If like me, you prefer to hand type your page titles and you are looking for a simple way to do them then you will find the following tool useful. On larger web sites I find it easier to do all of my page titles and descriptions all in one hit especially if the site is using WordPress. I already use a fantastic WordPress plugin called Headspace which makes it very easy to add page titles and descriptions into pages and blog posts. I just find it easier to add it all into an Excel spreadsheet first before copying over to my web site. Best of all it is really simple…

Here are the steps:

• Open up Microsoft Excel
• Add ‘Page Name’ into Cell A3
• Add ‘Page Title’ into Cell B3
• Add ‘Length’ into Cell C3
• Now go to Cell C4 and type the following formula: =LEN(B4) – This counts the length of the text in cell B4
• Now add in the names of your sites pages into column A starting at A4. If you have a lot of pages you might be able to do an export of all of the names or copy and paste it from the meta data area of Headspace
• You can then type in your keyword rich page title into Cell B4 and click on enter
• Cell C4 will then show the length of this title
• You can then tweak the page title until it fits into the 70 character or less recommended limit for the search engines making sure you fit in some nice relevant keywords
• Then just repeat this process for all of the page titles
• You can then duplicate this worksheet for the Page description (in column B instead of page title). This must fit into approximately 160 characters
• You can also add some conditional formatting if you want that highlights any lengths that are over the limits.

I have included a diagram below for how to use this simple title and description tool using excel, I hope you find it useful

7) The Plan

This is something that I bang on about and for me is where all great websites must start, the plan. Before you build a web site make sure that you plan a great strategy for how you are going to get targeted customers to your site and how you are going to convince them to buy from you. This involves identifying your target customers including their demographics and how you can find ways to appeal to them. You will also need to plan how you will move users from the page they land on to the page where you will make the sale and how you will get customers to contact you with ease.

6) Design

Now a lot of designers would have design and aesthetics high up on the list and I will agree that it is an important element of a great web design. However it must not be the primary attribute of your great website. Yes it’s nice to view something that looks good but if it fails to generate any income into your business then it is not doing its job. Good looking design must complement the real reason for having a web site and that is to promote your business and to create opportunities to sell your product or service.

5) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

In a competitive market place you now need to make sure that you are well placed on the major search engines for your chosen keywords. Your potential customers no longer reach for the Yellow Pages to look for a service, instead they now go to Google, Yahoo & Bing. Search Engine Optimisation must be a consideration when planning your site as at this stage it is easiest to implement a good SEO plan. Make sure that your site is well coded with good use of keyword rich title and H1 tags, use different meta descriptions for each page and get as many quality inbound links as possible and you will be on the way to having a great SEO web site.

4) Speed of Loading

The major search engines and especially Google now include the speed that a web site loads as a factor in the ranking they give a site. Slow sites are now penalised and fast loading ones are pushed up the rankings. So how fast is your site? The average user will click away from a site within 7 seconds if it hasn’t loaded up so you need to ensure you do everything to ensure you site loads fast. Consider if you really need a lot of images and if so make sure that you compress them using a good program like Fireworks. Other things you can do is compress your site include minimizing external requests by combining your JavaScript files and by combining CSS files and by having a well coded web site (without tables!!!)

3) Ease of Use

You have to make sure that your site is easy to use and that the person who is using it can get to the information in the minimum amount of clicks. With the amount of choice on the web, internet users are lazy and will quickly go to one of your competitor’s site if they cannot get what they want straight away. Make sure you have well designed navigation, that the important pages are linked to from the home or landing pages and that you have a good sitemap. This will keep users clicks to a minimum and because they will be able to find what they want they will be more likely to stay on your site and choose your business over your competitors.

2) Content

Great content makes a great website! If you have a website with great content then you will attract visitors that are likely to come back and visit your site over and over again. Overtime this builds the trust that is necessary for someone to do business with you. The key is to write great content that is relevant and useful for your target audience. Think to yourself what your ideal customer (which you have defined in step no 7) would like to know more about and then write about it. You can either create static pages of relevant content or you might find it easier to write blog posts on the important subjects. An important note is that you need to keep on writing great content and keep updating your website on a regular basis so that your site visitors have something new to read every time they visit. What great content can you add to your site right now?

1) Conversion

The number 1 thing that your great web site must do is convert the visitors on your site into customers. There has to be something on your site that builds trust in the end user and then prompts them to contact you and ultimately do business with you. There are several ways that you can achieve this including good use of call to action buttons such as ‘click here for Free 30 day trial’ which have been shown to have a very positive influence on site conversions . Good copywriting on your site is also a must with the language that you use prompting the visitor to perceive you as experts in your field whilst also talking about how you can solve their problems. A well-designed web site will also contribute massively to helping you to convert visitors to customers as with good planning you can actively move site visitors down a designated path before prompting them to contact you. If you are not getting enough conversions on your site then implement these strategies and analyse the results to see the improvement.

These 7 important parts form the basis for how you can have a web site that is not just good or OK, but great. Please feel free to leave your comments about what you think of this article.

So what did we do to move H100 from nowhere to the top of Google in just 2 weeks? Firstly we redesigned the site, giving a complete visual revamp and a more contemporary design. It was behind the scenes however that we really made the changes that made the difference. We created a custom WordPress Theme for the new site, coded it well and worked very hard on the on-page optimisation. This included doing the basics very well. Good page titles, header tags and useful URL’s were used. All images were compressed so that they loaded quickly and careful considerations of targeted keywords were employed across the site. We then focused on getting some good inbound links that is a process that we will continue with.

H100 are obviously very happy with what we have done them which is the reason why they got us to do a web design for them, smiles all round

One of the best things about our job is working with people who have a real passion for what they do and this is certainly true about H from H100. He is so into his work and takes brilliant photos, so good in fact that I have booked him for my wedding next year!!!!!

Please check out the site and if you need a great photographer then make a booking with H100…

» H100 Event Photography

I love my Mac, it works brilliantly, displays everything in crystal clear colours and has some amazing software to make my life a lot easier (Coda & Things especially). However the one thing that it doesn’t do so well is the exact thing that my PC does so well, Microsoft Excel!!! I spend a lot of time in Excel designing reports and performing analysis and I love it. The thing is, the Mac version of Excel is like going back in time 10 years and is just so awkward to use. It’s like everything that Microsoft changed when they moved from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007 on the PC was ignored when they developed Excel 2008 on the Mac. I am hopeful of a lot better version in the future as although I don’t mind running VMWare Fusion for my testing I would prefer to have a nice version of Excel on my Mac. Will it happen? Who knows, so until then it’s a Mac/PC combo all the way…

This is the main difference between dreams and goals as although they are both forward thinking, it is only goals that we consistently take action towards making happen. Dreams are a far more passive experience than goals and are therefore less likely to happen as it is only through positively engaging in something that we can know that we can manifest it in our lives.

So what is the benefit of setting clear goals rather than only having dreams? Well for starters when we set clear goals our brains starts to automatically look for ways to make it happen, cool eh! We literally start to spot opportunities that will help us to achieve our goal as our mind is focused on making it happen. Have you ever set a goal and then all of a sudden something has happened that has helped you out. This is the power of the brain and in particular the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is the part of the brain that is stimulated by the setting of goals and which then tells the brain to look for things to help us achieve that particular goal. Proactive goal setting is one of the most important things you can do as otherwise your mind will tend to assume goals such as ‘paying your next bill’ which are at best pretty disempowering.

Use goals to achieve dreams…

So what do I recommend? Start by writing down your dreams; avoid daydreaming and make the description as vivid as possible. Dream big and describe your dreams in as much detail as you can. Make sure that you include time scales for when you want your dream to be achieved and also to focus on how achieving this dream will make you feel. This is proactive dreaming. Now write down the goals that you will need to achieve along the way to make this happen. Break the dream down into small achievable chunks and structure them in a way that means that you are moving in the direction of your goal and therefore your dream on a daily basis. For instance, you might have a dream to own an Aston Martin. Take that dream and work out the small goals that you will need to achieve to make this a reality. Having a small and achievable goal to complete will help you to keep motivated and will enable you to actively track your progress. This is how to use the power of goals in a way to make your dreams a reality.

“There are two types of people, those that talk about their dreams and those that live them…”

Set your chunked down goals now and live your dreams!!!