How to Create a Professional Looking Website

Are you creating a website for your business?

Are you an entrepreneur who is trying to create a brand name?

Trying to design a completely new website that not only functions well but that also looks great can be overwhelming.

To make sure you’re getting the most out of your web design, follow these simple steps to ensure you have a great looking, professional-style website for your business!

• Get organized! Plan out ahead of time what pages you want to have on your site, and plan how you’re going to lay them out so that they’re logical, and easy to navigate.
• Keep it simple! This sounds like common sense, but the biggest problem with many websites today is that they’re too complicated for people to find information quickly and easily.  
• Stay focused! When putting together a compelling web design, it’s easy to get off track with design ideas. Keep your pages simple and easy, and don’t go crazy with design ideas that will ultimately take you off track from your end goal: to get more leads and/or sales.

Still Unsure?

SEO Ann Arbor wants to help you and your business succeed! Give us a call or visit our site today to see how our web design experts can help you!

How To Begin Designing A Website - Best Website Design Practices

In today’s ever-changing technology landscape, designing a website can be intimidating. If you’re struggling to learn how to make your website look great, we have a few tips that can help you!

First: understand your audience’s needs. A great website design not only provides information, but does it in a way that makes sense. Understanding your target audience, creative themes, and other goals is important.

Second, planning can be boring, but it’s necessary. A site map should be developed early to better define what content will be on the site and where it will go. A good site map will make the site easier to navigate for customers and clients.

Finally, the website design itself should be clean cut and simple. Aesthetics are important, but not at the cost of clarity. Remember, the customer goes to your site first and foremost to find the info they need. Professional photos and graphics look great, but shouldn’t be so cluttered on the site that they take away from your goal: to raise awareness, create leads, and hopefully, increase sales.

Looking For More?

Visit SEO Ann Arbor’s website today to read more about website design and to see how we can help you grow your business!

Top Tips for Effective Web Design

Do you have a website?

Are you looking for a way to increase the traffic to your site?

Are you worried that your site doesn’t look as professional as it could?

Do you want to make sure potential clients and customers trust your website?

Having good and effective web design seems like a no-brainer, but the truth is that many businesses lose business because their websites aren’t well designed. Don’t make the same mistake!

To make sure that you have the most effective web design possible, follow these simple tips!

1) Have a clear purpose: Make sure that each page on your site has a specific purpose. Part of web design involves fulfilling a need for your customers, and the easiest way to do that is to give them a site that’s easy to navigate.

2) Don’t go crazy with fonts: It is easy to get carried away when designing a site, but remember that your customers need to be able to quickly get the information they want. Stick with a maximum of 3 separate typefaces, and remember that the ideal font size for easy online reading is 16px.

3) Colors and images: Take time to think about the color scheme of your site. Contrasting colors for the text and the background will make reading easier for your visitors, and vibrant colors should be used sparingly. Choosing the right images for your site can go a long way when it comes to marketing and the overall image. High quality photos are best.

4) Mobile Friendly: Making sure your website is “responsive” is probably not something you worried about before, but with some new changes Google has made, this new element of web design is critical. Responsive design allows your site to be viewed on all devices (including smartphones and tablets) at a high resolution.

If you’re unsure about your web design, ask someone else to use your site and see what they think. Getting an outside opinion can help to see your site from the customer’s point of view, and can let you know what you can improve. Or, contact SEO Ann Arbor for a free website evaluation! We can help with website design, SEO, PPC advertising, blogging and more! Visit us at www.SEOAnnArbor.com or call us at  877-815-6974.

5 Best Web Design Tools

To attract visitors to your business, you make sure that your office or storefront is pleasing to the eye.

Why should you approach online business any differently?

If you’re unfamiliar with web design, this can seem like a daunting task.

Don’t be afraid of web design! There are many people just like you who are looking at web design with a critical eye in order to make their businesses more successful.

Here are five great web design tools (according to quickonlinetips.com) that are sure to make your website function better, look better, and grow your business. The best part is that you won’t need to learn a bunch of HTML or CSS to make it work!

1) Firebug – Firebug is a web development tool that lets users edit code on any live site. This program also provides diagnostic and debugging tools to make fixing problems easier.

2) Colorzilla – Colorzilla is an add-on for Firefox that lets the user pick out individual colors on websites instead of trying to eyeball the exact shade of blue, for example. This will also give you the code you need to use that color on your own site.

3) Colour Lovers – This site is for sharing palettes or patterns and is great for users who are looking for free to use background images or header images. This site also provides design tools for users to create their own.

4) Pingdom – This site loads your website in real time including all images and other aspects of the code. When it tests your site, it will test your load time and give you stats on how long all your objects take to load. This is important because, as you know, 20 seconds on the internet can seem like an eternity!

5) Foundation 3 – This program essentially acts as a blueprint for all your web design projects. Foundation 3 will help you design your website in a way that will make it responsive, or able to be viewed on a bunch of different mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Of course, any web design tool requires a bit of knowledge of coding. If you’re unsure of how to approach better web design, we can help you! Contact us at SEO Ann Arbor for a free website evaluation and we’ll be happy to help you make your website function as well as possible!

We're an extension of your team. Please keep us in "the loop"!

Our Ideal Client Communication

“We believe in helping people achieve their dream of a successful, growing business and an abundant life…starting today!”  We do this by employing a vast number of internet marketing and SEO strategies and tactics. However, our work is not done in a vacuum! We need consistent communication and content from you to maximize your success. We encourage you to think of your SEO Specialist as an extension of your team. 

We design your SEO campaign to work best for your  particular customers, products, and services. Your expertise in your business and your knowledge of your customers’ needs is invaluable to us. 

Here are a few examples of the kinds of information you can help provide:

• Phone calls – who is calling or emailing you, and what are they asking for? – Let us know, early and often! 

• Upcoming sales and events:  If you have a big sale or open house planned – Let us know!

• Cancellations:  If an event or promotion is cancelled that we’ve advertised for you – Let us know! 

• Conferences and community service projects:  Your staff “Races for the Cure” or attends a special conference or training session – Let us know!

• New products or services:  You change your hours, launch a new product, recall a product, or find a new use for it – Let us know! 

• Awards and recognition:  If you or a staff person becomes a member of an organization, your business receives accolades, or the baseball team you sponsor wins a tournament – Yep, you guessed it! Let us know! 

• Industry news:  You recently read any interesting trade journals or blogs related to your business – Let us know!  [and please provide us with a link or copy of the article]

• Staff news:  You hire a new employee, an employee retires, or other notable events occur like marriages, certifications, graduations, babies, etc. – Let us know! Are you noticing a theme yet?

• Customer testimonials or reviews.  Stories about customers are worth their weight in gold.  Your staff went above and beyond to help a customer – Let us know! 

Are you wondering what a staff change or a community service event could have to do with your SEO campaign?  For getting the word about your business out there, ALL news is good news!  We can add your keywords into almost any content. Not only that, any “feel good” or personal news will tend to attract more human visitors via social media, especially if you provide us with photographs! 

Speaking of photographs, when you have an event, it’s really, really important to designate someone to take
photographs (with permission) of happy customers to post on social media and your website.  We’re serious! It would be wonderful if you would assign someone the task of taking photographs and ONLY taking photographs, to make sure photos don’t become an afterthought.  

The more you “Let us know,” sooner rather than later, the more successful your SEO campaigns will be!

SEO Ann Arbor Shares 9 Absolutely Essential Things You Should Do With a Negative Review!

Do you hesitate to ask your customers for reviews?
Are you worried that they might write something you don’t want to hear? 
Have you felt the sting of a harsh review of your business or product?
 
Studies show that approximately 61% of online purchases are a direct result of online reviews about that product or service. However, some people may still decide to buy your product, even if they read a negative review, because they know they can get a refund if they dislike the product. So, why not take a chance? 

Well, negative reviews can be a deal breaker for some people. That’s why it’s so important to monitor your reviews and respond as quickly as possible.  Some media platforms (such as Google+, Facebook, and Twitter) allow you to respond. This will show the reviewer and other customers that you’re responding and taking an interest in your customers. 

When you discover a negative review, you’ll most likely be upset, perhaps angry.  But here are some tips that may help you handle them:

• Don’t respond until after you’ve calmed down. 

• Apologize if the situation deserves a reasonable apology.

• Thank them for the review.

• Offer your thoughts as to why you believe the review is incorrect (if applicable.)

• Share what steps you’re taking to improve the situation.

• Offer a refund, discount or additional service to keep the reviewer as a customer

• Respond directly to the customer

• Never write a harmful or disrespectful message toward a customer.

• Keep your message as positive as possible.

It’s important to respond to every review, both positive and negative. Always engage the reviewer by asking more questions – if applicable – and make sure you share details about the product/service they mentioned.  When a customer is shopping, and sees a negative review about your product, he or she may still buy it if you handled the situation well. If your competition doesn’t monitor positive or negative reviews, your involvement with your own reviews will definitely give you an advantage!

If your company gets negative reviews and you’re unsure about how to handle them, contact SEO Ann Arbor today. We’re dedicated to helping our clients achieve their dream of a successful, growing business and abundant life … starting today! 

SEO Ann Arbor Shares Why Reviews are Important!

Would you purchase a product from an unknown website?

Would you see a doctor who has no referrals?

Most people would say, “No!”

Consumers are typically interested in products that they find convenient, likable, and affordable. In today’s world, people use the internet as a major resource for deciding whether to buy a product and/or service. Studies have shown that approximately 61% of online purchases are derived from online reviews about that product or service.

Reviews made on local listings (i.e. Google Local, SuperPages, Yahoo! Local), business websites, and consumer review sites (i.e. Yelp, Angie’s List) are often read and held in high regard. This is why it’s crucial to monitor the reviews your business receives.

Benefits of online reviews are endless, but include:

1.    Increased sales

2.    Improves page rank on search engines

3.    Creates customer loyalty

4.    Engages customers to think positive thoughts about your products and/or service

5.    Encourages more visitors to review your services

6.    Provides a positive image of the business

7.    Communicates with consumers to suggest that you will resolve problems

To ensure your business obtains good reviews on the internet, make the process as simple as possible. SEO Ann Arbor suggests the following tips for getting reviews.

•     Follow up after a sale, requesting a review by sending an email.
•     Add a link on your website that directs customers to a place to leave their review.
•     Ask in person immediately after you provide service.
•     Keep track of people who’ve already reviewed your services, so you can send them a follow up email, asking them to review you on other pages as well.  
•     Brag about positive reviews on social media and your website.
•     Thank and, if possible, reward customers who give reviews after the fact, so they’ll be more likely to leave another review.  

We would love to hear from you!  Please leave us a comment below or contact us if you have questions or comments.

http://seoannarbor.com/contact

GUARANTEED PLACEMENT ON GOOGLE

Why You Should Watch Out for Offers that Seem Too Good to be True!

We see this all the time - a customer gets an email or call from someone telling them that they searched Google and couldn't find their business.  They may even guarantee results or offer low fees to get you hundreds of links. 

So we get asked, how do we respond to that? Do we offer low fees for a guaranteed number of links? No. Do we guarantee our results? No. A far more important question is, why not?   

Let's start with the fact that you’re responding to an unsolicited email or call.  Who do you think you’re talking to on the other end of the line or through email? Someone who really knows SEO ... someone who has your best interests at heart? 

No, you are talking to a spammer - the same type of person who regularly fills up your inbox with spam and otherwise makes a nuisance of themselves, and now you want to trust them with your business? In most cases they haven't even bothered to do a Google search for you – they’re sending you a form letter that just assumes you aren't showing up in search engines. 

They've even called and emailed us and told us that we weren't listed in the search engines! Gee, you sure about that? When they actually checked they were like "Oh, you guys actually are in the SEO business." 

But why not give them a try and pay them $100 or some other ridiculously low amount of money? After all, you think, they promised to get me 200 links, and you guys at SEO Ann Arbor said that links are good, right?

Wrong. Relevant links from high quality sites are good. Hundreds of links from low quality and non-relevant sites ... not so much. Especially when the sites are all from Hong Kong, India, and other foreign countries. They didn't mention that part, did they?  Not surprising. After all, they're spammers. They probably also didn't mention that non-relevant links from low quality sites will not do you any good whatsoever, and might even be harmful to your rankings. Ever hear of Google hell? That’s where Google puts sites that try to cheat the system, and trust us, you’ll be far from page one if you wind up in Google hell.

While you’re pondering that, think about how hard it will be to get those hundreds of links removed, especially when most or all of them are in foreign countries. If you find yourself in that situation, you'll have a real mess on your hands. Also consider this ... if getting your website listed on page one of Google was really that easy, why wouldn't everyone pay some spammer $100 and do the same thing? Remember, there are only ten available spots on page one, so it just can't be that simple. 

But they guaranteed me results!  What about that?  Let us let you in on a little secret. It’s not that hard to get listed on page one of Google for insignificant, non-competitive keywords, keywords that people hardly ever search for, keywords that won’t generate a significant amount of traffic for you. Who cares if you’re on page one for terms that nobody’s searching for?  So much for that guarantee.

Just in case we haven’t made enough of an impact yet, here are a few examples. Let’s say you own a business called Bob's Insect Removal. Wouldn't it be great if when people searched Google for “Bob's insect removal,” your site would show up on the first page?  Of course it would, but it turns out that that isn't too hard. After all, if people search Google for the name of your business, they already know who you are. It's great that those people can find you, but you aren't going to grow your business that way.  To get a wider audience, you need to attract new people – those who don't already know about you, but who are searching for the types of products and services you offer.

Ok, you think, what you’re saying makes sense, but they guaranteed me results for "insect removal" which is one of the services we offer. What about that? We agree, that sounds pretty good ... unless you find out that no one is searching for "insect removal."  Instead, it turns out, they may be searching for things like "pest control" or "exterminator" and other terms that actually generate traffic. Not all keywords are created equal, so if you find yourself on page one for terms that no one is searching for, it won’t help you much.   

A reputable SEO company will spend time researching your keywords to make sure that you’re focusing on high quality keywords that will actually generate results.  Getting listed on page one for high quality keywords would be something to crow about, but it’s going to take a lot of effort, and will likely cost far more than $100.  Remember, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it!  Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

Consistency pays dividends.

SEO is kind of like cleaning your house, in the sense that if you only do it a few times a year, you'll wind up with nothing but a big mess on your hands.  Consistency is key, and we are here to help.  We can tell you everything that needs to be done, how to do it, and even help you do it.

If your website isn't listed number one on Google then the real question is, why aren't you getting started today?

See www.seoannarbor.com for more information.

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.

Keywords found in page name

Part of making your site relevant to the search engines for your desired keywords is to make sure those same keywords are pervasive throughout your site.  In other words they should appear everywhere you can reasonably fit them in.  In the content, the headers, the page title, and yes – you guessed it – the page name!

What is the page name?  Every page on your site is really just a file stored somewhere on your web server.  Usually the home page is called something like index.html, or index.php, or default.asp (whatever your web server is setup to serve as the default page).  However other pages will have unique names such as about_us.html, or products.php.

In order to spruce up your SEO results you should consider changing some of the page names on your site, or adding new pages, to include your keywords and phrases.

Here are some examples:

Change about.html to about_left_handed_widgets.html
Change products.html to left_handed_widgets.html

For local results add a new page called left_handed_widgets_ann_arbor.html.  Add similar pages for each region or area you are trying to improve your results for.

Make sure you have a page on your site dedicated to each keyword/phrase

Let’s say you have an auto repair shop that specializes in providing service for European imports such as Audi, VW, and BMW.  When people go to Google and search for “bmw auto repair ann arbor” you would like your site to show up on the first page, if not first in the list.

Your current site has a “services” page that mentions that you work on BMW, VW, Audi, and other imports, but you don’t have a page specifically for “bmw auto repair ann arbor.”  Do you see the problem here?  You are hoping to be featured in the search results for a very specific search phrase, but you don’t have a page on your site that was specifically designed for that purpose.

But imagine if your competitor does.  Whoops!

The solution is to create a specific landing page just for “bmw auto repair ann arbor”.  You should go so far as to make sure the filename of the page includes those keywords (e.g. bmw_auto_repair_ann_arbor.html).  The HTML title of the page should also contain those keywords (more on page titles later).  The page should contain a lot of text that contains the phrases BMW, auto repair, and Ann Arbor.  Each one of those phrases should also be included in an HTML H1 header tag.

Try to include some specific information as to what advantages your facility would offer to someone with a BMW.  Do you have a BMW certified technician on staff?   What makes you so good at repairing BMW’s as compared to anyone else? The more information that you can provided, the more opportunities there are for you to include keywords, and that will help improve the relevance of your site for those particular words and phrases.  You might even go so far as to reserve a keyword rich domain name such as “bmw-repair-ann-arbor.com”.

Now go back and do it again for all of the other keywords and phrases that you are trying to optimize.

It all starts at the source

Use Good Source Code

Behind the nice pictures and words on your website there is something called “source code.” It’s the strange language that programmers use to tell your browser what to show you. It does a lot of other things, too.

You can see what source code looks like. When you’re looking at a website, go to the “View” menu and choose “Page source.” If you’re not into coding or html, close the page source window quickly and get back to looking at your web page. That stuff’s for programmers.

Good source code is clean and concise, without bugs. It loads quickly when you visit a web page. When you hire someone to design a website for you, make sure they can tell you whether they will hand code your site in html or use some page layout software. If somebody is charging you to design your website and they say they are going to use page layout software to do it, make sure they are using a professional designer and not one of those that tout themselves with “design your own website in minutes!”

If you hire someone to do SEO work for your website, keep in mind that they should be checking to see if your source code is any good. If they don’t at least raise the topic, you might want to consider a different SEO firm. At SEO Ann Arbor, when we undertake to help someone with their SEO, we always evaluate their source code to make sure it doesn’t hinder their search engine results.

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.

I should be doing this today!

I was talking to a client the other day who had just seen a presentation about SEO. He had been vaguely aware of SEO before, but the presentation really hit home. He was all excited afterward and had a bunch of questions for me, which I was more than happy to answer.

After answering his questions and explaining a bit more about how it all worked, he told me his big realization was that “I should be doing this today. If I don’t, some of my competitors will, meaning that I lose business.”

Exactly. So, are you on page one of Google? If not, then SEO is something that you should be doing today… Questions? SEO Ann Arbor can help!

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.

Ignore Your Website and it will Go Away!

My Website Looks Really Good!

Okay, so you were trying to save money when you started your business. Your friend's wife does websites in her spare time using Weebly or Moonfruit, so you asked her to design yours, and it looks pretty good. It has a home page with some nice motion graphics, an "About Us" page, a page showing the services you provide, and a "Contact Us" page. You've even gotten a few compliments on it from friends.

So How Come I'm Not Getting Any Calls?

Now that you've been in business for a while, you notice that you get calls from referrals and a few from that expensive Yellow Pages ad, but hardly any from people who found you through your website. Where's the so-called magic of the world wide web? You know your site can be found because when you type the name of your business in the search bar of Google, it shows up right there on page one. Heck, you submitted the URL to Google yourself!

Google Beauty is More than Skin Deep

Assuming your site is at least somewhat appealing to your potential audience, chances are you’re not appearing on or near the first page of Google results. That’s because beauty (or popularity, actually) is more than skin deep for Google purposes. There’s a whole range of things going on that aren’t readily apparent to the casual viewer of your website. Some of these things are page titles, meta tags, headers, keyword rich text, clear syntactically correct html, robust content, and the number of other sites that link back to yours.

Robots are Searching for You as We Speak

The search engines like Google and Yahoo! have automatic software systems sometimes called “search engine robots” or “spiders” that constantly patrol the web, looking for information that tells them how popular a website is. All those things we mentioned above are important. So if your competitor’s website is equal to yours in almost every way, but their page titles are more effective, their site will appear above yours in the Google search results. If enough other sites have better SEO features than yours, your site might not appear until several pages down.

Page Two is Like Outer Space

Putting aside the pride you justifiably feel if your site appears on Google search results at all, think about the last time you used Google to find something. Did you even bother to look past the first page of results? What if you found something even somewhat relevant to your search on page one? You probably clicked on that link and never bothered to return to your search results. That’s what’s happening to your site. Very few people who are looking for your product or service are going to get past page one, and not every one who sees the listing for your site is going to click on it.

Page One is Where You Need to Be

One study found that 90% of searchers click on one of the listings on the first page, and 14% of searchers click on the #1 result! That means you should try everything in your power to get on page one, and if possible, at or near #1 on the first page. The bad news is that (1) everybody wants their website to be at number one, and (2) it takes a series of things done right to get there.
There is some good news, however, and the good news is that there are people (like SEO Ann Arbor) who know how to get your site moving toward page one, and perhaps on page one. Those people are trustworthy, they’re hard-working, and they’re real people who live and work in the Ann Arbor area. They’ve got a track record of success, and they are constantly studying the science of SEO to make sure their methods are at the cutting edge. Best of all, you can call them and get a free initial evaluation of your website! Don’t wait! If your website isn’t on page one of Google, contact SEO Ann Arbor today!