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.

Simply put, ‘blog’ means:

That’s right.  The BEST way to get a better listing on Google is to have a blog.  Now you might only need to post to that blog once or twice a month or maybe you are in a competitive market where you might need to post once a week or more.    The basic rule is: adding more unique and helpful content to your website on an ongoing basis is the BEST way to help the placement of your website in the search engines.

Today’s ‘Quick Tip’ is one that helps the search engine optimization of your website – Share Your Content – that’s right, you need to share your content not just on your website, but in your social circles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and on article sharing sites.  Each of these can build backlinks to your website and gives you opportunities for other blogs and websites to link to you by sharing your content on their website.

As you work on the search engine optimization of your website, remember that it doesn’t happen overnight – it takes time.   Yes, there are techniques that you can use (like video marketing) to speed the process up some, but having new and original content added to your site on a regular basis is the best method for long term success.

Video marketing is powerful and accelerates an audience getting to know, like, favor and trust you!

Here is a great site that you can check the local listing of your business in a number of major search engines and directories – GetListed.org – all you have to do is type in your business name and zip and it will give you quick results and links to fix any missing pieces and it’s free.  Check it out!

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

This post is a second in a series answering the question, “How Can My Business Rank Higher in the Search Engines“.

Today’s post is “5 Tips to Have a Great Website Foundation”.

As a quick review, there are three different aspects to help any business website rank better in the search engines:

1) Have a Good Foundation
2) Have a Site that is Updated Regularly with Original Content
3) Use Video to Help in SEO

Today, we are going to look at the first of these three items, the foundation of your website.

The foundation of your website is the actual code, the images, the stylesheets – each of the items that make up the physical website that when put together, make the website that you see when you type in your business website URL in a browser.

Before you decide that your website looks fine so everything must be good, you can take a look at these five different tips that will help you determine how well of a foundation you have on your business website.

#1 – You Have Done Keyword Research

There are a number of free tools out on the web – Google having one of the most prominent ones – where you can determine what phrases and keywords are being used in search queries in your local area.   This can help a business owner make sure that you have your content written toward those keywords.

#2 – Make Sure You Have Valid Code

What ‘having valid code’ means is that you have a developer who developed your website and that they have done all the proper techniques in coding your website in the best possible way.

You can check the code on your website by using this free tool – http://validator.w3c.org – type in your business URL and click on ‘Validate’ and it will tell you if there are any errors or not.   If you have a large number of errors, that is something that you will want to discuss with a web developer.

#3 – Use a Sitemap

You can view the Design850 site map – click here for the sitemap – this is the sitemap that I use and submit to Google on a regular basis.

From a business website, you want to make sure your website has a sitemap and that you submitted that sitemap to Google, especially as you add new content to your website.

#4 – Take Care of the Technical Stuff

This is a wide ranging set of items to consider and one of the best tools I have found on the web that can tell you how you are doing on taking care of technical stuff is Website Grader and you can view the free tool here – click here for Website Grader – and once here you can type in your business URL and it will tell around 20-30 different factors about your website and then assign your website a grade.

Design850.com Website Grader Score

The best part about this tool is not only is it free, but it will also give you some direction on how to improve your score.

#5 – Keep Your Website Updated Regularly

We will discuss this idea further in our next blog and video post.

We hope that you have enjoyed today’s video and blog post and encourage you to ask any questions by using the Quick Question form located on the sidebar area of this website.

Social Media + Local SEO + Mobile = Success!

A great little formula that I saw today – those local Tallahassee businesses that use this formula are the ones destined for success!

Best quote I’ve read about SEO for Tallahassee businesses in a while: “Ranking high on search engines is no longer optional, it’s critical!”