It’s been a while since my last post, but I’m back, and today’s post is on a few SEO tools that can be found online.
I’ve personally not made much use of keyword density analysis tools, as I generally prefer to eyeball it anyhow. However SEO tools aren’t just limited to keyword density analyzers, there’s also tools that will look at your site and give suggestions for words to use in your PPC (that’s pay per click advertising) campaign, and more.
Three SEO tools to check out
A Preview of IE9
Yes, IE9 is on the way (though it could be quite some time before a full release).
If you are a web-designer, chances are you are well acquainted with all the frustrating little quirks in how websites are rendered in IE, especially earlier versions of it. Even IE8 is limited compared to many other browsers; for example it has virtually no support for CSS3.
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Create Custom Favicon Icons
I’ve had clients ask me “what are those little images that show up when I bookmark a website” and wonder how they can get something more interesting than the boring default bookmark image.
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Thoughts on Keywords and Density
This post is a response to a recent commenter that was wondering how many keywords they should put in their metatags.
I have heard lots of different numbers tossed around as far as what your keyword density (the percentage that a word or phrase takes up out of the total number of words on a page) should be, this is not just specifically for meta tags, but for your overall page content. About 1-5% is a number that seems to be pretty common and there are even programs out there that will analyze your keyword density (just Google it and you’ll find some).
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Design Resources: Adobe Kuler
Whether you are a web-designer, or graphic designer, there’s probably been times that you’ve been at a loss as far as just what colors to use in your next project. Even if you have a basic idea, Adobe Kuler can be a useful resource.
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Getting Visitors to Your Site, Some Tips: Don’t Just Rely on Search Engines
Perhaps you are new to website design, or had someone build a site for you. Maybe your site has been indexed on Yahoo, and Google, so you expect site visitors to start rolling in by the hundreds. You start watching your site statistics only to see a few visitors here and there, which is probably not nearly as many as you expected.
No doubt search engines are an important part of gaining site visitors, but they can easily be over relied on. Getting the number of visitors that you want to your website can take a whole lot more than just getting your site indexed by search engines.
URL Change, and the Blog is Back
Yesterday the blog was down due to having been hacked, but thankfully that issue was quickly resolved.
You’ll now notice that mebdesign.net goes directly to this blog. The URL for the rest of my website is now bennettburksdesign.com.
Website Redesign in Photoshop Step by Step Part 1
I’m in the process of overhauling the design of both this blog and the rest of my portfolio. I will detail how I go about redesigning my website step by step.
The first stage of the site redesign is just a very simple Photoshop CS4 mockup, which you can see below.
It’s just a white content area with a light blue background, nothing fancy, or what I’d call pretty yet. It is good practice to start out with just the most basic layout and work from there. Some designers will start out sketching their design by hand first instead.
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To Submit or Not to Submit #1: Search Engine Submission
One service that you will probably stumble upon while looking for information on search engines and SEO are search engine submission services. But do these services really make a difference? Is submitting your site to search engines really worth the effort?
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Web-Design Pitfall! Browser Testing.
One mistake that a lot of new web designers make is not testing their sites in a variety of browsers. This may be an especially easy trap for Windows PC users whom all have some version or other of Internet Explorer pre-installed on their computer, but it is certainly a trap that any web-designer can fall into.
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