I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that the New Year will bring happiness to you and success and prosperity to your business.

For this Blog entry, I want to review my 2009 top tips for success on the Web.

CONTENT is vitally important for a website in two ways: As a means of establishing strong search engine rank and as way of providing your marketing message to website visitors. Website copy is a key factor in optimizing a website for search engine rank. The higher the search engine rank, the more likely prospects are to find you when they’re searching for your goods or services.

There are guidelines for writing search engine rich copy which can make the copy both compelling to human visitors and extremely powerful in allowing search engines to index your website effectively. We find very often that websites have copy which conveys what the owner feels is important, e.g. “family run business, personalized customer service”, but misses the opportunity to help attract visitors to the site in the first place. Good website copy can achieve both objectives.

DESIGN is one of the most important aspects of a website’s success. Design should further the objectives of the website as much as possible, focusing the user’s attention on the main message of the Web page. Web design has changed significantly in the past few years and it is important not only to take advantage of the new design features but also to make sure that your existing website is not characterized by its outdated design.
Good website design is less of a decoration and more of a highly functional aspect of a website. Contemporary websites have designs that are simple, elegant and uncluttered. As such, the designs are contributing to the performance of the website, highlighting important messages regarding the organization and driving visitors to perform key tasks.

NETWORKING using social media websites is important for your business. If your business isn’t socially networking, rest assured that your competitors are. Consumers want to learn about the best products and services but they often want to do the research through finding first hand opinions from peer consumers. Instead of initially using a search engine to find a source for a product or service, they might search their favorite social media source, like Facebook or Twitter, to read online reviews or engage with others to get their views and opinions.

Social Networking is a strategic part of search engine optimization. The latest search engine algorithms take into account “global” presence on the Internet, not only the strength of your website.

PUBLISH, publish, publish. Set yourself up in Blogs and on social networks as the expert in your field. This will differentiate you from your competitors and lead users to your website. Publishing both on and off your website will strengthen your website’s search engine rank. Publishing is the free advertising of the Internet. Publishing on your website ensures that your website will be crawled and updated more frequently in the search engines.

A website Blog additionally provides an opportunity for user interaction which is a plus for visitor interest and satisfaction and gives visitors a reason for return visits. Publishing keeps information about your business and your website up-to-the minute current which demonstrates the vitality of your company.

There is no doubt that we will see a new slew of advances in Internet technology and marketing strategies in 2010. You want to stay informed and as leading edge as possible. The most important thing to remember is to make sure your website is not stagnant – keep it current, fresh, interesting and new.