Good Websites = Good Sales!

Cephalalgiawhat?

How to get more sales without it.

If your web pages are difficult to understand, you might not make as much money as you could with your website. A simple tool can help you to check the readability of your pages.

Difficult language = fewer sales

Many websites use technical language that is very difficult to understand for the average web surfer. Some webmasters also like long and complicated sentences.
Long and complicated sentences are not a sign of professionalism. They just show that the author of the sentences doesn't care about the readers.
The more complicated the text on your web pages, the more likely it is that a visitor will leave your website.

Website visitors are impatient people. If they have to work to understand your web pages, they will go away to find an easier site than yours.

How to check the readability of your web pages

The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content. Higher scores indicate that the text is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts. A high Reading Easy Score means that a text is easy to understand. The Grade Level shows the number of years of education that are required to understand the text.

How to improve the readability of your pages

There are several things that you can to do improve the readability of your web pages:

• Write short sentences.
• Use many paragraphs.
• Use headings to structure the content.
• Use bullet lists.
• Avoid complicated words. Don't say "cephalalgia" when you can also say "headache".
• Use images on your pages.

Do not require too much work from your website visitors. The easier your website is to use, the more you will sell.

Make it easy to understand your web pages, make it easy to navigate them and make it easy to buy on your website.

source

Baidu Major Algorithm Updates

Baidu SEO Impacted By Major Algorithm Updates

Baidu has been implementing big algorithm updates since April, and the updates have had a significant impact on both indexation and rankings of thousands of websites. It seems that the updates are ongoing and it has been widely reported that two major updates happened in the past month, one on June 22, 2012 and the other on June 28, 2012. These updates have also been acknowledged by Baidu Engineer “Lee” from Baidu’s anti-spam team. This is quite a new development for Baidu SEO as previously Baidu generally did not acknowledge when changes had been made and it was left to the blogosphere to piece together what had happened.

So what’s the update about? According to Lee, the June 21, 2012 update implemented anti-spam measures targeting poor quality websites. Poor quality websites have long time appeared in Baidu search results and of course Baidu is concerned this will lead to a poor user experience for searchers. Lee defined poor quality websites as those that have very poor content and in particular “spun” content. The sole purpose of these websites is for manipulating the search results, a common practice in Baidu SEO.

After this June 22nd update, many webmasters complain that their sites lost significant rankings or disappeared altogether. Most of those complaining were SME company websites that do not update their content frequently. Lee did acknowledge that generally they can accurately identify and remove websites with poor content but “collateral damage” is hard to avoid. If this happens to your website, you could report it throughhttp://tousu.baidu.com/webmaster/suggest. Lee also said this is the start of a series of action; however, Baidu will in future make announcements on big updates through the recently launched Baidu Webmaster Tools. If you don’t have Baidu Webmaster Tools set up, now might be a good time.

This is really a wake-up call to all webmasters and especially those who attempt to create dozens of websites in order to manipulate the search results. Just like with Google in the past, Baidu SEOers may have to work a little harder than before to get results!

Reference: Source
Lee’s letter to webmasters is posted in Chinese on http://bbs.zhanzhang.baidu.com/thread-6533-1-1.html.

How to get more clicks from rankings that you already have!

Although the meta description tag doesn't influence the rankings of your web pages much, it can have a major influence on the number of clicks that you get. By attracting more clicks, good meta descriptions can also have a positive influence on your rankings.

What are meta descriptions and why are they still important?

The meta description tag can be found in the HTML code of a web page:

Some people think that meta descriptions are not important anymore. However, Google Webmaster Tools shows an alert if a meta description is not unique. That's an indicator that the descriptions still matter.

• Good meta descriptions can attract more clicks and a higher click-through rate.
• A higher click-through rate can have a positive effect on the rankings of the web page.

In other words: good meta descriptions can deliver new customers to your website while contributing to your rankings at the same time.

How to optimize your meta descriptions

• Meta descriptions should be unique: each page on your website should have its own meta description.
• Meta descriptions should be relevant:boilerplate meta descriptions won't do your website good. The meta description should be relevant to the content of the page.
• Include a call to action: think of what you want a user to do when they visit your page and then include a call to action in the description. The following verbs might help you: buy, download, shop, browse, download, etc.
• Show your USP: tell your customers what makes you different and highlight this unique proposition in the meta description.

Web searchers have many options on the result page. Offer something special to attract their clicks. The meta description tag is not an immediate ranking factor. If you want to get listed on Google's first result page, optimize the content of your web pages and try to get good backlinks to your site.

Then optimize the meta descriptions of your web pages to make sure that you get as many visitors as possible through your rankings.