Why Inbound Marketing is Essential for your Business

Posted on November 28, 2012 · Leave a Comment

The web is changing all the time and even more rapidly than ever before. Although design is important, content truly is “king”, which is a saying that goes back to the roots of proper web design in the early 1990′s. These days, content is not just “king”, it is essential.

The days of loading up a website with juicy keywords is over. Recent search algorithm changes by Google, weeded out some of the “keyword stuffers” in favor of content rich, authentic websites. This also means that websites that are heavy on images and videos, rather than text will also have a tough time competing.

If your website is a bit thin on good, meaningful text then now is the time to get the job done. If you cannot write your own copy, contact us and we’ll do the web copywriting for you. If you want the search engines to take notice and keep you in the ball game, this is what you must do.

Content Marketing

People go to websites to solve problems. If a website offers compelling advanced content for download it will capture many more leads than if it just had a contact form. Relying on contact forms to generate leads is no different than someone crossing their fingers and hoping a prospect found their brochure they call a website interesting enough to give them a call.

via Web Design Companies That Endure Will Be Inbound Marketing Agencies.

Filed Under: News, Promote Your Website, Search Engines Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Accuracy of Google Analytics…or not

Posted on November 9, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Usually one of the first things a new client will ask me about is adding Google Analytics tracking to their website. There seems to be a lot of hype about Google Analytics which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best website statistics program to use. It’s free, so like anything else, you get what you pay for. As a matter of fact, I compared Google Analytics results head to head with the actual web server statistics from one of my client’s websites and the sever logs reported twice the amount of visitors than what Google served up. So what gives? An excerpt from an article below explains in a bit more detail:

From a mathematician’s perspective it’s not that good at all. All professional web analysts know that Google Analytics significantly underestimates traffic in the overwhelming majority of cases. Anyone who has ever compared the stats from their web server with the stats from Google Analytics knows that the two sets of numbers rarely match up.

There are several reasons why, but the most significant factor is that the GA tracking code only fires if the person loading the page has Javascript enabled. That means that search engine crawlers and other automated web crawlers don’t get picked up, which is great- for the most part, web analytics is only concerned with the activities of real people- but it also means that anyone browsing with Javascript disabled will be completely invisible.

After my own research into this, I have come to the conclusion that although Google Analytics is still a useful tool, I would not rely on it entirely for accuracy. I would, as always, tend to believe my actual website server log statistics first. Any good web hosting company will provide access to your website server statistics so why not play it safe and compare your actual server statistics with what Google provides?

Filed Under: News, Promote Your Website, Search Engines, Your Website Tagged With: , ,

What Google has to say about all those SEO “Experts”

Posted on November 9, 2011 · Leave a Comment

It seems like every day, our company which is a web design agency and offers it’s own SEO services gets calls and e-mails from so-called search engine optimization experts offering to “improve your SEO and get you a top page ranking in Google, blah, blah, blah“. Our customers are also bombarded by this junk but unfortunately most of them are unaware that most of these SEO experts are scammers (or at the very least spammers).  Most of the offending companies originate from India, totally ignoring the United States “no call list” laws and regulations. However, some companies are right here in the USA and call and email their shady offerings too. I find it particularly hilarious, and apparently Google does too as you will see below, that they do not “research” your website at all. You’re simply receiving automated spam messages, designed to trick you into believing that they actually evaluated your website, which they clearly have not done.

The following is what Google itself had to say about all of the above. SEO isn’t all that difficult. Google provides a great SEO document here that explains the core process.

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:

  • Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

    “Dear google.com,
    I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

    Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

  • No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Filed Under: Promote Your Website, Search Engines, Your Website Tagged With: , ,

Article Writing for SEO a Waste of Time?

Posted on September 1, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Ever since the web first became commercially viable, there have been a ton of companies advertising top rankings in the search engines. Most of these snake oil claims are backed up with quick solutions that seem to good to0 be true and are utter nonsense.
SEO is the buzzword of the past few years. It supposedly means “search engine optimization”, which is really nothing new. Professional web designers have included SEO when building proper websites since day one. I prefer to refer to SEO as “someone else’s opportunity” as there are a huge number of people out their continuing to make outrageous claims and overnight solutions.
This video below resonates well with all of us who are true web professionals. The man in the video is clearly frustrated by the stupidity and nonsense that the general public fall victim to every day, that also tarnishes our profession. If you’re ready for a dose of reality, enjoy the video below.

Wistia

Filed Under: Promote Your Website, Search Engines

Dude, Where’s My Website?

Posted on January 17, 2011 · Leave a Comment

It seems that everyone has a website in this day and age. The recession also helped to cause a mass migration to the web as an inexpensive method of advertising or communicating with others. The results? More competition in the search engines for that coveted web ranking spot on page one of the search results. Let’s face it, if you’re not in the first page of results, chances are that most visitors won’t continue on to subsequent results pages to find you. The web is a fast and fickle environment and most people don’t stick around long.

Ok, so you’ve got this beautiful new website created by your brother’s nephew. He’s learning graphic design in high school, so he chopped up and image, converted it to a web page and posted it to the web. Oh and he also dabbles with Flash, that famous (or infamous) animation tool that produces some dazzling effects. You’re oh so proud of your new, flashy website and certain that the world will beat a path to your website. A month later, the website’s still flashy but nobody knows it’s there. Hmm, why can that be?

As any experienced web developer/designer knows, the number one rule in web design has been, and remains simple, “content is king”. Content is meaningful, relevant text with a good ratio of targeted keywords and perhaps a photo or two added to the page for aesthetic value. A proper, relevant description within the page title. keywords and description meta-tags are also a must. These are the search engine optimization (SEO) basics from back in the early days of the web and they form the foundation for today’s sophisticated websites. Most amateurs or hobbyists are unaware of these basic rules, which is why their websites fail to attract search engine spiders, ultimately resulting in a lack of visitors.

Search engines do not care about Flash, photos or videos. Search engines love HTML text though and anxiously devour relevancy and good content. They also take note of your title and description meta-tags but the description tag is obsolete now, due to years of misuse. Proper SEO also includes relevant, reciprocal links with other high quality websites, unique content (often referred to a niche subjects) and integration with social media and blogs. A successful website is very much akin to a garden. The more care and feeding you put into search engine optimization, the more visitors you will attract to your website.

Filed Under: Promote Your Website, Search Engines Tagged With:

Social Networking and SEO Workout Program

Posted on February 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Back in the mid 1990′s it was relatively easy to design a new website, submit it to Yahoo (the biggest search engine back then in pre-Google days) and come up in the first page or two of search query results. Fast forward to today and the rules of the game have changed substantially. No longer can you stuff pages with high popularity, non relative keywords or hide obscured text on a page to entice search engine bots. Remarkably, people still believe that stuffing the keywords meta-tag is still the way to guarantee top results in a search. The truth is that most of the major search engines now ignore the keyword meta-tag altogether.

So how does a new website compete in today’s ever evolving web world? The old standbys such as reciprocal links, blogs and pay-per-clicks are still effective. The new trend is interaction with social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter…just to name a few. The dilemma comes when one realizes that leveraging traffic through social networking is not difficult but it can be time consuming. How effective your social networking campaign can be hinges upon the content you are delivering and popularity. There is no doubt that time and effort can provide a great boost in terms of search engine optimization and visibility. In other words, the more you work on your garden, the more crop it will yield.

I still get calls quite often and people ask for a quick 10 minute fix to get their website higher in Google rankings. The simple truth is that 10 or even 30 minutes is not enough to guarantee results. The most effective results are obtained through periodic review and actions to drive traffic to your site. Just like that morning exercise ritual, proper website marketing takes some minimal pain for maximum gain.

Filed Under: Promote Your Website, Search Engines, Your Website Tagged With: , ,

Search Engine Friendly Websites

Posted on November 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Everyone wants there website to come up in position #1 on the first page of Google results. Is this a realistic expectation? Yes and no.

For the most part, depending on what the subject of your website is, you may have a tough time competing with already established websites to obtain that top ranking. Google and other search engines give preference to long established websites that are blessed with a healthy number of quality, inbound links. Also, a new website can take anywhere from a few months to a year to start showing results in the Google index. Google does this to make sure your website is a legitimate, viable resource rather than a fly by night website that is here today and gone tomorrow (their main intention being to leverage search engine results unethically).

That all sounds pretty grim for a company starting out with a brand new website. The good news is that there are some things you can do to promote and build up your website presence while waiting for Google to take notice.

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Got Vermont Web Design & Web Hosting?

Posted on August 18, 2008 · Leave a Comment

We’ve been in the website design business for 13 years now and boy, have things changed a lot since the early days! Back in the mid-1990′s, a new website could be built using a text editor and simple HTML and enjoy placement within Yahoo (the big search engine back in the pre-Google days) within just a few days. Because the web was relatively new, it wasn’t very difficult to come up on page one in Yahoo for most anything.

Believe it or not, I once had a client who quickly got first page results on Yahoo but was afraid of his own success and wanted out.

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Filed Under: Search Engines Tagged With: , , ,

Free SEO Search Engine Optimization Tools

Posted on August 18, 2008 · Leave a Comment

One of the first things you should do when planning your website is to do a bit of research. Analyzing keywords and putting together a strategic marketing plan is a crucial first step towards the construction of a search engine friendly website. SEO (or search engine optimization) is not all that difficult but does require an investment of time. Basically, the more you put into it, the better your results will be.

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