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.
This is one of the best acronyms I have seen as it relates to a small business and their website and having a blog.
Simply put, ‘blog’ means:
Listing
On
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!”
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)
I have been seeing a lot of Tallahassee small businesses begin to use video marketing as part of their marketing plan and that is a great thing to see. This video that I found yesterday on YouTube really drives home the point that if your business is not using video, you are going to start to fall behind in the search engines (if you haven’t already) and those businesses that do use video to market will start to gain more market share online.
Check out the video below and if you are a small business that needs help in understanding how video marketing can help your business, drop me an email or give me a call and let’s chat.
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)
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
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.
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
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:
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.
Here is a good search engine optimization tip for you to check out on your own Tallahassee business web site.
Type in the URL of your website as www.design850.com replacing the ‘design850′ with your web site URL. Your web site should load in the browser.
Now do the same thing only this time leave off the ‘www’ at the front and just type design850.com and replace the ‘design850′ with your web site URL. Again, your web site should load in the browser.
In the second example, you now want to check to see if your web server added the ‘www’ to your domain name. If not, you need to contact your web master or web host.
What you want to prevent from a search engine optimization point of view is having your domain search by Google (and other search engines) from viewing www.design850.com and design850.com as two separate domains/web sites. As you add more and more content to your site, you want to ensure that only ONE gets indexed and ranked by search engines.
This can be corrected on your server (or your web host) by performing what is known as a ’301 redirect’. This redirect is done by a single setting to tell any browser or search engine bot that is visiting your site that it should add the ‘www’ to the domain if it was not there when someone visited a link or typed in your domain.
Design850 can help correct this and other SEO basics on your web site to ensure that you are being ranked as high as possible in the search engines – give us a call at 850-445-2076.
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.
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Businesses: Trusteria.com is a package of digital networking tools to help your business survive good and bad times. With your subscription, your business will be able to take advantage of many features to market your business. Trusteria.com is low in cost but high in benefits. Benefits to the business include:
| • | Consumers and Shoppers can search for your business and read what other consumers have said about your products and services. You will have the ability to request testimonials from your past clients to market to prospective customers. This feature also allows your business to “reconnect” with past clients which may lead to further sales. |
| • | The ability to create a full profile including your logo, company information and a direct link to your website. |
| • | The ability to search resumes or post jobs to find the right employee. |
| • | A forum to post announcement about your business and the ability to offer online coupons to current and past clients. Businesses can also post articles about their business and/or industry to show prospective customers that they are experts in their field. |
| • | Another feature available to businesses that subscribe to Trusteria.com is free online coupons at TrusteriaCoupons.com. Businesses will be able to post online coupons for consumers to print and bring into their business to redeem. |
| • | You will be assigned a Web link like http://www.trusteria.com/salestouches. Just give this link to your customers and they will be directed to your profile to leave a comment. |
| • | You will also be assigned html code to place on your website so anyone who visits your website can leave a testimonial for you business. An example of this feature can be seen at Seminole Electrical’s website http://www.seminoleelectrical.com. |
Xippr free URL shortening service
In today’s world, websites create extremely long URL’s that you might want to send to a colleague or friend.
Of course, as may have happened to you, Outlook (and many other email programs) will cut off part of the
URL that will cause the URL to break when it is clicked on inside the email.
To solve this problem, I recommend using a site like Xippr.com that will provide a great service for you:
Xippr.com will take this:
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfToQDdpDumkAjWxXNy
oA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2NGhncHQwBGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQR
wb3MDMQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANGNjkyXzg2/SIG=117jf2
and change it to this:
http://xippr.com/f561d5
You can then easily add this short URL to your blog posts, Facebook status, Twitter update – anywhere to make the URL much easier to click, copy and paste.
For Xippr.com, I was able to complete some PHP programming work inside the administration area of the site to show the site admins how many URL’s have been shortened in the last week (broken down by day), a listing of the last URL’s that were shortened and much, much more.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about my website design studio and the services that I can provide for you.
I can provide your business with a new or updated look for your online presence, help your website rank better in the search engines, supply you with tools to help market your business online better, tracking visitors to your site and how that should influence your site.
Take a moment through our portfolio to see what we have done for our clients and keep checking back often, we get new clients every week!
