Craig Soup Web Design Blog

Until recently, I’ve always used the website tracking tools offered by my webhost. For the most part, they were decent tools, but I have several domains on the same server, and it was difficult to weed through all the information to figure out how each domain was doing individually.

Enter Google Analytics.

I had certainly heard of Google Analytics (Who hasn’t?), and I had even heard that it was a fantastic tool, but for some reason, I had always assumed that all analytics tools were the same.

I was wrong. After using GA for only two days, I can already tell that it’s going to be much more informative, much easier to use tool than I could have imagined. So, why is it so handy?

1. First of all, it allows me to view each of my domains separately. Might not sound too exciting, I know, but after a year of using the tools I’ve been using, you’d be excited, too!

2. It’s remarkably easy to use. The different categories of statistics are easy to access and easy to understand. And if you DON’T understand a certain statistic, you can easily click on the “About this report” link on the left side of the page, and it will explain everything for you.

3. It’s a great teacher. Along with explanations of what each report means, Google Analytics also gives you suggestions on how you can improve your stats.

4. Easy link tracking. GA has an amazing “site overlay” tool that opens up your site in a popup window and shows you visually how often each link was tracked (see picture below).

All in all, Google Analytics is an amazing tool that anybody with a website can benefit from (not just web designers). I avoided it for so long (for no good reason), and with my new Flash blog (http://www.SchoolOfFlash.com), I finally decided to swallow the red pill, and I’m glad I did.

One of the best things you can do to enhance your search engine results right off the bat is to select a domain name that has some of your desired keywords in it. For example, if you’re trying to sell cross stitching masterpieces online, having a website named ‘www.gertrudesplace.com’ isn’t going to help you get traffic. On the other hand, a website name like ‘www.cross-stitching-masterpieces.com’ will give your SEO pursuits the boost it needs to get started.

But what if your dream domain name is already taken and you can’t think of anything else to use? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve entered in domain name after domain name just trying to find one that isn’t already taken. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a tool out there that could help you with suggestions?

Well, there is. It’s called Bust a Name. An article by ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse brought my attention to this great site, and if you’re a web-dork like myself, it’s actually a very addicting service.

So if you need to come up with a good domain name but can’t think of one, check out Bust a Name.

Often it takes a lot of time to generate good, organic search engine results that drive traffic to your website. Search Engine Optimization can often be a tedious, lengthy process that takes months and months, especially if you have keywords that everyone else is fighting for.

Which is why it’s absolutely crucial to target very specific key words and key word phrases in your SEO pursuits. Specific, targeted search terms are much more likely to get you to the front page on a listing of Google search results. For example, if you build a website selling golf training videos, you’re not very likely to get good search engine results by going after the keyword “golf.” On the other hand, if you get more specific and try to target a search phrase like “free online golf training videos”, then you’re much more likely to someday wind up on page one of somebody’s search results. Even though there are probably millions more people searching for the keyword “golf”, those millions of searchers are going to get you NOWHERE if you’re constantly winding up on page 60 of the search results. Most people never even navigate past the first page of search results before they find something that they’re looking for.

Anyways, I’ve said all of this to say that I’ve finally reached the first page of Google for the search term “web design, keller”. Keller is a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, where I live and work. By getting specific, I’ve been able to bring my website to page one of the search results for my targeted phrase, making it much more likely that searchers are going to find my little piece of internet real estate!

Sorry for the overly alliterative title . . . sometimes I can’t help myself!

As a web designer, I feel it highly important to adhere as closely as possible to Web Standards. Doing this ensures that the sites I design will be visible to as many people as possible, across as many platforms and browsers as possible, on as many devices as possible.

But thanks to an article that Nate Whitehill pointed out, I recently discovered that using Web Standards is also very important for Search Engine Optimization.

Don’t get me wrong, valid code in and of itself won’t really help your organic search results all that much, but NOT having valid code could very possibly cause search engine crawlers to skip over some of your website’s important information, thus affecting your search engine rankings.

Also, if invalid code causes your website to be displayed incorrectly on certain browsers, then you may be losing a significant amount of traffic due to people leaving your site because it doesn’t look right. This alone could kill every bit of SEO work you’ve already done.

So that’s just one more reason I’m committed to creating fully standards-compliant code. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on some potentially search-engine-rich material just because your web designer was too lazy to validate his code, would you?