Everybody knows that Page Rank is important. It indicates the content volume of a site, and it also proves the site's popularity, or how many external links it has pointing to it. We all strive for the highest Page Rank we can muster for good reason. Having a high ranking means more traffic, and more traffic means more potential sales.  Unfortunately the age of your site is one thing we cannot control through SEO and is generally considered to be one of the top five most influential factors in how high a site will rank.

Optimization is the process of optimizing the HTML coding and page content of a web site for both the search engines and site visitors in order to attain higher rankings than competing industry web sites. This should bring an increase in qualified quality traffic and generate more customer inquiries that ultimately will convert to sales. People that come or arrive to your web site via the search engines are highly likely to be in the market for your products and services.   Your listing will only appear to the end user of an internet search engine if they search for products or service that match yours.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key to a successful web site that will enable potential customers to do business with you.  JR-N-Associates provides both 'on-page' and 'off-page' optimization.  It is important to have your keywords occur at least once within the content text on your website, within paragraph < p > tags. And is more beneficial to ensure this occurs closest to the top of your web page, and at the bottom.

Should I Put my Business Name in the Title Tag?   The html title tag of a web page's html header is the single most important "on page" element when it comes to (SEO) search engine optimization. That being said, is the best use of this valuable real estate served by including your business name in the title? Chances are the answer is a resounding "no!"

The title tag is an html tag which occurs in the header of a web page's code. The first thing I look at when I get a call from a prospective client is their title tag. More often than not, this tag is being used improperly, to the extreme detriment of the client. Recently SEOMOZ.org released its rankings of the ten most important factors in search engine rankings. The title tag came in at number 1, and this is no surprise to any SEO that has been around for awhile. Google especially pays a lot of attention to title tag content, and uses title tag information heavily to ascertain the relevant key phrases for which to rank a site. The opinion of search engine experts is unanimous on this one - key phrase use in the title tag is the number one "on page" factor affecting search engine rankings. This is not disputed, theorized or subject to professional debate. It is a fact.

Given this fact, we must look at how to best use the title tag to optimize our site for search engines. Many sites place the business name in the title tag (or even worse yet leave it blank or with default content such as "untitled document" or "home page"). Any of these variations can be disastrous!

Let's use an example of a company that manufactures widgets. The primary key phrase for that company would be "widgets", this being the phrase for which the company would like to rank highly for in the search engines. Now let's assume the company name is "ACME Manufacturing Company, Ltd.". Notice that the word "widgets", which is the desired key phrase, is not extant in the company name. So the company goes out and builds a wonderful web site to promote their widgets. However, throughout the site the title tag contains the following content: "ACME Manufacturing Company, Ltd." What is the effect of this?

Generally speaking, the company name should never appear in the title tag unless you actually expect to derive most of your traffic from searches involving your company name. As this is a rare situation, avoid the temptation to put your company name in the title tag - save it for elsewhere on your page. Put your desired search key phrases in the title tag, and leave it at that. Following this methodology throughout your site by optimizing title tag content for each page according to the desired search query for that page will be a major step in the right direction for high search engine rankings.

Is the H1 Important? What About <h2>, <h3> or <h4>?
Hello...Yes they are!!!  The <h> tag's can be placed anywhere within your <body> tag of your html. Bascially the lower the number the more importance the bots indexing your site will put on it. So for example a main title on a page should always be a <h1> tag where as a sub heading could be something like a <h3> or <h4> tag. These tags are pretty important to the bots trawling the net for indexing for the SEs as they will read such tags well before picking up the <p> tag.

Different Browsers look differently...One more tip - just because your website works fine in your browser of choice, do not assume that it will work equally well in all browsers. In fact it is not even safe to assume that it will work equally well in different versions of the same browser. Web designers who have had to cope with the incompatibilities of IE5, IE6 and now IE7 will no doubt testify to this point. It is vital to be sure that your website works on all the popular browsers. As well as IE and Firefox, don't forget Netscape and Opera on Windows and Safari on the Mac. And just to muddy the waters a bit further, Apple have recently announced Safari for Windows.  So now your website is usable, but is it usable by everybody?

Tips for a more accessible Web site

1. Provide all images with an alternative text description. If the image does not convey any information, provide null (blank) text rather than no alternative text at all.

2. Provide transcripts of audio content.

3. Ensure that the contrast between text foreground and background colours is sufficiently strong.

4. Do not use colour alone to convey information. There should also be some other form of visual indicator such as additional characters, images or font changes.

5. Place column headings in the first row of a table and place row headings in the first column. If headings are ambiguous, use the HTML scope attribute to clarify.

6. Never use the HTML blink and marquee elements. For animated GIFs or other moving objects, the flicker frequency must be less than 2 Hz or greater than 55 Hz. But better to have no moving content at all.

7. Link text should clearly state the purpose and destination of the link. Phrases like Click Here may mean nothing to someone listening to a screen reader.

8. Provide an option to skip navigation on all pages. This will save screen reader users from having to repetitiously listen to the same navigation, and keyboard users from having to repetitiously tab through every item. Use hierarchical headers to provide the same benefit and to enable navigation through copy.

9. On forms, always associate prompts with controls so that each control is adequately described. Use the HTML fieldset and legend tags to give structure to complex forms.

10. Follow this link for: Top 10 Secrets to SEO Web site Optimization...

How Can I Monitor My Website Traffic?
Our Trends report allows you to monitor traffic on your website, including visitor numbers, traffic sources, visitor behavior & trends, times spent on the site and a host of other information.  The sheer depth of information gathered, really leaves very little to be desired. From search engine analysis to page views, bounce-rates and more, the available data is presented so as to give users an easy overview of the most essential elements, with the ability to 'drill down' to less commonly accessed or more in-depth statistics and figures.  The Trends dashboard provides 'at a glance' visitor statistics for the previous month, as well as a graphical breakdown of your visitor's geographical locations in the form of a world map.  A pie chart clearly shows what proportion of visitors reached the site through search engines, by referral or through direct access, whereas the 'Content Overview' provides a list of the most commonly accessed pages.

Although our Trends report boast all the features and statistical data to be expected from a world-class keyword analysis and statistics tracker, it also features a number of additional tools which put it ahead of the pack where ease-of-use and depth-of-information is concerned.

1. The Map Overlay   Essentially, this feature brings up a map of the world, highlighting the countries a site's visitors stem from. Clicking on a country produces a close-up view, along with a geographical breakdown according to the region and/or city from which visitors accessed the site. This tool in itself is invaluable for all those webmasters with geo-specific sites, concentrating on a particular catchment area.

2. The Site Overlay   This is conceivably Google Analytics' single most important feature from a webmaster's or online business owner's perspective, as it provides a hands-on view of visitor behavior. When clicked, 'Site Overlay' opens the tracked web site in a new window and, after a moment's loading time, overlays each link on the screen with a bar, containing information about clicks to the target page and goal values reached [more about goal values in a moment]. Since it allows the webmaster or site owner to navigate his or her site and see exactly how visitors flow through it, it is difficult to imagine a more effective tool than this as far as raising a site's conversion rates is concerned.

3. Goals and Funnels   Unless the site being tracked is an information site which does not rely on generating sales or enquiries, conversion rates are as important as sheer visitor numbers. The 'Goals & Funnels' feature allows users to set up specific goals for their site, such as tracking a visitor to the 'Thank you for your enquiry' page for instance. It also allows the user to set up specific monetary values for each goal, and thus track the site's financial performance and profitability during any given period of time. The term 'Funnels' refers to the specific path a visitor takes to reach the goal's target page. Since most web sites sell a number of different product ranges or feature a number of ways to enquire, all of which lead to a single 'Thank You' page, the funnel allows for the tracking of each individual path with a minimum of fuss.

4. Graphical Representations   A great many visitor trackers out there will present the collected information in a certain way, be it a list, graph, pie chart, flow-chart or whatever. While all these methods of presentation are of course valid, it is nevertheless a fact that most users are different, and a pie-chart is not necessarily ideal for those users preferring to work with graphs or vice versa. Our Analytics however, allows users to choose between views on many of its reports.  Although this may seem like a relatively minor point, it nevertheless makes things easier, as it allows the user to work with the view he or she is most comfortable with.