LLC Express redesign

June 2, 2010 Beth Devine

LLCExpress.com[singlepic id=37 w=320 h=240 float=left] was recently redesigned. The website includes a content management system and an e-commerce component. LLC Express provides information about forming an LLC in Connecticut and provides an express service to purchase your Connecticut LLC via the website.

Why is my new website not on Google?

May 19, 2010 Beth Devine

The website went live at around 3:00 PM. At about 4:00 PM I got the email asking “why can’t I find my website on Google?” I’m happy that clients recognize the importance of being found in a Google search. But as good as Google is at indexing the web it’s likely going to take their software longer than an hour to find your new website.

Google and most search engines have software that constantly crawls the web (often referred to as spiders) following links from web page to web page and indexing material as it crawls. Given the vast size of the web, you can imagine it might take a while for even the fastest, most efficient spiders to find and index your website. However, there are techniques you can use to expedite and improve the chances that your site will be indexed soon.

Create a Google local listing and while you’re at it, create a Bing and Yahoo listing too.

Screenshot of Google Local Listing

A Local listing allows you to create a free business listing on each of the search engines. When you create your listing you’ll have the opportunity to select business categories, a business description, types of payment you accept, your hours, and your contact information. A local listing is especially advantageous if you have a local market, but it doesn’t hurt to be “on the map” even if your market extends beyond local.
Have business and trade associations link to your site.
Inbound links are one of most overlooked aspects of SEO (search engine optimization). Think about how search engines work. Their spiders crawl the web from link to link and index websites. If there are no links to your website it will be harder for the spiders to find your website. If there are many links to your website they will find you more often.

Contact associations where you are a member, like your Chamber of Commerce, or other trade associations and if they offer a link on their website make sure you give them your new website address. Contact any strategic alliances you may have and see if they’ll put a link on their website to your new site. Do a search online for directories that specialize in your industry and create listings where appropriate.
Submit your URL to the search engines. You can submit your URL to search engines, and although it doesn’t guarantee they will list it, it doesn’t hurt to tell the search engines your url. Here are the links to submit your url.

Finally, remember that search engines are in the business of indexing information, so make sure that the information on your website is clearly written and kept current and relevant. Keep your website on your marketing schedule and make sure that it is updated regularly as your business changes and grows.

Three web design mistakes that can hurt SEO

May 12, 2010 Beth Devine

You just started your business. Your marketing budget is limited and you know you need a website, so you opt to use one of the many low-cost tools available to build your own website or you have your daughter, (son, nephew or sister-in-law, name the friend or relative) who “knows the computer” do it for you. You work your way through this uncharted territory and you manage to get your website up and running and it even looks pretty good.

Job well done! But as time passes, you begin to wonder why it doesn’t rank better on the search engines. Many techniques factor into good search engine optimization (SEO) but novice website designers or do-it-yourself business owners often make three big mistakes that can hurt their SEO.

Search engines can’t read an image. Overuse of images. If you have website pages that are made up entirely of images or if you have blocks of text that are made of images you’re preventing search engines from reading the text on your pages. If search engines can’t read your page, they don’t know how to index your page. I usually see this mistake made by those with some graphic design experience. They may know how to create a beautiful layout but they haven’t learned the HTML/CSS code to transition that layout to the web correctly so they opt to insert the image into the web page instead of taking the time to code the page correctly.
Search engines can’t read an image – the sequel. Underuse of image alt tags. Each image used in a web page should use a descriptive alt tag. If alt tags are not used, search engines are not able to discern what the image signifies, so they ignore it. For example, say you’re Joe and you sell bicycles. You’ve created a fantastic logo that clearly identifies you as Joe’s Bicycle Sales & Service. You put it on you web pages and it looks beautiful but you fail to use the alt tag. Now when search engines crawl your site they’re not able to discern what the logo says. However, if you have used the alt tag correctly, the search engines will read the alt tag that says “Joe’s Bicycle Sales & Service” and because you’ve provided that information, the search engine will have more information available to index your website.If you’re building your website using a do-it-yourself tool, you should see a field called alt or image description in the tool. If you’re coding, you’re image code should look something like this:
<img src=”logo.jpg” alt=”Joe’s Bicycle Sales and Service” />
If you wrote a book you, would you title it “Book”? Title tags and meta descriptions not used at all or used ineffectively. Just like a book or magazine article, every web page should have a unique title. In addition each web page should also have a unique meta description that accurately describes the content on that page — think of the meta description as the book synopsis often found on back or inside jacket of the book. In an html document both the <title> and <meta description> tags are within the <head> of the document which, as you might expect since it’s called the head, is toward the top of the document. So when search engines crawl the page the title and meta description tags are among the first indexable information they come across and search engines expect the tags to describe the content on the page because that is what the tags were designed to do.
But too often, inexperienced or lazy web designers use a title tag like “home” instead of “Joe’s Bicycle Sales | Yourtown, Your state”. Or on the page that shows products the title tag says something like “products” instead of “Bicycles – Raleigh, Schwinn, Trek, bikes for all ages”. And the meta descriptions are either ignored entirely and left blank, or the same generic information is duplicated on each page.

The title tag is the information the web browser shows at the very top of the browser screen–above the toolbar and url address field. You generally want to limit your title descriptions to less than 60 characters. The meta description tag is not viewable on a web page (unless you view source) but search engines sometimes use the meta description you provide on your html page as the description in your search engine listing. Limit your meta descriptions to about 160 characters.

So if you’re not satisfied with your search engine rank, check to make sure that you haven’t overused images in your design; that you have described all your images with alt tags and that you’ve written unique title and meta descriptions for each page on your website.

Tips & tools to help you broadcast to friends, fans, and followers

May 7, 2010 Beth Devine

The last year has seen the continued rise of the social network phenomenon. If you’re like most business organizations, you’re got at least a Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile and blog , not to mention your real-life networks with the local chamber of commerce and trade organizations. All these social networks are designed to help you maintain an open stream of communication with your business network, but it’s a lot to manage. Oh and by the way, you have a business to run too.

I’ve found tools and tricks that make my social networking life simpler. I hope you’ll find them helpful too.

For posting to your networks and monitoring posts:

Lately I’ve been using the tool HootSuite to broadcast posts to one or all of my networks. Just sign up and set up your account to link to your other social network accounts and then when you make a post you can choose to broadcast to any or all of your selected networks. You can also monitor your SM feeds with the HootSuite site–click on my LinkedIn tab and I see my network status updates; click the Facebook tab and I see my Wall; click the Twitter tab and I see my twitter feed. And with the Twitter feed you can set it up to monitor various topics. For example, I have it set it up to show feeds about SEO; another tab monitors pilot supplies, and yet another tab shows my standard Twitter feed.
TweetDeck is another application I’ve used in the past. It’s similar to HootSuite but allows you to connect to FaceBook, Twitter and/or MySpace. Since I have a LinkedIn account, but not a MySpace account, I find HootSuite works better for me.
If you’re a smart phone user, there are apps for managing your Twitter and Facebook accounts while you’re on the go. I’ve tried Twidroid and Twirl on my Android and I have Facebook mobile set up too.

Use your blog to feed your networks:

One of the smartest things you can do to minimize your workload and maximize the effectiveness of your blog posts is to feed them to your social networks. All the SM sites have the capacity to take a blog feed in some form or another. Here are some tutorials to set up feeds to some of the social media sites.

Facebook – http://www.ehow.com/how_2031209_import-rss-feed.html
LinkedIn – Open up your profile to edit and click on Applications where you’ll see a WordPress tool or a BlogLink tool. Both tools will pull your blog posts into your profile.
Twitter – Go to Settings > Connections and you’ll see a couple of apps, FeedBlitz and TwitterFeed that will help you feed your blog posts to your Twitter account.

It may take you a few minutes to set up your feeds, but once you’ve set it up you’re done. Now whenever you make a blog post, it posts to your blog and all the networks you’ve set up to receive it.

It’s been a year since I first stuck my toe in the twitter water and honestly I wasn’t so sure that I’d find Twitter to be a useful tool. But I’ve found that it can be a very useful tool both as a a customer service tool and marketing tool.

For example, Monday morning I came into the office to find that one of my managed servers was down. Not only my server, but it looked like the whole data center was down. Not a good start to a Monday. My first reaction was to call the data center’s technical support for answers but while on hold with the 20 million (give or take a few million) other clients I realized I might find answers more quickly on Twitter. I typed in a search and instantly knew what was happening without having to talk to anyone. With a couple of 140 character posts, the hosting company answered my initial question (what the heck is going on?) and assured me that the problem was in the process of being resolved. Within minutes, life was back to normal. As a wholesale customer I was relieved to find the answers and be able to provide answers to my customers quickly.

Twitter also makes it extremely easy to post status updates to my website or to the other social networks. I’ve setup my website to always show my most recent Tweet. It’s right there in the middle of the home page, so when someone comes to my website they always have a snippet of current information, even if I haven’t had a chance to update my website information in a while. I try to tweet about things that my client base might find useful. Currently, there is a post linking to an article I read earlier today entitled “What SuperHero Are You?” It’s about defining your unique value and creating a good elevator pitch. But once I publish this to my blog that headline will be replaced by the headline for this article as it’s set up to post to my blog, my Facebook, my LinkedIn, and my Twitter account. And the Twitter post will post to my home page, so there will be a link on my home page that links back to this post. It’s a happy little circle.

New website for CampCareKids.org launched

April 21, 2010 Beth Devine

CampCareKids.org is a websitepartners.biz project, a collaboration between Lisa Catanese of Blue Blaze Communications, LLC and cgwebhelp, llc. The website uses the WordPress framework to make it easy for the Camp staff to update and maintain. We also used a very slick plug-in that pulls photos from interior pages to make the slideshow on the home page.

Manage your domain name and beware of domain renewal scams

April 13, 2010 Beth Devine

You own your domain name and it’s an important part of branding your business. Some businesses are even named after their domain name–think Google, Yahoo, and yes, even cgwebhelp. So it’s important that you have control of your domain. You should know where it’s registered, when it will be due for renewal and how the process of renewal works. And you should watch out for domain transfer scams. Here’s a couple of scams that I see regularly.

Domain Registry of America

This company may be a legitimate domain registry service, but their methods for obtaining customers is so unethical, I certainly wouldn’t want to do business with them. Their technique for obtaining new customers? They send an invoice. Well it’s not really an invoice–it’s a solicitation to transfer the domain. If you look very closely at the fine print, you will read that by sending payment you are authorizing them to transfer your domain to their registry service. So the unsuspecting person sends them the $35 (which is likely more than their current registry charges to renew a domain) and unwittingly starts the process of transferring the domain.

Chinese Domains

This one arrives by email and suggests that your trademark is about to be infringed upon unless you swiftly purchase your domain with the .cn extension, as in yourdomain.cn. This might be of benefit if you have a market in China or you anticipate developing a market in China, but most of the folks I’ve known who have received this solicitation have no intention of marketing to China. For more information on this scam see http://professionalwebservices.blogspot.com/2007/10/chinese-domain-name-scams-from-china.html.

Know Where Your Domain is Registered

If your domain is important to your branding, and it most likely is, you should always know the following:

Where is it located? GoDaddy, Register, Network Solutions, Enom, OpenSRS, or one of the many other registry services available.
Know how to access the information and keep it updated with current contact information.
Know when it is due to expire and the process for payment. If it’s set for auto- renewal, make sure you keep a current credit card and contact information on file with the registry service. If they can’t charge your card because it’s expired, and the e-mail address on file is outdated, you’ll likely lose the domain name.

7 Rules to help you avoid Phishing, Spoofing and Other Online Scams

April 12, 2010 Beth Devine

Rule #1: Never respond to an e-mail request asking for your username and password.

Reputable companies never request usernames and passwords by email. The example email shown below uses a common phishing tactic–they are posing as a company or system you are familiar with in order to lure you into providing information…DO NOT BITE! See Rules 2 for additional guidelines to determine that this email is phony.

Example: The Webmail Scam

From: email [mailto:access@cyberservices.com]
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 10:45 AM
To: undisclosed recipients:

This message is sent automatically by our webmail program which periodically checks the size of inbox and also control anonymous registration of webmail accounts so we are shutting down some webmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. To help us re-set your SPACE on our database prior to maintaining your INBOX, you must reply to this e-mail and enter your:
Current User name:{ }
and Password: { },

Webmail Help Desk.

Rule #2: Positively identify the sender

Be suspicious of any email address from unknown sources and never respond to them with information. In this email they used the official sounding “access@cyberservices.com” but it’s possible for email scammers to use a known address in the from field. So even if you’re one of my customers and you get an email from my known email address asking for username or passwords out of the blue, be suspicious. When in doubt, revert to Rule #1.

Rule #3: Beware of Email links to phony websites

Email marketing is huge and if you’re like me you get many offers in your inbox every day. And if you’re like me you spend more money online than at the local malls (but that’s another story). There’s nothing wrong with shopping online as long as you ensure your clickthroughs land you at the real website. Positively identify that you’re at a legitimate website by checking the address field in your browser. It’s pretty easy for a scammer to create a look-alike website. For example if one clicks through a link on my e-newsletter to my website, the domain name in the address field will begin with http://cgwebhelp.com. There might be something after my domain like http://cgwebhelp.com/ blog/?cat=7 but the primary domain name will be cgwebhelp.com. If someone were trying to spoof me, you might see something like http://cgwebhelp.someotherdomain.com or possibly http://someotherdomain.com/cgwebhelp.

Rule #4: When in doubt look for a phone number

If you have doubts about doing business with a website, look for a phone number and address. Call it and see if you get a real person.

Rule #5: Google them

The internet is a great place to purchase hard to find items. My husband has kept our refrigerator alive much longer than I could have with the help of an obscure online parts store. But if you’re doing business with an unknown source, it doesn’t hurt to Google the business name and their web address to see if they’ve scammed anyone else.

Rule #6: SSL Certificates — heed the warnings

Chances are, if your computer is kept current with internet protection and anti-virus software, your browser will pop up a warning window if a site has an unauthorized secure certificate. If you get a warning window, you probably don’t want to enter secure information like a credit card account. It’s also a good practice to ensure before you enter sensitive information that the address field starts with a https:// instead of http://. Just remember “https” for security.

Rule #7: If it seems to good to be true…it probably is

You’ve all seen the emails from foreign dignitaries kindly requesting your bank account so they can deposit millions into your account. Or the email saying you’ve won some foreign lottery. I know you won’t fall for these tactics …will you?

Yes, You Can Be A Thought Leader

April 8, 2010

When people consider who to do business with, they often give the first opportunity to the company that’s top of mind. One way to be top of mind is to become a thought leader. A thought leader is someone well-known within an industry for expertise in a certain area. A thought leader is recognized among peers for innovative ideas; confidently promotes those ideas; and earns recognition for high business acumen.

Thought leaders are seen as trusted resources. Prospects gravitate toward thought leaders. Statements made by thought leaders have added weight and credibility. Here are seven steps that can turn you into a thought leader.

1. Pick your niche
Not even Tom Peters and Steve Jobs are thought leaders across all business topics. The narrower your thought leadership area, the easier it will be to rise to prominence.

It may be near impossible to become the thought leader for your entire industry, but you can be the thought leader for a small highly targeted niche—a specific product, customer need or application. For example, don’t try to be the thought leader on politics. Become the thought leader on 21st century town politics in New England.

2. Research and update
Even if you think you know 99% of what there is to know about your area of expertise, do research. Do lots of research. And create a system that will keep you up-to-date. As a thought leader, you must always be investing in acquiring new knowledge. Perhaps you devote 60 minutes a day to reading about your subject area. Have the mindset that you want to know everything possible about your subject. Rely on many sources to keep yourself current.

3. Write
Here’s the meat of the process. You must share what you know and do so in the right way. Put the readers’ interests first, not your own. Give away some of your best information (you’ll stand out and draw people to you). Be different. If you write about what others do, you’ll come across not as an expert but as an equal.

Begin by writing a list of article ideas. Check your list to make sure each idea will help promote your business and your thought leadership. Rank you ideas and write about the most powerful, most innovative one first.

4. Publish
Find editors (online and off line) who run articles about topics like those on your list. Get published. Remember to submit your work to leading websites, ezines and blogs. Check the editorial guidelines before you submit so you make certain your article meets the publication requirements.

5. Promote
Congratulations, you’ve joined Shakespeare and Stephen King as a published author. Let everyone know about your article. Post it on the company website. E-mail a link to your business contact list. Hand out copies to employees, customers, colleagues, prospects and vendors.

6. Speak
Get the articles you publish in front of convention planners and others who select business event speakers. Tell them you’re available. Wherever you speak, make copies of your articles available. And mention that you’re open for other speaking engagements.

7. Repeat and Repeat
Neither one article nor one speech makes a thought leader. Keep writing. Keep speaking. Keep learning.

Exposure brings exposure. Promotion snowballs into more promotion. Speaking leads to more speaking. Get on a roll.

What are common sense internet solutions?

March 8, 2010 Beth Devine

Let’s break it down. Merriam-Webster defines “common sense” as “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts”.

We also find reference to the pamphlet Common Sense written by Thomas Paine during revolutionary times. Paine’s Common Sense made a straightforward argument for colonial independence that common folks understood. The plain-spoken pamphlet was widely read and is likely to have influenced the course of American history.

Given the definition of common sense, what are common sense internet solutions? If you define “solution” as being a problem solved, you could conclude that “common sense internet solutions’ translates to “a straightforward, sound and prudent course to solve your internet problems“.

Whoa! We can’t solve all the problems of the internet! But what we can do is solve your internet problems as it relates to your website. So if your website is not performing as expected, we can help diagnose the problems and take steps to improve it’s performance.

How do we do that? Let’s break it down.

The problem: Your website is not performing as expected. Perhaps you’d like to see…

increased traffic and exposure
increased sales
increased leads
better branding

Once your expectations are clear, we can take specific steps to solve your problem(s). First we would look at your website.

Is the website customer friendly? Is it well-designed? Will it appeal to your target market? Does it look professional? Is the content well-written and organized for on-screen viewing? Can the average person find the information they need quickly when visiting your website?
Is the website current? Does it have relevant updated information? Does it provide a way for customers to communicate with you? Is it inviting?
Is the website technically sound? Does it comply with current coding standards? Do all links, forms, carts, pages work the way they’re supposed to?

Once the website is user-friendly and polished, we look at how to spread the word.

Is the site coded for search engine optimization? Does it have well-written keyword title and descriptions tags? Does the content include keyword rich headings?
Are you tracking traffic? Are you using a good statistics program like Google Analytics to analyze and review your website traffic?
Are you or should you use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter to help spread your message?
Would an e-newsletter or e-promotion strategy help?
How about online advertising such as pay-per-click programs or banner ads?
Could you benefit from online public relations strategy using websites like ezinearticles.com?

Once we’ve worked through these steps, we can create common sense internet solutions that will fit your business and your website will be in a better position to meet your expectations.

The Value of Video on Your Website

February 19, 2010 Beth Devine

This week one of my long-time clients, Lynn Damon, stopped by my office with video she wanted me to add to her website. Lynn is a photographic artist who specializes in creating children and family portraits. Her portraits are stunning and her portfolio website provides a nice sampling of the work that she’s done over the years. And although I’m sure her portfolio itself brings her business it doesn’t tell the story of what it’s like to work with Lynn. That’s why the use of video on Lynn’s site is brilliant.

With the video you can see the rapport that she develops with her clients and subjects — usually small children. You see how much fun she makes the shoot for the children. You see how she treats her clients and how much they appreciate her work. In two short videos–the trailer on the entry page and the longer version on the video page of the site — you see just how pleasant it might be to hire Lynn Damon.

Check it out at lynndamon.com. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the videos and the portfolio.