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Ecommerce Website Design - Five Tips for Success.

December 3rd, 2009

Gone are the days where you need to have a brick and mortar store in order to run a successful retail business, and welcome to the world of ecommerce.  The success of taking your retail business online starts with a solid marketing strategy and most of all an ecommerce website design, built for success.  Here are five tips for making your ecommerce website design a success.

 

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #1 - Showcase Your Products

When crafting your ecommerce website design architecture, think about your customers. The moment visitors come to your website they should know what you sell without having to look for much. Highlight some of your products with a simple flash intro. Make your specials stands out. If you offer free shipping or a money back guarantee, this should all be visible at first glance. Focus on strategically positioning your products; better yet list your product categories on the homepage. Ideally you should have a side bar with a list of all your products, as well as a product drop down menu on the main menu bar. Position your products strategically at every chance you get.

 

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #2 - Focus on Usability

Your new ecommerce website design should make it easy for your customers to get from one product category to the next. Better yet, make sure there is a continue shopping option when a product is purchased and ensure that the option to view shopping cart is available.  Also give your customers the option to add or delete items, in order to create a great and user-friendly shopping experience.

 

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #3 – Increase Your Average Sale Per Visitor by Cross Selling.

Do you have products that complement each other or might be ideal for the customer? Cross sell your other products by suggesting other items in a non-disruptive manner. For example, if you sell skin care products, perhaps if a customer purchased a night-cream, it might be wise to also suggest a cleanser once the customer have added the night-cream to their shopping cart, by using a simple pop-up or automation. A great ecommerce website design should cover all the bases by seizing opportunity to sell your products at every opportunity.

 

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #4- Provide an Option to Checkout as a Guest.

I have seen too much ecommerce website design that included only two options - create an account or sign in for the returning customer. People like options; don’t force your customers to create a user-account that stores their information if they don’t want to. It may lead to you losing the sale. Add an option for your customers to check-out as a guest, you can still capture their email information to send offers, order confirmation and a thank you during the checkout so there is no need to force your customers to create an online account.

 

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #5- Give Your Customers Peace of Mind – Use a Recognizable Secure Sockets Layer or SSL for Website Security .

A great ecommerce website design makes it easy for your website visitor to do business with you. In this day an age where identity theft is so rampant it is important to highlight to your customers that you are taking steps to secure their personal and sensitive information.  Add a SSL certificate to your website and publish that it is protected by a credible company such as Verisign or GeoTrust, which are companies that are recognizable by most online shoppers.

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Five Website Redesign Steps to Follow, in Order to Achieve Website Redesign Success.

November 20th, 2009

Achieving a successful website presence that deliver the results you seek, is never just about how “pretty” your website looks, it’s also about how well it performs and how useful your website is to your visitors. In order to achieve success with your website redesign here are five steps to follow.

Website Redesign Step 1.   Evaluate Where Your Website Currently Is.

First consider the main reason you want to get a website redesign. Perhaps it’s because it has an outdated look, or perhaps it’s because it’s not performing as well as you had hoped. Identifying what works on your existing website design will help you build upon what already works and identify what doesn’t work and what needs to be fixed so that your website redesign can pay off in the future.

Website Redesign Step 2.   Define Where You Would Like to Go.

Technology is always changing and there are always new innovations and tools to implement to make your website design more effective. Optimizing your website for search engines, making your website more user-friendly, increasing your website visitors conversion rate, making your website more interactive are all goals that business owners set for themselves when considering a website redesign. Perhaps you need to achieve one or all of these goals. Establishing where you would like to go will help you avoid some of the past mistakes and unnecessary expenses you have experienced in the past.

Website Redesign Step 3.   Craft a Plan to Get to Your Destination.

Establishing a successful website redesign requires more than just contacting a website designer and paying the web design cost. It requires conducting research to see what will work best for you, based upon the goals you have defined for yourself. During your research you may come across several solutions, identifying the best solutions for you will help you get to your destination in a timely and cost effective manner, when contemplating a website redesign.

Website Redesign Step 4.   Protect The Positive You Already Have.

Commissioning a website redesign can actually have a negative impact, if you have not done a good job in step number one. You may already have pages that are optimized for search engines that are performing very well for you, destroying these pages will result in a drop in traffic and in rankings.  A great way to protect your web pages that are already performing well is to redirect them during your website redesign using a 301 redirect for each page.

Website Redesign Step 5.   Work with a Web Design Company That’s Specializes in Website Redesign.

Working with a website design company that specializes in website redesign, will help you protect what’s already working for you. The web design company that you choose to work with  should also be able to help you in identifying what you need to do in order to achieve your goals. They should be able to perform a full website evaluation, and provide you with a report with their findings and recommendations, they shouldn’t just re-build your website without identifying the problems and defining a strategy.


 

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Have You Started Planning Your Marketing For The New Year?

November 6th, 2009

I just checked my email and lo and behold, I have an email ad from a tax firm. Technically, the tax season for personal filing doesn’t really pick up until January. But this firm is doing something right. They have already begun to promote their services so that when the time rolls around they are present in mind. Whether you are a tax firm, a dentist, or a plumber, now is a great time to start analyzing your past year pros and cons and start putting a plan into place to meet your revenue goals in the New Year. A few things you can start working on to make sure 2010 is a much more successful year than 2009 are:

1. Set Your Revenue Goals
2. Create a Plan For Meeting Your Goals
3. Identify Where Your Past Customers Came From
4. Identify How You Will Reach New Customers
5. Put a Plan Into Place to Reach Out to Existing Customers

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Twitter Part Deux: How to use the Social Marketing Website Twitter to Evangelize Your Business.

July 22nd, 2009

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Are you using Twitter to capture new clients?  If not, there is no better time to start than now!  Recent stats show that Twitter‘s monthly growth is 1,382 percent (Nielsen.com) with over six (6) million unique visitors per month.  Can you believe that?  That means that you have the potential to expose your business to over 6 million unique twitter users each month and because Twitter is Viral, that number can continue to multiply as others tell their friends and family members about your business, product or service or pass on your website address.

If you already have set up your Twitter page, remember to pay close attention to the text on your profile bio that describes who you are and what you do. Ensure that there is a link to your website and make sure that your website is attractive and provide valuable information. For example Captivate Designs provide web design services, so it’s highlighted in my bio.  It is important to remember that when potential customers take the time to read your bio, they want information that is interesting and helpful that will prompt them to visit your website or learn more about you.

One of the most valuable tools that Twitter has is the search tool.  To find new customers, search for keywords that represent your customers.  This can provide you with a list of potential customers that might be interested in your business or products.  Start following them and you will find that several of them will start following you in return. There are also websites where twitter users list themselves, the most popular website is wefollow.com and it allows you to search for users based on keywords. It is also suggested that you list yourself with your twitter ID on this website as well; it will ask you to select several keywords that describes you or your business when you create a listing, which will make it easy for others who are looking for people like you to find you.  Now that you have followers, you can start posting information about your products and/or services. 

Just like forums or blogs, you need to demonstrate that you are the expert, but you also don’t want to be too promotional. Provide expert opinions, directions and suggestions but also add in non business related tweets that’s not just all about you.  Review tweets, or use the search engine to find tweets and be willing to offer bits of information or advice for free.  By doing this, most users will recognize that you know what you are talking about which will generate an interest for them to follow you as well as do business with you or refer you to someone. The key to increasing and maintaining followers is ensuring that you always tweet something useful and interesting, if you don’t your followers will un-follow you.

You need to post and post often.  It may sound time consuming, but it really only take literally minutes to post a message or an update or even a link to your website.  If you are going to be out of town or unavailable to do routine tweets, there are several websites on the Internet that will allow you to schedule your tweets in advance.  Also, don’t forget if you are traveling and have a BlackBerry or iPhone, there are applications for that as well and you can integrate twitter with your cell phone and post directly from it – just like texting.

You can also do what is called re-tweeting.  Re-tweeting is where you can repost a tweet from someone else.  If you find a tweet that you consider to be of value to your followers, you can simply re-tweet this information on your page.  The accepted way of re-tweeting is to type ‘RT’ followed by @ and the tweeter’s username. It’s always recommended, to RT because it shows that you are committed to sharing valuable information, but also you show good faith to the user you re-tweet who in turn may re-tweet one of your tweets to his/her followers, which will give you credibility and help you to earn more followers (aka ) potential customers and evangelist.

All in all, Twitter is a great tool that can expand your reach to customers and potential customers.  It allows you to stay in touch and connect with people instantly.  It can help drive your brand and communicate with customers in a way that you have never done before. Think about it? Never before have you been able to reach American Consumers by Millions in such a personal and one on one basis until the phenomenon of the twitter website.

Now start building your following!

 

 

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How to Get Started On Twitter? The Basics.

July 15th, 2009

 

twitter-logo-002What is Twitter? 

Twitter is a free website for social networking and micro blogging that can be updated instantly, almost like text messaging online. Twitter users range from the typical person to business owners and professionals and even celebrities. I’m sure you have heard about the faceoff a few weeks ago between Ashton Kutcher and CNN.  Although, I am in the internet business, never before have I adopted a social networking tool as I have twitter. Why? Maybe because within moments of launching my twitter account it drove traffic to my website and generated a few leads. That’s when a light bulb went off and I saw the potential that twitter offers to businesses, with just a little investment of your time.
 
 I am going to explain the basics of getting started with twitter in this article followed by two other articles in the coming weeks that will show you how you can use twitter for your business.
 
Creating a Twitter.com Account.
Setting up and creating a twitter account is free and very easy.  Simple go to www.twitter.com, click on the Get Started - Join button and fill out your name, username, email address and password.  When choosing a username, it is wise either to use your name if you are the person behind your brand or company, since it’s more personal and will allow you to connect with people more organically. You may also choose your business name or a keyword related to your business such as web design in the case of my business. Try not to get too creative. Once you have filled in all the fields you will get an option that ask if you would like to check to see if any of your friends are using twitter by searching for them using aol, gmail or yahoo. Feel free to check an if they are follow your friends and have them follow you back, it’s a great way to get you started, but you are not just on twitter to keep track of your friends, you are their to generate new business and hopefully your friends already know what you do.
 
Customizing your Twitter account.
There are many uses for twitter, such as personal promotion, business promotion, event tracking, corporate branding, customer relationship development and more.  For this reason you have several options available to you via twitter to achieve these goals.
 
§  Tell them who you are and what you do - Add a Bio - Twitter allows you to add a bio to your profile utilizing 160 characters or less.  Adding a bio to your twitter account is imperative, because it is the first thing people will review to see if you are a good person to follow i.e whether you can provide them with useful information. When creating your bio ensure that you include a keyword that is related to your business, because users will search to find others to follow based upon keywords. In short, let people know who you are, what you do and how you can help them. If you have a tagline for your company, that’s a great place to start. It’s best to create several bios and then refine it until you find the best one with 160 characters.
 
§  Put a face to your company, make it human - Add a Picture - There’s a reason why so many CEO’s are becoming the face of their brand, it builds credibility, and it puts a real person behind the message. Twitter usually comes with a default photo, I strongly advise you to add a photo that looks good that’s not too revealing - to you profile.
 
§  Brand your company - Add a Custom Designed Background - Although I haven’t gotten around to doing this as yet, I have all intentions to. It certainly comes  across more professional and it’s a great way to provide additional information about your company, since your bio is limited to only 160 characters, I have seen many that I like here’s are a couple examples http://twitter.com/powerwithin1  ; http://twitter.com/SouthwestAir . Southwest airlines does a great job of providing a lot of information via their background. If you would like to have a professional background done, Captivate can help you for a nominal fee, feel free to contact us.

 

 

 

 

Twitter Glossary
 

In order for you to use twitter effectively, it’s important for you to understand the following terminologies.  Please see below,

Tweet: A “tweet” is a single message or post to Twitter. Each tweet can be no more than 140 characters.

Tweeting: “Tweeting” is what you’re doing while you’re engaged in the use of Twitter. Reading others’ tweets, sending out tweets, etc. If you’re doing those things, you’re tweeting!

Follow/follower: On many social media and networking sites, you “friend” someone to connect with them. On Twitter, you “follow” someone. Those who follow you are your “followers.”

RT: RT is short for “re-tweet.” This is a way of sharing someone else’s tweet with your own followers. For instance if Megan Morris (@MegMorris) tweeted about a new restaurant opening in Nashville, I should share that information with my own followers and it might look like this: “RT @MegMorris: Local Taco just opened near the office. Anyone want to go with me to try it out?” A re-tweet is simply giving credit to the original tweet when you want to share the information you learned from it.

DM: DM is short for “direct message.” If you want to send a message to one of your followers without every single one of your followers seeing it, you simply send them a direct message. A DM also can only be 140 characters. If one of your followers says “DM me with your phone number,” you certainly don’t want everyone on Twitter to end up with your phone number. Direct message is the way to go for personal messages like that.

@ reply: An “at reply” is simply replying to a specific follower instead of creating a brand new tweet. Example: “@megmorris I’ll go with you!”

Twibe: There are many services online that allow you to categorize yourself on Twitter. You can log into these sites and sign up to be part of specific categories such as Nashville, Photography, Pets. The people who have also plugged themselves into these categories are called a “twibe.” These twibes can then share and receive information specific to those categories.

Tweeps: Your “tweeps” are the people on Twitter that you are connected to.

Twitter apps: Of course, you can go to twitter.com on the web and tweet all day long. But there are “Twitter apps” out there that you can use on your computer or cell phone that allow you to tweet from anywhere. Desktop and phone clients such as Tweetie, Nambu, TwitterFon and many more are popular options for using Twitter without having to have a web browser open.

Hashtag: A “hashtag” is a keyword or tag that ties tweets together from many users. For instance: Just this week, a popular hastag for music lovers has been #bonnaroo. Anyone tweeting about the annual music festival simply needs to add “#bonnaroo” to the end of a tweet. That then allows your tweet to be found by anyone who searches for information on the festival. Hashtags are very popular during conferences and seminars.

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Six Tips for Increasing Your Newsletter Signup and Generating More Leads.

July 9th, 2009

graph-imageGiven the state of the economy, it is more challenging now than ever before to increase sales and revenues. To keep your business growing you need to   keep your pipeline of leads flowing. A great way to acquire new leads is through your website. One thing you know for sure is that these visitors are already   interested in your products or services, perhaps they are not ready to buy, and they are still in the research phase. Won’t it be nice to capture these visitors information, rather than having them leave your website without knowing who they are? After all, you have already spent time and money to drive these visitors to your website, don’t let your efforts and resources go to waste, capitalize on it by ensuring you are able to capture your visitors information in more ways than one, utilizing every opportunity that you have.

 

Here are six tips for capturing your website visitors’ information through your newsletter signup in order to help you generate more leads, win new customers, accelerate growth and increase sales.

 

1.      Give Your Newsletter a Title. Increase interest and entice your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, start with a killer title that exemplifies value to your visitors or implies the benefit. For example Captivate’s newsletter title is “Turn Your Website Into a Lead Generation Machine”.

 

2.      Make Your Newsletter Stand Out. Very often you will visit a website and the newsletter signup box is hardly visible or the design is poor or generic. Add an image of your newsletter to the signup box so subscribers can see what they are getting. Make the design captivating and outstanding so that it captivates your visitors’ attention.

 

3.      Position Your Newsletter Strategically. Pay attention to where your newsletter is positioned on your website. Would it be easy for others to see it? Can it be accessed on all pages easily? Perhaps adding a non intrusive pop-up to your website as visitors go from page to page is a good idea.

 

4.      Keep your fields short. When asking for information in a newsletter, it’s best to keep it simple, by just adding fields for the first name and email address. You want the first name, because it would appear more personal when sending out the newsletter. If you must capture additional information for the purpose of acquiring visitor statistics then create a second page so that once the name and email address is captured they can continue to fill out additional information.

 

5.      Add a value to your newsletter. Indicate a dollar amount for your newsletter or offer a free gift for subscribing. Perhaps it could be a free report, a discount, or some other promotional item that’s of value to your target audience.

 

6.      Add a Link to Your Privacy Policy On Your Newsletter Signup Form. Instill trust to your visitors, by letting them know that you would not sell their information or spam them. Include a link to your privacy policy with a short phrase “View our Privacy Policy”. This will make the visitor more comfortable in subscribing to your newsletter.

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Blogging for Business - To Blog or Not to Blog

June 24th, 2009

mouseblogWant to build a relationship with your customers and prospects?
Then start a blog.  Blogs can be an incredible relationship builder for your business.  They open the lines of communication between you, your customers and your prospects, they build your credibility, and they can boost your lead generation!  They can also help you gain a better understanding of who your prospects are and what they want. Having a blog for your business is a great tool, and in this article I’m going to share with you everything you need to know. 

Why have a business blog?
Think about a blog as a conversation starter with your customer.  A blog is basically an online diary where you can communicate directly with your target market.  In our blog, entitled “How to Turn your Website into a Lead Generating Machine,” I share tips and techniques that any business owner can implement to make their website really work for their business.  A blog uses more conversational language than your website, and should inspire comment and conversation with your consumers.   If you want to communicate with your prospects, and you are willing and able to post interesting and useful information regularly, then the answer is yes.  If you feel that you have lots of ideas you want to share, a blog is a great outlet.

How to launch a blog?
A blog is simple to launch.  Blogspot.com and Wordpress.com are two free blogging tools that will allow you to be up and blogging in minutes. For something more upscale, there are also many web design experts as well as Captivate Designs who can offer dynamic blog designs that can be incorporated directly into your website.

What to write?

A blog is your forum to speak to your customers.  Post information they will find useful, share your opinions, expertise, relevant videos and pictures-anything you want to communicate to your target market.  Talk about incentives you have going on, an exciting event you’ve attended, invite people to subscribe to your newsletter or link to an interview you did.  Make sure to link back to your website whenever possible (this will increase your incoming links, which is an important SEO strategy). For example as  a web designer in New York, I can talk about NYC inspired design tips or invite people to sign up for a  free web design quote.

It’s important to constantly provide useful information, so be sure to post something to your blog AT LEAST once per week. If you run out of ideas, look at information that you have written in the past (articles, ebooks, marketing materials, brochures, company bios, etc) and see if you can recycle it!  Post it on you blog and you have instant content!  You might also find inspiration from other blogs, magazine articles, news, television, conversations, and your daily activities.  Once you start thinking like a blogger, you will be able to find ideas for relevant content everywhere you look.

Promoting your blog?
Content is King on the web, as long as you have useful content visitors will keep coming back and they will aslo tell others. A blog is a great tool to publish your content and attract new prospects, so make sure you promote it!  Promote your blog anywhere your target market might see it.  Places like:
·         Your email signature
·         Your company website
·         Social Media Networks (Facebook, Twitter,  Linkedin, Plaxo)
·         Send out an email blast to your database
·         Submit your blog to blog directories like technorati
·         Anytime you write an article for anything online, make sure to add the link to your blog…even in discussion rooms and message boards

Measure your blogging efforts.
Google Analytics is an amazing free tool that will measure your blog traffic and provide a surplus of useful information about who found your blog and how.  It will tell you how many people are new visitors and how many are returning. Simply create an account add the code to your blog.

Enjoy the benefits.
By creating a blog that is packed with useful information, it will become a hotspot for your prospects to find information.  Make sure to include links on your blog to your main website, and links to your newsletter sign up-people may want to sign up to receive more information from you! It’s also a great idea to have your blog syndicated through rss feeds and well as send automatic updates to your followers through tools such as feedblitz and feedburner. Before you know it, people will be discussing business with you on your blog and subscribing to your posts. And before you know it, your online friends will become your offline customers! 

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How good web design can impact your website conversion rate and search engine rankings.

June 23rd, 2009

 

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Not all websites are designed equally. All you have to do is go out and search the internet for a few websites and you’ll see the quality difference between competing websites. How do businesses generate a lot of leads and sales from their websites? How do the highest ranked websites get there? What happened to the ones that end up on page 20 for their keyword phrases? Well, besides the obvious answers of content and keywords, there is also design. Website design can have a huge impact on how your website is ranked, how it is found on the search engines and most importantly whether it converts your website visitors into leads or paying customers. Every web site needs to consider certain design aspects in order to reach its full potential. Here are some things to consider:

 

  

1. Web Sites that are Graphics Heavy

 

Have you seen those websites with all the pretty graphics, pictures and busy flash? These sites are definitely attractive, but they are not keeping your visitors tuned in nor are they being found very easily in the search engines. Why? Pictures and Images are large files to begin with and the pages take a long time to load. People are impatient, and they don’t have the time to sit and wait for it to load, websites with such characteristics are also extremely difficult to optimize. The problem is that search engines cannot read text within graphics or animation. If you feel that you must have a lot of images and flash on your website, be sure to use alt-text and then create an html-based side of your site that is also available to visitors, if you don’t know what this is and you’re working with a professional designer, it’s something to be discussed before proceeding. This will reduce your bounce rate (fewer site abandonment after the first page), also this version of the site will have the potential of being found on the search engines and your prospects will also have the option to go to the other version, with the pretty pictures. Of course, we are available for a free web design consultation on this entire process.

 

2. Dealing with Dynamic Web Pages

 

Are you a large online retailer with hundreds or thousands of products available? These types of web sites have data that is generated by a large database and create what are called “dynamic” web pages. The problem for these sites is that some pages may not get indexed by the search engines. So what can be done about this? The first thing is using a site map. This lets Google know that you do in fact have permanent content on your site. You’ll also want to have a good internal linking system set up. These two tactics can go a long way in helping your dynamic pages get found.

 

3. Proper Use of HTML

 

One thing that is pervasive on the web is bad HTML code. Worse yet, much of this code, generated by pretty bad web design software, is not search engine friendly. You don’t want the search engines seeing line after line of font and position formatting. This is not relevant content and doesn’t employ the best HTML design. The best website design firms out there make use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which significantly reduces the amount of text formatting in HTML code. You want to be sure your designer uses the very latest coding techniques to ensure your site is ranked high.

 

4.Content is King

 

Typically, you want to design for a large site. In other words, plan on growing the number of pages you have over time. Why? Google loves it. They reward you for updating your content frequently, hence the reason a lot of businesses are now adding a business blog onto their website. You want to ensure that the design you use on your site lends itself to being built out over the next year, and for as long as you own the business. If you have only a few pages on your site and your competitors have many, you’ll have a tough time competing with them for that top search engine spot. You also want to keep visitors on your site as long as possible, as well as keep them coming back, and they will do this if there is a lot to see on your site.

 

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Facebook URL Could Mean BIG Boost For Your SEO Efforts

June 17th, 2009

  facebook

Greetings! 

You’re probably wondering, what the heck a facebook vanity url is or if it should mean anything to you?

 

You see up until 12:01 am EST on Saturday May 13, 2009 facebook users did not have an easy url to direct their friends, colleagues or customers to. Typically their urls would look something like this www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 . Well as of last Saturday at the stroke of midnight that has changed and industry experts are highlighting the major boost that this could mean for search engine optimization and driving traffic back to your website.

 

Facebook is a highly searched and highly ranked social networking site with over 150 million ACTIVE users. Now, imagine for a second that you sell barbie dolls and you are able to register the following highly searched keyword as your facebook vanity url such as www.facebook.com/barbiedolls. Once a searched is conducted for barbie dolls because of the weight that facebook holds in the web world, your facebook page could very well be one of the first that’s shown organically. 

 

Now just as domain names,  these vanity urls are going like hot bread. The key is to conduct  some research to see which keywords would benefit your business the most. I suggest you create a list and see which ones are available. You can go here to check for availability and to setup your vanity url http://www.facebook.com/username/.

 

Now, there is a little road block to getting a vanity url from facebook. You must have been signed up to facebook by May 31, 2009 or else you would not be able to get a vanity url. This is a measure that was taken to prevent people from squatting  on others names. Think Bill Clinton and the RNC.

 

Secondly, you need to put serious consideration into the name that you are choosing, because you will NOT be able to change or transfer it. 

 

Now, happy hunting and best of luck in getting the best name that would mean traffic boost for your business.

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Your Website’s SEO SUCCESS starts with the Right Keywords. Choose Them Wisely.

April 6th, 2009

keywords

Choosing the right keywords is your #1 tool for success at SEO.

When you are building a website, it is important to realize the important role that keywords, and keyword phrases, play in your website’s search engine rankings and ultimately, its traffic.

As a web design company in New York, one of my important keyword phrases is “web design New York.” I know that people are searching for this term, and when they do, I want my website to show up in Google’s search results so they can find it. This is why I have incorporated this phrase into my website content, and into its title and meta tags.

Using keywords throughout your website is an important part of Search Engine Optimization—the process of making your website more attractive to the search engines.

I’m going to provide a simple outline on keyword research, and tell you how to make keywords work for your website—so that your website can experience higher search engine rankings and greater potential for visitors.

1. Identify relevant keywords

There are many free resources to help you identify relevant keywords—but first, I suggest sitting down and thinking. What keywords would people search for to find your business? Write them down. Once you’ve come up with a list, use a free keyword tool, like the Google AdWords Keyword tool. You can plug in the keywords you’ve come up with, and it will suggest others based on competition and traffic level.

2. Make those keywords specific to your business

The goal of choosing keywords is to be realistic and specific. The keywords should truly reflect your business. The more popular the term is, the more competition you will have—so it’s best to keep your keywords specific so you will have the best chance of getting high rankings for them.

3. Check out the competition

Check out your competition for certain keywords by typing them into the Google search bar. Which sites come up on the first page? Read their content, and check out their title tags—you can see them in the browser at the top of your screen. Have they used this keyword a lot throughout their site? If so, there may be some tough competition for this keyword. When in doubt, be more specific.

4. Where do keywords go?

Now that you’ve determined your keywords, it’s time to think about where to put them. Keywords should be presented throughout your site—in the content of each page, and in your meta tags and title tags for each page. If you aren’t sure what meta tags and title tags are, you can have a professional web design or Search Engine Optimization company help you.

*Don’t overload: The search engines are smart, and so are your visitors. If you are overloading your keywords within your website, they will know. Remember, your website should be attractive to the search engines—and to your potential visitors! A site that is overflowing with keywords is rarely engaging to the human eye.

*Every page is important: It’s important to remember that each page of your site is its own entity. Every page is crawled by spiders and is a place where visitors can land. By including different keywords on each page, you increase your potential for visitors.

5. Determine how much traffic you’re getting from each keyword & monitor your rank

Most website hosts will provide statistics. These statistics will tell you important information about your website, including how many people are visiting your site, and how they’re getting to it. I like using Google analytics—and it’s free. All you have to do is signup for it, then enter your website information, copy your code and have your webmaster add it to all your website pages.

Find out which keywords are sending traffic to your website. Then search for each keyword in a search engine to determine your site’s ranking. What number are you? If you come up 10th for a certain keyword, and it has produced x number of visitors, imagine how many visitors you’d get for that term if you came up 3rd? Think about how you can improve your ranking for that keyword.

Keywords are vital to your website’s search engine rankings. By understanding how to find the right keywords, and then using them properly within your site, you can expand your website tremendously. Check out our blog for more tips on “Turning Your Website into a Lead Generating Machine”.

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