Special Features on Websites

Okay, you've built a company website. You've researched and optimized your keywords (and put them in the right place). You've added images and have optimized those images and optimized your keywords within those images. What else?

Most high quality websites will have all of the above but will also have some special features. For example: if your company sells products then maybe you should have an e-commerce solution. Or maybe if you run a singles ministry at church, you may want an event calendar that shows all of the events that are planned for the month. That's just two  of a myriad of special features you can add to your website that will make it unique and interesting.

Contact forms are a great idea for a website. RSVP forms have their place too! Making your company website interactive is a great way to get your potential customers involved. If you own a restaurant then you could have reservation system in place so your customers can reserve a day and time for dinner. News sites could have an RSS feed that would bring in constant new content with breaking news. People could sign up for news alerts to be sent directly to their cell phone.

I have lots of customers with an email client installed onto their website. From this extension, the business owner can design (or I can design them for them) and send out email blasts to their customer base with new offers and news about whats going on. If designed correctly, they can send these emails out free of charge. This will be a huge savings going forward for these particular business owners. The pricing of email marketing has been getting very expensive. This is where having a way to send your own emails can really pay off. And you can launch these emails directly from your website!

An art gallery (or an artist themselves) can create a feature rich art gallery right on their own website. You can show off all of your newest art. You can combine a gallery with an e-commerce extension and show and sell your artwork right from your own website.

Special features on websites create excitement, function and interaction. Websites have come a long way from the original sites that just provided content. People want to get involved. Does your site create that option? This is just one way to upgrade your website.

Nuff said for now, eh?


Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://lmswebsiteservices.com

Adding Images To Your Website

Okay, you have a new company website and you have researched your keywords that are relevant to your industry. You have populated your website with the relevant keywords and optimized your keyword density. Good start. Now what's next?

Pictures. No website will look appealing and draw customers interest unless you have some visual beauty on your website. Pictures will draw interest. Pictures will also show what your business is all about. In the early days of the Internet, pretty much every site was just a collection of text and content. Websites were very informational and were not very visually appealing. Now most websites will have pictures, videos, downloads, interactive content and more!

Visually appealing websites are a must these days. For the consumer and for Google. Now you will have to optimize your image content. Page speed is a big consideration with Google so you must optimize your images for faster load time. You will also need to optimize keywords in your image alternate text as Google will consider this also.

Adding images and video to your website is good but must also be aesthetically and strategically placed. Good design is important. You will need to keep these considerations in mind along with keeping your website clean, simple and easy to read. The consumer doesn't want to have to spend a lot of time trying to navigate your site. Remember, when it comes to a well constructed website, the consumer must be considered and Google also when designing your website.

In website design, the consumer looks for a visually appealing website, ease of use and content that is relevant to their search. Google on the other hand looks for relevant content, page speed, optimized images and video, fresh and new content, relevant back links and lots more......

If you thought building a company website was as easy as going to one of the many free or low cost website builders online then you were mistaken. As you can see, there are many many considerations to consider when building a high quality website. Building a website is critical for your companies success so you should build it right.

This is the third installment in this series on building a high quality website and dealing with consumer interactions and Internet marketing.



Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://www.lmswebsiteservices.com

What's next?

Okay, so you have a website for your new company. Now what?

This is the second article in my new series on a new company's online presence and continued interaction with consumers and potential clients on Internet related services.

Having a website is a great start but where do you go from there? You need to get yourself found on the Internet. Google wants all of it's search results to be relevant to the searcher. People search for all kinds of things on the Internet and Google wants to be your preferred search engine. So it is important to Google to present relevant results when people search for things.

So Google has provided certain information to webmasters to insure that rules are followed thus insuring quality search results for their customers. Having a website is not enough. You need to be aware of what Google wants so that you can optimize your site to conform to those wants.

One important thing to remember is Google wants high quality fresh content on websites. If you are providing fresh content on your website, Google's search bots will find this when they crawl your site and rank you accordingly. This is one of the myriads of ranking factors involved when ranking your site albeit an important one. Probably the most important ranking factor!

So having unique, new and quality content is very important to where you will show up in search results (of course this also takes the most work).

Also, when writing your unique and high quality content it would be wise to know which keywords are important (and words you would like to rank for) and populate your content with these words. Google will add importance and relevancy to any content that provides a higher keyword density score (You can overdo this so be careful. Too high of a keyword density score and Google will assume you are trying to game the system and will penalize your site and thus your rankings!).

To sum up: New high quality content, keyword rich content and ever changing content is an important factor in whether you will show up in search results! This cannot be understated.

More to come......


Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://lmswebsiteservices.com

Is Having a Website Enough?

When you start a new business, you will need a website. A company website will accomplish much. It provides legitimacy and vital information about your company. I'm always astounded when potential clients say that they don't need a company website. Everybody, and I mean everybody, goes on the Internet to find anything and everything these days. If you're not there then you're missing out!

So, is a website enough? Just build it and they will come? Well, not likely. You will need a website that can be "Found on the Internet"!

Do you know what it takes to rank higher in Google's search rankings? What about optimizing meta tags, description tags, title tags? What about the importance of site speed? Do you even know how to test for site speed? Is your site mobile ready? What about citations? Do you have any?

These are all very important facets of your online presence. Having a website is extremely important. What you do with it is just as important. Are you using your website to bring in new business? How about leveraging your Facebook page with the home page of your company website. Are you adding fresh new content to your website?

So many things to know. So many things to do. Just keeping up with all of Google's new algorithms can be a full time job.

Having a company website is a great start. But after all, it is just a start.......

This is the start of a new series of articles that I am writing about companies online presence and continued interaction with consumers and potential clients on Internet related services.

More to come!

Nuff said for now......

Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://www.lmswebsiteservices.com

Are Domain Names For Individual Cities a Good Idea?

Being found in local search results is a great thing if you are trying to increase your business in your area and surrounding cities. Google gives you a leg up being found in the city where your business is physically located. But how about the cities surrounding your local city that you also service?

Most business's that I handle always want to be found in the cities surrounding their home city. How can this be accomplished?

Probably the best way to be found locally (but outside of your home area) is to create landing pages that are optimized for each individual city that you would like to rank for. What are landing pages? They are pages of your website that people will "land on" when doing a search for the services you provide. For example: let's say I need to rent a dumpster and I live in Holly, MI. I would go to the Internet and enter in search something like this- dumpster rental company, Holly MI. Google will then compile results based on my search criteria and present them in a well ordered fashion, starting with the most relevant (based on their own algorithms). How does Google decide which websites to show and how high in the search results? Well that's a totally different subject but suffice it to say, they have lots and lots of algorithms that compile results based on their own search criteria and what they deem as relevant. Some of them they will let us know while others are kept a state secret. So we use our best "guess" in those cases but based upon current knowledge of how Google works we can usually come up with a strategy that works within Google's framework and get websites to the top of the rankings.

But this blog today is not about the importance of landing pages but about putting the specific city name in a domain name. What do we mean by that? Well let's say we own Billy Joe Bob's Plumbing LLC and we reside in Milford, Michigan. Google will impute to us a high ranking for anybody searching for a plumbing company in Milford, Michigan. However, in Brighton, Michigan not so much. So how do we get found in Brighton, Michigan?

Landing pages is one way. Another way is to put the city name in your domain name. I have found that Google will give you more page rank if the city is in the domain name. So, using our example from above, if Billy Joe Bob wants to be found in Brighton, he can purchase something like this: Brightonplumbingcompany.com. Having the individual city name in your domain name will increase your relevance for any search using that city. Now remember, content is still king in the world of search results so whereas you will get a boost from having "Brighton" in your domain name, the content on your webpage is still the most important factor.

Think of your individual search results as an accumulation of a bunch of different factors. The main factor is probably page content. Factors such as: page content, keyword density, using specific keywords in general and which ones to optimize, meta tags, title tags, header tags, meta description etc. There are many factors which determine your page rank. Down the list of important factors is having a city name in your domain name. Now, if you have a city in your actual company name then that will be a great factor in your ranking in your home city. Google gives great importance to a company that has a city or state name in it's actual company name. Something like: Michigan Plumbing Company. Every time someone searches for "plumbing company Brighton MI", Michigan Plumbing Company will get some consideration because it has Michigan in it's name and the searcher put "MI" in it's search criteria.

So, is putting "Brighton" in your domain name a good idea? Well, in general I would say, it depends. You will get a boost from having Brighton in your domain name but it depends on how you use it. Remember, content is king and a keyword in a domain name is just one factor (and not the most important factor) in Google's ranking system. If you purchase a domain name with Brighton in the name then the best way to optimize this strategy is to have a one page site that you will land on when people search for a plumbing company in Brighton. That way you can optimize the content with the domain name. Then link your one page optimized city site to your main company website. Google's search bots will follow and index the links between the two web pages and the main webpage content will impute into the one page optimized city site.

This is one strategy that should be part of a bigger overall optimization plan that works in harmony to get the most from your SEO. Another way to link the two domains together is to redirect one domain to the other. This is not as good as having a one page site optimized for a certain city and linking it back to your main domain name but it will still show a path to Google that the cites are linked. How do you do this? First, you purchase the domain with the city in it (Brightonplumbing.com) then you redirect it to your main domain name (Billyjoebobsplumbing.com). Now you have two domain names for your company but really only one website to represent it. While not having a one page website attached to that second domain name (which is the best way) you will still get a boost from any search that includes "Brighton" in it's search criteria.

So, to sum up, having a city name in your domain name works great if you are physically located in that city. If not, it still will give you some SEO juice but works best if used in tandem with a one page city optimized webpage. Remember, with there being a myriad of factors involved with a website's page rank, the best strategy to use will include using all methods together to create a well balanced strategy that will get you found on the Internet. One factor alone will not suffice to get your found.

Nuff said for now, eh?



Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://www.lmswebsiteservices.com

Do You Have a Backup of Your Website?

Backups. Do you have a backup of your website? Backups are important ! If anything was to happen to your website then you would have a way to restore your website to it's original form.

So many things can happen to your website. Your host company's server could crash. A hacker could break into your site and install malicious code and you would have no idea. Or they could crash your site. If a hacker wants to break into your site, there really isn't much you can do about it. You could have all the security measures in the world for your website but if a determined hacker wants to get into your site, they will.


If something bad were to happen, what would you do? If you have a backup (located off site from where your website is hosted) then you can just upload all of your website files and overwrite the existing site. This will normally take care of the problem and should restore your site to it's original look. But it's important that you keep an updated copy of your site on your local computer and not on the same server that your main website is on.

Backup early and often. You want to make sure that if you were to lose your website that the backup copy is the most updated form of your website. Otherwise you will be reinstating your site to an outdated version. So make sure your backup is a replica of the most updated version.

Are you backed up (you know what I mean)?

Nuff said......



Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://www.lmswebsiteservices.com

Some SEO Stuff (Keywords).....

Understanding keywords and keyword search.....

Being found high up on Google search can be easy or extremely hard. It depends on so many things. Today we will focus on keywords, keyword phrases and search terms.

For example: let's say we own a plumbing company. So we do a keyword search to find the most searched for terms in the plumbing industry. Keywords and keyword phrases such as plumbing, plumber, home plumber, plumbing repair, toilet installation, drain cleaning and so on....(anything somebody may use as a search term when they do a Google search).

As we look for the most searched terms we can then know which keywords and keyword phrases that we should populate our website with. If there are 96,000 searches a month for the keyword phrase "home plumber" and only 1,200 searches a month for the keyword "plumber that will come to my home" then of course we want to use the keyword phrase "home plumber" over and over again in our content. Here is where I will mention keyword density. Keyword density is basically how often a keyword appears in the content text of your website compared to how many overall words are there. If you have 100 words or phrases on your website and the keyword "plumbing" shows up 10 times then your keyword density is 10%. The more your target keyword shows up in your text the more relevant Google finds your website for that particular keyword. So if someone searches for a home plumber and you have "home plumber" listed numerous times on the home page of your website then Google says "Hey, this site is really about home plumbers" and they rank you higher for that search term and display your website higher in the search results. 

You must understand that "home plumber" is not the same keyword as "home" or "plumber". If someone searches for "plumber" then your site will register because you have that search term but Google's algorithms knows that your main keyword is really "home plumber" and not plumber so you will get less SEO juice. You will still get some but not as much as someone searching for "home plumber". Google knows what you are trying to get across and will index you accordingly.  You may appear on the first page of Google search results for someone searching for "home plumber" but on page three for "plumber".

So if you want to rank for "plumber" and for "home plumber" then you need to optimize both terms and increase your keyword density in your content for both.

Now here's where you can't get greedy. Let's say after doing a keyword search you find all of the keywords and keyword phrases that most people will use to find your company. Then you cram your website with keyword phrase after keyword phrase. You go for the world record of keywords jammed into one home page. You think that will ensure you are found number one on every Google search. Well, not so fast.

Google is not stupid. They know when someone is trying to job the system. If they perceive that your website content doesn't read naturally, that it has so many keywords and keyword phrases in it that it is an obvious attempt at ranking high in search then Google will penalize your site and your website will plummet in the rankings. So there is a balancing act between having enough keywords dispersed throughout your site and having it read naturally.

So, you need to find the correct keywords and keyword phrases to populate your site with. Then you need to have them in the text of your site and have them appear often and appear in a natural way.

Now, you may do everything right and still find yourself on the 2nd page of Google search results and you wonder why. There are many many reasons for this. Let's name a few here:
1. Other companies in your profession also have a webmaster who knows these things and they have optimized their site too.
2. Other sites may have more quality back links than you do (other websites that link to their site).
3. Other sites may have a longer track record with Google and thus has Google's trust and thus will almost always show higher up in search results (this can be combated)
4. You may be located in a city with lots and lots of competition. They all are trying to be number one on Google (and everybody can't be number one!)
5. You may be in a city with no competition and therefore easily rank number one because nobody else is in your area (landing pages can work really well here to get a site ranked high in a certain geographical area where there is little competition)

Lastly, I would like to touch on keywords that have low search volume. Normally you would like to rank for the most often searched for keyword or keyword phrase. If your website ranks well for a large volume search term then you have a great chance of showing up more often in people's searches. But keep in mind, the higher the search term volume, the higher the competition. If you choose to rank for a low volume search term then maybe you will always show up high in the rankings for that particular keyword. Since it is a low volume search term, very few will optimize that keyword or keyword phrase. If you are the only one that optimizes that low volume keyword then you will always show for that keyword or keyword phrase because Google finds your website relevant for that low volume keyword and doesn't find other sites relevant at all. Not many searches but no competition either.

Nuff said for now, eh?

Jeffrey Dean
LMS Website Services
http://www.lmswebsiteservices.com