If You’re Not Mobile Ready – You’re Unprepared

The prediction has been in the air for years. But now the stats show that people are searching on the their phones and growing speeds, with no sign of slowing down.  While 71% of businesses see the mobile value 78% of businesses are not mobile ready.  It’s a great advantage to  go mobile right now and stay ahead of your competition.  While many business owners cite cost as an issue most businesses have seen a decline in advertising expenses with the demise of yellow page phone books.  Recognizing a website is now the cornerstone of any and all advertising the shift is beginning.  While pay-per-click is still scary to most business owners investing in your organic website structure is building on solid ground.

Google News for Local Businesses

Recent changes make your Google+ page more helpful to your business.  Google used to display about 7 local businesses in its “maps” section on search results. That number will now be cut to 3 as Google gives more preference to its Google+ pages.  Google set guidelines to optimize the business pages.  Take advantage of it – give Google what it wants, don’t be the business that ignores helpful suggestions from Google.  Too busy to handle this yourself?  Inquire about my Webmaster Services.

Freshen Your Website

If your business is service related make the most of your images.  If your site is more than a few years old at that time keeping images small was the best strategy for user friendly load time on each page.  Now there are many ways to showcase your work with much larger sized images – still optimizing for download speed. There are many options to make your photos interactive (click to enlarge).  Read more.

It’s your website – your business online – grow it, make it shine – freshen it – make it work for you.

How to Get More Organic Traffic to Your Website

Looking for More Organic Traffic?

There has been so much about social media for years.  You don’t need it all — be selective in the platforms you devote time and resources toward.  Most of the major players are image oriented.  Facebook favors image and video posts/shares. Instagram, Pinterest, etc. are all about photos.  Google+ absorbed Google Maps a few years back.  When your Google Map appears next to your website in a search result get your photos in front of potential clients.

Local directories often appear at the top of a search result.  Make sure your listings are filled out and the information is accurate.  It doesn’t matter how people find your website – directories are a great connection to your site.

Ready for a video?  Use YouTube – it has become its own search engine.  Vimeo and others are great, but if you’re stretched for time YouTube is “the one”.  Your YouTube channel has lots of opportunities for SEO – make use of it – get out ahead of your competitors.How To Get More Organic Traffic

Guest blogging, forum commenting and press releases are great opportunities, but not simple activities.  These require the most time.
http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingfaqs/f/GuestBlogFAQ.htm

Get reviews.  Online reviews help drive your website.  When people are talking about your business search engines are taking note.

Email marketing is on the rise effectively.  If you haven’t already – build a mailing list.  Keep your business in front of your existing clients and engage with them via a newsletter, or a coupon/discount periodic email.  People are opening more of their emails on their phones and tablets.

Promote your website offline at networking events, on print materials, and giving presentations is a good way to increase branded searches.

About links – it doesn’t matter how much this has been spammed year after year – links to your website, from your website and within your website remain a solid organic strategy which plays into your organic website strength.

Add to your website – keep it fresh looking, adding new content and updating photos.  Avoid bounce rates – which means someone landed on your site and quickly left–this is one more thing“Google is watching” when determining which site to deliver in a search.

https://www.brendasimon.com/blog/why-should-i-redesign-my-website-2/

Building a Stronger Online Presence

Your website is the cornerstone of your marketing.  Keep presenting the fresh face of your business by updating photos. List new products or services; add new staff members photos and bios. Consider adding information pages or a “What’s New” page to show off your latest projects or products. If you’re ready to move beyond your cell phone camera or point and shoot camera give us a call for professional photography.  Time for a major website overhaul?  Redesign your website.

Email continues to shine as a marketing tool.  97% of cell phone users read email on their phone.  Let your website help you collect email addresses, if you’re using an email client (MailChimp, iContact, etc.) add their website widget to your desktop website, mobile site and blog.  Otherwise collect email addresses as you invoice, or have a signup sheet available.  When you’re ready to announce a special you’ll be ready.  I manage email newsletter campaigns as a service.

Social media is the choice many potential clients use to engage with businesses.  Every business needs a Facebook page and Google Business  page. Photographers and artists make use of Pinterest, Flickr; home construction or remodeling try Houzz and Pinterest; auto lovers frequent Instagram.   When you’re ready move into video and make use of YouTube, Vimeo and more.  For help read about my Webmaster Services.

97% of cell phone users go online with their phones.  The single biggest impact for your internet presence is a mobile website.  Make it easy for mobile users to receive your message.

Reach people on the platform they choose.

Read more    http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/

Website Slide Show, Gallery

Deciding how to show your products is part of creating your website. Trying to decide the difference and choosing can make your head spin.

A photographer needs his work to be prominent – with the page layout framing his work.  Keeping in mind your website’s performance is critical if you’re looking for organic search engine results. To that end page loading time is a factor. If the slide show or gallery is bloated the website’s performance suffers, and equally important – the user is annoyed.  Here we used a quick loading JavaScript show which allowed more images on the Home page.
JavaScript Slide Show
DouglasSimon.com

The Staging category needed the full breadth of the image. While this meant larger files, we reduced the number of images in the slide show to compensate.
staging photographyDouglasSimon.com

Portrait portrait (versus landscape), thus the difference.  Keep in mind the best display for your product.Executive PortraitsDouglasSimon.com

Presentation can be a fabulous supporting framework for your product.  In this case the whimsical art is beautifully showcased using a book which pages turn.
Book Slide Show, Turn Page
a-lil-whimsy.com

So many choices. When you find something you like send your web designer the link. Enjoy exploring!

Online Advertising Marketers

With online advertising marketers soliciting your ad dollars things get confusing quickly.  It’s a lot of information to absorb and digest.  My biggest concern is ad campaigns including a “new”, “second” or “mirror” website.  Your website is the cornerstone of your business online.  It has never been more critical to know the value of your website, your domain name.  All marketing needs to point to this very website-your domain name.  Everything pointing to it helps drive traffic to your site, and that’s the goal.  All your advertising needs to be directed to your website.  You are then in control. 

This second website benefits the advertiser seller, typically giving them a tracking phone number – so they can report to you, which sounds good.  But the same can be accomplished by pointing to your website with your phone number, (Google AdWords do this very thing).  They simply give code to you to place on your website.  This hands the control back to you.

 As I’ve mentioned before, having a duplicate website (“mirror”, “second”) is NOT a good thing.  Google made this clear a year ago when it began penalizing and banning duplicate content.  Even if the content is not exactly duplicated the more one site looks similar to another – the less Google gives weight to it, thus effecting how it returns your site in searches.  Currently one client has a second website and both this mirrored site and his true website are suffering in Google’s ranking.

 Perhaps the simplest way to view advertising online is to ask: Is it strengthening YOUR website?

Webmaster Services

As a response to many recent inquiries, I am now offering a new monthly program for Webmaster Services. 

Every second, over 4,500 searches are performed across the Internet.  With that in mind, it’s critical that you are able to be found by those customers seeking your expertise. 

This is not a lock-you-in 12 month program as many large companies are offering.  It does not include a new website, to which these large companies direct these organic services and any new traffic (and not your existing “true” website) – which means once you cancel – it all goes away.  My program directs everything to your website.  If you decide to cancel – what you have paid for stays in place supporting your website.  This is a critical difference.  For large companies it is about their control over your product.  My offer is to support and drive your website – keeping YOU in control of your online presence.

I’ve priced my package at a competitive rate and I will continue to give you the same personal service I offered when we created your website.

I’ve outlined some of the components of Webmaster Services on my website to help you understand their relevance.  Please call me with any questions.  I look forward to working with you to build a stronger online presence.

Victory Baptist Church, NH

Number 1 on Google

Will I be #1 on Google?

That’s everyone’s goal. Once your website goes live you will be inundated by solicitations guaranteeing your number presence on Google search.

Organic Search. This is what I do with SEO when creating a website. From page titles to keywords and content, all are components of optimizing a website for an organic web search to return your site where relevant and in your locale, if you are not nation wide.

A lot can be accomplished to achieve organic search results, and you want to utilize all tools.

People will tell you they can get your website #1 on Google maps. The fine print, which takes digging into is this:

You will appear #1 somewhere, sometime for some keyword search. Most often in their guarantee if your business category is highly competitive – that keyword will turn into long tail keywords:

auto transmission repair in Pomona, Ca

If you’re an auto repair shop that leaves a huge number of services you either, now buy more keywords for, or…don’t.  This can add up to a staggering advertising campaign.

Another point which is told later in the sales pitch is: “If after 3 months you aren’t in the top 5…”. That is the  length of time organic searches can take, and you aren’t paying for those. If you are paying $150.00/month plus $600.00 set up fee to test the waters for appearing in the top 5 places on Google maps and you don’t appear at all…that is a lot of money. Plus you already have a chance of appearing organically in your locale for free. You’re better off setting up an AdWords campaign.

No easy answers, but remember: there are no guarantees to be placed Number One on Google without paying for it – and if you want every search…that price will be quite high in most markets.

The New Google

Visit Google today.
You’ll find a handy left bar giving you more options to refine your search.

This has been in the works for almost a year. Since web designers optimize sites for search engines (SEO) we have been wondering what they were up to. This puts the results more in the hands of the user. If I know what I want I can tell Google how to refine my searches, without my changing my keyword search.

This can be a good thing for businesses. Google is now pulling from “everything” – social networking, paid, organic, images, Google Maps, videos (which can be a small slide show) from YouTube (and beyond) and discussion groups, etc..

What is helpful to “real time” searches is this handy way of NOT having to page through 10 pages of results to find what you want, or worse: give up before they find you. You can drill past the paid ads. (Though they continue to be prominent on Google.) That is the help to the organic websites (non-paying). You know who is searching for you, and while they might not get the exact keyword, this allows them to search within the search results without having to view 10 pages of results, which is tiresome.

It does mean social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) is more important to drive your website. Being on Google Maps is now more helpful – you’ll notice the “nearby” button – which will allow you to find more businesses in the location you are searching. Business owners: it puts you closer to your competitors. NOT pages behind them.

This change can be good news if you are driving your website.