Website Design and Web Hosting - Why They Matter!

Do You Just Want a Website, or Do You Want a Website Design that Gets Results?

Everyone wants a website that shows up in Google. After all, what good is it to have a website if nobody can find it?  However, it’s one thing to show up when people search for the name of your company, but it’s quite another to show up when people search for the products and services you offer.  These are people who haven’t heard of you, but who are looking for what you offer. That's the promise of having a website with great SEO – to attract new visitors and turn them into customers!

But once people have made it to your site, are they finding what they need? Are they excited about what you offer? If not, it may be your website design that's the problem. 

Over the years, we’ve put a lot of time and energy into solving that problem. We started SEO Ann Arbor to help people get their websites to show up in Google for the right reasons. There’s a lot that goes into making that happen ... to get a snapshot of a few of those things, read the entire article here!

When you think "website design ann arbor" ... we hope you contact us!

Internet Marketing Secrets - What The World Wants!

What Does the World Want?

Last time we talked about making sure you narrow down what you do very, very well, and then to focus on that niche in your internet marketing. The next step is to make sure you know what the world wants when it comes to that niche. Think about it this way - you might sell the best upside down green widgets on the planet, but if nobody's typing "upside down green widgets" into Google, you're not going to get found. Instead, if people have a different way of searching - maybe they type "solve my widget problems"! If you know that, you can present your information in a way that meshes with search habits and also addresses their concerns in a very direct way. 

Learn more about focusing on what the world wants to rocket your internet marketing success upwards with this article.

Do’s and Don’ts of Web Design

Are you in the process of designing a new website for your business?

Are you up-to-date on the best practices of web design?

Don’t let the process of designing a website overwhelm you! Follow these simple do’s and don’ts and get the most out of your web design!

Do:

• Make sure your website is structured well. A busy website with too many graphics or text boxes can be very distracting to someone visiting your site. In the case of web design, less is more!
• Try to focus on your most relevant topics. The focus for your site should be with a specific goal in mind. Focus on what’s important, and what is going to drive in the most business.
• Make an easy navigation bar. The easier your site is to navigate, the better customers and clients are going to be able to find the information they’re looking for. They won’t get frustrated about having to sort through page after page, either.

Don’t:

• Have too many text boxes or graphics. You want your site to be eye-catching, but not at the expense of giving out information or making sales. Too many distractions on a page can drive potential customers away. 
• Have irrelevant content/images on pages. Make sure to keep everything simple and clear. Don’t confuse a visitor to your site by having information about four different topics on one page. Dedicate each page to a relevant piece of information regarding your business.
• Go overboard with images and colors. Pick a color scheme and stick to it throughout the site. Also be sure to use colors that are easy on the eyes, as opposed to neon colors, for example, which are eye-catching, but can be overwhelming and distracting.

Looking For More?

Visit SEO Ann Arbor’s website or give us a call at 877-815-6974 to see how we can help you create a great web design for your business!

Why is Website Design So Important?

Think about your favorite shopping website.

Is it easy to use?

Does it look professional, or is the website design distracting?

Are you able to find the information you need quickly and efficiently?

These are elements of good website design. Website design is important for businesses and individuals who are trying to get more business, or to increase their awareness, leads, and sales.

Two aspects of website design are organization and aesthetics.

On a website, everything should be organized well and be put where it makes logical sense. Each page and its content should be labeled clearly, and navigation should be easy and consistent.

Aesthetics is another important aspect of website design. The design should not only be pleasing to the eye, but it should also be functional. Images and colors are great for a call to action, but should be used sparingly and professionally.

In short, it’s important that your site is visually pleasing and well organized. People who use your site need to be able to find information quickly and without complication, otherwise they may take their business elsewhere. A professional, well put together website can mean the difference between sales and no sales.

Looking for more? 

Visit SEO Ann Arbor’s website today to learn how we can help you grow your business by designing a great website for you!

What is SEO and how does it work?

What is SEO?
SEO is the process of optimizing your site so that it appears prominently in Google and other search engines when people search for related keywords.  There are a few major things, and dozens of minor things that need to be done to successfully optimize a site.

How Does it Work?
One of the first and most important steps is taking some time to consider what keywords and phrases you are trying to optimize.  As a business owner or decision maker in your organization, you probably have some idea of the types of things that your potential customers might be searching for.  However, some terms are searched for more than others, so it is important to do some research and focus on the terms that are the most popular.  In other words, you don't want to spend a bunch of time and money optimizing phrases that hardly anyone is searching for.

Also, there may be some additional terms that people are searching for that you didn't think of.  We have tools and procedures that we can use to develop a list of the most popular search phrases for your industry, so that you are optimizing the right terms.

Once you have identified your target keywords, we work with you to optimize/create your site.  This involves making sure that your site includes your desired keywords, and doing it in such a way that Google considers your site relevant for those specific phrases.  There are dozens of things we do in this regard, including optimizing page titles, header tags, and making sure that your keywords appear in the text throughout your site.

Getting Connected
Once your site is ready to go, another key aspect of SEO is gathering inbound links to your site.  Why is this important?  Inbound links is one of the key ways in which Google decides to rank your site.  It is kind of like a popularity contest.  When Google looks at your site versus one of your competitors, one of the things it will do is look at the content contained throughout the sites to make sure that it pertains to the keywords (see previous paragraph).  However, all things being equal, if your site has no one linking to it and your competitor has 200 people linking to them, then your competitor will be listed higher than you.

Obviously with a new site you are starting off with ZERO inbound links, while your competitors may already have dozens or hundreds.  Even if you have an established website, chances are it could benefit from obtaining additional inbound links from other relevant sites.  In order to facilitate this we go out and seek other relevant sites and get them to link back to your site to boost your rankings.  It ends up being a little more complicated than that, but that is the basic idea, and gathering reciprocal links is a key aspect of optimizing your site.

How do I know if I need SEO?
Simple.  Go to Google and type in some keywords and phrases that a potential customer might search for.  If your business isn’t showing up in the results at the top of the first page then you need SEO!  Make sure that you aren’t simply searching for the name of your business.  For instance, if you are a plumber and your business is called “John Doe and Sons”, don’t simply search for “John Doe and Sons”.  The only people who are going to search for the name of your business are people who already know about you.  The whole point of SEO is to attract potential customers that don’t already know who you are.  So instead search for “plumber ann arbor” or “clogged drain ann arbor” or other combinations of the services you offer and the location that you offer them in.

Check adwords keyword tool

Once you've developed your list of key words and phrases and gotten the big picture with Google Trends, you're ready to find out what the millions of internet users are actually searching for in your subject area. One of the best ways to do that is to use the Keyword Tool offered by Google's Adwords. Because it's offered by Google, and because Google is by far the most-used search engine, you get up to the minute results showing every imaginable search term. It even includes mis-spellings and words you may not have thought of. Most importantly, the results show what people are actually searching for rather than what you may think they're searching for. This is truly helpful ... we think it's better to be rich than to be right.

Right?

For most topics, the keyword tool will give you a huge list (around 800 results). You can sort the list by most searched, local searches (this is the one we use most often, because it shows what people in the US are searching for), and several other very helpful criteria. It's easy to download this list into Excel or some other data management format to help you collate the results.

So how are you ever going to optimize your site for 800 words and phrases? You're not. Almost nobody has the resources to optimize that many terms, and the good news is that most of us will do very well by focusing on the top ten or so words and phrases (more about that in a future post).

By the way, opening an Adwords account is free. Just Google "Adwords." You'll find the Adwords site in the organic listings at this address: https://accounts.google.com/  Pretty neat, huh?

At this point you should have a better idea of which keywords to use, based on the amount of traffic that each one is generating.  Another tool to evaluate what keywords and phrases you should use is the Traffic Estimator within Google Adwords.  We'll talk more about that in a future post.

Check Google Trends

A good way to get a rough idea of how many people are searching for a particular word or phrase is to use Google Trends. Trends allows you to enter up to five words or phrases (separated by commas). Your results will show the relative number of people searching for each word or phrase.

Suppose you sell floor coverings and you're trying to decide whether to focus this month's online advertising on tile, plank flooring, bamboo, or carpet (we realize this example probably seems excessively simple if you're in the business, but we don't sell floor coverings!). You just type those words into Google Trends and you'll know which of them is being searched for most, which second, which third, and so forth. You'll have a good general understanding of the online trends (we're pretty sure that's what they call it "Trends").

There are a few things to keep in mind both about the value of Google Trends and about its limitations. Trends shows results for the entire English internet (though it does break those results down by geographic region), not necessarily for your city. It's more of a butter knife than a scalpel. It's also true that just because lots of people are searching for a particular term doesn't mean they're going to find your website. We'll talk more about how to become successful by avoiding the most searched-for terms, but for now we'd just like you to keep in mind that Trends is more of a tool for getting to know the big picture than it is for developing a detailed keyword list for your website.

One neat aspect of Google Trends that can be helpful for websites dealing with hot topics or current events is that it shows spikes in searches and correlates them with major news stories. That can be very helpful if you're researching when to emphasize certain words and phrases and what information to correllate them with to take advantage of surges in search numbers.

Once you've got an idea of the big picture, it's time to go to step 3: the Adwords Keyword Tool.

What is the ONE thing I can do to optimize my site?

Let’s face it, SEO can be confusing. There are a dozen major things, and dozens of minor things that can and probably should be done to optimize your site. Worse yet, many of them are time consuming and involve disparate skills. Still, you have to start somewhere, and we get asked all of the time, “what is the one thing I can do to optimize my site?”

The answer is simple. Write! People use words to search the Internet. When I am looking for someone to install a sprinkler system at my house, I don’t upload a picture of my brown lawn to Google and hope they figure it out. No, I type in “Ann Arbor Sprinkler” or “Sprinkler System Installation.” Google and the other search engines understand text. Sure, there are other things that can help, but one of the biggest factors in convincing Google and the other search engines that your site is pertinent for a given set of keywords, is to make sure that your site contains those keywords.

If you install sprinkler systems in Ann Arbor, then make sure that your website liberally mentions that fact. Again and again. For any given set of keywords, you want them to appear at least once in the page title, once in a header tag, once inside of paragraph text, and also in the name of the page. We call it 4 in 1 optimization. You’ll call it “magic” once you see how well it works.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

And Why Your Ann Arbor Business Should Care ... A LOT!

Basically, Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is the art of making sure that when people search for products and services related to your business, your site appears on or near the first page of results.

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

There are a few basics that have a big effect on where your site shows up. For example, every business owner in Ann Arbor should have a good HTML programmer review their website to make sure the source code is efficient and that there are no obstacles to prevent the search engine robots [sometimes called “spiders”] from finding all the key information on the site. You should also do a careful review of what words people are typing into Google and the other search engines to find businesses like yours. There are many free tools that you can use to make sure your website contains the most important keywords, but an SEO expert will have access to some tools you may not, and will also be able to better analyze the data to help you decide which keywords to focus on. You will also want to find ways to get as many related websites as possible to link back to your site.

101 Tips That Will Rocket You to Page One of Google!

There are countless smaller tasks that can add up to big results for your website. SEO Ann Arbor uses a punch list of 101 action items that we apply to our clients’ sites, and if you have enough time, energy, and money, you could probably do the same. Not all of the action items are strictly SEO-related – we also focus on making sure visitors to our clients’ websites find something that makes them want to do business with our clients. A few of the areas used by SEO and web-marketing experts like SEO Ann Arbor are:

• Include location information on the home page
• Include descriptions of potential client categories
• Include a prominent call to action
• Employ social media to get more links and more traffic to your site
• Write a blog to get current information in front of your web visitors

You Need to Get to Page One

SEO is critical for every serious business in Ann Arbor, and everywhere people search the Internet. Did you know that according to some experts, 95% of real traffic to websites comes from the results on page one of search engine results? That means if your business appears on page two, you are competing for the leftover 5% of potential customers. If this seems extreme, think about the last few times you searched for a product or service on the Internet. Like most of us, you probably went to Google and typed in a word or words that you thought would get you to the businesses you wanted. When you found one or two likely listings, did you keep scanning through the results? We don’t either, and most people who use search engines (which is almost everybody these days) click through to the first likely listing they see.
Here’s one last example to show you how powerful being atop the search listings can be. After we did a complete search engine optimization on one of our Ann Arbor client’s websites, a new customer called to arrange a visit to their business. At their first meeting, the customer said, “We were looking for your service, and when we searched Google, your website came up number one. I guess God meant for us to do business together.”
You can’t buy that kind of marketing power ... actually, you can. Our client had us use every resource at our disposal to make sure their website was number one on Google, and it created the most powerful impression possible on that particular customer. Three years later, 90% of that client’s business comes from search engine results. They tell us it was the best marketing money they have ever spent.

Why You Need SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

So you spent a bunch of money to have a website designed and built and you think it looks pretty good. You took a lot of pretty pictures and wrote some great text describing your business, and now you’re waiting for the clients to start rolling in.
Awesome!
Except, for most of us, the “rolling in” part never seems to happen. Sure, we get a call or two, maybe even find that a few people contact us to ask where we are or what our prices are. But for the vast majority of businesses, the end of the rainbow simply doesn’t point at the proverbial pot of gold. Want to know why?

Web Marketing Can Separate You from the Huge Crowd

There are many reasons, but the quickest answer is that, depending on who you ask, there are between 344 million and 644 million websites on the internet. That means almost no matter what product or service you offer, there are a LOT of other people in the world offering it, too. Unless you do something really unique or really spectacular, you’re going to have to find clients the old fashioned way – through personal contacts, networking, and word of mouth. That can make it tough to earn enough to pay your overhead.
Another reason – closely related to the sheer number of websites out there – is that consumers are overwhelmed by all the advertising they encounter every day, not just on the internet, but on TV and radio, in their reading material, on billboards, and surrounding them while shopping or sightseeing. If you want outstanding sales, you’ve got to find a way to stand out.

Page One of Google is the Best Place to be on the Search Engines

One way to stand out is to be sure that your website appears on or near page one when people search Google or one of the other search engines. As we stated above, there are millions of websites, but only around ten of them appear on page one when you do a search. As we pointed out in this article - What is Search Engine Optimization?
According to some experts, 95% of real traffic to websites comes from the results on page one of search engine results. That means if your business appears on page two, you are competing for the leftover 5% of potential customers. If this seems extreme, think about the last few times you searched for a product or service on the Internet. Like most of us, you probably went to Google and typed in a word or words that you thought would get you to the businesses you wanted. When you found one or two likely listings, did you keep scanning through the results? No? We don’t either, and most people who use search engines (which is almost everybody these days) click through to the first likely listing they see.

It May Not be Enough to Have a Website

Search engine optimization is the science and art of adding the right things to your site and in other places on the internet to help the search engines find out how important and relevant your website is. Even if your business is the only one in Ann Arbor offering purple and green widgets, there may be other businesses in other parts of Michigan or the US offering purple and green widgets, and if they’ve had competent SEO work done, they may well appear above your business in search engine results.

Web Marketing Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

We don’t want to assume that you’re like everybody else, but in our experience the vast majority of business owners overestimate the “natural” importance of their businesses on the internet. We probably notice this because we made the same mistake when we started out. You’re rightfully proud of your business and hopefully you’re optimistic about the chance to make millions this year, but the noise of advertising is getting louder and louder with each passing year. Great results on the internet are made, not born, and the process of making them is called SEO.

You Can Do All Your SEO Yourself … Maybe

You can do a lot of the things that an SEO expert will do for you, if you have the time. You can do research to determine which words and phrases people are most searching for when they look for products or services like yours. You can cull out the words and phrases that don’t relate exactly to what you’re offering. You can write keyword-rich text to include on your home page and on other critical pages on your website. You can include appropriate keywords in your URLs, page titles, meta-descriptions, and text. You can seek out partner websites to link back to your site. You can write cogent, keyword-related articles to post on your site.
You can create and manage social media campaigns on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtbue, Linkedin and Pinterest. You can check your HTML to make sure that it is error-free. You can ensure that you use CSS appropriately, and that your site is submitted to all the relevant search engines and listing places. You can manage your Google Places and other geographical listings. You can develop and manage mobile versions of your site or apps that help generate traffic for your business. And you can do any dozen or two of the many other things that ensure you a steady flow of potential customers for years to come.
Or not.

Do It Yourself SEO is a Great Idea for Some Businesses, and Terrible for Others

If you’re actually a lot better at doing the thing that your business does, and you make decent money while doing it, then you should probably consider hiring experts to do your web work, SEO, and social media management for you. We’re fond of saying, “If you have more time than money, do your own SEO. If you have more money than time, hire someone to do your SEO for you.” It turns out that most good business people can make a lot more money doing their thing than trying to do DIY SEO.
We do SEO everyday, and we’re pretty good at it. Our clients’ websites get to page one of Google, either quickly or over a reasonable period of time. Because we work with SEO every day, we know what to look for, and we have efficient ways of doing it. We’re also local, so if you have questions or concerns you can sit across the desk from us or call us on the phone (in the same time zone!) and we’ll make sure your questions are answered. But whatever you do yourself, or whoever you decide to hire, make sure you understand and use SEO. It can make all the difference to your success! If you’d like more information or have a few questions, feel free to call us today!

What is Web Marketing?

By Nick Suino - SEO Ann arbor

Marketing on the internet is often called web marketing, online marketing, webvertising, or e-marketing. Promoting your product, service, or company on the internet is web marketing, and this usually includes not only websites and social mediea, but also email campaigns and other wireless media. Some web marketing companies can also assist you with obtaining and managing digital customer data.
A good web marketing or internet marketing company can bring together the creative and technical sides of presenting your image in the Internet, providing solutions for designing and building websites, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), market analysis, and client targeting. Some of the forms of customer engagement involve the placement of your message in many different virtual locations, including banner ads, email, mobile advertising, and physical ads with ties to mobile or internet such as QR codes. Types of Internet marketing
Web marketing can be loosely divided into these categories:

• Display advertising: banner ads on third-party websites or blogs to lead viewers to your website.
• Search engine marketing (SEM): promoting your website by increasing its visibility in search engine results either by paying for placement or by optimizing your site for the search engines.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): improving the visibility of your website or web page by boosting its “organic” search results.
• Social media marketing: getting you traffic or visibility by using social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Email marketing: marketing to a group of people using email.
• Referral marketing: promoting your product or service through word or mouth
• Affiliate marketing: your business rewards its affiliates for each visitor or customer sent to you through their website.
• Inbound marketing: creating and sharing content to bring viewers to your website or business

Advantages and limitations of Internet or Web Marketing

The ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) can be substantially lower than older, traditional forms of advertising. You can reach a much wider audience for a tiny fraction of “old media” such as magazine ads, billboards, or television commercials. Buying on the internet can be much more convenient for the customer than traveling to your location. Because you can often get quick results for a new product or service, and get detailed measurements of who is visiting your site (and where they came from), marketing on the web allows you to adjust your advertising on the fly to account for consumer preferences.

Limitations

There are many products and services offered on the internet (sometimes called “the interweb” by techies) that turn out to be scams. Because it is easy to create a website, there may be a lower barrier to entry, so some unscrupulous business people target unwary consumers. This seems particularly true for websites offering “get rich quick” schemes or systems purported to help you make money on the internet itself. Be sure you look for reviews or check with your friends before you buy from an unknown business.

What Should you Look for When You Consider Marketing on the Web?

First, do your research and find a company you can trust. We’ve heard many stories from small businesses who have either hired a web marketing company overseas or else hired their sister-in-law or a college student to build their website and “market” them on the internet. Make sure your company is a professional one and that they have the knowledge needed to properly build you a website and promote it.
Many of our clients like the fact that we’re located in Ann Arbor. We serve all of Southeastern Michigan, and our clients say they like being able to pick up the phone and call us, or ask for a meeting and sit across the desk from us to talk about their marketing goals. As long as our business relationship with you continues, we NEVER give up on trying to get your website featured prominently in the search engines and making sure you get conversions (people contacting you to purchase your products or services).
We’d love to discuss your web marketing goals. Feel free to give us a call to talk about what you’d like to achieve for your business. We’ll even take a quick look at your website and share our impressions without charging you anything. Even if you don't end up hiring us to do your web marketing for you, we like to think we can help educate and inform you. If your website is not on Page One of Google, contact us today!