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Step
1: Business Analysis
Identify
and document your web development
objectives in a hierarchy of importance.
This
step involves a preliminary in-depth
analysis of your business to facilitate
development of your company's
"story" for use in the content
development stage.
Careful
attention should be applied to the process
of identifying "web-friendly"
products and services, your most powerful
competitive advantages and collecting as
much information about your competition as
possible.
The
overall objectives of this very important
first step are:
1. Determining which aspects of your business play well on the Internet
2. Determining how to tell your "story" in the best way possible
3. Determining the primary search category your web site fits into.
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Step
2: Web
Site Analysis
If
one already exists, you should analyze
your existing web site.
The
purpose of this examination is to gain an
understanding of existing web components
and strategies such as page titles, file
weight, graphics, tags, description,
keywords and content, and current search
engine positions on the top 15 U.S. search
engines.
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Step
3: Analysis
of Top-10 Competitor Web Sites
The
purpose of analyzing competitor web sites
is to gain an understanding of which
strategies top-10 ranked competitors have
used to beat competitors out of the top-10
positions on the major U.S. search
engines.
This
must be done regardless of whether you
have an existing web site, or not. Search engine ranking is a contest in
relativity; that is, all the web sites in
any particular search category actually
compete with each other for ranking
positions.
You
should limit your analysis to the following
search engines: Yahoo! (search directory),
MSN, Lycos, Netscape,
NBCi, Excite, About, iWon,
AltaVista, Google, Go,
GoTo, Go2Net, DMOZ
and DirectHit.
These
14 search engines (plus the Yahoo! search directory)
are the only one's to be concerned with.
Combined, these engines process an
estimated 300+ million searches every
month.
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Step
4: Domain
name selection strategy
You
should select a domain name
(URL) that improves your search engine
ranking. There are a variety of domain
selection strategies. You should think
carefully about this important step before
you rush out to register.
A
great domain name will reward you with
elevated search engine rankings.
A
poor domain name will penalize you every
time.
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Step
5: Domain
name registration
Once
a strategic domain name is determined to
be available, you should register that domain
in your name. You, the domain
owner, should be listed as the registrant,
administrative contact, and billing
contact.
Domain
registrations can be secured for 1 year, 2
years or as long as 10 years. You should decide which is best for your
situation.
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Step
6: "Pointer"
domain selection strategy
Most
e-business people are not aware of the
value of "pointer" domain names.
Pointer domains are a valuable way to help
propel your web site to the top of the
search engine listings.
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Step
7: "Pointer"
domain registration
Once
a strategic pointer domain name is
determined to be available, You should register that domain, again, in your
name. You, the domain owner, will be
listed as the registrant, administrative
contact, and billing contact.
Just
like primary domain names, pointer domain
registrations can be secured for 1 year, 2
years or as long as 10 years. You should decide which is best for your
situation.
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Step
8: Search
engine optimization
Without
effective search engine optimization, a
commercial web site is doomed to darkness.
Absent some very serious
"pointers" from a lot of other
sites, your web site may never see the
light of day on any surfer's computer
monitor.
The
act of optimizing a web site for high
search engine ranking should be an on-going
effort throughout the design process.
Let
us say that another way. The Search
engine optimization process is not
separate from or mutually exclusive from
the design process.
Many
people believe that the act of
"submitting" their web site to
the search engines positions their web
site with a high ranking. Search engine
submission and search engine optimization
are two distinctly different objectives.
One positions a web site to be
"indexed" (included) in a
particular search engine's searchable data
base; the other allows that web site to
earn a "relevance score", or
ranking position.
"So,
remind me, again, why search engine
optimization is important."
Search
engine optimization is the "holy
grail" of every webmaster.
It's
the "knock-out punch" that can
position a web site at the very top of
search engine listings.
To
put the value and necessity of search
engine optimization into perspective,
consider that less than 1/10th of 1
percent of all web sites are visible in
the top 30 ranking positions on the
major search engines.
The
statistics for web sites that are in the
top 10 rankings are more challenging, and
those that occupy the NUMBER 1 rankings in
their target search categories on the
major search engines are a very
small community.
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Step
9: Strategic
keyword identification
There
are tools that are helpful in identifying strategic
keywords and keyword phrases that can make
yours a high-impact web site.
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Step
10: META
tag development (site description and
keywords)
META
tags are an important part of web site
development, but not the most
important.
You
should develop properly constructed and
properly ordered META tags for your
commercial web site.
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Step 11: Strategic
page title development
There
are innumerable web sites that do not
feature page titles, and we think this is
a crime.
Regardless
of what any other webmaster says, page
titles are absolutely critical. In fact,
many webmasters believe page titles are
the single most important element of a web
site. We do, too.
Next
to content, page titles provide powerful
words that search engine spiders use to
compare with your site's content. It is
impossible to spend too much time crafting
powerful page titles.
A
site with great content can be ranked very
low on the search engines because the page
titles are weak or altogether absent.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
this service.
All
web sites designed by Mabe Enterprises include
properly constructed page titles.
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Step 12: Graphics
development
It
goes without saying that the quality of
your web site's graphics goes a long way
toward capturing the imagination and
adjusting the mood of prospective
customers.
At
MarketLab, we can produce any level of
graphics desired.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
our graphics services.
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Step 13: Content
development
Content
rules on the World Wide Web. Web sites
that don't' have content are very difficult
to top-rank.
Our team develops optimized content
that will tell the right "story"
about your business.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
our content development services.
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Step 14: Navigation
development
Smooth
site navigation is critical to the web
surfer experience. If a surfer browsing
your web site finds it difficult to click
his or her way around, you've got big
problems.
All
the effort applied to other design
components is wasted if site navigation
isn't smooth and logical.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
our site navigation development services.
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Step 15: Implementation
of hyperlinks
We
will code, implement and test hyperlinks
where appropriate throughout your web
site.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
our link development services.
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Step 16: Hosting
account set-up
Our team will set-up your web site
hosting account on your behalf so you
don't have to worry about the mechanics of
this task.
Just
supply us with some basic information.
We'll do all the heavy lifting.
Call
us at 281-471-5765 to learn about
our web hosting services.
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Step 17: Configuration
of POP email boxes
Every
web site is delivered with three
(3) POP email boxes.
These
email boxes are useful for mail addresses
corresponding to specific individuals or
departments within your organization.
Examples
include sales@newcompany.com. info@newcompany.com,
john@newcompany, etc.
Call
us at 281-471-2351 to learn about
our web site email services.
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Step 18: Publication
at host server site
Upon
completion of the design phase, We
will publish your web site at the remote
host server.
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Step 19: Test
and certification
Every
web site is thoroughly tested
and certified following publication.
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Step 20: Submission
to major U.S. search engines
Submitting
your web site to the top search engines is
a time-consuming task since we hand-submit
to each site.
For a reasonable fee we
will perform this task to assure that your site
stands the best chance of being indexed by
the big engines.