A few years ago, as social media came onto the scene, many viewed it as a separate entity from search engine marketing. One could do SEO, but not social media, and vice versa, and one didn’t seem to be part of the other. Common thought at the time was that social media didn’t influence ranking.

This has changed as Google and other search engines have placed greater weight to social media in their search algorithms, and as the shift in SEO has gone away from ranking and more to increasing website visits. Now, Google sees social media activity as a measure of a company’s web presence, and this can effect search engine results. Continue reading →

We have an SEO client with an e-commerce website, who was concerned with his low sales numbers. It seemed like we were doing all the right things – we had increased traffic to his website over several months with content marketing and on-site SEO, we were running an AdWords campaign that was getting steady clicks every day, and we were also integrating Facebook ads. All these ongoing services were driving traffic to his site – over 2,000 unique visits each month, yet nobody was purchasing anything. Something was definitely wrong.

We evaluated his website, and made some minor design changes to build trust and make it easy for people to place an order, or at the very least call or email. We made his phone number more prominent on the top right of the website on all pages, added his Better Business Logo and Yelp seal, added some call to action buttons and some text to make the shopping process easier. Still, no sales! Continue reading →

There are days that I come into the office and have so many things to do, I get so overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin. This feeling paralyzes me to the point that I can’t do anything; I don’t know where to start so I don’t start at all. Have you ever experienced this? I’ve found that the following helps:

1. Write down all of your tasks. It is helpful to have a concrete to-do list, and it also serves to clear your mind. Putting it on paper de-clutters your brain, and you will often find that you feel an immediately decrease in stress. Continue reading →

Your Business cards. Website. Pamphlets. Store signs. Trade show display. You have your list of features and benefits, but should they appear the same on all these? One might think that regardless of the medium, your message should be consistent. I’m here to tell you otherwise.

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Website hacks have become so common, that it seems every week my team is dealing with a client website that has been infected with malware or has been recently hacked. Why do hackers do this? Some hackers do it just to cause trouble, or for political reasons.  Some hackers inject code and links onto your site for SEO purposes – to boost their site, while others are looking to steel data or financial info from your server.

There are a few things you can do to make your site less vulnerable, but please know that nothing is 100% secure – there is a way around every protective measure.

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Two to three years ago, the importance of having a mobile website started catching on. The common practice then was to create a separate mobile version of your main website, which was programmed to automatically display when detecting a mobile device being used. The mobile site was usually a pared down version of the complete site, and usually contained only the most important four or five pages.  Continue reading →

I have seen so many SEO “tactics” in the past few years, from automated link building, and fake blog comments, to article spinning and guest posts using software. There is always the latest SEO tactic used to take a shortcut.

Many SEO companies use these techniques. You can call them black hat, or grey hat, or whatever – the bottom line is, they may provide immediate results (if at all), but they will not last. Eventually Google will eventually take garbage links down, penalize sites for questionable tactics, and make major changes to the search algorithm that will render these links useless.  Continue reading →

Some of the latest web design practices may be sleek and cool-looking, but that doesn’t automatically mean you should implement them. For example, many newer sites now are missing a link in the menu for the Home page, and instead the company logo leads to the Home page.

Why is this? Most likely someone thought it was cool and that people would be able to figure it out, and it caught on. While you and I know to hover over the logo to see if it links to Home, your site’s visitors may not. For this reason, most websites we’ve designed have a link for Home! I would hate for a client to confuse or lose a visitor because they couldn’t navigate back to Home.  Continue reading →

Is your website failing to attract viewers? Maybe it’s time to take a close look at your website design. Maintaining an impressive website is important if you want to stay ahead of the competition. If you’re website is lacking something, then read on for some quick tips for improving your website design.

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Your website looks great, has captivating content, and accurately portrays all you have to offer, but there’s one BIG problem: No visitors. If this sounds like you, then you should explore a concept known as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO deals with your website’s ranking with the major search engines. If your website is suffering from low search engine ranking, then read on to understand why. Continue reading →