Web designers are everywhere.  You can practically find a web designer on every street corner these days just dying to create a masterpiece for your company.  I talked to a gentleman today who informed me that he could get a web design for $149.95 and be up and running in minutes.  My response: Go for it. Not to be totally arrogant, but if you are a business owner and only want to invest 150 bucks on probably the most important face to your business, best wishes and thanks for calling, but I’m not interested.

When it comes to marketing your company and your image do you really want to get the absolute cheapest price from the absolute cheapest company?  Are you ok with a template web site that you share with 23,343 real estate agents or mortgage brokers? Are you ok with a company that doesn’t have a clue about marketing? Are you ok with a company that doesn’t have a clue how to get a web site found in Google?

If you are serious about attracting the right demographic, serious about conversion, serious about educating your prospects and growing your online internet presence, talk to a marketing firm that specializes in web design and Internet marketing.  Believe it or not, spending only $150 will cost you more money and customers then the investment with a quality marketing firm.

Call me today to discuss creating a web site that converts, instills confidence, transmits your message and feeds your prospects with the information they are seeking.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit our web site to learn more about web design and internet marketing.

Know Your Prospects.

So many people are so concerned about the amount of web site traffic that they are receiving, they want 20 bagillion unique visitors, etc. but they don’t seem to care about the conversion rate on those clicks.  If your web site is getting tons of traffic but you aren’t selling anything, you are probably attracting the wrong audience OR your web site needs some tweaking / redesign. Here are some pointers on getting the RIGHT people to your web site:

* Take the time to listen to your prospects and what they need.  If you sell a product on your web site, offer customers an opportunity to review the product on your site, offer them detailed instructions on how to use the product, offer them other possible uses for the product.  The more you focus on keeping your web site all about your prospects and less on you and your company, the more successful your web site will be.

* Take the time to identify the keywords / key phrases that your prospects are using to visit your web site.  Review and pay attention to your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from and what keywords you could focus your efforts on for ongoing seo.

* Invite your web site visitors to participate in surveys to know and understand what is important to them. Use that data to revise and tweak your web site accordingly.

* Begin a blog and reach out to your prospects.  Discuss issues in your industry, discuss your product plans for next year, discuss possible improvements to your product and let them talk back.

* Start a twitter account and start following industry leaders and your clients.  Interact with them and offer customer service options through your twitter.  Most importantly, engage people, begin discussions, be a leader, start a tribe.

Need help with your Internet Marketing plan? From SEO, to web design to social media, On Target Web Solutions is here to engage your audience.  Call us at 407-830-4550 today for a free no obligation consultation.

I’ve been doing this SEO stuff for a long time, long enough to remember search engines like snap, hotbot, lycos, etc.  Things have greatly evolved when it comes to search since the good ole days, one evolution in particular is how we tell search engines about your new content or brand new web site. Back in the day, we had a whole list of places (URL’s) to submit a clients web site to. We would go to snap, hotbot, lycos, google, etc. and hand submit the URL, sometimes choosing categories, demographics, etc.  Fast forward about 12 years:

I laugh every time I see an alleged SEO company selling the dream of submitting your web site to thousands of directories and search engines (especially when they still have some of the non-existent search engines in the list.) The truth and reality is this: we do still submit web sites, sort of.  We build an XML sitemap and make certain that this sitemap is available for the search engines to digest.  For example, Yahoo has an area where we submit our clients XML sitemaps to, Google has the same. It is up to us to keep that XML sitemap fresh and updated. The search engines crawl this sitemap and are aware of any new links / pages we have created, thus helping us to get those pages indexed quickly and efficiently.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring in terms of search, but it is critical to stay on top of what the search engines are up to and how they are crawling / and / or indexing web sites.

You’ll often hear Internet marketers discuss the term conversion rate when it comes to your web site and traffic.  The conversion rate is simply the amount of web site visitors that take the desired action (i.e., fill out contact form or buy something from your store). We all obviously want a high conversion rate for our web site, but time for a reality check: Not everyone visiting your web site is out to buy your products or services, not everyone is there to learn about your new services, not there to price out your latest offerings, etc.

The reality is this: People are nosy, they visit web site after web site, they may be doing research which MAY pan out down the road, they may be your competition scoping you out, they may have just accidentally stumbled upon your web site and decided to linger.  The point I’m trying to make: it’s important to consider conversion rates, but it’s also important to realize that you aren’t getting 100% accurate data. Here’s a great article to consider about the mythical 100% conversion rate.

Do you pay attention to your web site analytics? Does your web site even gather analytics? There are some many businesses out there that don’t have a clue what their web site is doing.

What’s happening behind the scenes?
Do people stick around on your web site?
What pages are they gravitating towards?
What pages do they ignore?
What keywords did they use to get to your web site?
How many people clicked through from Twitter or Facebook this month?

A true Internet marketer lives in their analytics, whether it’s Google Analytics, Awstats, your raw data logs, etc., we must know exactly what’s happening, who is hitting our web site, why they are hitting, how they found it, etc.  If you don’t get analytics reports from your existing web company, it’s time to ask.  If your existing host can’t provide you with analytics, go over to Google, sign up for an account and get the analytics code installed on your web site.  You can then start getting a true picture of what is happening on your site and then start making intelligent decisions about the future course of your marketing efforts.

Need some help interpreting your analytics? Give me a call: 407-830-4550.  My company is all about educating our clients, if you need a hand, don’t hesitate to call or visit our web site: http://www.ontargetwebsolutions.com and learn more about Internet Marketing.

As the major search engines strive to pull more market share from searchers seeking relevant and up to the minute search results, there are several black hat SEO companies out there seeking to position their clients through deceitful practices.  These practices violate the terms of use on the major search engines including Google, Bing & Yahoo. The search engines are constantly evolving to help combat blackhats, and the blackhats are constantly evolving to combat the new algorithms. Some of these practices involve (but are not limited to) the following:

Cloaking: Cloaking is the process of sending the web site visitor to one page while serving the search engines with another page, typically stuffed with keywords, etc.  There are ways to spot cloaking, but it involves adding an ‘agent switcher’ plugin in the Firefox browser:  http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000821.html

Invisible Text: One other (more dated) unethical SEO tactic is to ‘hide’ text on the page so that the search engines see that text as they crawl the page.  The text is written for the search engines and typically stuffed with keywords.  You can spot invisible text by using your mouse and highlighting areas that are other wise blank: this can highlight all of the ‘invisible’ words.

Doorway Pages: A doorway page is simply a page written solely for search engines and NOT for the user.  Doorway pages are not usually seen by the end user and only by search engines.  They are typically stuffed with links pointing to the target domain name and crammed with keywords and spam copy.

Keyword Stuffing: This is the process of just jamming your web pages full of your target keywords, whether out in the open or hidden.  This is easily spotted by any user who attempts to read the copy and notes it is not written for human beings, but for search engines.

There are many tactics including some off site SEO tricks involving link farms, automated bots, etc. but the above is a sample of unethical blackhat practices and how to spot them.

The SEO team at On Target Web Solutions only employees white hat search engine optimization tactics.  Have questions? Give us a call today: 407-830-4550. On Target Web Solutions, The Internet Marketing Experts.

I’m a huge fan of Matt Cutts and I realize that not everyone is riveted by SEO, but I live it and breathe it daily: Here’s a great video (it’s a long one…) from Matt Cutts at WordCamp. Matt is head of the spam division at Google.

The Internet gives us all the opportunity to reinvent ourselves quickly and efficiently.  When brands become stagnant, they are forced to re-create or breathe new life back into themselves in order to stay alive.  Check out this compilation of revised or re-invigorated Brands.  http://www.webdesigndev.com/inspiration/25-examples-of-rebranding-logos-from-old-to-new

Has your web site had a face lift recently? A dated web site can be the difference between a conversion or a click on the back button.  Bring your web site back to life with On Target Web Solutions.  Call us today to learn about how we can re-brand your web site and spread the word about your products and services.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit our web site to learn more.

I can’t wait to see what this will do to the PC industry.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31791017/ns/tech_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

If you haven’t downloaded Google Chrome, you owe it to yourself to try a new and refreshing browser, the word is, the new operating system will be built upon the Chrome platform.

Customer service today is more crucial than ever, you HAVE to be there for your customers and / or prospects or someone else will. While we still recommend the good old fashioned phone call and phone support, there is an opportunity to reach out to folks via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.  Here are just a few ideas / suggestions that you can use with in your customer service endeavors:

1.) Use Twitter to update your clients about exciting new product uses
2.) Use Facebook or Twitter to start a dialogue about how your product can be improved
3.) Use Twitter to start a dialogue about future products, test market new stuff.
4.) Create a Facebook application that helps customers rate your products / service
5.)  Engage new prospects by offering them useful tips on selecting your particular products / service.

The possibilities are truly endless, and the whole key here is REACHING OUT and ENGAGING your prospects, talk to them, share with them, educate them and learn from them.