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If I Build It They Will Come…

This is a common misconception about websites. Your website is like a store. If you build a store on a country road and don’t advertise, you’re not going to get much business. Oh sure, you’ll get the occasional passer-by but not much more than that. Similarly, if you create a website and put it on-line, you’ll get the occasional visitor but people won’t be coming in droves.

So how do you get people to your site? A combination of practices will increase the number of visitors. The first, of course is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I know I’ve mentioned this before (more than once) but it’s essential for driving traffic to your site. The key point here is that SEO is not a one time deal but a continuous process. You need to constantly review your site stats, determine what is and isn’t working and adjust accordingly.

Another method to get people to your site is simply let them know you’re there. When creating a new site, you should send out an announcement. This is something that we did in the 90’s but got away from. For some reason we began to believe that people would magically find us if we uploaded our site. We know this isn’t true, so by all means send out a notice to everyone in your address book once your site is on-line. This is something you should do every time you have a change to your site that the viewers may be interested, which will be every time because why make a change to a site if no one’s going to be interested?!

Finally don’t omit social media! It is probably the single most useful and cost-effective  tool available today to spread the word about your business. Tweet about it, mention it on your Facebook page, post a YouTube video, and let everyone in your Linked-in account know about it. Your social media strategy may vary from business to business, but every type of business can use social media to communicate with their client base.

If I Build It They Will Come…But Only If They Know It’s There!

Does your website belong in the Wayback Machine?

Do you believe it’s 2010?  Time really flies when you’re busy building a business. Seriously, it seems like just yesterday, we were celebrating the new millennium.  If you haven’t updated your website design in the past several years, it’s probably time to take a look at the design to see if you should incorporate 2010 techniques and strategies into the design.

Just for fun I took a visit to the Wayback Machine to see how my business website has morphed over the past 10 years.  Here are 3 samplings–the first from 2001, the second from 2005 and the latest version from 2009.

Notice the excess of white space on the 2001 version.  That’s because back in 2001 the most commonly used  screen resolution was 800 x 600.  Now the most common size is above 1024 x 768 so on a modern monitor the 2001 version looks  like a postage stamp.  The 2005 version took up a little more screen space and incorporated a animated Flash header.  The 2009 version incorporates social network links and RSS feeds from relevant blogs.  It also is built using a custom WordPress design.

What’s changed in the last 10 years?  Specifically, what’s changed that  affects the online marketer and website design?  Here are a few things that are now commonplace now, which 10 years ago were a rarity online (if around at all) :

  1. Higher resolution monitors. It’s obvious viewing the samples above how screen resolution has changed over the last 10 years.  A well-designed site will make good use of screen space.
  2. Online video: Expanded broadband usage along with more personal computing power has allowed the usage of online video on websites to become the norm when only 10 years ago it would have been painfully slow on the majority of home computer systems. In addition the cost and quality of digital video cameras in the past few years has made video far less cost prohibitive for savvy online marketers. And of course  YouTube might have had an effect too.
  3. Social networks: Forums and discussion boards have been around since the internet began, but the widespread popularity of social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and others as well as the use of blogging have changed how marketers communicate and network in the last few years.  The savvy business person is incorporating social networks into their marketing strategy and is expanding their network worldwide.
  4. Smartphones: As more people access the web via their smartphone, the savvy business person will make their web presence more usable on the smartphone screen and will make sure they show up in Smartphone search results by getting listed in directories such as Google Local.
  5. Google power: Is there anything Google can’t do now? Google’s been around for at least ten years, but they continue to develop tools for webmasters and site owners that are essential for managing and monitoring your website strategies.  Not just Google Search, but Google Local, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, IGoogle — these are  just a few of the Google tools I use on a regular basis and there’s many more.   Go to Google and search webmaster tools and see what they have to offer.

If you’re contemplating how to freshen your website for 2010, take a good look at the design and make sure the look is not dated.  Consider adding video.  Expand your online network through the social networking sites and make your presence there known on your website.  Consider how your website looks on a smartphone and if your’re found when someone searches for your type of business on their smartphone.   And finally, check out the Google tools and suggestions for managing your website.

Clean up incoming website links after redesign

Every so often you need to take a look at your website and prune some of the old material from your website. I recently went through the process with cgwebhelp.com. During the recent redesign, I removed the whole FYI section and many sub pages from other sections. The material was dated and it was time to streamline the site.

While search engines love to see current relevant content, you should take care when completing a redesign so that you don’t lead visitors and search engines to an old page or worse a page not found. Not only is it confusing and annoying for people coming to your website but it can also hurt your search engine rank.

If you go to Google and search site:cgwebhelp.com, you’ll see all the incoming links that Google has coming to the site. Many of the links listed are pointing to old pages. You’ll want to fix that so all listings are pointing to your new website.  To do that, you’ll want to do two things.

  1. Make sure that the old pages are actually removed from your server
  2. Set up a 301 Permanent redirect for any removed pages to an applicable section of your new website.

If you’re working with a web designer you’ll want to ensure that they’ve completed those two things when completing the updates to your site.  To check, you can  do a search on your site by searching “site:yourdomain.com”  and start clicking through the links — if they all direct to your new site, you’re in good shape.  If not, there’s still some work to be done.

If you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person and you have access to your  hosting account and Cpanel you can set up the 301 redirects yourself.   Log in to your Cpanel and look fro the Domains>Redirect link.  Once there choose “Permanent 301 from the dropdown, type in the url of the old page or directory that needs to be pointed to a new url and the new URL in the spaces indicated click update and you’re done.

301 redirects

If you want to redirect a whole directory as I did in the example shown above click the “Wild Card Redirect” box.  That’s it.  Now go back to Google and click through your links to verify that they’re all going to your updated pages.

5 Steps To Marketing Success

5 Steps to Marketing Success

Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads, has helped small companies grow into big ones for 20 years. Roy uses a simple five step marketing process. The steps are easy to understand but hard to do. Understand and complete them and your company can flourish.

1. Focus.
What are you trying to make happen? How will you measure success? See it clearly. Say it plainly.

2. Evaluate.
Who’s the competition? What’s the customer looking for? What’s holding you back?

3. Prioritize.
When two of your goals come into conflict, which one bows the knee?

4. Strategize.
What’s the shortest route to your primary goal? What tools can dislodge any impediments?

5. Implement.
Quit talking and DO something. Nothing changes until you take action.
________

Chris Amorosino, Amorosino Writing, LLC
Upcoming Workshop, January 14, 2010: postwritingworkshop.eventbrite.com

How is SEO like a college degree?

I know, I know, another blog about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Well it’s a hot topic with our clients and often an area of confusion. SEO is simply optimizing a site to ensure that it is found when doing a search on Google, Yahoo or other search engines. Now the term ensure may be too strong because although SEO is important, there’s no magic to guarantee placement. A site that ranks third on the first page on Google one day may be at the bottom of page two the next day due to changes in the way in which the search engine looks at the site.  And it may also vary form person to person–but that’s another story.

Although this can be a bit frustrating we do know that there are a few things we can do to make sure a site improves its ranking. First and most important is content–making sure that the keywords used in a search are in the content of a website is essential. The more comprehensive the content of the site, the more likely it will rank well on search engines.

The second way to improve search engine rank is to make sure that the keywords used in a search and in the content are included the meta and title tags . The most important terms should be included in these 2 tags. This is also important because the title and meta description may be what the search results will show and you’ll want to make sure that it correctly conveys your message.

Also important to SEO are incoming links. The more links you have from other sites to yours, the higher you may rank. The key here, however, is QUALITY links. You’ll often see ads to get you 15,000 links. Most of these won’t be applicable to your site and can even hurt your ranking. Quality links would be regional, industry directories, etc.

The bottom line is…SEO is a continuous process. Since search engines constantly update their way of looking at sites, SEO is not a one time fix and although there are no guarantees, it’s not something you can ignore.

How is SEO like a college degree? With a degree you’re not guaranteed to get the good job, but without it, you’re not likely to get it. Similarly, SEO doesn’t guarantee a first place search engine rank, but without it, you’re not likely to be found.

Sponsorships Available – Greater Hartford Women’s Conference

Sponsorships are available for the Greater Hartford Women’s Conference (GHWC) 2010 conference.  Sponsors get visibility and recognition from extensive marketing and promotion of the conference. It is the sponsors who make it possible to offer a dynamic program and help to keep the conference affordable. So please consider becoming a sponsor. For more information, contact Tonya Healis, GHWC sponsorship chair, at 860-817-8574 or healis@snet.net. For maximum sponsorship benefits, sign on by January 9, 2010.

Question of the Day: Any Value to Reciprocal Links?

Is there any value in responding to the email and to providing a link to the website from your site?  If you have a website it’s likely you’ve received emails like the email below:

I have visited your website yourdomain.com and I was wondering
if it would be possible to get a link to my partner’s website on it?

I’ll place a link back to you on our website, your link will be placed exactly here:

If you agree, then please link to me….

Please don’t forget to send me the title of your website after you
place my link so I can do the same.

Years ago getting reciprocal links was a pretty common practice.  It was thought that search engines would rank sites better if they had numerous inbound links.  It may still be true that sites with numerous inbound links will rank better than those without inbound links, but modern SE’s  recognize if the links are relevant or if they are just exchanged links.   So rather than respond to or initiate reciprocal links with unknown sources, a better strategy for obtaining inbound links might be to find relevant directories or businesses that are a source of referrals for your business in the “real” world and if appropriate ask them to link to your websites.  Inbound links can also be generated through the social networks – join a discussion on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook and you’ll likely see a spike in traffic to your website

Stay safe on social networks

Is there a danger to accepting  unknown blog subscribers and Twitter followers?  The short answer is yes.  But if you have a blog and you are communicating via social networks, presumably one of your goals is to spread your business or organization’s message.  So where do you draw the line?

I received this TWITTER Question from a client: “Is there a danger to me in being Followed by someone who rarely tweets, follows a lot of people, has few followers? Do I need to block these people or is it sufficient to not follow them back. Sometimes, I can see that Twitter has suspended them for improper activity. What is the danger? What are they doing?”

If you suspect danger, trust your instincts.  You can set your Twitter settings to restrict access to only those people you approve. Consider how you use your Twitter account — if it is used to communicate with a business community and the goal is to build community you probably want to attract as many followers as possible.  If your account is of a more personal nature you probably don’t have the need to allow unknown followers access to your account.

If you see that Twitter has suspended someone for improper activity it means they have violated Twitter’s rules.  It could have involved impersonating someone else, spamming, threatening someone, copyright issues or any number of other issues that Twitter includes in their Rules.  I would probably block anyone that Twitter has suspended or that you suspect of being involved in any of these activities.

I’ve put together a list of basic safety tips to help you stay safe while communicating with virtual strangers online through your website, blog or social networks.

1.  Don’t give away personal information.

  1. Don’t provide home address or phone number on your website or in your profile
  2. Don’t tweet or post that you’re away from home — don’t post vacation photos until you return home — no need to inform the world that your house is vacant
  3. Don’t include personal information like your birth date in your profile.  Birth dates are helpful to idenity theives.

2. Be careful with social networking “apps”. When those Facebook applications tell you they need to access your personal profile in order to work — you might think twice about how important it is to use that application.  See Facebook Application Privacy for details and set your limits based on their information.

3. Watch out for “Phishing”.  Whether a social network post or an email, always assume that the identity of the poster could be an impostor–especially if the message seems out of the ordinary.  Be suspicious!  Assume any link that leads you to a login page to be suspect. See “Fraudsters Target Facebook With Phishing Scam”.  If you receive a message from a “friend” that you suspect is a “phishing scam”, both you and your friend should change your account passwords.

4. Do NOT use the same username/password combination on all your accounts.  If a thief obtains your username/password to your Facebook account, make sure it doesn’t also give him access to your bank account, Amazon or Paypal accounts.

5.  YOUR BLOG: Review your blog’s user and discussion settings.  If using WordPress the subscriber level by default allows them to read, comment and subscribe to your RSS feed.  There doesn’t seem to be too much danger in that.  However, I think it’s wise to review your subscriber list frequently and delete any suspicious addresses.

More information about online safety can be found at the following links.

Web site safety building safer websites

11 tips for social networking safety

The cobbler has new shoes

Designing a website for a client and designing one for yourself seem to be two different animals.  For one thing, the clients pay better.  Maybe that’s the reason why the cgwebhelp company site has taken so long to get redesigned.

Finally the new site is in the works and will soon be replacing the old look.  Say goodbye to the dancing header and the snappy tune – it is no more.  Say hello to the new site with a focus on staying connected–through my blogs, at cgwebhelp.com and websavvymarketers.com, and through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

I look forward to your comments and your feedback. –cg

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