[5/8] Start your own website: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Part 1: Intro
Part 2: Content Management Systems (CMS)
Part 3: Design
Part 4: Plugins

Most of you might have heard of it, but don't know what it is exactly. The name is pretty obvious and explains what it is about; optimizing your website for search engines.

Having a high rank in Google is like having a store on a A+ location. Most people will only look at the first page of the search results and most of the time they only look at the top3 search results. Of course everybody wants to be in the top 3 and I will describe how you can improve your chance to get in there with your website. In this blog I will be focussing on Google, since it has more than 90% market share in the Netherlands, but most of the tips will work for other search engines as well.

Keywords

The first thing to think of when working on your SEO are the most important keywords for your website. For instance, you have an offline shop for fishing gear in Eindhoven and you want to start a website. Of course you want to be found with the keywords "fishing gear", but there is a lot of competition for these keywords and there are major websites you probably can't beat in the top 3 position. So you're starting to think of other words. When you focus on "fishing gear +eindhoven" there probably is less competition. Try to think from a consumer point of view, what would he type in. Is there a top brand in fishing gear? Then add these to your keywords.Think of things that have to do with fishing; rods, bait, tents.. and include these in your keywords. Combine your keywords with Eindhoven, since customers from New York or even Amsterdam probably won't buy anything in your store.

The Google Webmaster tools help you select the right keywords.

Use good titles and headings

Titles and headings are considered very important for a high rank. The most important is your website title. Make sure your website title makes clear to the visitor what the site is about. When your fishing shop is called "Fishy business", your website title might be: "Fishy Business Eindhoven: fishing gear, rods, bait. The best fish supplies." Now you included several important keywords people use when looking for fishing gear, especially in Eindhoven.

Paragraph and article headings are important for Google as well. Make sure headings are included in <h1> or <h2> tags. Include your keywords in the heading. Never have a heading like "Welcome to Fishy Business". This isn't relevant to the user, they already know they are at your website and there no keywords are included in the heading.

Think of the keywords when writing content

Include your keywords in the first paragraph of an article, since this is considered the most important part of your text by Google. Make sure the relevant keywords are used on your website. Watch out for overusing keywords. For instance: "I bought my fishing rod in Eindhoven at Fishy Business, they have very good fishing rods in Eindhoven. When it comes to fishing rods, I think they are the best in Noord-Brabant, especially around Eindhoven. The fishing rod I bought was made of aluminum and I used it to fish at the Dommel, which flows through Eindhoven."
This makes the text unpleasant to read and Google punishes you for overusing keywords resulting in a lower ranking. A good keyword density is around 3% to 5% of the text, more important is that the text is relevant to the user.

Linkbuilding

One of the most important parts of SEO is linkbuilding. Google thinks that a site which is linked to a lot is relevant to people. When there are a lot of sites linking to your website, you will end up with a higher rank in the search results. The best way to get links to your site is by offering good content. This can be achieved by blogging for instance. When you write relevant posts, people will link to it. Another way is to offer free stuff. You can make wallpapers and have visitors download them for free from your website. This will generate a lot of visitors as well.

Make sure that your articles can be shared easily among social networks, this will generate a lot of inbound links. By being active on social networks you can show your expertise and promote your website.

Watch out for link swapping. There are sites which offer you to place a link to your website in exchange for a link to them. Most of the time, these sites have a very low pagerank and this will affect your pagerank as well. A link from a site with a high pagerank is more valuable than a link from a site with a low pagerank. The quality of the link is important. It is better to have 10 links from quality websites with a high pagerank, than 100 links from irrelevant sites.

Anchor text

The anchor text is the text of the link. For instance, I can link to Google with this anchor text: Google, or I can use The best search engine. The second way is better, since it includes keywords. When you can influence the anchor text of the link, please do so. For the fishing shop a good anchor text would be: Rods, bait and fishing gear in Eindhoven.

Search Engine Friendly URL's

Google wants your site to be relevant for your visitors and rewards this by ranking your page higher. A good way to get a higher rank in Google is by using search engine friendly (SEF) URL's. In the previous posts you read that I advise you to use a content management system. The downside of most CMS used to be that they generated strange URL's, like: http://future-marketeers.blogspot.com/index.cfml?productid=3&categoryid=5. This URL doesn't tell you what the site is about, so for instance it would be better if it was like: http://future-marketeers.blogspot.com/articles/start-your-own-website-search-engine-optimization/. By using SEF URL's your site will be more relevant, and thus ranked higher. Of course make sure that your keywords are included in the URL.

Most modern CMS can handle SEF URL's. In Wordpress the setting is called 'Permalinks'. You can edit the settings to add a category and article title after your URL, for instance: www.example.com/footballplayers/lionelmessi/ if you're writing an article about Lionel Messi. Joomla can handle SEF URL's as well. Look at the picture below to see how you can change the settings in Joomla.

SEF URL settings in Joomla

Permalink Settings in Wordpress

Conclusion

There are more things you can do for SEO, but these are the most important features. If you consider these when building or updating your website, there is a good chance your rank will rise in the search results. This might take a while, since your site has to be indexed by the Google crawlers (robots which scan the internet for updated websites), but eventually it will help. The most important thing when running a website still is offering good, valuable content which is relevant to people looking for your product or service.

How 1 little press release got us national media coverage about dog poo..

In a project I did for the user interface design course we (me and 3 project group members) built a dog poo bin, called SnoepDog. Sounds like nothing special, however, the bin rewards both dog and owner for throwing away the dog poo by releasing a dog biscuit and providing the opportunity to save for a dog tax reduction. Like any dog trainer knows; rewarding is better than punishment.

We built a prototype and filmed the user evaluation at a dog training facility. The users and dog trainers were enthusiastic about it, and so were we. We decided to write a press release and handed it to the communications department of Tilburg University. They send it out and within a few hours it was posted on several local news websites.

The same day the phone started ringing. Brabant10, a regional television channel wanted to have an interview with us. We started twittering about the media attention and news sites all over the Netherlands started copying the press release.We received more and more requests for interviews on Twitter and by phone.

The following day national newspapers, radio stations and tv channels paid attention to SnoepDog as well. The list of media companies include: de Telegraaf, Het Parool, Hart van Nederland, Ochtendshow met Giel Beelen (3FM), Kink FM and Spits. When we presented the project to receive our final grade, after all it was a university project, 3 camera crews were present to make an item about SnoepDog.

Apparently the dog poo issue was very recognizable for everybody and the SnoepDog was a pretty simple solution to it.

(Incomplete) list of links to news items about SnoepDog

Telegraaf (newspaper)
3FM ochtendshow met Giel Beelen (starts around 1:08)(radio)
Radio 2: Knooppunt Kranenbarg (radio)
SBS 6: Hart van Nederland (TV)
De Pers (newspaper)
Kink FM: Mark Met (radio)
Waar maar raar (internet)
Brabants Dagblad (newspaper)
Eindhovens Dagblad (newspaper)
BN De Stem (newspaper)
Brabant 10 (TV)
Scientias (internet)
Omroep Brabant (internet)
Omroep Brabant (TV)
PVE News (internet)

Interview with cognitive scientist professor Emiel Krahmer

A few weeks ago I interviewed professor Emiel Krahmer about his research in the VICI project. In this project he wants to find out how people refer to objects, for instance how people describe a man or a chair. By understanding this it is easier to program computers to interpret and produce more natural speech.

If you want to know more about this, please watch the video as professor Krahmer does a far better job than me when explaining what the project is all about.

[4/8] Start your own website: Plugins

 Part 1: Intro
Part 2: Content Management Systems (CMS)
Part 3: Design

As you could read in the earlier articles in this series, I advise you to run your website on a content management system. Its usability is so much better than making an html website by yourself, especially if you're not into coding. The editor in the backend is easy to use and you don't have to design every page separately.

The best part of running your site on a CMS is that you can extend the functionality with plugins. With these plugins you can run Google Maps, automatically add and update a sitemap and send it to search engines, add SEO content, display a photo gallery etc. For Wordpress and Joomla there are thousands of plugins available for free (they are called ‘extensions’ in Joomla) and they are really easy to install. In most cases you can search for a plugin in the backend and your CMS starts downloading, unzipping and installing it.

Social media integration

Social Media Widget

For the website I made for a sports centre in Venlo, I added plugins to integrate social media sharing buttons on each page with the AddThis plugin. It is a very popular plugin, which you can see on a lot of well known websites. In the right side menu I added links to the various social media accounts of the sports centre with the Social Media widget. I also included the Facebook like button in each article by using the Facebook Likes It plugin.

List of useful plugins

 

Wordpress

• Event Calendar: With this plugin you can add events to your website. These events can be shown in a calendar on your homepage. 
• Facebook Likes It: Add a “like-button” to your articles and pages.
• Nextgen Gallery: A photogallery to show slideshows, thumbnails and photo's in a lightbox.
• SEO Ultimate: Improves the ranking of your website in a search engine by making your website more friendly to search engines. You can read more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the next article on this blog.
• Fast Secure Contact Form: Add contact forms on your website with CAPTCHA protection to reduce spam. 

Joomla

• Acajoom: Build your own database with email addresses for your mailinglist. In Acajoom you can compose your emails by adding the latest content of your website. It is a all in one mailinglist solution. It has an automated subscription system and is very easy to use.
• All Videos Reloaded: Lets your embed all kinds of video in your website by using tags. For instance you can embed a Youtube video by using the tag {youtube}link to video{/youtube}. 
• Eventlist: Adds a calendar to your website. In Eventlist you can set up an event and make visitors sign up. 
• SH404SEF: The best SEO optimizer for your website. Tracks 404 logs and adjusts your url's to be more search engine friendly.

[3/8] Start your own website: Design

Part 1: Intro
Part 2: Content Management Systems

Apart from the content, the design is the most important part of your website. It will make your website stand out in the crowd, navigate your visitors through the website and provide the desired look and feel of your website.

Navigation

Of course you want your website to be cool, flashy and state of the art, but the most important function of design is structuring your website in such a way a visitor can find what he needs in an efficient and convenient way. To do this, a theoretical background is needed. According to eye-tracking studies, most readers read a website in an F shape. This means, they scan the top of the website and then look at the left side of the site. This has resulted in the fact that most navigational menu's are situated at the top or the left side of the website. Do not go deeper than 3 levels in the menu and make sure there is a breadcrumb path on each page, so visitors know where they are in the structure of your website.

Eye-tracking studies show that visitors read a website in an F shape

Contrast

This may sound obvious, but key to a good comprehension and visibility of text is a good contrast between the background and the text. As you can see on various Hyves profiles, where users can design their own profile, a good contrast is not as obvious as you might think. Many people use light text on a light background or dark text on a dark background. Playing with the contrast can also distinguish important objects from unimportant objects.

Recently I made a website for Sports Institute Dale Tan. The goal of this website was to make visitors sign up for a free lesson. As you can see in the screenshot below I made a large sign up button which is highly visible on the site. This button is large and in a color which is not used elsewhere on the site. The font is large as well. As you can see, at the bottom of the site the copyright text is in a lighter color, because it is not as important as the main text.

Screenshot of www.daletan.nl

Text/visual ratio

Nothing is as boring as a website full of text without any visuals. Depending on the target group it is wise to add visuals to the text. It will make the text more inviting and - if well done - can give a structured feel to the text. As you can see on this page about karate, the page has a good amount of photographs and video's to complement the text.

Templates

If you are using a CMS, there is a good chance that you can find decent design templates for your website. Many templates are available freely and more professional templates can be bought. In both Wordpress and Joomla it is easy to install a new template and have a completely new design without having to do anything in the code. If you are using a template, you might want to customize it to your needs. This can be done by adding a new header (which you have to create yourself in Photoshop), changing background or font colors or adding borders to specific areas. For Wordpress there is a very good template called Weaver. It is an extension of the basic Twenty Ten template, which is provided with the original Wordpress package. Weaver offers you more control over the design of your website without having to change anything in the code. However, if you are planning to build your own website, I can advise you to learn the basics of HTML and PHP coding. There are numerous tutorials and "coding schools" online to get you started.

Next article will be about plugins to extend the functionality of your website.

100 reasons not to want an iPhone

Why so serious on these days before carnival? Any iPhone owner has had the moment he hated the autocorrect function when typing an email or text message. Autocorrect can come up with hilarious suggestions and of course there has to be a website to collect these.

Read more at Damn You Autocorrect

[2/8] Start your own website: Content Management Systems (CMS)

Part 1: Intro

An important part of starting a website is choosing which content management system you are going to use. A content management system is a piece of software which splits the design and the content of your website. In the CMS you can upload and manage your content without having to design every page separately. In the last decade, these systems have become very advanced, but easy to use as well. There are great CMS's around and the biggest distinction between them is whether they are open source or not. Open source software is software which can be improved and shared among developers freely. That's why this software is mostly free of charge, which is of course a huge advantage if you're starting your new business and don't have a lot of money to spend.

In this article I will focus on open source CMS's only. The most used open source CMS's are:

• Wordpress
  
• Joomla
  
• TYPO3
  
• Drupal

I will only discuss Wordpress and Joomla, since I don't have any experience with Drupal, and TYPO3 is too complicated to start with for the first time.

Backend, Frontend

All CMS's work with a backend and a frontend. The frontend is the site which is available to your visitors. This is your website. The backend is the part where you login with your username and password to change settings and upload content. You can make accounts for editors with the right to write articles, upload pictures or change the theme of your site.

Backend of Wordpress (click to enlarge)

Wordpress

Wordpress is the easiest to set up and use, but has less functionality than Joomla. However, for most cases this CMS will be just fine. You don't need to know anything about coding or programming to make it work. When you run the setup you can have an up and running website within 5 minutes. Type in your websitename, tagline, adjust a few settings and you're ready to go! Wordpress has been developed for blogs, so there's a build in comment functionality which works great. The fact that it has been developed for blogs also has its downsides. When you want a completely other website than a blog, it might be difficult to create this, but as I said before in most cases Wordpress will be fine for the average user.

The best part of Wordpress is that there are thousands of plugins for any function you'd like. There are plugins for photo galleries, calendars, contact forms with CAPTCHA protection, you name it and it's available. Even greater is that these plugins are really easy to install. Simply type in the name of the plugin in the search bar in the backend, click install and the plugin is ready to use. Wordpress also works with themes you can install. It is possible to install 10 themes and switch between them to give your site a new look without losing your content. There are thousands of themes available and a lot of these are free to download.

The basic Wordpress template (click to enlarge)

Joomla

Joomla is the most used open source CMS around and it is for a reason. It's well structured and getting better with every update. It's a bit harder to set up, but there is a large community (a Dutch community as well) who can help you if you get stuck. The new and improved version 1.6 has just been released and developers all over the world are reprogramming their plugins (called extensions in Joomla) to make them work in 1.6. Just like in Wordpress these (free) plugins are the biggest advantage of an open source CMS over a closed source CMS. Virtually everything you would want on your website is available.

Joomla backend (click to enlarge)

If there are multiple editors on your site, you can make user groups with different rights. For example, editors can only write content on a certain part of your website or they can be given admin rights to edit everything on your website.

Joomla offers you more control than Wordpress and is more suited for more complicated websites or websites other than blogs. I have used Joomla for a website of a Dutch martial arts union. Because there was no budget I used the basic template and adjusted this to the needs of the organization. There are free templates available for download and more professional looking templates can be bought. Just like in Wordpress, installing and switching templates is easy in the backend of Joomla.

Adjust templates and personalize your website

The next article in this series will be about the design of your website. I will discuss template design and structuring your website. If you have any comments, leave a message below.