Tomorrow I will be attending the Marketing Warrior event presented by Colin Sprake of MYMsuccess.com. It's Nov. 19th and 20th. For more info, see http://www.mymsuccess.com/events_marketing_warrior.php
Colin also gives FREE marketing events: http://www.mymsuccess.com/events_marketing_free.php
Colin gives excellent advice on making a great first impression with your business card.
- Don’t forget to print on the backside of your card so folks can see what you do even when you card falls on the table upside down
- Use a headline to grab their attention instead of a big logo
- Print a testimonial that describes a specific feature of your services
- Be sure that your card tells people what you do
For more information on great marketing training seminars, visit www.mymsuccess.com
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Top ten ways to rank in Google’s top ten
Google is the most popular search engine. It is so popular that many people use the word Google as a verb as in “I googled you”. This means they used the Google search engine to find information about you. It’s important that your business website be found in the top 10 or 20 results for your keyword phrases. Most users don’t look past the first 2 pages of the search results. Here are some tips so you can rank in Google’s top 10.
1. Choose keywords that describe your services. Narrow it down by including the city or area where you live. If you run a hair salon then your best keyword phrase would be “Vancouver hair salon”.
2. Use keywords in your Page Title. Look at the top left corner of your browser. This is called the Page Title and is controlled by an HTML tag called Title. Be sure to put your keywords here and list them first before your website name. I see so many websites with the words Welcome or Home Page in their Page Title. This will not help you to rank higher in Google.
3. Meta tags description and keywords. These are HTML tags called Meta Tags Description and Keywords. The Description is very important because Google uses the content in the Description tag to display in the search results. Describe the benefits of your services and include a call to action. List up to 20 keywords for the Keywords meta tag. Try to avoid repeating words as Google does not like duplicate content.
4. Page headings and subheadings. Use your keyword phrases in your content headers and subheaders
5. Use clear navigation. Google can’t read Flash menus and will not be able to index your Flash site. It’s a good idea to have an HTML version of your Flash site online.
6. Have a sitemap that links to all the pages on your site. You can use keyword phrases in your link text to each of the pages.
7. Backlinks are links from other sites to your website. Be sure to ask them to use your keyword phrase in the link text instead of the company name. Or use both.
8. Google Page Rank. Google ranks the popularity of your site by the number of sites linking back to you. This is recorded as your Page Rank. You will need to download the Google tool bar (toolbar.google.com/) to see your website’s page rank. To increase your page rank, be sure to have lots of backlinks from sites that have a page rank of 3 or more.
9. Link Popularity. You can use this handy online tool to determine your link popularity. See www.linkpopularity.com
10. Use your keyword phrase in your website address. Using your keyword phrases in your domain name, directory names, file names is very helpful in improving your Google ranking.
Need to improve your Google ranking? Contact Katy for your FREE 1 hour website consultation (Valued at $149.00).
Seascapewebdesign.com
1. Choose keywords that describe your services. Narrow it down by including the city or area where you live. If you run a hair salon then your best keyword phrase would be “Vancouver hair salon”.
2. Use keywords in your Page Title. Look at the top left corner of your browser. This is called the Page Title and is controlled by an HTML tag called Title. Be sure to put your keywords here and list them first before your website name. I see so many websites with the words Welcome or Home Page in their Page Title. This will not help you to rank higher in Google.
3. Meta tags description and keywords. These are HTML tags called Meta Tags Description and Keywords. The Description is very important because Google uses the content in the Description tag to display in the search results. Describe the benefits of your services and include a call to action. List up to 20 keywords for the Keywords meta tag. Try to avoid repeating words as Google does not like duplicate content.
4. Page headings and subheadings. Use your keyword phrases in your content headers and subheaders
5. Use clear navigation. Google can’t read Flash menus and will not be able to index your Flash site. It’s a good idea to have an HTML version of your Flash site online.
6. Have a sitemap that links to all the pages on your site. You can use keyword phrases in your link text to each of the pages.
7. Backlinks are links from other sites to your website. Be sure to ask them to use your keyword phrase in the link text instead of the company name. Or use both.
8. Google Page Rank. Google ranks the popularity of your site by the number of sites linking back to you. This is recorded as your Page Rank. You will need to download the Google tool bar (toolbar.google.com/) to see your website’s page rank. To increase your page rank, be sure to have lots of backlinks from sites that have a page rank of 3 or more.
9. Link Popularity. You can use this handy online tool to determine your link popularity. See www.linkpopularity.com
10. Use your keyword phrase in your website address. Using your keyword phrases in your domain name, directory names, file names is very helpful in improving your Google ranking.
Need to improve your Google ranking? Contact Katy for your FREE 1 hour website consultation (Valued at $149.00).
Seascapewebdesign.com
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
How to Survive a Computer Meltdown
When your computer dies, are you able to continue doing your business? We don’t like to think about it. But sometimes those little machines that we rely on every day to business, sometimes they do break down. Recently my video card died the day before a site was due to be launched and my computer would not start. Thankfully, I had complete website backups on my laptop and on my development server.
Many people are going on vacation so this is a friendly reminder to backup all your computer data files before you leave. Recently, two friends of mine have had the unfortunate experience where their laptops died. They did not have current backups of their email and their address books so they are having a difficult time retrieving their important contacts.
7 tips to keep your business going while your main computer is down:
1. Use Google Apps for your email service. You can set up your website email to work through Google Apps and use the powerful Gmail for your email service. It has excellent spam filtering which I appreciate so much. It also has a huge amount of storage space (25GB) for all your emails. It archives all your emails and has an excellent search tool. Can’t find an email message? Just type in the person’s name and all your correspondence with that person will show up. More info on using Google Apps for your email.
2. Be sure to keep current backups of your email folders and files including your address book. These backup folders are hard to find. Here are some links to instructions on how to backup your email address book and files. How to backup Outlook and Outlook Express.
3. Purchase an external hard drive to keep backups of all your work files and documents. I purchased the WD Book by Western Digital. It looks like a book and sits on my bookshelf. When I need to backup up my files, I plug it into a USB port and copy all the files over.
4. GoodSync is a great software tool that helps with making your backups and keeping them in sync. Read a review of GoodSync Or visit their website: http://www.goodsync.com.
5. Keep a current backup of your work files on your laptop. That way if your desktop computer is in the shop or you are on the road, you can continue doing your business. When I bought my laptop, it was primarily to be more mobile, but I didn’t realize how valuable it was to have a backup computer so I could keep working while my desktop computer was in the shop getting fixed.
6. Keep offsite backups. I used to backup important files to DVDs, but now you can get large portable drives called USB Flash drives to make mobile backups of your data. Open a safety deposit box and keep a backup of important files on a flash drive and store in your safety deposit box. You can compress your data using Winzip and save on a flash drive.
7. Have a backup person who knows your business well enough to answer basic questions while you are not available. If you are called away due to a family crisis and not able to answer your email, it helps to have a reliable backup person. This is highly recommended for solo entrepreneurs.
Need a current backup of your website? Need to increase your contact database and double your sales? Contact Katy for more information.
Thanks for reading!
Have a great summer!
Kathryn Laan, Creative Director
Drupal Web Specialists
Visit SeascapeWebDesign.com Today!
604.729.4227
katy@seascapewebdesign.com
www.twitter.com/seascapeweb
Many people are going on vacation so this is a friendly reminder to backup all your computer data files before you leave. Recently, two friends of mine have had the unfortunate experience where their laptops died. They did not have current backups of their email and their address books so they are having a difficult time retrieving their important contacts.
7 tips to keep your business going while your main computer is down:
1. Use Google Apps for your email service. You can set up your website email to work through Google Apps and use the powerful Gmail for your email service. It has excellent spam filtering which I appreciate so much. It also has a huge amount of storage space (25GB) for all your emails. It archives all your emails and has an excellent search tool. Can’t find an email message? Just type in the person’s name and all your correspondence with that person will show up. More info on using Google Apps for your email.
2. Be sure to keep current backups of your email folders and files including your address book. These backup folders are hard to find. Here are some links to instructions on how to backup your email address book and files. How to backup Outlook and Outlook Express.
3. Purchase an external hard drive to keep backups of all your work files and documents. I purchased the WD Book by Western Digital. It looks like a book and sits on my bookshelf. When I need to backup up my files, I plug it into a USB port and copy all the files over.
4. GoodSync is a great software tool that helps with making your backups and keeping them in sync. Read a review of GoodSync Or visit their website: http://www.goodsync.com.
5. Keep a current backup of your work files on your laptop. That way if your desktop computer is in the shop or you are on the road, you can continue doing your business. When I bought my laptop, it was primarily to be more mobile, but I didn’t realize how valuable it was to have a backup computer so I could keep working while my desktop computer was in the shop getting fixed.
6. Keep offsite backups. I used to backup important files to DVDs, but now you can get large portable drives called USB Flash drives to make mobile backups of your data. Open a safety deposit box and keep a backup of important files on a flash drive and store in your safety deposit box. You can compress your data using Winzip and save on a flash drive.
7. Have a backup person who knows your business well enough to answer basic questions while you are not available. If you are called away due to a family crisis and not able to answer your email, it helps to have a reliable backup person. This is highly recommended for solo entrepreneurs.
Need a current backup of your website? Need to increase your contact database and double your sales? Contact Katy for more information.
Thanks for reading!
Have a great summer!
Kathryn Laan, Creative Director
Drupal Web Specialists
Visit SeascapeWebDesign.com Today!
604.729.4227
katy@seascapewebdesign.com
www.twitter.com/seascapeweb
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Explode your Business Online in 2009
Building your business is all about marketing. Here are 7 tips to expand your business online in 2009.
1. Redesign your website regularly to capture your audience’s attention and be memorable. Use a content management system like Drupal so you can easily add a new design. You will also save time and money by editing and adding content to your own website.
2. Have moving images on your home page to capture attention. Instead of using Flash on your home page, use Drupal’s Image Rotator module. Most users can’t tell the difference and you will be able to upload new images yourself whenever you want to do so.
3.Improve your ranking in Google by writing articles to be published on the Internet. This will further raise your visibility and expert status. All articles have links with keyword rich text linking back to your website to increase your Google ranking. Our Drupal websites include an extensive Article Archive for your articles and newsletters.
Summer Special: Custom Website Re-design
Regular Price $1500.00 Now only $999.00*
- double your sales with our super effective marketing strategies
- your new website will include all the marketing tools described here
- convert your existing site to self-editing Drupal website
Contact katy@seascapewebdesign.com or call 604.729.4227.
4. Make your new website multimedia friendly. Everyone has different learning styles, so be sure to include audio and video on your website. All Drupal websites come with video and audio support. Add how-to videos for your visitors to watch and learn from the master painter himself. Use Drupal’s Lightbox2 module to view photographs one at a time or in a moving Slideshow.
5. Use Social Media to promote your website. Our Drupal websites have the option of displaying your Twitter feed or new blog posts on your home page. Have links to social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter on your home page. Also have links to Social Bookmarking sites on your home page
6. Publish regular newsletters and blog posts. Put your newsletter subscribe box on every page so you can collect email addresses of visitors who are interested in your products and services. Use a service like Constant Contact to send out monthly house painting tips and special promotions. Build your website with a blog to publish short articles on house painting to further educate your prospects and establish you as an expert in your industry. Don’t like writing? You can publish info in your blog in audio or video format.
7. Make your website search engine friendly. All our websites include our basic SEO package which will lead to higher search engine rankings. Package includes integration of keyword phrases into your content, manual submission to the top 5 search engines and installation and setup of Google Analytics. Contact Katy for more information.
1. Redesign your website regularly to capture your audience’s attention and be memorable. Use a content management system like Drupal so you can easily add a new design. You will also save time and money by editing and adding content to your own website.
2. Have moving images on your home page to capture attention. Instead of using Flash on your home page, use Drupal’s Image Rotator module. Most users can’t tell the difference and you will be able to upload new images yourself whenever you want to do so.
3.Improve your ranking in Google by writing articles to be published on the Internet. This will further raise your visibility and expert status. All articles have links with keyword rich text linking back to your website to increase your Google ranking. Our Drupal websites include an extensive Article Archive for your articles and newsletters.
Summer Special: Custom Website Re-design
Regular Price $1500.00 Now only $999.00*
- double your sales with our super effective marketing strategies
- your new website will include all the marketing tools described here
- convert your existing site to self-editing Drupal website
Contact katy@seascapewebdesign.com or call 604.729.4227.
4. Make your new website multimedia friendly. Everyone has different learning styles, so be sure to include audio and video on your website. All Drupal websites come with video and audio support. Add how-to videos for your visitors to watch and learn from the master painter himself. Use Drupal’s Lightbox2 module to view photographs one at a time or in a moving Slideshow.
5. Use Social Media to promote your website. Our Drupal websites have the option of displaying your Twitter feed or new blog posts on your home page. Have links to social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter on your home page. Also have links to Social Bookmarking sites on your home page
6. Publish regular newsletters and blog posts. Put your newsletter subscribe box on every page so you can collect email addresses of visitors who are interested in your products and services. Use a service like Constant Contact to send out monthly house painting tips and special promotions. Build your website with a blog to publish short articles on house painting to further educate your prospects and establish you as an expert in your industry. Don’t like writing? You can publish info in your blog in audio or video format.
7. Make your website search engine friendly. All our websites include our basic SEO package which will lead to higher search engine rankings. Package includes integration of keyword phrases into your content, manual submission to the top 5 search engines and installation and setup of Google Analytics. Contact Katy for more information.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
What is Social Media?
The following is a post from Daniel Scocco, author of Daily Blogging Tips.
I was browsing through my RSS reader today and came across an interesting post from Brian Clark, titled Since When Are Blogs Not Social Media?. Here is a quote from it:
I’ve noticed a strange trend lately.
For some reason, people seem to be equating social media with social networking.
At the same time, they seem to be treating blogging as something other than social media.
I found his post interesting because that trend is something I have been noticing myself. It looks like for many people social media is the collection of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
Well, it is much more than that.
Social media are the various forms of user generated content and the collection of websites and applications that enables people to interact and share information online.
Complicated? Well here is a list of things that are part of the social media:
online forums (e.g., DigitalPoint)
blogs (e.g., WordPress)
social networking sites (e.g., Facebook)
social bookmarking sites (e.g., Digg)
video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube)
photo sharing sites (e.g. Flickr)
streaming sites (e.g., Ustream)
user reviews (e.g., Amazon)
crowdsourcing (e.g., Wikipedia)
content aggregators (e.g., FriendFeed)
As you can see, social media is much wider than what some people think. It is also much older. We could say that the first Usenet (a form of distributed discussion system) developed in 1980 was already social media.
I was browsing through my RSS reader today and came across an interesting post from Brian Clark, titled Since When Are Blogs Not Social Media?. Here is a quote from it:
I’ve noticed a strange trend lately.
For some reason, people seem to be equating social media with social networking.
At the same time, they seem to be treating blogging as something other than social media.
I found his post interesting because that trend is something I have been noticing myself. It looks like for many people social media is the collection of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
Well, it is much more than that.
Social media are the various forms of user generated content and the collection of websites and applications that enables people to interact and share information online.
Complicated? Well here is a list of things that are part of the social media:
online forums (e.g., DigitalPoint)
blogs (e.g., WordPress)
social networking sites (e.g., Facebook)
social bookmarking sites (e.g., Digg)
video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube)
photo sharing sites (e.g. Flickr)
streaming sites (e.g., Ustream)
user reviews (e.g., Amazon)
crowdsourcing (e.g., Wikipedia)
content aggregators (e.g., FriendFeed)
As you can see, social media is much wider than what some people think. It is also much older. We could say that the first Usenet (a form of distributed discussion system) developed in 1980 was already social media.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Last night I attended the Vancouver Entrepreneur's Meetup at the Network Hub in downtown Vancouver. I met Tyler Wright the guest speaker. He asked me how to integrate his blog and his website together. Right now his blog is here: http://megawattpr.wordpress.com and his website is here: www.megawattpr.com
Here's the advice I gave him. Maybe you will find it helpful, too.
Tyler, you asked about how to combine your blog and your website. Well, the first
thing to would be to install Wordpress on your own web host account at megawattpr.com. This is recommended since you are now using wordpress.com for hosting your blog, Wordpress actually owns all your content and if by chance they shut down your account,you could loose all the posts you have.
Once you have Wordpress installed on your own website, I think you can port over the
content from your wordpress.com account. (I need to check on this and find out the details.)
You can add pages to your blog like About Us, Home, Contact page and the blog would
be one of your pages or you can have the blog feed come up on your home page if you like. You can have your wordpress site custom designed so everything matches.
About Google Analytics, I will look into it for you. I'm thinking they track the statistics per domain name so I'm not sure you could keep all your old statistics to continue on with the new website. But this I'm not sure about. I will get back to you with more information.
I hope you found this helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Kathryn Laan,
Creative Director
SeascapeWebDesign.com
Website Design and Development
Phone: 604.729.4227
Email: katy@seascapewebdesign.com
Web: www.seascapewebdesign.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/seascapeweb
Here's the advice I gave him. Maybe you will find it helpful, too.
Tyler, you asked about how to combine your blog and your website. Well, the first
thing to would be to install Wordpress on your own web host account at megawattpr.com. This is recommended since you are now using wordpress.com for hosting your blog, Wordpress actually owns all your content and if by chance they shut down your account,you could loose all the posts you have.
Once you have Wordpress installed on your own website, I think you can port over the
content from your wordpress.com account. (I need to check on this and find out the details.)
You can add pages to your blog like About Us, Home, Contact page and the blog would
be one of your pages or you can have the blog feed come up on your home page if you like. You can have your wordpress site custom designed so everything matches.
About Google Analytics, I will look into it for you. I'm thinking they track the statistics per domain name so I'm not sure you could keep all your old statistics to continue on with the new website. But this I'm not sure about. I will get back to you with more information.
I hope you found this helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Kathryn Laan,
Creative Director
SeascapeWebDesign.com
Website Design and Development
Phone: 604.729.4227
Email: katy@seascapewebdesign.com
Web: www.seascapewebdesign.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/seascapeweb
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Top 7 Ways to Build Relationship with Your Prospects
Experts say that prospects need to have contact with you 7 times before they will feel comfortable buying from you. Here are 7 ways to nurture a budding business relationship.
1. Business cards often form a person's first impression. When you attend networking events and meet tons of people, your business card is something tangible your prospects can take home with them and refer to and remember you. Be sure to have your business card professionally designed with your branding and contact information including phone number, email address and website address.
2. Your website provides a professional image for your business. After hearing about you from a friend, the first thing they will do is go to your website to learn more about you and your services. Be sure your website is attractively designed by a professional and has a clear call to action. Having your website optimized for popular search terms is an excellent way to increase traffic to your website.
3. Email newsletters are a great way to educate your prospects with important tips and facts about your industry. They are much more than the latest news or photos of your kids. Use email newsletters to communicate your message and announce specials and promotions. Find out how to make sure your email newsletter is being read properly by your recipients.
4. Write in your blog regularly. It’s best to have a blog right on your website. That way you own your content. If you have a blog on blogger.com which is owned by Google, it can be difficult to transfer all your blog posts to your own blog on your website. This requires custom programming. Also it is possible to lose your blog content. A colleague had been blogging for some time on wordpress.com and his account was shut down for no reason and he lost all of his content. Here at Seascape we are in the process of setting up our own blog to match our website.
5. Social Media is becoming mainstream and an important way to do business. We’ve already talked about blogging. Seascape Web Design recently started using Twitter. If you're new to Twitter, you can find us by going here: www.twitter.com/seascapeweb To follow us on Twitter, add @seascapeweb. We give important tips on Internet marketing and specials and promotions. Having a page on Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with work friends and make new contacts in your industry. Just keep those randy fun photos you took at the last party with your friends off your public Facebook account.
6. Networking groups are a great way to meet new people. Ask them about their business and how you can help them. When you receive a business card from someone, they are giving you permission to contact them. Add these contacts to your Contact database and send them your monthly newsletter filled with resources and information that your prospects will find helpful. Be sure to include your mailing address and an unsubscribe link to follow the Canadian anti-spam rules. Posting a copy of your newsletter on your website and having a link giving the reader the option of viewing your newsletter online is great. Many email tools do not display your newsletter the way you would like.
7. Send new prospects emails with questions and information that they have requested. Follow up with phone calls and request to meet for coffee to learn more about their business. This way you can provide a free consultation.
Need a more professional image for your website?
Need to increase online sales and lead generation?
Contact katy@seascapewebdesign.com or call 604.729.4227.
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