Don’t Fear the Panda (or should you?) 
Don’t get eaten by Panda! Attend our Do-it-yourself Website Optimization Workshop!
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 6 – 8 p.m. in our studio in space 59 of the Williamsburg Outlet Mall, 6401 Richmond Road, Williamsburg VA 23188. To reserve your seat, call us @ 757-250-3197, or email us by September 13, 2011. Cost is $45, payable by check, Mastercard, Visa, Discover or PayPal .
When most people hear the word “Panda” they either think of a cute black and white bear that “eats, shoots and leaves” or a big black and white bear with big teeth, but Google’s new Panda search engine is different. In this case, some businesses fear Google Panda, not because it’s a big bear with big teeth, but because if your website has not met Panda’s regulations, your site could get slammed or, in Google-speak, “Pandafied”. Continue reading
Social Media for My Business? Why??
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| “Half of SMBs surveyed by business process outsourcing firm Affinity Express in June 2011 had used social media marketing and 83% of the small businesses, including many sole proprietorships, polled in May 2011 by small-business solutions provider Deluxe Corporation planned to do so this year. Nearly two-thirds of local business owners polled in June by niche social network MerchantCircle said they used Facebook alone to promote their business.” EMarkete |
I know what you’re thinking… “Social Media can’t be THAT important.”
Au contraire, mon ami! Social Media Marketing can actually expand and help your business gain clientele and customers!
First off – Social Media, now developed into a marketing technique, allows businesses and people to get messages out or communicate with their online consumers and clients. In fact, did you know more than half American adults with Internet access use Social Media?
Losing Traffic? YOU need to optimize!
So–you’re losing website traffic and $$, or can’t figure out how to get your website above your competition’s website in Google.
You need to get optimized ASAP!
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is the process of increasing the amount and quality of traffic to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the organic search engine results page (SERP) of a search engine. The higher the site ranks in the search engine, the more chance it has of being found by visitors. Most people don’t go through pages and pages of SERPs (search engine results pages) to find a website if they can find what they need on the first page , hence the best organically optimized web pages are those found on the first page of a SERP. Continue reading
It’s a wrap!
SEO tips of the month
What’s your website grade?
For those of you who would like to know how your website is performing, and what steps you can take to improve its performance and search engine ranking, go to websitegrader.com, a free website analysis tool, enter your website address, and click “Generate Report”. The cool thing about this site, is you can also check out your competitions’ websites and see how they rank.
Google Places–location, location, location!
Google Unveils Its New Local Results Search
If you haven’t yet claimed your Google Places Map listing, you better do it quick.
What’s new:
Now, whenever you “Google” a type of business, say, “web design in Williamsburg VA”, the Local Business Results appear at the top, center, and can completely take up the page.
They’ve moved their Google Places Map to the right and, as you scroll the page, the map floats to the top and hides their income-producing Adwords ads (we’ll see how long that lasts!).
Calling All “Uber” Multitaskers!
LaPraya McCoy, a reporter with the Daily Press, one of the large newspapers serving Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA, has contacted us for help with an article she is writing. Here is the email she sent us:
“Hi, I hope all is well. I am currently working on a story about why people multitask and what experts say about multitasking. Do you have any friends who say will have Facebook up, check e-mails, talk on the phone and watch TV all at once? Do you know anyone who you consider a heavy “multitasker,” if so, please let me know asap. E-mail laprayam@yahoo.com with the contact info (phone number, e-mail address, etc.)…. Thanks!”
How about it–any “uber” mutlitaskers out there?
DIY Website Optimization Step 6 – Blogs and Social Media
Blog, become a “social butterfly”, convert visitors to leads and improve your search engine ranking.
Google LOVES blogs, because their content is always changing. A blog can really push your website higher in the rankings, but only if it’s part of your website, like ours is, as opposed to using a third party like Wordpress.com to host it.
Smellycat Blogging Workshop in the News!
In case you might have missed it, the Daily Press ran a great article on our blogging workshops in their 8/29 Sunday edition that included a few nice shout-outs for some of our clients!
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.
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