Tallahassee SEO and Website Design Company - Design850 » Business

Video Marketing – 3 Parts for Every Video

Design850 — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:34:23 +0000

This video by Design850 owner Mike Bunton will give you the 3 basic items every video that you use on the web should have. If you are uploading to YouTube, Facebook or some other video sharing platform, having these 3 parts on every video will ensure an effective marketing piece for your Tallahassee area business.

Every business should be using video to promote their business without exception. What will set your video apart from all the other videos that are out there on the web? Follow these three quick tips and apply them to all the videos you use and you should see a difference. Making sure your videos are branded by having an opening/welcome screen, a lower third showing your name, business name and contact information (like a phone number or website URL) and closing with an extended screen having a specific call to action will help maximize each of the videos that you are using to market your business online.

If you are a Tallahassee area business and need assistance in marketing your business on the web – from web site design to email marketing to lead capture to video marketing to search engine optimization – Design850 invites you to drop us a quick email or give us a call and we can chat about how we can help your business market more effectively online.

Website Updates and SEO – Quick Read

Design850 — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:52:38 +0000

The more keyword-rich content you generate, the more search engines will find (and love) you.

Groupon, Living Social and Social Coupons – Things to Consider for Local Businesses

Design850 — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:38:15 +0000

There’s a lot of buzz around companies like Groupon and Living Social both here in Tallahassee and all over the country. I use both of these services and have found them to be of value for me personally.

I was reading this post – the 5 Things to Consider Before You Test Social Coupons – and found some of them very helpful for local businesses (both here in Tallahassee and all across the U.S.) to make sure that you have fully thought out the implications of using one of these services BEFORE you actually jump on the bandwagon. These coupon services are not for all businesses and I believe that business owners should talk with their online internet marketing consultant before committing to using a service like Groupon or Living Social.

Here is another post written by a local marketing company on the Tallahassee Grapevine and it talks about using these coupon services and why they consider it bad for some businesses and local economies.

The purpose in this post is to make sure that all local business owners understand how these services work, think about all the negatives that COULD happen, what does your business want to get out using this services and then talk with someone knowledgeable before moving into the social coupon arena.

Again, I love these services. I have been introduced to businesses here in Tallahassee that I wasn’t aware existed before I got their Groupon or Living Social deal, I have re-visited businesses that I hadn’t been to in a long time and their deal got me back in the door and yes, there are just ones that I have skipped over – but generally I think these social coupon services work for certain businesses.

The 3 Factors That Affect the Search Engine Placement of Small Business Websites

Design850 — Fri, 20 May 2011 07:01:51 +0000

Today, I wanted to talk to you about one of the most common questions that I get asked and that question simply is, Mike, “How Can I Get My Business Website Found in the Search Engines?” or “How Can I Make the Placement of Website Better in the Search Engines?”.

So, I wanted to take a few moments to answer that question today as one of the common questions that I get and here is the answer!

First, you must have a good foundation with your website.

What that means is the actual coding, the structure, the images – all the different parts that make up the actual website itself, need to all be done correctly. If you don’t have good page titles, page names, if you’re images aren’t named correctly, or your content isn’t tagged correctly, the foundation of that website isn’t going to lend itself to make it easy for Google to find your website and index the content on the website.

Second, you need to have good content posted to the website on a regular basis.

What site owners should be looking for is that when Google sends it little computers to come visit your website and finds 10 pages of content on your website, the next time it comes back and visits your website, we want there to be new pages of content that it can index.

The reason is that Google will always give presidence to those websites that have and are continuing to post new and unique content to their website over the long term.

Having good content posted to your website on a regular basis is an important factor in search engine optimization.

Third, use video to help market your business and market your website.

One of the great things about video is that it can greatly enhance the search engine placement of your main business website. Using video properly can greatly effect how search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, can go in an index the content and bring up the power of your website in the search engines.

Today, we talked about a commonly asked question with a straighforward and simple answer.

How Can I Improve the Ranking of My Website in the Search Engines?
1) Have a Good Foundation
2) Have Good Content Posted to Your Website on a Regular Basis
3) Have Video Help the Placement of Your Website in the Search Engines

Stay tuned for our next three blog posts where we will share more in depth information about each of these three key parts to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

10 Red Flags of Web Design

Design850 — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:59:22 +0000

As I was reading through my set of blogs that I visit on a regular basis and this post caught my attention because it talked about some common mistakes that business websites make and I thought it was just too good to not share with my current or potential clients here in Tallahassee.

As you read through these 10 Red Flags of Web Design, see if your business website fails one or more of these and my specific thoughts are in read after each in the list:

1. Clever site names (clever and cute does NOT translate into more business because you will confuse your potential clients)

2. Cluttered, busy layouts (simply designed sites that have lots of white space and are easy to read are the best)

3. Navigation Problems (navigation should be in the same place on every page and it should be obvious on how to find all the content on your site)

4. Boring web design (be interesting, use photos on as many pages as is possible, but make them count)

5. Pop-up ads (DONT DO IT!)

6. Slow load times (around 5-7 seconds or your visitors will leave)

7. Small fonts (larger fonts are becoming a ‘must’)

8. Too much text (use images and video to break large sections of text – use paragraphs with headers appropriately as well)

9. Corporate Look and Feel (you can show your personality, it’s okay and it helps your clients get to know you before they buy)

10. Poor search functions (people need to find the content they are looking for on your site or be able to search for it easily)

Original Source – 10 Red Flags of Web Design

Common Mistakes Found On Business Websites

Design850 — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:14:56 +0000

A business, whether owned by an individual or an organization, needs to show professionalism and mastery on its website. The site needs to be enticing, welcoming, appealing to visitors and devoid of any technical issue. But unfortunately, many business sites I’ve been to lack one or more of these elements that make customers and prospective ones feel much at home.

The common mistakes

Strange domain name – Increasing number of business websites use strange domain names that do not reflect their businesses in any way. I’ve see some that use hyphens, just because they want to include their target keywords in their domain names. Others choose very long domain names that include their most important keywords. All these cause confusion to customers and visitors. A business domain name has to be short, contains no hyphen and reflects the brand of the company. A short name that reflects a brand helps everyone to easily remember the website’s address. So, always go for memorable names!
Bad color combination - I strain my eyes on some websites to read text, because of the bad color combinations used. Some use very faint colors for text, while others blur the text with background colors or images. It is important that a business site choose a good color combination that blends effortlessly with the entire theme. Probably the best tip I have learned about color combinations – have your text appear on a white or very like background – there is a reason books aren’t printed with white text on black pages – think about it!
Auto-playing music – Nothing annoys me more than visiting a business site and being surprised by an auto-playing music. Some of these businesses use it as a marketing technique, but its actual effect on visitors is negative. I believe a business website should not set any marketing audio to automatically play on page load. Use proper business ethics and give visitors a choice to turn the audio on if they like to hear it.
Contact Information - Prospective customers and existing ones deserve the right to know where the business they’re dealing with is located. But unfortunately, many business websites don’t include physical addresses on their sites. Some even lack telephone numbers where customers can reach them in real-time. These issues cause lack of trust and confidence.
Web page loading issues – Some business websites take forever to load. This is most commonly caused by server overload, badly-coded scripts that make dumb SQL queries and those that make heavy use of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), such as Flash and SilverLight. Studies have shown that Internet users have very short attention span, and want to do whatever they come for as quickly as possible. If a site doesn’t load within a few seconds, they will go off to a competitor’s site. To help keep visitors on your business site and reduce the bounce rate, get a server or hosting that guarantees faster loading of web pages. Also make sure your web-based software is developed very well with good database architecture. Moreover, avoid heavy use of RIAs, as they tend to largely slow down loading time. Flash and SilverLight are sparingly used to spice up web pages, but it is wrong for web pages to heavily depend on them.
A Long Story about the business - I’ve noticed on so many Chinese and some other business websites that they spend too much unnecessary time and space talking about how many acres of land their factories cover and how many employees they have. A visitor is not interested in knowing these facts. Go straight to the point and let visitors know about your products and/or services and their benefits of buying them.

As a business owner, I know you will take the above-mentioned precautions seriously and not want to make the same common mistakes that drive visitors away from sites.

Tallahassee – Social Media Revolution

Design850 — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:01:28 +0000

This video is a follow up video that was circulating on the web about a year ago. It includes many new statistics and thoughts for those who still consider social media a ‘fad’.

As a recognized leader in social media marketing in Tallahassee, Design850 is poised to help take your business to the next level online. Using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others, Design850 can show you how being social is not just a fad, but a necessity in today’s business world.

Give us a call to let us show you the ins and outs of the major social media platforms and how each not only helps your brand, but helps you position your site more effectively in the search engines using proper SEO techniques.

If you are on Facebook or Twitter, please join Design850 on those platforms:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/design850

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dadofgage

Facebook Fan Page vs. Group Page: Which do you Choose?

Design850 — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:37:48 +0000

As more and more business owners make the leap into the social media world, Tallahassee business owners should understand the difference between Facebook ‘Fan Page’s and Facebook ‘Group Pages’ to ensure they make the right decision for their business.

Let’s look at some of the top reasons why Tallahassee businesses would want to use a ‘FAN’ page on Facebook:

unlimited membership – profiles or groups are capped at 5000
administrators appear as the business when posting – so you can have multiple admins and they can all be posting as the business
indexed by external search engines (Google, etc.) – one of my favorites!
can host applications – once you get the basics of Facebook, having a more interactive fan page is a must and the ability to host applications is important
enables analytics and tracking – you get detailed statistics on who ‘LIKE’s your business, the age and sex demographics, etc.
resembles a regular profile page – and function like profile pages too!

Now let’s look at some of the reasons why businesses might choose a ‘GROUP’ page on Facebook:

Have more control over who joins by setting for member approval.
Can be ‘private’ thus creating a more ‘secure’ environment for sharing.

Now obviously, the choice for Tallahassee businesses is Facebook fan pages.

The BIGGEST reason to choose a fan page is that the updates you make to your business fan page appear in the news stream of your fans so they can instantly react and INTERACT with you and your business!

While both Fan and Group pages can be beneficial in certain instances, overall the Fan Page is far superior to the Group Page when it comes to maximizing a brand’s Facebook presence.

Review Your Web Site

Design850 — Sun, 02 May 2010 03:44:38 +0000

For all of you that have business web sites here in Tallahassee, here are a few techniques that you can do on your web site to ensure that it is functioning normally. I would recommend that you (or your webmaster) complete this kind of review at minimum once every 90 days – maybe less depending on the site.

Links – check your links to ensure that they are still live. This would refer to both links that point to other pages within your web site and then also links that point to pages that are not on your web site. Hopefully your internal links will not be an issue, but linking to external sites could be problematic because other web sites might change their site structure periodically and your links might need to be updated.

Mobile Phones – since just about everyone has a mobile phone, you should be checking your site on a regular basis on multiple mobile phones to ensure that your site is visible and functions properly in the mobile environment.

Analytics – this should be done at least every 30 days. You should always be looking at analytics so you know where your site visitors are coming from and how they are finding you. I know that approximately 40% of traffic to design850.com and I can see how that is changing every month (or week in my case). I also can know what other sites are driving the most traffic to my site.

Newsletters/Forms – you should be testing your forms on a regular basis to ensure that the emails are getting through to you and to also know what the end user receives if they sign up for your newsletter or send a request through your contact form.

Images – the last item that you should check on a regular basis is that the images that you have on your site all load correctly. This is especially true if you have any sort of online store where the images are a necessary part of your ability to conduct business.