NC Web News from Digital Business Services

What Does Your 2009 Internet Marketing Plan Look Like?

2008-12-05T15:56:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-12T07:59:00.004-04:00

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

2008-09-30T08:50:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-15T08:54:00.005-04:00

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

2008-09-03T10:36:00.007-04:00

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

2008-08-28T08:44:00.007-04:00

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

2008-08-19T07:10:00.009-04:00

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.

How much should a website cost?

2008-07-14T08:51:00.005-04:00

How to budget for a website

You've opened a new business in North Carolina and now you're ready to hit the web with a great website. Having never done this before, you don't really know what to pay. So, like many novices, you surf the web and find great sites with all sorts of cool graphics, order forms, animation and banners and tell yourself "that's for me!"

To create and pay for a functional website (meaning one that does what you want it to do), you must write down what exactly you want it do. That means get a paper and pencil, or open up a word documents and answer this question:

What do I want my website to do?

Next, write down who you think the intended audience will be.

Rank your website in terms of marketing importance. Is it first on your list on how you wil market your business, tenth, last place?

Rate your own experience with the internet and website development. Very experienced or totally clueless.

Take an inventory of your resources. Do you have a professional logo, professional product photos, updated price list, text for the website in word processing format?

How soon do you want the website launched?

Who is going to manage the website after it's launched? (C'mon now, be honest. If you don't know HTML and other web languages, don't expect your web designer to teach you for free). Are you willing to pay for this maintenance?

Now you're almost ready. Next, check with friends, business associates or even competitors in your city or neighborhood and ask for referrals to a good website and internet marketing agency. That's how my company, Digital Business Services, gets most of its new business.

Discuss your background notes with the designer and ask for a detailed estimate. Be prepared to pay a deposit and the balance before the site goes live.

Have them tell you their business practices about billing the customer and ask for examples of their search engine marketing experience.

Each designer has a different pricing approach. But make sure you understand that if you start to make "conceptual" changes, you will pay extra! Example, "hey, I love the layout. Now, can we put some dancing beans on the home page that jump around as the visitor scrolls to make it more exciting?" Sure, but the price just went up.

A small website can cost as little as $700.00, while a large, functional ecommerce site could go into the five figures! Be upfront with your designer regarding your funding abilities. Don't play the cat and mouse game with pricing because it damages trust.

For example, a 10-page "ebrochure," meaning a "static" website with a few forms the visitor can complete will probably cost you about $2,500, unless you hire an advertising agency that insists on producing flash animation, full color comprehensive layouts and lots of big photoshopped images. Then you'll pay $10,000 for the same website.

Give me a call or write if you need help with putting a website budget together. I'd be glad to help.

How to create a robots.txt file

2008-07-06T08:29:00.005-04:00

Instructions for creatings a robots.txt file for your website

The robots.txt file tells search engine spiders where NOT to go.
Seems odd, doesn't it? We spend time and money getting Google to find us, but then we have to create a file telling them to stay out of certain folders.
There are some valid reasons for that:

Your website keeps articles and documents for your staff or students and you don't want them indexed by the search engines. Keep them in a folder on your web server called "articles," then configure your robots.txt file and they won't appear on search engine results pages.

You are redesigning your website and have a folder called "redesign" on your web server and you don't want the folder indexed because the pages are just "practice" pages.

You have images you don't want to appear in image searches, so you restrict the "images" folder through your robots.txt file

Creating a robots.txt file is easy. If you don't have an HTML editor, use Notepad that comes with Windows. Remember to save the file with the .txt extension so the spiders can read it. Upload it into the same folder as the rest of your web pages.

You can copy the template below:

# Robots.txt file created by http://www.put-your-domain-name-here.com
# For domain: http://www.put-your-domain-name-here.com

# All robots will spider the domain
User-agent: *
Disallow:

# Disallow directory /test/
User-agent: *
Disallow: /test/

# Disallow directory /picture_library/
User-agent: *
Disallow: /picture_library/

Notice how each entry begins and ends. Copy that as many times as you need for the folders you want restricted. Save as robots.txt, and upload. That's it!

Don't forget to change your robots.txt file as your website grows or you may end up inadvertently allowing the search engines to post pages you don't want on the internet.

Why do I get blank emails from my web site form?

2008-07-01T17:20:00.002-04:00

Blank emails are a nuisance and can easily be fixed

This question comes up frequently from web site owners. They receive responses from their web forms except they lack data. No names, addresses, city, state, zip, etc.

What's up with that?

One common cause is a failure to validate the "submit" button on the form. This means your web developer did not put a small slice of code on the web form that will stop the email from going anywhere unless information is entered.

This is a bit different than validating each field, for example, "you must enter an address." This validation comes at the moment the user clicks the "Submit" button.

Confused? Hope not. If you've been plagued by blank email forms, let us know and we'll see if we can help.

How to register a website name

2008-06-26T07:53:00.003-04:00

Registering your website name

Looking to get on the web but don't know what to name your website or how to register the name? Here are some tips for you:

Open an account with a Domain Name registratar like GoDaddy, Network Solutions or DirectNIC

Make sure you keep your login and password in a safe place. You'll need it in the future because without it, you won't be able to edit or renew your listing. Give them an email address you'll most likely keep for a long time as this is the address they will use to send you reminders when your name expires

Each registrar has a form you can use to see if your name is available. Don't be surprised if your name is already taken as there are companies that buys names in bulk, and then try to sell them to you at exorbitant prices.
Keep your name reasonably easy to remember, as your business email will be based on your domain (web site) name. If it's long, full of dashes and tough to spell, it'll create a problem for you later.

The internet uses extensions to classify a business. Like .com, .net, .biz, .edu (schools), .gov (government), .tv, and .info. If your name is not available as .com, you may want to buy the .net or .biz version. Also, if you can buy the .com, consider purchasing the .net and .biz versions so competitors don't buy them and use the same domain name

A domain name needs muliple contacts. When you complete the contact fields, make sure it's your information in there so you can access the account later. Important tip: if your web designer registers your site, make sure they put it in your name, not their's, as that could be a real headache later. Whomever's name is in the registration contact information owns the name!

If you are going to use a web hosting service other than the registrar you selected, make sure to call them and get their "named servers" information. What's this? Simply put, every domain name needs to be associated with a web server (computer) so the internet can find you. Usually they are in the format like this: ns1.servername.net, ns2.servername.net. If you don't know this information when you register your name, you can go back later and change it.

Buy your names for at least 2 years so you don't have to deal with registering it every year

Remember, you only "rent" your name and don't own it forever. Be sure to keep your account information and email contact information up-to-date so your registrar can remind you when it's time to renew

One last thought: you'll get junk email or even junk snail mail telling you it's time to renew and pay some company you never heard of. Delete it or throw it away!

Hope this helps you get your North Carolina business online!

The web gets organized

2008-06-23T07:56:00.004-04:00

Have a web site? Here's what made it possible!

Wired magazine notes that 25 years ago today the system of assigning web sites the .com address was tested. This was the significant event that allowed people using the web to type in an actual address instead of a string of numbers.

The impact? Well, trying having your customers remember 201.22.454.99 instead of www.ncwebnews.com. This also opened up the ability to organize the web into .com, .gov, .edu, .org, .biz, etc. These categories allow the physical number of addresses to grow as the internet explodes.

So happy birthday! Read more about this at wired.com.

Free list of internet directories

2008-06-19T07:50:00.005-04:00

Get your North Carolina business listed in directories to increase your web traffic

Receiving visitors from Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest of the search engine pack is certainly the predominant way we get traffic for our websites. But, referrals also come from directories and many of them have free listings. These directory links to your site not only will bring visitors, but help your Google Page Rank.

You'll need to invest some "sweat equity" into building your directory listings by logging onto the sites and first determining if they are appropriate for your website. Next, complete the registration forms and follow their instructions. For example, you may need to activate your registration by clicking a link in an email the directory send to you.

Carefully evaluate any directory that requires a fee for a link. Google may consider this a "link farm" and actually penalize your site. Look at the directory's content first to make sure it's not just a massive link listing with little or no content.

So, feel free to use the list of links below and we hope this pull visitors to your online North Carolina business:

Download the list

Can pay-per-click work for real estate web sites?

2008-06-16T19:58:00.004-04:00

Crowded real estate web market may call for pay-per-click advertising

Usually the author is a bit dubious about pay-per-click advertising, what with all the click fraud out there and lack of accountability by the companies that bill you for the services.

However, there are times when a limited pay-per-click campaign can jump start a web marketing plan and even get you out front of the competition.

Case in point, Trudy Gulley is an RE/MAX realtor in Greenville, NC and her website, www.trudygulley.com was revamped in 2008 but suffered from sluggish traffic. Greenville, in Eastern North Carolina, has managed to stay ahead of the housing slump and the real estate agents there are pretty web savvy, so getting top search engine rankings takes a bit of work.

After analyzing housing sales data, we determined the real "hot" market was houses and condominiums within certain price ranges. We decided to dedicate a page on her site for just that price range and set it as our "landing page" (where a visitor is taken to after they click a sponsored link) for our pay-per-click campaign. This approach focused on houses as a product, not on all the "bells and whistles" real estate agents love to put on their sites, turning them into chamber of commerce puffballs rather than direct marketing tools.

Two months into the campaign, her traffic is up 37%, with the landing page doing its job in bringing new visitors.

Trudy needed a quick shot in the arm for her small North Carolina market campaign and a pay-per-click campaign was just the ticket!

Let us know if you have had a similar experience.

Don't take chances with your web site

2008-06-12T17:07:00.003-04:00

Know your registrar info and run backups often

People are the same all over. We have web accounts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina, to name a few. Ask most of these folks for their domain name registration information or ask "when did you last backup your web site" and you get the same answer : "I dunno."

It's common for a web site owner not to understand the process of purchasing a domain name (that's www.yourwebsitename.com). Often, the web developer buys the name, registers it in his or her name and doesn't inform the client. Time goes by, the business gets a new web site designer, and guess what, no one can get into the registrar account! And with tight security these days, the registering company like GoDaddy, DirectNIC or Network Solutions, won't give out any information unless you have the correct credentials. Now, they're stuck.

Moral of the story, buy your own domain names and make sure you are listed as the contact in all the right places. Some registrars want the name of the administrative, business and technical contacts. So that's 3 places to deal with. Next, write down your login and password to the account and keep it safe. Don't fool yourself with "I'll remember it." You won't.

Chances are you have no clue how to backup your web site. Discuss this with your hosting company or web designer. If you don't know how to do it, pay them to do it. It's a great investment.

Digital Business Services recently faced a major issue with our web clients when a major disaster hit the power center next to the data center housing our web server. This fire and explosion at The Planet put 9,000 web servers in the dark for days. Luckily, all of our customers were back online because we had backups of every site safely stored in a second location.

If you're web site is a valuable part of your business, take the steps to protect both its name and data by retaining your registration information and implementing a sound backup strategy.

Put your web site to work

2008-06-10T20:08:00.004-04:00

Just because it's hot here in North Carolina, don't let your web site get lazy!

While North Carolina swelters in an early June heat wave, many businesses close up early and head to one of the beautiful beaches along the NC coast. You may be one of those (I confess I am), but your web site still needs to work hard all day, everyday for your business.

What exactly do you want your web site to do for you, anyway? Here's a list I made and see if sparks any ideas for you:

Generate leads

Process and track orders

Display products/services in a “catalog” format

Allow visitors to request pricing/information via online forms

Display animated images

Provide audio and video feeds

Provide a staff directory

Profile the company

Give directions

List affiliated organizations, associations

Show case histories, reference accounts

Link to similar sites

Educate the visitor via Frequently Asked Questions or other documents

Send support requests

Narrow the audience through the use of logins and passwords

Compile email addresses for newsletters or promotions

Present a complete online commerce site from order to payment to shipping

Conduct online auctions

Train the visitor

Something I haven’t thought of yet

If you're web site is just sitting there like a seagull on an Ocracoke Island piling, you're wasting a great opportunity to build your business. Put it to work. Make your own list of what you want your web site to do and do it!

Charlotte does it again!

2008-06-03T16:35:00.004-04:00

Charlotte, NC included in CNN Money's Top 100 Cities for Small Business Opportunities

Charlotte is one of the Top 10 cities in America for small business opportunities according to a CNN Money study. Durham came in 12th, and Raleigh, 20th. Asheville and Greensboro also made the list.

Not to say "we told you so," but readers of North Carolina Web News learned June 2 that Charlotte was already on top of our informal study regarding the number of business, government and educational websites in the Tar Heel State.

CNN Money reports "this national financial hub is home to big names like Wachovia and Bank of America, but the oak-tree-lined city is also a great place to launch and grow a small business.

Regional organizations such as the local Small Business and Technology Development Center, the Inventors Network, and the Central Piedmont Community College's Center for Entrepreneurship supply a mix of mentoring, networking and technical assistance to innovative entrepreneurs, especially those in the finance and technology fields. To help develop the city's biotech industry, a research complex sponsored in part by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is set to open its labs this year to scientists and startups involved in healthcare and nutrition research.

Charlotte's vibrancy and employment opportunities attract young professionals from around the state and help the city retain many of the graduates streaming out of 19 nearby colleges and universities. But as the city's population has increased, so has its cost of living. Some neighborhoods like Ballantyne, Cotswold, and Plaza Midwood offer affordable options.

For sports entertainment, Charlotte residents can snag tickets to Carolina Panthers football games and Nascar races. The city also features a number of premier golf courses including the exclusive Quail Hollow club, where Tiger Woods has played. The Blumenthal Arts Center hosts touring musicians and Broadway shows throughout the year. For those who prefer outdoor recreations, the Great Smokey Mountains offer hiking, rock climbing and white-water rafting, while residents turn to Lake Norman for fishing, sailing and water skiing." -Brandi Stewart

Charlotte ranks 8th on the list of 100, with Bellevue, WA ranked number one.

There's lot of exciting things going on North Carolina, and plenty of web-related business opportunities to boot!

Top 10 Wired North Carolina Cities

2008-06-01T17:36:00.006-04:00

Charlotte tops list as most web-centered city in North Carolina

Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, top Digital Business Services' "most wired" list for number of websites, according to our very informal internet research.

Based on our personal research, statistics gathered through marketing databases and online directories, we can account for 31,760 website throughout the state that include business, commercial, educational and government sites. This doesn't include any personal sites or sites we just couldn't find. So, we'll concede our margin of error is probably pretty big, but at least it's a start.

We could find 4,738 relating to Charlotte, 2,845 for Raleigh, 1,195 for Winston-Salem, 1,055 for Greensboro, 1,012 for Wilmington, 976 for Asheville, 700 for Fayetteville, 643 for Durham, 607 for Cary and 464 for Chapel Hill. We found 497 for Gastonia, 488 for Greenville and 287 for Statesville.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to note the relationship between the number of business, education, commercial and government web sites to the general population.

Does this mean the small business owner in Knightdale (49) can't survive on the web? Not at all. Fortunately, the web has no geographic limits, so the web-savvy businessperson can do quite well regardless of location.

North Carolina internet usage statistics

2008-05-29T07:01:00.003-04:00

Get internet usage facts by county from this North Carolina website

Looking for some stats on internet access or broadband usage throughout North Carolina? I came across a helpful website the other day hosted by the State of North Carolina. You may want to check out http://www.e-nc.org/.

If your business is new to the internet, the site provides a beginner manual you can download for free at http://www.e-nc.org/pdf/e-business_manual.pdf. Download and give it a read!

I found the site helpful for getting a view of how "wired" our North Carolina counties are and this could give you an idea of your local web market!"

Find local customers with your website. Optimize your title tags!

2008-05-27T21:55:00.007-04:00

Your web site title tags can help generate local leads

Is your business in Wilmington, or Raleigh or even here in Winterville, NC and are you NOT getting the type of business you'd love to have from your web site?
Take, for example, www.greenvillehardware.com (not a real site). If the title bar (the blue bar with the white words at the top of your browser when you view a website) reads: "Greenville Hardware" you'd certainly get visitors who typed that into their search engine. But you'd lose everyone who typed "where to buy lawn sprinklers in Greenville, NC."

Title tags make or break a website. Google, Yahoo and MSN heavily-rely on them when they rank your site. You can't see them until you open your web page. They're in the programming code (open your page, use View>Source if you are using Internet Explorer). Find the title tag. This is the important first step in optimizing your site!

Titles should be different for every page on your website, not contain any "silly" words like "best," "excellent," or "superior," and limited to 150 characters, including spaces.

I'd suggest if you want your site to draw local traffic, make sure you include your city and county name in your title tag and good, brief description of what that page is all about. You should see better results in the near future.

We'll talk about description tags in another post.

Someone is using my email address to send spam!

2008-05-27T13:07:00.003-04:00

One quick step to foil email hijackers

Spammers have a wide variety of tools to harvest email addresses from the web. One morning, you wake up, check your email only to find in your dismay that someone has just sent 1,000 junk emails using your email address!

What to do?

First, log into your email account on your web server or contact your hosting companies tech support department and tell them to change your email password immediately. Pick a good strong password using combinations of capital letters, numbers and letters.

This is a bad password: bobandnancy

This is a better password: Bob$A12ndNancy

Next, contact your web site developer. Have them encrypt all the forms on your web site that contain email addresses. If you don't know how to do this, or are not sure what this means, leave a comment to this post and we'll help you out

Lastly, don't panic. These two steps will help. If you continue to have issues, contact your web hosting company and if that doesn't work, consider changing hosting services to a more secure server

Case Study : Pat Taylor & Associates of Greenville

2008-05-26T13:37:00.005-04:00

In the midst of a real estate downturn, a Greenville realtor turns to aggressive internet marketing

Pat Taylor & Associates in Greenville, NC has beefed up her www.pattaylorhomes.com traffic by using an internet marketing stragegy that blends fresh content with timely articles, local promotions and a feature-rich site that is easy to navigate.

Pat's website plan involved focusing on selected keywords and re-structuring her site for maximum search engine rankings without employing "pay-per-click" campaigns. She has also incorporated www.craigslist.com as a listing service for her homes for sale in greenville. Traffic has risen 42% over the past four months to a stable 550 visitors per month. Pat's volume of telephone and email inquiries has risen as well.

The site was previously hosted and designed by a local graphics artist, but discontent with its content and results led Pat to contract with Digital Business Services in Winterville, NC for a global web site redesign and search engine marketing strategy.

Her site includes links to the Pitt County MLS, her own listings, the Greenville NC listings and the national RE/MAX listings. Visitors can find informational articles on home financing and download real estate documents.

Memorial Holiday 2008

2008-05-26T13:34:00.003-04:00

North Carolina Web News says thanks to all of our service men and women currently in Iraq or Afghanistan and to all those who served the United States so well in conflicts across the globe. We hope those abroad come home safely as soon as possible to their loved ones.

North Carolina Web News Mission

2008-05-26T11:45:00.000-04:00

Web development and internet marketing news and information for the North Carolina business owner.