Agog in Cyberspace

Registration information about the history of your domain is a primary resource of data that is used. More trust may be offered to a public registration than a private registration. Maintaining a physical address on your website also helps to establish trust. The hosting information, integrity of the data, security that is in place to protect the user and that business’ willingness to protect the user’s data all speak to the trustworthiness of a host domain.

 

Once you realize the vast majority of consumers turn to the web for product and services information, and that you are no longer in control of the business relationship, your Internet marketing will start producing results.  Gone are the days when consumers follow a predictable path to making a purchase decision.  Marketing classes taught business owners how to read where a customer was in a buying cycle.  Remember Leads, Cold Prospects, Warm Prospects and Hot Prospects?  Today’s tech savvy audience has become fast and fickle.  Customers want the information at their fingertips immediately, and are prone to change their minds quickly.  Last year, searches from Mobile devices increased by 55%.  It’s no longer just searching for product and service information from their home computer, consumers  are now searching for information  while out and about.

What can you do?  In order to reach today’s consumer, you must understand who they are.  Segmenting your customers will help create more predictability and will allow you to better ‘target’ your message.  This may not be something you have the tools or expertise to do, but that’s where an Internet Presence firm like ours comes in.  Internet Presence professions design and develop websites and social media marketing campaigns to make use of Cross-Channel Marketing.  This is a methodology where we work to integrate your message across channels (multiple platforms such as Desktops, Tablets, and Mobile Phones).  By designing the layout of your website to interact differently with a Desktop device than with a Mobile phone, the customer’s perceived desired outcome is supported.  As an example, mobile users are not going to get excited about a rich graphic when searching for information.  Their screen size is and download speed is limited.  It doesn’t make sense to push graphic rich content to a mobile phone.

One of the key methods we use to get our Clients message out there is to push content out differently on different channels.  Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter for example, have a high mobile user following.  For that reason, those platforms are designed and optimized for the Mobile User.  The content you push out promoting your business or service on Social Media sites should be tailored to the customer on the go:  Someone who is looking for quick, concise, and near real-time information.  The  bulky and graphical information is presented on your website where it will be  visited primarily from desktops, laptops, and tablets.  If you are highly engaged with your potential clients, you’ll have a website designed using Responsive Design.  That will give your website the ability to reach both Desktop and Mobile users equally well.

 The word is out.  91% of consumers look online before making purchasing decisions.  Now, every click, every search, every Facebook post or Twitter tweet is an opportunity to engage your customers and reach new prospects.   We learned a long time ago that results and ROI come when all facets of Online Marketing work together.  Social media, SEO, and web design all need to work in concert to meet consumer needs.  We don’t believe in creating empty websites that can’t generate leads or in designing meaningless campaigns. We believe in creating comprehensive strategies and implementing them with consistency. That’s what makes our clients really shine.

It is estimated that digital online advertising could reach 30-50% of all advertising spent in the next ten years.  Think about that.  This includes Print, Billboards, Radio, Television.  Many, including me, believe that with so much of our media consumption being conducted via computers, tablets and mobile phones, that may be a conservative number.  Anyone who has every performed online searches has seen the advertisement on the search results page.  All the search engines do it: GOOGLE, Yahoo, Bing.  The relative new comer to the block is Facebook. 

Facebook advertising started off very low key.  Up until recently, Facebook did not have Shareholders to report to, so their need to generate revenue wasn't too pressing.  Google, for example, earns 95% of its money from advertising.  Facebook being new has an advantage - their NEW.  Many people equate New with Better.  

If your are currently using online Ads to market your business, you're most likely advertising on the GOOGLE Display network.  Whether you are currently using paid online ads or thinking about it, determining which route to go can be pretty confusing.  Professional Online Marketers use matrices like Advertising Reach, Revenues/Growth, Advertising Performance, Ad Targeting Options, and Ad Format Options to determine which route is most likely to provide the highest ROI.  Just gauging by the graphic showing a mock report card, one could conclude that Google wins hands down.  Not so fast.  Every business is unique.  After exhaustive research and working with representatives from both Google and Facebook, I've concluded that Google is not always the right choice.  There are some compelling niche elements that Facebook provides that bear consideration.  For some of our Clients, using Facebook Ads actually makes for a better ROI.  The take away from this post is - discuss your online marketing needs with a professional Internet Presence Firm.  The time you spend getting some professional advice may result in a much higher ROI for your online marketing campaigns.  Check out this InfoGraphic by WordStream.  If you can make sense of it, you don't need to contact us for a FREE 1 Hour consultation.

Outside of promoting your website, maintaining it is the most critical thing to do if you want to achieve your online business goals.  The most critical visitor to your site will be your potential customer.  Does your website reflect your business as it is today or has it been a while and it’s the same information and graphical content as when you first launched it?  Your website is your representative on the internet; it is a reflection of your image.  Your website is what your online visitors have to judge you by.  If your website content is stale and out of date, your visitor will vote with their mouse by going to the next site on the list in the Search Results. 

If you are like most, your time is better spent managing your business.  That’s where professional design firms come in.  Not all Internet Presence or Web Design firms provide website maintenance, so hopefully you are lucky enough to have a maintenance relationship with your web designer.  If not, you should make it a priority to get a design firm on retainer.  Don’t wait until your content is out dated and your website isn’t producing the results you expect.  Choose a reliable company to maintain your site using the following guidelines.  To avoid wasting time or money, ensure that:

1) You understand the website maintenance pricing.

2) You are clear on exactly what services they will provide.

3) They help you develop a clear and straightforward website maintenance plan that YOU understand.

4) The Firm has years of experience providing timely and regular expert maintenance for business websites.

5) The staff performing the web maintenance are seasoned professionals.

6) The company reputation is sound.  They should offer references for you to look into before making your decision.

Ensuring your website content is current and relative is a big part of maintaining your website.  Another is keeping your website coding up to date.  Search Engines, especially GOOGLE, update their search algorithms frequently.  They are always improving the way they determine ‘relevance’.  In 2012 alone, GOOGLE released 23 updates to their Search Engine Algorithm.  This is the ‘engine’ that determines where your website ranks within any given Key Word or Key Phase search.  Generally speaking, even if your website was developed by a professional design firm who was proficient in optimizing your site to be Search Engine friendly, your website is no longer performing to its potential as a result of this past years changes to GOOGLE search algorithm.  If your website was developed 2 yrs ago, you’ve missed 3 major updates in how GOOGLE ranks pages.  Just in the last major update which came out in April 2012, GOOGLE made over 50 changes.

If you are serious about online marketing, your website should be receiving ongoing review and maintenance.  Your website content should be fresh and current.  Its back-end should be tested against current Search Engine guidelines and web design standards.  Just as you take your car in for routine checkups and maintenance, your website should be monitored and maintained by a professional firm; one who continuously upgrades their tools and methodologies to remain current with today’s evolving technologies.

Most people are not aware that GOOGLE, the most popular search engine, rolls out a new algorithm update every few months.  Why do you care?  Well, these algorithms are how Google determines where on the search results page your website should be listed.  If you or your webmaster do not understand what GOOGLE considers in determining whether your site is more relevant to another, then you are risking not being found on the web.

As an Internet Presence professional, I pay particular attention to the latest information on algorithm updates.  As web masters, we owe it to our Clients to consistently review and update our own Search Engine Optimization Best Practices.  It’s served us well, because over the past year, Google has made a major shift in determining the ‘Relevancy’ of a web page.  By keeping current with the latest changes, we have been able to avoid pitfalls that many are experiencing after the latest GOOGLE release: PENGUIN

The major trend we’ve seen in the past 2 releases, PANDA and PENGUIN, is that Google is targeting Overly-Optimized sites.  Google has openly stated their interests in stopping sites that intentionally manipulate the natural search engine results pages (SERPs) from ranking well.  We’ve heard anecdotal evidence of this from several of our new clients.  Clients whose websites were developed more than 3 years ago are falling off the results pages; or worse, not showing up at all.  Their designers used practices that today are considered ‘Overly-Optimized’. Other accounts are coming from people who have had their websites developed by friends or family members who ‘have web design experience’.  The adage, Content is King, was always the mantra.  Many took that to an extreme and produced quantity while sacrificing QUALITY.  The issue is that people with some knowledge of past SEO practices may be employing methods that today are considered taboo.

What has initiated all these algorithm changes by GOOGLE is the increase in sophistication of the software technology being deployed.  Preponderance of key words and page linking was how GOOGLE’s algorithm was able to judge a website in the past.  Today, advanced software technology enables GOOGLE to measure the time a visitor spends on a page, where they go on a site, where they came from and much more.  The advancements in Social Media allows GOOGLE to hear ‘conversations’ mentioning your website.  They even pay attention to how much ‘online klout’ a particular person has who mentions your website.  They take all these things into account when determining the Ranking of your website.  A GOOGLE fellow wrote in his blog last year: "Of course, we aren't disclosing the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don't want folks to game our search results; but if you want to step into Google's mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we've been looking at the issue."  That was just one of the many advanced signals GOOGLE put out to give us some insight into what was to come.  The questions he was referring to are known to most of us Internet Professionals as 'GOOGLES 23 Questions'.

Understand that visitor engagement with your website matters more than ever.  Your website should contain compelling content that engages your visitors.  Your website should be aesthetically pleasing and simple to navigate.  Incorporating Social Media is a necessity.   Keep your content fresh - you should update the content on your homepage at least once a month.

I’ll cover tips on increasing visitor engagement in subsequent Blog posts.  If you are not getting the results you expect from your website, or need a web presence, please be sure to contact us for a FREE 1 Hour Consultation.  We build websites that produce results.

The answer seems obvious – the number of Internet Searches from Mobile devices has increased by 55% in the past year.  Mobile searches now account for over 10% of all internet searches in the US. Since you will be getting additional traffic, you need a site that 'works well' on mobile devices.

Where it gets confusing is when you start hearing different terms thrown around.  Mobile Friendly? Mobile Optimized? Responsive Design?  Are these different things?  How do they differ and how does this pertain to your Internet Presence project?

Mobile Friendly Website*

Mobile friendly refers to a site that displays accurately between your desktop/laptop computer and a mobile device such as a handheld phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) or tablets (iPad, Galaxy, etc.). While it will appear smaller on a phone and may not work perfectly on a touchscreen tablet, a mobile friendly website will be perfectly functional. Many developers view mobile friendly as a “best practice” for all website developments.

Ensuring your website is mobile friendly is critical. As we discussed above, the percentage of mobile users is quickly rising. What are critical features of a mobile friendly website?

• Text-based phone numbers, physical addresses, or email addresses that can trigger a call, directions, or email message from your mobile device
• Slideshows or image rotators that function without Flash support (Adobe Flash is not supported by Apple and some other mobile devices)
• Small image sizes to allow for fast loading over mobile connections—don’t count on even a 3G connection

Mobile Optimized Website*

A mobile optimized site is a far more advanced website. Mobile optimized means that the site will reformat itself for a list of handheld or tablet devices. Larger navigation buttons, reformatted content, and differently optimized images appear when the user is on an iPhone or other device.

Why reformat? Reformatting allows the website to easily engage a large mobile audience when key buying decisions come up. More and more consumers are turning to their mobile devices right in the store. Having a website developed that allows the user to easily navigate and engage from the small screen of their handheld means reaching a decision faster.

What are some good formatting elements that go into a mobile optimized site?

• Simplified navigation that is “thumb” friendly with large touchpoints, especially critical is contact information
• Reduced graphics that don’t interrupt the quest for critical information such as product listings or commoditized content
• Avoid making users type unless absolutely necessary
• Give users the option to view the desktop version of your site

Responsive Design Website*

As website design continues to evolve, a fantastic form of development has come into play. Responsive design is a method of developing a site that is completely flexible regardless of device. Rather than detecting a specific browser type or device type, the website automatically orientates itself based on the screen size of the device. A combination of reformatting and re-optimizing the site as a whole give a practical flexibility beyond imagination.

Responsive design, while more costly to develop, is the wisest development investment if you’re dealing with a consumer or audience-base that is active on mobile devices or need to make purchases on the go. Impulse purchases are obvious, but this is equally critical for commodity content such as blogs or news outlets.

*Definitions are arrived from multiple sources.  

Mobile browsing—from tablets to smartphones—is growing at an unprecedented rate. The consumer’s passion for immediate gratification of their informational needs requires effectively delivering your product (physical or intellectual) via the mobile web.

What about small business or a non-profit organization? Is mobile friendly good enough? Should an organization discuss a mobile optimized version? Will investing in a responsive design site bring a measurable return?

Excellent questions with answers only you can provide. Every situation will be different, but give serious thought of what percentage of your site visitors are on mobile devices? Google Analytics will tell you. What does your current site look like? Pull out your smart phone and find out.

You do have options.  Web designers, like us, can enhance your sites chances of displaying properly on mobile devices by incorporating some advanced design methods and technology.

With Mobile phones and Tablet devices growing in market share, now more than ever it is critical that your Website works well with those devices.  Our designs automatically size for your devices screen resolution.  Another design system we use Responsive Web Design.  This design methodology “automatically" adjusts content layout to the users device screen size.  We believe in using the latest technologies and web design tools in our service to our Clients. 

There's a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still haven't jumped on the bandwagon and aren't sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 8 benefits of social media for your business.

1. Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that you're around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it. Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will boost brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.
 

2. Spy on the Competition

Follow your competitors on Twitter and Facebook and you'll be able to see what they have up their sleeve. Just make sure to provide a better deal than whatever they have going on.

3. Pitch Products in a More Human, Interactive Way

Since people visit social media sites to get personal rather than be bombarded with ads, discuss your business in a fun way and engage your customers with questions. Ask their opinions and entice them to respond back. This way you're making a valuable connection that will help grow your number of return customers.

4. Bring Attention to Your Products

Featuring a product on a social media site is one of the fastest ways to bring attention to it. Offer a promotion along with it for your online community members and watch your sales skyrocket.

5. Increase Customer Loyalty And Trust

Speaking to your customers in a personal way will make them feel like they are talking to a friend, not a company. This will help build their trust in you, which will make them do business with you rather than your competition. It will also improve the chances of customer recommendations.

6. Listen to Your Customer's Opinion

Social media sites are an awesome way to see what your target audience is saying about your company or your products. Take their constructive criticism and use it to enhance your product to better meet their needs.

7. Conduct Market Research

Listen to what your customers say about your products and track what links they click on and you'll begin to see what your customers like and respond to. People love to express their opinions on social media sites, which will allow you to hear the truth. Then you can use your new-found information to tweak your product or service to please them as well as continue to post more information and links that they will enjoy.

8. Strengthen Customer Service

Social media networks allow your company to answer your customers' questions and concerns directly in a timely manner. This will improve customer satisfaction and also save you money on long distance customer service phone calls.
 

I’m sure you are already aware that without a large ad, it’s near impossible to stand out from the crowd in Yellow Pages. Most of you purchase much more than just one listing. You’ll purchase listings under multiple headings, chalking up several hundreds of dollars more. And for what? A static ad that most people will either stick in a drawer somewhere or toss out in the Recycle Bin. Do you even know how many of the thousands of books that are tossed on the front steps of consumers with your ad in it are ever used? How many people will ever see your ad?If you have something new and exciting going on in your business, you can't update or change your print ad.

True, some provide an “Internet” option with their pages, but once you see what that looks like, and how poorly it compares to the performance of a custom website, you’ll be sorry you ever considered it. We know this from experience. We have numerous clients who have tried the Yellow Pages web options and regretted their decisions. We even experimented with Action Pages a few years ago for a couple of Display Ads. Our "heavily discounted" cost for 1 year was $4350.26. After 1 year, we were able to account for 2 phone calls as a result of the ad, and neither of those were prospective clients – they were trying to sell us something.

The cost of Internet marketing is considerably less per month than the Yellow Pages. Internet marketing can be a dynamic part of your marketing. Unlike the static Yellow Pages ad that is in the book for a year before you can modify it, you can change content, images, and your sales message when you choose. You can target seasonal or new product offerings. We understand that you may not have time to always update and maintain your own website, so we offer that service too. Customer Loyalty:

Your internet marketing campaign will attract attention to your business and allow you to establish connections with both current and prospective clients. They sign up for your newsletter, leave comments on your blog posts, or contact you for more information. Your Yellow Pages advertisement doesn’t help you to build ongoing relationships with your clients. We can help you determine which website marketing methods will bring you the best results without causing you to spend a ton of cash. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish online!

More and more consumers are searching for products and business services online which is quickly making the Yellow Pages an obsolete form of advertising. Yellow pages are used about 6% of the time and usually by people over 60 years of age. Google Maps, BING and Yahoo Local are the new Yellow Pages! They receive over 88 % of all searches. Yellow Pages online is used more than the traditional Yellow Pages but continue to lose market share because of their business model. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there when they’re looking for you with Google Places for business. (Source: Google.com) It’s important to realize that Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Action Pages and Yellow Book have never been a true advertising medium. They are simply directories. They do not give detailed information about a business and one needs to be looking for a specific business before they can even find you in the directory. Additionally, the results of a typical Yellow Pages search will reveal the businesses that pay the most to Yellow Pages vs Organic Search Engine results which list the business that best match your search query.

A custom website and an Internet marketing campaign can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.

Some people pay upwards of $1,500 per month for a small Yellow Pages ad while others are paying $5,000 or more for half-page or full-page advertisements.

Compare that to the average cost of a custom website and you could OWN your custom website, and get webMarketing hosting for 8 years.

Don't spend more and get less.  Let us show you how our web marketing can get you better results for less. 

 

“If you don’t know your starting point, how will you know how far you’ve come? “The same is true for the internet. If you don't measure your web site's current traffic and traffic sources, how will you know whether anything you did made any difference?

Traffic Analytics

Traffic Analytics is a standard tool in our Online Business system. Use it to track your online visitors. The simple reporting graphs are all you need to understand where you are on the internet. Just let a couple of weeks go by and use the data to set a baseline. Use that time to prepare your search engine management plan.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is what ensures that your web site is set up in such a way that the search engines can easily index your web pages and will have little trouble figuring out what each page is about. Although the search engines have gotten much better, they still index your web site pages by following a sequence of instructions.
 
First, make sure your code is W3C compliant. Fill out all the tags for each HTML element. Pick one or two terms that your page is about. Make sure those terms show up in H1 tags somewhere on the page. Make sure the terms are included in the meta title, keywords and description tags. Make sure that the terms are repeated in various forms throughout the article. Above all else, make sure the content on the page answers a specific question and would be considered good content if you were to find it on the web yourself. This can't be stressed enough.
 
Once you have gone over each page and made sure they are great technically as well as content wise, you need to make sure your site has a legal statement, privacy statement and a site map. While search engine optimization can and does get much more involved than this, simply doing this basic stuff will get you 70 to 80 percent along the path to increased traffic and sales.

If you are not sure about the technical health of your web site, try our Website Health Checkup.

Search Engine Submission
Once your SEO for your website is complete, go ahead and submit your site to the search engines. Start off with the big three.  Google, Yahoo and Bing. These account for almost all internet traffic.

Directory Submission
Now that the search engines are crawling your site, make sure that your site is in all the directories. Start with Google Places, Yahoo Local, Hot Frog, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book. Use keyword infused descriptions that accurately portray your services. Make sure you fill the profiles out completely. You will rank higher if your profile is 100% filled out. Get ready for the sales calls as each of these free directory listings comes with a sales person trying to sell you SEO and PPC services. It is the trade off for visibility on the internet.

Pay Per Click Marketing
Now you have your company site optimized, submitted to the search engines and listed in every directory in town. Now what? If you want traffic, you can utilize pay per click. Pay per click has one simple rule. Never pay more for new business than is feasible to spend. This may seem obvious, but many people get involved in pay per click without really understanding it as well as they should and end up spending more than they have to in order to get a sale. If there is one area of your plan that you should outsource, this is it. With that said, there are plenty of resources online for this topic. Start small, get one product or service going in a profitable manner and then duplicate the effort. Track everything including inbound phone calls and you should be okay.

Social Marketing
Social networking includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and YouTube. How your company can benefit from these resources varies greatly from company to company. Never attempt a social networking project without a specific, trackable goal in mind. Also, try not to think too linearly when thinking of uses for social media applications. For example, say your company is a dry cleaning service.  A Facebook fan page about your particular business may get some fans that you are related to, it probably will not be a big hit for people that do not know you personally.

Now think about this. What about a fan page that lists coupons and deals from all businesses for your local area? Let others post to your page. Now you have a resource that people in your area may like. You can add your coupons whenever you like and you are utilizing social networking to build a relationship with people in your target market.

Articles and Blogging
Now that you have the perfect site that is submitted to the engines and you have people clicking on pay per click links to view your products and services, you want to show those visitors that you are an expert in your field. There is no better way to do this than by writing articles that address specific problems that your customers may be trying to solve. Posting these articles on your site will eventually get them indexed in the search engines. Also, you can post these articles on other sites that already have a large amount of traffic.
 
Most of these sites allow you to have a link in your profile page that provides your contact information and a link back to your site. These links are great ways for potential clients to find you. In addition to article writing, you can also search through blogs using an engine like Technorati to find topics that are related to your industry. Posting comments and providing value in these forums will over time help you develop relationships with additional potential clients.