What Does Your 2009 Internet Marketing Plan Look Like?

Like a blank sheet of paper?

OK, so the economy sucks and your sitting at your desk wondering where the new business is going to come from in 2009 while the Wonder Boys in Washington give all our money away.

What if you could get your company in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified buyers each and every day. And do it without a million dollar advertising budget. Would that put a little bounce in your step about your business prospects for the coming New Year?

Perhaps now you'll take the web seriously. Sitting down with a search engine consultant agency might be the smartest step you take to grow your business. Unless you believe the economy has completely collapsed and no one is buying anything. Which, I don't.

Don't use the excuse the internet is complicated, that you don't understand how it works and that you are just a local North Carolina company and the internet is too big for its britches. A professional internet marketing consultant can explain it to you in simple terms and draft a plan to actually put cash in your cash register, where it belongs.

Put "learn about search engine marketing" on your 2009 "to do" list and give your business a better chance at surviving this economic climate.

How to use directories to increase your web site traffic

Understanding internet directories and how to effectively use them to market your business

Search engines are not the only way to promote your web site and build traffic. There are literally thousands of directories on the web that can build inbound links to your site and provide visitors. And in many cases, they can do this without increasing your internet budget.

An internet directory is pretty much what it sounds like: a listing of web sites organized by "categories" and focused on specific markets. So, you may have a directory of children's toys, which then consists of categories broken down by age, and type of toy. You then insert your listing based on which category seems most appropriate to you. Your listing is then checked by a directory employee to make sure it is appropriate for their site and category.

There are several major directories, such as the Yahoo Directory ($299) and the DMOZ Directory, which is free, but is slow to index (include) your site and has diminished in popularity since Google surfaces on the web in 1998.

Some directories are simply "link farms," which ask you to pay a small fee (say, $15 a year) and all they provide are links to your website. They are pretty much worthless in terms of driving traffic to your site and often cause conflicts with search engine policies which prohibit the use of link farms.

If you are interested in submitting your site to some directories, you can download my free search engine directory list from www.digitalbusinesservices.com. This is a large list of directories and you'll need to first visit their site to see if your web site content works for that directory.

Some directories will allow you to list for free, others will require an annual fee. Many of them will send an email to you after you submit your listing. Follow their instructions to confirm the listing.

Directories are particularly useful if you are in a market with many competitors. Perhaps you are having trouble getting good rankings in Google or Yahoo and directories can help fill the gap.

Please contact us at 252-413-0418 if you'd like assistance with directory advertising.

How Browsers Affect Your Website's Appearance

We take browsers for granted. Most folks still use Internet Explorer 6.0 or have upgraded to IE7.0 by now.  Less used browsers include Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Safari (for Mac users). Netscape, one of the first browsers, sadly closed its doors in 2008. 

We know browsers open up web sites for us, help us search and keep our "favorites" stored away for later use. Some block pop-ups, warn us if a website has criminal intent (like stealing our passwords) and prevent bad guys from running damaging scripts on our computers.

Other than that, why should we care about which browser we use?

Think of it this way: your browser interprets all the programming code that goes into a web page, then displays it so a mere mortal can read the text, see the images, hear the sounds and watch the videos.  

Unfortunately, not all browsers interpret web code the same way. Sometimes the differences are subtle. You may see a collection of images looking one way in Explorer and another in Firefox. Text can be floating around, or an image not centered, for example. This is because each browser has different nuances on how it reads the "tags" in your programming. Tags are programming commands enclosed in brackets <> and when a browser sees it, it follows the direction. This tag system goes back 30 years to the first mark up languages on the internet and in publishing. It's been revised, obviously, over time.

All that said, you should care because if your web designer can't adapt your site for viewing in each browser, a significant portion of your visitors will be turned off by its appearance!

Internet Explorer 8.0 has been released and many websites that have not been upgraded to the new programming standards will look terrible in this browser. If you're not sure how this will impact your web site, call us or write and we'll take a look at your programming code.

Keep your website beautiful by adhering to the web's programming standards.

What is the definition of search engine optimization

Search engine optimization. What a mouthful. What's it mean and why should you care?

Search engine optimization--or the short term--"SEO"--makes or breaks a website.


For example, you own a successful health foods store in Raleigh, NC. You're encouraged by the growth of your business and want to add revenues by selling your supplements online. You go to Google or Yahoo and search on "health food stores raleigh, nc" expecting to see your business listed in the "search engine results pages," or SERPs as they called.


Oops. You're nowhere to be found. What's up with that? You are in Raleigh, you are a health food store, so how dumb is Google?


Unfortunately, your webmaster forgot one final important step: optimizing the site for search results. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have rules you must follow. If you don't know what these rules are, give us a call.


Here's a short answer: each web page has a title. This needs to accurately reflect what the page is about. None of that "for excellence in superior widgets, call ABC Company." Too vague. Each web page has words and phrases that appear only in the programming code. They are called meta tags. The meta tag called "description" is critical. It must be a concise, brief summary of what the page contains, and include words or phrases from the title for best results.


Your website content (that's the text on the page), must contain the words found in the title and description and be written in natural sentence structure. Write like you're talking to your grandma. Don't repeat a keyword 15 times just because you think you'll fool Google and get better ranking. Forget it.


Google could care less about images. So if you paid a ton of money for a fancy flash intro that requires the visitor to "skip this intro" to get to your site, you just threw your money out the window. Same for billboard-sized graphics of smiley employees or happy workers on their cell phones. Ditto for menus that feature goofy buttons that change color when you put your mouse over them.


One more critical component of SEO: fresh content. You need to update your site frequently with fresh content, add pages, tweak, tweak and tweak again until you are getting the results you need.

Remember, only 1% to 3% of your visitors will convert to customers.


Give us a call if you'd like some professional SEO consulting!

How a Greenville NC Law Firm Increased Their Web Traffic

The LeonLaw Firm in Greenville, NC asked Digital Business Services to solve this problem: how to drive traffic to the site -- www.leonlaw.org -- and yet retain the graphic treatment that was already in place.


We did an analysis of the old site and found the previous website production company had created lengthy text pages with "anchors" embedded in the page programming. These are the long pages you have to scroll through, read your information and then click "back to top" to navigate. These are quite common, but problem is, they don't take advantage of breaking out the information into separate pages to make the site more search-engine friendly.


Search engines love content. The more pages, the better. Plus, each page can be optimized to draw traffic into the site.


What we did then, was take each "subtopic" on the long, dry pages and turn them into separate pages focusing on the firm's offerings: business law, job discrimination, accident victims, non-compete agreements and the like. We then added a fluid, easy-to-use navigational bar and optimized each page for its content.


We're happy to report the client is thrilled with the results as traffic as gone up and inquiries from other North Carolina markets have increased as well.


Take a look at the site: www.leonlaw.org and see for yourself what we mean




Professional service companies: attorneys, accountants, consultants, often do well on the web by providing fresh content through articles and news feeds to establish themselves at experts in their fields and draw traffic.

Duck hunting, fishing and bird watching in Hyde County, North Carolina

Digital Business Services recently completed a site upgrade for Carawan's Motel and Cabins in Hyde County, North Carolina (www.carawans.com). Owners Lisa and Mark Carawan needed to increase their internet traffic and web site "user-friendliness" for their visitors.

We did some strategic keyword research first to determine the best words and phrases to help Carawans market their excellent selection of cabins and their motel near Lake Mattamuskeet, one of the more beautiful, serene regions along the North Carolina coastal waterways.



Our new design makes it not only easier to find Carawan's Motel on the internet, but navigate through the website and see photos of their cabins.

The site is popular with outdoor types who live North Carolina's fishing, duck and bear hunting and wildlife areas.

DBS enjoyed working on this project as it was a nice departure from our usual "business-to-business" web site work and gave an opportunity to enjoy North Carolina's beautiful coastal area.

How to move your website between hosting services

You've decided you need a new company to host your website. Maybe you are unhappy with your current host company's service or perhaps you are just getting a better deal somewhere else. What to do first?

IMPORTANT STEPS

You need to make sure you can access all your web pages, forms, scripts, and images from the previous web hosting company’s server. You need:

• Your current FTP login.


• Your current FTP password. See above if you don't know it


• FTP software so you can connect to the server and download all your web folders (www.coffeecup.com or "google" Filezilla and download that.)


• A list of all current email addresses and passwords so you can recreate them on your new web server

If you do not have your login and passwords handy, contact your tech support at your current hosting company and get this information first before doing anything. Once you change companies, your old hosting company will lock you out of their servers and not return calls. Heartless.

After you sign up with your new hosting service, put this information in a safe place:

• Your administrative account number


• Your administrative login/password


• Your company contact name on the account


• Your POP3 server name -IMPORTANT. You need this for your email.


• Your SMTP server name-IMPORTANT. Ditto.


• Their tech support number.

Wait, there's more.

• The names of the DNS servers that your domain name (www.mycompany.com) will be transferred to on your new hosting company's servers


• Your FTP login


• Your FTP password

And still more!

• Obtain from your Domain Registration Company (this is the company you originally used to license your web site name)


• Your account login


• Your account password


• Procedures for changing DNS servers (online form or tech contact)

You will have to login into the Domain Registration Company’s account management screen and change the name of the DNS servers to the addresses given to you by your new hosting company. The change will take 2-48 hours to take affect.

Once you have done this, contact tech support of your new hosting service and tell them you changed the DNS servers on your account and ask them to “park” your domain (web name) on their server. This can also take 2-48 hours. Your site will be “up” when you see a generic welcome page when you open your website.

Once you see your generic home page, now you can upload your web pages, forms, scripts, and graphics. You’ll replace their index.htm or index.html file and your site will be active again.

A word about email accounts:

An ISP provides internet access and may or may not offer web hosting. Your ISP email will look like: joed@myispname.com (ex. joed@alltel.com).:

These are generic email addresses that are sometimes used for login names into your account. Do not lose this information.:

Your web hosting service, which could also be your ISP or a separate company, supplies email addresses that are associated with your web domain name. (ex: joed@mycompany.com ). If you have a web site or want your employees to use your web address on their corporate accounts, you will be given a web-based administrator’s page into which you will logon and enter your company email addresses and passwords. Generally, companies provide 25 addresses or more with their hosting plans. :

So to summarize, you can end up with 2 version of your email address::

• Your ISP address, which you should record and may or may not use


• Your web address, which includes your website name as part of its address.

Both of these addresses can be set up in your email software, such as Outlook Express and used to suit your needs.

Well, this certainly is a lot of technical information. If you feel overwhelmed, contact Digital Business Services and we'd be glad to assist you. Our support fees are very reasonable and we have the experience to help you move to a new hosting company without losing your valuable website or email information.