Website Visibility

October 1, 2011 Leave a Comment

It’s a call we get at least once a week: “Can you please help my website to show up in the search engines”? OR “No one can find my website – can you help!?!?” The fact of the matter is that website rankings are of huge importance to many, if not most, businesses on the web. A website that can’t be found is like having a storefront without a sign or a front door – unless you know exactly where you’re going , you’ll never find it.

Statistics say that 78.3% of the U.S. population are internet users* and that 92% Of Internet Users go to search engines** when they’re looking for just about anything they need: from plumbers to physicians, remodeling contractors to web designers – you name it, it’s searched for on the internet first and foremost. Should a growing business care about it’s search engine rankings??? YES!!!

What’s a business to do?!

There are several factors that help determine website rankings on Google and other search engines like Bing and Yahoo! From site content and structure to the underlying code on the page to inbound links off the page; the factors are many. Search engine companies had made their fortunes first on the ability the direct internet searchers to the content that most accurately describes what they are searching for. The algorithms that search engines are built on are more complex than most of us can imagine and yet the results they display are intended to be so simple and straight forward that even a child can find exactly what they are looking for.

A few main tips on getting and keeping your site at the top of the rankings are:

1. Content is king.

Back in the early days of search engines you could scroll down to the bottom of many web pages and find keywords and search terms packed together by the hundreds. Every word or phrase that was even remotely close to that website’s product or theme was packed in for miles own the page. Many of the words were repeated over and over again making no sense whatsoever. Website designers started even trying to get creative by coloring the text that same as the background so that users wouldn’t even know that text was there unless they highlighted it with their mouse or viewed the source code.

Well, a lot has changed since then – and search engines will certainly not fall that little trick any longer. Gone are the days of simply packing in as many keywords as possibly over and over again to get the search engines to notice you.

When writing content for your website, good, accurate content and descriptions of your product and services are paramount. It doesn’t have to Pulitzer worthy – just thorough and accurate. I find that most of the time if you write your content just like you would describe it in your 30 second elevator speech, that is sufficient. YES, use your keywords, just don’t overdo it.

2. Use your own, original content.

OK, so you’re not a writer. Your busy, you have don’t have time to try and write a website full of content describing your business and products. it’s not that your lay, you just really don’t feel like delving back into a writing mindset that you haven’t had to use since high school or college. So you decide to just copy and paste someone else site… STOP!!! This is a huge search engine “no-no”. Definitely don’t use content that someone else had used. If you think you can copy and paste someone else’s writing, you are not only infringing on copyright laws, you are also shooting yourself in the foot with search engines.

Modern SE’s (search engines) are now, and have been, keeping an eye out for duplicate content across the internet. Your site can and will be penalized if you have simply taken someone else’s text and put it on your own site. You can even go to “www.copyscape.com” to check and see if someone else out there is using your text! IT’s NOT THAT HARD to take a small amount of time to wordsmith your own ideas on and put them on your site- it WILL be worth it.

Start with a brief outline of each of the pages on your site (i.e. home page, about us page, services, areas served, contact etc).

Then put together a rough outline of what you’ll want on each page. Whiteboards or giant post-its are great for this.

Next: simply go to each point in your outline and write an “elevator-speech” version of what you want to say. For instance, on the about Us pages, you want to talk about the company history for a few sentences, a little about yourself or the owners, and what your driving passion is for your industry. Talking about each point like you would at a networking event is usually a great place to start. For certain items like services and even some products, going into more detail can be very effective not only for your viewers but also for search engine rankings.

3. Patience, Patience, Patience.

While we could easily spend hours and hours discussing SEO (Search engine optimization) tricks and techniques, one of the things we have learned over the years is this: IT TAKES TIME! There is rarely any one magic bullet that will shoot your site to the top of the SE’s; if there was everyone would be doing it. In fact, there are many techniques and tricks that can be done to improve your results if they are implemented regularly and consistently over time. Time is the key in most cases. Many companies are promising these unbelievable results for your website: “Be at the top in Google”, Reach Number 1 in the search engines Guaranteed” etc, etc.

BE CAREFUL FOR SEARCH ENGINE SCAMS! Any company that promises particular results in organic search engine rankings is almost always selling you a lie. Rankings in the main search results (organic rankings) simply CANNOT be guaranteed. As I mentioned before, if it could be guaranteed than everyone would be doing it!

However, a good, well designed and implemented search engine optimization (SEO) plan can, in time, bring and keep your site at the top of the rankings… and believe me, top rankings mean increased traffic, sales and – bottom line – more money for your business.

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WE CAN HELP! While this article is by no means meant to be an exhaustive dissertation on SEO and internet marketing, we wanted to help our reader understand just a few of the important concepts on the topic. If you need someone to help you with website design, SEO, internet marketing or other forms of marketing Barta Media Group would be more than happy to help. We offer competitive and reasonable rates for our services and great results. Please drop us a line or give us a call today at 678-464-5785.

* from internetworldstats.com

** from The Inquistr – Search Engines Used By 92% Of Internet Users

Filed under Gwinnett Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

The Importance of an Internet Presence

June 25, 2011 1 Comment

By Jason Barta – Barta Media Group

It’s no secret that the internet has become the driving force behind business.  Internet marketing and communication has become essential for every serious business and organization. In fact, it is safe to say that many new business owners wouldn’t even consider opening their doors without an effective web presence; a presence that effectively reaches out to customers and potential customers with an informative, compelling reason to use their services.

 

Aim small -miss small - target your audience.

Aim small -miss small - target your audience.

If you are a business owner it is imperative to at least consider to options for launching yourself into the internet market and, for that matter, the 21st Century.  While the internet is not the only avenue to market your business, it will, without a doubt, connect you to the largest possible audience.  With that connection alive you can position your marketing campaign as an influence to the widest possible market ever known to man (it is the “World Wide Web” after all).

Targeting a larger, wider audience than traditional marketing is a huge advantage for many businesses.  However, some business owners aren’t concerned with the worldwide connection. They are looking for strategically target a more narrow audience.  With the internet, this is possible as well.

There are several marketing strategies that can help business owners narrow down their targeted marketing through the internet.  First, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a very reasonable approach to accomplishing this.  SEO is the process of making a website “search engine friendly”.  To take this explanation a step further:  Major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, crawl the internet basically “taking notes” (very descriptive notes) on every website it finds.  These “spiders” are looking for information to determine each website is about.  It then stores, or “indexes” the notes it gathers into a ginormous database.  Whenever a search is performed it literally checks the search term against the websites in its database and returns results that are the most helpful and accurate.  That being said, a successfully optimized website can return results that are very specific to a particular region or specialized product and truly arrive toward the top of a search engines results.  These results are known as “organic results”.  These are not paid or sponsored links, they have truly arrived at their ranking by being the most accurately indexed according to site content.  Sites that appear at the top of the results will always bring more traffic to that website; more traffic almost always means more business.

A second way to narrow your internet marketing is via pay-per-click advertising.  If you’ve done a search in Google recently you may have noticed results at the very top and also on the right side of the page inside a lightly shade yellow box.  The businesses listed there have purchased the rights to show up on that particular search as “paid sponsors”.  The nice thing about pay-per-click advertising (Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Search) is that you only pay for the advertising when the searcher actually clicks on your link and arrives at your site.  You can also be very specific about what terms you want to be included in and to what region.  The down side to pay-per-click marketing is that paid results still only receive 25% of the search engine traffic while organic search results account for the other 75%.

Don't overdo it - and it'll work!

Email marketing has been another effective method of internet advertising.  While being controversial and often times just plain annoying, a successful email marketing campaign, when run properly (and respectfully) can most certainly be an effective way to improve your bottom line.  Sending out monthly newsletters, occasional sale notices or other information that your contact base will find beneficial is a great way to keep you business and service on the minds of your existing and future client base.  Be Careful though, for many people, such as this author, getting too many emails from one source can be extremely annoying.  It is imperative that email campaigns are run with respect to your contacts.  Don’t send too many too often and make sure that you are actually offering something of financial or practical value (preferably financial).  Otherwise your email become as loathed as the typical spam scam and will find itself relocated to Junk Mail or worse- the “Unsubscribe” list.

In closing, here are a few final reasons to start your business with an effective website.

  1.  Be open 24 hours a day.  Day or night customers and potential customers can peruse your services and submit questions regarding your services.  Never worry about being your web store closed.
  2. Add professionalism and credibility to your business.  Many people will not even consider working with a business that doesn’t have a web presence for the perceived lack of credibility and information.  Imagine if there are two businesses a similar distance but in opposite directions from your home.  You have heard that both carry a product that you are interested in.  One business, “Store A” has posted an attractive website with all the valuable information regarding their services.  There are pictures and descriptions and a contact page with a map and phone number.  You can find out pretty everything there is to know about their products and they’re even running a SALE this week!
    The second business, “Store B”, has no website.  You’re not sure what the store hours are, the prices or if they carry the brand you need.  The choice is simple.  In this scenario, “Store A” will win your business every time.
  3. Reach a Huge New Market.  There are countless people that would never have even known about your business without your website.  Developing an attractive, informative, easy to navigate and searchable website can help you reach people anywhere-anytime!

Jason Barta is the owner of BARTA MEDIA GROUP, formerly  Jason Barta Web and Graphic Design based in Gwinnett County GA.  BMG specializes in websites that are attractive, informative, easy to navigate and search engine friendly.  Many clients have greatly benefited being at the number 1 spot in their respective fields in the major search engines.

Filed under Atlanta Web Design, Ecommerce, Gainesville Web Design, Gwinnett Web Design, Online stores, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design

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