The Core Blog
New Years Website Resolutions
2009-12-30 02:57:00
Just about everyone makes New Year's resolutions for themselves, like making more money or spending less time at the office. So why not a New Year's resolution for your business? Or better yet - how about a New Year's resolution for your website and have your website work harder and make you more money to help your business run smoother so you can spend less time in the office.
Here is a list of New Year's Web Resolutions for small business:
- Get more potential customers to your website: This is an obvious one, but it's often easier said than done. If you don't have people coming to your site or don't know to get them there, make this your priority for 2010. There are many ways to attract potential customers to your website, but the easiest way is to have good, informative content that helps customers make a decision, or learn more about your product or services.
- Add new content to your website frequently and keep it up to date. This not only helps your search engine ranking, but it also will keep your customers coming back. Once they learn they can get up-to-date information, they will return when they have future questions or want to make future purchases.
- Get all of your internal and external forms online. Going digital not only saves trees, but also saves you and your office time and money. Storage and retrieval is a snap compared to shoveling through papers and file cabinets. Additionally, it makes it easier for your clients to get important information to you. No more faxes, postage stamps, or driving to drop off forms.
- Make sure all of you advertising pushes customers to your website for more information – to a special landing page for tracking is best. By having a separate landing page for your marketing purposes, you can gauge how effective your marketing campaign is. Using special tools, you can track the number of people going to this website versus the number of hits you're getting to your regular website.
- Use your website to collect new potential customers interest and contact information. It's one thing to get people to your website, but by collecting their information, you can keep in contact with interested customers with e-mail marketing, or letting them know about special promotions. You could also offer special monthly promotions to only those on your mailing list, which would encourage clients to sign up.
- Create separate websites for your best selling products and services - link them all together. By having landing pages for specific products, and having different domain names for these pages, you can improve your rank for particular products or services. By linking them all together, you can lead people to your website, where they will find additional information about all of your products, not just the one they were searching for.
- Use your website to become an expert in your field. Having well written content is important, but the content should also be informative and pertinent to your customers needs. By offering as much information as possible, you can have an advantage in the market. Clients will come to your website because they know you will answer all their questions - which will help them make a decision faster.
- And finally - find a website development company that can help you achieve your New Year's Website Resolutions. Whether you want a website that can be easily updated or you want a complete website redesign to meet your New Year's Resolution needs, Avallo can help you achieve your goals. Call Julie today and please, visit our website at: www.avallo.com.
Julie
5 Steps to Take the Mystery Out of SEO
2009-12-15 20:07:00
I've met SEO "experts" that charge thousands of dollars but only spend about 5 hours on a site doing search engine optimization. Why are people paying them so much? It's because their clients have no idea what SEO is and are desperate to get people to their site.
I met with a new potential client a few weeks ago whose page titles listed services that they didn't offer. When asked why, they said their SEO company said it was the highest search keyword under their field of business. They field daily calls on it and refer them to someone else. That just doesn't make sense. Let me simplify SEO for you: Use common sense and have quality content that customers need to make that buying decision. Don't try to trick the search engines or you can be penalized. Listed below are 5 steps that you can do to optimize your website for search engines.
1. Your Very Own Internet Real Estate: Your Domain Name
Choosing a local domain name, such as www.twincitiesdental.com will provide tremendous value in your ability to rank in search engines for highly searched key phrases. This is one of the first places search engines look. If you type in "twin cities dental office," you can be assured that www.twincitiesdental.com will appear high on the list.
If your domain name isn't performing as well as you'd like, you can still give your site traffic a boost by purchasing more optimal domain names and creating a landing page that represents a particular aspect of your business, products or services. This landing page can get high rankings by being very specific and detailed about your product or service with quality content, and can lead potential customers to your website.
2. Titles & Keyword Optimization: Think Like You Are the Searcher
Think of titles as your first impression. When someone searches for a term or keyword, the websites are displayed by the title of the page. Page titles should be informative and to the point, not bloated. Don't think of it as another place to stuff keywords, just use it as a introduction to your company, product or service. Reassure them that your website is exactly what they are looking for.
Page titles should be diverse and different depending on which page of the website you are on. This allows search engines to differentiate between the pages, and tells your customers what information is available on different pages.
Think carefully about what people may be looking for when they come to your website, or come to a particular page, as well as what information is available on that page.Google Keyword Tool External and Google Search-based Keyword Tool will provide you with keyword ideas based on actual searches. Use common sense.
3. Submitting to Local Guides
For small and local businesses, its important to get a foothold in your community before branching out to regional or even national sales. To gain traffic at a local level, its in your best interest to publish your company's information on some local guides. Google Maps will display the most popular businesses in local searches. To help your ranking on this "popular business" list, make sure you're listed in the following directories:
Submitting your information to these sites is completely free. Think of it as free advertising. It only takes a moment. Be sure, however, to keep track of which websites you have posted on, and any log-in information. If you move down the road, this will make changing your address or phone number fast and easy. It will save you the headache of trying to clean up your web presence down the road... which is another issue altogether.
4. Linking Strategies
Search engines work like end users often do: they like to know where they're going. By cleverly linking common keywords and phrases on your website to another page (on your website) that describes the product or service in greater detail, you can lead visitors deeper into your website. Additionally, using terms like "click here" or "learn more" are vague, and don't tell your visitors (or search engines) what the link is. "View our Map," or "More information about -Your Keyword Here-" describes more clearly what your visitors will accomplish by clicking the link.
When blogging, link to your website - and do it often. When search engines crawl your blog, and find a link to a web development website, or even graphic design, this keyword will be associated with that page on your website, giving you an extra boost in search results.
5. Be an Expert in Your Field
Become the go-to expert in your field through networking and social media. Create a blog, post informative or interesting tweets on Twitter, and use sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your business. Offer classes, tutorials, or seminars to help educate your clients about your business.
More importantly, make sure that the content on your website is up-to-date and accurate. By keeping your homepage and all your content updated, your customers will know to come back to your website if they have any questions. By becoming the go-to expert, you will also find yourself receiving the ever-valuable referral.
If you need help making these changes to your website, or want more information on getting your website to appear at the top of search results, contact me! We at Avallo know the ins and outs of Search Engine Optimization - and we won't charge you a pretty penny to let you in on the secret.
Julie
Custom Web Applications
2009-12-08 21:53:00
More often than not, when you ask different companies what they use their website for, their response will be the same: marketing. But how do you take your website above and beyond the norm of static brochure websites and transform it into an interactive tool that makes your life, your client's lives, and even your employee's lives a little easier?
From online reservation and ecommerce tools, to internal inventory management systems, scheduling, and even payroll, Avallo can create custom web applications that will not only save you time and money, but will help centralize and organize day-to-day activities.
Custom web-based applications can be accessible from any computer with an internet connection - as long as you have the proper credentials - which makes them incredibly convenient. Different access levels can be set, allowing certain employees access to only certain portions of the application. Additionally, your information can be encrypted to ensure the security of your data.
Below are some of the examples that you can do with custom web applications:
- Reservation / Ticketing Systems : With real-time availability, your customers can make reservations and pay online; even print out tickets. Hotel reservations, restaurant reservations, concert tickets... whatever! Your application will be completely customized to your specific needs.
- Ecommerce : Automate your online store with inventory systems, credit card processing, automated invoices, and even print out the shipping label. You can also view reports generated by your shopping cart to see what product is getting the most attention, or what you may need to restock. Make it even easier for your customers to re-order their favorite products by offering a quick reorder option. We can even integrate your favorite shipping company to offer real-time shipping rates for orders.
- Scheduling / Appointments / Calendar Systems : Make it even easier for your clients to schedule an appointment online; Internally, schedule your employee's hours, or even schedule their tasks for a day. Schedule and announce events and meetings from one simple interface.
- Information Collection : Collect valuable information from your clients, from anonymous surveys to membership registrations. Use the information to keep in touch with your clients, inform them of new products or offers, or just to keep a record of clients.
- Information Reporting : Collecting data is one thing, finding a use for it is a whole other story! We can create a reporting system that will take information stored in a database and display it in a user-friendly interface. You can even sort and view only the data you want (select a date range and view the applicants in that time period, etc.).
- Office Administrative Tools : Payroll and time clocks, accounting, invoicing systems, HR functions like employees healthcare info, time off information and work rules and regulations... now if only your website could make your coffee for you!
Here at Avallo, we're all about custom. We want our clients to get exactly what they are looking for in custom applications. We don't want to box our clients into how we think something should work, we will work closely with you to offer a solution to meet your specific needs. We're only limited by your request! So, contact me today to get started on your custom web application.
Julie