| NewsletterWhen marketing your business, one of the most important pieces is your copy. Your ad copy, website copy, fliers and brochures copy… just about anything that you use to sell your products or services requires some form of copy.
Here are some quick tips for writing successful and convincing advertising copy;
It has recently come to the attention of many consumers, the importance of SEO in their websites.
Well, what is SEO? SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is defined as the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
So what does that mean to you – the small business owner? That means that your business’ website will appear higher in the “free” search results, placing your website in front of your potential customers in the Google results. This means more traffic, and hopefully more purchases.
You have to remember that it is your job to sell your product or services; it is the SEO guru’s job to make your site appear in the high ranks. He or she cannot sell your products for you; he or she can only give you the tools and access you need to sell them for yourself.
Prepare Yourself… The Interview
You don’t want to hire the wrong guru. You need to be prepared to ask him or her several questions in order to find out who knows their stuff and who should hit the road.
Q: What is your process?
A: Re-construction (whether this is a whole new design structure or just simply making medications to the existing site) of the Website to allow for search engines to more easily crawl through and index all of their pages.
Now that the pages are indexed… Monitoring of the individual pages based on a set of keywords that the clients is wanting to be seen for is the next step.
Make modifications to pages and content as it shows to be necessary.
More monitoring…
More Tweaking…
SEO is a constant battle. Just because you reach page 1 or slot 1 doesn’t mean you can sit back and enjoy the benefits. You must expect that your competition is not sitting around just letting you take the lead. They’re out there trying to improve their SEO and over-throw you as soon as possible.
Q: What parts of a Web page need to be modified in order to be indexed by search engines?
A: This can change depending on your Web site, but the key elements for SEO of any Website are;
Q: What tools do you regularly use to monitor and track?
A: These should be Keyword Analysis tools, Keyword Ranking tools, Index checking, back-link checking, and many others.
Q: Do you have experience writing copy (website content)?
A: They should have at least some experience writing copy, or they may contract out to a copywriter. This should be written well with good grammar and spelling, as well as adhere to certain guidelines that are necessary for good SEO — they should know these guidelines.
Q: What aspect of a Web site do they think is the most critical for organically ranking a Web site?
A: Content! This is the biggest aspect of SEO, followed by internal linking. The content should be thorough and have your keywords strategically placed within it.
There are many other things you need to discuss with your SEO specialist, and doing your own research prior to making any calls is important.
Contact Merchant Metrix today for a free search engine optimization Consultation to review your current website and see what can be done to improve it in the results. Contact us at 405-329-8500 or on our website at www.merchantmetrix.com.
It can be stressful when you finally take the plunge and decide to dive into the World Wide Web, but having that online presence is invaluable to you and your business. The trouble is that you don’t want to get stuck with a designer who does a terrible design, does a terrible job at developing it, or (worst case scenario) BOTH! Unfortunately there are people out that who are just looking to make a buck, whatever the cost to you.
So what can you do about it? Well, knowing what questions to ask is always a great place to start, so that’s where I’ll start. Here are the 5 top questions you need to ask your potential Web designer.
Do you design in tables?
If their answer is yes then hang up the phone on them! This method of producing Web sites is outdated and obsolete. It’s ok to use tables for data and micro-information, but if the entire Web site is one GIANT table, just walk away. Industry standards are pushing the use of CSS to style and layout Web sites.
Do you design for ALL browser and ALL computers?
Not all browsers display a Web page the same, like not all computers show a page the same. A Mac and PC have different fonts pre-installed on them and different computers have different monitor resolutions.
A normal Web site should be constrained to 770 pixels in width. This eliminates a viewer having to scroll to the right to see the whole page.
The acceptable fonts to be used are; Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, Trebuchet MS/Helvetica, Georgia, Courier New, and Lucida Sans.
There are literally thousands of browsers out there, we can’t design for all of them, and so we try to design for the masses. Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE6, IE7), Chrome, Safari, and Opera are the most widely used browsers and should be tested when designing.
Do you know basic Search Engine Optimization?
Every designer should have a basic understanding of Search Engine Optimization and how to optimize a Web site for search engines. If the site is designed structurally for SEO then you can have an SEO specialist go in later and bump your rankings if you need it. This includes the proper use of header tags, internal linking, breadcrumbs, meta-data, and overall structure.
What programs do you use?
Any designer worth considering will use an Adobe Photoshop-like program for all of their graphics. There are free photo editing software’s out there, but they do not produce the same result. Heck, you’re paying them all this money; you want it to look professional.
For the actual development of the Web site they can use anything from Notepad to Adobe Dreamweaver and get the same result… if they’re good. You want someone that can hand code and that doesn’t rely on a WYSIWYG editor to produce the code for them.
Do you have a portfolio I can look at?
You are asking this person to design and develop, in many cases, your first impression to the world. It’s gotta look good! You want it to represent you and your business well. However, new designers can still be good too; you want to see anything graphical they have done. If it’s a bumper sticker… was it laid out nicely? Is there a good use of color? Is it readable?
Remember, you are interviewing them. They should be friendly; you will be talking to them often, as well as knowledgeable. Your Web site is extremely important your success and if it’s not done right the first time, you will be paying for it later on – literally.
Please contact us at Merchant Metrix if you are interested in custom Website design. We’re here to serve you!
