You should, hence, pay a close attention to every word written in this article, as all of them have the capacity to take your dead webpage by its hand and pull it on the first page of Google. Each of the 51 SEO secret tips shared in this article are gold nuggets, which you will not like to slip out of your hand into the dark water of oblivious online market.

And once you have a fair understanding of these SEO secrets, you can either apply these to your business by yourself, or hire a WebQuest virtual assistant to do the SEO tasks for you.

search engine checklist

1. Limit the Use of JavaScript on your page, but when it becomes almost impossible to remove JavaScript from the drop-down menu, image links, or image maps then make sure that you have text links to all those pages at some place on your website. These are the links and not the JavaScript ones which search spiders will follow.

2. A lot has been said, read, heard, and proclaimed about PageRank, but it is nothing more than an oft-quoted snippet of the Google search algorithm. It does matter, but not so much to outrank all non-PR pages. Many times a well-optimized page outranks a webpage with high PR in Google SERP. So do not be too fanatical about it.

3.       Virtual home of ABC Company Pvt. Ltd. is not the ideal title tag to go for. You cannot even buy a pint with this kind of title tags, and repeating such tags on all your pages means nothing more than piling up of SEO sins. Make sure you provide a unique keyword-rich title tag to all the web pages in your website.

4. If you feel guilty when leaving out your company’s name from the title tag then you can use it towards the end of the title tag preceded by a pipe sign (Keyword-rich Title Tag| Your Company Name).

5. Content, content, content, and content. Do you want me to repeat this some more times to make you understand how important high-quality, keyword-rich, relevant content is for the success of your SEO campaign? High-quality content is the absolute must for SEO — insider news is Google is going to bring a major change in its search algorithm which will push the website with low-quality content down to the bottom, if not flush them at all. So, no more auto blogging for 2011.

6. When it comes to building back links, slow and steady wins the race. Build as many backlinks as you can, but go slow. Google can tell from a distance if the links are on dope (artificially built), and do it every day. Google loves continuity, breaking it will mean you are not such a good sport, and no one loves that. Not even Google.

7. Do not chase every “link celeb” (backlink), some links are more celebrated then others. Links from authority sites, EDU domain, GOV domains, and high-PR websites are like MJ (Michael Jackson) of backlinking world. Chase them, and let the struggling aspirants (lesser known backlink sources) struggle for their bread.

8. Links from within your website will make life easy for search bots, so they always reward the website with better internal linking structure. Do not discount the value of keyword-rich internal linking. It delivers.

9. Search spiders are busy people. They keep on scanning millions of pages full of words and phrases, most of which are duplicate and stale. They do not like taste of stale food (content). Provide them fresh and tasty (read relevant) content every day, and they will come to your website for feast. It will mean better ranking for you.

10. Google is huge and so is its ego. Do not downplay Google (or even Yahoo! and Bing) by designing a website first and then thinking of search engine optimization. Always think of SEO first then of including any element in your web design. Too many flash and AJAX will strip your website off the opportunity to get indexed. These content are opaque.

11. If Flash and/or AJAX are must for your website then you must have new-generation Flash and AJAX, which is not as fortified behind the strong walls as were earlier ones. Google bots now can access these.

12. Always remember ALT Tag. This is the only way to make search spiders make sense of those cool graphics on your page. You must attach keyword-rich ALT tag to all the images on your website.

13. Use keyword-rich descriptive caption in your image. This plays an important role in getting your image indexed for your keyword.

14. Make description tag interesting enough to excite people to click on the link. SEO will not be of much use if the visitors do not click on your result in SERP, and only a compelling description can guarantee that.

15. Do not insert primary keyword more than once in description tag. Use secondary and/or tertiary keywords instead.

16. Local search is going to be the next battle ground. If you sever one particular market then include the name of the city in the keyword, for example: San Antonio web design, New York SEO, etc.

17. Jumping between using http://, http://www., www., and now-www version of your domain names will dilute your link building effort. Use your domain name consistently when building backlinks to your website. For example, if you have been using http://www.YourDomain.com then stick to that and refrain from using www.YourDomain.com or http://yourdomain.com or http://www.YourDomain.com/index.html in your backlinks. Google consider each of the three above described domain names as separate websites, so consistency is must.

18. You must add rel=canonical to your domains or use 301 redirect to tell Google which domain to list.

19. Do not use frames. They are quite bad for SEO.

20. In SEO, regardless of what self-confessed SEO Gurus say — it includes even those who have just returned from Himalayas (read Google den) — the file extension in an URL doesn’t matter. Use .HTML, .HTM, .PHP, .ASP, or whatever file type you feel is suitable for your website.

21. Getting the new website indexed by Google is a tricky affair. Regular submission can take weeks if not months before your website starts appearing in search results. There is a shortcut to get indexed fast and that is to get a backlink from high-quality website.

22. Write high-quality press releases and submit it to high PR press release directories. Include relevant links in the release and give 110-140-word gap between two links.

23. Article marketing is never dead. It is a great source of getting high PR authority backlink.

24. Ride on the popularity of established blogs. Write high-quality guest posts for them, and use your signature to get visitors. And when you do so, make sure that the landing page, page on the other side of the links, are relevant for the readers of that blog. You should also include a subscription box on the landing page to convert visitors into subscribers.

25. Quality is always better than quantity. Do not go after thousands of PR0 links, a handful of backlinks from authority websites and PR5+ websites will be enough.

26. Add blog to your domain and post new articles/blog posts at least thrice a week. This will give search bots enough fodder to munch on.

27. Use your main keyword in all important HTML tags (H1, H2, H3, bold, italic, etc.). But do not over do it. Do not make bold all the instances of a keyword, do it just once.

28. Use your primary keyword in the first 50 words of your article. Make sure it comes as early as possible. But keep readability in mind. Stuffing keywords will not give you higher ranking.

29. Keep an eye on the bounce rate, and minimize the bounce rate by providing a website with an uncluttered design, clear navigation, and high-quality keyword-focused content.

30. Make sure your keyword-rich backlink is surrounded by related terms. The text around your link should be related to the keyword in the anchor text. Her Highness never travels alone. She is always with her folks.

31. Do not go to the hiding, it will make you look a thief. The domain which does not disclose ownership information in WHOIS could be considered SPAM by Google. You should not go for a privacy registration, unless you are someone who wants to stay under cover, come what may.

32. When using a shared hosting for your website, you must check the neighborhood you are going to live in. A neighborhood (read server) which is shared by proxy spammers and banned websites should be avoided. It will affect your ranking. You may cry innocence, but it will fall on deaf ears.

33. Do not just add blog to your domain and write posts, but optimize each one of them with a keyword, may be long-tail ones, if all of the short tailed ones are taken. When doing so do not forget to optimize title tags of each blog post independent of blog’s title tag.

34. It sounds stupid, but the speed at which your website loads is one of the 250 factors on which Google ranks a website. Everyone loves agility, even machines (Google bots).

35. Another thing that does not look so important but affects ranking immensely is website usability. Make your navigation flatter, and website easy to use, as complicated website does not impress anyone, not even a philosopher or Google.

36. Love grows exponentially when shared freely. What make you think it is not so with link love? The more you will give (link out to other domains) the more you will get (backlinks from good domains), so share your link love.

37. You feel pang of regret for not using that sleek flash or that cool picture on your homepage than make sure that you have text links below it, in below the fold area.

38. Get backlinks from .EDU and .GOV websites for your domain. These are highly esteemed in the eyes of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, as well as other search engines.

39. Do not go crazy by attaching too many keywords to one page. Do not over-optimize your website, and do not optimize one page for more than one keyword, it will dilute the overall ranking. Focus the content to one single keyword in all your off-page activities.

40. Keep your backlinks natural. Do not use the same anchor text in all the backlinks. It looks so artificial. Let some links go nude, and some have other keywords.

41. If you are out fishing for the links than make sure you have good baits. Create attractive linkbaits. You can have a list post like this, an infographic, or a video, or a survey for the linkbait. The better a bait is the higher number of links you will get.

42. Optimize your RSS feed content using keyword-rich title tag, and eye-catching description.

43. In a blog post, add category keywords and other relevant terms as tags. This will get indexed by Google.

search engine professionals

44. Create context for links and images on your site. Surround the images and links on your website with content relevant to the ALT tag and caption of the image and anchor text of the link, respectively.

45. Add both XML and HTML sitemaps to your website. You must generate XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

46. Add video to your website, submit it to YouTube, and optimize it with relevant tags and descriptions. Video often appears towards the top of the search result.

47. Create documents like PDF, DOC, and PPT files and submit it to free document sharing sites. It will add versatility to your backlinking effort.

48. Include strong call-to-action in your meta description tag. You should also ask users to post comments, if you have a blog. This will add fresh content to your website without any extra effort.

49. Install comment to post plug-in for your WordPress blog. This will get your comments indexed as pages, which means more listing in search results.

50. Image search is going big on Google, you should, therefore, assist Google bots index all images on your website by enabling “enhanced image search” ion your Google Webmaster Central account.

51. If I get to conclude what SEO is in four words than I will say: content, links, popularity, authority. All of them in the given order.

Useful SEO Tips

When doing SEO always remember that it is not a one-shot process and it takes time before your efforts can start producing results. Hence, you need to have some patience.

Second thing that I would like to tell is about call to action. No matter how well-optimized your website is if there is not a strong and consistent call to action, all your effort will be wasted. You must include a strong call to action in your content.

When done patiently and for a period of time, SEO gives you more result than any pay per click (PPC) campaign can give. And unlike PPC, in SEO there is no additional cost for getting one extra visitor. Once set, SEO does wonder. It produces trustworthy result.

The links lead to the book’s amazon page and they have my associate id attached to them. Because I don’t have ads on this site I have to ask that if you like this list and decide to buy a book from amazon, please use my links as it would be helpful in paying for my coffee, book addiction, and future contests. Enjoy!

Typography

1. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

This is one of those books a lot of people with a background in graphics design loves. I think the language is way too exaggerated for a person without a graphics design background. I only include it in this list, because some of you might find that you like it since it has withstood the test of times, but I don’t recommend it for your first book on typography. Richard Rutter at webtypography. nettook the elements in this book and applied it to the web very well. The site is a must read.
2. Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography by James Craig, William Bevington, and Irene Korol Scala

This was my first book on typography and it does a very good job at explaining typography in a way that is easy to understand. It is organized very well, includes good examples, and lots of pretty pictures to stare at. Does a good job of covering all the areas you need to know about typography,

3. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students byEllen Lupton

This was my second book on typography and while it covers a lot of the same materials as other typography books, I found it very helpful to see a different author explain the different aspects of typography. Typography is one of those subjects where it is very helpful to hear different opinions and angles on the subject in order to get a better grasp of it.

4. The Complete Manual of Typography by James Felici

I used this book in the same way as the others and it was to expand my mind about typography by reading other angles on the subject of typography. I would recommend going with the one that speaks to you the best first and then reading other books to get a more full understanding of it.

CSS/XHTML

5. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll

CSS Mastery is one of those solid books that does a good job covering the different aspects of CSS and XHTML you need to know in order to build a website. At the end of the book it goes through a couple case studies so you can get a look at practical applications of what you learned.

6. The Art and Science of CSS by Jonathan Snook, Steve Smith, Jina Bolton, and Cameron Adams

A good book that is jam packed with good examples teaching you the fundamentals you need in order to build a website. The difference between this and CSS mastery is that this book uses more color so some examples are easier to see and they also cover a few different topics. Both books cover the basics though, which one you use is up to your personal preference and needs.

7. Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm

This book’s primary focus is on building websites that can stand the test of time, well at least better than non web standards websites. This books takes examples of websites that are not coded well and then shows you how to make it better.

8. The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks by Rachel Andrew

This book is organized by tips so you can skim through it looking for what you need to learn. It is helpful for when you are clueless why certain things work a certain way or want to do something a certain way, but don’t know how.

9. CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web by Eric Meyer

I carry this pocketbook with my macbook pro a lot in the beginning and still do from time to time, because it is a useful book to refer to when you can’t remember certain code structures because you don’t use that particular code often.

Design

10. The Principals of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird

A very good book to start you off on the principles that make a beautiful web design. It has a lot of good examples of each principle. At the end of each chapter, what you learned is applied to a website that the author is building so you get to see a nice site unfold as you read the book.

11. Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual by Timothy Samara

A more detailed book on design elements that I found to be very useful after reading the principles of beautiful web design. This book goes through different aspects of design in a more in depth manner so you get a better understanding of the different design elements.

12. Design-it-Yourself Graphic Workshop by Chuck Green

A great book that covers the different aspects involved in logo, letterhead, business card, and newsletter design. I found it very helpful to see how print designers work and a lot of the principals they apply to their work can be applied to the web as well.

Color

13. Color Design Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Color in Graphic Design by Noreen Morioka, Terry Stone Sean Adams

All design books talk about color and that includes typography books as well. So I am only recommending one book on color, because I don’t feel reading any more books on color would help more than experimenting with it yourself or supplementing it with online resources.

Usability

14. Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakon Nielsen and Hoa Loranger

Everyone who talks about usability has read this book and for good reason. Jakob Nielsen is considered the guru of usability so check out this book. It is a good read with lots of interesting facts as well as things not to do when building your website.

15. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug

A much shorter book than Prioritizing Web Usability, but just as useful. Steve Krug uses a lot of examples in order to show you both good and bad websites. He also talks a lot on how to set up usability testing to get the most out of it.

16. Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Designby Robert Hoekman Jr,

As the title says, it is about designing the obvious in such a way that it really is obvious and easy to use. After you are are done designing for usability though, you should work on making it more pretty though.

Logos

17. Logo Design Workbook: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Logos by Noreen Morioka, Terry Stone Sean Adams

Who doesn’t want a cool logo? Learning how to build logos is one of those things that are great to know, because often times you will have to design either your own logo or a client’s. It is important when designing logos to understand how the brand affects your image.

18. Logo by Michael Evamy

A great book that has a ton of logos (1300 logos). Great as a reference or source of inspiration.

Javascript

19. Simply Javascript by Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams

There comes a point where you want to add more functionality to your design and javascript is a great way to do this. Be careful not to make it so that your visitors need javascript in order to use vital functions of your site as this will exclude quite a bit of users.

20. Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple Javascript Techniques by Karl Swedberg and Jonathan Chaffer

jQuery is a great framework that makes javascript easier to use as well as easier to understand. This book is written by the developers of jQuery and is filled with great examples that makes it easy to learn.

Extras

21. The Unusually Useful Web Book by June Cohen

This book is filled with ideas on how to structure your web design projects, which makes them easier to work with. It also goes in depth on the various stages of web design and questions you should ask yourself.

22. How To Be A RockStar Freelancer by Collis Ta’eed

I found this book very valuable in expanding on my knowledge and making me a better freelancer. Check out freelanceswitch.com for some great articles Collis has written on the subject so you know what you are getting into.

23. Google Analytics 2.0 by Jerri L. Ledford and Mary E. Tyler

Google Analytics is awesome not only because it is free, but it is a very powerful program to track what your visitors are doing. If you don’t know what your visitors are doing, then you won’t be able to fix problems before they get out of control or make your design better. Read my book review on Google analytics 2.0 for more information.

Bonus for Blog Designers

24. Clear Blogging: How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them by Bob Walsh

While knowing what makes a blog successful from a blogger’s point of view is not required, I found it very helpful in making better blog designs. This book goes over a lot of the different tools bloggers use as well as what makes a blog successful.

25. Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers by Michael A. Banks

If you have ever been curious as to how the top blogs came to be, then this book is for you. The interviews reveal a lot of interesting information about the top blogs and their authors. I have to say though, that a lot of the top blogs’ design are terrible and the only reason they can get away with that is because they have the advantage of not only being the first in their niche, but also being around for years. That and great content of course.

comment form

If you are a regular reader here, you know that I put a lot of emphasis on paying attention to blog design elements that usually don’t get much attention at all like comment designs. The comments form is another one of the blog design elements that usually ends up getting rushed at the end. There really is no right or wrong way to design a comments form as long as you pay attention to basic usability guidelines. The following are 37 ways other blog designers have designed their comments form:

1. 404 User Experience Design

2. Adii

3. Renaissance

4. Avalonstar

5. Bartelme

6. Carlos Leopoldo

7. coda.coza

8. Creattica Daily

9. CSSAddict

10. Mancub

11. Darren Hoyt

12. Design Disease

13. Design Intellection

14. Edmerritt

15. Elitist Snob

16. Elliot Jay Stocks

17. greg-wood.co.uk

18. High Resolution

19. ifoh designs

20. Jesus Rodriguez Velasco

21. KISSmetrics

22. Kulturbanause

23. La Privata Repubblica

24. lotus from the mud

25. Lucy Blackmore

26. MonsieurLam

27. Natalie Jost

28. Noupe

29. Oaktree Creative

30. Ordered List

31. pixelgraphix

32. Playground Blues

33. Chris Shiflett

34. Smashing Magazine

35. Tim Kadlec

The secret is that you don’t have to hire an expensive blog designer to have a great blog redesign. While it certainly helps and makes the process much easier if you had one to work with, it would still be your responsibility in order to set the overall guidelines for the blog redesign. You need to have a direction when working towards a redesign of your blog. Without any direction you will just end up with a prettier blog (hopefully), which is fun, but does not guarantee that it will make your blog any better.

A great blog redesign starts with a plan. In order to put together a plan for your redesign, you must first reassess your goals, then figure out how well your blog is meeting your goals, and finally asking yourself whether the current design is helping your blog achieve your goals.

Let your goals guide your redesign

If you have ever tried to redesign your blog or anything for that matter, you have probably found your progress halted to a stop by little details such as does this blue or that green look better? This happens when you don’t have goals to guide your overall efforts. Little details will bog you down and slow your progress and even sidetrack you completely from the actual purpose of your redesign. The importance of the answer to whether that blue or green looks better pales in comparison to the answer for the question of whether this change will help you make more money, get more subscribers, or increase page views.

Making visual changes just for the sake of change itself will result in a prettier blog, but that does not necessarily mean a better blog. You can actually make it worst if your redesign is not built with your goals in mind. You can’t hit a target you cannot see.

Just like social media and SEO, your blog design is a tool, a means to an end and not the end in itself. Reassess your goals and allow them to guide your decisions when redesigning your blog. The following are some great resources to help you get started on figuring out your goals and reassessing your current ones:

List of resources

• The Pocket-sized Guide to Blogging
• How to Make Money Blogging: 7 Strategies to Make Money Online
• Why Do We Blog?

How well is your blog meeting your goals?

This is not about whether or not your current blog design is helping you achieve your goals, because that is the next step. This is about whether or not your current blog is where you want it to be. Is it giving you the exposure that you want? Is it getting you more clients and leads? Are you building a bigger network in which to spread your ideas around?

The answers to these questions will help you determine the goals for your blog redesign. This is different from the goals for your blog as this focuses solely on what you want the blog redesign to be able to accomplish in the end as a result of the blog redesign and nothing else. Increase page views? Get more subscribers? Decrease bounce rate? Increase discussions? Get more leads/clients?

List of resources

• How Can You Measure the Success of Your Blog?
• Social Media Marketing: Numbers Can’t Tell the Whole Story

Is your blog design helping you achieve your goals?

In order to figure out whether your blog design is helping you or not, you must really take a second look at your blog design. After that, take another 3-4 looks, seriously. As humans our brains are programmed in such a way that information that doesn’t change much, often just gets ignored completely by our mind even if we see them everyday. This is why we can do something everyday and not notice something until someone points it out to us or for some reason we were forced to pay attention to it. So when was the last time you really took a look at the design of your sidebar, footer, headlines, or comments?

If you are like most people, it was probably a long time ago. And who can blame you, as bloggers we get caught up with writing the next best article, promoting the crap out of it in social media outlets, and figuring out other methods to achieve our goals that we end up overlooking our own blog design. We no longer see the widgets we stuffed into the sidebar at the last minute, the links that no one ever clicks on in the footer, or that hideous rss button in the corner. Everything becomes a blur and your blog design suffers because it certainly doesn’t get better on its own.

So how do you figure out whether or not a blog design is helping you achieve your goals? It is pretty simple, as you go through your blog design keep in mind that any visual element that is not helping you achieve your goals is hurting it.

Conclusion

In the end, you should have a much better plan and direction for your blog redesign. Whether you take this to a blog designer or do it yourself does not matter as the end blog redesign will be that much better now that you invested time into a solid plan. If you are doing it yourself, then the next article is for you. It will focus on how to approach the redesign process after you got a plan.

Tips To Give Your Mobile Website a Fresh Look
Since the main objective of having a mobile website is to reach out to more people, you need to be a bit cautious while designing your website. Here are some issues that you should give adequate attention:

• Try to give it a dynamic look and do not try to feature all the elements in it.
• Give it space to breathe. Do not make it look like a visual garbage by incorporating all graphical elements.
• Try not to use flash because most of the mobile operating systems do not offer support for viewing flash files.
• Do not make it too heavy with glossy element since it will have detrimental impacts on your viewers.
• Try not to use long content as mobile user do not have much time to wade through long and boring content.
• Try to make your mobile website as user-friendly and search engine friendly as possible.

Start With A Bang
Do not bang your head against your PC while designing a mobile website since if you are finding it hard to get inspirations. Just start off with its probable structure and you will surely be able to do it finally. Do remember these things before jumping at a conclusion:

• Remember the screen size. It is small and that means you have to squeeze all the elements within the given space as far as possible.
• Do not toy with the concept of resolutions since it can mar your chances of seizing the attention of the viewers.
• Do not forget about the different operating systems such as iPhone platform, Windows Mobile, Android, Palm OS, Mobile Linux, Symbian OS phew.. there are so many of them. So before you launch the mobile version of your website, do not forget to check it in different platforms.
• The last commandment: Give your mobile website a smart look.

Now if you are still finding it difficult to get the hang of it, here are some amazing screen shots of some of the best mobile website designs that can inspire you greatly:

Mashable-mobile-web-design

McDonald-mobile-web-design

Intel-mobile-web-design

Coosh-mobile-web-design

CNN-mobile-web-design

Do Not Be Complacent: Complacency can kill your creative impulse. Do not stick to the same old and trusted rule since it can have disastrous impact on your designing career. Do not become self-absorbed and do not think too high of yourself since it begets complacency that will get heavy on your designing skills and ultimately ruin all prospects by maiming your creative flairs.

Try your level best to conquer complacency and start taking initiative to bring freshness in your designing projects by learning more.

Do Not Be Lazy: Lethargy is probably the worst trait of a website designer. If you are grappling with laziness, try to overcome it quick as possible. A lazy designer do not give two hoots to the look of a design rather what he tries  is to do is to finish a project anyway and that often leads to clients dissatisfaction and if it is not heeded properly, it is likely to create major roadblock in the future growth of an organization.

Do Not Delay Work: Once a crazy twitter user reflected:

“Do not keep all ur work for tomorrow, always remember u can also do it day after tomorrow. so enjoy life, be lazy n think crazy”

This may serve the manifesto of the school of lotus-eaters i.e. all those designers who want to shun works at any cost but the same does not hold true for the rest of the others who are a bit serious about their career and their positions.

There are deadlines to be met, clients to be satisfied, paperwork has to be done on time and loads of other stuffs that requires urgent attention and that you cannot put on hold for tomorrow.

Do Not Be a Copy Cat: The easiest way to meet a deadline in website design industry is to open some popular website design portfolio and then browsing some cool sites and then cobbled them up in your next work. It might look awesome and even you can manage to get away with it and if lady-luck favors you, you can get positive feedbacks from your clients. But remember one thing that the same process is now being followed by a sizable section of website designers and therefore by taking such shortcut route, you may run the risk of destroying your creativity.

Do Not Be A Victim of Workaholism: You love to work hard and it sound good but being a workaholic can hurt your career if you are in a highly creative field. Do not push the limits of your creative power; take a power nap when it is needed and recharge your creativity by taking a stroll in the garden. We hope this will definitely work.

The first, as exemplified by Apple and BMI, present the 404 page as a standard page within the regular site template

Apple 404 page

Twitter 404 page

I’ve always appreciated the creativity that can go into the design of the ‘independent’ style of 404 pages and I would love to use my sites’ 404 pages as a sort of creative ‘easter egg’ for someone who has the misfortune to arrive on them.

However, I’ve held back from doing so because I feel that error pages which fit within the overall site design are more user-friendly. They make it easier for the visitor to correct their course and navigate, if not straight to the right page, at least to the right section of the website.

But that’s just one person’s opinion, and I’m sure there is good reason why so many designers take the other approach. I’ve just never seen it explained.

So, is one approach better than the other or does it even not matter? I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts.

…too many marketers and communicators are destroying whatever credibility their homepages have left with customers by filling them with useless graphics and meaningless words.

While this may have been true a few years ago, the majority of web teams have moved beyond happy, smiling faces and marketing jargon to creating home pages that are useful and engaging.

The problem is simply that there is an undue emphasis on a website’s home page relative to the attention it receives from its users. This is not surprising given that this is the main page by which the web team will be judged, whether it is by internal decision makers or external peers.

Your CEO (or other C-level exec) is not going to be too familiar with most of your website, but you can be sure he knows what the home page looks like. And may have some opinions on it…

The challenge is that the visitors to a website constitute a vast, silent majority while the opinions of those internal and external people who interact with and influence the web team have a far greater sway over where focus is placed.

The answer is, of course, metrics. If you can show that taking a holistic approach to your site and improving other parts of it can produce a higher return on investment than endlessly tweaking the home page, you will be able to keep your influencers happy and meet the needs of your visitors.

Good luck with that.

When studying colour theory we are given an understanding of the colour wheel and the harmonious relationships that can be forged between these brothers of reflecting light… It is here that we are given a cheat sheet on how to use colour effectively to communicate the right message.

Below we use this knowledge to go behind the scenes of colour theory in logo design while looking at various case studies of logo designs that use these principles. Enjoy.

The Colour Wheel – Our Cheat Sheet.

This wheel, that shows the relationships of colours, is a handy little tool to understand. Without going into any great detail of how the colours of the wheel are established (which is pretty interesting to know), we’ll just tip or toes into the water.

The panels that have an outline above, with their linking lines, show the relationships colours have. For example, complementary colours are the colours directly opposite each other. In our illustration above (the first wheel highlights the relationship), red and green are directly opposite, so they’re complementary. Just as the blue on the left and the yellow on the right are complementary, the orange and light blue, and so on.

These aren’t the be-all and end-all of colour combinations obviously, but they’re good places to start when choosing what colours you might want to use for a project. As you’ll see in the following examples, sometimes you might use three out of four tetrad colours, or go for an analogous harmony but stretch it out one more and skip one.

The wheel is our simple guide into the world of colours – something to use when you find yourself in a place of bother, or something you may choose to ignore. With that in mind, sometimes one may decide to ignore the wheel, but work with colour meanings and psychology instead. It should be noted that it isn’t exactly a science. Ask a hundred people what red means and you’ll likely get dozens upon dozens of different answers – none wrong. But again, it’s a great starting point and gives you insight into how your audience may instinctively perceive something you’ve put together.

Colour Meanings & Theory

Colour can make or break a design so it is vital that you know what colours mean and what they can communicate. Below are some ‘meanings’ of colour.

• Red evokes aggressiveness, passion, strength and vitality
• Pink evokes femininity, innocence, softness and health.
• Orange evokes fun, cheeriness and warm exuberance.
• Yellow evokes positivity, sunshine and cowardice.
• Green evokes tranquility, health and freshness.
• Blue evokes authority, dignity, security and faithfulness.
• Purple evokes sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty and mystery.
• Brown evokes utility, earthiness, woodsy-ness and subtle richness.
• White evokes purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined.
• Gray evokes somberness, authority, practicality and a corporate mentality.
• Black evokes seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness and being classic.

Visa – Complementary

This is a great place to start. This is as straight as it can be – direct complementary colours, no ifs, no buts. Yellow is directly opposite blue, so there isn’t a lot to talk about in this regard really, other than the yellow is a little orange, but let’s not too picky. Let’s have a look at the meaning of the colours.

Blue is a colour often associated with trust, loyalty, royalty, friendliness, wisdom and peace. It can also be associated with the less noble feelings such as depression, but given the context, not an association easily made—especially with our optimistic, wealthy and joyful yellow sitting calmly on the shoulder of the logo.

Remember, colours have a multitude of different meanings for different people – it’s all about context and the brand as a whole.

Wisdom, wealth and trust — what more could one ask for from a company at whom we throw wads of cash?

Samarra – Tetrad.

When it comes to tetrads, things can get a little dicey. Giving four colours equal footing is risky business, so it’s often better to have dominant colours and weaker colours – the Samarra’s logo is a good example of such a situation.

Our two dominant colours dance together as a perfect complementary pair, with the two others giving them a little support as minor players.

This isn’t exactly a perfect tetrad – our two minors are complementary to one another, but not perfect partners for the two majors in regard to a tetrad. They’re close, but off by one panel. The lighter orange is closer to red on our colour wheel and the blue is closer to green. In fact, the major colours are a little off as well, but being tints, we’ll give them a little room to move to help explain the harmony. It is a great example of taking colour theory as a base on which to work from but not necessarily to hold as gospel.

McDonalds – Loosely Analogous.

How could I possibly write on colours in branding without making mention of one of the most effective uses of colour in history? No one short of the Nazis, terrifyingly enough, has managed to use a combination of colours in such a recognizable and powerful way.

When I was younger I saw a documentary in which the McDonalds logo was discussed. I particularly remember a man making mention of the feeling that the red and yellow evokes – hunger. At the time, this idea fascinated me for at least a moment as I remember wondering how that could even be. Being a child, I probably put it down to magic or elves or.. something. It’s fun being a kid. Flash forward however many years and we have Wikipedia, with, under it’s entry for colour psychology; “Studies show that red can have a physical effect, increasing the rate of respiration and raising blood pressure; red also is said to make people hungry.” So maybe not elves after all.

Red can understandably cause a feeling of hunger—it’s the colour of the flesh, blood and health – maybe it isn’t only a modern day thing, maybe it’s an evolutionary association we have? Red also cues thoughts of speed, which is what fast food chains pride themselves on.

Then there’s the yellow. Again, Wikipedia informs us that yellow is the colour of joy and happiness, sociability and friendship. With their focus on children on the playground and friends grabbing a quick bite whenever out, yellow seems like an obvious choice. If you can associate your business with being part of any outing routine, you’re doing something right.

Ironically, while this combination has undoubtedly influenced many, many fast food chains, it’s also the colours of danger, death and panic – although some do think of these when eying the golden arches. There is an example further down of how pre-existing connections can be ignored, with the FedEx logo.

Or, you know, it’s just ketchup and mustard.

Koloroo – Tetrad.

This is a fantastic combination of colours – they scream Australia. Sunburnt deserts, beautiful beaches, nature and sun – it doesn’t get much more Australian than that. Symbolism: check.

Light colours that overlay and dance with one another in the shape of one of our treasures. If you’ll notice, the red of the head and feet of Skippy contrast well with the light blue that dresses the name. If the colours were in reverse order within the illustration, this one might have come off as tacky – looking as if the intent were to have the colours graduate between the illustration and the text. Not a great look in my opinion – might even have looked like a printing error. The contrast shows a deliberate thought of how the illustration and the text would interact with one another visually.

As for harmony? Simple – it’s a perfect tetrad.

9Rules – Complementary with a slide.

From red to green, from flame to flora. And an interesting use of complementarily harmonious colours.

Red and green are perfect complementary colours, with all those between in our logo hitting almost all other colours (in a 12 panel colours wheel) between them. A lovely use of riding the spiral of colours in an effort to evoke passion (the red), growth (the graduation of size and change in colours being in step) while representing nature (the leaf) and gentleness – not often the feeling one gets from a technology company.

It’s often good to go against the grain, as I found with the next logo.

FedEx – Kinda, sorta, analogous.

Orange and purple are analogous at best – you know, if you skip a couple of steps and make your purple closer to blue than red. But colour harmony isn’t the reason these players has been brought to the grounds today. No, it’s because of the power they have together through the strength of the branding used by this shipping giant.

Colour harmony theory might not work in favor of this combination, and nor does colour psychology to any great extent, no matter how many drops I try to squeeze from various sources around the web.

The colours just work. Neither is weaker than the other, neither one quite what you’d expect from a shipping company. The branding is the opposite of what companies following McDonalds did – it doesn’t go with the expected. It isn’t the standard blue and red of mail delivery.

Choosing the opposite of the norm, going against the standard or expected, helps set a strong contrast between you and them. It helps you stand out. While everyone else might be blue, you’re purple, them red, you orange. Not a great departure from the norm really, but one strong enough to make a difference.

Sports Link – Split Complementary.

Another almost perfect example of colour harmony. Sports Link uses a split complementary.

The symbolism of the colours works well for the client too. The blue symbolises tranquility, trust, coolness, wisdom and mobility. The green; life, nature, spring, youth, good luck and vigor. The red is associated with passion, energy and strength. I don’t want to say perfect, but for a sporting company—well, you’ll excuse me for thinking it might just be.

The colours are light without being too vibrant and shocking, helping ground the company as a serious business. This combination of colours is one you could probably easily find on anything that is aimed at children, from movie posters to toy packaging. But the subdued, almost subtle colours, gives this logo some feet on the ground.

It all just fits, doesn’t it?

Rules are Made to be Broken

Clearly, the rules that colour harmony lays before us aren’t laws. At best, the are merely guides, to be followed if one chooses, but also ignored or used as nothing more than a starting point. The same can be said of the meanings behind colours. Different cultures see the symbolism of different colours through different eyes. Different, different, different. But this isn’t a bad thing by any means.

Red and blue were traditional colours for mailing, then FedEx came along. McDonalds set a standard in using red and yellow for the fast food industry. This is where the beautiful spark of creative thinking starts to ignite. Nothing is set in stone. It use to be that light blue was the colour of girls, and pink the colour of boys. Things change.

The designer is in a position of power because of this. If something is considered and understood, then a monumental shift can occur in the result. Just because every other business in your client’s area uses green, it doesn’t mean you need to develop a logo of green. Discover why they use it, their reasoning for it, and see if you can give the same effect with red, or blue or orange.

In closing, it might be best to say that if there were a strong platform on which the mantra ‘to break the rules, you must know them’ can sit upon, then surely it is the platform of colour.

Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you’ll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they’ll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they’ll automatically know where to go. For example, when people think of webquestdesigners.com, they don’t have to wonder what URL to type into their browser to get there. The name of the site is also the URL.

Imagine if your business (or website) is called “Acme”, but somebody else holds that domain name. Instead, you have some obscure domain name called, say, “mybusiness.com”. What happens when your customers, recalling that Acme has a product they want, type “www.acme.com”? They’ll end up at your competitor’s website. One lost sale.

In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. There are just fewer things for your customers or visitors to remember. Moreover, you don’t seriously think that they’ll try to memorise an unrelated URL just because you want them to, do you? The only people who’ll memorise it are you and your competitors who want to compare your prices.

What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice? It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If you have an existing brand name that you’re known for, you’ll probably not want to ditch that name just because you couldn’t get the domain name. After all, it took you a lot of time and money to establish that name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the “whois” information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they’re willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you’ll normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).

On the other hand, if you’re just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you’ve acquired. So if you’ve acquired, say, the domain name “acme.com”, then your website and business might be named “Acme” or “acme.com”. I know this seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but that’s the reality if you don’t want to lose out on the Internet.

Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?

I know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like “cars.com” if you are selling cars. Witness, for example, how much money those generic names are being sold for. But seriously, if you were looking for a car, you’ll probably already have some brands in mind, and you’re more like to try out things like generalmotors.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.

For that reason, I personally feel that a domain name that matches your brand name is very important. The very name that you use to advertise your product is the name that you will want for your domain, because that is the first thing that people will try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than the obscure domain name.

Long or Short Domain Names?

Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don’t have to settle for an obscure domain name like avab.com when what you mean is AcmeVideosAndBooks.com.

Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better.

Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes: for example, “getit.com” is easier to remember and less prone to typos than “connecttomywebsiteandobtainit.com”.

Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory – for example, “gaepw.com” is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, “GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com”, we are more likely to remember the domain name.

Some of these arguments are actually academic. It’s increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names. I have not checked, but I’m fairly certain that names like “getit.com” and “good.com” have long been sold. If you manage to get a short domain name though, the key is to make sure it’s a meaningful combination of characters and not the obscure “gaepw.com” in my contrived example above.

Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they fare better in a number of search engines. The latter give preference to keywords that are also found in your domain names. So, for example, if you have a site on free C++ compilers with a domain name like freecpluspluscompilers.com, it might fare better in a search for “free C++ compilers” than my other site, webquestdesigners.com.

Which would I go for? I’d go for the shorter name if I can get a meaningful one, but I’m not averse to longer names. However, I would probably avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.

Hyphenated Names?

Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:

• Disadvantages

  1. It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They’ll probably leave out the hyphens and end up at your competitor’s site.
  2. When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “acme-books-and-videos.com”? They might say, “I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous.” Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “acmebooksandvideos.com”. Oops.
  3. It’s a pain in the neck to type. Enough said.

• Advantages

  1. Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
  2. The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

Personally, I prefer to avoid hyphenated names if I can, but I guess it really depends on your domain name and your situation.

Plurals, “The”, and “My” Forms of the Domain Name

Very often, if you can’t get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:

thewebsite.com
mywebsite.com
websites.com