Lethbridge SEO – The Psychology of Web Design

Lethbridge SEO knows that part of good SEO practice is designing your website to be appealing to your human visitors. You can spend a fair amount of time to get your website optimized for the search engines, but even a #1 ranking does your business no good if you can’t get your visitors to stay on your site or to take action on your site. The psychology of web design covers this area– how to design your website so that the layout, combination of colors, the amount of information, interactivity and other factors are optimized for your visitor, who is your prospective customer.

There are good reasons for taking psychology of web design into account for web owners learning the best Lethbridge SEO strategies. You see, happy visitors are more likely to take the action that you want them to take on your website. They are more likely to opt-in to your newsletter, to contact you with further questions, to refer their friends to your site, or to buy your product or service.

Today, unfortunately, you will find many scams, schemes and unethical practices on the internet that people have become wary and cautious. As a website owner, you will need to build up some trust between you and your visitor. This is not a quick process but it can be done. One way to start this building trust process is to put your visitor at ease on your website. Annoying pop-ups, too much sound or movement and disorganization only serve to hinder the building of trust.

To build your visitor’s trust, make sure you use familiarity and patterns they can recognize. For example, use a clean simple format that is easy to follow so they can find their way around on your website and feel at home while there.

Choose your color scheme with care. Make sure the colors coordinate because glaring contrast will scare visitors away; it is too hard on the eyes. Depending on the industry your website is promoting, there are some colors that blend well with your content. For example, it is expected that an environmental blog will have some green on it.

There are some design factors to take into consideration as well: ecommerce sites generally have products on the front page, very large sites normally have a search bar to make it easier to find things, and blog sites have a blog on the front page.

Pictures have meaning, and when people look at a picture, they will immediately draw their attention towards it and it will convey some sort of meaning to them. So choose your pictures wisely. Make sure they are relevant and are conveying the meaning you intended them to.

Every page should have a focus and a purpose. It shouldn’t be just a lot of information or pictures thrown haphazardly on the page. Check the placement of your content and see that it suits the purpose of that page. Is it the right size, in the right place, and giving the impact you desire? Take into account that most people skim across the top of the page first, skim down and then across the bottom, ending up in the bottom right corner.

Interestingly but not coincidentally, search engines have been programmed to scan your site the same way. That’s why making your site human-friendly often also makes it search engine friendly. Keywords tell your visitor what your site is about and helps them to find essential snippets of information on your website. Bullets break down large chunks of information into smaller bite size pieces that human readers can quickly pick up and easily digest. The experts at Lethbridge SEO can provide professional help to you as a website owner for optimizing your website.

In the next post, Lethbridge SEO will cover more factors involved in the psychology of web design.

Search Engines for Lethbridge SEO

A Lethbridge SEO expert would be targeting several search engines to get high rankings for your website.  There are actually hundreds of search engines, but most of the searches done daily around the world are accomplished using the big three: Google, Yahoo and Bing. It is estimated that Google captures over 70% of all internet searches worldwide, with Yahoo coming in just under 15% followed by Bing with just under 10%. Trailing behind is Ask with 2% and AOL search claims a mere 1%. The remaining 2% is spread thinly over dozens of other tiny search engines.

Today the highlight of this topic will be the popular search engine giant, Google.

Google is a mighty search engine, claiming a whopping 70% of the global search pie. Google started out in 1997 as the brainchild of two College buddies, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google started life with the name Backrub, but after some brainstorming, Larry and Sergey settled on the name Google, which is a variation of the word googol. Googol refers to the number which is the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. (Now that’s a lot of zeros!)

This large number, the googol, is a representation of Larry and Sergey’s dream to organize an almost infinite amount of information on the world wide web.

Google quickly made a name for itself as a search engine which delivered very relevant results to the search terms entered, as well as an efficient way for merchants to showcase their advertising online.

Google has sure come a long way since those early days, moved a few times, hired a few more employees (try 20,000 worlwide!), and is available in many languages across the globe. Visit this link for an interesting timeline of Google Milestones.

Each search engine uses a different formula to determine which websites will show up in the listings. You have probably noticed that you will get a different page of results if you put exactly the same search term into each search engine and then compare what they give you for results on the first page.

The search engines do not publicly announce how their formula works, what it entails, what qualities in a website are most important, nor any other details. However, you can get a good idea for what they prefer by studying search engine results.

Some people even conduct little experiments with google to see how their website is treated in the search results with regard to age of domain, number of backlinks, type and quality of sitemap, how much social buzz your website has created, and many other factors. This study of how search engines rank websites on their results page, and therefore what to do to enhance your website’s standings in the results listings, has been named Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short.

Lethbridge business owners, did you know that you can do things yourself to boost your website in the search rankings as well as hiring an SEO expert to take care of the details and keep your site maintained in the rankings? Here are two things you can do today:

1) Submit your site to free local listings. Even if your site doesn’t get traffic from these directories, it provides you with an additional backlink. Here’s one: Canada’s local directory.

2) Become a member of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce and get your business website listed locally under the industry you belong to.

See previous post Integrity SEO for information on honest business practice.

Lethbridge SEO for Your Business

Lethbridge SEO is your local leader for website optimization and internet marketing solutions.

SEO, as you probably know, is Search Engine Optimization. For every search you enter into Google, you are presented with a page of 10 possible results, called a SERP (Search Engine Results Page.)  Google’s main goal in doing this is to present the searcher with the most relevant websites possible for those search words.

The way Google does this is by looking at many factors, including domain name, relevancy of content on the website, age of the domain, number and quality of back links, etc. Google uses an algorithm, or a complex mathematical formula, to weigh each criteria. This exact algorithm is a closely guarded Google secret, but marketers have been theorizing for years as to what components are in this algorithm. (Pigeon rank is a google joke, if you care to visit that link 🙂 )

Why is all of this important to know? For businesses in Lethbridge, SEO is exactly what will give your website an optimum place on Google’s first page. Did you know that most people (70%) click only on the first URL on the first page? This percentage drops dramatically as you go down the page, and if your business is on the second page then you are not receiving any of the free traffic available to websites occupying first page listings. This is bad news, because business runs on traffic. The more people visiting your website, the more potential clients you have. The more clients, the more profit your business can make for you.

Advertising mediums of the past have given way to the electronic age. More people search on google for goods or services they need than those that look in the yellow pages. You must have an online presence to survive, and much more than that- you must have a strong online presence to thrive. Lethbridge SEO can help you to achieve this.

Lethbridge SEO companies know the local economy and the issues that local businesses face. If you want to be the top-ranking business in your niche, you need the guidance that only a local Lethbridge SEO company can give you.