We have together articles related to your website and web presence including tips and tricks to improve your digital footprint. Including articles about website design, digital marketing and getting the best from your web hosting platform.
Welcome to the first video in this series on the topic of Local Search. In today’s video, I will describe the eight factors that SEO experts agree are the most important when optimising for organic local search. When ‘deciding’ which results to display, search engines receive ‘signals’ about your business from wherever your business is mentioned on the internet.
Are you on your second or third website, and still not happy?
You are not alone. It is estimated that most business have 3 – 4 websites before they are comfortable with their web presence. This is often because of a number of reasons, including
You go to many networking events, and collect lots of business cards. But what happens then? They sit on your desk in a pile and grow and grow.
Eventually you forget where you met the person, what they look like and value you could add to each other persons business. A few specific people stand out but the rest just gather dust on your desk. And that valuable networking dollar is wasted.
There is no doubt in today’s digital world that any community based organisation requires a website. A website is now much more than an online brochure giving the general public information about your organisation. Your website can build community 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your website can answer questions about who you are and what you do from people who are too afraid to ask. A silent teacher and educator.
Email marketing is a a very powerful marketing medium, but are you DOING IT RIGHT?
Email marketing works, particularly if you have an existing relationship with the members of your mailing list. They may be an existing client, a network connection, someone that you met socially that has passed on their business card, or even someone that sent a simple enquiry through your contact form on your website.
2015 is just about here. But are you ready for it. Or should we say. Is your website ready for it?
You should view your website as an organic process, growing and changing as your business grows and changes. As your business moves into the middle of the second decade of the century, embracing new technology and the needs of your target market is imperative and this should be represented through your website.
Including photos in your website content is considered good practice.
A good visual website design has a balance of photos and text. It is considered to be good practice to have a photograph of a person in your website content. This is supposed to build trust with the viewer, specifically if you can see their eyes.
Do you work with amazing clients - share their thoughts about you.
A video testimonial is often the missing link connecting your satisfied clients and your prospective clients people researching about your business.
With the advent of Web 2 the marketing direction has changed from you telling your clients how great you are to other people promoting your products and services through various online mediums.
A website is an organic process, growing and developing as your business grows and develops.
I have written a short story to illustrate this.
Once upon a time there was a small business owner called Mary. Mary had created a range of cookware products. She decided she needed a website, but as her business was only starting up she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted for a website.
If you have been in business for a while there is a strong possibility that your business has an existing web presence, even if you aren't aware of it.
You need to take ownership and leverage this web presence to increase your business's web profile.
Just Google your business name, and see what comes up. If you have a website, then hopefully it will come up first. But what else?
We have heard it all before. We are encouraged to blog, blog and blog some more. How easy is your blog to read?
But have you thought about the readability of your content. A simple tool to use to measure the readability of your content is available through Microsoft Word.
Your Domain is like the deeds to the land your house is built on.
All to often I get unhappy people coming to me for assistance with their website and they have no knowledge of where or with whom their domain is registered. Often it is registered under the account of the original web development company that created their initial website. Does a builder register the land under their own name.
NAP is defined as Name, Address, Phone. It is the most common way to represent a business citation online.
Today your business NAP is essential to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo for good local search rankings. Your name, address and phone number citations have great importance for building domain authority by search engines for local search; they want to ensure that these are valid because a lot of people rely upon quality search results.
All commerce or trade performed electronically/online is classed as ecommerce. Why not build this into your web design solution? It's easier than you think.
Using a Content Management Systems for your website design will allow you to easily edit your website, giving you ownership to manage your website content yourself.
But do all Website Content Management Systems really give you that ownership you require?
Joomla is an Open Source Content Management System (CMS) that allows for a solid foundation of a website that will grow with your business. Until you actually use a Joomla site that has been developed professionally, you can't really appreciate the advantages of using Joomla over Wordpress, or other CMS applications.
Being an Open Source project, Joomla is freely available to everyone, with perhaps the strongest Open Source CMS community.
