Domain Owl

I was impressed with my new Hostgator account as I started a new site this weekend, and the internal options at the Control Panel Deluxe are getting excited about this particular website project in its post launch phase. I cut my webmaster teeth on Control Panel many years ago, but since had left for other hosting companies with more commercial (cough, cough) interfaces. Ah, the road not taken…

Control Panel Deluxe as offered inside the Hostgator BabyCroc account has something to be said for itself. The MX entry manager for prioritized email exchange and the Fantastico were of no little assistance. With one Restore of the database my new WordPress site was raring to go.The many tiers of templates and wizards begged for attention, but my time was limited.

But for once I took the time to check into the option of the tiers of features inside the Control Panel Deluxe I had never really had time to notice. The less time any webmaster spends inside the hosting account interface, the more efficient the site is. Or so I thought. I deemed the interval worthy of a quick tour, and there is a video tutorial option. But it was the Search Engine utility I was most excited about.

The control panel of yore I used was still catching up to all the in’s and out’s of the SEO derby. But the Search Engine utility inside the Hostgator account furnished an instant score for my launched website. At last, here was a no-nonsense tool to treat SEO in a focused, iterative manner. The Attracta Tool had me mesmerized by its ability to package SEO building results in a manner consistent with normal reporting software.

It should be mentioned here that this type of tool is a utility for advanced webmasters. Fooling around inside the Control Panel (especially without backups) can result in costly, mind-numbing losses. For those who do not know the intricacies of their clicks inside a Control Panel interface, do NOT try this at home or at least without a net. Or plan to pay your programmer a lot of money performing repair work.

That said, the Attracta tool operates to reflect the website’s core Google functionality. The broken links score was a green-light 100%, pleasing when so many site plans get abandoned because of o’er vaulting ambition. The Reports area confirmed that Google had scanned the Sitemap 26 times. This will show fledgeling webmasters how changes to the site and updates can affect the information stored at Google about how a site grows and does not remain static. Scrubbing bots never sleep.

The real beauty of the Attracta Tool is the instant crawl performed that updates your site’s overall score. One Google entry and one geo map entry and my score was already looking up. There is no reason any website should not have a geographical correspondence, be it a bricks-and-mortar mail drop, houseboat entrance, or hotel lobby kiosk. Not providing a geo map location is giving away SEO value with both hands.

Some of the online site launch tasks that come with a new site are the Alexa signup and other SEO enabling registrations. But Attracta is handily right there n front of you. This enable SEO grooming at the source.

Inside the Control Panel the Attracta results become very tangible immediately. The projection of future SEO 3-6-9 months out become very concrete. I raised my new website’s SEO score from 40 to 65 in a few clicks and by filling in a few blanks. The 40 was backgrounded in red, the new 65 score was backgrounded in yellow. The green (stoplight) was the aim.

The Attracta listing option also improved my score. This tool made SEO improvement of a site (and the corresponding domain) easy. I found a 150 by 50 pixel limit to the image odd but squashed the attributes of one of my site’s stock images and browsed it in. I constructed a site description implementing all my keywords.  I used a different text paragraph than my “About Us” page, and looking back I should have had something prepared to the full extent of the word limit (Max 500 characters).

Doing this for all the sites inside one hosting account is tempting. The requirement states a simple list of keywords is not acceptable for the Attracta submission.  The placement of an Attracta badge is imminent into my CSS. There is an option for Attracta Pro, and I might just take advantage of the upgrade if I see a concordance to traffic and SEO results matching the Attracta score integrity to my site.

Attracta is a highly recommended webmaster and domain name SEO tool.

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Domains are websites waiting to happen. Great tools are available online, but too often domainers do nothing or everything to a site with no point in between. Finding the balance between a participation-possible site and an overblown extravaganza that leaves visitors shaking their heads takes time, attention and site analysis.

Premade sites can furnish lots of ready options for newb domainers. But the problem with templates is that unless you want your site to look just like everybody’s else’s, the final result is only going to be as good as…everybody else’s site. Premade site templates can offer a lot of value for the domainer with no editing skills or HTML comfort zone.

1. Use Video

A video attraction is a desirable addition to any site. Visitors tend to pay attention to any video application launching or threatening to launch. Audio options and features can transition an impromptu type-in browse-by into an in-depth exploration of the site content. Video is one of the most viewed features on any type of website,  because it’s the easiest to use.

2. Affiliate Specialization

Look for unique affiliate or sponsor ads. Just seeing the ads everyone else already has on a similar site doesn’t prompt your web visitor to click on them. Check out page rank level links wanted and product endorsement banners and boxes straight form the vendor. Since the ad will be unique and not tapped from the barnyard of affiliates, similar sites won’t have that offer. Thus traffic will grow and browsers will bite.

3. Evaluate Your Density

Use tools on the individual text files at sites like Textalyser.net and others to assign values to core keyword density. Grow your density by applying more virtuosity and expanding secondary keywords to connect to important central terms and ideas. Use content writers with talent to convey creative appeal in the articles and text to draw visitors into the site.

4.  Get Beta Feedback

Identify about a half dozen key people who can take the time to really review your site. Evaluate their feedback against your contributions to the site. Some of the critics should be from the internet and domainer community, but not all. While a non-domainer individual may not understand all the mechanics that go into making your website, they will substitute for casual browsers to your site.

5. Kill the Drag

Find out if your website takes too long to load for Flash, graphics, images that are too large or an application with errors in the source code or landing page script. If too much animation and on-load business is going on, restrain the display options so browsers don’t get greeted by a  stalled site and a prolonged wait time loading. They will click away just to feel in control of their browser.

6. Build a Squeeze Page

Squeeze pages maximize the opportunity presented by every site visit. There may be a key feature your website hides behind the landing pages, or a “best of show” content article that doesn’t suit the clean format of the website top layer. Direct browsers to one best piece of content with a tricky headline or opening salvo. Or use a window to catch email addresses for a newsletter or site update notification.

7. Proofread Your Site Map

Use your site map as a guidepost to mimic how bots and search engines see your site. Edit any remaining default text and improve spelling, grammar and detail whenever possible. Eliminate unneeded modules and sections. Crosslink parts of the site back and forth and expand on terms and unusual words using this feature with a Glossary.

8. Edit the Web Directory

No website should launch without a web link directory. categorical and referral links should be organized by topic, subject, and site type. Even entering three topics and three links in each section, complete with description and relatives comments can make a web link area. Overlooking this part of the site architecture is a serious error.

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