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Most of my customers only know me as a web host or the owner of Truly Texan, a juried directory of Texas companies and artisans. But my real expertise is in designing (or tweaking) websites to improve their ranking in Google and other search engines.
It kills me when I find that a client has been paying some SEO company to do what I do, but they’re charging them 5 or 6 times what I charge. It’s not that I’m cheap. It’s that these other companies are overpriced and/or charging for things that look like work but do you little or no real good.
I mean, will you really read a 20 page report each month that shows where you rank for every phrase remotely related to your website, even if no one would ever search for that phrase?
I don’t generate reports. If you want reports, I can certainly charge you an extra $150/month to produce them, but it won’t get your site any higher in the results.
My philosophy is that your money- and my time- is best spent trying to get you to #1 (a never-ending goal) for those phrases most likely to be searched for by people who actually want your type of service or product.
With that in mind, here’s what I sent my customers yesterday to illustrate the quality of my work.
On Jan 29, searching in Google for:
- Texas gifts - 4 of my clients are in top 7
- Paris tours small groups – my client is #1
- mesquite furniture – 2 of my clients are in top 3
- wedding keepsake gifts – my client is in top 3
- Texas gift baskets - my client is in top 10
- Texas speech writer - my client is #1
- gourmet cooking classes – my client is in top 10
- gourmet kitchen tools – my client is in top 5
- furniture restoration Texas – client is #1
- closet design Houston – my client is in top 10
- murphy beds San antonio – my client is #3
- custom closets Austin – my client is #1
- Austin wedding coordinator – my client is #2
- custom fireplace tools – my client is #1
- wildflower t-shirts – my client’s in top 5
- custom mesquite bed – my clients are #1, #2, #8 and #10
- custom children’s furniture – my client is #3
- top Austin realtors – my client is #2
- Austin interior designers – my client is #7
I could go on and on, but that should give you an idea. If you want to learn more, please visit my web design site for all the details and to sign up
The Homeowners Association: Run by real homeowners.
via Plum Creek – Home Owners Association.
“Run by the real homeowners” ???? Give me a break.
The developer runs the HOA. The developer and his employee are 2/3 of our 3 member board and they have 2 votes per platted home versus each homeowner’s one vote. (And the neighborhood isn’t nearly built out)
And last I heard neither the developer nor his employee actually lived in the homes they own in Plum Creek.
So until the whole subdivision is built out, the developer will continue to run the HOA however suits his plans best.
Sorry, off-topic I know, but I just saw that line and had to vent. I cannot stand misrepresentation.
If you sell a product, be sure to give a complete description of it on your website.
If it’s necklace, how long is it and what is it made of? Is it silver-plate, sterling silver, rhodium or whatever else necklaces might be made of?
People shop online for a variety of reasons, but a major one is convenience. It is not convenient for me to call a company to get a specification for a product when that spec should have been on the website.
Sometimes we’re just too close to our product to realize that what’s obvious to us isn’t obvious to everyone.
Consider this checklist of possible attributes for a product:
- Length
- Height
- Width
- Color choices
- Weight
- Sizes
- Uses (microwave safe? suitable for holding food?)
- Care (machine wash and dry? wipe clean with damp cloth?)
- Age restrictions if any (not suitable for children under 3?)
- Inclusions/Exclusions (mattress not included?)
- Warranty
- Customer Support
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. If you can suggest more, I’d love to hear from you so I can make this a fairly comprehensive list.
And, especially regarding size, a picture really is worth a thousand words so whenever possible show your product with something that will give some scale to it. If you’re selling a chest of drawer, show it next to a bed. If you’re selling gemstones, show them next to a dime or a pencil eraser (still on the pencil).
The internet is visual. Catch your customer with stunning and useful photographs, but then have all the information there that they need to make the purchase with confidence!
If you suddenly start seeing messages on your computer that you have various viruses and you need to buy something to get rid of them, don’t do it. Your computer has probably been infected with the Internet Security 2010 malware, which is a program that gets downloaded to your computer when you visit an unsafe site. How do you know if a site is unsafe?
I use Norton Internet Security and it has a “Norton Safe Search” feature that I can use and it will put a little green icon by sites that Norton found safe when it visited them.
But if it’s too late or you’re curious about this “virus/trojan/rogue program”, then visit this blog by a Symantec employee for more information and instructions on removing the fake program.
If you don’t use the Google Webmaster Tools, you (or your webmaster) should. Once you authenticate your site, you’ll find lots of good information about how often Google crawls your site and what pages might have problems and so forth.
The Google Group for webmasters (about search engine ranking) is also good, but use it with caution. There are a lot of people out there who know just enough to be dangerous. Or they give anecdotal evidence of how to fix something, instead of …hmm.. not sure what word I’m looking for… maybe factual or technical explanations of why something is wrong and how it should be fixed.
Kind of like saying, “If your foot hurts, you should do what I did to make my foot stop hurting…” As opposed to saying, “Here are the various reasons a foot might hurt and how to make the hurting stop for each reason.”
Also, just because someone who has posted a message in a Google Group includes a link in their posting, doesn’t mean you can safely click the link. There are bad people everywhere who use any means possible to get you to their site so they can install malware on your computer. Be cautious.
But I digress…
Visit the Google Webmaster Tools and take advantage.
And remember, content is king. Google loves real words on a page. Actual, useful information.
Very cool: This explains how to send an email to someone’s phone so they get it as a text message.
E-Mail Text Messages to a Phone – PC World
But be considerate. Many people have to pay for each text message they receive so don’t go crazy unless you know someone has a plan with unlimited texting. Or they have unlimited money.
We wish.
When you log in, you’ll want to be in “My Dashboard” not the Global one.
Click Posts on the left. Find the Add New button and click it. Start typing in the big white area.
To insert an image in your blog, find the words “Upload/Insert” just above the the white space where you type. See the rectangular gray icon? Click that and then you can browse to find an image and insert. Make sure you click the insert button. The first time I tried it, I kept uploading it but it wouldn’t show up in the blog. Then I realized I was uploading to a gallery. When I finally hit insert, it showed up in the blog.
Create categories to put your posts in – if appropriate. Let’s say you sell hand-painted t-shirts. Maybe you want a category called “Inspiration” and that’s where you put any postings that talk about what inspires your art. Maybe you want a category called “Fashion Do’s” where you talk about ways/places/how to wear your t-shirts. The goal of categories is to make it easier for someone to find postings that might interest them. It’s also to help search engines find what you write.
Be sure to fill in the the Excerpt when you write a new article. Keep it short and to the point.
And include 2 to 4 tags for your post (enter them in the box in the right column). Think of them as keywords.
When done, click the blue Publish button on the right. Or Preview (the button above that) if you’re one of those anal types that likes to catch your mistakes before other people see them. You can also change the date to something in the future, which is useful if you want to have a bunch of articles publish automatically when you’re on vacation. You can leave a posting as Draft and use it if you’re sick and don’t feel like writing one day.
People frequently ask how or if they can edit their websites themselves.
So I thought it might be easier to post the options here rather than re-writing them every time I get a similar inquiry.
OPTION 1:
I use Dreamweaver by Adobe to design websites. Adobe also sells Contribute (about $200) which a client can install on his/her computer. Note: if you decide to buy it, please use the link on this page so I can make a buck or two.
Pros: Pretty easy to use, especially if you’re willing to read directions. (Surprisingly true for most products.) Also, Contribute doesn’t care whether a site is built with PHP or ASP or plain old html, so it works with any web host.
Cons: Expensive and not as intuitive as one might hope. In other words, read the directions/help files. Another con is that it’s software that you install on your pc. So if you need to make a change to the website and you’re at grandma’s house, you’re out of luck unless you brought your computer with you.
OPTION 2:
A “content management system” which is just what it says. Wordpress, Joomla! and Interspire’s Website Publisher are just 3 of the many content management systems out there. The price of these range from free to $695 and up. And that’s just for the product. You will then probably pay someone like me to set it up and get you started.
Pros: Pretty easy to use once it’s set up.
Cons: Most require PHP and MySQL, which your current web host may not offer. Not inexpensive to set up.
OPTION 3:
Use a blog for the parts of your website that need to be updated frequently. I like Wordpress because it seems to be more versatile and have more features than Blogger.
Pros: Free – if you don’t mind a URL that contains “wordpress” in it, like http://tomarketconsult.wordpress.com. Also, I find it fairly intuitive. And if you don’t want to be very fancy, it’s pretty easy to set up. Blogger is also easy, but it’s not as versatile.
Cons: If you want it to be more integrated with your website and not have “wordpress” or “blogspot” in the URL, then your web host must support that, and you’ll pay a developer/designer to install it and set it up (anywhere from $150 and up, depending on how much customization and instruction you want).
OPTION 4:
You can also buy a full-fledged web design program like Dreamweaver or Front Page (yuk) or other.
Pros: Complete control over your entire website.
Cons: Do you really want become a web designer? Unless you plan to spend a good portion of time (6 hours a week or more) updating your website, it’s probably smarter to pay a pro to update your site.
OPTION 5:
Microsoft Publisher. Tons of people seem to have this and it can be used to edit websites. If you have the ftp access information, you can download, edit and then upload pages on your website.
…. Changed my mind on this one after trying to help a client upload something. It’s just not made to layout web pages well. Use it for your brochures as it’s intended.
OPTION 6
Buy a shopping cart like PDShop Advanced.Net but don’t use it as a shopping cart (unless you actually sell something, obviously). That’s what I did with http://www.trulytexan.com.
Pros: It can be cheaper to set up than a content management system (as low as $600 for a decent looking site) and it’s easy to manage and add new pages, upload images, etc. if you’re willing to reading instructions.
Cons: Very menu oriented and sometimes not as flexible as I’d like.
My recommendation?
If you have an existing website that you’re happy with, but there’s a page or two that you’d like to update yourself, get Contribute.
If you started a new website or doing a complete redesign, go with Wordpress, TypePad or Interspire’s Website Publisher.
Totally unrelated to ecommerce or my business… so ignore if you want.
It’s 7:10 pm and I’m sitting here working, with the tv on, and that commercial promoting High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has come on for the 87th time today. You know – the one where someone says “You know what they say about it” and the other person is at a loss for what’s bad about high fructose corn syrup.
Well, let me tell you why it’s bad.
High fructose corn syrup was invented about 40 years ago. It is made from corn and is a “natural” product but your body does NOT recognize it as a sugar. Therefore, your body will not say to you “Oh, I’ve had too much of that drink/candy/food stuff/etc.” like it will with real sugar. Therefore, you’ll keep eating and eating and eating those chips or juice drink or whatever because you’ll never feel full.
There is a correlation between the invention and use of HFCS and the increase in obesity in America.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002658491_healthsyrup04.html
“Bray {an MD } says the problem with HFCS is not only that it is sweeter than other forms of sugar, but also that it does not affect appetite. Fructose adds to overeating because it does not trigger chemical messengers that tell the brain the stomach is full and no longer hungry, like food and drinks that contain regular refined sugar do.”
So now you know why it’s bad in case you didn’t already. It’s cheaper to make and use than sugar is and that’s why all the soft drinks and snacks contain it.
I really try to be non-political in my business, but I figure food choices aren’t very political so I wanted to share my thoughts with you. It just ticks me off every time I hear that commercial. One of the problems with our farm economy is its reliance on corn as the primary crop and if we could quit using HFCS, that would go a long way toward restoring a little biodiversity.
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