Building Web Sites All-in-One For Dummies® (102 page)

3.
Write the ad that will display in the results page with your client's chosen keyword or key phrase.

Create compelling ad copy that will make people want to click through to your client's site. You should also include the URL to the Web site in your ad. Even if users don't click through, they might remember the URL to the site and visit it in the future. But the most compelling ad copy in the world is wasted if the landing page to which the ad is linked is not relevant. For example, if your ad copy is about wedding photography, the wise choice would be to link to the page about wedding photography, not the home page, on your client's site.

4.
Fine-tune the ad.

Google and Yahoo! enable you to target an ad by language or location. For example, you can target an ad to appear in one or more of the following: countries, territories, regions, and/or cities. Furthermore, you can specify that the ad be available to only a specific language audience. Targeting enables you to get more bang for your buck.

The only way you'll know for sure whether the pay per click campaign is working is to monitor the site statistics. Google and Yahoo! supply statistics with their campaigns. Over time, a thorough review of statistics enables the e-commerce site owner to edit the key phrases and, if necessary, choose new ones. In addition, you can monitor the statistics log supplied by your Web hosting service to see if a campaign is effective.

Other marketing techniques

If your client has a startup company, her budget might not be able to afford a pay per click campaign. Never fear; there are other ways to get visitors to her site. The following are a few techniques you and your client can employ:

•
Use link exchanges.
As we mention previously, you can popularize a Web site by exchanging links with other sites. The easiest way to accomplish this is to solicit links from e-commerce Web sites that offer similar services but aren't in competition with your client's services. The link to your client's site appears on the other site's link page. In return, your client posts a reciprocal link to the other Web site on his links page. Many Webmasters are familiar with this valuable marketing tool and might have hundreds of links on their site.

One way you can make your client's site stand out in a crowded links page is to create a small graphic with the client's logo and URL to the site. Export the graphic from your image-editing application as a GIF file.

•
Use banner exchanges.
You can publicize your client's site by participating in a banner exchange. Your client's banner is displayed on other sites that subscribe to the service. When clicked, the banner drives visitors to your client's site. Many banner exchange programs are free. When you sign up for a banner exchange program, make sure to read the fine print. Sometimes you have to prominently display the banner exchange company's logo on your client's site in exchange for the free service.

•
Offer free content.
If your client is an acknowledged expert in her field, advise her to offer free content, such as articles, to established sites that might be frequented by visitors who would be interested in your client's product or service. In exchange for the content, the site provides a link to your client's site.

Figuring Out When to Upgrade

When you initially consult with a client, your first concern is what type of Web site you'll design to best suit your client's need. The second concern is what features your client needs from the Web hosting service. When you first consult with the client, you can get a pretty good idea of what he needs from a Web hosting service. However, if you, or your client, monitor the site statistics, you'll know when it's time to upgrade. Other hints can come from visitor feedback. This vital information tells whether the site is immediately accessible or downloads slowly.

As the site evolves, your client might need additional features that are not included in the hosting package. When you initially choose a company to host your client's site, make sure that it's flexible and will let you change hosting packages when needed. Another useful option is a money-back guarantee if the hosting service doesn't live up to its promises. Additionally, some hosting services will let you cancel the service, without penalty and for any reason, with a 30-day notice. The Web hosting business is very competitive. You can pick and choose to get the service that best suits your needs and your client's.

Upgrading to a more robust Web hosting package

When you initially design your client's site, you might be under budgetary constraints, which means you'll choose a hosting package that can take care of the client's immediate needs and nothing more. However, when the site gets off the ground, and your client's bank account can no longer be balanced with an abacus, your client might need another tax deduction or four. One way you can accomplish this is by upgrading to a better Web-hosting package. Of course, your client has to justify any additional expense to her accountant. Here are a few reasons why she should consider upgrading her Web hosting package:

•
Your client needs to host more domains.

If your client expands into different ventures that need their own unique domain names, you'll have another project to create. In addition, your client will need the ability to host more domains.

•
Your client needs more space for the Web site.
E-commerce sites are often used to sell a multitude of products. When more products are sold, more Web pages are needed, more images are needed, and multimedia applications such as video are added, and so on. This takes up space on the server's system. A Web hosting service offers a limited amount of disk space. When your client is close to using her allotted space, it's time to upgrade to a package that offers more.

•
Your client needs features such as FTP access for customers, one or more databases, CGI (common gateway interface) forms, SSI (server-side includes), and so on.
Entry-level hosting packages generally don't offer these features. When your client needs one or more of these features, it's time to upgrade to a different hosting package.

•
Your client needs content that is updated on the server side.
Most entry-level Web hosting packages don't support server-side technology, such as ASP or ColdFusion. Additionally, if your client needs a robust database using MS SQL or MS Access, you'll need to upgrade to a Web hosting package that supports these applications.

•
Your client needs additional subdomains.
A
subdomain
is like a different Web site, but it has the same domain name. For example, if your client wants to separate his customer service from the main Web site, the subdomain would be something like
service.mydomain.com
.
When your client has used his allocation of subdomains, it's time to upgrade to a more robust Web hosting package.

•
Your client needs more e-mail addresses.

Most Web hosting services give you a finite number of e-mail addresses. If your client's needs exceed this number, you have to purchase additional e-mail addresses or opt for a more robust Web hosting package.

•
Your client exceeds his monthly data transfer allotment.
If you design a site with bells and whistles (video and audio clips), visitors are downloading more data when compared with a site with just text and graphics. When the site gets popular, the sheer number of visitors tax the data transfer allotment. Rather than paying a premium when your client exceeds his monthly data transfer, he should upgrade to a hosting package that features a higher data transfer allocation.

Each site has different requirements, and each Web hosting company is different. You should always endeavor to get the best package, based on your client's needs. When you shop for hosting space for your client, make sure you're dealing with a hosting service that is flexible and will let you upgrade your client's service at any time. The best advice we can offer in this regard is to find a reliable hosting service for your personal Web site that treats you right and has a great track record. Based on your personal and hopefully acceptable experience with the Web hosting service, you'll know you can use the company for your clients as well.

Upgrading to another server

If you did your homework, the server you choose for your client's e-commerce site will perform flawlessly. As the old saying goes: “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” However, not all servers are created equal. And sometimes, servers sign up more users than they can comfortably accommodate. When this happens, visitors experience longer download times because of server traffic, or they might not be able to connect to the site at all. If your client's site experiences any usability issues that can be attributed to the server, you either need to work out the issues with the server or upgrade to another hosting service.

Sometimes server issues can be attributed to the type of server on which your client's site is hosted. If your client's site is hosted on a shared server and visitors report usability issues such as long download times, upgrade to a dedicated server. A dedicated server costs more money. However, if the site has the traffic to justify a dedicated server and the traffic is purchasing goods or services, the additional cost is money well spent.

Book VIII

Site Management

Chapter 1: Helping a Site Succeed

In This Chapter

Optimizing the site for search engines

Submitting the site to search engines

Marketing the site

Keeping the content fresh

A successful Web site is an ever-changing work in progress. You use your skills as a Web designer to bring your client's business to life on the Web. You take the seed of your client's idea, plant it, and nurture it to fruition. However, the fruit will fall from the vine and rot unless you or your client does something to bring it to the public eye. The first step in making the site successful is optimizing the site for search engines. This step can help your client's site rank higher in the search engines. That, however, might not be enough, especially if the Web site is promoting a popular product or service. If this is the case, your client has to resort to marketing the site online. In addition to marketing the site online, your client can use conventional methods to popularize the site.

After visitors are coming to your client's site in droves, there must be a reason for them to return. That's right — you or your client needs to update it on a regular basis. After all, you wouldn't buy the same magazine month after month if the content never changed. In this chapter, we show you how to implement SEO (search engine optimization), online marketing, and other techniques to help the site succeed.

Planning and Incorporating Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

After you decide what type of content the site will have, you begin building the site in your favorite HTML editor. However, if you don't include one other important step, your client's site will be the virtual equivalent of a store that relies on word of mouth to get its customers. If your client's site is to succeed, it has to be findable — and found — by the masses. And how the masses get most of their information is by using search engines, such as Google. Be forewarned that search engine optimization has become a fairly exact science. And like any science, there's a bit of black magic involved as well. A full-course, soup-to-nuts serving of SEO tips is beyond the scope of this book. However, in the upcoming sections, we show you a few pointers on optimizing your client's site for the search engines. (For more on SEO, pick up a copy of
Search Engine Optimization For Dummies,
3rd Edition, by Peter Kent, Wiley.)

SEO defined

A search engine might seem like it's a fairly simple beast. You enter a keyword — or several keywords (also known as a
key phrase
) — and magically, results pages appear that list sites that are supposed to be related to the words you typed in the search engine text box. The results are listed by relevancy (whoever he is). But seriously, the sites on the pages are ranked in accordance to how closely the keywords entered by the user relate to the site.

But how is the ranking determined? How does one site magically pop to the top of the first results page, while others are lost in relative anonymity on the eighth or ninth results page? The answer lies in the skill of the Web designer or the company hired to optimize the site for search engines. Optimizing a site for search engines involves adding the right words to the HTML tags that the search engine robots analyze when adding the site to the search engine index. The most skilled SEO wizards know exactly what will improve a site's ranking with the most popular search engines. They don't resort to trickery, such as typing a bunch of keywords the same color as the background, known as
spamming the search engines.
Most search engines are aware of the old tricks. Therefore, a Web designer who knows how to optimize sites for search engines will always be in demand.

Seeing why SEO is essential

If you're a relatively inexperienced Web designer, you might wonder about all the hubbub regarding search engine optimization. Quite simply, the Web is a competitive place. Literally thousands of sites sell similar product lines, promote similar services, and have similar causes — all of them competing for Joe Public's visit, which will hopefully end with a visit to the checkout. Can you say, “Cha-ching?” We knew you could. And your client's competitors all want to be at the top of the first page of a search engine's results. If one of your client's goals is to achieve a high ranking in the search engines, it is imperative that the site be optimized, either by you or by a company that specializes in search engine optimization and marketing.

Understanding the mechanisms: Meta tags, keywords, descriptions, and alt text

Search engine optimization might seem like smoke and mirrors to the uninitiated. In reality, though, it's a matter of tweaking what's at your disposal. Search engine
robots
index a site based on the information they find in certain tags. When a search engine robot indexes your site, it stores all the pertinent information in a massive database. When a query is entered in a search engine, it returns a site as a result when the indexed data matches the query. The more the information matches the query, the higher the site ranks. It's your job as a Web designer, or the job of the search engine optimization company, to put the right information in these tags, which will propel your client's site to the top of the results page when certain keywords are entered in the search engine's text field. The keywords or key phrases relate to businesses or organizations similar to your client's. You judiciously place these keywords in meta tags and alt tags.
Meta tags
are found in the head of the document, and
alt text
is an alternate description for an image.

What's in a name?

As we just mentioned, meta tags appear in the head of the document. With the exception of the

The