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What Do You Want From Your Website Design?

Posted By Meagan Mills in Website Design on July 12, 2010
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One of the most important things to think about when you are designing a website is the site’s purpose. Not all website designs are appropriate for all types of sites. What looks great on an entertainment website looks strange on the website of a law firm.

Whether you are a website designer creating a new page or a business trying to come up with a site’s style, you definitely need to pick a design that matches your business.

Another thing you need to figure out is what you want from your website. Is the goal of your site to have clients contact you for more information? Do you want visitors to fill out a form to receive a quote or subscribe to a newsletter? Are you using your website as an online portfolio? The purpose of your site will definitely dictate the design.

For example, if your goal is to display your work online, then you need to design a website that makes it easy to do so. You will want to have the primary focus on the site’s images and you will need to come up with a way to present your work in a visually pleasing, intuitive way. You will also need to place your gallery in an easy-to-access location on the site.

If your goal is to have client’s contact you, then you would place your contact information in a highly visible location. If your site is primarily an informational one, a strong navigation structure and a site search should be two of your priorities.

The style of the site matters as well. The colours, graphics and general look and feel of the website will be different depending on the topic and the goal. If you are trying to portray your company and established and professional you will want a more traditional look. If you want your site to have a more youthful or abstract edge, you will need to keep that in mind when you are designing.

It’s also important not to mix your styles. That can be distracting for the visitor and possibly give them a bad impression of your company. Your site navigation should be consistent throughout and your usage of colours and graphics should match on each page. You don’t want a bad design to scare your potential customers away, do you?

Once you have determined how you would like to portray your business online and figured out what the site’s purpose will be, you will have a much easier time coming up with a compatible design.

Managing Your Brand Image Online

Posted By Meagan Mills in Search Engine Optimization, Website Design on April 1, 2010
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One of the most important aspects of running a business is managing your brand. Regardless of whether you set up your business last month or whether you’ve been in operation for a long time, you probably put a great deal of work into your company’s branding.

Think back to when you started the company. Remember how you spent hours (if not days) coming up with the perfect name for your business? Remember how things like designing a logo and choosing colours took far longer than you thought they would? You spent a lot of time coming up with your brand, so it makes sense that you need to continue to manage and protect it as time goes on.

Unfortunately, it’s very easy for your brand to be tainted online. Given how relatively easy it is for almost anyone to set up a website, it’s possible that someone else could purchase a domain name similar to yours, copy your website design, steal your written content or a combination of all three!

A competing website with a similar name and look could be stealing your customers. Even worse, it could be offering an inferior experience that could make your company look bad.

Another, more dangerous way of damaging a brand’s business online is by spreading untrue, negative messages. It’s very easy for a disgruntled former employee, angry customer or competitor to set up a blog online and trash your company’s name. There are numerous business review sites that people can take advantage of to spread false information.

Imagine what a customer thinks when he or she looks online and finds negative comments on numerous sites. If your brand is tarnished online it could destroy your business. Thankfully, there are several things you can do to protect yourself.

First, you can Google yourself. Head to Google (and Bing and Yahoo! and any other search engines) and search for your company’s name. You can even set up Google alerts that will email you whenever your company name appears online.

If only good things come up, you should be fine. If bad things appear, look into them. If the comments are coming from clients with concerns, see what you can do to improve the situation.

If you find any truly malicious, untrue statements online there are a couple of things you can do. The first is contact the person that has made the comments (if you can find contact information) and try to rectify the situation. If that doesn’t work you could attempt legal action, but that can often be a messy and expensive process.

The other method is to drown out the bad with the good. Add website content that makes your company look positive. Create profiles on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites. Start a blog. Eventually the positives will outweigh the negatives.

Then you just have to promote the positive content. First2Search can help you design the website, create the content, market it and handle the search engine optimization efforts too! We will do our best to ensure that the information presented online is accurate and that your content is featured highly in search engine rankings. Contact us today for more information.

Five Ways To Turn Website Traffic into Business

Posted By Meagan Mills in Pay Per Click, SEO, Search Engine Optimization on March 11, 2010
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One of the first struggles that website owners usually deal with is trying to get traffic to their sites.

It’s often difficult to find traction and sometimes it seems like no one will ever visit your website. But, through some good website design, skilled search engine optimization efforts, website marketing and a pay-per-click marketing campaign, you finally start to attract some traffic. But you’re still not seeing any increased sales. Why?

Unfortunately, while it definitely helps to see increased website traffic, that increase in traffic doesn’t always translate to an increase in sales. Here are a five tips that can help you turn website visitors into customers:

Make your website easy to navigate

One of the main reasons that visitors do not turn into customers is because they website they are on is too difficult to navigate. You should have easy-to-understand links placed in a highly visible area of the website. In order to avoid confusion, try to declutter your page and only place the information you need on the site.

Introduce “Calls to Action”

Having a call to action button, logo or link on your website is an excellent way to convert website visitors into paying customers. This is a great way to direct your visitors to a contact form or a current promotion or sale.

Write compelling content

Well-written, informative and easy-to-understand website content goes a long way. If your website writing is persuasive and interesting, visitors will be more likely to purchase your products or services.

Have a professional website design

An up-to-date, professional website design that adheres to current standard is important. Your website could be the first time a visitor has ever heard of your company so it is important to look presentable. The graphics and the design of your site should represent your company well and you will want your site to look relevant, so use up-to-date design technology and standards. That doesn’t mean that your site needs to be filled with music, video, graphics and animation, but it does need to look good.

Make it easy for clients to contact you

Have a contact form placed in a highly visible location. Write your phone number and/or email address in large print. Offer online chats or “click-to-call” services. Do whatever is necessary to make it easy for a visitor to contact you.

First2Search is a Toronto website design company, pay-per-click marketer, website promotion and search engine optimization company. We specialize in getting your company noticed online and converting those visitors to customers.

For more information on our services and how we can help your business grow, please contact us today.

Why Your Website Needs A Blog

Posted By Meagan Mills in Content Writing, Search Engine Optimization on February 24, 2010
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Blogging is very important for almost every website. There was once a time when blogs were personal diaries written by individuals, but that time has passed. Today almost every website has a blog, from the smallest freelance workers to the largest companies. Even the White House has a blog!

But why are blogs important for your business and your website? There are many reasons.

First of all, a blog helps connect your customers to your company. It allows you to regularly update your visitors with company news, information and changes. The comments section of a blog allows your users to interact with you. They can provide you with feedback, ask questions and make suggestions. This sort of connection with your clients will build loyalty and strengthen your brand.

Secondly, a blog is a great way to spread information. Many people read blogs and their very nature makes them easy to share. A blog post about a new development in your organization can be emailed, linked to, shared via social media and promoted on social news sites such as Digg and Reddit. You don’t need to call a press conference to provide some information to your clients.

And the best part is that the information will reach your audience unfiltered. You can write exactly what you want to write and not have to worry about the media distorting your message or your story being changed by word of mouth. There is no “broken telephone” with blogs. Every person that reads the blog will read the exact same message.

Blogs are also great search optimization tools. Google and other major search engines love frequently updated content and there is no better way to add this content to your site than through a blog. You can blog about your industry and add keywords to your text. This will make you much more likely to show up for certain search terms.

Finally, having a well written, frequently updated blog is a great way to gain loyal customers. If what you are writing is interesting and informative, people will return to your blog on a regular basis. They will read your website just like they read the newspaper. These loyal visitors will be much more likely to become repeat customers.

Blogs are very important for businesses of all sizes. They serve as a promotional tool, they build customer loyalty and they increase your client base. If you want your business to grow and prosper, you should consider adding a blog. Remember though, having a rarely-updated blog is almost as bad as not having one. If you decide to start a blog, spend some time on it and develop it properly. It will pay off in the long run.

How To Improve Your Bounce Rate

Posted By Meagan Mills in Google Analytics, Pay Per Click on February 18, 2010
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One of the main stats webmasters are frequently concerned with is a web page’s bounce rate. When a visitor clicks on your page and then immediately clicks to another page (either by clicking the back button, typing in a different address, following a link that takes them away from your site or closing the browser window) that visitor is considered “bounced.” They went to your site and didn’t stick around.

Obviously this is a problem. Every website has a goal. Either you want people to fill out a contact form, or purchase a product or read several pages in order to get hooked. Bounced visitors usually do not turn into customers. Sometimes a person visits a page, finds a phone number and calls, but that happens rarely. Most people click around a bit if they are interested in the site.

This issue becomes more of a problem if visitors are coming to your page via a PPC campaign and then immediately leaving. You end up paying for the clicks but not receiving any additional customers.

Here are a few ways to improve your website’s bounce rate.

Position links and navigation elements in easy-to-find areas.

◦ Where do you want your visitors to go? If you want them to contact you, the “CONTACT US” link should be easy to find and in a highly visible area. If you want them to navigate the site you have to make it easy to do so.

Keep it simple

◦ This refers to both design and text. If your website is too cluttered or confusing, people will click away. If a visitor ends up on your site and sees nothing but a wall of text, they’ll likely move on. Tone it down and only include what is necessary.

Make your page relevant

◦ When someone clicks on a search engine result they expect to find what they are looking for. If your page title is “Blue Widgets For Sale” someone that visits your page expects to find information on how to buy blue widgets. If that page is about why blue widgets aren’t as good as red widgets, most people will click away.

Use your analytics

◦ How are most people finding your site? If most of your bounced visitors are coming from organic searches, look into the keywords they are using to find you and tailor your site towards those keywords.

Speed up your site

◦ Very few people will wait more than five seconds for a web page to load. If your site takes longer than that a lot of visitors will assume there’s a problem and click away.

If you follow the tips above you should be able to reduce your bounce rate and increase your sales.

Landing pages can help you lower your bounce rate when using PPC ads. You can target your ads and your pages for specific terms to increase their relevance with searchers.

Some Tips For Choosing Keywords

Posted By Meagan Mills in SEO, Search Engine Optimization on February 16, 2010
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One of the most important things you can do when setting up your website is choosing the right keywords. These words will be the basis of your entire search engine optimization plan and they will ultimately be the words that visitors (and potential customers) will use to find your website. Many people overlook this step and they will have problems attracting traffic to their website.

Since keyword research is so important, it’s a good idea to spend some time on the process. It doesn’t make sense to just whip off a few keywords and get started. Proper keyword research takes a bit of time, but ultimately it’s worth it.

Here are a few tips that will help you with your keyword research:

Write down as many words as you can that have something to do with your website. This is the “brainstorming phrase” so don’t worry about the quality of the words and don’t filter yourself. Just write down as many related words as possible.
Think of key phrases as well as key words. Most people type several words into a search engine at a time.
Think about what you yourself would search for if you were looking for your own website. Most people have learned how to search and they usually type only the words they are looking for into a search engine. For example, you might type “blue widget company” into Google instead of “Company than manufacturers blue widgets”
Edit your list down to 15 or 20 key phrases.
Now perform those searches online. Type the list of words and phrases into Google, Yahoo! or Bing and pay attention to the websites that come up. Are they the kind of sites you expect? Are they similar to your own website? They should be.
Also pay attention to the number of sites that show up for your chosen phrases. The more sites that are listed, the more difficult the competition for those phrases.
Revise your list as necessary.

There are a number of sites online that can help you with your keyword research. Google’s Keyword Tool is a popular one. These tools can sometimes give you an idea of how many people have searched for those keywords in the past.

The keyword selection phase of your website development is definitely an important one. You need to choose keywords that represent your site, words that are not too competitive and words that people are actually searching for. If you choose the right keywords for your website, you’ll be off to a great start!

Using Landing Pages For PPC Campaigns

Posted By Meagan Mills in Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click on February 8, 2010
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A “landing page” is the page you see when you click on an advertisement or a search engine link. The goal of a landing page is to be related to the terms that the searcher is looking for and to convert that visitor into a customer.

Landing pages are a great idea for people that are running pay per click advertising campaigns. You can structure different pages to match individual ads. For example, if you have ads running for “blue widgets”, “green things” and “red something else” you can set up three separate landing pages that relate specifically to those topics. That way a user searching for “blue widgets” will find information on blue widgets, rather than any other topic or the main page of a website. This sort of targeting leads to more conversions and better sales.

There are a few things you can do that will make your landing pages even more successful.

Tips for Successful Landing Pages

Have a call to action

◦ This is very important. You want to do everything possible to turn your visitor into a customer. You landing page should feature a form to fill out, a phone number or other contact information or a large link to another page you feel is important. Making it easy to find the next step is a great way to ensure your visitor completes that step.

Keep it simple

◦ This is another way to make it easy for the user. Don’t include a lot of text or distracting images on the landing page. Keep your page free from clutter and give the user all the information they need in an easy-to-digest format.

Customize the page to match the ad

◦ If someone clicks an ad that says “Blue Widgets At Cheap Prices” they expect to find blue widgets at cheap prices. Give the visitor what they are looking for. Your landing page should take them directly to your blue widget sales page, rather than an overview of all of your products.

Keep important information “above the fold”

◦ Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll in order to find what they’re looking for. Put the most important information, including your call to action, where your visitor will see it without scrolling or looking too hard

If you use your landing pages properly, you will make your pay per click advertising campaigns much more effective. First2Search are experts at PPC campaigns and landing pages. Contact us for more information and find out how we can help you!

Internet Marketing During a Recession

Posted By Meagan Mills in Internet Marketing, SEO, Website Promotion on January 28, 2010
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Unfortunately many companies are still hurting and feeling the effects of the recession. Naturally, this usually means cost cutting and tightened spending. There are some things companies just cannot justify paying for during hard times.

Online marketing is NOT one of those things.

In fact, Internet marketing is one of the best possible ways to spend your money during tough economic periods. Why? It’s simple. When compared to traditional forms of marketing such as print ads, television, radio and direct mail, online marketing has a much higher return on investment. When there isn’t much money to go around, you need to spend what you have in a way that sees the highest possible return. That way is Internet marketing and promotion.

Possibly the most cost-effective form of online marketing is pay per click advertising. These ads are proven to deliver. First of all, they are only displayed when a potential customer searches for a particular, related term in a major search engine or visits a related website. This ensures that every person that sees your ad is a targeted customer that is interested in the product or service you provide. This sort of efficiency makes pay per click advertising incredibly affordable and cost-effective.

Secondly, pay per click companies only charge you when someone clicks on your ad. If you have a direct mail campaign, you will be charged for each flyer or catalogue you send out, even if the recipient immediately throws it away. With pay per click ads, you only pay when targeted customers choose to visit your website. This is definitely an economical way to spend your marketing budget. Why pay for ads that aren’t performing? Pay per click advertising allows you to only pay when a customer is delivered to your site. It just makes financial sense.

Finally, pay per click and Internet advertising can be tracked quite accurately. Using website analytics, you can determine exactly which terms your visitors are searching for in order to land on your site, which pages of your website are the most popular and exactly how affective your advertising campaigns are. This allows you to modify your efforts in order to attract the highest number of targeted customers for the lowest possible price.

This sort of focused, direct advertising will offer you much higher returns on your initial investment and is an intelligent way to spend your marketing budget, especially during a recession.

During troubling economic times, many people are turning to the Internet as a form of communication and entertainment even more than before. Advertising online is the best way to reach a wide audience at an affordable rate as quickly as possible.

Why Keyword Research Is Important

Posted By Meagan Mills in SEO, Search Engine Optimization on January 26, 2010
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There is perhaps no more important aspect to Internet promotion than keyword research. It should be the starting step in just about everything you do regarding your website and doing it wrong, or not doing it at all, can have dire consequences for your web page.

Visitors find your website based on keywords or, more accurately, key phrases. These are the words that they type into a search engine in order to find a site. Google, Bing and other search engines all have different ways of determining how to rank websites, but they all scan pages to look for keywords.

This is a good time to note that you should not just fill your website with as many keywords as possible or stuff the same words and phrases all over your page. This tactic may have worked at one point in time, but those days are long gone.

When picking keywords, it’s important to think about what your potential clients may be searching for online. Think about how you use search engines and try to figure out what you would type in to find websites similar to your own. You will then want to use a keyword research tool, such as the one provided by Google AdWords, to discover how many people are searching for the terms you have chosen.

Both of these steps are very important.

For example, if you sell blue widgets, you want your clients to be able to find you when they search for “blue widgets” online. You don’t want your website to come up as the first result for “green things” and appear no where for “blue widgets.” Customers searching for “green things” may visit your site, but they likely will not find what they want and you will not do any business.

Targeting the wrong keywords is an excellent way to get a lot of traffic that you don’t want. There is little benefit to drawing uninterested customers to your site. It would be like opening a store and marketing yourself as a dress store when you actually sell electronics. People coming into the store to buy dresses will not be too happy when they find the shelves lined with televisions and computers.

Secondly, you’ll need to find terms that people are actually searching for. You can rank first in the world for “purple pieces” but if there isn’t anyone searching for that term, it doesn’t help you.

The same holds true for pay per click advertising. If you’re going to spend money to advertise yourself online, you want to target the right keywords and drive in the right traffic. A good, experienced pay per click advertising company can help you with this.

Keyword choice is important when purchasing a domain name, designing a website and writing the site’s content. It also plays a very key role in your search engine optimization efforts and your online marketing plan. By doing good keyword research upfront you will save yourself time, money and hassles and you will bring in the traffic you want. This will make your business grow.

Website Promotion through Social Media: The Do’s & Don’ts

Posted By Meagan Mills in Social Media Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Website Promotion on January 22, 2010
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Social media is huge. Almost everyone has some sort of social media account, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Digg or something else. Social media is a great tool to use to build relationships, share content and discuss ideas. That also means it is a great tool for Internet promotion.

However, there are certain guidelines to follow when promoting your website through social media. If you do it right, social media is a great way to gain exposure and credibility. When done wrong however, you can cause serious damage to your reputation online.

First, the Don’ts:

Don’t spam

◦ Nothing is more annoying than someone on Twitter, Facebook or Digg that constantly sends out their website link to everyone they know. Sure, sometimes it makes sense to share your link with someone, but if everything you post is nothing but a link to your site, people will not be very receptive.

Don’t trick people

◦ People do not like being lied to. Never send out your website’s link under false pretenses. If you describe your link as anything other than a link to your own website, you’re trying to trick people into visiting your website. No one likes that and it’s a good way to build a bad reputation for yourself online.

Don’t only promote yourself

◦ No one signs up for a social networking site solely to receive ads. You’ll need to give something of value in addition to promoting yourself. Sharing unique, relevant content from your site is a good idea. Sending your link to people for unrelated reasons is not.

And now the Dos:

Do participate

◦ Many social networking forums such as Twitter and Facebook are set up to facilitate conversations. If you have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed, make sure you participate in those discussions. Talk to other people and form relationships. They’ll be more likely to support your website if you do.

Do brand yourself

◦ Social networking is another way to develop a brand for yourself. Chose a username that matches your business if possible. Make yourself an expert in your field by discussing current trends and providing answers to those who need them. This will go a long way to branding yourself and your website as a market leader.

Do join

◦ Social networking is here to stay. The individual websites may change with trends, but the concept is not going anywhere. If you’re not using social media to promote yourself, you’re going to fall behind.

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