WDTalk

Have you ever wondered why that beautifully designed site you created looks fabulous on your PC, but not on others – aside from differences in browsers? Why does that bold font that screams BUY ME on my PC display as Times Roman on my wife’s computer?

The answer is that fonts are operating system resources, meaning you can see that font only when it’s installed on the specific PC that is viewing your site. Default fonts rarely resemble the font you intended.

Is that font a must have?
If you absolutely need that font on your website, it is possible to set up your site so that others can view it as you do on your computer, but that comes at a price, not in money, but …

Embedded Fonts
It is possible to embed fonts on your website, so when your wife or another visitor views your site, that beautiful font will embed itself on their computer, enabling them to see what you see at your PC. The downside is that this adds another layer to your site. That layer is download time, sometimes as much as 20 to 25k per font.

Who is Your Target Audience?
If your target audience is rural Illinois, then download speed is critically important, as much of the rural Midwest is still locked into dial-up. On the other hand, if your target audience is urban America, broadband will help.

Which Font to Use?
I recently did a query for free fonts which returned nearly 12 million results. The possibilities are virtually endless. So, first you find the font you want and use it on your site, then create an embedded font file and finally, attach that font to your style sheet.

The Designer’s Dilemma
As a designer, you can’t control an individual browser’s display, but by embedding that font in the site’s Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), you can cause your font to download with the website page. A word of caution – not all designers allow their fonts to be embedded. Hmm .. An alternative solution could be to use a commercial package, such as TypeKit, a subscription-based service for linking to high-quality Open Type fonts from some of the worlds best type foundries. Their fonts are served from a global network on redundant servers, offering bulletproof service and incredible speed.

Does PageRank matter? More than a few self proclaimed SEO experts say NO, but common sense dictates that it does, even though some low PageRank (PR) sites with just the correct combination of keywords outperform higher PR sites in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). When we externally compare sites for PageRank, we’re comparing Toolbar PageRank which doesn’t necessarily match Google’s internal page rank.

Toolbar PageRank versus Real Page Rank
What’s reflected on Google’s Tool Bar is a simple indicator for some of Google’s vast tool chest of variables that determine real page rank. The two may be very different. It’s believed that Google looks at over 200 key indicators, and the combination of those determine real page rank. Toolbar PageRank is believed to be a numeric value of link juice, or the measurement of indexed links to your site.

Inbound links from higher PR sites that have related content lend higher value than those with higher PR with non-related content or lots of links to bad neighborhoods. Changes in PR do not always affect changes in SERPS. Toolbar PageRank is essentially an algorithm to quantify the authority of a site, and the assigned numerical number (0-10) cannot be increased without increasing backlinks.

How do you determine your site’s value to the search engines?
One of the things I look for is how often search engines spider pages, but that’s just a starting point. If you’re running a popular forum or blog, content on your site is being constantly updated, and the search engines sit up and take note of this. If you’re using Google Alerts, it’s not uncommon to see threads indexed in less than five minutes.

Another way is to analyze traffic to your site, researching the keywords, keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases being entered in search queries and on what pages they land.

Are all search engines equal?
The answer here is absolutely NOT. Although they all factor in backlinks, Yahoo, for instance seems to factor out low page rank sites. Google, on the other hand, clearly seems to use a variety of different algorithms to rank sites. As a test, do a search on both search engines for the same query, then take a look at the descending order of PageRank in the SERPS for each.

The Value of Niche Marketing
Here’s where it gets interesting. The more niche the search query is, the greater the probability that lower PR pages may outperform higher PR pages. And vice versa – the more generic the query, the greater the probability higher PR pages may outperform lower PR pages. An example, a query for the niche – Business Class Shared Web Hosting, may rank in the top ten in Google SERPS, with a corresponding PageRank of 4. A search query for Hosting will likely return higher PR sites in the top ten.

My Recommendation
Don’t become overly absorbed by the Toolbar PageRank of your site. While it is certainly an indicator of link juice, it’s not an accurate indicator of SERPS value, and that’s what really matters. Will prospects entering search queries relevant to your products or services find your site on the first page of results in Google, Bing or Yahoo? If not, it doesn’t matter if your PageRank is 10. If they can’t find your site within minutes of entering that search query, you’ll be like that airport they build near me years ago that no one ever used, yet the bus lines kept driving routes by it – nice facility, but no revenue. Instead of investing in PageRank, invest in providing value to your visitors. Your SERPS will improve and so will your bottom line.

Landing pages are those pages on your website where visitors first arrive. If you’re launching an advertising campaign, measuring the results of that campaign are paramount to maximizing your return on investment (ROI). Web analytics are the critical ingredient here. On an ecommerce website, would it be important to know what pages produce higher conversion ratios?

Home Page versus Product Pages
As a rule of thumb, product pages generally deliver higher conversion ratios, as much as seven to one. Usually, the more specific and focused these pages are, the better your results will be. Even absent any analytics, we know, psychologically, that Internet shoppers are more inclined to purchase if the path from their search query to the BUY button is simplified or made easy.

Relevant Content to the Rescue
What I frequently see on home pages are three or four purchase options, with a “read more” below each offer. These link to plans with additional options. More often than not, these plans simply display features and lack content on solutions.

Here’s the catch – the major search engines prioritize relevant content – that is, those pages with rich content rank higher in their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).  Very focused product pages may not reflect the highest number of hits to your site, but they will produce higher conversion ratios. And if, at the end of the day, money in your pocket matters, tweaking your product pages might be a good idea.

Tweaking for Success
The key to tweaking a product page is NOT to tweak it to the search engines, rather to your visitor – your prospect. Keyword research helps. What keywords, keyword phrases or extended keyword phrases are being queried currently to find your products (or your competitor’s products)?

Imagine you’re a shopper and have just queried “St. Louis Collocation Services”? Is there a product page on your site with that extended keyword phrase? And does that phrase fit organically within your content – meaning it isn’t repeated 15 times on the page. Most ezine article submission sites recommend no more than 2% keyword saturation – meaning for every 100 words, no specific keyword should show up more than twice in the content.

My Recommendation
Whether your goal is increased sales, lead generation or branding, the basics remain the same. Make it easy to navigate to the BUY button. Include keywords, keyword phrases and extended keyword phrases on your product pages that directly correspond to queries currently being entered on the search engines – that are relevant to your product or service.

TESS stands for Trademark Electronic Search System. It provides for on-line searching of existing trademark application and registration information. TESS provides public access to the same text and image database of trademarks as is currently provided to examining attorneys at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Before you pay for that domain name
Not every name has a domain or website associated with it, yet that name may be trademarked, and that could spell BIG problems for you down the line should you register  and brand your online business around that.

What are the differences between patents, trademarks and copyrights?

Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights are three types of intellectual property protection

Patents protect inventions, and improvements to existing inventions.

Trademarks include any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. Service marks include any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce, to identify and distinguish the services of one provider from services provided by others, and to indicate the source of the services. 

Copyrights protect literary, artistic, and musical works.

Protect Yourself
I remember a conversation I had in a chat room years ago about trying to come up with a name for a hosting chamber of commerce or accreditation site. Fortunately, I had the United States Patent and Trademark Office website bookmarked. It seems that every name proposed was already registered. I do know that in Missouri, business aliases are registered but those names are not protected. More than one business can legally DBA (do business as) under the same name.

For example, I typed in the name of a popular soft drink under their New User Form Search (Basic). It returned 339 results, but only a portion of those were live registrations. This search form does offer the ability to search for both live and dead, or live or dead independently.

Why Trademark?
Here are some specific benefits of having a federally registered trademark:

1. Constructive notice nationwide of the trademark owner’s claim.
2. Evidence of ownership of the trademark.
3. Jurisdiction of federal courts may be invoked.
4. Registration can be used as a basis for obtaining registration in foreign countries.
5. Registration may be filed with U.S. Customs Service to prevent importation of infringing foreign goods