If you’ve considered blogging as part of your business marketing efforts, but never had the time or weren’t sure how to actually do it, our new done-for-you blogging service is just for you! Blogging is good for business. It can: Drive more traffic to your website. Ensure potential customers that you are an active, engaged business owner by posting regularly. Establish your expertise in your industry while you educate your customers. Get you found more easily on Google – it’s good for SEO (search engine optimization). Reduce costs of pay-per-click or other paid advertising (organic leads are cheaper). Get new… Continue Reading
Getting Help
Will Switching to HTTPS Hurt My SEO?
Earlier this week, a client expressed concern about losing search engine result rankings if they made the switch from HTTP to HTTPS. They’d been told that making this move can result in big rankings losses for 6-7 months, and I was pretty sure that was not the case. But it really depends – making this move (which is a great thing to do, highly recommended both for site and user security and for SEO too) can cause major problems with rankings if it’s not done right. It’s the equivalent of changing domains which can have a big impact on rankings,… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Value of Professional Design, Original Content, Customer Testimonials
The top website and marketing links for this week. First impressions matter – especially online. What does the design of your site say about your business? A lot more than you think! If you look like an amateur, it reduces your credibility. It’s going to be harder for you to convince people of your value, especially if you have a service-oriented company. Learn more about why it’s critical to have a professional design for your business site. Along those same lines, it’s also important to have original content on your site. Learn why original content is important for SEO. Finally – learn about the… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Site Migration Problems, Landing Pages
The top website and marketing links for this week. Ever tried to migrate your site from one host to the other and found you’d lost all your Google link juice? This post is for you: learn how to recover your organic search rankings after a bad migration. This is a bit advanced, but very thorough and worth some time if you’re having this problem with your site. If you’re in the process of coming up with new landing pages, here’s a great post on 2016 landing page design trends that might provide some inspiration. Followup: Last week I shared some… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Hiring a VA, Membership Site SEO, Website Redesign
The top website and marketing links for this week. Too much to do, not enough time? If you own your own business, this is you. Ever thought about hiring a virtual assistant (VA) but weren’t sure you could keep them busy? Here’s a list of all the things you might consider outsourcing to a VA. If you run (or are thinking about starting) a membership site where premium content is behind a paywall, check out these tips on membership site SEO. And finally… as 2016 approaches you may be like me, where you do some serious business analysis at the end of the… Continue Reading
I'm Not a Vendor.
I just had a prospective client, whom I sent a quote last week, write me and tell me they had decided to go with another vendor. No problem with that at all, and I really appreciate it when people actually take the time to let me know one way or the other. But ‘vendor?’ That made me pause… I’ve never thought of myself as a ‘vendor.’ My goal is to be a partner, a resource, a trusted problem-solver for the clients I work with. The people I work best with tell me they view me that way and see great… Continue Reading
Operate as if You'll be in Business Tomorrow
I read a great quote this morning that just came to mind again, triggered by an email I just received. It was from a Fort Collins landscape maintenance company that we’ve used for a couple of years. Back in March we received a flyer from them about spring cleanup specials. I called and spoke to someone in the office and waited for someone to call me back about an appointment, but no one ever did. Later in the spring I called and emailed them asking for an appointment for aeration and weed help. I couldn’t get an answer by phone,… Continue Reading
The Importance of Cross-browser Checks
I got a comment on my (personal) blog this morning from another Colorado web designer, stating how annoying she thought my dropdown menus were. Well – to each his or her own! I took a look at her site just for kicks, and discovered that the fonts for headlines and some other prominent text are cut off so that only the top halves of the letters are visible. I, for one, find that pretty annoying… The simple fact is, the site wasn’t checked in Chrome, which is the most-used browser at this time (52.1% of browser usage in June 2013)…. Continue Reading