Wow, great class today with over 50 people (seemed like it anyways)!

We discussed:

• Linux Hosting is preferred
•   Fantastico or Simple Scripts Installation
•   Posts and Pages – content Area
•   WordPress Themes – the template of the blog
•   Categories – categories for the blog posts
•   BlogRoll – links to other places
•   Widgets -  weather widget, banner, etc… a small application box on the blog which adds a function
•   Plugins -    an application or tool that adds functionality or performance to the blog

Contact us to find out when we are teaching our next round of classes: Houston Web Design

Technorati Tags: houston blogging training, webster blogging training, webster texas

Actually, the term Internet Marketing is a broad term.  It covers, well, any marketing activity on the internet. It could mean:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Pay Per Click
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Mobile Media Marketing

Although it is true that all these activities are important, it is best to pick a niche and start to dominate.  Trying to market yourself as everything can sometimes get you nothing.  Trying to pick one area is difficult, but being the champion of one strategy and building your reputation is an important approach and it is an approach others can identify with better.

So, am I picking just one thing? Yes, Internet Marketing.  Well, I guess I didn’t learn much from my own advice…

Need to Get Found, Get Traffic, and Get Sales?

Our Houston Web Design and Houston Internet Marketing Services can help your business grow.

Call us at (281) 652-5500.

Technorati Tags: houston internet marketing, Houston Internet Marketing Consultant, houston web design, Houston Web Marketing

Building and Promoting your business on the Internet can be a tough job for a business owner.  Knowing what to consider or where to start is often the main issues.   Even if you have a good marketing budget, how to use it carefully?  The following Internet marketing plan can help clear things up.

At a high level, here are the points to consider:

Stage I: Build your Internet Assets

• There will be plenty of things on your current website that need building up and enhancing
• If you do not have any Social Media site, it is time to create them
• You need at least one Blog
• Assemble and upload Videos

 

Stage II: Promotion Activities

• Paid Advertising
• Social Media marketing
• Search Engine Optimization for your website
• An Email marketing campaign
• Affiliate Marketing, joint ventures activities

Here are some more details:
First, you need to look at what assets you want to build on the internet.
When most people think about this the first thing they come up with is a website which is fine, but you are going to need other things like, LinkdIn, Facebook, and even Twitter in order to get your message out there. Also, you may have several videos you should include in your plan.

After all of your new promotion methods are in place, you need to get visitors to them. The big question is how does one promote these?  Basically, there are five great ways to do this.

Internet Marketing Tactic #1: Paid For Advertising

• Pay Per Click Advertising. Promoting your website with Google, Yahoo, Bing pay per click advertising at the search engine or on content sites that carry advertising for those search engines.
• Facebook also has a variety of pay per click advertising campaigns to choose from.
• Various Directories will have PPC campaigns too
• Free press releases and paid press releases
• And more…

Internet Marketing Tactic #2: Social Media Marketing
In business we talk a lot about “relationship building.” Social Media marketing is exactly what this is all about. Your potential customers can easily be influenced and that customer base can easily be grown with Social Media marketing. The top 4 social media sites are:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook Business Pages
• YouTube
• Twitter

Internet Marketing Tactic #3: Search Engine Optimization
This is a large activity that will help your business website rank higher in the search engines while bringing you traffic. For example:

• Article Submission
• Blog posting and commenting
• Social Bookmark Submitting
• Pr Releases
• Marketing With Video
• Podcasts
• And many more…

Internet Marketing Tactic #4: Marketing With Email
A great place to start is with your current customers and prospects. Do you have a list of your customer’s emails? If yes, then creating an email list and sending valuable messages to that list is a great way to stay in touch and build revenues.
Internet Marketing Tactic #5: Affiliate Internet Marketing and JVs or Joint Ventures
Have you considered a partnership with another business or person? Your products and services can easily be promoted by a virtual sales force very easily.

That’s an outline for creating an internet marketing plan.

Can we show you more?  Visit our  Houston Web Design website to learn more about internet assets and our Houston Web Marketing Strategies for promoting your business on the Internet.

Technorati Tags: houston seo companies, houston seo company, houston seo firm, houston small business marketing, houston web design, Houston Web Marketing, houston website marketing, marketing consultants houston, seo marketing houston web page design houston

In today’s day and age, people check out the website before trusting a company. If a website seems legitimate enough then there is a big chance for you to close deals and grow your business through internet leads and sales.

To get those leads and sales on the internet, there are 2 simple but firm requirements. They are:

1. A website needs to get a response.
and
2. The website needs to get targeted traffic.

Requirement 1:

If you are getting traffic, but no response, what could be the problem? Ask yourself:

• Do you hate your website so much, even you don’t want to visit it?
• Is your website dull, boring and unexciting?
• Is it so wordy that no one would bother to read the text no matter how informative it is?
• Are the photos totally unprofessional looking?
• Do you have a “Call to Action” where you ask the visitor to do something, or make a desirable offer for them to?
• Is your phone number easy to find?

Your website must be done is such a way that potential clients would like to stay and explore the site. The content must be appealing and the visitor must do something while visiting.

Requirement 2:

You need to get traffic to your website.  Your website can be one of the best out there and people would love to explore it – if it wasn’t invisible. This is the hard truth that most website designers have to face: it is not enough for websites to simply exist. Although it is great to have a website that is very well designed, that is just not enough. There must be traffic in your website otherwise, even the best designed website would fail.

Your website needs to have traffic, but not just any form of traffic. What you need is the traffic from people who actually care about your products and services. That way, your efforts online would not be in vain.

The search engines help with getting you targeted traffic.  With work, your website can show up for keywords important for your product or service.  The activities of getting ranked in the search engines for your keywords is known as Search Engine Optimization.  Through the right activities, you have a chance to be high on the first page of the search engines for your keywords.  These Search Engine Optimization for Sales techniques include:

• On-page optimization: be sure to optimize your website meta tags, keyword density, and site structure.
• Off-page optimization:  building links off of your website helps your site appear popular on the internet.  To improve your targeted traffic, choose to build links on forums, article sites, blog comments and other places that are relevant to your product or service.

At Global Business Builders, our Houston Web Design Company and Search Engine Optimization for Sales Services integrate the 2 important concepts in order to turn the website into a money making machine. When those 2 requirements are fulfilled and the leads and sales flowing in, you will be surprised that your online business may as well your best money making venture to date.

Technorati Tags: houston search engine optimization, houston SEO, houston web design, houston website marketing, search engine optimization for sales

We all know instinctively that if you are selling offline, you could sell and grow your business even more with a solid online presence. But what helps to make an online business successful?  Here are 3 pointers from Houston Web Company offering Professional Website Designs.

Web Site Design Tip 1:
When someone lands at your business website, it should make a great first impression. Just as you want to look sharp and make a great impression in person, your website should also look sharp, professional and make a first-rate first impression. The goal is to engage a visitor. Make your website informational, interesting, and at the right time: persuasive. If you don’t make a great first impression with a professionally designed website and logo, a visitor will bounce away and be lost. You need:
1. Easy to find phone number and contact information. Who wants to look for a phone number?
2. It should be instantly clear what you are offering. Believe it or not, some people actually make it difficult to understand what their business does.
3. Straightforward navigation. Let it be simple to move around the site.
4. Make your text large enough and effortless to read. Tiny text or dark lettering on a dark background is a problem to read.
Also, as a bonus, it is clear that a professionally designed website is rewarded by the search engines. How? The search engines favor sites that stay on. One of the many stats that search engines measure is a visitor’s time on the site. Sites where visitors stay longer and don’t leave right away, get higher placement preference on the search engines.

Website Design Tip 2:
So, if a visitor hasn’t left your site in 3 seconds, what’s next? Influence them to like and trust you or your company. How? You have to get them to connect with your style of talking and presenting. Information overload, or information presented in a dull way, will turn a visitor away. Always keep in mind, there are tons of other businesses out there that offer about the same thing you offer. So, you want to:

1. Think like your customer. What solves their problem? Your ideas, if they don’t mean something to a visitor, won’t cut it.
2. What sounds like garbage or hype to them? Is your information too much fluff? Get rid of it.
3. You need to build up value for what your business and your offerings. Show how you are unique, how you go the extra mile, offer guarantees, display your awards, how long you’ve been in business, and talk as a real person.
4. Show proof of how you deliver. Even if someone likes and trusts you, they want to know you deliver. Show proof of customer satisfaction, display customer testimonials, show how awesome you are at what you do.

Web Design Tip 3:
What else do you need to do? Be persuasive. Now that a visitor is spending more than a few seconds on your site, they are getting to know and have some trust in your business. After that you want to get them to take action. How?

Ask them to do something. Sign up, call you, watch a video, subscribe to a newsletter. These are called “Calls to Action.” You want to get a visitor to take action, and be convincing about it by offering something of value to them: a discount, something for free, a guide, special tips, additional video instruction, and more.

The 3 power punches: First, Your professional website makes a fantastic first impression. Next get a visitor to know, like and trust you and your business. Finally, get the visitor to take action.

Like what you’ve seen and want to look at an example? Go here to see a website “live” example: Houston Web Design Company .

 

 

Technorati Tags: houston web design, houston web design company, how to make money from websites, professional website designs

Tags, tags tags.  What?  What’s a tag?  Header tags, title tags, and description tags to name a few.

1.  Header tags are the large headlines used on a website page.  H1 is the largest, H2 and H3 are smaller in font size.  These header tags allow website visitors to quickly take in important information on a webpage. Yes, it makes it simpler for a reader to scan and grab information, and makes them stay or “stick” on the website a little longer.  Also, the search engines also take a look at what is being emphasized on the webpage.

So, the “header tag” is one of the places to perform SEO and can help boost a website’s search engine placement, while at the same time keeping the visitor interested in “stick”ing around.

2.  In the same way, Bold and Italicized words stand out to website visitors and to the search engines. And again, if information is quick to grab a viewer’s interest, the longer the viewer will stay on a website.

3.  Did you know that the Title Tag is what is used by the search engine in the search engines’ listing?  That’s right, start right away with getting the user interested from the moment they see your search engine description. And, every website page should have a different title tag with information related to what appears on that page. And, the more interesting the title, the better chance to grab a visitor’s interest. And, of course, the search engines put emphasis on the content of a title tag in how they index the website.

4.  What else grabs a visitor’s interest and keeps them “stick”ing around?  Great content. The words on a website page should read easily and give valuable information. Pictures, diagrams, and video also help in the visitor’s experience.

Google likes all of these elements on a website.  It shows care and effort was given to the information and the message on the webpage.

5.  Lastly, it’s extremely important to use fresh, unique content on the webpage.  High search engine placement for your site’s keywords is not likely with copied or duplicate content.  You can use Copyscape.com to test if your content is unique.

Spend time and care in writing unique content, or hire our Houston Texas Website Marketing and SEO Placement Firm to assure your high search engine ranking success.

Technorati Tags: houston SEO, houston website marketing, placement search engine optimization seo services, sem placement, seo placement, seo placement firm, seo position

Creating your SEO plan and working through the details is very important. However, just avoiding some of the most common mistakes helps get things off to the right start.
Here’s a list of 5:

1. Flash.  In spite of how cool that sparkle and glitter seems, Flash is not optimized to be understood by Google when indexing your site.
2. Image ALT tags.  Remember to describe your website images with optimized words in the ALT description tag.  This helps give keyword information that helps search engines index your site.  Remember, Google actually allows images to be searched all on their own.
3. Don’t keyword spam.  Repeating the keywords too often in your website content can be seen as keyword spamming, and actually hurt your sites ranking for those keywords.
4. Create unique content on your website.  In an effort to reduce the machines needed to store website index information, search engines like to ignore webpages and even entire websites that have duplicate content.
5. Learn how to fill in the TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags of your website.  And, it’s usually not enough to fill in your company name since this is usually not the way people are searching for your product or service.

Hope these short tips help you in your efforts.  For more information you can check our Houston Small Business SEO Agency Website.

Technorati Tags: Houston SEO Agency, Houston SEO Marketin, Houston Small Business Advertising, Houston Small Business SEO Company, Houston Web Marketing, houston website marketing

Small Businesses need marketing and advertising.  One of the strategies of marketing and advertising on the internet is through Search Engine Marketing.  This internet technique describes Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click Advertising.

The SEO process involves “best practices” for getting your website or other internet asset to appear high in the search results for relevant keywords to your business.

Google Adwords is the most popular way for Houston business owners to get onto the first page of Google in a very short amount of time… often the same day if the advertising campaign is designed correctly.

Keyword research is the foundation of successful Pay  Per Click advertising and of an effective Search Engine Optimization strategy.

Our Houston Small Business Search Engine Marketing Agency offers both services and more.  Take a look and learn more…here for Houston Small Business Pay Per Click Advertising and here for Houston Small Business Search Engine Optimization.

Technorati Tags: houston search engine marketing, houston search engine marketing agency, houston search engine optimization, houston web design, search engine marketing, search engine marketing agency, SEO, small business ppc advertising, small business search engine marketing, small business seo

Our Houston web site marketing agency has long made use of Social Media to promote clients’ businesses. We consider Social Media Marketing as one of the top 5 web marketing strategies.   Social Media Optimization – or SMO – is the term coined for website or social media site marketing strategies using Social Media techniques.

Social media optimization describes the use of Social Web 2.0  techniques by a web site marketing agency to make a website or social media site popular across the internet. Of course we are all familiar with SEO, but SMO means more than that. It means:

• Making your content more shareable to people and to communities across the social networks of the internet
• Making your SMO site more easily linked to

What does this mean more specifically?
1. Buttons, Badges and Widgets. Adding a widget to your content allows people to more easily bookmark or tag. RSS feed icons on your blogs, AddThis buttons.
2. Content Sharing. Think Facebook’s “Share This” button. Twitter’s “Retweet” functionality. Also, downloadable PDFs, video or audio files help your content to travel and become popular.
3. Social Commenting. Commenting, Voting, Rating, approving, “Liking,” voting up in StumbleUpon.

Of course, anything posted on the internet can and should be optimized for the search engines. But now, it is as important to be “optimized” to be found across social networks and communities. This means, the voting and rating can help your content rise to the top of searches done on social sites. Sites like Technorati, StumbleUpon, YouTube and more. Now, going “viral” can be more powerful in getting visitors than showing up in search engine results.

What kind of internet sites can be optimized for Social Media?

• Facebook sites
• Blogs on your website or off your website
• Website content
• Videos on YouTube or other video sites
• Web 2.0 sites like Hubpages, Squidoo
• Blog aggregation sites like Technorati
• Article marketing sites
• and more…

It’s important to remember the difference in SEO and SMO is this:   SEO is about becoming highly visible according to a search engine’s “algorithm,” while SMO is about becoming highly visible from votes and interest shown by people and communities.

Social Media Optimization is an efficient tool for website marketing and promotion, and there are many tools and techniques to help you spread the word about your brand and offerings.  Learn more at Houston Web Site Internet Marketing Agency

 

Technorati Tags: houston SEO, houston web, houston website marketing, houston website promotion, internet marketing specialists, social media optimization, web marketing agency

Your web site is up and running for some time, but you don’t know why the search engines aren’t displaying your site in the results pages. Regardless of what keywords you type in, you just can’t discover your web sites(s), what could possibly be the problem?

Generally, concerning search engines, if your web site isn’t showing up whatsoever, the issue is probably search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is the art of preparing your web site search engine friendly. This means that you make your website search engine friendly by keyword optimizing some of the key locations on a website page.

Search engines like Google search for the following (partial list) factors when it spiders or crawls (looks at) a web site:

1.) Title Tag of the page
Search engine looks into the code of you web page to read what the topic of your web page is. What it reads is called the title tag and this can be what exhibits up in the top of one’s browsers window whenever you visit a web site.

2.) Description  Meta Tag
Search engines also study the description you give for the page inside the description Meta tag of the web site. This is what you read as a description once you do a search engine search and view the results pages. Should you really don’t provide a description Meta tag; a search engine will generally use the primary paragraph of your page to describe it. That is something you do not want given that you want to offer a succinct but curiosity developing description of the page that also exhibits relevance for the searcher to obtain them to go to your site.

3.) Keywords in Meta Tags of the page
Search engines like Google pay certain interest to the keywords Meta tag of one’s web page. Similar to the description tag in format, the keywords and phrases Meta tag tells the search engine what search terms your page is about including pets, dogs, Irish setters, this way the search engine can rank your page when it comes to significance or relevance when an individual does a search for “Irish Setter Dogs As Pets”. When defining the keywords to your page, attempt to only target a maximum of three per page and ensure that the keywords you’re using in fact exist in your net page at the beginning paragraph, middle of the body and ending paragraph of the page.

Learn more at Houston Website Design Company SEO Best Practices.

Technorati Tags: houston corporate website design, Houston Website Design, on page website SEO, website design best practices