If you were to stumble upon this website, how would you respond?

You are going to be very turned off, and chances are you are going to immediately hit the back button.  It would be interested to see  data of changes in conversions when a website goes from a late 1990’s to a more modern design.  I’d be willing to bet that conversions would see a substantial positive shift after such a change.  10+ years ago it may have be standard for websites to look like this, but website design has evolved quite a bit and webmasters need to take advantage of the powerful design tools at their disposal.

Now if you came across this website, how would you feel about it?

This design and layout displays a environment that is

• professional
• functional
• organized
• easy to navigate

All of these features are something that an ideal design has.  It’s not necessary that you pay a designer to create this as there are numerous free templates available, but a custom design will give your website a unique and individualized feel for visitors.

Now that you have the eye candy part down, visitors will stay longer than a second. This means that they are going to see the content of your site above the fold.  Everything above the fold gives users a glimpse of your website’s goal or aim.  If your homepage lacks clear navigation elements or a hint that your site can satisfies their needs, they will likely continue their search elsewhere.  You need to prove to visitors that your website can provide value within seconds of their entrance.

A good design and content are necessary to catch users.  The design may spark their interest initially, and generally most designs will suffice such that visitors don’t immediately exit.  Visitors will proceed to scan your page for keywords or images that correlate with their end goal.  They might read a sentence or two to gauge the level of depth, knowledge, and angle that you approach subject matter with.  If a user finds something to be astray during this process, then they are going to pass on their way.  Since a homepage is generally the most visited, it is going to be the main source driving visitor to stay or split from your site.  On a blog, your newest posts are going to be representing your entire website.  For this reason a website is only as good as its index page.

Writing for search engines is easy.  You take your knowledge about a topic and simply regurgitate it as text as quickly as possible while including those all important keywords.  If you are a bit lazier you might not even write original and just plain bad content, you’ll take an article already written on the issue and simply rewrite it, so that you trick search engines to think its unique content.  And if you are even lazier, you’ll just take that article, run it through a spinner, and repost it to save yourself valuable time.

The amazing thing is that you can get all of that poorly written, rewritten, or spun content to rank in the search engines.  You can get a handful to thousands or visitors a day (depending on which keywords you targeted and competition) to be directed to your site through search engines.  The fatal flaw with this system is that the end users you care about coming to your website are visitors and not search engines.

After those visitors read a few sentences of your content, they are going to be driven right back to the search engine results page away from your website.  Sure you might hook a few straggling visitors that don’t realize your content is crap, but the majority of these visitors will never return to your website again, and they most definitely will not convert to a conversion.

I guess you could harass your visitors with CPM and popup ads, but really the amount of money you’d make from that is insignificant to what you could generate if you wrote for people to begin with.  Plus in due time, Google is going to realize that you content is not worthy of visitors;  as search engines refine their algorithms, they are going to be able to identify useless content that currently ranks by examining everything from the actual text on page to how many users instantly return back to the serps.

Anyone can write for search engines, but writing for people is an art.  If you are writing for visitors, then you will recognize the challenges presented.  To create quality content you need to

• provide value
• give detailed examples
• say something new
• engage readers
• offer something unique

It is by no means easy to do this, and you still need to link, comment, and network to get your content recognized by others.  Writing for people takes talent, but by doing so you’ll see positive results.

Imagine yourself as a searcher looking for information about cutting the fat off of your web portfolio.  The author need to engage you as a reader which can be done using humor, posing a question, or even taking an unusual stance on an issue.  After this author has your interest, they need to inform you with details and examples about how to go about cleaning out the trash in your portfolio.  If the content fails to be different and say anything new, then you might turn elsewhere or just never be directed there in the first place.

If you provide knowledgeable and useful content for your readers, your chances of a conversion are greatly improved.  A conversion could be anything from getting first time visitors to return back to your website to having a user purchase a product you posted a review on.  The conversion is a multiphase process.  It starts off with getting visitors to a landing page and ends with your final goal, such as a sale or return visitor.  If you are writing for the search engines, then visitors are never going to make it past the first step.  The better content that you produce and push on user, the further you increase your chances of a conversion.

So take a look at the content you’ve been producing or have had produced for your sites.  What are visitors reactions to this content?  Are the majority of them bouncing away?  Maybe that’s not a bad thing.  If visitors are exiting your site after one page view, it could mean you addressed the question they wanted answered.  It could also mean that your product landing page needs work, thus they didn’t proceed further down the path that leads to a sale.  Look at visitor behavior, but look deeper than the basics – get into the mindset of your visitors and see your website as searchers do.  If you do that, then you’ll have an understanding of whether your site is satisfying the needs of your users, but more importantly you can see where change needs to be implemented, so that ultimately your websites serve people and not search engines.

You need to use photos properly to enhance your writing.  Excellent pictures will do the following things:

• grab a reader’s attention
• increase their interest
• further communicate your point

Photos need to be used in conjunction with quality writing in order to further captivate your audience.  Some writers are able to create superb content without any graphical aids, but I’m sure that if they included appropriate pictures within their writing, it would make it that much better.  Additionally, pictures opens up a whole new market – image search.  Take advantage of the opportunity to gather more traffic to your website.  You can’t sell yourself short in such a competitive time.

Which version of our website is more appealing?  Professional?  Involving?

It’s a pretty obvious decision that the version with pictures is a lot more lively, engaging, and interesting.

I used to include no photos whatsoever and the occasional graph when appropriate, such as when I showed how a Google penalty can affect your traffic.  I realized since then that images can greatly improve the message you are trying to get across.  The problems I struggled with when trying to incorporate photos were: where do I get these pictures from and what images should I use where?

Where do I get these pictures from?

• Websites: Flickr’s creative commons, stock.xchng, MorgueFile, EveryStockPhoto, iStockPhoto – You might have to pay for quality stock photos sometimes, but the price is well worth it.
• Take photos yourself if possible – Being able to tailor photos to your exact needs can have a significant difference in their effect, and it will save you the time of hunting for that perfect picture.

What images do I use where?

Stock photos should be used to enhance the point you are trying to get across.  Just because a picture looks fantastic, it does not mean it will work well with your content.  The counter-side to that is don’t use generic or overly used images; they look boring and add nothing.  The pictures you use should essentially flow with your content while adding a new depth at the same time.  There are plenty of other things you’ll need to avoid when you use stock photos, but that’s not what I’m trying to address right now.

There are 3 different types of images that you can include in your content: thumbnails, additive, and informational.  Thumbnails connect to your text but in a vague manner; there main purpose is to spark interest from your visitors.  Additive pictures are similar to thumbnails, yet they have a stronger link to your content and add another dimension.  For instance, if you are writing about chocolates, you might insert a tasteful photo of Godiva’s chocolates along side your text.  Informational images are essentially a graphical tools that helps develop your position.  You could include a graph instead of a table because it allows your readers to better visualize the data.  All convey a varying amount of information to your reader from “look at me” to here are the statistics behind my claim.

Pictures are an extremely powerful medium and if used properly they give your content an increased punch of delivery.   Utilize photos to their full potential, but remember to use them in moderation such that you don’t dilute their bonuses.

Writing superb content just doesn’t cut it anymore.  You can create a website or blog with cutting edge and novel content, but unless you promote it no one will find it.  Well, a few people might accidentally type in the url for your site and discover it, but the market you are targeting will be oblivious to your existence.  In order for people to find your website, you need to market it.

Linking

Don’t be afraid to link out to what you believe may be your competitors.  Obviously if you are running an ecommence site, do not link every product page to a cheaper competitor.  That is just plain stupid.  However if you run a blog, linking to useful and related posts or comments is beneficial to your readers and to your website in terms of seo.  Matt Cutts says that linking out is a smart thing to do.

Q: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog?
A: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.

Not only are there benefits in terms of seo, but I’m sure your readers will appreciate it when they want more information on that topic.

What does it say when you have a website that has no outbound links?  If you fail to recognize your resources, why should other people bother linking to you?  Linking is part of the web, and by failing to link you segregate yourself.

If you start linking out, people will start linking in (assuming that your content is worthwhile).  People are inherently curious; visitors on your website will click on those links.  When the webmaster of the other website looks at his backlinks or traffic referrers, that person is going to proceed down the same path as your visitors.  Curiosity will capture them, and they will visit your site.  When they arrive, that first impression will be lasting.  Would you rather them leave thinking – “God dam copy scrapping blogs” or “wow this person really has some incredible knowledge”.  Even if you only plant a seed in the back of their mind instead of leaving a monumental impression, it’s a start at the very least.

Commenting

Interacting with readers on your own blog, as well as, writers of other blogs helps increase your exposure.  It will alert others to your existence, and allow you to participate in discussions beyond the post. Commenting can have the same effect as linking.  If you write an thoughtful respond or question, people will be overcome with curiosity, and they will want to see what else you have to offer.

Commenting is a means of attracting new visitors, and increasing your visibility within your niche, but it also helps with seo.  The majority of blogs may have no follow comment links, but that doesn’t mean that those links lack value.  These links might be unable to pass pagerank and be treated differently by search engines, but the fact of the matter is that no follow comment links are still seen and thus they provide some benefit.

Networking

It encompasses a pretty wide range of mediums from social networking to networking while at a conference. The means by which you network doesn’t really matter, but the message you convey does.  Whether you are talking to someone at a business conference or expressing yourself on Twitter, it is a powerful tool.  Enlarging your contact circle, sharing opportunities and ideas, and marketing yourself is what networking is all about.

When you are networking, do not be self absorbed and have a one track mind.  Just as with commenting, you need to be interactive, engaging, and care about what the other person is saying.  No one likes a person who just pushes their own agenda, while essentially ignoring the other person in a conversation.  You might as well just talk to a mirror if that is how you are going to go about networking.

Linking, commenting, and networking are resources that can be utilized to improve your exposure and gain you credibility.  They are all tied together in a sense, but if you try to squeeze by only using one of these things, increasing your visibility will be hindered.  Don’t ostracize yourself, instead interact with the people involved in your niche.

If you spent that time writing, how much quality content could you create? A couple fantastic posts probably.

It is time to look at how you budget your time.  I am by no means saying stop reading all of your favorite blog posts, but instead I am pointing out the fact that there should be a balance between how much time you read and how much time you allocate to writing.

Reading –> Ideas

Reading posts from other respected individuals in your niche can provide you with insightful ideas.  You might write a spin off about something they discussed, call them out on a falsehood, or just get the inspiration you need to talk about something that no one else has yet touched upon.  Reading quality posts or content is a useful tool in triggering your own thought development.

One thing to avoid while reading is to steer clear of mindless or rehashed content.  Don’t waste your time reading the same concepts over and over.  If you do that, then you blog posts will reflect just that; they will lack any uniqueness and spirit. You might not realize it initially, but a few sentences into a post your mind will click and say this looks all to familiar.  Too many time are the same points bashed again and again or content that isn’t worth reading is posted.  I don’t mind the occasional rant, but sometime enough is enough – people just need to learn to put a cap on it.  If you find yourself reading something that isn’t different and or lacks true creativity, move on to the next thing.

Once you read a few post from someone, you will know what type of content they are pushing, which will drive you away or will leave you wanting more.  There will likely be plenty of places that you will never return to.  However, after a while of cutting your way through the jungle of rehashing, incompetent, or just plain monotone writers, you’ll find a few diamonds in the rough.  Their content will subsequently generate ideas that you can run with.

Writing –> Recognition and Reputation

Quality writing will allow you to create a reputation and gain you recognition as well. If you just mimic your favorite posters, then your content will suck.  Consider using a text spinner to save yourself some time if you plan on rehashing old news. Don’t turn into the blogs that you read a few lines from and proceed to leave.

What you want to do is build upon a concept someone else started or better yet discuss something that is lacking a perspective or any information whatsoever.  To gain recognition and reputation your posts should

• Be original – Stand out from the crowd
• Challenge people – Have merit to your argument though
• Have purpose – Don’t write for the sense of needing to create something new
• Have personality – Express yourself as who you really are

Writing exceptional blog posts by itself is not enough; you need to do more than that.  Writing encompasses more than creating a new blog post.

When I refer to writing, I am not solely talking about writing articles or posts.  Writing also includes commenting on the thing that you have been reading about.  Interacting with the authors that inspire your posts or just make you think is a favorable thing to do.  By challenging their ideas or adding further input upon the topic, you demonstrate your interest and knowledge.  Ideally, this will help you create a network and encourage them to visit our blog to see what you are writing about.  It might also open the door for guest posting, which is an excellent way to increase your exposure.

Not only should you be commenting on the content you read, but you should be interacting with the commenters on your own blog.  This lets your readers know that you care about their opinions and shows that you’ll take the time to develop the discussion and answer questions beyond your post.

Managing and utilizing the available time you have to the maximum is a challenging task, but by doing so you enable yourself to increase your productivity.  By balancing the time you spend reading and writing, you are better able to create quality, original, and provoking content while expanding your reach.