A mobile site is a good thing to add to your existing site for your mobile user’s convenience. A mobile site is much lighter in its code and graphics. This makes it load faster and delivers to the mobile user only the most pertinent information about your business or service. The mobile site should also be designed to fit the variety of screen sizes for mobile users.

Adding a mobile site to an existing site is perhaps the best way to make your site mobile ready, with a button on your home page to direct the user to the mobile version of your site. There is also code that you can put at the beginning of your page to detect a mobile browser – also a good solution.

If you have questions about getting your site up to speed, allowing it to be seen clearly on “the third screen” give me a call!

Steve – 402-210-3283 in Omaha.

Opt-in email lists are one source of marketing that should not be overlooked. When a customer opts in to your list, they are granting you permission to market to them. The customer has initiated a relationship with your business and wants the information, products, or services that you have to offer.

The concept is powerful because the customer has requested the relationship because of their interest in your orgainzation and will respond at a much higher rate to your advertising and marketing directed at them because of this.

I won’t speak much about Text Message Marketing, but it is a growing concept in marketing, reaching a different demographic. Convergence of technologies is making the cell phone a viable marketing medium.

Please contact me for a free consult on your email marketing plan, or even the text marketing idea…you will be hearing much more of this very soon! Steve 402-210-3283

In part 1 we covered SEO as it pertains to some of the code to display javascript and flash. Let me preface this post with the statement that nothing can replace good text content with any type of coding when it comes to SEO.

Today, I will cover some of the basics of Tags and Titles and why they are important. Several tags that are important are: <title>, <meta name=”description” content=”your page description”/> and <h1> – These tags provide crucial information to search engines as to the topic of the page and how it should be indexed for relevancy to the searcher. They should all support each other (and the content of the page) and not be “stuffed” with irrelevant key words.

If you need help with this, I can provide an overview of your site and some suggestions for optimization both on-site and off-site, which we will cover in another post. Please contact me if you are in Omaha, Nebraska and want an SEO evaluation of your site.

• Is there lots of flash code?
• Is the site built in Frames?
• Is there a lot of javascript, especially for the navigation

Those are the big 3. If Fireworks or Dreamweaver was used to construct the navigation, it is readily apparent, and very unfriendly to the search engines. Additionally, lots of graphic designers don’t know the difference between CSS menus and ones constructed from tables/javascript swap images – now, I am getting a little technical here, but these are important questions to ask your designer – it means the difference between a site that looks like a million bucks but gets no traffic, and one that can actually be indexed by Google efficiently.

If you have a web designer who is more designer than technical, that’s where I usually come in. I can fix some (but not usually all) without a major overhaul. Some issues require much more work, so I like to prioritize your changes, give some options, and work with the web or graphic designer to remedy the problems.

In my next post, I will address some other important code issues that should be addressed in the on-site SEO process.

I am an Omaha SEO professional who loves helping small businesses locally, give me a call if you would like to learn more about either do-it-yourself SEO or help with an SEO plan for your business.

On site processes to SEO:

• Tags, Titles and code changes
• Content, copy and key words
• links and urls

Off site Processes for SEO:

• Backlinks
• Directory Listings
• Blog comments

These processes should both have attention paid to them as they are important to the overall site optimization.

All of these, of course, take time and energy to accomplish, and I always say you should put at least half of your online budget towards some form of SEO. It takes time and skill to get your site found on the net. Please call me if I can be of assistance in your SEO program. Steve 402-210-3283

You really need to involve someone who knows SEO from the beginning of your project. It is a whole lot less expensive to build it in to your site from the beginning than it is to go back and try to fit it in after the fact. Your SEO program will be much more effective.

Create a natural breakdown of your information and make it flow. Make it easy for users to go from general information on your site to more specific information.
Don’t:
• Make it overly complex. All your pages linking to one another isn’t always the best.
Use mostly text for navigation – Text links make the pages easier for search engines to crawl and improve accessibility. Make sure you use css standards – you can do a lot with css to make your links look attractive.
Don’t:

• Have navigation based entirely on images or flash – this slows down the page, makes it less accessible, and often adds large amounts of code (one other trick to optimization is code to content ratio – a whole other post – coming soon!)

Utilize “breadcrumbs” – These are rows of internal navigations, leading the user back to general information, from the most detailed information. It shows a hierarchy of info.

Having good navigation on your site will improve your user experience, lengthen the amount of time your user spends on the site, increases the possiblility of your user finding exactly what they need while there, and as an added bonus, you get the benefit of a potentially higher position in the search engines because you took the time to implement it.

If you need help with your navigation, or any other aspect of useability or SEO of your website, feel free to give me a call at 402-210-3283 (Steve). Factors like these are reasons you should hire an expert to develop your web site. You want to be found, you want your users to buy or contact you once they have found you!

I specialize in marketing your web site, and I especially prefer local businesses where I can sit down and determine the best strategy with you, for your business. If you would like to see more, MessageDirect.info has a portfolio, or contact me directly at sm (at) messagedirect (.) info!

Your web site is an extension of your business and should be a part of your marketing plan. So many small business owners don’t put much emphasis on their web site – they just don’t see the benefit, or they don’t know what it can actually do for them. Furthermore, they don’t understand that they probably have more potential traffic than they realize they could get coming from their web site.

The second concept is: If you build a site, you will not automatically get traffic to it. Traffic takes work. This is a form of advertising, and you must be prepared – a budget, a plan, and someone who can leverage both is a great strategy.

The best for last – I complain about this one the most – it probably should have been the first one. CONTENT DOES NOT WRITE ITSELF! ok. nor does it come free if you want your webmaster or designer to write it. It also takes time and research. You can’t give someone a logo and expect an interactive 30 page web site next week.

Now, this post is kind of a rant, but these are legitimate points that you need to consider as you plan your site.

One of my customers decided that they wanted to attempt it themselves so I recommended this e-book, Sites that Soar, an ebook — written by an artist. Written by Aisling D’Art – it makes the task of setting up, configuring, and customizing a new wordpress website less intimidating.

If you have problems you can always hire me! I love to help make your ideas come to life on the web!