Blog Blog Blog….once for each year this blog you are currently reading has been in existence. Yep I have been blogging for 3 years now. I don’t consider myself a “blogger” since my income is derived indirectly form my blog. Please keep in mind that there are many successful individuals who make a living from blogging. There are many different reasons for blogging. I blogcast to you this evening in order to push down some content I am tired of looking at on my website. Onsite SEO is only about a third of everything at most that goes into making your website rank higher on Google but I guarantee you will see higher rankings if you being to start blogging. There are some key rules that you need to follow first in order to gain maximum benefit form your digital composition efforts.

First make sure that your blog resides on the same domain as your current website. This mean no blogs hosted on a domain other than yours because you want all of the SEO benefit and potential links to go to your website and not someone else’s like blogspot or wordpress.

Second you want to make sure that you blog on a regular basis. Nothing is worse than a dead blog. Are you going to abandon me as well if I become your customer? It may be true that you become busy but you are never too busy to blog and grow or your business. If you are then you can easily afford to hire a ghost writer as your time is more valuable spent working on tasks related to managing your business than blogging.

Third make sure you write about topics that your customers are interested in.  Having interesting content on your blog will make it go VIRAL!!!  Ha Ha not really but it will mean that people are more likely to link to you, share your content with someone else, or become more involved with your brand. You don’t have to make every post strictly related to your industry but instead use this as an opportunity to provide helpful knowledge as well as give your brand a personality. Use StumbleUpon for blogging ideas if your industry is not that sexy.

Blogging on your website should be as easy as opening you web browser, navigating to you specific URL, logging in and typing. If it is not this easy to edit your website you may consider converting it over to a content management system, or having a web developer install a wordpress blog for you. The more difficult it is to update your website the less likely you are to update it. It will do you no good to leave up old stale content. Blog at least once a month to increase search engine rankings over time and improve your web metrics. Sooner or later you sill notice a payoff from you actions including more business.

Now is a perfect time to redesign your website!! Have you bought a new computer since you last updated your website? Have you bought a new vehicle in your fleet? Have you moved to a bigger office? Well..don’t leave your website behind. I meet a lot of business owners who use the godaddy site builder as their company website, or better yet something they made in frontpage. Web Developers never use frontpage. How can you brand yourself with godaddy’s logo right there on the bottom of your website? Who is going to take serious as a legitimate business if you have someone else’s logo on the bottom? When is the last time you updated your website? Did you just build it and leave it..5 years ago? Search engine spiders will ignore your website if they never find updated content. People tend to also do the same thing. Business that don’t take their websites serious often have a difficult time getting out of the mom and pop stage a.k.a. start up. You can pawn it off as non important or one of those things you will get to later. But the reality of the situation is that everyone looks at your website before doing business with you. What is your website saying about you? Is calling you an amateur, or saying your the best in this industry?

It has been four long months since I last wrote the last part in this 5 piece series. Incept design is committed to helping business owners make the most of their website. One of these ways we are honoring our commitment is through helpful series such as this one. We work at Incept Design to improve the reputation of our industry. I would also like to extend my appreciation to everone taking the time to read our blog. Incept Design’s blog is maintained personally by our founder and lead web developer Alex Adekola.

This will be well worth the wait as I take time to inform business owners on ways to improve their search engine rankings. One of the more important factors affecting your rankings with search engines that may be out of your control… Who is linking into your website, and with what anchor text. Anchor text are the words that are used to link to you. It has been pretty common for a while to anchor text such as “click here”. Ideal anchor text would include keywords that you are attempting to market your business for. Another important factor in search engine optimization is the rank of the site that is linking to your website. The higher the ranking of a website linking into you, the better for your site. I strongly caution business owners against participating in link schemes or link farms. These type of practices can diminish or negatively impact you rankings. If your interested in improving your websites rankings call Incept Design at 813-401-7395 for a free phone consultation. Look out for part 4.

All to often I hear horror stories from different people about how they got burned by a fly-by-night web company or a shady freelancer. It saddens me each time I hear these stories, so this is my advice to help you avoid a bad experience.

1. Demand to see a Business Tax Receipt (Sometimes referred to as an occupational license). Hillsborough    County requires all businesses to display a valid tax receipt per County Ordinance 95-4.

2. Get a contract signed by both parties describing work performed, and payment amount.

3. Make the check out to the business and not an individual person.

4. Don’t pay more than 50% of the total cost of your project up front.

5. Look for a portfolio with at least 15 different websites w/ legitimate business information.

6. Ask for references.

7. Ask for a client list.

This is a link to a great article. Any business owner that doesn’t have a website is losing money and jeopardizing their chances for long term growth and success.

http://www.smallfuel.com/blog/entry/marketing-essentials-part-3-having-a-website/

Peace of Mind Hosting – At Incept Design our managed hosting allow minor development and content updates to your site. With managed hosting comes with new technologies added to your site(s) as they become available. The latest upgrade to our manged hosting clients includes Google Map’s new API integrated into their website at no cost.

Keep your web designs current…Our managed hosting clients are eligible for a complete redesign for at a wholesale price after a year of service. Now your site can always be the best design in your industry as your competitors lag behind in functionality and design. High End Design…Mid Range Cost. You will always find someone to do it cheaper…But your level of design and functionality will be substantially lower rendering your site useless due to a high “Bounce Rate” from user frustration.

Drastically improve the look of your site by adding a Flash Gallery. Let Incept Design re-design your website and save 50% on your new Flash Gallery.

Top 10 Reasons why new business owners choose Incept Design over a larger design firms.

1. We act as a guide helping you understand the design process.

2. We allow our customers unlimited revisions.

3. We answer the phone after 5pm, and on the weekends.

4. We answer our email after 5pm, and on the weekends.

5. We never put you on hold, you always speak directly to web developers.

6. Your website is our website.

7. Everyday we are only 1 call away.

8. High Design with a Mid Range Cost.

9.We burn your website on a cd free of cost.

10.We don’t Re-Cycle Designs, but we offer a Green (Zero Carbon*) Website!

* A zero carbon website is a website that includes enough carbon credits to offset the carbon released during the process of creating the website.

Are you unsure about how to go about creating a great website most business owners are!

Most Professionals (consultants, coaches, trainers, writers, designers, financial and employment professionals, etc.) want a better web site – a web site that actually helps attract more clients. But they have no idea how to do this. They don’t know where to start, what to do and how to make their web site truly effective.

A great website will pull in business and in the process you will build a solid marketing communication foundation for your business that will generate revenue for years to come.

Where do you start? Here are some important elements of a successful web site:

Quality Content – Users quickly scan headings when they browse a website. They DO NOT read every word. Do you have your content broken up logically? Are you headings descriptive and captivating?

Functional Design – Potential customers form their first impression of your business based on your website. You need a design that looks better than your competitors! It also shouldn’t distract from the content or make navigation cumbersome. Don’t leave the design up to your cousin. How many customers can you afford to lose?

Navigation – Don’t make your users guess or think. They will quickly get annoyed and go to a competitors site. Clear, Easy, Intuitive navigation is key.

Call for Action – When people visit your site you want them to pick up the phone, fill out a form, send you an email, or buy something! In order to get them to do so you need a stylish, creditable, and informative site. Then you need to make a call to action.

Free Information – Offering complimentary information to potential clients at no charge is a great way to build a list of emails to use later when you begin your online marketing campaign. It can be a simple PDF related to your industry. But remember to keep the information relevant and useful. DO NOT make it another sales pitch!

Generate Traffic – Search engine optimization is a great way to build traffic. But it may not be cost effective for everyone. To make it more cost effective find your niche market! Don’t compete for rankings amongst broad keywords unless you have the marketing budget of Microsoft!

PART 2 of 5
In the last post I ended by saying there are some things you should never do to optimize a website. Let me clarify by saying optimize your website for the long run. There are two types of techniques used in the SEO world. White hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat SEO is the only kind of SEO we will discuss. Black hat SEO involves tricking search engines into ranking you higher. Eventually the search engine figures out your spam and then your site is banned from appearing. Most businesses are interested in the long term profitability, at least the successful ones are.

Optimization starts with content. You want to provide the content that people are actually looking for when they entered their search terms into a search engine. Relevancy is key and we always need to keep the searcher in mind. Once they land on your site the two main goals are impress them with the design, and provide the content they are looking for.

Attractive design is key element that is overlooked. Design includes functionality and hierarchy as well as an attractive color scheme, with depth, gradients, balance, and shadows. For more on design see this post on web redesign. People scan web pages a lot faster than print.

When thinking of content for your website think in terms of an outline:
Global Warming is affecting the Planet.

Polar Bears are Endangered.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made the announcement in Washington on Wednesday, saying the decision was based on findings that bears’ Arctic sea ice habitat has dramatically melted in recent decades.

Arctic Ice is melting ‘faster than predicted’.

The pace at which both the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet is melting has “severely accelerated” and could bring about rapid and unstoppable change in natural systems across the world.
Search engines can see which words are in a larger font. They also can tell if a word is in bold font. Words in a larger or bold font are considered more important. It is also important to make sure all content is relevant. Search engines compare your content and the words surrounding your content to other web pages with similar content. If there is consistency between your words an whats on the web it will help you some. To demonstrate what I mean look at our example. You can find content on the internet that talk about Polar Bears and Arctic Ice, or stories about Global Warming and Arctic Ice. Or Global Warming and Polar Bears, or Arctic Ice and Polar Bears. All your content should be somewhat interdependent.
SEO HOMEWORK FOR BUSINESS OWNERS.

1. Ask your clients what search terms they would use to find your service or product on the internet
2. Buy a domain name containing at least two of the most popular keywords.

Remember that the age of your domain is also considered by search engines so this will not immediately improve your search rankings. We are in this for the long term so this will eventually become less and less of a factor. In the next post I will be detailing more factors that affect your websites ranking.

PART 1 of 5

The buzz that everyone seems to be talking about is SEO. In other words Search Engine Optimization. What is SEO? SEO is the process of making a website the #1 result on Google for a certain search term. Why would you want your website at the number one spot? It’s a sure fire way to boost traffic to your website.

Is SEO for everyone? In my opinion Yes, but only if it’s cost effective.

It is also the final piece in a website.

If your cousin made your website when you first open up back in 2002, maybe you should consider a re-design first. And make sure that developer is creating a web site that is WC3 compliant, with NO Tables. Incept Design will be happy to check your website for you! Email your link to alex [at] inceptdesign.com.

After you site is aesthetically pleasing with nice gradients, shadows, and colors & the code is clean, you are now ready to take the next step.

Ready to decide if SEO is a good choice for your business.

Lets say you own a health SPA. Right now you are nowhere to be found on Google. Your in a back alley of the internet, tucked away.

Now say your average client spends $350.00 per visit.

If your website were in the top 5 results from Google for “Tampa Health Spa”, Chances are during the course of the month you will gain at least at least 2 clients per month due to the increased traffic to your website from people finding you on Google. And with that second client you can more than cover the cost of the SEO process. And any additional clients are increased revenue.

Some other things to consider. You will not jump from nowhere on the web to the first page of Google with a month. It will take anywhere from 2-6 months for the SEO process to begin increasing your rankings. Don’t spend an arm and a leg on SEO either. 95% of all “known” factors involved in Search Engine Optimization are available on the Internet and can be found by anyone who spends some time researching it. How the developer applies these known techniques is what greatly affects rankings.

The experts in this field do NOT agree 100% on which factors affect rankings or how much each factor affect rankings. Honestly the only entity that could know for certain would be Google and the individuals that write the actual search algorithm. And lastly anyone who promises you the #1 spot on Google in a week for any keyword is going to get your site banned from all the search engines. There are some things that you cannot do to search engine optimize your website.

To be continued….

Alex A