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.

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)

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]]> http://www.design850.com/2011/05/the-3-factors-that-affect-the-search-engine-placement-of-small-business-websites/feed/ 1 http://www.design850.com/2011/05/10-red-flags-of-web-design/ http://www.design850.com/2011/05/10-red-flags-of-web-design/#comments Thu, 19 May 2011 00:59:22 +0000 Design850 http://www.design850.com/?p=163 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

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]]> http://www.design850.com/2011/05/10-red-flags-of-web-design/feed/ 0 http://www.design850.com/2011/02/common-mistakes-found-on-business-websites/ http://www.design850.com/2011/02/common-mistakes-found-on-business-websites/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:14:56 +0000 Design850 http://www.design850.com/?p=156 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.

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