Web Design And Internet Marketing TipsBy NetSpeak Solutions – NH Web Design & Internet Marketing Specialists

007.14.10 NetSpeak Solutions – New Hampshire’s Leading Website Design, Development and Marketing Firm – Announces Launch of New Website for Mrs. Murray’s Preschool.

Stephen Dow to NetSpeak Solutions Web Design News — Tags: , , , ,  

NetSpeak Solutions New Hampshire Website Design, Development and Marketing is proud to announce the launch of a new website for one of the top preschools in the region; Mrs. Murray’s Preschool. The preschool has been in existence for over 30 years, and has a stellar reputation for teaching children from the ages of 2 years and 9 months to 5 years old (pre-K).

The new website includes social media sharing widgets, conforms to XHTML, uses CSS3, Web 2.0, and includes a user dashboard for content management of monthly calendar-based events, and a photo/video gallery.

The next phase in the process is SEO (search engine optimization), adding a Twitter page, and also a Facebook business page. Click Mrs. Murray’s Preschool to see the new website.

106.25.10 Launching a New Website? Now You Need to Know How to Get Traffic and Customers

Stephen Dow to Web-Site Design  

By NetSpeak Solutions – A NH Web Design and Marketing Firm

So, you’ve hired a professional web design company and they’ve worked with you to develop a website covering everything you feel will be interesting to your intended users/customers. You also feel confident that your new website design will become a good place from which to sell your products and/or services (ultimately). These assumptions may be correct. But before you launch your new site, how do you intend to ensure that you’ll really be getting a steady stream of new and repeat customers? Without them, your business or organization will eventually lose the vast sales and informational leverage provided by the 24/7/365 Internet.

On one hand, the Internet provides many ways to “seek and learn” about how to get new customers to a website. However, these resources are so vast, that it could take you years to digest all of them all – let alone know how to use them in practice. Fortunately, there are professionals out there willing to help you with the more subtle aspects of SEO Internet marketing. Yet, all the tactics boil down to a few relatively simple principles – which are actually quite similar to those used used in brick-and-mortar businesses. And you can implement these yourself – if you feel so inclined.

First, you need to understand that on the Internet, “content is king” (especially to search engines). This doesn’t mean that you can get away with a one-page website with 10,000 words on it. That’s not what this adage means. What it does mean is that in order to make customers visit your site, to look through it for good amount of time, and to want to return regularly, it needs to be categorically focused and information rich. In addition, it should also be visually interesting – but NOT overdone. Why? Well, for example, if you’re trying to reach smart-phone users, Flash animation and wild graphic layouts can be a disaster. This is because Flash content won’t play on current smart-phone operating systems, and too many images can jumble the website layout so words and links are often confusing to make sense of at best.

Another principle that can pay dividends is having a web domain name that’s interesting and relevant to at least some primary search terms (if possible). This can help in rankings on search engines. More importantly though, your domain name should be easy to remember and easy to spell. This takes some careful up-front research, but it’s worth it. And if you’re unsure, don’t shy away from getting professional help! Web design and marketing firms are quite adept at helping with such things. They can also save you a lot of time, while providing excellent training on more advanced techniques!

Even though you feel you’ve built-up great content for your web site, make sure you continue to search for and generate more! This necessary in order to make your site interesting to return visitors. You should add at least some new content on a regular basis. Search engines reward this as well. They apply “points” towards natural results rankings for sites which update content more often than others.

During the web site design phase, make sure that your content is clearly categorized – so your site is easy to navigate. You don’t want anything on your main navigation display, or on pages that’s confuses a visitor/potential customer. All of this information may seem so obvious and so basic – yet it’s amazing how many sites don’t incorporate these fundamentals. And without them in place, no amount of advanced or continuing marketing can be effective.

Once all of “the above” are in place, next think about adding a “subscribe to our newsletter” form, a blog and even using social media sites. Why? Well, you want to build “a community” that’s based around your organization or business. This is one of the new ways that will enable you to market your products, services and specials directly to followers/customers. From humble beginnings, you can post on a blog, post on social media and send out mailers at least once a month to provide useful information and offers to customers. Remember, it’s important “to give” in order to “receive” on the Internet. For example, inform your base about a free drawing, a white paper report, an e-book offer, or some sort of free software.

There’s a well known business principle related to both online and direct marketing that is, “You must grow your garden intelligently and with a solid plan.” With the Internet this is just as true. In this medium though, it means to continually build-up a website following, an email newsletter list, blog subscribers and social media fans. It does take time, but by following these principles, the likelihood that you’ll increase website traffic, customers, and close more online sales also increases!

006.17.10 NetSpeak Solutions – NH Web Design and Marketing Firm – Announces Launch of New Website for Maine’s Largest Outdoor Adventure Vacation Outfitter.

Stephen Dow to NetSpeak Solutions Web Design News  

NetSpeak Solutions, a provider of advanced NH Web Design and Internet Marketing Solutions for 9 years, has just launched a new website design for North Country Rivers – Maine’s largest outfitter for outdoor adventure vacations that include white-water rafting, ATV riding, snowmobiling, hiking, biking, and fly fishing, along with lake-side cabin rentals, RV camping and tent site camping.

The site www.mainewhitewaterrafting.com is one of several operated by North Country Rivers. Both companies have joined into a partnership that provides strategic web design and marketing services in order to optimize the PPC campaigns, organic rankings, branding, sales traffic, social marketing and sales conversion rates of North Country Rivers.

In this latest effort, NetSpeak Solutions developed a new “look and feel” to engage the user more effectively. There are further plans in place for more new web site designs, web re-designs and marketing optimization projects in the coming months. This is all part of enhancing the awareness of North Country Rivers’ growing 4-season operations that is surpassing the the State’s Outdoor Adventure Vacation market.

Their massive 55-acre Kennebec-Dead River Resort Complex near Bingham, Maine offers everything from on-site recreation, to a pub, a restaurant, a lounge, a retail store, lakeside cabins and cottages, tent camping, RV camping, white-water rafting trips, ATV riding, hiking, biking, fly fishing, scenic walks, Moose and wildlife watching safaris, and much more.

The new website also includes an enhanced design layout (for improved access to the many Maine outdoor adventure vacation, lodging and meals packages that are now available).

The website also includes content management WITHOUT the use of “SEO resistant” CMS software. This gives both NetSpeak Solutions’ AND North Country Rivers’ staff, proper administrative access to specific sections of the website; including frequent “Internet specials” page updates which highlight weekly to monthly special offers and promotions that are available.

Another feature of the site is a better way to find the correct location and directions to both of their resort base locations (near Bingham and near Millinocket, Maine). This has been a  problem in the northern portions of Maine until now, and was successfully overcome through using satellite geo-coding and then developing custom pages that provide exact directions no matter where you are. See one example of this capability by obtaining the directions from the Kennebec-Dead resort base directions page (near Bingham, Maine).

106.02.10 Web Design “CMS” Style: Is It Right For You?

Stephen Dow to Web-Site Design  

Web Design “CMS” Style: Is It Right For You?
by Stephen Dow: NetSpeak Solutions – Web Design Firm

Occasionally we’re asked if we could develop a web design that would allow a client to update specific content themselves.  This type of web design is based on a “Content Management System” structure. We then would say “yes” – but with caveats. First, we’d let the client know that CMS enables us to produce a web site that will “look” just as they wish. However, since it’s more complex to accomplish (because it’s database driven) more coding (more time) is required. So, it will cost more.

Over the last year or so, we’ve asked ourselves why clients inquire about these types of web sites more and more. From this, we’ve determined that it’s due to two factors; one is because of the use of social media sites (blogs as well) – where people have the freedom to post, edit and delete whatever they want – with the desire to communicate as the primary motivating factor. The second reason we’ve identified is perceived cost.  Many clients “believe” (largely due to over-simplified, big company marketing efforts) that CMS sites will cost them less, and they’re much easier to maintain.  The truth really is that CMS sites “only sometimes save you money”. Most of the time they add a lot of time in administration duties, and, “they actually cost you more money”.  They can also impede the establishment of a search engine presence – or ruin an existing presence (if you aren’t fully versed in web marketing).

Creating a custom web design with CMS technology allows a designated person(s) to edit or update specific content on the web site using a specifically designed WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editor. This editor is located inside a password protected admin page. If you are familiar with blogs, this administration area has something similar to a word processing program in it, but doesn’t have all the features. Using this WYSIWYG – and other tools – allows you to edit, add or delete text, photos, and can also enable you to upload and link to video, PDF’s and other files.

It’s important to note that a Content Management System does not enable you to control the code that defines the overall site “design” or “layout template”. You can only edit text, photos, videos, and some other items within the existing coded framework. This is where you need a web design professional. He/she can alter the main design code (usually PHP code), with possibly some JavaScript and likely CSS (cascading syle sheets).

Contrary to big company advertising claims, the decision to utilize a CMS based web design should not be taken lightly.  Here are the key issues we think you need to consider:

1. Initial Development Costs: A custom website with CMS pages for editing will take more development time to create than a static web designs using XHTML and CSS that operates the same except for editing. However, if you or someone else in your organization has skills in these areas (and the associated software), then you’d probably br better off if you updated a less expensive static site.  In fact, depending upon the number of pages, the amount of content (text, photos images, PDF’s, etc.), design complexity, and other features, it will cost up to 25-45% more to create an identical CMS web site.

2. CMS is Database Driven: When developing a CMS site, a hosting company (or corporate entity) must install and maintain software on a web server and a database server. As a result, web pages are actually created “on the fly”.  The page header, footer, main body and other content are stored in a database and are brought together using the main design template(s) coded for the overall design.

This is important, because the database software and the code used to access the database is more vulnerable to attacks by hackers than a “static” web site. This is not to say that this is a horrible problem – just that the providers of the software regularly release security updates that need to be applied to CMS software. Unfortunately, this is another item that takes time and thus will likely cost money (less so, if you are using a hosting company). But even if you won’t be paying for updating the software, you will typically will have to pay for periodic security and software updates if your company has the servers – and possibly if you are using a hosting company. However, other time and cost issues can sneak up on you down the road (see conclusion).

3. Updating Needs: If you plan to update multiple pages with content, video and images on a daily to weekly basis, then you will likely save some money if you use a CMS site design (assuming you can deal with issue #4) . But if you end up updating content monthly (or less), you will likely not be saving money. In this scenario, a web designer or programmer will be able to make updates on a static equivalent site more quickly and cheaply than you. And, if you only update your site a couple of times a year or less, then there’s really no advantage in having a CMS site at all. From our perspective as web designers and web marketers, we find that people do not update their wed content nearly as often as they thought they would.  So think long and hard about this.

4. Search Engine Marketing Implications: This can be THE deal killer… In one regard, it seems so simple for you to be able just do all of the content updating you want without any concern – but there ARE consequences with websites as opposed to social media sites and blogs. Unfortunately, what most people aren’t immediately aware of is that websites aren’t typically for personal use. They serve organizations, companies and money-making entities the best. This is why search engines depend primarily on their content for business related search results. Moreover, companies typically hire businesses like ours, or have a staff of people just to oversee the website for content updates, keyword matching, etc. They do this because Internet marketing efforts are so important in optimizing website sales traffic, branding, paid ad campaigns, sales conversions, and to achieve and maintain high natural search rankings.

So, if you didn’t realize that “updating” will be affecting such important factors as this, then you do now. And if you do things that work against search engines, then you’ll end up with an expensive website that will likely never rank – and thus it will never be found; a VERY important consideration if you are a business!

For example, do you know how to write a search engine optimized “Title” and a META description (and this is just the start). Do you also know how to use the correct number of characters and how to optimize the position of your page keywords in these tags 9and some others)? Also, since main “content is king”, for search engine rankings, do you know the proper usage of the “H1, H2, and other related tags – as well as the proper use of anchor links and internal links within your text?

We’re not done yet either… Do you also know how to use the “ALT” and Title attributes for images. The same goes for putting in “Title” text for links (different than the previously mentioned “Title tag or attribute”). Basically, if keyword phrases are not included properly all through your site, then its pages simply won’t be found in the natural rank results in any user search.

We just want you to understand that while it’s relatively easy to make content and other updates using a CMS web design, it’s not like Facebook, Twitter or a Blog. It’s not as easy to do well without knowing advanced SEO (search engine optimization) skills.

5. “Look and Feel” Issues: If you don’t have an eye for typography as it pertains to the web, then you’ll likely use web unfriendly fonts (ones that are hard to read). You may also mix too many different fonts together, use type sizes that vary too much, and/or choose text colors that don’t go well with the overall site color scheme. If this happens, your website will look unprofessional.

Conclusion

For a CMS web site, we recommend having search engine optimization features included. However, if you don’t understand how to implement SEO principles site-wide, then little usefulness is actual there for you for all the additional cost. This is likely why most web design companies don’t even provide complete access to CMS sites! Most WILL charge you later though for the SEO work you’ll be needing. And this is can be more costly than a standard site; since this type of access is not part of what is editable.

So, how much money will a poorly maintained CMS site cost you in the long run? Let’s just leave it this way; at least as much as a bottled water billboard sign ad, sitting right in the middle of the desert – hundreds of miles away from where there are roads and people. Get the picture?

NetSpeak Solutions creates custom web designs so we can help you decide what’s best for you. For some clients we actually recommend a hybrid approach that has a blog (with CMS features) which allows you to regularly write your own articles and upload photos or videos too. Good blogs also help the marketing of the main website. Also, a web site that incorporates a “News” location, or, a database driven calendar that can be updated regularly are other examples. There are more.

005.19.10 About Those Mysterious Meta Tags

Stephen Dow to Internet Marketing  

by Stephen Dow – NetSpeak Solutions NH Web Site Design and Marketing

So you’ve heard of Meta Tags, but you don’t know what they really are, and why they may be important to your web site and search engine marketing efforts. Well in short, many Meta Tags play an important part in your site – and are part of its HTML code. They are located near the top of a page, and SHOULD be placed within each page.

What Meta Tags actually do is inform search engines; like Google, Bing, Yahoo (and others) what your website is all about – on a page by page basis. I consider the “Title” Meta Tag to be the most critical of all of the various types because it’s actually the first string of characters that a search engine reads when it visits your website with its indexing spider bot. a “Title Meta Tag” should clearly describe what the web page it’s on is about (in as few “key” words as possible). It also should be written for human consumption – its contents can be seen at the top of the browser when you view a page. In Google natural search results, the “Title Tag” actually shows up as the hyperlink a visitor would click to visit your site. However, writing it to read by humans can sometimes be difficult, since it’s also critical that this Tag relates to other tags, can compete to help you rank, and represent your content.

The Meta “Description” Tag is another important tag – and is typically used in search engine results (particularly in Google natural results.) If there is a Meta Description tag on your web page, it should contain what the searcher is to see when they Google your company. The content within a Description Meta Tag is also another chance to entice prospects to visit your website – not just provide search engines more clues about what content is lurking on a particular page.

The Meta “Keyword” Tag, in my opinion, is a tag that is becoming less and less important. Years ago, this tag was an opportunity for search engines to ‘tag’ your website content based on the keywords listed within it. however, over time, many SEO firms realized that they could use this tag to ‘inflate’ the weight of certain terms/pages, so search engines (like Google) stopped paying much (if any) attention to them. It still doesn’t hurt to install this tag. However, we never expect any measurable weighting of its contents to search rank results.

In any case, the use of Meta Tags is important – and there are many more that should be used. To see if you have Meta Tags on your website, right click on your site and click view source (or, view page source). If you look over the upper portion of the website code, you should see many Meta Tags near the top. Then, make sure that the tags make sense and accurately represent site content on a page-by-page basis.

005.04.10 Determining and Optimizing Visitor Traffic

Stephen Dow to Internet Marketing  

by Stephen Dow – NetSpeak Solutions Web Site Design and Marketing
Everyone wants their site to receive lots of visitor traffic. Without it, a website has little value. However, since most people don’t even know how to analyze visitor traffic, what can be done. First off, some keyword research can be accomplished by establishing a “pay-per-click” (PPC) ad campaign. However, this approach involves a lot of time, money and effort, and can only pull in a maximum of approximately 25% of the active searchers found on a search engine results page. But it still won’t provide you with important site usage information that could increase the appearance of PPC ads on search results pages. Your ad may not show up at all if you chose keywords that don’t relate to site page content (or lack thereof).

Nevertheless, even if you have some ads that relate to page content and “appear”, you are not solving the real problem; which is how your website content and/or other factors are affecting ranking and traffic. You still need a more complete understanding of site usage in order to begin to optimize your site and the traffic it is capable of pulling in.

The way you do this is to learn about your site visitors (and more) through the log files stored on your hosting server. Fortunately, most hosting companies provide some type of software that processes your log file data into a format that can easily be read. With this information in hand, a webmaster or site owner can begin to gain a more complete understanding of the number of people visiting the site, where they are coming from, their entry and exit pages, the average number of pages they view per visit, as well as other data.

All of this will enable you or an Internet marketing professional to better analyze the effectiveness of the design, structure and content of your site. This is also the beginning of how you ultimately work to drive up your natural search rankings (ideally to within the top 10) – since this where 75% of the traffic to any site comes from. NOTE: This can be a very tedious and time-consuming process. It can also involve coding. That’s why many opt for professional help.

Important Category Terminology Explained

When you look through your website log analysis program, the first term you need to purge from your head is “hits”. Why? Well, many people are so impressed at how large this value is (compared to the values in other categories) that they feel they’ve reached nirvana. Unfortunately, “hits” do not accurately describe visitor site viewing at all.

“Hits” are nothing more than ANY HTTP request made to your server for a variety of website-related content on the server. Requests for content are made not just for pages, but for images and other items associated with the make-up of your web site. In addition, many “hits” are also a result of the many search engines that crawl your site to analyze and store its contents and linking structure (for ranking). And they certainly aren’t going to view your site like a typical user – because their visits are directed by programmed actions (specific “mission” parameters of their own).

So you should concentrate on studying the category called “unique visits” (also called “unique page views” or “page views”). This category provides solid information generated by each unique user. The user information generated is based on the IP address of the user’s computer, which is a constant value regardless of the browser or the operating system in use. In this way, no matter how many “hits” a given visitor registers while on your site, the server will record his/her session as “one unique visit” and record “how” he/she has looked over your site (in total time, total pages visited, which pages were visited, and also which pages they used to enter and exit from). Thus, “unique page views” gives a better idea of both the amount of “real” traffic as well as how the site is being navigated for information (or again, any lack thereof).

More Information on Web Traffic Categories
1. Unique Visits:
You should be looking for a trend in the average number of unique visits on a day-to-day basis and eventually on a week-to-week and then monthly basis. There might be a good deal of volatility in the number of unique visitor over time (especially with newly launched or re-designed sites), but you should pay particular attention to the trend of the average number of visitors per month as volatility decreases. Optimally, you want to have these numbers increase month by month.

2. Entry Page Data:
Based on this information, you can learn which page(s) are the main entry point(s) to your website. You’ll likely find that most visits begin from the home page. But, at some point, you should notice that traffic originates from or more pages other than the home page. If this isn’t the case over time, then it may be that your web site doesn’t have an optimum navigation structure, or, the information that a user is trying to look for just isn’t there.

3. Bounce Rate Data:
Bounce rate is typically defined as the percentage of people who visit your website and immediately leave. You shouldn’t get worried if you have a bounce rate near 50%. Most web sites have numbers in this range. But, if the bounce rate is higher, try experimenting to find a means to retain visitors. For example, it might be that you need more graphics on the main entry page(s), slightly less text (be careful here), faster loading pages, and/or a more engaging color scheme in your design – etc.

4. Exit Page Statistics:
This information category shows you from what page people leave a web site. Knowing which page is losing most site visitors my show nothing more than the end of their visit, or, it can indicate that they couldn’t find what they were looking for on the site. As was mentioned before, you can experiment with some changes in page content (or add pages) to see if your visitors remain on your site longer and/or leave from some other page.

5. Average Visit Time & Page Views Per Visit:
Web visitors are “typically” goal oriented. When visiting a web site, most will merely scan a page quickly – to determine whether it contains any information they may seeking as relevant. By analyzing the average amount of time spent on your website and the average number of page views per visit, you can determine how engaging your site content is. The key to retaining visitors and increasing the number of page views is to have relevant and interesting information. Content is king!

6. Top Referring URLs:
This data lets you know where the bulk of your website’s traffic is coming from. This is important if you’re pursuing a website marketing campaign or search engine optimization campaign because you can easily judge the campaign’s effectiveness by looking to see how many visitors each marketing method is generating.

7. Top Search Words/Phrases:
This information let’s you know which keyword phrases visitors are using in Google and the other search engines in order to find your web site. With this information, you can gauge the effectiveness of your search engine rank based on those keywords and the related page content. You can also get an idea of how keyword density within content pages might be altered to position yourself for higher natural rankings (but more variables apply to do this correctly). For other keyword phrases you wish to rank on, you have to develop content/pages that include such phrases – but it’s not as simple as it sounds to do.

8. Browsers, Platforms & Screen Sizes:
This information gives us some insight as to the type of software and hardware your visitors are using. It’s important to design your website to look the same across all browsers and operating systems (cell phones are a killer though). In addition, pay close attention to the screen size and resolution settings being used by your visitors to view your site. The goal here is to ensure that no has to resort to using the horizontal scroll bar to view a website that’s too wide.

9. Geographic Dispersion/Country of Origin:
A good server log program will let you know the geographic region percentages of site visitors. This is important if your website only has appeal in a particular region. For example, if you own a retail store that sells shoes within the United States and you find that 78% of all website traffic has been coming from Asia, then it’s easy to see you need to re-think your marketing strategy.

Goals of Web Usage Statistics for Visitor Traffic

By gathering even basic information on how your site is being used by visitors, you can begin to see if you have major problems with your site. From here, you can try to come up with possible solutions yourself, or hire a professional to do it for you. Problems with sites often arise because of a poor visual appearance, a confusing navigational structure, lack of desired content (or poorly provided content) as well as relationship issues between content and specific keywords.

To remedy big problems, it’s usually best to make only minor adjustments, and then assess progress over a month or so, to more fully understand if what was changed made any impact. Also, remember that sites with a greater number of visitors will have more accurate web statistics, while sites with smaller numbers are more prone to have averages that fluctuate due to a few anomalous visits. In many cases though, you may need professional assistance in order to properly assess and improve traffic flow to your web site.

104.29.10 The Key Steps to Achieving – “Web Design for Marketability”

Stephen Dow to Internet Marketing  

The Key Steps to Achieving – “Web Design for Marketability”
by Stephen Dow, NetSpeak Solutions. A NH Web Site Design and Web Marketing Firm

1. Domain Name Selection

The first step involved in developing a website is deciding upon (and registering) one or more domain names through a reputable company. We also recommend adding “private registration” as an option (to hide your identity as the domain owner, and to eliminate a source of spam). This option costs a little more, but it’s worth it!

Also, even though you “technically” can use any domain name for a website, the first rule to follow is that it’s best to register one that’s easy to type, and to remember. And contrary to popular belief, you “don’t” have to register a domain name that’s the same as your company name. It might be better to come up with a domain name that includes some obvious search keywords also related to your ultimate content. Why? Well even though the “big 3” search engines pay attention to your web content primarily, they also look over the characters in your domain name. The current prevailing wisdom is that they also “give you extra points, so to speak” for those domain names that contain search terms and related content. This means that this “can” help you rank better to some degree (because search engines calculate their natural search results with this – and other factors – in mind).

However, if you can’t find this kind of domain name, all is surely not lost. This is because there are billions of websites out there, and millions rank #1 without such domain names. Also, there about 100 variables used by search engines in their ranking algorithm (especially Google, Bing and Yahoo). So, content, and other factors are really “key”. Moreover, since each search engine weighs their algorithm variables differently, think of this as a recommendation – not an absolute. The bigger point is to make the process of ranking on a major search engine easier rather than harder (more on this in a future post).

2. Looking Over the Competition, Obtaining Keywords, Determining Navigational Structure

Look over other websites that compete with you in some way (at least those that cover the same “content topics” that you intend to). You may need professional Internet marketing help to do this effectively because you must know how to determine as many of the possible keyword phrases necessary in order to obtain optimum results. The exception to this is if you’re a local company and you know all of your competitors. If you’re competing nationally though, it’s best to seek out a professional Internet marketing and web design firm or agency to at least review what you do. It might be wise to also involve them in picking a domain name?

Once you review your competitors, closely analyze what they do well, do poorly, and, what they don’t do. This is also best done with the help of an Internet marketing professional – but you can do it if you take great care. Just remember that this is one of the most important phases in the development process – so don’t take it lightly! If you do, then your website will be little more than a billboard in a desert – since it will lack an appropriate search foundation.

During this phase, you may also find more keywords and related content to improve search engine ranking. But best of all, you’ll end up understanding what your site should “be”, and you’ll be able to devise your main navigational (linking) structure for your site (this defines the “most import” and “minimum number” of pages needed). After all this has been completed, you can focus on the actual design and development process.

3.0 The Web Design and Development Process

The intent of the web design process is to come up with “a look and feel” that is eye catching, but not cluttered (part of what is called Web 2.0). The many guidelines and technologies involved with Web 2.0 are both good and bad in nature. However, the key to it all is that function (navigation and content) always over-rides form (e.g., the overuse of images and technologies, like Flash animation).

Too many images and animations on a page slow down page loading (which is also a factor in website ranking too). In addition, since it’s impossible for any search engine to read text that’s been embedded within a graphic or within a Flash animation, you must avoid using your keywords within these types of files. This is just one way “clutter” can begin.

Next, you must provide all the content that each page needs. You can have a web design and marketing company do this for you (yes, it takes time, so it will cost you – but it may be necessary for ranking well). As for content, focus primarily on text you already have (like that which is found in brochures, flyers and other documents). This information will be a great help to you and/or a web design and marketing company (rather than developing it all from scratch). You should also obtain customer testimonials – between 5 and 10. Finally, you’ll need all the logo files, photos, download files (like pdf’s) and audio/video files that provide important information to site visitors.

Some of this may need to be provided “after” the design process has commenced. However, it’s much more efficient (and cost effective) to have as much content available in advance. If you have to develop content from scratch for a page or other file, then expect a hold-up to the design phase at some point. Also, if you’re using a web design and marketing company to develop your website, they should make your “growing site” viewable through a temporary web address provided to you.

Once you have a “design” that you like, you must fully review the site (checking for spelling errors and that all the links are sound). Then, you will eventually give the “okay” for the site to go “live”. When it does go “live”, t will be viewable by simply typing your domain name into your browser. But first, to make your website “live on the web” you will need a hosting company account.

4.0 Website Hosting Companies

An account with a hosting company enables your web pages to be uploaded onto special server computers. These server computers are connected to the Internet near its “main hub” (much nearer than you and I can connect to it). The closer a hosting company is to the main hub of the net, generally the better your site will rank. Although you can’t actually determine this easily, a hosting companies’ history of good service and moderate price is a good indication. Hosting accounts also enable you to establish email accounts that utilize your domain name following the “@” symbol. They also offer webmail accounts and other important features.

NOTE: There can be HUGE differences in the services and costs offered by hosting companies. Thus, it’s VERY important to pick a good one. It’s also a good idea to setup monthly payment for services; so you won’t be stuck with a big bill should you need to find another host company for your site. Good “shared” hosting accounts (on a UNIX server) typically costs from $6.00 to $11.00 per month. Dedicate or “virtual dedicated” hosting accounts are much more expensive and generally unnecessary for most users.

5.0 Launching Your Website

Once your site has been thoroughly reviewed, and deemed “complete” (by you), you are ready to make it live, your registered domain name is re-pointed to a nameserver dictated by your hosting company. Once this is done, it takes anywhere from 6-72 hours before you can view your website from a browser – using just your domain name. Going “live” is a great feeling – whether it’s your first time, or your 200th!

Next, depending upon the scope of your project (and size of your company), you can begin focusing more on the process of building a brand presence. This is accomplished by search engine optimization, through social media networking sites and blogs. If you have a search engine marketing optimization arrangement with your web design and marketing company then they should provide a variety of services aimed at making your website appear in the top 10 (or higher) on the free “search engine results pages” (called SERP’s). This can take several months though – depending on the number of competitors that exist in your market.

6.0 A Review and Some Additional Tips:

1. Develop a simple, user friendly, easy to follow navigation scheme for your website.
2. Listen to your web designers and search specialists about how to develop your website for a “good look and feel” while also making it “search engine friendly”. If you don’t do this, then you’ll NEVER achieve high rankings on the three major search engines. So, your web design process would end up being a waste of time and effort.
3. Track your website visitors using the analysis tools provided by your hosting company (using their control panel). Not only will you learn about “hits” and “visits”, more importantly you’ll learn about “how” people use your site. In addition, some analytic software enables you to see the keyword phrases used to find your website. There are more tools like this that are also available.
4. If you will have a large website, consider including “site search” to help people find the information they really want to see, and find, more rapidly.
5. Design your website so that it looks essentially identical when viewed in ALL web browsers. This is often overlooked!

203.29.10 Working with a Web Design and Internet Marketing Company

Stephen Dow to Web-Site Design  

Working with a Web Design and Internet Marketing Company
by Stephen Dow, NetSpeak Solutions. A NH Web-Site Design and Web SEO Marketing Company

I was on the phone with a potential client for “umpteen thousandth” time, and I realized that sometimes, no matter “how or what” you say on the phone – or in person, many people simply can’t fully grasp what is involved with integrated web design, search engine marketing, social network media, PPC, hosting, etc.

So, figuring that most people have more time to read and thus “absorb”, I decided to put together an article that includes a basic list of what I feel you need to know about how a web design and Internet marketing company goes about analyzing what they need to do FOR you; including how they do some of it. Anyway, I hope this approach helps at least a few of you out there. It won’t answer everything. But it should fill-in some gaps.

Initial Questions for Those Who Need a Website, and for Those Who Have an Existing Website That Needs Help
If you already have a website you shouldn’t simply be asking a web design company / marketing company, “I need you to make me rank higher on the free results so I can make more money by increasing rank”.

You may think this is the only thing you need, but it’s not.

We first need to know a lot more about your website. For example, who is your hosting company, how sound is your web code, how good is your navigation scheme, how well have you assembled web content in relation to your keyword phrases (if you have any). These items enable us to help decide whether your existing site needs re-design work up-front. As for hosting, many people I speak with don’t understand at all how important a good hosting company is. Well, for example, moving a website with one or more databases is fraught with issues, but it may be necessary. Also, did you know that if you are using a poor hosting company, this can actually limit your natural rank results (as well as provide you with fewer inherent features – like automatically helping you setup a blog on your own sub-domain)? Did you also know that a good hosting company provides software that allows you to analyze keyword phrases used to get your site as well as to tell you how many unique visitors come to site – by day, by week and by month, and from where – and more?

On Web Design
If you don’t have a website yet, besides beginning the process of design, we may recommend that you use a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign after your new site is “live” (for a relatively short time). This is because it can take 2-6 months to obtain optimum “natural” rank keyword results on the major search engines. You don’t necessarily want to continue overlapping paid and natural results, since research has shown that 75% of the click-throughs on search engines come from the natural results. The PPC campaign is really the way you make your website visible on search engines to generate traffic – until you rank optimally (and naturally).

Website design should be about ease-of-use along with the inclusion of excellent content for its visitors. This takes a good amount of forethought. You need to gain knowledge about competitive sites and gauge how to provide better ways of saying and doing the things they do best, and, do what they aren’t doing. However, keep in mind that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Well, neither will any good website.

It’s so essential to take the time to gain a complete understanding of both your competitors and your customers to design or re-design a website with a user experience that will be special to them. If this is done you’ll not only increase your sales, but your company will be building its brand by “leaps and bounds” via the positive unsolicited PR that will be generated by many happy visitors.

Search Engine Optimization
An obvious issue is Internet marketing SEO. As the process of website page layout and navigation are being ironed out so should your choice of page content – and thus your keyword phrases. This is because we still are living in a website and search engine dominant world.

To help with the proper choice of keyword phrases, most web design companies with Internet marketing expertise use some very powerful software tools. They help a copywriter make pages “readable” to both the human and the search engine. You also need an inbound-link building campaign. The intent here is to use the Google algorithm to your advantage. And since inbound links figure heavily, it’s necessary to use them to help push you along “up the charts” so to speak – especially with Google. These inbound links are frequently referred to as “back-links”. Their content must be choreographed carefully so they work optimally with the home page as well as any internal pages they are intended to point toward. There’s more that could be discussed here on SEO and SEM, but key points have been made.

Beyond Search Engines and Rank Optimization
This is where blogs and social networking media sites come in. They all serve to increase traffic and branding in different ways than search engines.

Whether you already have a website or not, be prepared to spend a fair amount of time on social networking media sites and their optimization. This is because social networking is growing rapidly, and you can no longer afford to ignore them. But just how do optimize social networking media exposure since there are literally hundreds of social networking media sites on the Internet?

Well, many are great sites, some are good and many are worthless. After looking at the demographics of your customers versus media site user demographics, you will likely want to get a business presence up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and a YouTube Channel to start with. Then, you need to build “a community” based on your business on these sites. This takes time, but it also has been shown that “community building” eventually builds momentum that ultimately generates interest, leads and then sales.

Another content medium which has dropped in popularity slightly, but is still important, are blogs. Therefore, you need to have one. The best blogs are ones that are on a sub-domain of your “top level” root domain name. You can add others that are not part of your domain, but only after you have established a community built around your main blog. But remember this; any blog that is on another site sub-domain is one you DON’T own. So if you plan on taking in ad revenue and/or to sell it then forget it. The only way to do this is to have a blog on a sub-domain of a top or root level domain name that you own!

Here’s an example of what I mean by root domain level versus sub-domain level; http://www.domainname.com is the root, or top-level domain, while http://blog.domainname.com is a sub-domain of the top-level domain.

What About Cost for All This?
So now you’re probably saying, “How much will this search engine marketing optimization, social media optimization, website design and/or re-design, and content analysis work cost”? Well, it sure will cost a lot less than any money you may be planning to spend (I mean waste) on “push” marketing techniques (like unnecessary brochures, flyers, business cards, ads in magazines, going to trade shows that aren’t absolutely necessary). As an example, if you spent around $5,000 on any one of those items, you can pay for all the items mentioned above. E-commerce websites and sites with large a large amount of video media would be an exception.

The bottom-line is simply this; if improving company branding, website traffic, and the user experience is what you are looking to do with your website, then you’re on the right course – because these tactics all lead to higher rankings, better conversions and a better ROI.

If you’d like more information on the topics covered, then contact me at info@netspeaksolutions.com. NetSpeak Solutions is located in New Hampshire and provides web-site design services and Internet marketing services to companies near Epping, NH and across the USA.

003.07.10 Directory Submission and Search Engine Rank

Stephen Dow to Internet Marketing  

Based on client feedback, it appears that many people remain quite confused regarding whether or not they should submit links to directories to improve organic search results. This has been an issue for almost 3 years, when Google stated that links from directories would be, in essence, “shunned” in their ranking process – while admitting that the number of in-bound back-links to your website were a BIG part of ranking high – according to Google (and other major search engines to varying degrees). Unfortunately, since Google is such a major forced in web search, you do need to know how deal with this.

First off, we actually “do,” submit to directories for clients – and very successfully. This is because we see that this strategy does help in improving organic rank results. However, you must be very careful regarding which directories you submit to. The way we see it, Google initially took their “stand” on this issue in order to attempt the breakup of the large number of “link farms” that had popped up once SEO experts found out how important back-links had become in the Google algorithm for high rankings.

Yet, in reality, free and paid listings from directories were never actually “shunned”. Yes, a reduction in their value definitely occurred (although not as much as they’d like us all to believe). So then “which directories are best to submit to”, and “how many”?

Just how many directories you ultimately submit to depends mainly on the number of competitors you have in your market (based on the total results for your important keyword phrases). Still, some think a good number is around 60-100. This assumes that you are using different titles and descriptions that relate to content on pages “other than” your home page!

In redesign situations, where you don’t want to ruin your traffic and ROI, you should continue to use important keyword phrases that have yielded the best overall results. When dealing in categories where your top keyword phrases show total results (on Google) of 10 million or more, you surely are in a tight market with ranking challenges. Yet, if you study the nature of in-bound back-links of competitors who rank higher in such keyword categories (using specialized software – not website services), you’ll find that a considerable number of back-links, in fact, come from directories!

An increasing number of standard websites with high Page Ranks (ones which Google would prefer to see your links to be coming from), now charge for back-links? This sounds a lot like what many directories do! This ironic scenario began to increase as Google’s Page Ranking system gave another indication of site content value – and website owners a chance to make some money. So now, the situation is really not really different than paying for a directory link.

It also appears that Google is quite aware of these practices too. This may be why they’ve backed-off of their stern distaste for directory links? This would make sense considering that their own actions caused this scenario to begin with! Oddly, because of all this, some degree of balance has resulted – which is why we feel that directory submissions for ranking optimization are important and are successful in SEO.

As for actual submissions, if we’re dealing with search results in a smaller keyword phrase market category, we would likely submit to fewer directories, and only to those with a PR of three, or higher. In addition, we try to spend no more than around $35.00 for any “yearly” fee. We also prefer to manually submit – and use express inclusion whenever possible.

Moreover, before we submit to any directory, we carefully search for the top directories in the client’s market. Then we look over their SERP rank, their content and Google Page Rank. Then, we move forward. We remain cautious about using automated submission services. This is because they could affect your rankings by making submissions to “link farms” that might result your site being banned!

In conclusion, from our experience it’s clear that directory links are a valuable tool for site optimization, and that Google places a higher value on directories that follow their own best practices. That’s why we utilize and recommend intelligent directory submissions as an important part of any SEO effort. Constantly building in-bound back-links from directories (and content related websites) will definitely help you rank high on all major search engines. However, don’t forget that link titles and descriptions are extremely important too when submitting to a directory, or to a website! And again, don’t point every link to your home page.

By Netspeak Solutions – NH Web-Site Design and Marketing Firm

103.04.10 What Is Internet Marketing?

Stephen Dow to Internet Marketing  

Internet marketing (often erroneously called SEM) refers to the tactics and strategies involved with optimizing the visibility, traffic, sales and branding of Internet content – typically that which is found on a websites or business blogs. For websites, this first involves methods used to “search engine optimize” (called SEO) the “free” search engine results you see on the major search engines. This, in turn, helps achieve better branding, visibility and sales. There’s also the use of pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising.

I don’t intend to go into detail regarding SEO and SEM techniques in this article. Instead, I’d like to speak more about “other” marketing methods used by Internet marketing companies. First, there’s social networking media sites. It’s important to note that recent marketing surveys indicate that there’s too much “hype” on the importance of many social networking sites for many businesses (based on their user demographics versus business demographics). But even so, there’s still marketing potential in a few social networking sites in particular. Basically, the reason for getting involved with any social media site is to build a community by being an active participant. This means you need to “get the word out” on news, new products and/or services, specials, etc. This way, you’ll not just be getting your information out to your existing audience, but you’ll be growing your audience through a community of users. But this will only work if the demographics fit.

RSS feeds are also a great real-time tool for building your audience. Used on many blogs (like this one) as well as on websites (and more and more on smartphones), they’re a great way to provide focused real-time information to people who want it (so subscribe to our blog!). This approach still has a ways to go though with smartphones. But it’s potential in this area is vast – especially in the video podcasting area.

Finally, there’s email marketing (yes, something that can be a pain to those who are being spammed). However, it’s a technique that can be quite valuable to those who’ve opted in. Newsletter marketing is really nothing more than a barbaric form of RSS feed – but it works. Its reach is its limiting factor though (since anyone can find and subscribe to an RSS feed topic and read them via email or through most browsers).

Well that’s all for now, but this is just a taste of some of the topics to come.

Netspeak Solutions – NH Web Design and Marketing