Posted on Apr 5, 2009
Choosing the perfect domain name for your website can be quite a challenge; generally, you can simplify the process down to two competing factors: parasitical and brand value. The idea behind parasitical value is to purchase a domain name containing long tail keywords to benefit from organic search. By looking at search trends in your niche, you can take advantage of the existing organic search. In short, you want to select an available domain name with keywords that you plan to target in organic search to generate traffic. Examples of domain names with parasitical value are:
- keyword-seo.com
- webmaster-discussion.com
- keywordseodiscussion.com
The other factor that you should consider when selecting a domain name is brand value. Brand value refers to how well people will recognize, remember, and associate keywords with your website. To create a domain with brand value, you want to pick a domain name that is short, catchy, and memorable. Some examples of domain names with brand value are:
- digg.com
- reddit.com
- slashdot.org
Parasitical value and brand value are competing factors in domain selection. Unless you are able to purchase a one or two word generic, you will need to choose between parasitical and brand value when choosing your domain name.
read more
Posted on Apr 4, 2009
Capitalization – Do not capitalize an entire sentence or paragraph of text. This may grab a visitors attention, but capitalized letter are quite hard to read. It is hard to read capitalized letters because all of the letters are the same size, which makes it hard to see a difference between them. Capitalizing a word or two is acceptable to provide emphasis, avoid capitalizing large chunks of text at all costs.
Spacing – Ensure that there is enough spacing between your context, links, etc., so that a visitor can see a clear difference between these areas. Also, it is common to have a larger space between headlines compared to the usual spacing because this allows the headlines to stand out.
Alignment – Left align text. In some cases it may be appropriate to right align text, but remember that left aligned text is easier to read. Additionally, you should avoid justifying the text as this makes your context harder to read. Justifying the text maximizes the width of the columns, and narrower columns are actually easier to read than wider ones.
Font Type – When choosing fonts, try to pick one that fits the theme of your website. Remember that you can mix and match font types for different parts of your website – ex. titles (h1 tags), content (p tags), links. When using different font types, ensure that they blend together well and give a solid feel to your website. Also, always ensure that your font type is readable by your visitors.
Font Size – Choosing an appropriate font size is just as important and picking the right font type. Usually, webmasters use three different font sizes to distinguish between the main heading, sub heading, and the body context.
Emphasis – Italics or emboldening (bold) can be used for emphasis quite effectively. Try not to over use italics or bold because if you over do it, then nothing will stick out from the content.
read more
