8 Website Essentials

It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on your website design if people aren’t going to see it.

As I’ve said many times before, SEO (search engine optimization) is key to your website success.

Keep the following in mind if you intend to utilize your website to attract more business:

1. SEO. Your website must be able to be crawled by the search engines. If the spiders, robots and crawlers cannot read the content on your page, you are not going to be found. 2 common examples of sites where the content cannot be read are websites created entirely in flash and websites that rely on images in order to create a great “look”. Big name corporations who have the advertising dollars can afford to have an artistic “flashy” website, unless your brand name is known nationwide, don’t risk it.

2. Content is king! A common mistake many first time website owners make is to use their company name and “welcome” as the site description. “Welcome to My Company!” Refrain from using your site title or company name for your main site description. Search engine crawlers consider your site description in the formula for SEO. You want to have meta tags that convey whatever product or service that you are selling so that when people search for those keywords, they will find your site.

3. Links. You should include a resource section on your website that links to other websites that are relevant to your industry. You also want to have inbound links coming to your site, these help tremendously with search engine optimization. How can you find how many links you have to your site? You can do a Google search: link: yoursite.com to find out. Remember your search engine results rely on links as part of the algorithm.

4. Anchor text. Always use proper anchor text in your linking strategies. For example: “click here” simply doesn’t have as much weight as “read our small business tips”. Search engines read those words and they put weight on those links.

5. Articles. Having articles on your website with your keywords in them can help tremendously to get you noticed by the search engines. Do not stuff your articles with keywords; instead use the proper keyword density for the size of your articles.

6. Blogging. Blogs are a wonderful way to drive traffic to your site. While your website is your online brochure, your blog is your connection to the public. Blog posts are indexed quickly and a great way to get noticed on the Internet. You can gain a large following by posting helpful tips, links to other resources of interest and interacting with other bloggers.

7. RSS feeds. RSS feeds are a wonderful way to distribute your site updates as well as contribute to your site by including related industry news on your website.

8. Analytics. You need to keep track of your website analytics and monitor what is working and what isn’t. Keeping track of whether or not your website is converting visitors into buyers can help you tweak your site to create a working sales funnel. If you are using PPC advertising, you’ll be able to easily assess your ROI. Don’t forget to utilize A/B testing!

Good luck!

Joanne

7 Things Every Website Should Have

Don’t monkey around with your future. If you’re going to invest in a website - do it right the first time!

What do you really need?

1. A Professional Design
Trust a professional to design your site for you so that you can avoid all of the common mistakes many small businesses make. Just because you can build your site with Yahoo site builder, doesn’t mean you should. Take time researching professionals and go with one that has a proven track record and clients to back up their claims.

2. Meta tags
That’s right, you still need them! Time and time again I speak to clients who have a page rank of 0, yet they have had their website up for years. Every time I click the link to view their site and check the source it’s always the same. No description, no keywords, no title tag. Some argue this point that the search engine crawlers don’t pay attention to this due to over-use. I argue right back that you’re wrong. I’ve seen evidence of it for far too long.

3. Keyword rich content
A delicate balance should be used here. Often times people over stuff their content using the same word over and over. Does it help you in a natural search? No it doesn’t. Sometimes it penalizes you. Study up on keyword density (as it’s also ever changing) and publish your content accordingly.

4. A web CMS (Content Management System)
Unless you have the budget to have a Webmaster on staff, or the budget to continually hire a contractor when you need changes, make sure that you get a CMS solution that will allow you to update your site yourself. It will help with your SEO (search engine optimization) by allowing you to continually provide fresh content to your site.

5. Analytics
It’s vitally important that you have analytics installed and that you actually look at them and use them. It doesn’t matter if you go with a paid option such as ClickTracks, WebTrends or if you use Google. Just make sure that you do include them. Just think if analytics were available in traditional advertising all these years? What a wonderful tool to be able to tell which one of your marketing campaigns is working. What page on your site is driving people away? What website referrals retain visitors longer. Knowing who your customers are is imperative, and having the ability to make tweaks and measure improvement is a fantastic tool that we all should be using!

6. Good Hosting
If you don’t have a reliable host, how will people view your site? If the server is consistently down or your email isn’t working – you could put your business and your reputation in jeopardy.

7. Basic SEO
You don’t have to pay a bundle to see search engine optimization results. Don’t trust any company that guarantees you #1 placement. No one can claim that and even if they could get you there for a minute, they’d have to continually work on your site full time in order to keep it there. Also, don’t fall into the trap that you have to plunk down a bunch of cash on a PPC (pay per click) campaign in order to be seen on the Internet. It takes time and effort to show up in a natural search result, but if you invest the time – the benefits are well worth it.

Most of all make sure that you properly research the designer you decide to go with. Make sure you Google their name and their company domain name. Contact their previous clients and make sure that you feel comfortable talking and that they will be there for you in the future if you need help.

Joanne

Business Ethics

This has been a challenging year for me with regards to ethics. I’ve had encounters with both clients and contractors that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s been a real eye opener for me. I have always had extremely strong business ethics and consider my word to be golden. I take pride in my work, delivering on time and in clear communication with my business contacts and I expect the same from others.

This past year I have been challenged by clients who haven’t lived up to their end of the agreements by not paying the balance on their completed websites, outside contractors who guaranteed work that didn’t deliver and the contacts who continually add more work to the already agreed upon price.

I have bent over backwards in building a strong and reliable brand name for my company and trying to deliver to everyone’s 100% satisfaction.

I have made many mistakes in this past year:

1. Not requiring the full deposit and making payment arrangements with small business owners who couldn’t afford to pay up front
2. Lowering my price to compete with offshore companies
3. Allowing clients to add on to the agreed upon work without charging extra
4. Going against my “gut” and doing business with clients that I felt were going to be difficult to work with
5. Accepting contractors’ excuses of “just one more day” and “almost finished”
6. Paying for outsourced work before it is complete
7. Expecting others to have the same business ethics I have

I have always been a person to learn from problems and mistakes and to take away a lesson from each of them.

The lesson I learned this past year was to value my own business and worth, continue to treat others in accordance to my individual principles and finally, that it isn’t personal, it’s business.

Joanne

Search Engine Results Pages - Content is King!

I just finished going over our analytics and comparing the results with my SEO efforts for the month of December. The results are in…CONTENT is the number one driving factor to our website.

I know I’ve said that before, but I don’t know if I’ve really driven it home for our clients. There are so many “do’s” and “don’ts” in search engine optimization. All the information that I keep up with including newsletters, groups, articles, companies, books, etc.., all have their basic set of rules (formed a long time ago) and they change periodically when everyone starts to follow the new trends and the search engines change the algorithms, but the bottom line is – if you have good content and your site keeps evolving, traffic will come. Period.

Yes, there are tricks that dishonest companies use to try and get you where you want to be, but you end up being penalized for them. Rather than waste time and money on those efforts, why not just go for the honest way? Good old-fashioned work. We don't always follow the practices we should because of sheer lack of time. We're busy bees! But one thing is for sure, the things that we take the time to do - work.

Speaking of work, how about the people that work at deceiving you in your search in order to gain a buck? Grrrr. Nothing is more frustrating to me than when I do a search, a result comes up that is supposed to be relevant, I click on it and it’s just another damn directory site of another search using the keywords I just put in. It's like those little boxes within a box, O.K. the first time you experience it...but do you want to relive it every time? I don't.

I also get severely irked when I search for something and the results clicked on are just a page full of paid advertising. What's worse than that? When they have nothing to do with what I searched for at all. I read an article during the holidays (I’m sorry I don’t remember who wrote it and I didn’t save it) that kids were for sale at Target. Hello? Really? I just Googled “kid for sale”, here’s what I got:This is precisely why I hardly EVER click on the sponsored links. It’s most likely not what I wanted in the first place. The corporations who have an endless budget will have surely invested in SEO as well for the PPC ad. They end up wiping out the little guy by bidding top dollar for the PPC campaign. (Those of you who understand PPC may complain I'm leaving something out by not explaining the actual CTR, but that's not what this post is about.) Little companies just starting out try to jump in the big pool and they quickly drown.

My advice? Write some articles, start a blog and publish content that is relevant to whatever it is your selling. When we search for your product, we’ll be grateful to land on a website that is what we were looking for in the first place. Isn’t that what all of us want?

Joanne

2007 Recap

We're still out of the office for the holidays, but I felt compelled to post something on the last day of this glorious year.

Here's a list of our best articles for the year:

How to Get Traffic to Your Website for Free
Writing the Perfect Ad
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) Explained
Google Vs. Wikipedia
Top 7 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Small Business Holiday Survival Guide
Branding...It's Not Just for Cows!
Make Sure to Take Time Off
What is Hosting?
TV and Radio Advertising
Help with Analytics
What is Web 2.0?
Learning Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Link Popularity
Business Branding
New Business Website
Starting Your Small Business
Domain Name
Web CMS
Website Keywords
Website Analytics
Writing a Winning Press Release
Promoting Your Small Business Affordably

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones and I hope 2008 brings you happiness, health and success in all you do!

Joanne

Setting Business Goals

Complete Business Systems staff wish all of you a happy holiday season filled with friends and family! Our offices are officially closed through January 1st. We have to admit though, we're workaholics! We'll be posting to the blog and checking email and voicemail until we re-open on the 2nd of January.

Now that we are awaking from our turkey-and-gravy induced stupor, it’s time to get back into work mode. Like many business owners, we’re evaluating what we’ve done wrong, what we’ve done right, and what we plan to accomplish in the upcoming year. While every company is different, these tips will help anyone in keeping sight of their business goals.

Your goals should be S-M-A-R-T goals:

Specific – Instead of saying “I want to make more money this year”, set a dollar amount or percentage that you want to increase sales by. What do you want your company to accomplish this year? Why is it important to complete this goal? How are you going to achieve it?

Measurable – Each goal should be quantifiable. That means you'll have to start with a base line where you are now in order to set a target to move forward, thus enabling you to set benchmarks along the way to see if you are on track to your goal. When you measure your progress, you stay on track.

Attainable - Your goals should be realistic in order to be achieved. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be challenging, but they shouldn't be a slam dunk either. Making it to work dressed every day does not count as a challenging goal. Remember to be flexible with your goal, don’t make your goals so challenging that they’re impossible to achieve.

Relevant - Your goals should apply to the overall vision or mission of your business or organization. Each goal should move you towards your vision and not impede your mission or interfere with other goals.

Timely - Your goals should be able to be completed within a reasonable amount of time. They should have a beginning and ending point by which to measure your success. Having a time limit on your goal helps focus your attention and efforts towards the achievement of the goal.

Remember, your goals should be S-M-A-R-T! Outline your goals ahead of time, whether yearly, monthly or weekly. Make sure to track your progress to see if you’re on target to meet them. Reward yourself and your employees for meeting the goals you set to stay motivated.

We hope these tips are helpful…here’s to a great year!

Michelle and Joanne

Just Say No

In the 80’s, former First Lady Nancy Reagan launched her famous anti-drug campaign “Just Say No”. Today’s blog has nothing to do with drugs, but it does address the value of saying “No” when appropriate.

Many business owners subscribe to the adage, “The customer is always right”. That may sound nice in theory, but sometimes telling a customer “No” is the best thing for all involved. Often, when a business owner is just starting out, the tendency is to say “Yes” to all prospective customers’ requests, just to get business in the door. “Yes, we can design a website, logo, and letterhead in one week for $100.” That may be what the customer wants to hear, but if you are A) Losing money on the project B) Unable to deliver on time or C) Not sleeping or eating for a week, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Some clients can be, shall we say, opportunistic. When they know that you are a new, small business, they may often try to get as much as they can for little or no money. One only has to scan websites such as craigslist (which we love, by the way) to see people posting for services, saying things like, “ I can’t pay much, but this project will look great in your portfolio”. Don’t sell yourself short. When a client asks for extra work at no charge, it’s all right to say no.

That’s not to say that throwing in a freebie here and there has no value. It’s great to do that if it helps foster good will and future business. However, there’s no use in promising clients everything they ask for, unless you are certain you can deliver. That only puts undue stress on yourself, your employees, and ultimately the client.

When it comes to saying yes to all requests, “Just Say No”!

Michelle

Top 7 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

You've got your new site up and you’re ready to get it optimized for search engines. Where should you start? There are plenty of articles and advice on the Internet on how you should go about it and there's a lot of information to absorb. When applying your SEO practices, make sure you avoid the following no no’s:

1. Omitting the Title, Description and Keyword Meta tags. I’ve seen it first hand many times – potential clients contact me interested in a re-design because their site has been up for over a year and they have no traffic or page rank. I check their source code and sure enough, they don’t have any tags. If you go to Google Webmaster Help Center, you’ll see they encourage you to have title tags.
2. Leaving “Under Construction” on your pages. You want your site to be seen as something that is evolving and continually changing so people will come back? Don’t put up “under construction” or “continually under construction”. The search engines will ignore you.
3. No Links! This is a must for your website, you need to have them. Link to relevant sites from your site and have some incoming links from relevant sites too.
4. Keyword stuffing. Cramming your pages full of keywords is going to shoot you down in the SERPs. You need to do research on keyword density and keep your pages within those ranges.
5. Hiring a dishonest SEO service. You get what you pay for. If you want to have legitimate results, hire an expert service and expect to pay anywhere from 2-5 k per month. Do your research and make sure to check references by speaking to the former clients personally over the phone. If you hire a service that “guarantees” top placement, you are most likely getting ripped off.
6. Using important text in images. The robots and spiders don’t recognize the text in an image. If you have something important you want shown on your page, use text!
7. Dead links. Make sure you check your links frequently. If your links aren’t live, guess what? The crawler is leaving your site – dead end.

You can use free services such as SiteReportCard.com to check on your site optimization and find areas that need improvement.

When doing SEO for your site, be honest and provide information to your viewers that is of value and is true to your product or service. If you stick to those guidelines, you’ll come along just fine. Remember, it’s not a lightning process and it can be done without spending a great deal of cash. Do your research and get started today!

Joanne

New Portfolio Video

We added a new Portfolio Video to YouTube.

Why? Because it's important to use all the methods you can, including video to promote your business. The great thing about YouTube is that you can place tags on your video that will increase your visibility in a natural search result.

Anything you can do to promote your business for free is always a bonus!

Check out our new video...



Joanne

What is Web 2.0?

The buzzword “Web 2.0” has been floating around for a couple of years now. Some define the term as a general description of the second generation of the web – moving away from “brochure type” websites through the use of interactive technologies. Other people use “Web 2.0” to mean a certain “look” for website elements, including 3D tabs and buttons, more cutting edge graphics, and a less boxy or grid-based website layout.

The attempt to clarify the exact meaning of this now ubiquitous term has caused quite a bit of disagreement between groups.

Whether you are gung-ho for Web 2.0, not too enthusiastic about embracing the concept, or have no idea of what it is — read on, so you can weigh in the next time it’s brought up at a business luncheon.

The term stems from O’Reilly Media in 2004. It suggests a new version of the WWW, yet doesn’t refer to any update of technical specifications – only to the ways the developers and users will use the web.

Technologies included:

• Blogs
• Mashups
• Social Bookmarking
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• RSS Feeds
• APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
• Online Web Services

Many more technologies are included.

Characteristics often include browser-based programs, which allow :

1. Interactivity
2. Participation
3. Syndication

Many people today are requesting website design that is Web 2.0 compliant. Often what they are referring to is a “look”. Examples are gradient boxes, shiny floor effect, and bright shiny plump logo design, rather than any specific functionality.

In a nutshell, the term “Web 2.0” means different things to different people. Like abstract art, it’s what you want it to be. Since there aren’t any set standards, you are free to interpret what it means to you and whether to apply the principle to your website design.

If you want to have some fun with Web 2.0, check out the fun sites listed below:

Web20Generator
Web 2.0 Logo Generator
Web 2.0 Company Name Generator

Joanne

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

I know I promised to liven up this blog, but today's post is a really important part of your website success and I want you to benefit from it! I can always sing and dance for you later...

I wrote a new article titled "Learning Search Engine Marketing (SEM)" and placed it in our articles section. Below is the first portion of the article for you to view and decide if you want to venture on to read the rest:

Wikipedia defines Search Engine Marketing as a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

I could go into the technicalities of SEM, algorithms, robots, etc. However, if you’re reading this article, you probably aren’t interested in me stuffing a bunch of technical terms down your throat. You would rather learn about search engine marketing and how it can bring you more business.

I chose this topic today based on a couple of conversations I recently had with new clients.

One of our clients had embarked on a small ad campaign with Yahoo before coming to us. He mentioned that when he was spending the money on Yahoo, the traffic to his site was much higher. When I asked how many sales he garnered from the advertising, he replied that he didn’t know. Website traffic and conversions to sales are two completely different things, with the latter obviously being more important. It’s crucial to keep track of your ROI (Return on Investment), if you are going to invest in online advertising. Make sure that you have the tools within your company—whether it’s your own database for tracking sales, or another form of tracking system—before you spend your first marketing dollar.

Another conversation I had with a client involved a Google Adwords campaign. He was bidding using every keyword under the sun. He had a huge CTR (Click Through Rate), but again, nobody was buying. At the end of the day, his budget was gone and he didn’t have anything to show for it besides lots of traffic and an empty bank account. Until I explained to him that he was paying for people to come to his site and quickly leave, he didn’t “get it”. Having the right keywords in your campaign and your ad copy, that are relevant to your product or service, will get you qualified click through to your site. You don’t want people to click on your ad, only to find that your site doesn’t offer the information they were looking for, and leave immediately. That will cost you wasted dollars each and every time they do that.

More Learning Search Engine Marketing...

Joanne

Link Popularity

What is link popularity and how can you build link popularity to help your business?

Link popularity plays an important role in the visibility of a web site among the top of the search results.

Wikipedia defines link popularity as a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to a specific site on the World Wide Web.

There are all kinds of website design and search engine optimization terms out there that can be confusing especially when you are just getting started with your small business website.

Lets break down some of the definitions for easier understanding:

Link Popularity
Link popularity is the measure of the number of hypertext links coming into a website from other websites on the Internet. Although you obviously want to have several links incoming and outgoing, but it’s important to pay attention to the quality of your website inbound and outbound links. For instance, if you have several incoming and outgoing links to sites that aren’t relevant to your website, your links aren’t quality links. When browsing the web and you stumble upon a site with great information and you click on their resources, would you rather be directed to more information about the subject you originally searched for and related items, or links to widgets?

Anchor Text
The anchor text is the text that you click in a hyperlink. Many times you’ll see “click here” to view our pricing. Using click here rather than a keyword such as “widget pricing” takes away from your natural search engine optimization. The search engine algorithms use anchor text and can get you better ranking if you are using it correctly.

Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links are two-way links from one website to another. Basically, you place a link on your website to the other company website and they in turn place a link on their website to your website. Often times you are allowed to include your anchor text in the link you are placing on the external site, other times – you can include your company name, website and a brief description. Again this practice is another important part of search engine optimization.

Non-reciprocal links
Non-reciprocal links are sometimes referred to as one-way links. It is just as it sounds, a link to your site, or a link from your site that isn’t returned. Meaning, I often link to Wikipedia for definitions to help explain items in my website articles. Wikipedia doesn’t link back to me for my articles.

Link Exchange
A link exchange involves reciprocal links and usually occurs when you or your Webmaster receive an email from a company that would like to exchange links with you or you can initiate a link exchange with a website that you think has valuable information and would benefit your site users. Always fully check out the sites that are requesting link exchanges with you to make sure that they aren’t part of linking farm or using practices that Google and the other search engines frown upon. You don’t want to accidentally get your site banned from the search engines!

Paid Links
Paid linking involves buying and selling links to improve a site’s ranking. Google and other search engines use linking in their algorithms to determine a sites “importance” which effects the site ranking. Google frowns upon the process in particular as well as other search engines and there has been quite a bit of controversy over Google suggesting that webmasters report paid links to them. There are instances where it is okay to purchase a link for advertising and you can check out the guidelines in Google’s Webmaster Help Center.

Now that you’re familiar with the terminology, it’s time to get out there and start building your link popularity! Remember quality and quantity and watch your website move up in natural search engine results.

Joanne Pele is the Vice President of Operations at Complete Business Systems. Complete Business Systems provides a ready-to-go branding package for your company, including website, logo, business cards and letterhead. Additional services include postcard design, databases, press release and web content writing. For more information, visit CompleteBizSystems.com, or call 800-479-9186

Joanne

Business Branding

Whether you are just starting a new company, or have been around for a while and need some marketing tips, branding your business should be on the top of your list.

Marketing your business by building a brand name isn’t just for large companies. Branding your business is essential for growing your company, no matter what size it is. Repetition, consistency, and visibility are the key to success in achieving brand power.

What is branding?

Wikipedia defines brand as including a name, logo, slogan and /or design scheme associated with a product or service.

If you are in business today, it’s imperative that you brand your business first-rate including logo, website, business cards, letterhead, print ads, television, radio and signage.

Let’s break down the key elements for branding your business:

Logo

An effective logo should reflect your business. If you examine successful brands that have achieved instant recognition, you’ll notice they all have one thing in common – simplicity. It’s important that your logo design can be used in many different forms, not just on your website design, letterhead and business cards. Think of how you may want to advertise in the future – will you want to place print ads? Will your logo reproduce well in black and white, and in varied sizes? What about apparel? Will your logo hold up when printed on the t-shirts you’ll be passing out at the next trade show?

Website

Your website is your online business card. Your logo should be presented on each of your website pages. Your website design should have intuitive navigation, clear navigation and valuable content. Once your website is up and ready to go, you should promote your site online via press releases and business networking sites. Don’t forget to register your site with Google and most importantly, your contact information should be visible on every page – especially your phone number.

Business Cards

Business cards should have a clean, uncluttered design. Make sure they display your logo and present a professional image of your company. Include all forms of contact, and don’t forget your web address! Some people choose to purchase double-sided business cards, and print just their web address on the back, so it stands out.
Business cards are often your first point of contact with a potential client, and we all know first impressions make all the difference.

Letterhead

Your letterhead should also include your logo and contact information. Use your company letterhead for all correspondence with potential and current clients.

All of your branding elements should coordinate with one another and present a consistent reflection of your company.

You now have all the tools you need to project a professional image and start getting your company name out there. Don’t try to cut corners and save money on these paramount items. Remember, you’re building a company brand!

Joanne Pele is the Vice President of Operations at Complete Business Systems. Complete Business Systems provides a ready-to-go branding package for your company, including website, logo, business cards and letterhead. Additional services include postcard design, databases, press release and web content writing. For more information, visit Complete Business Systems, or call 800-479-9186

Promoting Your Small Business Affordably

Making the most of a small business budget can bring big results.
While most business owners realize that having a good marketing plan is a must, often they don’t know where to begin.

Affordable Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
The key to managing your marketing budget wisely is making every dollar count. Often, there are great ways to promote your company affordably.

The continued evolution of the Internet provides several ways for companies of all sizes to market themselves for little or no money. Most people realize that to be competitive in today’s business environment, having a website is an absolute necessity. Your goal should be to direct people to your website, not to tell your whole story in an online listing. List your website in relevant online business directories, join business networking sites, and submit press releases to the many free online wire services available. Include your website address on all your printed materials, such as business cards, letterhead, brochures, and in print ads. Remember that consistency is key. Your website, logo, and marketing materials should always use the same fonts and colors.

Take advantage of local low-cost marketing resources, such as joining the chamber of commerce, volunteering for charity benefits, and attending business fairs. Always have a ready supply of business cards with you, as opportunities to talk about your company often come up unexpectedly.

Complete Business Systems strives to make small business branding simple and affordable with its all-inclusive package. The package includes a professionally designed 10-page website with Flash introduction, website hosting and domain name, custom logo design, and letterhead/business card design and printing. Additional services include custom databases, press releases, and brochure and flyer design and printing.