Those that use CSS for page layout, know what I mean. As I have learned more and more about CSS and ways to use it to position page elements and provide unique styling options, (beyond the typical font and link styling) I find myself saying, “why didn’t I use this sooner!”

This afternoon I took my wife out for Saturday afternoon beer and pizza and I proceeded to bore her to tears as I babbled about CSS and how great it was.

Apparently, I sounded like a teenage girl jacked up on Red Bull…and her obvious distaste for my love of geekdom was crumbled by….”What CAN’T CSS do?!?”.

Therefore…I was inspired.

Top Ten Things CSS CAN’T Do:

10. It can’t help (insert friend of family member) with their ‘I can’t get online’ or ‘my email isn’t working’ problem of the day.

9. It can’t make pizza, tacos or melt cheese for nachos.

8. It can’t make DaveN like Digg Nation (Or Google!).

7. It won’t turn off my lights when I clap twice.

6. It can’t discuss my health status with my doctor to ensure that I am healthy enough to engage in sexual activity.

5. I can’t apply it directly to my forehead when my head hurts.

4. It can’t help the sorry ass Front Page site your cousin’s friend built for you.

3. It can’t stop pop-ups or mute background sound files.

2. It can’t keep your competitors from deleting your wikipedia entries.

1. It can’t get me another beer because I have fallen and can’t get up!

What do you love about CSS?

Who doesn’t want more traffic from search engines? Aside from George ‘Miserable Failure‘ Bush, we ALL do!

Gaining more traffic is easier for some than it is others, especially when there is no place to go but up.

Many brand new, and grossly under-performing, websites can make some very simple changes, which can have significant impacts.

First, give each of your pages unique, descriptive titles. Don’t cram them with keywords, but certainly put the primary keywords, pertaining to the page, in there. Far too many websites use the exact same title for every page, which confuses the bots, and even more pages have NO title! A search for ‘untitled page’ returns an alarming 36 million plus pages…there is no excuse. Add a title.

Secondly, clean up your page copy. Make it relevant, coherent and unique from one page to the next. If you have multiple pages, utilizing large blocks of identical content, you are creating duplicate content…a no-no in Google.

Third, make sure your pages link to each other efficiently. A good internal linking structure makes it easier for search bots to crawl your pages and also makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site. Use descriptive link, or anchor, text (the text that is the actual hot link) that accurately, and descriptively, describes the page it links to. Avoid using the proverbial ‘click here’ link text.

There you have it…three simple and easy changes that will assuredly help your search rankings and site traffic.

Get to work!

Top 10 signs you need a new website:

10. Your website content copyright says 1998

9. Your contact email is you@aol.com

8. It contains a link that says “send an e-postcard”

7. Your contact form contains ‘referred by: surfed on in’ or ‘referred by: alta vista’

6. It is “optimized” by keyword stuffing, long meta tags and a 75 word page title.

5. It is hosted by GeoCities.

4. You have pictures of people wearing ‘Jack Tripper Shorts’ and glacier glasses.

3. Your site uses the blink tag

2. You can find 10 different fonts in five different colors…on one page!

1. Your site is ranking high and kicking ass on Alta Vista!

You ever walk away from a conversation thinking, “Wow…that is unreal!” I often wonder how some people make as far as they manage to do in the business world, and I have a whopper to share.

Recently I overheard a self-professed upper-echelon designer and online marketing “expert” speaking in a classroom setting. I was appalled what he was telling the unknowing participants whom were sadly…scribbling away taking notes.

The flag first went up when he mentioned the importance of submitting to the Open Directory Project, which at the time was frozen in time by some major infrastructure problem. As many of you know, submissions for a long period of time where not possible. I mentioned that aspect…and the “expert” was unaware of the situation.

An “expert” with paying clients…yikes!

The final straw for me, was when the “expert” explained that pay per click (AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, MSN) where all simply a waste of time. To each his own you say…well I agree…but the following comments, as someone involved in helping people maximize PPC, made my stomach turn.

The gentleman relayed a story of a client that sold window blinds, for whom he had built a “fantabulous” site. Mentioned the client bid big bucks on very general terms, received a ton of clicks, but no customers to show for it….and subsequently went out of business!

With not even a hint of remorse, “well at least I was paid for my design work”.

This comment really pissed me off. It bothers me that someone involved in helping businesses succeed can simply shrug off that a client went out of business because of their glaring lack of knowledge.

The fact is, PPC can work…and can help someone build a business and generate income. Keyword discovery, testing ad copy, and evaluating the topography of your search vertical…hard work, but can pay off.

Drilldown and find the terms with low cost per click, and high relevancy and you have found a winner. A paradox of PPC is that the terms with the lower PPC (most often more specific terms) are more targeted and will generate a higher ROI.

For anyone out there reading this that is searching for someone to facilitate a PPC campaign, please know, it CAN be done. Find a quality search marketer and ask questions.

Time to start over!

The original version of the Matterhorn Marketing Minute is no longer; I was frustrated that the original posts were lost, but now view it as a chance to start over.

I plan to keep this blog an informative resource to help you down the path of marketing your travel and tourism website. However, I also plan to make it more of a conversation starter. You will begin finding some posts just to facilitate discussion. We can all learn from each other, and exchanging ideas and interpretations will in the end benefit us all.

All previous posts were zapped…sorry for the inconvenience. I will be getting everything back up to speed in the next day or two.