Now that you've designed and launched your website, you have a powerful marketing tool for your business. But, your website is only as useful as the content is current. The process of keeping the content on your site current is called website maintenance, and it's important to keep both visitors and search engines supplied with new information. Just like regular maintenance on your car, you have to make changes on your website every few months to make sure that things run smoothly.

If you update the content on your website on a regular basis, potential clients will be drawn back to your site to find out "what's new". The search engines pay visits to websites in their queue regularly. The catch is that you'll stay in the queue only if you update your site regularly. If the search engines visit your site several times in a row, and don't find anything new, they may decide not to come back-which can be a blow to your search engine rankings.

So, when is it appropriate to update your website? You don't want to waste time and monëy nitpicking at your site if you don't have updates of real value to add. You should update your site if you've:

- Grown your skills. Have you gotten a new accreditation? New licensing? Improved your skills? Any change in your skill set is a great reason to update your website - and your potential clients - with your new capabilities.

- Expanded your products or services. Do you have a new offering? Add it to your website and start making new sales in that area.

- Completed a successful project. If you've just finished a project, include it on your website. Create an online portfolio, add a case study - build a section on your website to use as a place to show the world your success.

- Gotten more testimonials, or added to your client list. Including more feedback on your offering helps to build your credibility. Be sure to get a testimonial from each of your successful client projects. Updating your testimonials regularly will also show clients who have visited your site a few times that your offerings are "up to snuff".

- Written an article. Writing articles is a great way to keep your website up-to-date and to put more content on your site. Search engines love content-rich sites, and visitors will love to see the new information. So, if you write articles to educate your clients and promote your business, be sure to place them on your website as well. They're likely to be full of keywords related to your area of specialty, which will help your ranking in the search engines.

- Issued Press releases. You should post all press releases and other information you publish about your company to your website. You nevër know who may be visiting, and you may get written up for your accomplishments.

- Made changes in your business. Have you hired someone? Changed your business structure, and you're now required to notify the public of that? If so, you should probably review your website and evaluate how you can add that information.

- Made Yearly checkups. You should do a basic review of your site at least once a year, to make sure that the content is current. Some things to look for include:

* Your copyright statements should be updated yearly

* Test and validate your links, to ensure that they still work

* Your time references should be changed. If your "About" page says how many years you've been in business, this is the time to change that!

* Your pricing and offerings - do you have new products or services? Have your prices increased over the past year?

Spotlight any major updates on your home page as well, so that people will learn of those updates as soon as they enter your site. The search engines will also discover the new update as soon as they enter your home page if you leave a bit of information, with a link to the full story, on the home page. That will act as a breadcrumb for the engine to follow - the engines will follow your link to learn more about it.

Any of these reasons, and dozens of others, are great reasons to make changes to your site. If you make keeping your website current a priority, it will pay off with better search engine rankings and increased sales and leads through your website.

Once you've decided to make your changes, the next choice is how to go about doing that. There are two steps involved in maintaining your site:

1. First, decide whether you prefer to edit your content on paper or online. This can be done in a couple of ways. You can start by printing the pages that have outdated information and then updating that information on paper first. Or, you can copy and paste the outdated content from your website into a word processing program such as Microsoft Word and then edit that file on your computer.

2. After you have updated your text content you can choose either to make the changes yourself or to hire a web designer to make the changes. There are several tools that you can use to make changes to your site yourself. We recommend an easy-to-use tool called Macromedia Contribute. It's fairly inexpensive, its simple to set up and learn, and it allows you to back up to older versions of your site if you make mistakes.

We suggest that you use this tool to make only simple text changes. More complicated changes - for example, to the overall design or navigation - are more difficult to make, and having a professional make those changes will save you energy and frustration.

If you are comfortable with a more complicated software program, then we recommend a professional-grade tool such as Dreamweaver. With a better software package, you'll be able to make some of the more complicated changes yourself.

By building more and more current information into your website, you will also begin to build trust with your potential clients, since they will have a snapshot of what's currently happening in your business available to them. Your website can go a long way towards making sure that your online prospects know, like, and trust you - which can lead to more sales from your website.

Source: sitepronews.com

Even if you have high search engine rankings, people still might not buy from you. The reason for that is that your website might not be trustworthy. Of course, you need a professional web design to create trust.

In addition, there are a few other things that are necessary to convince your website visitors that they should do business with you:

1. Show your visitors who you are:

* It's amazing how many Internet businesses don't list their postal addresses. Do they have something to hide?

* If your customers don't know who you are and where you live they might refrain from doing business with you.

* For example, you can find our full contact information here. We link to that page at the bottom of every web page. In addition, our full postal address is listed in the footer of every web page. We do this to make sure that our visitors know who we are.

* You should do the same if you're serious about your business. Show your visitors that you have nothing to hide.

2. Show your visitors how you're different:

Why should someone buy from you and not from your competitors? Is there anything that distinguishes you from the rest?

For example, we distinguish ourselves from other SEO software companies by using only ethical search engine optimization methods. Our products don't use any shady tactics that might work for a short time but that will also get your site banned from search engines. We want our visitors to know that they can trust our products. That's why we link to our code of ethics in the footer of every web page.

Show your website visitors how you're different and why they should use your products or services instead of your competitors'.

3. Show your awards and testimonials from satisfied customers:

Web surfers don't like risk. If other people used your products and services before then it's less risky for new customers to try them. Your website visitors want to be reassured that you're a serious business.

If your company or your product has received awards then show them to your visitors. If your current customers have something positive to say about your products or services, list these testimonials on your website. Show your visitors how other people benefited from your products and services and what other people say about you.

4. Show your guarantees:

As mentioned above, web surfers don't like risks. That's why guarantees will help you to sell more. For example, people can test our products 100% risk-free. If you're not fully satisfied, you will get your money back. Guaranteed.

Show your visitors that you're 100% sure that your product or service really delivers. Give strong guarantees so that your visitors can only win if they try your products.

It's important to have a trustworthy website if you want to sell something on the Internet. Show your visitors that your business is real and that they can trust you by using the tips above.

Source: Axandra News Letter

--> To gain an edge over your competitors online, follow these tips to push your business's site to the top of the major search engines' results pages:

It's a question Smart Answers readers often ask: How can I increase the Google ranking for my business? To get a good ranking on Google, or any major search engine, you have to make sure your Web site is "search-engine optimized." Search engine optimization (SEO) just means your site is as accessible as possible to the search engines to improve the chances that they will serve it up when your potential customers type in specific search terms. The more easily search engines find your site, the higher up it appears on their results pages.

Constructing your site the right way is important. "Structure your site properly, code it cleanly, and use necessary keywords," says Andy Leff, an entrepreneur and lead blogger for INCplace.com. "Sites that have the proper architecture in place, and are not slapped together, have a better chance of getting picked up by the major search engines." Search engines "crawl" the Web looking for the keywords that their users enter, so sprinkling those keywords throughout your site means your pages will be picked up during searches.

Too Much of a Good Keyword:

What keywords should you use? Think about what your prospective customers type in when they are looking for you. "Try to think from a user's perspective," says Jeff McPherson, director of client services for SilverTech, an interactive marketing firm in Manchester, N.H. "You may sell hats, but your customers may call them caps, lids, or fedoras." If you're not sure, ask your clients how they got to your site.

When you have a good set of keywords, put them into the URLs, page titles, and content of your Web pages. "There are lots of little tricks to this," says McPherson. "For example, the most effective page titles are about 75 characters long and include the most important keywords at the beginning. On each page, keywords and phrases should represent 2% to 3% of the total content." Don't overdo the use of key search terms, however. "If a search engine's algorithms interpret your site as a keyword hog, it will pass it by," Leff notes.

Next, you'll want to link your site to other sites, which will both increase traffic overall to your site and boost your search engine rankings, since the search engines pick up on the number of times people link to and from your site and rank you higher accordingly. So do things like listing your site with online business directories, even if you think no one will find you through them. "Those links may not produce any direct leads, but they could bump you up in the search engine rankings, especially if they are popular or highly visited sources," McPherson says.

You should also formally submit your site to the major search engines, which allows them to index it. Include at least Yahoo, Google, and MSN, Leff suggests, but don't necessarily limit it to those three. People searching the Internet don't all use the same search engines. "Research shows that older audiences still like AOL and professional audiences tend to like MSN and Google, while younger audiences often like Yahoo. Only about one-third of users use one search engine consistently," McPherson says. Knowing your audience will help you decide which search engines to optimize for. Go to their home pages and search "how do I submit my site?" to get easy instructions.

Flash Won't Help Rankings:

Use plenty of text on your site, even in your drop-down menus, your headers, and your footers on each page. Text is what the search engine crawlers are looking for. Text within Flash-based components won't help, however. "This text is not accessible to the search engine site crawlers, and will not get picked up. Flash looks great, but it won't help boost your search rankings," Leff says.

Search engine optimization is technical and can be time-consuming, since the major search engines are constantly changing their methodology to stay ahead of competitors. That means you have to keep jockeying for position so your site gets noticed. You can hire a professional to keep your site optimized, do it yourself, or contract with an Internet-savvy student looking for part-time work.

Virtual Tour Guides:

If you engage an SEO firm, consider the cost and the return on investment, remembering that moving up in the search rankings is a gradual process that may take several months. Chances are, if your corporate competitors control the top 10 search engine results spots, it will be costly and perhaps even impossible to dethrone them. The good news is that search engine rankings are free, and online searching is the third-most-frequent activity for people who are online: Only checking e-mail and Web surfing rank higher, McPherson says. "Search engines not only help users find you, they play virtual tour guide by taking users directly to the page with the information they're seeking."

Another plus that McPherson points out: Studies show consumers trust user-generated search engine rankings more than paid advertisement rankings by a wide margin, as much as 70%. And optimizing your site gives you a huge competitive advantage. "Even now, only 25% of the Fortune 100 businesses have completely optimized their sites in this way," McPherson says. "If you act now, you'll have an edge over competitors who haven't optimized their sites."

Source: businessweek.com

If you have a new website then it takes some time until Google visits your web pages. Even if you submit your website to Google via their regular submission form, it usually takes weeks until Google visits your site. There are some things you can do so that Google indexes your web page within 48 hours and not within weeks.

Tip 1: Get a link from an existing site :-

Links are very important for high rankings on Google. The more (quality) links you have, the higher Google will rank your pages. An easy way to get a link to your website is to join a forum that is related to your website. Participate in the discussions and sign your posts with your name and a link to your website. Make sure that you do not spam the forums. Only participate in an online discussion if you really have something to say about the topic. If you post in a well known forum then Google will quickly pickup the link to your site.

Tip 2: Create an external blog :-

Google likes blogs and many blogs are indexed very quickly. Use Google's Blogger.com service to create a blog that is related to your business. Write a few posts and add a link to your website in your blog posts. Google will quickly index your Blogger blog and find the link to your site.

Tip 3: Get as many links as you can :-

The more other websites link to your website, the sooner Google will find your site. If you use all of these methods, it's very likely that Google will index your website within 48 hours.

Links on the other pages make sure that Google finds your website more quickly. The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that Google will find your site. In addition, you will get higher rankings if many other pages link to your site.

Source: Axandra Weekly Newsletter

Keyword stuffing is one of the oldest spamming techniques on the Internet. Many webmasters still use that technique although most search engines can detect it nowadays.

Last week, Google's anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts made fun (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing/) of a website that used keyword stuffing. Apart from the rather dubious content of the web page, the webmaster included a very long list of related and unrelated keywords in a small text box at the end of the page.

Google doesn't like keyword stuffing

"Keyword stuffing is considered to be an unethical search engine optimization (SEO) technique.

Keyword stuffing occurs when a web page is loaded with keywords in the meta tags or in content. The repetition of words in meta tags may explain why many search engines no longer use these tags." (Wikipedia definition). Google doesn't like keyword stuffing at all. If Google detects keyword stuffing on a web page, that page will be banned from Google's index. Google's Matt Cutts puts it that way:

"Webmasters are free to do what they want on their own sites, but Google reserves the right to do what we think is best to maintain the relevance of our search results, and that includes taking action on keyword stuffing."

You might use keyword stuffing on your web pages without knowing it

While most keyword stuffing is done intentional, it can also happen that your web pages trigger Google's spam filters although you didn't want to spam. For example, if you have very similar keywords that are used often on your web pages, this might look like keyword stuffing.

Spamming search engines is not a good idea. Although most spam techniques will work for some time, all of them will get your website banned sooner or later. Better focus on ethical search engine optimization methods to get lasting results.

Source: Axandra Newsletter