Please find  some recommended 2010 New Years Internet Marketing Resolutions that your company should embrace in 2010:

1.) The 90’s Called, They Want Their Web Site Back.
Is your web site still in frames? It’s time to pull your web site out of the 1990’s and embrace today.  Today’s web sites are clean, focused and non busy.  Does your existing web site employ social media features? Time to upgrade, time to start focusing your web site on your clients, not on your CEO’s private and exclusive tour of your widget factory.  In today’s day and age, your web site needs to revolve around your clients, not around you.

2.) Get Involved Online.
Yes, it is a good idea to start getting involved in social media.  Social media can be a great tool to further brand your business and reach out to clients and prospects as well as serve as an expert in your respective field to your peers.

3.) Contribute Content & Feed Your Flock.
If your web site does not have a blog, it’s time to get one.  I recommend attaching a blog to your domain rather than using a third party domain, but adding a blog to your domain will give you the vehicle to add content without having to go through a web master, etc.  Make a conscious effort to blog at least twice a week: reach out to your clients, reach out to your prospects, reach out to the search engines by feeding them valuable content.

4.)  Fine Tune The Funnel.
We all need to constantly analyze where our traffic is coming from and what action that traffic is taking on our web sites.  Are you leading your web site visitors through your sales funnel or are they hitting your web site, reading your stuff and bailing?  Make a resolution to know what your web site traffic is doing, make a resolution to harness the power of that traffic.

5.) Share The Wealth.
You know your business, share your thoughts with online avenues.  Join the conservation at peer related web sites, start a discussion on LinkedIn, get involved on the Internet.  Your insight is important, share it with the world.

6.) Inspire Your Staff.
If you do not have a social media plan and handbook in place for your employees, get one.  All of our employees are potential sales people and all of our employees are customer service reps.  Arm your staff with the tools they need to reach out to your clients and prospects to help keep your corporate image in check.

7.) Stay Connected With The Times.
The Internet and technology is constantly changing.  Make it your business to know what Google is doing, read mashable.com every once in a while, follow a marketing blogger like Seth Godin.

8.) Know Your Ever Changing Market.
When it comes to organic seo (search engine optimization) you’ve got to know what your market is searching for and adjust your web site and off site marketing efforts accordingly.  Use a free tool such as the Google AdWords tool from time to time to check in your keywords.  Adjust your web site and blogging plan accordingly.

9.) Don’t Wait Until The Last Minute.
Just because your clients wait until the last minute to buy doesn’t mean you should  wait until February 13 to start posting your hot Valentines Day items.  Plan ahead to allow for Google, Bing & Yahoo to pick up your content organically and  start planting the selling seeds with your PPC campaigns a month before.

10.) Analyze Your Analytics.
You have to pay attention to what’s happening on your web site.  Make a resolution to study or review your Analytics at least once a week.  It’s amazing what you can discover in there, new markets, new keywords, new threats, etc.

Yes, the New Year will be here soon, once the champagne runs dry, what steps will you take to improve your company in 2010?

Why not Partner with my company for a successful 2010, we’ll keep your Internet presence on track and focused.
Give me a call toll free today: 866-998-6886 or visit my web site to learn more about our Internet Marketing and web design services.

1.) They Cold Called You. I don’t know about you, but I have ZERO tolerance for Spam, I consider unsolicited phone calls to be spam, if a so called SEO company calls you, it usually means one thing: they have NO Internet presence which means you can’t find them in Google, Bing or Yahoo.  Translation: no results for you.

2.) They Emailed You. I get about 10 emails a day from so called seo gurus who are going to get me number one rankings in Google tomorrow by 12:25 p.m. if I just reply for a quote.  Again, if you can’t promote your own web site in the search engines and you have to resort to spamming every web site on the Internet in order to MAYBE get one poor soul to hit reply, time to hang it up and go back to serving fries and burgers.

3.) Top Ten Results GUARANTEED OVERNIGHT! Ok, this is perhaps the most sinister claim.  I love instant and immediate gratification as much as the next business owner, HOWEVER: SEO does NOT work like this.  Not only can NO ONE guarantee you top ten results overnight in Google, Bing or Yahoo, SEO is not just a one time ‘thing’.  SEO is an ongoing process over time.  Steer WAY clear of any instant results claims.

4.) They have a terrible web site that you can’t find in the search engines. I was solicited by an Indian company this morning that asked me to help them with their SEO web site.  The company claims to just ‘DO SEO CHEAPER”. They have a hideous web site, they don’t really have a firm grasp of proper English / sentence structure and are focusing on throwing tons of POINTLESS garbled, non relevant garbage on a web site in order to get ‘results cheaper.’ Isn’t it important that your SEO company cares about on site web optimization as well? Shouldn’t their web site convert and MAKE SENSE to you? If they can’t do it for themselves, how can they do it for you?

5.) They claim to submit your web site to over 40,321 search engines and directories for only $19.95. Wow.  Didn’t even know that there were that many search engines and directories out there.  I guess if you include Auntie Annie’s Embroidery Search Engine or Fred’s Quick Marble Finder, or the Istanbul Daily search engine as a search engine that people actually use to search for companies like yours for, then, sure. Here’s the bottom line: your clients and prospects use Google, Yahoo and Bing to search (and those last two are questionable.) SEO is so much more than button mashing and submitting web sites.  I get a kick out of some hosting packages that sell the SEO add on: We’ll submit your web site every quarter for an SEO Blast…… Nonsense. Again, SEO is about providing relevant and unique quality information to your web site visitors that will also interest Google Bot, Bing & Slurp (Yahoo’s robot).

If you are seeking to boost your online presence and get serious about pulling clients and prospects to your web site, call me: 866-998-6886. I’ve been doing this for over a decade, I will never cold call you, I will never spam you and I’ll never make promises or guarantees that I can’t deliver. When you call my company, you’ll speak to a human being located in Orlando, Florida (provided you don’t call at 2:00 a.m.), you will at some point speak to me personally about your web site and your Internet Marketing plan.

Dear Facebook user,

Due to Facebook policy changes, all Facebook users must submit a new, updated account agreement, regardless of their original account start date.
Accounts that do not submit the updated account agreement by the deadline will have restricted.

Please unzip the attached file and run “agreement.exe” by double-clicking it.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Confirmation Code #: 14646272063

What can we learn from this? Connecting with people in any business is crucial. Talking, speaking, building relationships and LISTENING is mission critical to developing any successful business. How can your Twitter account help you tune in? How can your facebook or linkedin account assist you in growing some relationships? Can your web site connect with people in a real way? If we aren’t listening to what our clients and prospects want, we’re missing the boat.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about some concrete ways that you can use social media and your internet presence to truly LISTEN to your clients and prospects.

Let’s talk about your online marketing and social media plan: Call me: 866-998-6886 or in Orlando: 407-830-4550.

I’m sure Bob and Cindy are great folks both with sparkling personalities… But Bob is the New guy.  Cindy is an intern.  Will they be involved in your company six months from now? 9 months? If you can’t answer that question with confidence, Bob and Cindy should NOT be running your social media initiatives. Let’s say that God forbid, we find out that Bob is robbing the company blind or that Cindy the intern is leaving to take a paid job at your competitor tomorrow. Now what? Whose master account was the corporate facebook account started under? Are either Cindy or Bob going to give up their own personal facebook account? What is the password to the twitter account and whose email address is it registered under? So, now you are left with a disgruntled Bob because you fired him and sweet Cindy who is now working for your competitor and knows all of your social media secrets…. Imagine how much damage Bob and Cindy can do with the keys to the kingdom.

Be certain that your social media accounts are managed by a key person in your organization, preferably an owner or share holder: you also want to make certain that any staff member who has access to the social media accounts has signed an agreement and adheres to your corporate communication policies and plans.  Thinking all of this through in the beginning can save you and your organization / company a tremendous amount of potential grief down the road.

Need some help with your social media / Internet marketing plan? Give me a call today: 866-998-6886 or visit our web site to learn more about social media and Internet marketing.

Check out this video from the Google social search team to learn more.

Need some guidance with social media and search engines?  Call me today: my social media and seo team are here to help your company build a solid Internet Marketing plan.  Call 866-998-6886 or visit my web site for more information.

So, the restaurant owner is left with a considerable dilemma.  The domain name expires soon, they have no way of renewing it unless the ex-employee does it out of the kindness of his heart, or the ex-employee cooperates and transfers the domain name back to them.  WAY TOO MANY If’s in this equation.  The domain name is your foundation, it’s your concrete, you need to keep it under YOUR control. Even if you have a web site company register the domain, insist that they create an account for you and name you and your email address administrative contact on the domain name.  Unfortunately, in this case, you always need to be thinking about the worse case scenario.  The domain name should be registered and owned by the business owner.

No matter how long it may take and how much paperwork is involved, secure your domain name NOW with a reputable company such as GoDaddy or NetworkSolutions.com.  Be cautious about third party registrars that work out their garage, this is not the time to be cheap.

Not sure who owns your domain? Pop over to this domain name and look it up.  If your name and email address are not listed, you need to take steps to contact exactly who registered the domain and take ownership. http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp. There are legal actions you can take to regain ownership if traditional methods are not working, but you need to be able to prove that you are the rightful owner of the domain.

Hey cfd ,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

This particular billboard had three web site addresses you needed to visit as well as an email address at a web domain that didn’t even match the 3 web site addresses given. If you managed to remember ANY of the addresses which I obviously have not, you may be fortunate enough to stumble upon their product and purchase it then.  If you happened to have only been going about 32 miles on I-95 and had a pencil and paper handy, you probably could have jotted down ALL of the web addresses and the email to pursue this company even further. The point: WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION in way too short of a time span.

The more information you throw at people, the less they remember.  The more you confuse people with where to go and how to get there, the more people you alienate. The more information you cram into a piece of real estate that people fly by at 80 miles an hour, the higher the likelihood of a marketing failure.

Keep your message clean and clear whether it’s on your web site, your Google Adwords, your brochures, your billboards and God forbid your yellow page ads. With so much competition in the marketplace, it’s time to simplify your message, keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it memorable.

Need help simplifying your web presence? Call me, let’s discuss your vision, let’s devise a plan.  Call 407-830-4550 today.

Ok, this blog won’t be getting nominated for any brilliance or amusement awards, BUT, this can be a stumbling block to ranking well in Google under the key terms you are after….. Way back when, the Open Directory Project or DMOZ.org was the place to submit your website.  Getting into DMOZ was a big deal, it was a volunteer human edited directory with a Utopian vision.  Google saw value in DMOZ and would put some weight on your web site in their listings if you were listed there.  It was always a challenge to get the perfect title and description as the human editors would change it 9 times out of 10.  The more that the volunteers hacked away at your submitted title and description tags, the lesser the possibility that your website would be found in Google under your desired search terms, that was reality.

Today, the open directory project (in my humble opinion) has lost a lot of steam.  We have waited well over a year on certain sites on getting them accepted or indexed in DMOZ.org. Volunteers have lost interest, corruption has reared it’s ugly head etc., BUT, if your web site has been around the block for quite some time, it is quite possible that Google is using DMOZ’s title and description for your web site and ignoring any customized titles and descriptions that you have installed.  How can you see what title and description that Google is using for your web site? Google your company domain : yourwebsite.com and observe what title and description is being used.  Browse to your web site and glance at your own title tag (you should see your title tag in the very top of your browser).  If the title tags match, Google is pulling the title directly off of your web site (which is good.) If the titles don’t match, it’s a good possibility that Google is still using the DMOZ title and description for your web site….. here’s the fix:

Add this line of code in the head portion of your web site home page:

Have any SEO questions? Give me a call, I’m happy to help.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit my web site for more information on SEO / Search engine optimization.

The more and more popular that social media becomes, the more that crooks find creative ways to exploit it.  Here are some tips to help safe-gaurd your Facebook account:

1.) Don’t be so quick to sign up for the plugin that your friend just installed.  Often-times, crooks are lurking on the other end of those applications.  Example, IQ Test, Poll, What did I look like in high school, etc.  By clicking on these applications, cyber dorks can get access to your account and compromise your stuff.

2.) If you get a friend request in your inbox from someone you may not now, or from someone asking to share pictures with you, DON’T Click the link.  Rather, login to your facebook account via a browser and check your facebook inbox to see if it was a legit request.

3.)  Don’t accept friend requests from people you do not know.  By keeping your Facebook account ‘under control’ you limit your exposure to cyber dorks.

Check out this article on CNN to learn more about potential social media dangers.

Search Engines & Blogging:

From an SEO perspective, I love to see clients add content rich useful blog articles as this keeps the search engines coming back and well fed. One caution: when it comes to SEO, I see people throwing up nonsensical garbage just to get Google’s attention.  Your blogs should be written for your clients and prospects first, search engines secondly. Adding UNIQUE and rich content to your web site is what will separate your web site from your competitors.

For more blogging tips, give me a call, I’d be happy to discuss your Internet marketing plan and how adding a blog can be a tremendous tool for your social media outreach. 407-830-4550. You can also learn more about Internet marketing by visiting my site here: On Target Web Solutions

Many people have read a book, or a blog article, or a tweet about how important it is to get inbound links from everywhere, I firmly believe that it’s much more important to focus on quality inbound links rather than a multitude of non related, non quality links.  When you put yourself in the shoes of the Great Google, you have to realize that Google is ranking sites based on relevancy, if your inbound links are all coming from a non-relevant source (based on your web site content or genre) and pointing to your web site, how can Google determine the relevancy of your web site? For example, Your new non-profit organization that is driven to save the elusive carpet beetle from extinction wants some inbound links, you find a great resource of free page rank 3 inbound links from Bob’s discount mail order brides and submit….. Is this relevant? Nope, not even close. Wasted time, and potentially hazardous to your web site and it’s Google rankings.   Now, if you submitted your non-profit to the friends of Carpet Beetle foundation web site, or the study for the enrichment of the Carpet Beetle’s web site, you’d have a tight connection and a more targeted inbound link.

Bad Neighborhoods: Just like you would not locate your non-profit carpet beetle’s non-profit office in a bad section of town, you also need to be cautious of web sites from the wrong side of town.  Google can penalize a site if it has an inbound link coming to it from a bad neighborhood, this includes link farms, shady porn sites, dangerous or malicious code sites, etc.

Give & Take: Don’t forget to share the love.  The more you give, the more you get.  Be sure to start a links page on your web site to offer a link back if you get some link love from others.  This is good Karma and just an over-all swell thing to do for your fellow humanity.

Bottom line: submit when it makes sense.  Seek relevancy, seek out sites that make sense to your content and seek out sites that have been tried and trusted by Google.

Let’s say that you have recently been turned on to the idea of mastering underwater basket weaving and you’re looking for the BIBLE of underwater basket weaving.  Do you open your browser, type in Google and search for the term ‘Book’? Or what about ‘Underwater basket weaving’? Probably not.  Searching for these BROAD terms would yield millions of unrelated google entries.  Now, what if you searched for ‘underwater basket weaving book’?  Now we have combined the quest for underwater basket weaving with book thus forcing ONLY those results to show up in a google search.  This is a long tail keyword and can yield very targeted visitors and very targeted sales.

With that being said, here are 5 quick tips to make certain that your web site is long tail keyword friendly:

1.) If you are using a blog or online e-commerce store, make certain that your URL’s are SEO friendly.  Adjust your store or wordpress blog to pull your title keywords into the database generated URL’s.  If you are using a store, make sure that the product name is being pulled into the URL:
Example: http://www.yoursite.com/productid=12345&423409872934 SHOULD become: http://www.yoursite.com/store/books/underwater-basket-weaving/.

2.)  Name your products.  Remember, people may seek very specific product name or titles, when you are entering your products into your online store, use the full name of the product.

3.)  Navigation plays a critical role in long tail keywords. The structure of your web site should be carefully planned and thought out to allot for the use of long tail keywords: using the example of an online bookstore, the site structure should emulate something like this:
home > books > hobbies > underwater basket weaving > book titles.  Using this simple breadcrumb like navigation structure, the search engines can find and easily digest the  links and help searchers land on that specific page when they search.

4.) Use the full name of the products in your Title tags.  Google pays attention to the title tags in your code, when you entering a new product into your store, there should be an option to add a custom title tag for that product, I recommend using the specific title of the product in your title tag.

5.) Description: Use the full name of the product in your meta description tag as well: Again, most stores will have this option and when it comes to wordpress, be sure to download the All In SEO Pack

Need help making heads or tails out of this (poor pun intended….)? Give me a call: 407-830-4550. I’m here to help your business thrive and succeed online.

The end result: Marketing = FAIL : a colossal waste of time, money and energy on the company’s end AND an implied perception that the company just didn’t give a crap about those prospects OR their t-shirt needs.

To a business owner, leads are golden. To an average employee, they are simply a hindrance, or more work being piled on top of their desk thus interrupting their game of farkle or mafia wars. The average employee will never share your enthusiasm about new prospects or new leads and will therefore, never take the initiative to jump on those pile of leads or prospects.

Solution? What if you, the business owner called those leads yourself and personally thanked them for visiting your web site or trade show booth? What if you the business owner be-friended those prospects on facebook or started following and engaging them on Twitter? Will it take a huge chunk out of your day? Absolutely.  Will it require creating relationships with those prospects on the phone and through social media and email? Absolutely. Will it impact your bottom line and provide a sound ROI? Absolutely.

Bottom Line: THINK before you market. How will you handle these leads? How will you create a social media platform where your team can easily start engaging these prospects? How can you make your web site easier to get people into the sales funnel? A little bit of planning before any marketing campaign can yield a bountiful harvest. A lack of planning or a lack of a system in place prior to receiving leads is a recipe for disaster and can waste your marketing dollars quicker than poop through a goose. In fact, prospects will quickly get turned off if they don’t receive the attention from your company that they expect.  This can end up reversing any efforts your marketing team had done and giving your company a negative reputation.

Need help with your marketing plan? That’s what I’m here for.  I’ve been there, failed at it and won at it.  My company is here to help, sure, we focus on Internet Marketing, Web Design & Social Media, but I’m a business owner who’s been there, done that and worn the t-shirt.  Give me a call today: 407-830-4550 and lets talk.

In my last blog, I wrote about getting your actual web site in order for the droves of holiday shoppers that will be logging on to find great deals and values on your retail web site, today, I’d like to offer some suggestions on how you can harness social media for your Christmas Internet Marketing campaign. If you’ve already built a following on Facebook and Twitter, you can harness that power and entice some folks into your web site to purchase your wares: here are some suggestions:

1.) Use twitter and / or facebook for a Christmas contest, see which twitter follower can spread your message the furthest amongst their respective followers.

2.) Give your followers special coupon codes that they can use for further discounts on the latest and greatest Christmas gifts on your e-commerce web site.

3.) Create a Christmas countdown widget that features your company or links back to your retail web site, give the code away on facebook for your fans to install on their walls.

4.) Get Elfed.... Remember the get elfed from Office Max? Something so simple can truly cause a buzz.

5.) Give stuff away: Blog about Christmas decorating tips, how to build the perfect gingerbread house, how to NOT electrocute yourself while installing Christmas lights, etc. Link your blog to your social media applications and feed your followers.

6.) Spread Some Holiday Cheer.  It doesn’t always have to be about selling.  Offer some warm thoughts, help the homeless, take care of people, it is the season of giving and it’s quite alright for your company to give as well.

7.)  Engage your shoppers: ask them about their favorite Christmas memories and share yours back.

8.) Gift Ideas: help people find the perfect gift for Cousin Louie or the bag boy at your local grocery store, offer a new gift idea everyday and link the product back to your store / web site.

9.) Have some fun. What’s the best application for that fruitcake Aunt Marge sends down every year? Discuss…..

10.) Be You.  People like you, they really do…. Be yourself, give your company a personality and share the real you with all of your prospects and clients.

Here’s the key: get started TODAY.  It can take a while for ideas to spread, get them going early and build up the momentum.  Need some more ideas? Give me a call, I’ll be in my Air Conditioned office dreaming of changing leaves and sleigh rides.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit my web site today: http://www.ontargetwebsolutions.com .

Here are a few pointers to get your web site in order for the Christmas 2009 season:

• Security Certificate: if you have an e-commerce store, be sure that your security certificate is valid.  People want to know that your web site is secure if they are putting in credit card information.  You can verify your security cert by clicking on the padlock and checking the expiration date.  An expired security cert will give a warning to prospective Christmas shoppers which could turn them away.
• Update, update, update.  If your web site is still selling the Tickle Me Elmo from two or three years ago, it’s time to add the most relevant products to your store.
• Feature products on your home page.  As an online retailer, you need to stay on top of the trends.  Place the anticipated hottest Christmas 2009 sellers on your home page and make it easy to purchase.
• Reviews.  Consumers LOVE to read reviews: see if you can add a module to your e-commerce store and solicit consumer reviews on products, etc.  Not only does this help instill confidence in consumers, it is great food for the search engines.
• Google Checkout. Consider adding an easy to use payment tool on your web site such as Google Checkout.  Most e-commerce stores now have modules to support Google Checkout.
• Make it festive. Everyone wants to get into the Christmas spirit: without distracting from your products, add some Christmas flair to your home page. I’m NOT advocating that your web site plays cheesy Christmas carols upon load…… Add a bow or a simple Santa graphic.
• Customer Service.  One of the biggest mistakes I see in e-commerce is not putting a phone number on your web site. If people have questions, let them call you! Place your customer support stuff on the home page and encourage phone calls… Sure, it’s more work, but in the long run, giving people confidence that there is a human being behind the operation can work wonders in terms of revenue.

In my next blog, I’ll discuss some social media possibilities for getting the good word out about your online brand. And, hopefully by then, In sunny Orlando, Florida it will NOT still be 95 degrees outside! I’d like it to start feeling a lot more like Christmas, less like the 4th of July……

Back in the day, for search engine purposes, search engine marketers would try to cram as many text links on a web site to get the search engines to crawl each page.  While this was a useful technique a while back, it can make for a cumbersome approach to lead your web site visitors into the most valuable content within your web site, further, it can dilute the overall message of your web site if the navigation is ‘all over the place’ in terms of content and keywords.  When someone lands on your web site, you obviously want to guide them to the portion of your web site where they will take an action, or buy a product, or learn about your services.

Here are a few pointers to take into consideration when it comes to your web site navigation:

1.) Consistency.  Keep your navigation in the same spot on each page of your web site.  This way, web site visitors know exactly where everything is as they surf your web site.

2.) Compatibility & Functionality.  Drop down menus are nifty and seem to still be in demand by some clients.  While drop downs can be useful to the end user, they can also be a nightmare to web designers as they may not all display properly or consistently in ALL browsers.  Be certain to test your drop downs in each browser including Safari, Chrome, Firefox & different versions of Internet Explorer.

3.)  Text navigation over Graphics.  Wherever possible, choose text links and CSS styles  over graphical navigation.  This can help the web site load faster, be easier for search engines to crawl and are easier to update then graphics.

4.) Lead them to the promised land.  Your navigation should focus on the key portions of your web site, for example, there is no need to lead people to your web site sitemap in your main navigation.  Think this through and focus on the key elements you need to drive people to.

5.)  Outside links.  If you must take people away from your web site for whatever reason, (maybe your store is hosted off site, or your  blog is located off site) open a new window so that your web site remains in the background.  We strive to NEVER take people away from our web sites unless we absolutely have to.

The key with navigation is to always put yourself in the shoes of the web site visitor.  Make certain your navigation is easy, clear, operational and clearly identified.  One of my biggest pet peeves is an all Flash web site with no navigation other than ‘click here to get started’.  Imagine how many people flee a web site where they don’t have a clue about where they are supposed to go, be certain that they aren’t fleeing yours.

Coming soon: Christmas 2009 is quickly approaching, is your web site ready for the Holidays? I’ll discuss some pointers to get your web site all holly jolly and stuff.

In my next few blogs, I’m going to outline some basic essential considerations that your web site should employ to help your prospects buy your products and services on your web site.

Today, I’ll focus a bit on your web site and usability.  I’m sure you’ve seen a ton of web sites that you land on that you need to scroll, and scroll, and scroll some more.  Do you typically read all of the content? Do you typically scroll and scroll and scroll or do you leave and go on to the next web site? If you leave the site all together or do not scroll period, you are with the 77% of other Internet users.  According to Jakob Nielson’s study on scrolling (Prioritizing Web Usability), 77% of web site visitors ONLY read the content above the fold (the line on your monitor where you have to scroll down further to view the rest of the content.). Obviously, this data tells us that the most important real estate on your web site is above the fold or at the top of your web site.

So, here are three pointers on stuff that I think should be placed above the fold on your web site:

1.) If your web site sells products or services, feature your most popular or most accepted widely known product above the fold.

2.) If your web site is a lead generating web site and it exists to gather leads, place your phone number or a call to action to complete your form above the fold.

3.) Navigation: If you need to funnel people to your online store, place the navigation to lead people into that store above the fold, LEAD people to take the action that you need them to take, “Start Shopping, Contact Us, Get A Quote, etc.”

Take a look at your existing web site and ask yourself,  Is my most important product or service easy to find and see as soon as people land on my web site? Can I easily find my own phone number? Can I easily figure out what is the next step once I land on the home page? You truly need to put yourself in your clients / prospects shoes when it comes to your site.

Need an independent eyeball? Give me a call at 407-830-4550 and  I’ll gladly take a look at your web site and offer some pointers to improve the overall usability. In my next blog, I’ll explore more web site usability issues and how they can be corrected / and / or addressed.

I thought it would be helpful to illustrate some quick and often automated ways to keep your site looking relevant and fresh:

1.) Blog Feeds: If your web site has a blog, consider pulling a blog feed into your home page.  The blog feed can list the last few articles that you have published in your blog.  This helps both search engines grab new content, but also lets your web site visitors that you are keeping your web site relevant.  There is nothing worse than seeing a web site with articles from New Years two years ago, it sends a signal to your prospects that you are outdated.  Here’s the important part: you need to keep your blog current in order for this to work.

2.) News Feeds: If your web site is a bit more of an information / industry web site, you can also pull in various RSS feeds from news providers in your industry. As the news changes, so does your web site.

3.) Social Media. Is your company on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.? If so, add the social media icons to your web site footer or copy.  This alerts site visitors that you are tuned in to the times. You can also pull your Twitter and Facebook news feeds into your web site. Again, the key here is updating the social media applications as well.

4.) Keep up with the times.  Does your web site reek of Microsoft Front Page?  Your web site should attempt to conform to newer design trends, for example, stressing simplicity over heavy graphics, etc.

5.) Keep your products and services updated.  For example, if you are in the mortgage business, eliminate the mortgage loan types that you can no longer sell due to to changes in the marketplace.  Keeping old and outdated products on your web site sends a clear signal to prospects.

6.) Copyright. Another one of my pet peeves is seeing an outdated copyright in the footer, for example, it’s 2009 and your web site says copyright 2006.  That tells me that no one has touched your web site for three years….. Consider adding this line of PHP code to your footer, this will automatically keep your copyright up to date
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Keeping it fresh serves many purposes and you don’t need to spend a time of money doing so.  Once you can get some automated processes built into your site, the rest can take care of itself. If you need some advice or want to discuss polishing up your web site, give me a call: 407-830-4550.