SEO Essentials for the Small Business Website

Time and time again we see the same results – A potential client comes to us with an old website that has poor layout design, little or no search engine optimization and/or their previous webmaster has abandoned them. After a nice re-design or some re-working of the existing website that is focused on laying a solid SEO foundation, suddenly leads are coming in constantly – many times multiple leads on a daily basis. 

If you are a small business and haven’t yet capitalized on search engine optimization (SEO), I can’t tell you how many times doing such for clients of ours have changed their business dramatically.

SEO ESSENTIALS

Ok, so let’s get to the essentials. 

SMALL BUSINESSES WITH AN EXISTING WEBSITE
If you have an exsiting website its important to determine whether or not your site is setup to accomodate SEO.  Some things to check are:

1. Is your website in Frames?  I could go into more details as to how this inhibits SEO, but let’s just leave it here so we can move on.  Just remember that websites built in frames are an SEO no-no.

2. Is your website built in Flash?  Search engines in the past were completely unable to crawl flash for content in the past.  Some of this has changed, but it’s not as simple as good ol’ html.  If you want to use flash, I recommend a hybrid site where flash is integrated into a website layout that is primarily html.

3. Quality Content – Does your existing website contain quality content about your products and services?  If you have more details or info about these products and/or services than is currently on your website, I would recommend adding any information you can.  In the world of search engines, Content is KING!!!  The more relevant/quality content about a particular subject, such as a product or service, the more ability you have at reaching out to all those gazillion niche keyword terms and capitalizing on web traffic from them.

4. Are your products/services grouped on one page or multiple pages?  I would recommend seperating all your products/services so that they are featured on seperate html pages.  This gives you the ability to focus that entire page (meaning focus of the SEO on that page) towards the keyword terms that relate to the product/service on that page.

5. If you service a particular geographic location, is this reflected throughout your website?  For example, let’s say your based here in the s.f. bay area and you provide general contractor services.  Focusing your website’s SEO on the keyword term “general contractor” would most likely yield very little website traffic that would convert to leads.  There is a ton of competition for that keyword term and since its not geo-targeted, that keyword term refers to pretty much anywhere in the world.  It would be more effective to geo-target and instead focus the SEO on a keyword term such as “Bay Area General Contractor”  I go into more detail about geo-targeting SEO in a previous article written.

SMALL BUSINESS LOOKING TO BUILD A NEW WEBSITE
All of the same information above regarding SEO essentials applies to building a new website as well.  Incorporating these SEO strategies from the beginning can save you alot of money, time and enable your website to start attracting quality web traffic and leads more rapidly. 

All of the websites we design/build have these SEO essentials incorporated as part of the package.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or visit our website at www.shadomedia.com

Next time, I will talk about some strategies beyond the basics – little tactics to help refine and expand your search engine optimization.  Until then, enjoy your day!

Shad

Top 5 Website Maintenance Tips to Prepare for the Holidays

1. Update Your SEO – Make sure your hot keyword terms are integrated into your website and the pages that are relevant to these keyword terms are optimized to their full potential

2.  Content Updates/Additions – Now would be a good time to update any content that needs refreshing.  Search engines like refreshed content and this can give your site a boost in search engine rankings.  Make sure all your contact info is correct.

3. Fix Website Glitches – Make sure all of your website pages are completely consistent from page to page – Even if something so small as an image shifts a bit on certain pages, this can have a negative sub-conscious impact on visitors to your website.  Every page should flow seamlessly and layout should be identical and without errors to promote professionalism.

4. Check for Broken Links – Make sure all linkage is up to date and pointed to the correct locations.  Chances are you will lose a website visitor if they click on a link and get “Page Cannot be Found”.

5. Fix functionality that may be hindering search engine optimization.  If you are running frames, you may want to convert your site over to standard html pages….frames do not work well with search engines.  If you are running a website that is dynamically-driven, make sure to have an xml feed set up for the search engines to visit these pages since it is possible the search engines cannot find them otherwise.

 All of these updates will help promote your website in the search engines and I would recommend implementing these changes within the next week or so to benefit from it over the holidays.  If you have any questions, please feel free to visit our website at www.shadomedia.com

Sanger Boats – Featured Website Design Client

Since I was brought into the world in 1973, I have spent parts of my summers riding in a Sanger boat.  The first boat my dad built was a 19ft. semi-V hull.  Even though I was only 2 years old or so, I have some solid memories of my mom covering me with a beach towel as we buzzed along – the main reason being the noise and vibration of the nasty blown-427 in it.   After a couple runs on his own around 100 mph without venturing too far into the pedal, he decided it was a little too radical as a family boat.

The next boat was off the showroom floor.  A sanger 21′ mini-daycruiser.  Bumble-bee yellow and brown.  I still have the boat and it is in pristine condition – all original.  Sure it has a couple tiny knicks and scratches, but other than that, it still has the brown shag carpet, original upholstery in perfect condition.  The paint on the bubble-deck is almost flawless still.  All the running gear is original.  A Healthy 454 big-block just as it came from the factory.  The boat has probably around 100 hours of run-time on it.

I have also had the pleasure of owning 2 dlx’s – One of the best wakes for wakeboarding in my opinion – especially after adding a couple fat sacks.

So all this history and I end up with the opportunity of designing their website… take a look at www.sangerboats.com  

More info about the website coming soon…

Premiere Bay Area Web Designers – Shadomedia

If you are looking for a quality web designer in the Bay Area, then look no further.   We’ve been in business for 8 years and have a number of prominent companies as clients including Sanger Boats, Butterfly Life Franchises, Armstrong Painting/Roofing, Rodandcycle.com, Reinell Boats and many more.

Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.  Visit our website at www.shadomedia.com

Flash Websites and Search Engine Optimization

A very common question from potential clients of mine is “What do you think about a flash website and should I build my entire site in flash?”

As their search engine optimization consultant, I immediately respond with “No”.   Flash definitely has its benefits (animation, interactive, etc), but a major drawback is the lack of ability for search engines to crawl content in flash and index a flash site in search engines. 

I could go on for hours about this, but in a nutshell, our preferred method for building a website utilizing flash is a hybrid approach.  The main shell of the website itself is HTML, with flash embedded and integrated into the design of the page.  This way we are able to present your valuable content via standard html and the search engines can easily crawl and index this information. 

A fully animated flash website might be visually appealing, but what’s the point if no one interested in the products or services you have to offer can find your site.

Your Bay Area SEO Consultant,

Shad

Psycho Zombie Web Design Project Manager

Not sure what’s going on but I think our web design project manager here at Shadomedia Design, Jeff Tolle, has been burning the midnight oil lately.  Fortunately for him, its Halloween so he fits in well.   I have recommended that he work outside from his laptop and get a little sunlight.  We also bought some teeth whitening strips.

He’s been moaning alot lately, rocking back and forth in his chair, and actually bit my arm earlier today.  I am not sure, but I think he is turning into a zombie.  According to Dawn of the Dead, anyone bit by a zombie turns into one…bite is looking pretty nasty so this may be my last post. 

 Happy Halloween! 

Why Use a Local Bay Area Web Designer vs. Outsourcing Web Design to and Another Country?

A common question regarding web design from potential customers of ours is “Why should we use Shadomedia here in the Bay Area when we could just outsource the work to somewhere like India to save money?”

There are numerous reasons to use Shadomedia’s custom website design services.

1. Instant Gratification – As you may already know, there can be alot of interaction back and forth between a client and a web designer throughout the design/build process of a new website. Because of time differences with other countries such as India, requested changes and updates on the site are not addressed immediately and can often take 1-3 days to implement.  A greater amount of changes tend to be requested on new website that tend to be more in-depth or comprehensive.  Companies in the Bay Area that use our web design services do not have an issue with a lag of requested changes as our customers are able to contact us at any time and changes/updates can be made or addressed instantly.
2. Face to Face client meetings – Many of our website design and web maintenance customers here in the Bay Area prefer to meet in person so they are comfortable with who is handling their web project. When outsourcing a website, you never really know who is designing or building your website, and you have no way of predicting what designs will be. 
3. A better quality website – Our goal is to not just slap together a website for our clients, make a quick buck and move on.  We take the extra time to learn about our customers’ businesses, who their target audience is and where their target audience is located.  All of this is factored into the design and production of the website. Both my business partner and I are Bay Area natives and we know the area very well and this is a great benefit to our clients.Our goal is to build a website that drives new business to our Bay Area customers.  Most of our clients find that the website pays for itself within a few months.  We want to our customers to succeed online and because we know how to help them succeed, we have established many long-term relationships with our customers.  The difference in money saved via outsourcing is minimal up-front, but the reward for using a local company such as Shadomedia Design has much more reward.  Basically in a nutshell, you get what you pay for.

Localize your Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimizing your website with localization in mind is the key to a successful website for businesses that target a specific region (such as San Francisco, Bay Area, etc).

For businesses that target a specific region, it can be a frustrating to have a company website that is effective at generating quality leads from that region. 

By localizing your search engine optimization, you can:

1. Improve the quality of keyword terms that link to your site. Geo-targeted (localized) search results tend to be more specific and thus, have a higher rate of conversion to a lead or sale.

2. Improve your website position on localized search engine results.  Since competition for keyword terms is stronger than ever, it is not enough to target a general keyword term with the average business website as the chances for success are very low.  By targeting a specific region with search optimization, your website has a far greater chance of moving toward the top of search results since there is much less competition than with general keyword terms.

3. Improve the quality and/or quantity of leads coming in from your website.  As mentioned in #1, more specific keyword terms yield more specifc search results. The chances that traffic coming into your website from these specific terms is looking for what you have to offer increases significantly.   

If you would like Shadomedia to take a look at your business website, feel free to visit our corporate website (www.shadomedia.com) or just send us an email at info@shadomedia.com

Until we blog again….

 Shad-o

Annual Backpacking Business Getaway to Yosemite

Well I finally downloaded the pictures from our annual backpacking trip to Lake Vernon in the Yosemite Backcountry.  Because we scheduled the trip later in September this year, our entire trip was spent battling the first major storm of the season.  Snow, hail, rain and hurricane-force winds from random directions.  It was a fantastic trip! 

Highlights included a mother black bear with 2 cubs hiding in a bush ahead of us on the trail.  I think she was waiting to startle us.  In the past, we have been informed that a bear was startling backpackers, knowing that they would drop the backpack and run…pretty clever, but not clever enough this time! Spotted one of her cubs at about 100ft away.

Bay Area Search Engine Optimization Experts

Hello to all in the Bay Area,

Shadomedia specializes in search engine optimization services to businesses throughout the san francisco bay area.  Feel free to visit our website today at http://www.shadomedia.com

Your Bay Area SEO Expert,

Shad-o