, meaning that you have to spend hours upon hours interacting with the community, building your brand and doing all that you can to stand out from the crowded community.

If you’ve ever tried marketing your website within clogged up communities like Facebook, you know just how difficult (if not impossible) it is to get your message out to your target audience.

With applications, messages and posts crammed at everyone who enters the community, the chances of your message ever being seen is slim to none.. but with twitter, everything you’ve ever thought about social marketing is about to change.

“Twitter is the automated secret weapon of successful marketers”..

With twitters simplistic interface, messages are put in front of thousands of prospective leads quickly and easily, without the clutter and nonsense of most other social communities. Within just a few short minutes, you could start building massive lists of targeted subscribers, or flood your websites and blogs with an unstoppable flood of traffic!

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE!!!!

Be bold. Use the <b> </b> tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example of deep linking, in this case to my personal happiness workbook.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on this web site monitoring page

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It’s called the navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom of Last Minute Florida Villas is like a mini-site map?

There you have it: 10 of the 52 Top SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes with Don’t Get Banned By the Search Engines:

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.