1.  The title tag along with the keywords are used in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. to rank your website.  If you are selling computers then your title and meta tag keywords would have to do with computers so online purchasers looking for computers online can find  you.  If you don’t have these tags, how will you get found?

2.  The title tag usually has to be within a certain amount of characters. You want to be sure your title tag, keywords and content of the page match for the best search engine ranking.

3.  You want to try and target specific areas.  If you do business in Denver, Co then be sure to add that into your keywords.  It is  much easier to get ranked in the search engines if you are more specific.  You can create separate pages for targeted keyword rankings and should have separate meta tags on pages that have different information.

As you can see, there is a lot to learn about meta tags.  This is a basic overview of how important they are to a website.  Be sure to ask your web designer if they include these tags in the website.  If they do not, ask them how your website will be found in the search engines!  Websites Direct, LLC includes your meta tags and also submits to the top search engines.  We also set you up with a Google business listing which helps you start getting listed in the Google search engines immediately.

Are you keeping up with your competition?  Do you know what your website meta tags look like?  If you have any questions or want a free website report, contact us and we will let you know how your website is doing.  Have a great day!

The larger the size of a small business, the more likely it is to have a website. The smaller the business, the less likely it is to have a website.  This being said, do you want to look like a larger business or small business?

According to a survey conducted in September 2008 by Barlow Research of 680 small businesses, drawn from the Dun & Bradstreet list, ranging in size from $100,000 to $10 Million in annual revenues, here is the overall breakdown:

49% of small businesses - currently have a Web site

13% of small businesses – do not have a Web site but plan to within the next 12 months

38% of small businesses – do not plan to have a Web site within the next 12 months

However, averages can mask the true picture.  If you break down the Barlow Research numbers by size of business, the data gets really interesting.

Percent of businesses that have a website, by annual sales size: 

45% – Revenues of $100,000 to $499,000
49% – Revenues of $500,000 to $999,000
69% – Revenues of $1.0 Million to $2.49 Million
67% – Revenues of $2.5 Million to $4.9 Million
73% – Revenues of $5.0 Million to $10 Million

And what about midsize businesses? For businesses with revenues of $10 Million to $500 Million in size, 84% have websites.

This data could suggest that businesses with websites are more successful and shows the importance of a website but, not necessarily.  Here are a few points:

(1) When marketing Web-related services to small business prospects, one size does not fit all. It’s tempting to lump all small businesses together, but as the data shows, you will want to make distinctions based on size of the business. There are huge differences between a business with $120,000 in annual revenues, and one with $5 Million in annual revenues — even though both are called “small businesses.” There are differences in how big their expense budgets are; the benefit to be derived from having an online presence; and so on.  This being said, a smaller business can still have a smaller website presence vs. the thousands of dollars spent for a high-end big business site.  The nice thing about websites is that you can spend as little or as much as you want but still have an online presence.

(2) Consider the needs of the business. If you are selling an item then a website is a MUST vs. someone in an industry like an elevator repairman that works for a union who doesn’t need a website.  This being said, just about anyone can benefit from having a website or blog if you want the world to know about you.  If you don’t, then stay off the internet.

(3) An easy example to use is a hotel who wants to promote their specials.  Hotel ‘A’ doesn’t have a website and is relying on word of mouth and advertising in their hotel to let people know about their specials.  Hotel ‘B’ has a website with a web form that allows people to sign up for special deals so e-mails all the potential customers about the promotion.  Hotel ‘B’ also adds the promotion to their website and re-submits to the search engines so anyone looking for hotels can see the special deal Hotel ‘B’ has going on.  Hotel ‘B’ can also offer discounts for signing up with their newsletter so they can acquire e-mail addresses to keep in front of potential customers.  There are a lot of things you can do with a website and it is an easy way to market to the WORLD vs. the small area by your hotel if you don’t have a website.

Websites are constantly changing and in today’s world, having a website is a very important part of most businesses - If you don’t have one, you may not be taken seriously.  A website can make an at-home business look like a multi-million dollar business or, if you have a bad site or non-updated site, you can make a multi-million dollar business look like a garage business.  There are also many new technologies out there that allow the client to update their own website which saves them money if they have the time.  Look for my next article on what questions to ask a website designer so you can make an informed decision when you pay for your next website. 

In the meantime, start looking at competitors websites and ask yourself this question, “does my website look professional and is it updated?  If someone was searching for my business online, would they be inclined to choose my business over my competitors based on how my website looks?”  I always research the competitors websites to get an idea of how high-end the site needs or doesn’t need to be since sometimes the competitors websites are horrible so you can purchase a very affordable website that will still blow away the competition.

Check back regularly for more information on cost of websites and what to look for in a website designer.  Have questions?  Contact me or post a comment and I will respond as soon as possible.  Have a great day!

Websites Direct, LLC - some article information from an article by: Anita Campbell

http://websitesdirect.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/a-short-video-…h-engines-work/

If you just purchased your domain name and have a new website, it will likely be difficult to gain the necessary “trust” for rankings for your competitive terms for at least three months, but often closer to six to nine months. There is really no magic time frame unless you are willing to pay a SEO/SEM service that guarantees first page placement.  For the sake of this article, we are assuming you are doing ‘organic’ listings and not PPC.  Also, if the SEO infrastructure is not set up properly from day one then you will be dead in the water before you even start!

If we are doing a redesign or new SEO, setting unrealistic expectations will only lead to disappointment. Not only should SEO professionals take time to explain the best and worst possible scenarios, but these projections should be updated as crawling and indexing patterns get established.

How Quickly Do Search Engines Crawl/Index a Redesigned Site?

From our experience, when we launch a website we automatically create a Google listing which typically gets you listed within 12 hours.  We are not sure of the time on Bing and Yahoo but assume is close to Google’s.  Getting listed does not mean  you are on the main page and is dependent on how many others are using the same keywords/phrases.

How Difficult is it to Maintain Current Rankings After Launch?

For new domains, brand terms should rank after the first crawl but not typically first on a page but, a unique brand name should have relatively no problem ranking first in a short period of time.

If you have a website but are not sure if your page is optimized for the search engines, contact us for your FREE website report card.

Unfortunately, only 7% of all websites are visible by the search engines according to a recent StatMarket.com study. Most web sites are not properly optimized for maximum search engine visibility. Even worse, most companies don’t have an overall marketing plan to raise their site’s search engine visibility.  What is the Solution?

 Search Engine Optimization & Analysis is the first step so you can find out what areas can make your website more visible on the search engines. Have the Search Engine experts at Websites Direct, LLC  analyze, optimize, and manage your Search Engine Optimization campaign to help you generate more leads and sales forr your company.

Your new Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign will provide you with a long term increase in targeted traffic and qualified visitors to your web site.

Contact us for your FREE website optimization report and see how your site ranks today!

Search Engines utilize a software, often referred to as a Robot or Spider, which crawls the web in search of new or updated pages to index. They constantly crawl the web until they have indexed every page. When submitting your web site, you will only be required to enter your URL or website address and the robot will spider your site and record the full text of every page within your site. It will continue on and follow any external links you may have on your site and eventually index every site on the Web.  We use a sofware that will submit your website pages to the search engines for you and optimize your meta tags so the ‘spiders’ know how often to come back and update your website information.

Although the spiders will eventually find your site, it may take quite some time. Submitting your URL will speed up the process.

Directories

In order for your web site to be listed in a directory, you must register it. They do not search and index the web or spider your web site. You must fill out a form and manually submit each page of your web site.

Directories are usually set up in categories and subcategories and will contain a “Add URL” link within each category. To register your web page, browse through the categories until you find an appropriate category for your site, then go to the “Add URL” link and fill out the submission form.

At Websites Direct, LLC we take care of all the above and more for you with all of our website packages – after all, what good is a website if nobody can find it!  Contact us for more information or if you want a free consultation to see how your website can get found online today.

You can spend $50,000 to $5,000 but what’s important is to have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish, the technical tools available to stand out, and a designer/developer who is well equipped to help you achieve that vision.

A well-designed and executed company website has three basic functions, according to Josh Claflin, president of Denver-based Garrison Everest, a strategic brand development and design agency: “educate your audience, deliver the brand experience and capture leads.”

“Your company should be consistent with all your other channels, and be designed to deliver everything a brand should do in differentiating yourself from your competitors,” says Ken Barber, director of digital marketing for Lakewood-based marketing agency The Integer Group.  “It should convey whatever feeling you want people to walk away with.”  “You want your site to indicate where you are headed vs. where you currently are,” he adds.  That doesn’t mean your content shouldn’t be honest and real, but it should also be compelling.  Remember: on the Web your competition is jut one click away.”

One of the first tasks is to identify the potential audiences that would come to your site. “Most startup companies just think in terms of consumers.  But you also have to think about having a section for the business-to-business audience, one for the news media and possibly even potential investors.  some of your audiences may want product specs, some may want photos or video;  make sure you put something on the site for each of your potential audiences.”

Most experts, including the National Federation of Independent Business, recommend hiring a professional to design and create your website.  It may look really easy to go out and grab a template for $50 and use open-source platform software but you will need professional guidance, since most startups dont’ have the staff to make sure everything is covered.  Whether your site will be created by an individual or several specialists, you need both a designer and developer, Claflin says.  “Any designer who’s just out of art school can design a website. But you need a designer who really understands how to communicate and use web design and composition to ‘push’ your main value propositions.” You’ll also need a developer who can do the programming you need, Claflin adds. 

“The most important thing is to build your site correctly so the major search engines – Google, MSN and Yahoo – will pick it up.”  When interviewing candidates, of course, you’ll want to see samples of their previous work and talk to clients.  Along with asking about project rates, you should also inquire about the availability and cost of add-on tools and features, and services needed to update and maintain your website.  If you want to do search engine marketing or e-mail campaigns, how much will that increase the cost, as your business needs to grow more complex?  What about web  hosting?  Hosting is not a major expense item, typically in the range of $50 to $100 per month.  Hosting costs depend on the level of reliability, backup and customer service offered.  Some designers offer web hosting as part of their value-added services. 

It is also important to provide interactive features on the website to build customer loyalty.  “You can link the site to a blog that will allow people to post comments and have a discussion with the company.  With a ‘chat’ feature, you can speak to customers virtually.  Some sites have a button you can click to receive a callback from the company.  You also want to make it easy for users to share information with friends or co-workers.

What about video, the newest web sensation?  It’s becoming more important, Claflin says.  “What Google is moving toward indexing media in the form of video – is transforming business as we know it.  Fortunately, even as a startup you can create high-quality video ; just rent a high-definition video camera and download tools to help with lighting and other technical aspects.  Or you can  hire a freelance videographer, pretty cost-effectively.”

One of the best sources of website ideas and a good way to get a feel for the state of the art is the Web marketing Association’s website where you can view several hundred award-winning sites (www.webaward.org).  It is very important to keep up on the latest trends since the relatively new art and science of website creation is constantly and rapidly evolving.

-Article courtesy of Dan Emerson and New Business Denver

Websites Direct uses the latest version of Dreamweaver and its’ employees are certified in HTML, Flash, XHTML, Access, and business writing so your website will have the most up-to-date technology.  We also provide the search marketing FREE of charge with our websites since we feel a website is worthless unless you can be found on the internet.  Our hosting and website prices are below the average since we have low overhead as a family owned business and we provide the same, if not better, customer service and products that the larger companies do.  Contact us for a FREE website report and consultation. moreinfo@websitesdirect.net

1. Content is King. The adage, “content is king”, has been true since the inception of commercial websites about two decades ago. Create well-written content that is relevant to your potential audience. Great content increases your website’s book marked pages (or favorites) and referred pages, and gains the confidence of your potential buyer. In addition, search engines like to send their own customers to pages that answer their searchers’ needs, and you’re valuable content holds greater standing in search engine visibility and rankings.
2. Create video tutorials. Video popularity has skyrocketed with the success of YouTube, and their own success lies in its huge number of videos. YouTube’s video archives grew through the company’s development of novice-friendly tools for would-be videographers to upload their latest videos. YouTube then provided “embed” code for cut-and-paste ease of delivering embedded video right into your own website pages. Take advantage of YouTube’s user-friendly offerings by starting an account and getting your video content published.
3. Transcribe your new video, and display the content right alongside the video. Again, written content is the stuff of good search effectiveness, and transcriptions of good video content provides a perfect resource. Additionally, your sight impaired visitors will greatly appreciate your attention to their needs.
4. Start a Twitter account. Twitter can be a noisy place with lots of tweets floating across the Internet ether, but to visitors or customers following your tweets, you have an audience interested in your updates, new products, or musings that help them do better business. Remember, Twitter isn’t a one-way street. Make sure you “follow your followers”. Reading what’s important to them will give you a greater connection the next time you talk.
5. Start a Facebook fan page. For some businesses such as night clubs, musicians, or artists, Facebook is vitally important to increasing your visibility. Create a “fan page”, so fans and admirers learn about upcoming events, announcements, or event ticket sales. Your fervent following may even inspire “friends of fans” to jump on the bandwagon providing an opportunity to grow your base. Do make sure you make frequent updates with new and relevant posts.
6. Blog. Blogs are personal musings and help give your customers of sense of the people behind the business. Even larger companies should invite participation by in-house staff. It’s nice when customers get to know the personal side of the support person with whom they work, and they can provide opportunities for more meaningful relationships.
7. Publicize your blog. If nobody knows the blog exists, what value does it offer? If you consistently let others know a new blog entry exists, you’ll begin to see readership rise. As an aside, make sure you’ve got an RSS feed available, so your visitors can “subscribe” to your blog’s feed and receive updates through their new smart phone or other feed reader.
8. Create an email signature . A “signature” is appended to the bottom of each email and contains your web or blog address, Facebook page, and/or Twitter account. Of course, don’t forget to include contact information if you want to welcome phone calls from new and potential clients.
9. Take heed of search engine optimization (SEO) basics. You’ll want to make sure you use title tags for all your website pages, good headings and subheadings, and other basic SEO tools. This is an easy but vital step in good search effectiveness. For our clients, all websites are created in editable format to make this effort easy. Use your blog’s tools for the same purpose.
10. Analyze your stats, SEO effectiveness, rinse, repeat. There are a number of website analytics programs such as Google’s SEO tools that will give you a breakdown of your visitors, how they found you, how long they stayed, and their geographic location. Use these web development tools to help tailor your search effectiveness. It’s also important to know if your great content is being “indexed”, or found, by search engines. To test, simply cut and paste a sentence or two of your unique content from a sample website page and plug it into different search engines. If your site is displayed in the search results, you know the page is indexed. Make sure you try this on a few interior pages of your site to see if search engines crawled from page to page. If not, you’ll want to make sure you offer clickable site maps from the home page. For a more comprehensive test, try plugging in a few key phrases–sample terms that summarize the content of the page you’re testing. If your site pops up again, you’ve done a superb job! If you don’t, keep on plugging at the steps above.

If you are interested in learning more please go to our website or contact us at moreinfo@websitesdirect.net . We love to help our clients succeed!

1.  Facebook is a great way to ineract with your consumers.  The easiest way to interact with consumers on Facebook is to launch a Fan page.  Aside from setting up a  place for users to talk about your products, the page also lets you communicate important and relevant information to your consumers.

2.  Facebook is a valuable source of data.  Facebook offers page administrators “page insights” that provide you with analytics of the page including the number of visits, how long they stay on your page and how many fans you have or had. 

3.  Facebook can help you target advertising since you can make ads for each keyword or phrase so you can have different ads going to different people depending on their age and interests.

Facebook fan pages are about creating conversation with your consumers and finding a way to integrate yourself into their lives.  This page will engage people to post comments and discussions that may or may not be positive but this is how business is done and you can then in turn respond with your version of the situation or how the complaint/negative comment was remedied.  Of course if someone is just posting junk you can remove it but if you remove all negative comments this will cause people to leave your fan page since it will look to ‘staged’.  Complaints can be turned positive by communicating to consumers  how great your customer care is and what you did to resolve the issue.  It might seem difficult or time-consuming at first but if you respond well to people this will get more and more people to start using your fan page and they will become even more dedicated to your product or service.  You can even create a fan page about someone elses business or product!

Facebook has overtaken Yahoo as the second most visited site on the web as of January, 2010 so if you are not using this tool to market yourself or your business you are missing out on a lot of available business!

-content from Website Magazine submitted by: Websites Direct, LLC