by Mary Killelea November 6, 2009

One of the first steps in having an online business or web site  is choosing the URL. The URL is the web address that someone types in when going to  a website. The URL you use for your business is important and you should definately put some thought into it. 

 The URL you use should have your most important keywords in it.  Here is an example of what you not to do www.maryjos.com  where instead if I was a cupcake shop owner I should try and register a domain that has my business keyword in it and  a URL that is more descriptive of my business like: www.cupcakeshop.com

If your business is already established it’s still smart to be selective and mindful when choosing a domain and try to incorporate a keyword that your are targeting in your domain name.

Take these things into consideration when selecting a domain name:

1. Is it easy to remember
2. Are you incorporating your keywords in it?
3. Does it properly reflect your business?

Another SEO Tip would be to tell you to name your additional web pages with keywords that your are targeting. An example of this  would be instead of  cupcakes1.html you might title it chocolate-cup-cakes.html or birthday-cup-cakes.html … you get the idea, be mindful of your keywords when creating your site. It will pay off I promise.

I will leave you with a really good tip that could save you hundreds of frustrating hours.  You must check to see if your domain has ever been used by someone else. If your brand new domain name was used for spam or unethical internet practices, it will be extremely difficult to get it indexed in the major search engines. Before purchasing a domain always check http://www.archive.org and see if it has ever been owned before and if it has, take a look at the archives to see if the person who owned it ever did unethical stuff.

by Mary Killelea November 3, 2009  

Did you know?

• 80% of users scan pages (users don’t read every word) - Lesson: Write for your audience and the medium in which you are delivering your message
• Only 10% of people look at the web page below the fold. - Lesson: put your most important info on the top half of your page.
• Users decide to stay or leave your page within 10-15 seconds - Lesson Make a good first impression and give them something good to keep them interested in staying on your site. (make your site sticky)

It’s important to have goals when creating your site:

 Company goals

• know your company mission & vision
• Is your goal Business to Consumer (B2C)  or Business to Business (B2B)

Define your website goals

• do you want to increase sales?
• do you want to build a list of leads?
• do you want lots of traffic?
• do you want to sell a service, product, share news or entertain?
• what valuable web content will you share? white papers, ebook, blog articles, videos

 Provide value for your customers

• figure out how you are gonna make your site sticky
• what can you offer your visitors that your competitors can’t or aren’t
• what are the benefits of your services, products,news or entertainment ?

Know which type of site you you should have to best suit your business goals.

• static website
• dynamic website
• content management site
• eCommerce site
• flash website

Website Must haves:

• professional, non distracting design, use a natural palette of colors, create a strong contrast between a pages background and it’s text, use an average of 3 different colors consistently throughout your site 
• call to action
• formatting - write for your audience and the medium
• easy clean and clear navigation
• strong enticing headlines (utilizing keywords)
• rich interesting copy
• current up to date info (never out of date info)
• your page must load quickly
• contact info
• contact form
• no pop ups
• no frames
• avoid distracting bells and whistles

Great resources for choosing colors for your site:

http://www.2createawebsite.com/design/color-psychology.html
http://www.avangate.com/articles/color-web-site_59.html

Great resource for designing the perfect “call to action button”
http://www.leemunroe.com/web-design-trends-call-to-action-signup-download-buttons/

• color, location, language, size, and margins

by Mary Killelea, August 20, 2009 

As you know the power of video is undeniable.

• It generates traffic
• It’s an opportunity to presell your visitors, build a relationship, build trust with your users so they are more comfortable with you brand and are more likely to convert.
• It increases your search engine ranking - I’ve seen this work first hand it’s amazing!
• It’s an opportunity to create word of mouth and campaign that go viral.

Ever wonder what  you should create a video about? Here are 8 ways to use video to help sell your products.

1. Do a product review - usually it’s a person on camera doing a review touching and holding the product and showing usage.
2. Interview an expert, if you have a someone at your company that is very knowledgable or maybe your top tier buyers
3. Create a product showcase video - this is different than a review, there is no-one talking to the camera, it’s an opportunity to show the users the features and cool elements of the product rather than give technical data.  They can include music, voice overs at the beginning and end.  Kind of like a fancy slide show that evokes desire.
4. Create consumer video reviews - user testimonials can be very powerful capture that in a video and you have magic.
5. Make a top 5 list (or whatever number you wish) could be top 5 xmas gifts for teens. You get the idea. Be sure to include on the page a link to each specific product you highlighted so the consumer can view and purchase easily.
6. Imitate the QVC method - it works, study it and do it via video and put it on your site.
7. Video Blogging - chatting with your audience casually via video it’s a video post but visual, make them useful don’t just talk about your gramma coming over for dinner.
8. Free Online Videos - Everyone loves something for free, fill it with good quality info, at the end of the video you provide visitors the ability to get more info on a product that they can eventually purchase get them into your list for future promotions.

More to come on video production and video equipment in a later post. Meanwhile you can check out our video services.

by Mary Killelea August 18, 2009

Today is a busy day I’ve already written 3 posts and had two client calls all before 9am. It seems ever since the launch of my newly redesigned site Working Web Solutions,  We have a new sense of rebirth and new energy. I know that seems a little hooky but it’s true. For the past 8 years I have worked hard to grow my business and over the years as my time was consumed on focusing on my clients goals and growth I somehow neglected my own companies outside appearance. The all important potential client’s first impression.   It’s like when you go to a hair dresser you expect her to have NICE LOOKING HAIR, when and if she doesn’t your level of confidence in how well she cuts hair is naturally lowered. It’s just human nature to react this way consciously or sub-consciously.

The feedback we have initially received has been very positive and the increase in user engagements has also increased and it’s only been a short time.  We are am thrilled at the opportunity to offer new services with this site redesign and am in the process of developing internet marketing webinar classes to be offered in the upcoming months. The team here has worked very hard on this redesign and we all take great pride in the direction our company is going. We think we are positioned in a great place and have the expertise and experience to take us to the next level.

I guess the lesson or message here is you have one chance to make a first impression in all things you do .. make the first one in your business a meaningful and positive one for you and your users. Don’t wait another day to redesign your site or create a new branded look and feel for your business.  Invest in your business and it will pay off. Here is the recent Working Web Solutions spotlight on AboutUS.org

Video statistics that show the power of online video ads:

• 80% of web users will watch video at least once a month.
• 30% visited the advertiser’s physical store.
• 55% visited the advertiser’s Web site after viewing the video.
• 24% made a purchase after viewing the video.

Video is very powerful you can see the use of video works by:

• Making a personal connection with customers and prospects
• Building trust and showcasing expertise during the decision-making
    process
• Delivering a powerful message in an authentic manner
• Delivering key messages with lasting impact
• Showing the world business attributes with television-quality production  

The toughest part in this whole process is trying to figure out how in the world you are gonna create a video. You don’t know how to shoot video or  you don’t have the time. We’ll Working Web Solutions has a great new partner who focuses on nothing but video production.  They can help set you up with a production team immediately to come out to your business location and tape a commercial for your business so you can begin streaming it on YouTube or embedding it in your website immediately. 

ORDER YOUR BUSINESS VIDEO COMMERCIAL NOW!

The Next Step Promoting your video! That’s where Working Web Solutions comes in!  Once you have your video contact us to learn more about our video marketing services.  We can help monetize your video and send it out to numerous video houses and increase traffic to your site.

One of the BEST portable video cameras on the market is the flip camera. I just bought one and can NOT believe how EASY it is to use!! I highly recommend it if you are trying to create your own video yourself .

Portland video marketing services, Portland web design, Video Marketing, video marketing services, video promotion

I normally don’t get into endorsing things or giving away all my best secrets but this is almost too good to keep to myself and I in some sort of way want everyone to benefit from this tool. It’s that good!  I started working with Traffic Geyser doing video promotion and video marketing about a year ago and have had incredible results from it. If you know anything about video’s power of getting organic results or the power of Youtube you know VIDEO IS WHERE IT’S AT!!

Facts about YouTube: their user base ranges from 18-55, evenly divided between males and females and spanning areas of the country. 51% of users go to YouTube weekly or more often and 52% of 18-34 year olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.

Traffic Geyser is one of my best tools I use for instantly getting traffic results for my clients.

Check out the 30 day free trial

Here is BIG NEWS — THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVANCEMENT IN SEO PRACTICES written by Rand from SEOmoz.

Rand is SEOmoz’s CEO, and co-founder, as well as the primary blogger for the site and the architect of most of the tools and resources, so in my opinion it’s hard to say it better then him … http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

Important things to consider when looking at site’s SEO

Are the web pages linking to your web page relevant to the search term “YOUR GOING AFTER”?

How fast does your web page get new links pointing to it?

Do the web sites which link to your page belong to the same content category?

Since when do the links to your page exist?

Is the text surrounding the link to your page relevant to the search term “Portland Real Estate Guide”?

Your web page

How many important links from your other pages point to your web page?

Do the links on your web page point to high quality, topically-related pages?

How often and how many changes do you make to your web page over time? Is your content up-to-date?

How often and how many web pages do you add to your web site?

How long do your visitors spend time on your web page?

Search engine result page

Do your competitors on the search engine result page get a manual ranking boost by Google.com, for example Amazon or Wikipedia?

How many visitors of the search engine result pages click through to your page?

How often do search engine visitors search for your company name or web page URL on Google.com?

Negative ranking factors (you should be able to say “no” to all the following questions)

Is your content very similar or a duplicate of existing content?

Is your server often down when search engine crawlers try to access it?

Do you link to web sites that do not deserve a link?

Do you use the same title or meta tags for many web pages?

Do you overuse the same keyword or key phrase?

Do you participate in link schemes?

Do you actively sell links on your web page?

Do a majority of your inbound links come from low quality or spam sites?

Does your web page have any spelling or grammar mistakes?

If you can successfully answer these questions then you are off to great start! 

So I have spent the last 3 days and past 5 hours debugging a problem that I have been having with a client’s site since Saturday.  CAN YOU SAY FRUSTRATING!  After trouble shooting a number of possiblities I am pretty confident Ihave figured out the reason for the problem.

The problem:
Unable to access the website — Tested it and know the IP address is live

– Issue: the client recently moved Servers and got a new IP Address

After eliminating the possiblity that the issue was not my firewall, not my connections, not my computer in ANY way we have deducted after having others who use comcast as their ISP and were also unable to reach the website that with the recent move of my client’s site — when he got a new IP address it was historically and currently associated with a blacklisted website.

For now this is my most likely cause of why I can not view his site when I can see all others in IE or Firefox: I visited http://www.five-ten-sg.com/blackhole.php  typed in his IP Address and it was listed as another business and the previous company had poor ratings and numerous  black listings so now the effort is to either have him change IP’s again or Beg all of these sites to remove him from their black lists because he is not the culprit of the bad spamming techniques in the past.

– RESOLUTION to follow!  Hope you don’t run into this ever! — Resolution — FINALLY figured out the problem MY ISP was blocked by my client’s server. They dinged me as a hacker since I was accessing it so much. I hope that none of you have to deal with this issue and if you do first have them check to see if you specifically have been blocked it will save you a lot of wasted and energy.

This week I attended the advanced seo series taught by Colleen Wright of the Search Engine Academy of Oregon.  I am a firm believer that you should never stop learning and you can be knowledgable in your subject of interest but once you think you know it all you are in BIG trouble — Arogance can be the death of your business or at the very least your soul.  With that said,  it’s important to invest in your skill set.  Luckily if it’s your own business it’s a write off and if you work for someone else hopefully they will encourage you to take outside classes and have a budget for continued education.

Going into to this class I was unsure of how useful this class was going to be. I was pleasantly suprised, Not so much for all the new knowledge that was presented because happily I knew most of it, however I did learn new things as well.  Knowing class material can  be a good thing because it reaffirms your competitive abilities in the market place as well as re-stimulates your mind with fresh new ways to look at online marketing.  By no means was it wasted time anytime you learn something new, network or revive your passion is money well spent and a good use of time.         

Collen Wright is a very nice woman and she is a very good speaker and knowledgable.  She provided an organized, well informed class while still having a fun sense of humor.  

Scott Hendison came and spoke on Social Media and provided some great tips, valuable information and shared a lot of knowledge and experience that the group benefited from.  I enjoyed his presentation, his passion for the subject matter and his genuine desire to help others become better at Search Engine Marketing.   He highly recommended this as a great source of inforamation http://www.planetocean.com  I’ve also added it to my blogroll along with numerous other favorite resources of mine.)

Doug Williams spoke about blogging and that was interesting as well. One of my most favorite bloggers that I love to follow is Yaro Starak.  I encourage you to sign up for his newsletter it’s worth reading.

Day three was good too it covered more anaylitical tools and ways to track the competition. The class was small a total of 5 people which I thought was perfect. We had various levels of skills and Thomas and Sarah from Pop Art were there and they were gracious enough to share their skills and talents throught out the week. At times I wish I would have remained in the corporate arena instead of working for myself but honestly the joy and rewards i get from having my own business out weigh any of the envy I may feel at times.

It’s been hard to sit at a desk for the past three days from 8-5.  As a person who works from home I’m used to mutli tasking and definately taking a mind break when needed — But its been a very refreshing week and I met some very nice people.  While having a littel down time I found this fun site to check out  http://www.officesnapshots.com  I’ll have to add a  photo of my cave soon!

Here is a take away tip, I found this useful: if you are looking at places to submit an article go to google and type in “submit an article” +  ”your keyword phrase”.  Cool things from this week to check out: www.Mootools.net, www.Ping.fm & www.Plurk.com