Website Design and Promotion

Google Reinclusion Request

A while back, I posted on Google's No-no's — i.e., how to get in Google's bad books and possibly even have your site blacklisted by them. So, what do you do if your site has been blacklisted — because you followed some bad advice; you unknowingly hired an unethical search optimization firm; or, perhaps you took over a web site that had already been blacklisted?

Essentially, you need to get on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness from Google. Yep, you'll need to throw away your sense of pride and admit it was "your bad." You need to submit a reinclusion request at Google Sitemaps (if you don't already have an account, you'll need to register — don't worry, it's free).

Basically you'll need to fill out their form, explaining what you (or the previous site owner) did wrong, that you understand why it violated Google's webmaster guidelines, and, most importantly, that it will never happen again.

Makes you feel like you're back in grade school, doesn't it? But, hey, everybody's got to play fair!

Optimizing Your Website for Local Searches

Duct Tape Marketing has a post  listing 3 tips for optimizing your website for local searches in your area.

I find that many people overlook this important aspect of search engine optimization and it can really make a difference in your local rankings.

The three tips:

1. Create an education based content web site.

2. Sprinkle local (towns, suburbs, address) content throughout and in your page titles.

3. Register with the local search directories (Google Maps, YahooLocal, AOLLocal, Windows Live Local).

Is your Ezine Designed so That it Can be Read?

Andy Wibbels points to Marketing Sherpa's post on the results of a research study on how email templates look in different email programs.

The study reports that your HTML emails may be unreadable for up to 60% of your subscribers!

Now that is  a study that you need to pay attention to! Programs that are problematic include Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, Mozilla Thunderbird as well as others.

Here is Marketing Sherpa's test for you to try:

Step #1. Turn on one of the preview pane options in Outlook.
Step #2. Turn off (block) images.
Step #3. Pick an HTML email alert or newsletter in your inbox.
Step #4. See what it looks like in preview.
Step #5. Gasp in horror.

The post lists some design elements to consider if you want to make your email templates readable to more people. Andy has already re-designed his template taking into consideration these findings and perhaps you should also consider calling your designer now!

Write for Your Site Visitors, Not Just for Google

Just in case you needed to hear this again: Although it is important (and necessary) to consider Google and the other search engines when writing your web site's content, it is just as crucial, if not more so, to write for your visitors. Otherwise, you'll have lots of people finding your site, but few staying and taking action (i.e., buying your products or services).

And, if you need to hear it directly from Google's Matt Cutts, here's a quick video of Q&A, where he talks (among other things) about the importance of quality content — written for your target audience.