July 23, 2010
July 8, 2010
“My Webmaster takes care of me” (NOT!)
Over the last few months I have been asking business owners why they have a website and have been amazed by their answers.
The number one answer I get is, “because I need one”.
When I ask how they are measuring the numbers and types of visitors coming to their website, they have no idea what I am talking about.
When I ask them if they would like to have their website optimized so they will maintain (or get to) the first page position of a search, they invariably answer “My webmaster (or whoever) takes care of that”.
Oh really? Not from what I’ve seen. Almost every small (and large) business website I see is poorly, if at all, optimized.
June 16, 2010
Business Blogging for Beginners Workshop
Bring a laptop to this hands-on workshop and create a FREE WordPress blog for yourself, as well as learn what a blog is and why you should blog, how the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) works, how to create posts and add static images and links, and how to moderate comments.
May 14, 2010
Free Meeting Space for Businesses, Business Groups, Organizations
Good news for local businesses and business groups! We’re now offering meeting space, free of charge, to business groups and apolitical organizations in our new Internet business center and video production/photography studio located in space 59 at the Williamsburg Outlet Mall, 6401 Richmond Road in Lightfoot VA. We can seat up to 30 right now, and have tables available for up to 20. If a group brings additional chairs, we can seat up to 50 comfortably. For more information or to make reservations, call us at 757-250-3197, or email us.
May 10, 2010
DIY Website Optimization, Reputation Management Workshop
Is your website being found?
Are you getting new business from it?
If not, we will show you how!
Join us for one of our next Website Optimization and Marketing Workshops and you will learn:
- How Google and other search engines look at your website and rank it
- How keywords, content, backlinks, blogs and social media play vital roles in search engine ranking and helping people find your website
- How to know exactly how many people are visiting your website and how long they are staying
- How to manage your reputation and what people are saying about you online
- How to turn your website visitors into business leads
AND…How you can do 90% of the work yourself!
Thursdays in June, the 3rd, 10th, 17th & 24th, 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Williamsburg Outlet Mall, 6401 Richmond Road, Space 59,
*ADMISSION FREE, FOR BUSINESS OWNERS ONLY
*Regularly $45.00
April 25, 2010
Online Reputation Management
Here’s a great article on how to manage your on line reputation: manageyourbuzz.com/reputation-management. Of course, they’re trying to sell you a service/subscription (aren’t they all?), but still great info on managing your brand on the Internet. Tip: Some of the links in this article take you to a page where you must subscribe to their newsletter–which is a good newsletter, but you can easily “google” (search the Internet) and find the same info for FREE.
April 5, 2010
DIY Website Optimization, Step 5 – Inbound Links and Directories
This is where you, yourself, with a little time an a lot of patience, can really help improve your website ranking by taking advantage of free listings in online directories, and links to your website from other websites. The best and fastest way to build inbound links is to take advantage of free basic listings in online business directories.
March 14, 2010
DIY Website Optimization, Step 4 – Domain Age and 301 Redirect
When is your domain name due to expire? The search engines–especially Google, rank websites with domain names that are registered for 5 years or longer higher than those registered for just one year. Why? If you only register it for a year at time, the search engines think that you might be just a temporary or even a “fly-by-night” business.
February 19, 2010
DIY Website Optimization, Step 3 – Alt Text and Content
It’s important to use your keywords in the titles and descriptions of your website’s images. This is called “alt text”, and search engines “see” this as well.
Keywords are also important to have in your content throughout your website–not just on the home page.
February 8, 2010
DIY Website Optimization, Step 2 – Keywords in Metadata and Content
The Saints won the Super Bowl. Gotta love it!
In our last post, DIY Website Optimization, Step 1, we discussed what keywords are and how to determine the best ones for your website. In this post, we will discuss what to do with them.
We’ll start with “On-page SEO”, or the on-page optimization of each page of your website. This will help you determine how well you are using keywords in the Metadata of your web pages. Although Metadata is just one piece of the puzzle to get better rankings on search engines, it is an important one.
Meta-tags are some of the first things search engines “see” on web pages. They include its page title, description and keywords. It is absolutely necessary to include all of these in the code of each web page.
