Small businesses everywhere are clambering to get on the SEO express. However, many are missing the boat when it comes to expectations. People want instant results. They want to be number one for impossible keywords in an unrealistic amount of time.
Part of the blame goes to unethical SEO agencies who feed these insane beliefs, but a majority of it goes to uneducated small business owners.
SEO requires immense patience, dedication and ingenuity. Anything short of that will bring upon failure. Learn from your mistakes, get yourself familiarized with SEO tactics and try again.
This probably sounds like blasphemy. To not blog goes against what everyone has been telling you. All good marketing campaigns include a blog nowadays, right?
No.
And the primary reason is clear. If you’re going to blog for your organization, you can’t do it half-heartedly. You must involve yourself in it with drive, knowledge, time commitment and the right tools. Plainly said, either do it well or don’t do it all.
Effective blogging only works if the following conditions are met. Sure, you can still blog without meeting these conditions, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing people to spend their time reading it.
Many people discount blogs as a poor source of information. Some may even consider blogs to be of low quality content. While this may be true of some blogs, if you dig deep enough, you can find yourself with a wealth of valuable information.
Blogs provide a quick and candid way for people, groups and organizations to express their thoughts and views on specific topics. This gives you nearly real-time access to priceless insight and up-to-the-minute digestion of what’s going on in the world. Furthermore, many blogs provide a commenting feature that can serve as a qualifier. The comments give readers an opportunity to challenge or support the information being presented.
So what does this have to do with competitive advantage?
So, you’ve contracted with a company to build your web site. During the process, they go ahead and get a domain name for you so that you can have www.mycompany.com. The web site is finished and launched, perhaps flawlessly, and you’re good to go. Right?
Last week, one of our computers failed. One day it was working perfectly fine and the next day the motherboard was toast. Nothing on our end happened to cause this failure. It just happened.
Luckily, the hard drive wasn’t affected so no data loss occurred. But it really hits home when you realize how close you were to potentially losing important data.
That’s where disaster recovery planning comes into place. And it’s not just for your computer hard drive – it should, it must, be implemented for your web assets as well.
Some new and exciting changes have been going at Cavendo. Most importantly, we have revamped and improved many of our internal processes. These changes will allow us to better serve our valued clients.
Search engine optimization is tricky business. It’s part art and part science. No one knows exactly what needs to be done to achieve optimal results. The hardest part of SEO is keyword selection. You have to research how people are finding your web site, what terms they use and patterns they follow. It’s not easy. However, the good thing about SEO is that those patterns do exist. You just need to find them and optimize your web site to take advantage of them. This involves implementing the correct keywords throughout your site in a meaningful and effective manner. Click to keep reading »
All too often, a web site breaks one of the cardinal rules of web design: Don’t use Comic Sans as your font! Anywhere! Not only is this infamous font found on web sites, it also makes appearances in email signatures, and printed newsletters and brochures. Why is this font so dreadful? Click to keep reading »
We’re all familiar with Flash – it’s the glitzy and literally flashy presentations and functions that have invaded the Internet. Flash may look nice, but used out of control, can cause some major usability issues. Take for instance the Flash splash page. These splash pages serve as the gateway to the homepage and try to force users to watch a clever animation describing what an organization does. Many hours go into preparing this splash page and the expectation is that it’ll drive visitors right into the web site, eyes wide and excited. The truth, however, is that visitors don’t like these splash pages. They’re annoying. They’re slow. And most importantly, they get in the way. You have a short time in which to catch a user’s attention. Flashy animations are too slow and cumbersome to achieve this goal. Unless the Flash serves to supplement content, you’re going to run into trouble. So always make sure your focus is on good content rather than flashy gimmicks.
What turns prospects off of your web site? We’ve compiled our own top ten list of tried-and-true reasons why a prospect will leave your web site. Beware - some of these are harsh.
Your web site looks like it was sloppily put together by your 10-year-old son or daughter.
Your web site has old, even ancient content that makes one wonder whether your organization still exists.
Your web site has slow-loading, irritating graphics and gizmos that look like they’ve been transported from 1995.
Your web site is disorganized and hard to navigate, leaving visitors lost and confused.
Your web site lacks content of any real substance, and as a result, any value.
Your web site has no call to action or "next step" instructions for visitors to follow.
Your web site is missing pages, has bad links or non-functioning tools.
Your web site doesn’t work in other popular web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari.
Your web site has nothing for visitors to interact with.
Your web site doesn’t have a problem with prospects leaving - it has a problem with prospects finding your web site in the first place.
Cavendo is a web design and development firm in Northern Virginia. The purpose of our blog is to educate small businesses on the effective use of the Internet.
Search engine optimization is tricky business. It’s part art and part science. No one knows exactly what needs to be done to achieve optimal results. The hardest part of SEO is keyword selection. You have to research how people are finding your web site, what terms they use and patterns they follow. It’s not easy. However, the good thing about SEO is that those patterns do exist. You just need to find them and optimize your web site to take advantage of them. This involves implementing the correct keywords throughout your site in a meaningful and effective manner. 
All too often, a web site breaks one of the cardinal rules of web design: Don’t use Comic Sans as your font! Anywhere! Not only is this infamous font found on web sites, it also makes appearances in email signatures, and printed newsletters and brochures. Why is this font so dreadful? 
We’re all familiar with Flash – it’s the glitzy and literally flashy presentations and functions that have invaded the Internet. Flash may look nice, but used out of control, can cause some major usability issues. Take for instance the Flash splash page. These splash pages serve as the gateway to the homepage and try to force users to watch a clever animation describing what an organization does. Many hours go into preparing this splash page and the expectation is that it’ll drive visitors right into the web site, eyes wide and excited. The truth, however, is that visitors don’t like these splash pages. They’re annoying. They’re slow. And most importantly, they get in the way. You have a short time in which to catch a user’s attention. Flashy animations are too slow and cumbersome to achieve this goal. Unless the Flash serves to supplement content, you’re going to run into trouble. So always make sure your focus is on good content rather than flashy gimmicks.
What turns prospects off of your web site? We’ve compiled our own top ten list of tried-and-true reasons why a prospect will leave your web site. Beware - some of these are harsh.