It is no secret that the future of the Internet is the Social Web, and that the future is this very instant. Millions of people and businesses are interacting, sharing, and collaborating on social networking sites, media communities, social bookmarking sites, blogs, and more. They are doing it right now, 24/7, and you and your business want to be a part of this powerful movement with as professional and efficient a presence as possible while keeping your expenses minimal.
We at Rain Maker Creative Studios want to helpyou how to use the tools of Web 2.0 to build a successful Web presence. From Squidoo to YouTube, Facebook to WordPress, wikis to widgets, blogs to RSS feeds, business owners, authors, publishers, students, PR and marketing professionals can learn to apply and integrate these tools by themselves. Gone are the days of relying on Web developers! We will arm you with the nuts and bolts of the new, open-source Internet through hands-on, real-world examples. And, also we will show you other resources, directories of Social Websites, and fillable forms and worksheets to help you map your strategy. You will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is!
Business Driven WebSites
Friday, January 14, 2011
Search Engine Friendly Flash
Ok here the scoop on how to make your website in flash search engine friendly.You know that Macromedia Flash from Adobe is great for making websites interactive, interesting, and fun to explore. But you may have been hesitant to use Flash out of the concern that the Big Three search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo!) will not be able to find your site—that is, direct web searches to your site. Rest assured that you can use Flash in your site, even quite heavily, and still get good search results. What follows are a few simple tips to help you achieve search engine visibility.
One great solution if you have only a very small amount of text in your Flash animation is to place that text in the <title> tag of the HTML page. Search engines weight page titles pretty highly, and this allows you to maintain a bare-page aesthetic.
Another, if less elegant, solution is to put all the text "below the fold" so that although it is contained in the HTML page, the initial experience of visiting your page will be the effect of a bare page containing just the Flash animation.
When your site requires whole paragraphs of text, you're better off putting it in the HTML, both from a search engine perspective and a user experience perspective. You can still use Flash animations on this page, of course; many pages seamlessly integrate Flash and HTML to the point that it can be quite difficult to tell where the Flash ends and the HTML begins.
Keeping text in the HTML makes it easier for search engines to find the text and make sense of it. It also makes it easier for users to search through the text within the browser, print it, or copy and paste it.
There is a simple solution to this: Make sure that any Flash navigation also appears somewhere on the page as links within the HTML. You can accomplish this easily by putting links at the bottom or left side of a page. These standard practices are unobtrusive and are also helpful to the human visitors to your site, not just search engine robots.
One good practice that helps search engines navigate your site—whether or not you make heavy use of Flash—is providing a site index page your home page links to. Again, human visitors get a sense of the layout and content of your site and web spiders definitely have an easier time hitting all the pages.
Another way to make sure search engines find all the pages in your site is to submit the page URLs directly to the search engines. There are different ways to do this; some are free and some are not. Check out the search engines' support websites for more information (see the links at the end of this article).
Although this can provide a great user experience visually and cause faster "page" loads, it has its drawbacks. For human visitors, it is impossible to bookmark a particular page because going back to that same link will take them to the beginning of the Flash experience. Similarly, it is impossible for search engines to understand each new state in the Flash experience as a different page and to link into that state.
In some cases, the fluid, fast user experience may outweigh the drawbacks of no bookmarking and no search engine indexing. It really depends on the specifics of your site. For example, if you are loading Level 3 of a Flash game, you likely have no reason for this level to be found independently by visitors.
To add metadata, select Modify > Document (or click the Size button in the Property inspector) to open the Document Properties dialog box and then enter a title and description for your SWF. While this is a new feature, this metadata can actually be output to any version of SWF, not just that generated by Flash 8.
Today's search engines do not actively consume this information. However, we have high hopes that they will in time, so we suggest you start embedding the data now. It is also a good idea to put this kind of information in your HTML, either in your page's title and description metadata or in text within the page.
For more information on this feature, search on "metadata" in the Flash 8 Help (note that this will also bring up results for the unrelated FLV metadata) or read Creating or Opening a Document and Setting Properties in the Flash LiveDocs.
Search Engine Watch (check the "Search Engine Resources" section)
Google Webmaster Central
MSN Search (check the "Industry" and "For Site Owners" links)
Yahoo! Help
Put text in HTML
For visual effect, you might add a SWF file in some web pages and offer little or no text on the page. In the common case of a splash animation on the front page of a website, there may be a few animated words in the Flash content that move on and off the Stage. While some search engines will be able to find this text, your site will be seen better by those search engines if they can also find the same or similar text within the HTML page.One great solution if you have only a very small amount of text in your Flash animation is to place that text in the <title> tag of the HTML page. Search engines weight page titles pretty highly, and this allows you to maintain a bare-page aesthetic.
Another, if less elegant, solution is to put all the text "below the fold" so that although it is contained in the HTML page, the initial experience of visiting your page will be the effect of a bare page containing just the Flash animation.
When your site requires whole paragraphs of text, you're better off putting it in the HTML, both from a search engine perspective and a user experience perspective. You can still use Flash animations on this page, of course; many pages seamlessly integrate Flash and HTML to the point that it can be quite difficult to tell where the Flash ends and the HTML begins.
Keeping text in the HTML makes it easier for search engines to find the text and make sense of it. It also makes it easier for users to search through the text within the browser, print it, or copy and paste it.
Put links in HTML
Flash is an awesome way to present complex navigation options to users using drop-down menus or other innovative controls. However, it can be difficult for web crawlers to find links when they are embedded only within the Flash animation.There is a simple solution to this: Make sure that any Flash navigation also appears somewhere on the page as links within the HTML. You can accomplish this easily by putting links at the bottom or left side of a page. These standard practices are unobtrusive and are also helpful to the human visitors to your site, not just search engine robots.
One good practice that helps search engines navigate your site—whether or not you make heavy use of Flash—is providing a site index page your home page links to. Again, human visitors get a sense of the layout and content of your site and web spiders definitely have an easier time hitting all the pages.
Another way to make sure search engines find all the pages in your site is to submit the page URLs directly to the search engines. There are different ways to do this; some are free and some are not. Check out the search engines' support websites for more information (see the links at the end of this article).
Separate SWF files onto different web pages
Some websites built entirely in Flash use a single web page with a Flash animation embedded within it. When users interact with the site, new views are displayed within the Flash animation rather than by loading a new, discrete web page.Although this can provide a great user experience visually and cause faster "page" loads, it has its drawbacks. For human visitors, it is impossible to bookmark a particular page because going back to that same link will take them to the beginning of the Flash experience. Similarly, it is impossible for search engines to understand each new state in the Flash experience as a different page and to link into that state.
In some cases, the fluid, fast user experience may outweigh the drawbacks of no bookmarking and no search engine indexing. It really depends on the specifics of your site. For example, if you are loading Level 3 of a Flash game, you likely have no reason for this level to be found independently by visitors.
Use the Title and Description fields in Flash 8
The SWF file format in Flash 8 supports XMP metadata. The goal of this feature is to help address issues with search engine support for Flash.To add metadata, select Modify > Document (or click the Size button in the Property inspector) to open the Document Properties dialog box and then enter a title and description for your SWF. While this is a new feature, this metadata can actually be output to any version of SWF, not just that generated by Flash 8.
Today's search engines do not actively consume this information. However, we have high hopes that they will in time, so we suggest you start embedding the data now. It is also a good idea to put this kind of information in your HTML, either in your page's title and description metadata or in text within the page.
For more information on this feature, search on "metadata" in the Flash 8 Help (note that this will also bring up results for the unrelated FLV metadata) or read Creating or Opening a Document and Setting Properties in the Flash LiveDocs.
Where to go from here
There are many important things to keep in mind when trying to get good search engine results. They are not specific to Flash but must be considered for any website. They are outside the scope of this article, but there are many resources on the web (some listed below) where you can find lots more information about search engine optimization. Some important topics to think about, and search for more information on, include the following:- Getting related and well-regarded sites to link to your site
- Using descriptive, relevant titles in your HTML pages
- Creating a site map
- Submitting links directly to search engines
- Using cookies and dynamic links cautiously
- Maintaining a robots.txt file
- Updating your site often (so that search engines consider your site to be more relevant than others)
Search Engine Watch (check the "Search Engine Resources" section)
Google Webmaster Central
MSN Search (check the "Industry" and "For Site Owners" links)
Yahoo! Help
INCREASING SALES FROM YOUR WEBSITE
If you are a serious Internet Entrepreneur, your top priority must be your website. Your website is a direct reflection of you and your business. Creating a professional website designed to sell will take a great deal of time and effort, as there is much more to take into consideration than design. You must look at a much broader picture and specifically design your website to sell.
1) You must have a professional looking website. Your website is the most important sales tool you have. Your visitor's first impression will almost instantly determine whether or not you're going to make a sale. A professional website should be pleasing to the eyes, well organized, easy to navigate and load quickly.
2) You must specifically design your website to rank high in the Search Engines. This involves much more than just including META tags. Your KEYWORDS, TITLE, IMAGE ALT tags, Text and overall design, all play an important roll in determining how your website will rank. You can learn more by reading the Optimization tutorial here: http://www.rainmakercreativestudios.com
3) You must use effective sales copy. Your words are the entire foundation of your business. Most business failures are the result of ineffective copy. Whether it is your website, sales letters or advertisements, your words play a major role in determining your success. When writing your website copy, use the following formula:
A -Attention - Use a powerful headline that demands attention
I -Interest - Intrigue interest and create curiosity
D -Detail - Provide details about your product or service
A -Action - Call for action
4) Drive traffic to your site. In order to create a steady stream of traffic to your website, give your visitors a reason to visit and continue to visit in the future. You must provide your visitors with fresh content on a continual basis. Content comes in various forms, such as news, articles, tips, horoscopes, weather, etc. and is freely available on the Internet. Your content should blend in well with the focus of your website and be updated on a regular basis.
http://www.web-source.net/free_articles.htm
http://www.mega-success.com/
http://www.marketing-seek.com/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.infobot.net/
Syndication services provide free content from a wide variety of sources. You simply place a small line of code within the HTML of your web page and each of the following services provide fresh content for you. The great thing about syndication services is that once you've placed the code, you don't have to worry about updating the content, as it is automatically updated.
Syndicator - Provides free syndicated articles and columns with photographs
http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm
isyndicate - Provides free headlines for news, articles, comics, weather and more.
http://www.isyndicate.com/
Moreover - Provides news headlines from over 1500 sources.
http://www.moreover.com/
ScreamingMedia - Provides free headlines from various resources
http://www.screamingmedia.com/
5) Provide free instruction. Your website is the storefront for your product or service. You must convince your visitors that they need the product or service you're offering. This can be accomplished by providing your visitors with free helpful advice and instruction in the form of an article, tutorial, free ebook or free autoresponder course.
6) Display your testimonials. You must gain your visitors trust. By displaying customer testimonials, you are boosting your potential customers confidence in you and your product or service. You can either create a web page to display all of your testimonials or use a script to rotate them on your main page. You can find a great random text script here:
http://willmaster.com/master/merrygoround/
7) Let your visitors know who you are. Provide complete information in regard to your company including, address, phone number and email addresses to request information and support.
8) Tell your visitors about their privacy. Create a page on your website called, "Privacy Statement," and let your visitors know exactly what you do with the personal information you collect.
9) Provide a sample or trial of your product or service. For example, if you're offering a Search Engine optimization service, provide a free META tag analysis at your website. Not only will this increase your sales, but it will drive more traffic to your site as well.
10) Remove the risk. To further increase your sales, you must remove the risk by providing a guarantee. A guarantee will boost your potential customer's confidence in purchasing your products or services.
A professional website specifically designed to sell is one the most important factors in determining your success. Take your time and make sure you're looking at the complete picture before you begin. If you're not secure in your abilities to create your own website, rather than risk the potential success of your business, consider hiring a professional web designer. Your success depends on it.
TIPS ON DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE
TIPS
- Since we are in the knowledge sharing business, We decided to give you guys a top ten list on driving traffic to a site. Keep in mind that increasing your website traffic doesn't depend on just one thing. It takes time and effort and in a lot of different areas.
* Create e-mail newsletters/bulk mail lists. Although this is very time consuming, it doesn't take as much time as you might think to get an email list of 100 to 200 people. Remember also to save e-mail inquiries, comments, and questions in your contacts. These are people who were interested enough in your site to say something, and are excellent candidates for your future "newsletter."
* Sign up for social bookmarking sites like Furl, Spurl, Digg, & Del.icio.us. List pages of your sites in these social communities for public consumption.
* Add a "Refer this site" feature to your website. That way, users can refer your site to a friend. Friend referrals are much more likely to be visited than any other type of referral.
- 2* Create an article about your site for syndication. (This is usually on the expensive side, but it's well worth the cost). Syndicated articles can receive ten, 20, even 30 thousand hits in a day.
* Get listed in DMOZ. DMOZ is an open web directory that includes sites in all different categories. Since it is the premier web directory around, it is very difficult to get listed. But if you can, it'll really give your search engine rankings a boost.
* Create an article entry in WikiPedia. If you follow their editorial guidelines and write high quality content, they will sometimes allow you to reference a link to a site of your choice.
- 3* Use Google AdWords to promote and advertise your site's products and services. (Again, this can be expensive, but does deliver tangible results).
* Take advantage of free advertising sites like Craiglist. Craigslist is probably the best web advertising site around, as it pack a huge punch with the search engines.
* Create multiple blogs dealing with multiple topics. Make sure you have quality, original content on them. Set up iner-site links between them.
* List your blogs in blog cataloging sites like MyBlogLog & Technorati. These two companies draw thousands of visitors a day.
Get free traffic by listing yourself on twiends
Try This Simple, But Powerful Email Marketing Tool. Get Free Trial.
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Go where CMOs go for new ideas. Expert blogs. Videos. Research. Go!
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Warnings
- If you implement these relatively simple techniques, your web traffic will increase. You may wish to install web analytic scripts into your site so you can watch your traffic trends. Visit RainMakerCreativeStudios.com for more Internet marketing tips.
Make Your Life Easy: Use CMS
Many websites, especially small or older websites, are built using static webpages. These webpages are built using HTML, Javascript, and Macromedia Flash computer code. This code is difficult to access on web servers and is virtually impossible to edit without special software and training. Thus, static websites are difficult and expensive to maintain.
To solve this website design and maintenance problem, a new technology called a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. A CMS uses a database to store, retrieve, and edit the content of your website. Each page of your site is stored as simple text - making it easy to edit, search, and manipulate. When someone visits your website the CMS automatically converts your text into the required HTML and Javascript. Furthermore, the CMS database allows for additional features to be easily integrated into the website: user login and passwords, events and calendars, blogs, news feeds, and much more.
Below is an outline of common static website problems, our solutions, and some of the many benefits you will gain once your site has been converted to a CMS.
To solve this website design and maintenance problem, a new technology called a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. A CMS uses a database to store, retrieve, and edit the content of your website. Each page of your site is stored as simple text - making it easy to edit, search, and manipulate. When someone visits your website the CMS automatically converts your text into the required HTML and Javascript. Furthermore, the CMS database allows for additional features to be easily integrated into the website: user login and passwords, events and calendars, blogs, news feeds, and much more.
Below is an outline of common static website problems, our solutions, and some of the many benefits you will gain once your site has been converted to a CMS.
Common Website Problems
- No updating - static sites are difficult and/or impossible to update
- No search function - users cannot search your site to find the content they are looking for
- Limited features - user login, forums, mailing lists, and calendar features require custom code and are expensive to implement
Our Solution
- Install an open source content management system (CMS)
- Move your existing content into it
- Train you to use the CMS and update your website yourself
The Benefits
- The ability to update and change your content anytime using a web browser
- Your site's content will be displaying using current web standards. This increases accessibility and makes your content more "future proof"
- The CMS has built-in search capability
- Room to grow - Easily add forums and other community building features, set up RSS feeds for your growing content, have users subscribe to newsletters, and much more
- You are not trapped with a single web developer - your CMS is an open source software product understood by thousands of users and developers.
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