Tips for Web Designers From an Internet Marketer’s Perspective

Regardless of if you work at a full-service web company or as a freelance web designer, you will eventually have to work with internet marketers.  Being that I work as an internet marketer at a web agency, I have daily interaction with designers, programmers, IT/support, and other marketers.  One thing I have noticed is that there is not a good connection across departments.  No matter if you are creating a new site, doing a redesign, or simply adding a page, it is important to have good internal communication.

Specifically between the designer and the marketer, there needs to be a strong understanding.  The designer needs to focus on creating a site that is visually pleasing, while the marketer needs to give a clear understanding of the site goals.  This will make it easier for the designer to create a site that accomplishes the overall client objectives and engages visitors.

Work Together From The Beginning

There is a myth that the marketing of a website doesn’t take place until after the site has been built.  This is absolutely untrue.  If you are working with an Internet Marketer/SEO it is important to work together from the beginning to formulate a strategy that will be inline with the clients goals.  You can save yourself time and the client money, if everyone is on the same page.

Regardless of the client goals there are a number of things to discuss:

• Site & Content Architecture
• Determine to use Static or Dynamic Title/Meta Description Tags
• Determine Static Pages or CMS
• What Content the Client Can Control
• Use a Well Thought-out Navigation
• Discuss the Target Audience, Demographics, and Geographic Location

There are also some SEO best practices that the designer should be aware of:

• Use Keyword-rich Anchor Text
• Use Keyword-rich File Naming Conventions for Images
• Using H Tags and Alt Attributes on Images
• Call To Actions are Being Used
• Consistent Content Layout
• Keyword-rich URL structure (URL re-writer may need to be integrated)
• Use Good Internal Linking Throughout the Site
• Contact Form Integration (tracked in Analytics)
• Contact Information Easy To Find
• Using External CSS and js Files for Fast Load Time
• Use Flash Elements not the Entire Site
• Design a Site for Optimal Screen Resolution 

I do want to stress that Google recently has placed a lot of emphasis on your site/page load time.  Google announced a few years ago that it would use load time as a factor in quality score for PPC ads.  Now it has transferred over into how Google rank sites organically.  Keep this in mind when designing your site.  Try to minimize server calls, image sizes, css/js files, and unnecessary code to reduce load time.  Use Google Webmaster Tools , YSlow for Firebug  or Pingdom  to help you with speeding up your site.

Content Development Strategy

It is important that when organizing the content structure that it is built for scalability.  It may be that the client will want to add a new product or service down the road, if the site is built properly it will be easy to add the additional pages.

Also, during the initial keyword research and analysis the marketing team should be gathering insights into what people are searching.  This can help with creating the navigation and site structure because it can help identify different segments in the market.  Keep in mind that every page has a chance to rank in the search engines, not just the homepage.  With that in mind, SEO’s are always looking for relevant pages that can be added to the site, so it can be optimized for a specific theme.

This is a good example of showing different search “themes” or “segments” that warrants its own page.

For news or blogs that consistently create new content, it is essential to make as easy as possible for users to be able to share the content via social sites.  Add social media icons for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.  Also make it easy for a user to sign up for their feed via RSS.

Being Able to Track Conversions

One thing to know about Internet Marketers is that we like to track everything.  This is what helps us make data driven decisions on our marketing efforts. In order to properly track visitor and conversion data we need to make sure we have a few things setup properly in the back end.

For example, in Google Analytics we will want to make sure we add the GA script to the footer of every page on the site. Once that is completed you will want to take it a step further and setup conversion goals for the site.  If you are working with an SEO, they should have determined the sites goals.  However in order to setup the goals properly you need unique urls.

This can be accomplished with a number of ways.

• Creating a unique thank you page that the user gets directed to once a contact form is submitted (ex: domain.com/thank-you.html)
• If the form submits to itself you will have to create a virtual pageview , by modifying the analytics code slightly.  Whatever you decide to name it, that is what will have to be entered (example below).

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-youraccountcode-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview(/virtualurl);
</script>

• If you would like to track javascript events , downloads, a video interaction or any other event learn more about how you can modify links to append tracking.  (watch a video created by Google  that talks more about event tracking and virtual pageviews)
• If you are working with an ecommerce system be sure to turn on the ecommerce functionality in the setup of Google Analytics.  This will pull in purchase and revenue data.

Look out for Blackhat SEO & Duplicate Content Issues

Some web designers and developers will intentionally or unintentionally trick the search engines  into placing a website higher in the search rankings. This can include hidden text, hidden links, sneaky redirects, keyword stuffing and link farming.  The marketing team you are working with should make you aware of any potential issues that currently exist with the site and anything that could penalize a sites rankings.

Probably the most common issues for duplicate content are on shopping sites where the same  products content can be found on a unique product page, a category page, and even the homepage.  If there are multiple options for a product (ex: color, size) there can be multiple urls for the same product.  If you site has hundreds or thousands of products, this can create tons of duplicate content.

To resolve this issue you can use a canonical tag  that will allow you to tell the engines which url is the main url.

Example:

Main URL:  http://www.example.com/page.html

Duplicate URL: http://www.example.com/page.html?sid=asdf314159265

Add to the HEAD: <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://example.com/page.html”/> to specify which URL is the main url that you want the search engines to keep in their index.

You can also use what is called page sculpting , where you allow search engine spiders to only crawl certain pages on your site.  Using the NoFollow, NoIndex tag  will tell the search engines not to crawl and index.

Landing Page Optimization

It’s important that if part of the marketing strategy is driving visitors to a targeted landing page via PPC, Banner Ads, or Paid Placement that there are dedicated pages designed to convert.  There are landing page elements that should be used in order to stimulate users to take action.

Here are some tips to think about when designing a landing page.

• Limit the Number of User Options
• Build Credibility (Testimonials, Reviews, Company Awards, etc…)
• Unique Content
• Test Page Elements (Buttons, Messaging, Images, Offers)
• Be Concise

I don’t believe a web designer needs to know the ins and outs of internet marketing and SEO, however these best practices will help produce a better product, gain better rankings, and convert more users.  It can also make the designers life easier and allows the marketer to focus on driving traffic.https://www.facebook.com/alok1984

3 Resources To Help Manage Your New WordPress Site

So, you’ve been handed the keys to your shiny new WordPress website. It has the bells, the whistles and all manner of web 2.0 niceties about it. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy to look at, and you just know the customers are about to start rolling in. However, you’ve decided that the “Contact Us” page should have your street address added to it…https://www.facebook.com/alok1984

Somebody has given you a username and password. You go to the URL they’ve provided and log in… but what now? What’s a post? What’s a page? What’s a category? What are these plug-ins you speak of? A widget, you say?

You do your best to Google for useful tutorials. The results are all highly technical and mainly related to installing and coding for WordPress… but you’ve just paid a red hot development team to do all that hard work for you. You pull your hair out in frustration and determine the website update belongs in your “Will do one day” file.

Below is a short collection of the most useful online tutorials for managing and editing content and media through your WordPress administrative interface. Keep in mind, the level of access you have to your site may mean you have different options available in the WordPress admin area, but a chat with your development team may clarify why some items aren’t there.

WordPress Quick Start Guide

Resource: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Quick_Start_Guide

Sourcing instruction from the equine’s oral orifice here. The Codex is a repository for all things technical and abstract about WordPress installations. The Quick Start Guide (linked above) is a useful place to commence your readings. You can delve further into the bowels of the system’s functionality including obtaining access to an array of plug-ins that allow you to accomplish all manner of things from contact forms to event management.

The information here can become a little overwhelming, though, so feel free to explore the more simplified and goal-oriented instructional sites below.

Simple WP Guide

Resource: http://www.simplewpguide.com

Aimed at providing direct instruction for the simple tasks you wish to accomplish on your site. Updating and creating posts and pages. It’s laid out in simple English and good imagery to support you. It talks you through what each button does in the WYSIWYG editor. It also gives you some basic advice on how to write for the web, including consideration of some SEO techniques… something we can all use a hand with.

Lynda.com WordPress Training Tutorials

Resource: http://www.lynda.com/WordPress-training-tutorials/330-0.html

Lastly, but by no means least, are the venerable video tutorials provided by Lynda. The video tutorials are comprehensive and you can undertake them at your own pace. You are required to subscribe to the network to view most of the tutorials, but at US$25/month, it’s affordable, informative and has no long-term lock-in contracts to worry about. So, it’s not so much an expense as it is an investment in your education.

The above links are a step in the right direction in terms of using your WordPress site. Spending some time familiarising yourself with the Codex will expose an infinite amount of information about the platform and allow you to make the best informed decisions when it comes to modifying your site… whether to employ a developer or tackle it yourself. One word of warning, however, make sure you back everything up before you go making changes as it can be heartbreaking to see your brand new site laying broken while you figure out what went wrong with your last update.

How To Create A Facebook Advertising Campaign

With more than 900 million active users on Facebook globally and over 11 million Australians on the social network, it’s no wonder so many businesses are realising the huge potential of Facebook Advertising. Facebook Ads allow you to promote your business, build your brand image, attract more fans for your business Page, and ultimately drive more customers for your business.

If you’re not already taking advantage of Facebook Ads in your marketing campaigns, you’d better start now before your competitors do. This step-by-step guide will help you create your first Facebook Advertising campaign. Let’s get started…

1. Define Your Goals

Before you even start creating your first ad, you need to decide what you want to achieve from your Facebook Advertising campaign. You can’t expect success without knowing what goals you need to achieve. Setting a clear goal will allow you to accurately measure how successful the campaign really is and take appropriate action. Some of the common goals include:

• Building your Facebook Page fan base
• Building traffic to your website
• Generating leads/conversions
• Engaging you current Facebook fans

Be specific. If your goal is building new fans for your Facebook Page, establish how many new fans you want to attract within a certain period of time as well as what desired the CPF (cost per fan) is. For example, 300 fans per week at a maximum cost of $3 per fan.

2. Choose Your Ad Type & Create New Ad

To get started, go to https://www.facebook.com/advertising/ and click ‘Create an Ad’ in the top right hand corner.

You need to choose between advertising to an external URL (your website) or to your Facebook Page (based on the goals you have set in the previous step).

1. Facebook Page

   When advertising to your Facebook Page, you have 3 different ad types to choose from:
   • ‘A new ad about Web Profits’This is the most common type of Facebook Ad. It allows you to design your ad by combining great image & copy. To create the ad, follow these simple steps:
     
     1. Create a compelling copy promoting your Facebook Page. Make sure you include call to action into the copy.
     2. Choose eye catching image that. It can be your logo or any other image representing what your Facebook Page has to offer.
     3. Choose a destination tab on your Facebook Page that people will lend on after clicking on the ad.
     4. Review your ad design and make changes a needed
   • 
     Stories about their friends liking ‘Your Page’
     This type of ad simply shows stories about people liking your page to their friends. The viral element of this type of ad can be very effective, especially if people see more of their Facebook Friends liking your page. There is no designing necessary as the ad is created automatically with your Facebook Page logo.
     The nature of this ad requires you to have a certain number of Facebook Fans so that it can than be shown to their Facebook Friends.
   • 
     A specific post on ‘Your Page’
     If you want to promote a specific post you have posted on your Facebook Page, this type of ad will do the trick. It’s a great way to increase the reach of your Facebook Posts (to fans & non-fans) as well as being a useful tool for engaging your existing fan base. To create this type of ad, simply select the Facebook Post you wish to promote from the drop down menu.

2. External URL

   When creating new Facebook Ads linked to an external URL, the process is the same as for Ads going to your Facebook Page except for:
   1. You need to enter the URL instead of your Facebook Page. Make sure you generate a unique URL via Google URL Builder so you can then track the campaign success in the Google Analytics.
   2. Choose a clear headline that associates your Ad with your URL
   3. It is advised that you tick the ‘Related Page’ box. If you tick this box, your new ad will display stories about their Facebook Friends liking your Facebook Page, making the ad more personal and engaging.
   

3. Specify Your Facebook Ad Targeting

After your Facebook Ad is designed, it’s time to choose who you want to see your ad. The aim is to target Facebook users who are most likely to take the action you are looking for (liking your page, buying your product etc.).

Facebook Ads allow you to target specific users based on the following criteria:

• Location – by city, state, or country
• Demographics – by age range, gender, language, relationship status
• Education and work – by level of education or workplace
• Likes, interests – allowing you to target users by either pre-defined broad interests (e.g. Dancing) or by precise interests in form of specific keywords that you think best represent your key market (e.g. Ballet)

4. Choose A Pricing Option & Budget

As a last step, you are required to select payment type and budget for your Facebook Ads campaign.

You can either run the campaign continuously with a daily budget (e.g. $10 a day) or set a lifetime budget for the duration of your specific campaign.

To select a pricing type for your new ad, you first need to select the objective:

• ‘like my page’
  
  If you select this objective, Facebook will show your ad to people that are most likely to ‘Like’ your Facebook page and you will be charged for impressions (CPM). This means you will be charged a specific amount each time somebody sees your ad, even if nobody clicks on the ad.
  It is not recommended to use CPM pricing as a starting option for your ads because there is a danger of spending the whole budget without attracting any clicks. It’s better to test the CPM option on ads that have already been tested and have performed well in the past (i.e. ads that had high click-through-rate, CTR)https://www.facebook.com/alok1984
• ‘click on my ad or sponsored story’
  
  Under this pricing option, you will be charged every time someone clicks on your ad (CPC). You can set the maximum amount you are willing to pay for one click. Facebook will come up with a suggested bid range to help you set your bid. It’s advised to start between the suggested bid range to ensure your ads are displayed.

The amount you pay for a click depends on how many people are competing to show their ads to the same target audience as you are. Another important factor influencing the cost per click is CTR (click through rate) of your ad. The higher the CTR the lower the amount you need to pay for a click.

Once you’ve selected the payment option, you’re ready to finalise the ad. Simply click on ‘Place Order’ button to get started.

Make sure you create different ads to test various types of copy, images and targeting. This will allow you to determine which advertisement works best for your audience.

Do you need help with Facebook Ads? Learn about our Facebook marketing strategies.

How to Use Google Analytics to Review Your SEO Performance

Google Analytics provides a means of measuring what your site is trying to achieve online. Take a step back and reflect on what your business objectives are and what actions you want visitors to perform on your site. By defining your goals in Google Analytics in terms of these website actions, you will have specific, quantifiable measures with which to gauge the success of your online efforts.

Google Analytics tracks these actions as conversions. We typically talk of conversions as being:

• Macro conversions – Those actions that directly increase revenue or leads and drive performance, such as making a purchase on an ecommerce site; and
• Micro conversions – Those actions which are good indicators of performance but do not by themselves generate revenue, such as signing up for a newsletter, viewing a video or sharing content on social media

If we think about the aim of SEO (aside from achieving top rankings for your target keywords) as driving qualified consumer traffic to your site in order to generate sales or sales leads for your business, you start to clearly see where you are headed with your analysis. We are interested not only in the traffic that is arriving at your site, but also in the quality of this traffic, as measured by the conversion rate.

Let’s take a look now at a high-level approach to analysing your SEO performance in Google Analytics…

PLEASE NOTE: This article is concerned with assessing the performance of an SEO campaign. All analysis presented relates only to that segment of traffic generated from organic search.

Look for trends in your traffic over time

Reviewing trends in your organic traffic over time will provide far greater insight into SEO performance than a single metric like total visits. Looking at trends provides much needed context to your results.

Some things to think about when analysing this report:

• How does the data look? Is there an upward trend or downward trend in organic visits over time?
• Is there a significant proportion of organic visits coming from new visitors? Effective SEO campaigns should be successful at driving new visitors to your site.

We can refine our analysis even further by comparing results across two time periods:

Providing context around your results leads to better analysis:

• Has SEO driven more or less visits to your site when compared to last year? Has your organic traffic performed in the manner you would expect based on your SEO spend between the two periods?
• How have the other site usage metrics performed across the two periods? Is your site receiving more new visitors than the previous year? And what about bounce rate? Are there improvements here? Does this correlate to web design updates you have made to your site within the same timeframe?

Where is your traffic coming from?

Understanding where your traffic is coming from can tell you a lot about the strength of your SEO as well as providing inspiration for future optimisation efforts.

1. Which search engines are generating the most traffic?

Google Analytics Navigation: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic

Report Notes

• Viewing: Source

Ideally, the proportion of traffic your site receives from each search engine should roughly equate to the market share held by the engine. Google controls more than 90% of the search market in Australia so we would expect the dominance seen in the table above. Optimising your site for Google is the hardest but will ultimately bring you the most benefit in terms of traffic and profit. Where results differ significantly to what you would expect, it may mean that the search engine in question is not indexing your site or providing consistent exposure for your site – all of which points to the need to customise your SEO strategy for this particular search engine.

2. Which regions are generating the most traffic?

Google Analytics Navigation: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic 
Report Notes

• Viewing: Region

Geography will most likely have an impact on the performance of your SEO campaign. Are there regions generating traffic to your site that you hadn’t considered previously? Are these regions providing quality traffic, in the sense that the bounce rate reflects a degree of engagement with the site? Can you optimise your site to cater for these visitors and in doing so generate further conversions and online revenue?

What keywords are delivering the best performance?

1. What are the top keywords driving people to your site?

Google Analytics Navigation: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic

Report Notes

• Viewing: Keyword
• Metrics Explorer: Goal Set 1

The keywords driving the most traffic to your site are not necessarily the same keywords generating revenue or value for your business. Where keywords drive traffic but not conversions, look to the landing pages where traffic from these keywords arrive. Perhaps the content is inconsistent both with the keyword and with what consumers are expecting to find from their search?

2. What are the top converting keywords?

Google Analytics Navigation: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic

Report Notes

• Viewing: Keyword
• Metrics Explorer: Goal Set 1
• Advanced Segment: Visits with Conversions

TIP: Utilise Advanced Segments to focus your analysis on the segment of organic traffic which produced conversions

I encourage you to try this out with your own Google Analytics account. I think you will be surprised at how different these two lists can look. Are there keywords you did not expect to see converting? Are you optimising for these in your SEO campaign?

We could refine our results even further by excluding branded keywords from the analysis using Advanced Filters. In fact this would provide a much more accurate picture of how successful your SEO campaign has been at expanding the exposure of your site to consumers not already familiar with your company.

Analyse the performance of your micro conversions

Only a small percentage of your traffic will convert. And here I’m talking about visitors performing the action which you have designated as your macro conversion…The reason for which your website exists…The action which directly increases revenue or leads for your business.

Google Analytics Navigation: Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic

Report Notes

• Viewing: Keyword
• Metrics Explorer: Goal Set 1

The remaining traffic, the percentage that did not convert at your macro goal, is still valuable. Actions that these visitors take may result in the prospect returning at a later date to make a purchase. We call these actions micro conversions and I cannot stress how important it is to track these within your Google Analytics account alongside your macro conversions. It will give you an excellent impression of the bigger picture and an appreciation of the other actions consumers are completing on your site which contribute to the overall success of your business online.

Is SEO driving direct conversions? What about assisted conversions?

Direct conversions result when a marketing channel drives traffic to your site (in our case organic search) and these visitors convert straight away. Not all traffic will immediately convert though. And just because something did not convert or generate revenue does not make it worthless. In those instances where organic search does not appear to be generating direct conversions, investigate whether this channel is playing a role higher up in the buying process.

Google Analytics Navigation: Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions

Report Notes

• Viewing: Basic Channel Grouping

This report may be quite revealing. Organic search could be contributing to conversion performance in a much greater capacity than first thought. Or perhaps there are other channels which have been hidden previously, that are playing a significant assist role and could be worth leveraging further.

High-level analysis is a good place to start when assessing your SEO performance. But real insight is gained by digging deeper into your data set. Look for features which characterise your successful traffic and promote these. Try and identify why segments of your traffic did not convert and make changes to your site optimisation. Start analysing today and improve your SEO performance with the information you find.

If you need help with SEO, then why not get in touch?

SEO For Small Businesses: Get Found In Google (Finally)

The #1 thing small businesses struggle with is Search Engine Optimization. That is, having your website show up at the top of Google whenever someone searches for your business, or is looking for a business in your industry.

You NEED to be at the top, there’s no doubt about it. The businesses that are there right now, if they’re ranking for the right keyword, are crushing it right now. As a trained SEO expert (in addition to having an even better one at arth technology, I’m going to share a few of the top strategies small businesses can use to get to the top of Google. But first…

These some interesting items to note:

• For any search, on average, the #2 result gets about 40% less views than the #1 result
• The #5 result gets an average of 60% less views than the #1 result
• Each result after the #5 result gets an average of 20% less views than the one before it

What does this tell you?

1. If you’re not #1, you’re missing the boat and your traffic is suffering because of it.
2. If you’re not #1, then one of your competitors IS. And they’re probably taking the majority of your internet-driven business
3. If you get to the #1 position, you’re going to see a very positive increase in traffic, leads, business, sales, etc.

I hope those are good enough reasons for you. More business and more sales? Of course that’s a good deal!

So now the big question… How do you climb to the top of the search engines? How does the mysterious “Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses” really work?

Here are some tips for you that you need to be implementing yesterday:

1. Target the Right Keywords!https://www.facebook.com/arthgroup

So many times business owners can’t seem to rank because they are targeting the totally wrong keywords.You need to choose the keywords that are:

1. Less popular (less searched-for)
2. Local-related

Here’s an example: let’s say you have an auto repair shop in Joliet, IL. If you tried to rank for “Auto Repair” or “Auto Repair Shop” in Google, not only is there ridiculous competition for it that would take tons of money and time to rank for, but it’s completely untargeted!

That’s a general, nation-wide search we’re talking about, so yeah you might be at the top of Google for “Auto Repair Shop”, but what if 60% of the searches came from Orange County, CA? What if only a handful of people that searched for that phrase were even in Illinois? You wouldn’t be able to service those customers and you’d have wasted tons of time and money!

So instead of going “wide” as they call it, you want to target keywords that are highly relevant to your business. Instead of choosing “Auto Repair Shop”, you’d want to target “Auto Repair Shop in Joliet IL” or “Auto Repair Joliet IL”. Those searches only get a fraction of what a general search gets, but it’s infinitely more targeted. If someone searched for Auto Repair Shop Joliet IL, you know 3 things:

1. The person is most likely in Joliet, IL.
2. They have an automobile that they need to repair.
3. They’re looking for a local business that can do it.

See how that’s so much better? Sure, “Auto Repair Joliet IL” may only get 100 searches a month, as opposed to the 800,000/month searches “Auto Repair Shop” gets, but if none of the people searching for that are anywhere near Joliet, IL, it doesn’t matter.

Final note on this: choose the right keywords. Target the keywords that highly correlate to your business, and preferably use a local keyword (such as Joliet, Plainfield, or whatever town/city you’re in).

2. Get Relevant, One-Way Links Back To Your Site

I wanted to mention this simply because there’s so much information out there, in addition to expensive services based around that information, that just isn’t accurate.

One very popular way to get backlinks in the past (as in the last 4-5 years) was to enter your website in tons of different directories and participate in link exchanges.

Newsflash: link directories and link exchanges are almost useless anymore.

There are still services out there that actually charge upwards of $300 to “enter” your website in thousands of directories, but these links mean next to nothing to the search engines.

You need relevant, one-way links; that’s the key. If you “exchange” links with another site or company, you’re essentially just zeroing out that link, so that’s useless. As an SEO specialist, I’ll dominate any site that does link exchanges or only has links from directories. Hands down, every time.

The interesting thing is that most small business owners, those trying to rank for keywords on a local level and small-scale, don’t know how to get the quantity of relevant, one-way backlinks to their site, so when I step in there I can make sure your site gets to the #1 position.

And finally, the last tip I want to share with you:

3. Do Your Research; Keep Up-To-Date on the Search Engines!

The best thing you can ever do to compete in the search engines is to do your own research! I can’t stress this enough. The search engines are always changing, always updating to make damn sure they provide people with the most relevant search results.

By the time any given book makes it to publication, there’s usually things in it that are either different or entirely obsolete. Often times, the internet changes so quickly that even former “specialists” or “experts” are out-dated.

At arth technologyhttps://www.facebook.com/arthgroup, we have people dedicated researching, testing, and tweaking SEO concepts on a daily basis, so we’re always up to date with how the search engines are ranking websites. It’s that kind of knowledge and power we bring to the plate when we rank YOUR website at the top of Google.

But it all starts with doing your own research, discovering things for yourself that others might charge you hundreds for that don’t even work any more.

How To Choose The Right Web Design Company

Ok here we go…. everyone needs to understand something.  When selecting a web design company most people start out looking for the wrong things.

Example: A lawyer may think they should look for a web design company that has done a lot of law websites.

Wrong.  A great web designer, is a great web designer…period.  Here are the simple basics you should look for when selecting a website design company:

1.) A unique portfolio.  The face of the web is changing fast.  Cookie cutter, same ol same ol websites are losing their effectiveness.  Potential customers want to see a website that reflects the business and is unique.  If it looks like a template, it probably is.  This is never good.  A companies website reflects how serious the company takes providing their customers with information.  So again, find someone unique.

2.) Marketing expertise.  This is why it does not matter what industry.  A true marketing expert can research and find the best opportunities and the proper message to convert sales in ANY industry.  So, them being specific to an industry is irrelevant.  Our company arth technologyhas a very diverse portfolio of clients from all different industries showing up on the front page of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.. for relevant search terms.  A website is a necessity just to make sure your clients have information readily available to them.  All the better when you make it work for you and bring in business as well.

3.) Proof.  You want to see where their customers sites show up in the search engines…period.

4.) Last but not least…make sure…they work at arth technology.  This way you can be guaranteed all of these things and more.  Not to mention we are the coolest Web Design / Digital Marketing Firm in the world!

Hope this helps….follow step 4 and you will be happy!

What is SEO? How does SEO work? No Really…in english!

SEO is the process of optimizing a website internally and externally to target certain keyword phrases that are generating the most traffic relevant to your business.  Follow me?https://www.facebook.com/arthgroup

Here goes….Proper SEO (Search Engine Optimization) starts with a research process.  This consists of finding keyword phrases that meet a certain criteria:

1.) Relevant to your business

2.) High traffic volume

3.) Qualified (converting)https://www.facebook.com/arthgroup

This is a very important part of the process and doing it properly will determine the overall success of your SEO campaign.  There is a science to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the rest does not matter if this portion is not done properly.  From selecting the right set of keyword phrases to optimizing everything to follow search engine guidelines this stage of your SEO campaign will form the rest.  You must nail it the first time.  Otherwise you essentially start over.

Next….after keyword phrases are selected the entire website needs to be optimized internally with them.  You must do this right and in the format that Google, Yahoo and Bing “like”.

Next and forever ongoing….You must build a web-wide reputation for your business and website.  This is where you are able to separate  yourself from the pack.  How else would Google figure out who belongs on the front page?  Reputation, that’s how.  There are certain guidelines to be followed and a large number of strategies that are used to get front page rankings.

To name a few…SEO optimized online press releases, Forum comments, blog submissions and comments, relevant directory submissions, business classifieds, and a whole lot more.

That list can go on and on…there are a lot of techniques used to get front page rankings and tons of qualified traffic from an SEO campaign.  SEO done right will show the highest ROI (return on investment) of any form of marketing or advertising.

Now what makes it different.  Well here is the simplest comparison.  There is PPC (Pay Per Click) where you can be on page one of Google.  That means every time someone clicks on your listing you pay.  When the money runs out you disappear.  With SEO also referred to as “organic” search results, meaning natural.  That is the non-paid listing area.  You could get 1000 clicks on a single keyword search and pay $2 a click and spend $2000 fast and once that money is gone so are you.  SEO on the other hand takes a little time to get you on page one but you could get 10,000 clicks and never pay for one.  The longer you run a strong SEO campaign the better it gets.  It has a residual effect.  When done and maintained properly you can stay ranked in the top ten for a plethora of different searches people type into Google and other search engines to find your type of business.  The most important difference is cost.

Done properly SEO can cost up to 50% less than PPC.  The funny thing is PPC works very effectively as well and shows a good ROI.  But you must have at least $2000 a month to spend on ads with Google and pay an expert to manage it properly or you can throw that money in the trash.  Another benefit that SEO gets you that PPC does not is, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is done by creating a ton of external content and optimized links on other websites.  This drives clicks from those, posts, articles, blog comments, etc… to your website from other places besides the search results.  PPC (Pay Per Click) will only run on the search engine you select…Google, Yahoo or Bing.  So, if you run PPC on Google you are only on Google.

To throw the SEO “cherry on top”   SEO done properly like our SEO Company, Green Apple Sales does for our clients, will get you on the front page or top ten results of all the major search engines…Google, Yahoo, Bing and many others.  True Google is the giant, but you can not count those other players out. Bing in particular is growing fast especially after they came out with the new Windows phones that has Bing search built in to the phone as a default search engine.  The same as all Android phones have Google built in by default.

Now to end this I would like to point out that the internet is the #1 source in the world for consumers to find businesses.  So having yourself on the front page when they look is the most targeted form of marketing there is.  it is also by far the most cost efficient.

Get great results using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) propel potential customers into your business.

Give us a call today and make a friend with benefits!https://www.facebook.com/arthgroup