This list encompasses the top 10 HOT CHRISTMAS TOYS OF ALL TIME! +1. When I say ‘hot,’ I mean the ones flying off the shelves, that every kid just HAS to have, the kind of toy that brings out the best in everyone. Kids (and some adults) spend their time feverishly begging and pleading for the item, while normally calm and level-headed people become hot-headed shopping maniacs.
I could have easily made a list of the top 50 hottest Christmas toys in history. It was hard to leave out the famous Spirograph, Star Wars, Slime and the Slinky, among others. I also came across some hot Christmas toys that I hadn’t heard of before, like the one million plastic bubble topped cars that sold in 1946 (made by Wannatoy).
In an effort to narrow the list down, I tried to focus on crazes that seem well, crazy, today or that have crazy stories related to their popularity. Toys got extra hot points if they were influential on the future of the toy industry (both developments and marketing).
Time to ride the crazy train through the last 60 years of Christmas toy history! Here is my top 10 list of hot Christmas toys of all time, placed in order of their release –
10. Mr. Potato Head
1952 1 million sold Hasbro
The Christmas Story Originally George Lerner’s idea for this famous toy spud seemed like it might be a dud. At first, no one seemed interested in his idea, but eventually a small family-run toy company called Hasbro began production. Mr. Potato Head became so popular that a Mrs. Potato Head was introduced the next year.
The Craziness Mr. Potato Head was the very first toy advertisement on TV. Thank you Hasbro for starting the never-ending chorus of ‘Can I have that?! I want that!” that started in living rooms in 1952 and hasn’t died down to this day. I think Tylenol probably owes Mr. Potato Head a kickback for a jump in profits, particularly around Christmas.
In more recent news, a six foot tall 150 pound Mr. Potato Head statue went missing from the entrance of a private estate on Rhode Island in 2003. It showed up in a field a few days later. Sgt. James Quinn stated that Mr. Potato Head was “mashed a little bit” during the incident (boston.com). No one knows how what happened, but there is some speculation that Mr. Potato Head had relocated to the field in an effort to get back to his roots.
9. Pet Rock
1975 over 5 million sold in 6 months Rock Bottom Productions
The Christmas Story In his own words, Ad executive Larry Dahl “ hit on the idea while boozing with pals” (people.com). Next, he sent a press release out to “virtually every major media outlet” leading to articles in several local newspapers, Newsweek, and an appearance on The Tonight Show.
The fad peaked during the 1975 Christmas season and it is estimated that Dahl earned over 15 million dollars during the six months that Pet Rocks were popular.
The Craziness Um, hellooooooooo – every day during the 1975 Christmas season 100,000 people were paying money for a pet rock. What is even more crazy? As I write this, Pet Rock USB buddies are sold out at thinkgeek.com and actual Pet Rocks are still selling on eBay for up to $15.00.
In other news, I’m sorry to report that you missed this year’s Pet Rock Festival. The festival is held in Worcester, Massachusetts and promotes kindness to all animals. Instead, you can sit down and listen to Teenage Fanclub’s song “Pet Rock” (Bandwagonesque, Spin’s Album of the Year, 1991) while you enjoy a glass of Pet Rock Wine.
8. PONG
1975 150,000 sold Atari
The Christmas Story “Pong was an adaptation of the company’s popular arcade game of the same name, and it became the most popular game of the 1975 holiday season, with sales of $40,000,000 for the year” (ideafinder.com).
The Craziness When it comes to home video games, Pong really started the ball rolling. When you see it in action now, it’s hard to believe that a few lines on a TV screen could cause such a ruckus, but Pong was 1975’s version of a Wii. “People were waiting two hours in line to sign up on a list just to get an Atari home version of Pong” (atarimuseum.com).
Frank Black may have asked “Whatever Happened to Pong?” on his album Teenager of the Year, but Pong’s legacy lives on in science and the arts. There are over 119 works of fan fiction about Pong at fanction.com. Also crazy (as in so cool, it’s crazy) ScienceDaily.com reported that students “have adapted an open source game called ‘Pong’… enabl[ing] the player to move the bat using their eye.” This innovation “could allow people with severe physical disabilities to become ‘gamers’ for the first time.”
7. Atari
1979 1 million sold Warner Communications
The Christmas Story Atari again? Yes, Atari gets two spots on this list of hottest toys because their products were crazy popular during two Christmas seasons.
The Atari Video Computer System (VCS) originally came out in 1977, it came with one game (Combat) and about half a dozen other games were available. That year “was not a good time for video game systems as the market experienced a crash after it had been previously oversaturated with Pong clones” (consoledatabase.com). While the Atari VCS is considered the first successful console with interchangeable cartridges, its sales were disappointing during its first two years.
However, by 1979 there were 32 titles in their library, including the very first video game with an Easter Egg (Adventure) and the first game licensed from a movie franchise (Superman)… and the first generation of gamers had been born. That year the Atari CVS, renamed the Atari 2600, “was the bestselling Christmas present… and a million were sold that year”, while game cartridge sales were estimated at $100 million (wordiq.com).
The Craziness Atari was the beginning of a new pastime (in some cases, passion). In fact, many of today’s gamers actually played games on the Atari 2600 since the average video game player in the U.S. today is 35 years old (itfacts.biz).
The cartridge format for games was used in many future systems until this was replaced with the CD format. The last system to use cartridges was Nintendo 64 (discontinued in 2001).
While I couldn’t find any evidence of Atari-related riots, there is a band called Atari Teenage Riot whose performances have allegedly incited violence, and even a riot with police in 1997. There is also a song called “Atari Baby” by Sigue Sigue Sputnick. Although I’m pretty sure it’s about the arcade version it’s such a good song, I’m mentioning it anyways.
6. Cabbage Patch Dolls
1983 Almost 3 million sold Coleco
The Christmas Story According to cabbagepatchkids.com, the dolls “go on record as the most successful new doll introduction in the history of the toy industry”. In 2000, they were featured in a U.S. stamp series highlighting the 1980’s (as far as I can see, the only other modern toy to ever be featured on a stamp is the Slinky).
It all started when celebrities were spotted toting them around, even President Jimmy Carter’s daughter Amy had one. Then, “Coleco began aggressively pushing the Cabbage Patch dolls–it sent them directly to reporters, a relatively new technique” (time.com). Over 2 million dolls were “adopted” in the first six months. By December of 1983, Cabbage Patch Dolls were on the cover of Newsweek and they were in short supply and high demand.
The Craziness The shopping frenzy surrounding the dolls is well documented (check out the video above). According to, awesome80s.com dolls were being delivered to stores by armored car and Coleco pulled the TV commercials in an attempt to tame the madness; one desperate and doting Kansas City dad even flew to London to get his daughter a doll. Check out awesome80s.com for more crazy stories from the Cabbage Patch, which also says the dolls are “the first instance of a fad toy causing the phenomena now known as Christmas Gift Buying Rage.”
I also had to include two of the Cabbage Patch urban myths listed at Snopes.com (there are several, so check out the site for more). First, did you know the dolls were designed to get the masses comfortable with the mutated appearance of survivors of a thermonuclear war? Also, there were reports that children wouldn’t get their dolls back from the factory if they sent them in for repairs- they would receive a death certificate instead.
The questionably cute dolls even spawned a dance called The Cabbage Patch, made famous when it became San Francisco 49er Jerry Rice’s end zone dance. There is also the Cabbage Patch biker bar of Daytona Beach, famous for it’s annual coleslaw wrestling event, but I’m pretty sure it is not named after the doll.
5. Game Boy
1991 Over 1 million sold in the US during its first Christmas Season Nintendo
The Christmas Story A year after its release in Japan, the Game Boy came to the U.S.A. and conquered the Christmas shopping season. Contributing to its popularity: the Game Boy gave you 35 hours of play on one set of batteries, in contrast to its competitors at the time. Also, it came with Tetris- a game that appealed to all ages.
“Game Boy and Game Boy Color’s combined lifetime sales reached 118.7 million worldwide” (businessweek.com). Game Boy is “the longest running dynasty in the video game business” according to arstechnica.com.
The Craziness The Game Boy console’s design is instantly recognizable and has become a pop culture icon. There are Game Boy condoms, wallets, handmade dresses, fully-functional Halloween costumes, and tattoos. Artists like NullSleep use the Game Boy to create music and Game Boys have been repurposed into external hard drives, while the game cartridges have been turned into USB drives.
4. Tickle Me Elmo
1996 10 million and counting Tyco
The Christmas Story It’s a case of Christmas in July, or at least that’s when this Christmas story begins. Rosie O’Donnell introduces Tickle Me Elmo to her viewers (mostly moms) and 200 Elmos are given out to her studio audience. By some accounts, Tyco had already sold 400,000 Tickle Me Elmos before he made his appearance on the Rosie O’Donnell show; by other accounts Tyco was not expecting the rather expensive doll to do well, and it was a slow seller. Similar to the Cabbage Patch craze, the low supply of dolls made it even more desirable, so that “in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Tickle Me Elmo dolls were in such scarce supply that ads cropped up in newspapers asking for as much as $2000 per doll” (media-awareness.ca).
The Craziness One department store employee describes what happened to him on December 14, 1996:
“I was pulled under, trampled—the crotch was yanked out of my brand-new jeans…” says Waller, who suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, a broken rib and a concussion. “I was kicked with a white Adidas before I became unconscious.” (Jan 13 1997, Just Tickled, people.com)
Other Tickle Me Elmo trauma can be found at customerssuck.com. You can buy the original dolls online for less than $20.00 U.S.
3. Furby
1998 1.8 million sold Tiger Electronics
The Christmas Story Like most of the other toys appearing later on this list, the Furby was introduced at the Toy Industry Association’s annual Toy Fair. This introduction of the Furby took place in February, months before it’s planned release in October. Premature media coverage caught the attention of toy stores and Tiger had sold all of them before the factory had even started production. Parents were just as intrigued, because the toys sold out at the stores immediately.
Over 14 million Furbies sold in 1999, but the Christmas of 1998 was the height of the Furby fervor because of it’s lack of availability. Furbies were re-selling for hundreds of dollars (their original ticket price was $35 U.S.). For the first time in toy history, parents turned to the Internet to satisfy their Christmas toy cravings. To put this into context, eBay was only 4 years old in 1998 and only 26.2 percent of U.S. households had internet access. One eBay seller made at least $2600 selling Furbies to 33 Buyers. Unfortunately, most of them were buying Furbies of the imaginary variety because the eBay Seller was a scammer cashing in on the Furby frenzy (‘Burned eBay Furby Buyers Get Payback’, Jan 22 2009, news.cnet.com).
The Craziness “Sometimes the hot toy is not such a good toy,” said one toy expert during the Furby craze (time.com). Apparently, the Furby was not only annoying – it also creeped quite a few kids (and adults) out. Only a few weeks ago my nieces (now in their 20’s) were describing how scary their Furby was to have in their rooms because it would suddenly start talking. A visit to a forum at tamatalk.com is full of similar stories of Furby owners who make their Furbies face the wall at night so their scary face isn’t visible, of Furbies that call out in the middle of the night, and family dogs who won’t go near them.
The main character of Bret Easton Ellis’ 2005 book Lunar Park is tormented by his step-daughter’s Terby toy – not just similar in name, the doll has a beak, is furry, and ‘comes to life’ (although in Ellis’ case the Terby flits around and, from what I can recall, tries to kill him).
The Pet Rock was (hopefully) obviously just a rock, so was not likely to be disappointing; the Cabbage Patch Kid was actually a popular and enduring toy (personally, I don’t understand it, but perhaps that’s just the bitter, doll-less little girl in me speaking); but the Furby just… sucked?
Not every agrees, because adoptafurby.com seems to be completely sold out of Furbies. They believe in “giving every Furby a chance at a new life, regardless of their past” and 851 Furbies have already been adopted through their site.
Furbies also enjoy new lives at the hands of hackers and circuit benders. Well, perhaps enjoy isn’t the right word… Hacking involves “getting sliced open, their guts torn out, and their insides replaced with odds and ends you can find at the local hobby store” (hackfurby.com). Circuit bending, “an electronic art which implements creative audio short-circuiting,” sounds friendlier but involves a similar operation (anti-theory.com).
Possibly more disturbing than hacking a Furby apart, the Adult Lovers of Furbys group (ALOF) on Yahoo had 18 new messages and 18 new photos posted just this week…
2. Playstation 3
2006 Sales Unavailable Sony
The Christmas Story The PS3 had several features that set it apart. It’s ‘unified online gaming service’ encouraged online play, it had functionality for multimedia storage and play (photos, music and movies) and it primarily used Blu-Ray disks for storage.
The Play Station 3 was unveiled at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (May) and shown again at the Tokyo Game Show (September) but there wasn’t an operating version of the game system to demonstrate at either of these shows. The international release date was originally set for November, but the PAL version (Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe) was delayed until Spring 2007). Over 81,000 PS3’s sold within the first 24 hours of the Japan release.
The Craziness All of these factors contributed to a tense environment surrounding the U.S. release. PS3’s pre-sold for thousands of dollars online and, more than ever, people were camping outside stores. The long build up of anticipation resulted in numerous reports of gun violence in the news (armed robbery, shootings, drive-bys) and brawls (in one case, 60 shoppers were involved).
Don’t forget the story of the customer who “treated people ahead of him in line to coffee spiked with laxatives” when he found out there wasn’t enough PS 3’s to go around. Talk about playing dirty (Esquire).
1. Zhu Zhu Pets
2009 10 million Cepia
The Christmas Story Russell Hornsby, the man who came up with the idea for these robotic hamsters, was inspired by the popularity of hamster footage on YouTube. The toy was tested out at a few stores in Arizona and sold out in a few weeks. “Following in the footsteps of must-haves of seasons past — the Furby, Tickle-me Elmo, Cabbage Patch dolls, Beanie Babies — supply seems to grow short just when demand is high, and Zhu Zhu Pets are flying off store shelves” (abcnews). Another reason for its success: you could buy a hamster for under $10. Also, “Unlike actual hamsters, they don’t bite, they don’t smell, and they don’t poop” (pennlive.com).
Yes, they’re cute – but are they really robots? Terese Polletti at Market Watch argues that they are not and quotes Jimmy Kimmel, who described Zhu Zhu’s as “Matchbox cars with hair on them.”
Yet, they seem to have appeared at the right place at the right time: created by a small St. Louis toy company (but manufactured in China) and selling for a reasonable ticket price. Finally, a genuinely cute and fun toy, whose popularity hasn’t been spurred on by an innovative or expensive marketing campaign or celebrity endorsements.
The Craziness Yet, by the end of November Zhu Zhu pets were selling for $250 on eBay and several Target employees were fired for purchasing Zhu Zhu pets earlier than the company policy allowed (consumerist.com). ‘Tis the Season! Now stop reading, it’s time to rush down to the store and wrestle some other desperate shopper for this year’s toy!
BALLOON BUDDIES... • Patented, Original and/or Licensed Characters that are light enough to suspend (float) with helium balloon(s) & tethered to a base that is filled/weighted with treats. • Exponential growth opportunity in brand expansion, product proliferation, internal / external licensing contracts, calculable revenue streams.
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Check out our TopTenz playlist: Hot Christmas Toys for more footage, videos of the songs mentioned, and other toys.
Additional Resources
toyassociation.org - “a list of classic toys that are still on the market, along with their first year of introduction and current manufacturer”
List of all inductees into the Toy Industry Association’s National Toy Hall of Fame
Langley Sommer, Robin, I Had One of Those: Toys of Our Generation, Random House.
Note: unless noted otherwise, the sales figures listed under the year of release indicate number of units sold during that one year.
International readers: this list is based on popular toys in North America and may not reflect your country (for example, Action Man was an extremely successful toy in the UK in 1966). What was the toy you just had to have?
Have something REAL buyers want... knowledge works best!
You know more about the real estate market and the houses in it than they do.
You know the current inventory.
You know which houses are priced right and which ones aren't.
You know that homes built by this builder cost more than ones by that builder, and why (and whether they're worth the extra $).
You know if the neighborhood of your open house is out of the buyer's price range;
You know of alternative neighborhoods that might work for them.
You know a lot...share your wealth of knowledge and impress your prospects with business acumen.
Bottom line, you should, and do, have a conversational familiarity with your local real estate market.
Also... Not everyone who comes to an open house is a good prospect for you. In fact, most probably aren't, for reasons you're already aware of. Just let 'em go. Don't be rude, of course, but don't fret about getting their digits or demonstrating your expertise to them. Just let them wander thru, politely and pleasantly answer their questions, and relax. You may leave your open house with only one or two folks to follow-up with and that's okay. It's perfectly fine to cherry-pick your future clients, selecting only those with whom you have a natural rapport, who seem to be open to hearing from you again.
Here's the thing. Trying to create rapport with every warm body who walks in the door can be exhausting. And discouraging. Frankly, not everyone wants to be chatted with; in fact, most probably don't. By the end of the open house, if you've tried to build rapport with everyone who came in, you can end up an emotional mess, especially since many of them have probably rejected your advances. But if you save your emotional energy for those with whom you "click," you'll be far more charming!
So, what's the punch line?
Be conversationally familiar with the neighborhood, amenities and alternatives to the neighborhood of the house you're holding open and be willing to freely share your knowledge with visitors, and
Save your emotional energy for the visitors with whom you feel a natural rapport. Be pleasant and polite to everyone else, but don't stress yourself out trying to get contact information from them.
If you've done a good job preparing for your open house and you choose your targets wisely, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that many visitors will initiate further contact with you. Either they'll offer up their contact information voluntarily or they'll ask for yours. Focus on how you can better demonstrate to your visitors that you are the Realtor® they're looking for.
With the explosion of Consumer Generated Media (CGM), ongoing monitoring of your personal or professional reputation has become a must. Consumer Generated Media consists largely of social networking websites; blogs; photo, audio and video sharing sites; discussion boards; and any other website that allows users to share their experience, opinion and knowledge.
Facebook, Twitter, BlogSpot, WordPress… people update and write about anything, anywhere, anytime. In fact, they might be writing about you. You can imagine the devastating ramifications of negative word of mouth about your company or yourself. However, you can be proactive and monitor online reputations before disaster strikes. You can monitor your name, product feedback, services, company, competitors, employers, even enemies. The sky is the limit and the tools are easy to set up and free to use, so take advantage of them.
Here are ten free basic tools to monitor online reputation:
Monitor the external links to your blog, corporate website or personal web page through Yahoo’s Site Explorer. This free tool allows you to check who is linking back to your site. There is a very high probability that people who post negative comments, also provide a link to their source of disappointment.
Google SideWiki is a very useful browser plug-in that allows any Gmail user to annotate or post comments on any website. This web annotation feature also allows the website owner to leave an owners comment on their Sidewiki. It will appear at the top of all other listings. It is very important to regularly check your SideWiki entries to prevent spam and abuse or to address negative feedback. Don’t be offended if there are some legitimate negative comments, but make sure you address them: contact the complainer, post a comment letting the person know you’ve contacted them directly, and take the conversation offline.
This tool will check the availability of your personal/corporate name or username on over 400 popular social networking and bookmarking platforms. Knowem is a good way to discover if someone is posing as you or if it’s just a coincidence. Checking usernames is becoming essential also for trademark protection and to protect yourself and your business from identity theft.
Delicious, the world’s premier social bookmarking service, is another handy tool. Almost everybody is bookmarking nowadays, so start discovering web bookmarks that mention your name, services, or competitors. Use the search box or the Delicious tag page to monitor your online reputation.
If you have been facing online reputation problems and you want to keep an eye on a particular website, Versionista monitors any change of the web page of interest, visually showing the exact words and sentences that have been added or removed. It alerts you by sending email notifications.
SamePoint is a useful social media search and analytic platform that allows you to analyze millions of user-generated conversations and monitor online reputations. It is easily accessible, simply type your query into the search box and analyze the social tone: whether it is positive or negative. The “Social Tone” feature indicates how many negative/positive words have been found in the post. Remember to subscribe to your tracking feed.
SocialMention allows you to easily monitor and measure what people are saying about you, your organization, a new service, or any topic across the online social media landscape in real-time. According to SocialMention, “the tool monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.” You can create various alerts (similar to Google Alerts) based on your choice of search phrase.
Twitter is one of the most popular and powerful social networking services. Conduct a search for your target keyword and then subscribe via RSS to get fresh search results. The TwitterSearch plug-in will help you find people by name, if you don’t know their Twitter account. It is a great plug-in. Type in “toptenz” and you will see for yourself. You can subscribe to the feed of your search query.
Technorati is a leading search engine of the blogosphere. It indexes millions of blogs in real time. Technorati is probably the best tool to monitor blogger conversations. Conduct a search using the Technorati search box and if you are not happy with the returned results, try using quotation marks, for example: “toptenz“. Subscribe to the RSS feed and check it periodically.
One of my favorite free tools is, of course, Google Alerts- a powerful content monitoring service. It’s a great way to stay informed. Google Alerts monitor both social and traditional media. You will receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your search term. If your Web search query contains two or more words, use quotation marks around your phrase to tell Google Alerts exactly what to retrieve. For instance, a Google Alert for “online reputation software” works better with quotes. Here’s a great trick: use negative keywords. If your name is similar (or the same) to another organization or another person, use the search phrase “your name –characteristic of the other company/person” as an alert. Using the negative keyword, Google Alerts will exclude almost all results about the second one. Let’s say that my name is John Smith and I am a Human Resources Manager but Johnsmithsport.com is the corporate website of a Spanish designer. The search phrase “John Smith -johnsmithsport.com” will eliminate results related to his website from my alert. The Google Alerts service has several other settings to help you customize your updates.
In the past 12 months, there has been a lot of changes in the world of web design...
Growing popularity in the mobile device space — including smartphones and tablets like the iPad — have refined the way many users access and interact with content.
Likewise, the formal adoption of web standards like HTML5, web fonts and CSS3 by browser makers means that more and more users are now able to take advantage of the latest and greatest features on the web.
It’s often tough for small businesses to stay up on the latest web design trends because of the cost involved with redesigns and the necessity of being accessible by a broad range of users. Still, there are some great web design trends from 2010 and leading into 2011 that small businesses should consider incorporating into their sites. We’ve already written about some of the aesthetic web design trends that small businesses should keep an eye on, so this list is more about some of the technological trends taking place in the world of web design.
1. Lose the Flash
Regardless of where you stand in the war over Flash, the fact remains that more and more sites and web developers are moving away from Flash-only solutions for video, animation and navigation.
Flash still excels when it comes to building fully interactive designs and Rich Interactive Applications (RIAs), but for small business owners who aren’t showcasing or providing that sort of experience, trading Flash for HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3 might just make more sense.
The fact is, Flash is not accessible on most mobile devices. Even the mobile devices that do support Flash don’t support each element reliably. As a customer, there is nothing worse than visiting a website from my mobile phone and finding out I am unable to access the contact information, list of products and services or location information because the navigation or core content was built in Flash.
Flash is a great tool for certain types of work, such as sites that can capture audio or video, do complex animations or run web games. If you’re still using an old circa-2005 Flash template, 2011 might be a good time to upgrade to something more modern.
2. Web Fonts
Typography is an important — I would argue crucial — component of any web design. Historically, customizing the typography you use on a website has been a complicated and headache-inducing process. As a result, most designers were reduced to either using the small selection of web-safe fonts or using workarounds like text images or Flash as text replacements.
The good news is that in the past 12 months, the situation with fonts and the web has improved quite a bit. Thanks to services like TypeKit, Fonts.com Web Fonts and Google Web Fonts, it’s now possible to use web fonts on your own site with very little effort, for either free or very nominal costs.
More and more websites — big and small — are taking the time to make their sites small screen friendly. Having a mobile compatible or mobile optimized website means that not only will your site load faster over cellular data connections but that content will be better formatted for the screens of smaller devices, making it easier to access and understand.
As smartphone adoption continues to soar, more and more of our online time is spent on our phones. For small businesses, making sure that that experience is fast and pleasant can be a great way to improve your website’s effectiveness.
The popular microblogging platform Tumblr () is a great way to quickly & easily post updates, share content and garner direct visitor feedback. Tumblr has become a really popular platform and more and more small businesses are using it for their own company blogs or sites.
And while Tumblr has some great themes geared toward small business users, Tumblr itself is also having a pretty big impact on web design as a whole.
Even if you don’t use Tumblr for your company website or blog, you can incorporate elements of the Tumblr style — distinctive icons for post type, big, beautiful typography for titles and headings, and a minimalist layout.
5. Touches of the Future: HTML5 and CSS3
As stated in the introduction, it can be difficult for small businesses that aren’t in a design-related field to adopt many of the cutting-edge web design trends for fear of shutting out parts of their potential audience.
And while it is true that there are still some corporate networks and a smattering of home users using old, decrepit and nearly extinct browsers, the latest versions of the major web browsers — Internet Explorer (), Firefox (), Google Chrome (), Safari () and Opera () — all support CSS3 and HTML5 features and elements. Additionally, practically every modern smartphone supports advanced CSS3, JavaScript and HTML5 features, too.
At this stage, it’s OK to experiment with HTML5 or CSS3 elements on your small business website.
The great thing is, it’s possible to use techniques that will offer an enhanced view on modern browsers but degrade elegantly on systems that don’t support the latest and greatest. There are even some great projects that make it easier to get started.
It’s long been a saying on the Internet that “content is king”. But why is content so important?
Providing valuable contentkeeps people coming back, increases trust in you attracts links to your site. Keeping people coming back is good but the real benefits are increasing trust and attracting links. and
Increasing trust
It’s very important on the Internet to gain people’s trust. Providing valuable content shows people that you know what you are talking about. It’s easy to have a Web site selling a product or service. When you add valuable content about that product or service it shows that you have a deeper commitment and separates you from the people that just sell boxes. This helps you to make a personal connection with your customers and become someone they want to do business with.
Attracting links
Attracting links to your site should provide you with more visitors, so more people to sell your services or products too. Not only that, but if you get links from important sites it can boost your search engine ranking. With the rise of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, it is becoming easier to share links to great content. If you provide great content and make it easy to share with links via social media sites, you can get your article to millions of Internet users. Next time they are looking to buy your product or service, chances are they will remember your article and come to you first.
Google uses links to your site as a voting system when deciding on the order of search engine results. It’s not quite as simple as just getting lots of links to your Web site, Google uses a system called PageRank and this is what actually matters. When a site links to you it passes on part of it’s PageRank to your site. So the idea is to attract links from sites with a higher PageRank than your own. The best way to get links from these high ranking sites is by having high quality content.
What is valuable content?
So now we know why it’s important, what kind of valuable content can you provide?
The most valuable content is probably non-commercial articles related to the product or services you are selling. For example if you sell window blinds, you could write an article about how to clean window blinds. This will not directly help you to make sales, but provides something useful to existing and potential customers.
Here are some other ideas for valuable content you could provide:
Optimize your pages for your selected keywords (web page optimization), and
Get quality inbound links to your pages (off-site factors).
In the next few pages, we will teach you how to follow a systematic approach to complete these three steps, using free tools available on the net.
PART I: Keyword Optimization
The first step in a search engine optimization campaign is to choose your keywords or keyphrases for each of your web pages. Keywords are the terms that search engine users type in the search box to conduct a query. The right keywords are those that:
clearly describe the purpose and content of your site, and,
allow your site to show up as close to the first results page as possible.
A good position doesn't depend only on your choice of keywords. It also depends on how well do you position those keywords in your web page, and how many quality external pages link to you. However, choosing the wrong keywords can throw off your entire search engine optimization strategy, so you need to invest a few hours and make sure you do it right.
Let's start with your homepage. Look at it carefully and write down the words and phrases that best define your site. Try to form two or three word phrases, since competition for one-word keyphrases is fierce, and it is virtually impossible to get a top position for them. That is why, from now on, we will talk about keyphrases, not keywords. Once you have developed your list of potential keyphrases you are ready for the next step: to analyze the demand and supply for those keyphrases, and choose the best ones (those with good demand and not enough supply).
We will first check the demand for your selected keyphrases. For this, we will go to Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool:
Overture is a popular pay-per-click search engine. You will then type each of the keyphrases you selected, and see how many people search for those terms. This tool will show you only those searches conducted in Overture (and only in one month time). However, the relative popularity of each search term will be very similar in other search engines as well. In addition to telling you if your selected keyphrases are popular, this tool will show you other keyphrases that you may not have thought about, which may even be more relevant to your site.
For example, if your first keyphrase was "Italian Restaurant", the Search Term Suggestion Tool will also display other popular search terms, like: "Gourmet Italian Restaurant", "Northern Italian Restaurant", "Italian Restaurant Pizzeria", "Italian Restaurant Miami", etc. You may also try other keyphrases, for example: "Italian Cuisine", and come up with more specific keyphrases, like: "Fine Italian Cuisine", "Italian Cuisine Miami", "Northern Italian Cuisine", "Italian Cuisine Fine Dining", "Gourmet Italian Cuisine", etc.
What you have done is to validate and enlarge your pool of popular, in-demand, potential keyphrases for your web page. The next step is to check the supply, or, in other words, to see how much competition there is for your selected keywords. Naturally, you want to focus on keyphrases where competition is less fierce. For example, choosing "Italian Restaurant" alone will certainly hurt you. There are so many of them that your chances of showing up in an advantageous position within the search results are pretty slim.
Having said that, get your list of keyphrases, go to Google ( http://www.google.com ) and type-in each of them in the search box. Enter your keyphrases within quotation marks (to filter-out less relevant results), and see how many results each individual query produces, making a note of those with a relatively small number of results (less competition). You will stick with the keyphrase that:
Best describes the topic and content of your page
Is a popular search term according to Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool.
Generates a relatively small number of results after performing the Google search.
If "Gourmet Italian Restaurant" is the keyphrase that best meets these three criteria, it will become your primary keyphrase. To get even better results, you can choose a second keyphrase to make your page more relevant to an even more specific niche. For example, if your restaurant is in Miami, you can consider "Miami" a second keyphrase. Once you have chosen the keyphrases for you homepage, do the same for the other pages on your site.
After this, you will take your selected keyphrases and optimize your pages heavily for them. This involves placing them in strategic locations in the title, headings and body of each page, as we will see in Part II: Web Page Optimization.
PART II: Web Page Optimization
Once you have chosen your keyphrases, the next stage is to optimize your page for those keyphrases. You do that by positioning your keywords in strategic locations within your page. What follows is a checklist of tips and steps you must follow to optimize your page:
Keyphrases in the web page title:
Create a descriptive title for your page: Your web page title is very important because it is what the search engines display as link text as the result of a search. The title must include your main keyphrases, while at the same time it must describe your business very well and should entice readers to click on it.
Unless your business is big and well known (like Microsoft or Coca Cola) don't start your page title with the name of your company. Start your title with the words search engine users will most likely use (your keyphrases)
Put your main keyphrase at the beginning of your page title (keyphrase prominence) and keep your keyphrase together (keyword proximity).
Put your second keyphrase somewhere else in the title.
Make the title short (8 words or less).
Keyphrases in your Keyword Meta Tag: Search engines rarely use the Keyword Meta Tag any more (Google completely ignores it). However, place a list of your main and secondary keywords in the Keyword Meta Tag of your page, just in case search engines decide to use them again in the future.
Keyphrases in your Description Meta Tag: The Description Meta Tag is still important, since some search engines use them to elaborate on the results link. Remember to:
Include your keyphrases (main and secondary) in your Description Meta Tag.
Make your description 'descriptive', concise and professional. Avoid using hype.
Make it short (25 words or less).
Don't make your description sound just like a collection of keywords.
Keep your keyphrases together.
Keywords in the body of your page:It is important to use your keywords heavily on your page, since this will help the search engine determine the topic of your page. Follow these tips as much as possible, since they will help search engines determine your page's relevance to your chosen keyphrases:
Use your keyphrases several times, and place them as close to the top of the page as possible.
Place your keyphrases between Header Tags (H1, H2 or H3) in the first two paragraphs of your page.
Place your keyphrases in bold type phase at least once.
Repeat your keyphrases often to increase your keyphrase density. Repeating your keyphrases between 5 to 10 times for every 100 words in your page is considered effective.
Since you have to repeat your keyphrases often, you must be especially careful not to make your text sound awkward. Your visitors should be able to read your page fluently and effortlessly. Remember that ultimately it is your readers who will decide if your page is worth the time they spend on it. A pleasant experience will make them more likely to come back.
A good resource on how to write search engine friendly copy without losing readability is this special SEO writing report by Jill Whalen.
Other Web Page Design Considerations:
You must make your page easy to navigate by the search engines. Search engines heavily favor text over graphics, and HTML over other editing formats.
Use text heavily, especially in your navigation bar. Avoid placing text in graphic format since the search engines won't be able to read it.
Avoid frames. Search engines have trouble following them, and they may index only the framed content page and not the navigation frame.
Avoid Flash and JavaScript: search engines don't follow either one. If you use flash, make an HTML version of your site available to your readers and the search engines. If you use a JavaScript navigation menu, include an alternate text menu at the bottom of the page, so it can be followed by the search engines.
Create a Site Map that includes all the pages in your site, and place a Site Map link close to the top of the homepage. When the search engine follows the site map link, it will find and index all the pages in your site!
If you use a left navigation bar, the search engine will read it before the body of your page. Make sure you include your most important keywords there, too.
Make sure that all your internal pages link to your homepage.
Don't try to describe all your products or services in one page. It will confuse the search engine and dilute your page's relevance to your selected keyphrase. Instead, create different very focused pages, each with its own content and keyphrases, and optimize them too.
This is pretty much all you have to do to make sure that your page is optimized for your chosen keywords. The next and final step to increase your site's ranking is to get as many links to your site as possible, from quality sites that have a topic related to yours. This is what we will see in Part III: Off-Site Factors.
Part III: Off Page Factors
Once you have selected your keyphrases and optimized your pages for them, the last step is to make sure that you get linked from the best directories, and from lots of quality sites with a topic related to your site's. The best search engines, and in particular Google (who alone can deliver 80% of the search engine traffic to your site) "crawl" the web looking for links to your site. They interpret a link to your page as a vote, and the more links (votes) you have coming from quality sites the higher your page rank will be, and the higher the possibility that your page will achieve a good position in the search results pages. It's that simple. Following these four steps is the best way to get the quality links you need:
Get listed in DMOZ: The Open Directory Project ( http://www.dmoz.org ) is the world's largest directory. It is maintained by voluntary editors who review your site prior to inclusion. Being listed in this directory is important because it is used by Google and America Online to build their directories. Getting listed is free, but it may take a few weeks or even months to get listed, which can be a bit frustrating. However, there is a strong believe among search engine optimization experts that an Open Directory Project listing can significantly increase your page rank in Google, so you must take the time to submit your site and do it right (list your site in the right category and strictly follow their submission guidelines). For how to get listed in the Open Directory Project go to: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html .
Get listed in Yahoo!: Submissions to Yahoo! are no longer free for commercial sites (your site can be reviewed in about a week for a fee of $299 although inclusion in the directory is not guaranteed. However, if you do get accepted, the $299 fee will be due every year if you want your site to continue to be listed). A link from Yahoo�s directory is still one of the best links you can get, and it is worth the money you spend getting listed. For tips on getting listed in Yahoo! go to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ .
Submit articles: There are many sites where you can publish articles in your field of expertise. This is a great way to establish yourself as an expert and to drive quality traffic to your site. The key is to include your resource box at the end of your article. A resource box is a small paragraph with a brief description of you and your business, where you include a link to your site. This way, every time somebody picks up your article and publishes it in their website or newsletter, your link will be there for readers and search engines to see and follow. For tips of getting traffic by writing articles you can visit: http://www.theinternetdigest.net/archive/write.html .
Exchange links with reputable sites: You must try to find quality sites that are compatible to your site's topic (not direct competitors), and ask the webmaster for a link exchange. This will give you highly targeted traffic and will improve your score with the search engines. For tips on a good link exchange campaign, visit: http://www.theinternetdigest.net/archive/inboundlinks.html . If you liked this article and feel inclined to learn more about Search Engine Optimization, you may want to check out Aaron Wall's SEOBook.
