By Britnee Nguyen

The layout of your website plays a vital role for those who visit it. If it’s cluttered, hard to navigate, or just isn’t pleasing to look at, then your viewers will not bother to look around the rest of your website to see what it offers.

There are some quick, easy guidelines you can follow when designing your website. Many free wordpress themes follow these guidelines, and if you’re making your own design, you can follow them too.

Don’t Be Scared of White Space: Look through any magazine and you’ll see how things are laid out nicely and the use of white space is apparent. White space makes for a cleaner look. White space is good, there’s no need to cram all of your information, pictures, graphics into one area.

Make it Easy to Navigate: Navigation should be consistent throughout your website. If your navigation bar is at the top on your homepage, make sure it’s the same on all your other pages so your users know where to look to find what they’re looking for. Consider adding in a search box to make it even easier to find stuff for users.

Don’t Use Large Files or Graphics: When you put large files or graphics on your site, it can take some users forever to upload the images. This increases download time, and frankly, internet users are not patient and will not wait. Be sure you use average-­­­­­sized files that will work for all your visitors.

Use a Normal Font; it’s Hard to Read Fancy Ones: Use a simple font so it is easy to read on a computer screen; also, use a simple color like black. Keep the same font through out your website to maintain consistency.

Don’t Go Crazy With The Colors: Come up with a color scheme to use through out your website. It should convey your brand and is pleasing to the eye on the computer. Don’t use too many colors, or else that will create a chaos look on your website.

Follow the above guidelines for simple website designing. If you want a professional web designer to do more amazing things to it, visit Submit Solution where website design is one of our specialties.

Flickr Photo Credit: yellowbrother

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

We’ve all experienced this before.  I’m typing in “iPod Touch” in a search engine, but accidentally spell out “iPod Tuch.”  I immediately realize my mistake as I see the popular question, “Did you mean: iPod Touch?”, encouraging me to search for the correct terms.  However, many of the listings that pull up are relevant, so I don’t redo the search with the correct spelling.  Then I see the paid search ad on the side with the incorrect search query inserted in.  I can’t help feeling annoyed

PPC ads like I just described implement what’s called a DKI or Dynamic Keyword Insertion technique.  These ads automatically insert search keywords into a paid ad.  This form is popular because, if used correctly, it can produce very specific results that will generate quality traffic.

However, the use of DKI in PPC ads can result in annoyance, as in my situation, mistrust or even generic and weak ad content.  I am going to outline some of the pros and cons of using dynamic keyword insertion in your paid search ads.  Then you can see for yourself if this method is right for you!

PRO:  Customized Ads

Sometimes, DKI can greatly increase your traffic.  For example, when searching for foreclosed homes in Provo, UT, I came across this specified landing page.  It seems like this page would be exactly what someone would be looking for with their search.

CON:  Incoherence

However, with the same site, I found I could type in anything for the name of a city in Utah where I would like to find foreclosures.  The result?  You get the picture.  Obviously, there is no place called Crappy, UT.  With DKI, by allowing any search term at all to be included in your ad or landing page, you run the risk of becoming incoherent and purposefully spam-like to the public eye.

CON:  Generic and Misspelled Ads
When you create a PPC ad using DKI, your wording will need to be deliberately vague, so that multiple terms can be inserted without changing the meaning of the ad.  The problem with this is that the ad will be weak.  Even if the ad does include the specific word that was searched for, there is little likelihood that it will be strong enough content wise to draw a quality click.

All-in-all, pay-per-click ads using DKI appear desperate and can even resemble spam.  If you choose to use this technique in your paid ad, do so carefully and choose only key words that both fit your ad and are relevant to the service or product you are advertising.  Stay tuned for more posts on social media, SEO, web design and PPC!

By Robert Lockard

This is a follow-up to my previous blog entry, “How to improve your SEO through links.” I’m talking about what I learned at Webmarketing123’s August 5, 2009 Webinar, “Advanced SEO Webinar: Linking Best Practices.” Without further ado, I’ll return to where I left off.

Unless a website is cached or saved by search engines on a regular basis, the links found on it won’t count toward the search engine optimization of the sites it links to. That explains why Google can’t keep up with Twitter and other social-media sites, as I discussed in an earlier eHarbor Blog entry. It’s trying to take a snapshot of websites that change multiple times every second. Search engines will have to get creative to solve that problem in their methodology.

Returning to caches, I learned a cool trick at the Webinar that I would like to share. If you want to know if a Web page is cached by Google, all you have to do is type “cache:www.thesitename.com” into a Google search and it will tell you. Sites that are cached by Google can be useful in generating SEO because they are actually read by Google. You shouldn’t waste your time trying to get links on sites that offer no real SEO value. This is a good way to test them.

The big question is how do you get inbound links? After you’ve gone through and added great content that is relevant to your keywords, you can start using the following sources to get inbound links:

- Directories

- Paid Listings

- Article Syndications

- Blogs

- News Releases

By using a diversity of methods to obtain inbound links, you make your site look better to search engines. If you focus too much on any one source of links, search engines can dock you. Don’t add links too fast. That also looks bad to search engines. Spread your growth across a period of time instead of trying to do it all in one quick surge.

You should be aware that some sites are better than others, when it comes to getting links from them. Here are some criteria to keep in mind when selecting which sites to try to get inbound links from:

- Domain Authority – How long the website has existed.

- Rank – Where the website stands on Google, Bing and Yahoo searches for targeted keywords.

- Spam – How professional or “spammy” the site looks.

- Other Links – If the site contains links to other respectable sources in your industry.

- Similar Content – How the site’s content compares to your own. The closer the better.

That’s pretty much what I learned at this informative Webinar. I highly recommend you check out Webmarketing123’s free Webinars. And I also recommend you keep coming back to the Submit Solution SEO Blog for frequent updates on Internet marketing and ecommerce strategies.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “How to get inbound links.” The photo of the fingers touching light is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of littledan77.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Having to manage multiple Twitter accounts, business and personal, I’ve come across my fair share of Twitter applications that allow you to Tweet from somewhere else besides the twitter homepage.  These third-party apps are extremely useful for frequent Tweeters because they come with tons of cool functions that Twitter doesn’t have yet,  such as the option to schedule Tweets ahead of time, view all your Direct Messages, @ Replies and Updates at the same time and the ability to Re-Tweet with just one click.  However, as is always the case with new technological innovations, the industry is constantly bombarded with “new and improved” applications and technologies, so keep checking social media news sites like Mashable to see what’s new!

Here are the best Twitter applications I’ve found:

1.  TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a desktop application that is great for beginning Twitter users.  A few of the nifty features of Tweetdeck include the live search feeds, the ability to customize your API usage and frequency, built-in URL shortening devices and a customizable layout and theme.  You can also use this platform to update your Facebook status and view your home streams.  I used TweetDeck for quite some time, until I discovered the ability of some applications to schedule future Tweets… which TweetDeck does not do.

2.  HootSuite

HootSuite is a web-based application that has recently revamped their system to include some awesome new features.  HootSuite allows you to tweet from multiple accounts, schedule tweets and view “click” statistics from the links you post with their built-in ow.ly URL shortener.  With the customizable layout, you can arrange your HootSuite account to display updates, messages, mentions and other categories from multiple accounts in organizational “tabs.”  This ability has greatly increased HootSuite’s utility and is great for both professional and personal usage.

3.  CoTweet

CoTweet is designed for professional business use and is used by such brands as Ford, Starbucks, Jet Blue and even Twitter itself!  CoTweet allows you to configure multiple Twitter accounts, schedule tweets, organize users and even add “notes” and assign “tasks” to administrators.  With a built-in bit.ly URL shortener, you can track the statistics of your links.  One of the most nifty functions of CoTweet is the ability to select to view your updates, messages, etc from all Twitter accounts or one specified account.

If you’ve just started using Twitter for both personal and business needs, these Twitter clients are a great way to become more organized and efficient.  Because we all have our own personal preferences, you should try out each program to see how it works for you.  Don’t be frightened by the advanced tools on some of these clients!  You can hold off on those until you become more acclimated with the way Twitter works.

In the mean time, follow our updates on Twitter: @submitsolution.  Happy Tweeting!

By Jeff Ashby

During my experience as a website developer and SEO technician, I have never found anything quite like Wordpress. Not only for its ease of use, but also for its capabilities to help your website gain spots in the search rankings.

For those who don’t know, Wordpress is a powerful blogging software (or platform) which makes creating and maintaining a weblog extremely easy. However, not only can it be used for blogs. It can be used as a CMS (Content Management System) to build an entire website. Some of you might have heard of similar platforms such as Blogspot or Typepad, however neither of these has a candle to the power and ease of Wordpress. Since discovering Wordpress, I have used it religiously to build all of my own websites as well as clients’ websites as it is easy for me and they to modify content, change the site design, and in my most importantly, gain SEO rankings.

But what makes Wordpress such a powerful SEO tool? In the next several posts, I am going to make the case for why you should build your next website in Wordpress and how to make it as Search Engine Friendly as possible.

I am going to try to break this down into several sections, including powerful plugins, link building techniques, and basic strategy inside the Wordpress engine itself to make the search engines (and everyone else) find your content and drive traffic to your website.

In this initial post, I would like to just talk about the barebones Wordpress platform. The latest version can be downloaded at www.wordpress.org and installed on any Apache server. After installing and logging into the Wordpress Administration section for the first time, there are several SEO features we need to activate.

First, go to Settings > Permalinks

Permalinks will allow us to modify the URLs of our website pages to make them more search engine friendly. For example, the default setting would create a URL like the following:

http://www.jeffashby.com/?p=123

We can create a custom structure that will give us the name of the post instead. I like to add the category and post name by using this code: /%category%/%postname%/

http://www.jeffashby.com/wordpress/the-wonderful-world-of-wordpress-seo-part-1/

This creates a keyword rich URL that is not only more helpful for search engines, but also more helpful to visitors of your website.

Another cool feature about the Permalinks is if you actually go into a post that you write, right below the post title, you will be able to modify the URL of each post anyway you want. That is enough about permalinks.

Second, try going to Settings > Privacy.

This will give us the option to enable or disable search engines from viewing your website. You might be thinking “Why would I ever want to disallow crawlers from my site?” The truth is, when your site is in development, it is a good idea to now allow your content to be added to the search engines. In many situations, you might have development content that gets indexed that you don’t want indexed (and it is sometimes hard to remove indexed content). Just make sure that when your page is done, go back and switch the search engine crawlers back on.

Lastly, I want to talk about pinging. Go to Settings > Writing and scroll to the bottom where you see Update Services.

One of the amazing features of Wordpress is that it has the ability to call spiders to your website. Once you create a new post or page, Wordpress will send a message out to the different search engines and content websites and basically say “Hey, there is new content on my website, come check it out.” This is called pinging.

In this section of the administration, we can add a list of different websites that we want Wordpress to ping other than just the default websites. Currently this is the list I use:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://zing.zingfast.com

http://zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php

http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://www.weblogues.com

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.snipsnap.org

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.popdex.com

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php

http://www.lasermemory.com

http://www.imblogs.net/ping/

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2

http://www.catapings.com/ping.php

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping/

http://www.blogroots.com

http://www.blogpeople.net

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.a2b.cc

http://weblogues.com/RPC/

http://weblogues.com/ping/

http://wasalive.com/ping/

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://topicexchange.com

http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php

http://syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://rpc.wpkeys.com

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.twingly.com

http://rpc.technorati.jp/rpc/ping

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080

http://rpc.britblog.com/

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.bloggerei.de/ping/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rcs.datashed.net

http://r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc

http://popdex.com/addsite.php

http://pingqueue.com/rpc/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://pingoat.com/

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc

http://ping.wordblog.de/

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.snap.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.namaan.net/rpc

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.kutsulog.net/

http://ping.feeds.yahoo.com/RPC2/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.fc2.com/

http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2

http://ping.blogoon.net/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogg.de/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://packetmonster.net/xmlrpc.php

http://newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://newsblog.jungleboots.org/ping.php

http://mod-pubsub.org/ping.php

http://mod-pubsub.org

http://lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://imblogs.net/ping/

http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://hamo-search.com/ping.php

http://fgiasson.com/pings/ping.php

http://feedsky.com/api/RPC2

http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://catapings.com/ping.php

http://bulkfeeds.net

http://blogupdate.org/ping/

http://blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://blogsnow.com/ping

http://blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://blogsearch.google.us/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.tw/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.sk/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.se/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ru/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ro/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.pt/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.lt/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.jp/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.it/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.in/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.gr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.fr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.fi/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.es/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.de/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.cl/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ch/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ca/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.bg/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.be/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.at/ping/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.ae/ping/RPC2

http://blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://blogpeople.net/ping

http://blogoon.net/ping/

http://blogoole.com/ping/

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogdb.jp

http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blog.goo.ne.jp

http://blo.gs/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping/

http://bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://bitacoles.net/notificacio.php

http://bblog.comping.php

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://audiorpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.co.jp/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

You could probably find more than this, but this is a pretty good list. You can just copy and paste this list into this section and Wordpress will do all the work in order to get more spiders looking at your content. With JeffAshby.com, I am at the point where I can submit a new post, and less than 5 minutes later, it is already indexed into Google. This is just an example of the power that Wordpress can give your website in terms of SEO.

This information is a good opening to some of the powers of Wordpress. In the next post, I am going to discuss more about important plugins that are crucial to your SEO success.

This article was originally posted at The Wonderful World of Wordpress SEO – Part 1 at JeffAshby.com

By Robert Lockard

I read a provocative post from the Blog Bloke a while ago that I’d like to comment on. The post is entitled, “8 Twitter tips to promote your blog.” In it, the author responds to the argument that Twitter and other social media are replacing blogs and that we should drive traffic to Twitter instead of to our blogs and ecommerce websites.

He points out the many flaws with that idea in his blog entry. I would like to focus on two of his most persuasive points.

The first point is, as the Blog Bloke puts it, “If you are a marketer trying to make money, you will want your Twitter followers to visit your blog and click on your ads.”

To quote Lex Luthor, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Companies often post links to deals and special offers on their Twitter accounts, but those links always go to one of their corporate websites or landing pages. Nothing is bought or sold on Twitter, itself. Social media is an excellent part of Internet marketing, but it is not a replacement for the many other available tools, such as paid search, SEO and blogging.

The second important point is, “Ultimately, your blog is where you want the action to be. You want your readers to follow you over to your real blog on your own domain and a site that belongs to YOU.”

As I’ve discussed before, Twitter and other social-media sites do not technically help with SEO. The only way they do is if other Twitter users find links to your blog and link to them on their own blogs. Twitter and Facebook have no-follow tags, which tell search engines to pay no attention to them, but most blogs welcome search engines to pay attention to their links and include them in their ranking algorithms. You can read more about this in my eHarbor Blog entry, “Experts are wrong: Twitter and Facebook help SEO.”

What an interesting discussion. I’ve had a lot of fun writing about this topic. What are your thoughts on this important ecommerce topic?

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “Social media can’t replace blogs.” The comic of the history of blogging is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of stefan2904.

By Britnee Nguyen

“Never judge a book by its cover” is nearly impossible when it comes to making first impressions of a website. In fact, researchers in Canada did a study in 2006 which showed participants making a judgment within 50 milliseconds of viewing a website. This means accurate judgments were being made as quickly as the eye could take in the information.

Participants were shown only glimpses of websites for 50 milliseconds and then asked to rate the aesthetic appeal of it. They found that many of the quickly-made opinions were the same as those who analyzed the website at a longer time. Participants judged each website according to several characteristics such as the interest level, design, color, layout, and imaginative content.

Many aspects are important when dealing with website design. A site may have a great layout, but lack in good colors and designs, therefore, loses the viewer’s interest quickly. When the qualities of design, color, layout, and content are integrated, then your website will be more pleasing to the eye and come across as imaginative and interesting. The viewer will more likely stay on the website longer and explore the information in depth.

Remember that website design is important for first impressions. The study noticed a “halo effect” created when a viewer came across a good website design. People want to be right about their first impressions and look for things to validate their impression. So if a viewer came across a website and had an initial reaction that it was good, it will lead them to believe the rest of the website is good and they will use more of it.

Keep this in mind as you create and update your website. You may think design is not an important factor and that your service or product is so great that it will sell itself without the help of a good website. But if you don’t have a good website, the viewer will tend to think whatever is offered on there isn’t that good either. Don’t make this mistake, and make the most out of your website.

Photo credit: www.inmagine.com

By Britnee Nguyen

Microsoft released Bing (formerly known as MSN Search) just a few months ago with more than $80 million being spent in promoting it. An issue that has been brought up was whether the SEO rankings of companies would be affected. If Bing becomes more increasingly popular, then companies will need to start catering their SEO techniques to it or else they’ll lose out on searches being made there.

Bing is still fairly new so many are waiting to see its long-term effects. Right now, some are saying it’s a good idea for companies to make the extra effort within the next year to increase ranking to take advantage of Bing’s advertising push. Since Bing is paying so much money right now promoting itself, its bound to have a lot of traffic flowing through at this time.

Companies could take advantage of this new venture by jumping on to get more higher rankings on Bing. Google is still the number one search engine and will most likely always popular, but Bing is working hard to become a household name. They recently just partnered with Yahoo’s search engine and will be working together.

Although Microsoft’s efforts are admirable, I’m not sure if Bing will hold out for as long as Google has. Google has made such a statement that they’ve become a verb such as, “Google it.” They have such a strong presence that I even went to Google to search “What is Bing?” and look for news and blog posts about it. It was only after that I decided to go to bing.com itself.

That’s just my own personal experience, but I’m sure there have been others who have become hooked on it since it’s the new thing. Even though I don’t think Bing will be as strong as Google, I still think it’s a good idea for companies to get involved with it during this popularity burst. And if Bing does end up being a top search engine, then companies will benefit more receiving traffic from more than just Google.

By Robert Lockard

The new Submit Solution website is quite amazing, isn’t it? Be sure to take a look at all the great Web design, SEO and other services we provide right here.

In fact, Submit Solution’s new website is so cool that we actually held a launch party in its honor on Monday, September 21, 2009. Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen, the other two writers on the four ecommerce blogs on Submit Solution, and I planned a company-wide get-together in which we enjoyed refreshments and gave out prizes. The refreshments were made up of drinks, as well as orange and white donuts, which were shaped like the new Submit Solution logo. See for yourself below.

That S-shaped group of donuts was one of my favorite parts of the celebration. After that, we held a fun scavenger hunt. Employees had to search the Submit Solution website for clues to lead them to prizes cleverly hidden throughout our eHarbor, Inc. office. We hid clues on Submitsolution.com in the site’s blog tags, image titles and in the text of Web pages.

The prizes people could win by finding and unscrambling the clues included toys, candy bars, eHarbor mugs and Bigler Bucks, which we affectionately named for Oliver Bigler, the CEO and cofounder of eHarbor, Inc. We use Bigler Bucks to buy company products, like pens, mugs and shirts. Our employees enjoyed this friendly competition. Most of them are used to playing foosball, so this scavenger hunt was quite tame in comparison.

You can read more about this website’s great features in my blog entry, “Submit Solution launches updated website with new design features.”

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Here’s the scenario: You’re searching for information on the most poisonous spider in the world, the black recluse, which you’ve recently learned has been found in an area near your home.  Desperate for information that may help you protect yourself and your family from the dangerous arachnid, you type in “brown recluse” in a search engine bar.  As the information is populating, several articles on the effects of the spider’s poison, the origins and known locations, or other subjects pulls up, looking very promising.  Then there are the pictures.  Lots of pictures of the huge, brown and black spider and even the damage its bite inflicts on the human body.  Which of the two would draw your eye?

Most likely, you would immediately move your cursor over the picture, possible exclaiming something like, “Gross!”, and would possible spend the next few minutes sharing the images with your friends and coworkers.

Recent studies on the browsing habits of search engine users confirms that people will consume information through pictures more than 30% faster than with regular text.  Why would someone knowingly skip over interesting pictures like graphs, charts and other images, in favor of reading a full-length blog post on the subject?  Some just might, but most won’t.

Image searches account for hundreds of millions of searches on Google everyday.  By optimizing the images on your site, you can tap into this market and begin a new side of Search Engine Optimization for your company.

Here are a few ways you can optimize your images to generate traffic.

Name the Image Correctly: An accurate name that describes the picture in brief, simple language is important, and will ensure that your image is pulled up in a relevant search.

Use Keywords: Keywords are another important factor.  Properly describing the image with keywords and alternate keyword tags will increase the power of your photo and increase its searchability.

Place Images Near Relevant Content: The best location for an image is surrounded by relevant content, like in a blog post.  This will increase the organic ranking of your photo within search engines.

Optimizing your photos can be a great source of traffic for your site!  These simple guidelines take very little time to implement, so start following them today to get the results you’re looking for.