Depending where you work and what your usual system is for doing things, you may come up with the task of making two or more sites for a client. There are only a few different things (obvious things) that you can consider when trying to complete them. Content and design, right? Now hopefully you don’t have troublesome client keywords pinching into some small niche that you can’t possibly write for. Usually, content is no biggie. Design however can take a little while to think of and while it’s nice to be able to ask your friends/coworkers/whatever to pitch in an idea, you certainly can’t improve on yourself by that alone.

For simplicitys sake, lets say you have 2 that need to be done. The first of the designs should be relatively easy to point out: something similar to your clients site (and if they don’t have one…well…umm…lets just say they do in this case). This site is pretty close to the clients original site in this case. For a second one, I had to consider something completely different. Luckily, I keep a batch of folders including .PSD’s, CSS txt files, and .JPG versions of the PSD’s just for a slight reminder of how it looked. Considering the theme of what the client was aiming for, I made this as the alternate site.

Content shouldn’t be nearly as hard as thinking up a design in my opinion. If it comes easier for you, then congrats! But always, always consider your content of a higher priority. That’s pretty much the SEO bread and butter, so keep it well threaded with keywords (not too many and not too few) and you’ll be just fine.

What is Search engine optimization (SEO). It is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site’s relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users.

Courtesy of wikipedia.org

When you are building a Timberlake template system site.  The basic template is actually very boring.  A quick and easy way to spice it up without having to know too much about HTML or CSS.  When you created the header for the site, make the width of the image maybe 20px (pixels) longer than the normal width of the page.  Then create your header the same width as the page should be.  Then round off the top, or give it a unique border (keeping in mind that is must match the border of the site you are working on.)  Then you, if you want to, can give the image an illusion of it coming past the border and off the respective boundary of the page.  When you put the header on the site, give it a negative margin left, half the distance of what you extended it so the borders match up with the page and viola! You have the illusion of a header going beyond the border, and in turn makes it look a lot cooler!

Just an FYI

I was searching around for seo content to write for blogs today and I came across this site. If you check it out it can offer you advise on just basic SEO, but also on topics like how to created a perfect website using META tags

It also provides tips on CSS, Frontpage and even Windows… so check out this link as see if it helps you out

This is an article I found on the web that I thought was interesting. So I am sharing with everyone. Enjoy.

Article Tools

As the web expands beyond more traditional means of getting traffic via search engine optimization and paid advertising, social networks and related data management services should become an important part of your online search marketing strategy. Learning how to use blogging can help you create authority, connect better with your customers and lift your visibility in the search engines.

We know that search engines are making changes to accommodate for shifts in the marketplace, as well as a more internet-savvy community. We can see this by the way the top search engines change results and test those changes on the user community. Google’s universal search layouts, for instance, embed data from video, news and podcasts in the natural search engine results. Additional services, such as personalized search, are available that allow for search engine results swayed more toward user preferences or behaviors. 

Universal search results represent an issue for search engine optimizers since less screen real estate is available for traditional text listings. You may find your listing pushed off the first page if you aren’t watching and executing better than the competition. Social media optimization is something you should look into now, if you haven’t already.

On some of the SEO sites that I have built get really bad rankings and I don’t know why. Well upon further research I found that the client’s site is the reason for such low rankings. This is because they either used an iframe or have a site completely made of images. Both of these are bad due to the fact that search engines don’t care about images and there is not enough code to read with an iframe site.

The solution to this problem is what we here at www.USASEOPROS.com call a splash site.  A splash site is a one page site that is low on images extremely key word rich and in no way shape or form have a any iframes. The seo sites are linked to the splash page and not directly to the client’s site because the site wil, for lack of a better term, drag down the seo site’s ranks. So the SEO sites are linked to the splash, which help out the SEO site, then the splash page, which is built to look the same as the client’s site,  is linked to the client’s site.

It may eventually come up that you have to do multiple designs for a single client. Running short of ideas when you have certain restrictions is bound to happen and no matter how well you design something, it may look good to you, but to the eyes of others, it may just prove to be an eyesore. This is where you have others pitch in.

If you’re really looking for the grass thats always greener on the other side of the fence, why not try asking how they keep their lawn so dang green? Likewise, ask your peers and get input from them. Of course, if you are able to have contact with your client, that would be ultimately best as it’s them you’re trying to impress here. But hey, sometimes they don’t particularly know just what it is that they want and that’s where you were supposed to come in.
I personally had to do a few myself in which multiple designs for McDonalds. It was quite a pain, but the 5 below are what I was able to cook up with some opinions from the people around me when I was running short of ideas.

Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5

So gather opinions, if all else, you change a few colors and bam, it should look just fine.