A lot of marketing companies (especially companies dealing with search engine optimization) lose track of where they stand ethically in the market. And it is easy to do, because there aren’t many laws against unethical marketing practices nor is the internet is old and wise in detecting the latest methods (yet).
Generally business-to-business companies do not need to publicize where they stand on the issue of ethics, but from reviewing a lot of CelTrust’s competition, many companies aren’t publishing exactly where they stand (if you get my drift).
What’s Unethical?
CelTrust breaks down search engine optimization ethics into 3 categories: blackhat, grayhat, and whitehat.
Blackhat SEO:
Blackhat techniques utilize spamming mass amounts of forums, guestbook’s, and other websites to build backlinks. These websites found by doing mass searches on a single keyword and using the top ranking websites. The Blackhat back-link websites are often websites which serve incoherent data which is unreadable to humans, but still readable to search engines. These sites serve no purpose to people except to attempt and get AD Clicks.
Grayhat SEO:
Grayhat SEO uses semi-legitimate websites, but still uses automated methods for building backlinks. Grayhat is often what people are sold on from many SEO sites because it warrants a quick return on ranking. However, Grayhat seo is still detected by Google, and your ranking will not stick. Even worst, with both Grayhat and Blackhat, your website may be removed or put in the search engines “blacklist”.
Whitehat SEO:
Whitehat SEO is the methods that CelTrust uses. We legitimately build backlinks, optimize web content to be optimized for both humans and search engines, and increase the quality of the content. Fortunately for whitehat seo’ers, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are actively optimizing to find the best whitehat practices. So not only will you rank high, but you will also keep your rank and on more keywords!
Spam Policy
CelTrust has a strict spam policy. We think truly empathize with both the end user, and the servers which have to handle mail, and by this we mean: WE HATE SPAM. We don’t like getting it, we don’t like seeing it, and we hate dealing with it. That’s why CelTrust is proud to say that we are spam free.
Fortunately for many businesses, spam is taking a hard-hit. Recently, The state of Virginia determined that spam is not free speech, and this will declaration won’t be the end of the line. We expect to see much more legislation passed on this issue.
Conclusion
CelTrust doesn’t endorse the use of unethical marketing practices, or business practices. All of our work that we do for client’s abides by a strict policy CelTrust has in place. We do this both for our client’s name, and our own. Spam and unethical SEO practices can deeply hurt both rankings and reputation.
Tags: Amherst, ethics, Lorain, lorain county, Ohio, ohio search engine optimization, policy, whitehat seo
I’ve had a lot of questions on the breakdown of how CelTrust’s Optimization services can work for local Ohio companies. So to answer these questions, I wrote a hopefully helpful post.
CelTrust’s Local Search Engine Optimization
With the internet becoming a mystical marketing source for companies, and with Google and Yahoo holding all the cards for both large and small businesses it’s really vital to understand and harness the power of search engines. Unfortunately, most companies don’t have the tools to self-fund the proprietary research tools required to take full advantage of Search Engine Marketing.
Where most companies go
We see a lot of companies fall across the web into these companies who will “Make you Rich” and “Make you number #1″ for only $29.95! What a great deal… However… Yeah… I think you understand where I’m going with this: They don’t work. If you are convinced these services work, or you want to spot them before you buy into the market, check out Tim Nash’s article on spotting snake skin sellers. CelTrust has tested hundreds of these products in our march to develop the best tools, and we have found more fluff than heavy weight, real-value systems.
So with that, lets get into some basic questions, and where CelTrust can help you one-on-one to rank your site. First, we have to understand ranking with Small companies vs. big companies.
Site Ranking
With so many big sites stomping local businesses in the search engines, smaller sites without the competitive edge, and market research don’t get ranked well. For example, do you know where your keywords rank amongst Ohio Citizens? How many average searches per day, week, and month keywords receive? Or maybe what keywords top ranking sites are targeting the most? If you don’t, it’s unlikely that you will be able to start poking holes in other sites ranking strategies to form and develop your own.
CelTrust will work with your company one-on-one to figure out the best strategy to competitively target your competitors and rank with them. Not only that, we’ll develop your descriptions and titles to be attractive so your site stands out amongst the rest.
Who do search engines focus on?
Search Engines focus on sites that have “authority” in certain keywords. To understand authority, you have to understand targeting. Google weighs your websites keywords from the most weighted to the less in order to have a “general” idea of how your site may be themed. The stronger weighted keywords hold more authority than the less weighted. (It’s not as easy as it sounds)
You want your website to have authority, so lets look at keywords. For this, I’ll use the keyword, “Columbus Ohio Flower Shop”.
Columbus Ohio flower shop
If you search this in Google, you’ll see the first 3 links are Sponsored Links, or links which are paid for. Ironically, the 3rd sponsored link isn’t even in Columbus, it’s actually from Washington state, Sneaky Sneaky. But moving beyond the top 3 sponsored links, we’ll see that the first 2 links actually are from Ohio (boomtastic.com and flowermacolumbus.com). But the rest are just mega sites that Google tends to favor because they hold Authority. So to recap, 2 of 8 results are actually local businesses. From our research, we have found that this is the case not just with Columbus Ohio Flower Shops, but MANY small businesses. They don’t hold results for their keyword phrases locally.
Ahh! I don’t want to buried by the giants
So let’s break down some steps that CelTrust can use to make sure you are able to dominate the mega sites in the Search Engines.
First, we’ll break down keyword research to find out what kinds of keywords you should be targeting. Once we have a solid list of keywords, we can start designing and targeting your content around these keywords. Now, we don’t just do the first page either, we break down each page on your site and make sure it’s themed around the topic you are truly focusing on.
The second step is listing your site in local directories (Like CitySearch, Yahoo Local, and Google Local). This will target your keywords to show up on map results, and yellow books across the internet.
Third is getting linked by other authority pages. CelTrust has lists of other websites who we work with on linking to help your company’s website build authority. Being linked by community sites of similar theme, and high authority boosts your ranking in the engines.
Conclusion
Head spinning yet? This is a lot of information, and it’s still only about 5% of what CelTrust does. However, we work with you one-on-one to make everything workout. You don’t need to spend tons of money on the research marketing data, or developing the proprietary software which we use. That’s where we step in. We have already developed many useful proprietary tools to maximize your exposure on the internet for local ohio search engine marketing, and we’re ready to help you out.
Tags: columbus, Google, local marketing, lorain county, Ohio, SEO, yahoo
Companies strive to succeed. But what can a business really do to get that extra boost of confidence and support? My time with CelTrust has taught me that with the backing of an accredited, reliable, and experienced business, your business has a greater chance to succeed. This wonderful relationship companies sometimes have with each other is known as an alliance or affiliation.
A company’s affiliations with other local businesses is its Social Business Network. Specifically we’ll discuss what a Social Business Network is, and how with a little research any Startup CEO can create their own Social Business Network.
The Basics
I’m going to assume that your business is already a functional working body that is ready to expand in its market; and grow in the surrounding areas. If not please click here.
A Local Business Network
A Local Network is a group of businesses and organizations that work together and exchange ideas.
The questions is, how do businesses and organizations benefit from each other? Businesses don’t always exchange their services for money like you and I do when visiting the groceries store. Two networked companies might exchange one company’s service for another company’s service, free of any monetary exchange.
Still, you might find yourself asking, how does networking really improve a company?
Networking greatly increases the number of client el you have. If your customers trust you, they’ll trust businesses you point them towards. This works the other way around in your benefit too. If an allied company’s clients trust them, those clients will trust you as well.
Working with allied companies closely, can give you and your employees extra experience. This leads to an increase in productivity, efficiency, and sales (the list goes on). This extra experience is valuable because it can lead to new market opportunities and allow your company to expand.
The bigger your network gets, the more places you can look to for help and advice.
The Basics in building up your network
• Step 1. Formulate a plan
Are there any local businesses or organizations that could use your product or service in exchange for something mutually beneficial, or vice versa? For example: Company A offers Company B discounted tech support in order to receive free payroll management. It is something you’ll have to do a lot of research on before you decide anything.
Remember:
- The relationship two companies have might exceed the said relationship above, and there are numerous other exchange options available that can greatly benefit both companies (You are only limited to what either company has to offer).
- Also, the initial offer could make or break the deal so make sure what you are offering is a worth-it investment for both parties.
• Step 2. Reassure yourself
Double, and even triple check the service exchange you are about to make. Whatever deal you might be conjuring up is a commitment your business might be stuck with. Ask yourself these questions: Can/Should I really commit my company to this? Can I really count on that business? How long will we need Company B’s services, and should we rely on those services?
Ultimately, you are the CEO and it’s your decision to make, but if you’ve done your research this networking stuff might be the push your business needs.
• Step 3. Always look for Step 1. Opportunities
You might have already created a small network between your company and the accounting firm down the street. Keep going. Always look into growing these alliances and making new ones. The more friends you have, the more opportunities you have to expand and grow your business. Referrals and favors are sure things you should come to expect when you surround yourself with other businesses willing to help you succeed.
• Step 4. Protect your interests
Even the best of friends might betray each other in the end, this is true in business as well. Always watch your back, and keep a close eye on any affiliations you make. Remember these businesses can help make you more credible or less credible. Not only that, but they are willing to do anything to succeed - you should be willing to do the same.
- Brian
Tags: Affiliations, Alliances, Expanding Business, Market Opportunities, Social Business Networking
My rss feeder broke the news to my blackberry and I this morning: Microsoft is buying Yahoo!
This isn’t too unexpected. Google is growing at an unprecedented growth, and Microsoft is seeing the future competition coming out of Google. Yahoo was the only avenue that Microsoft could take to bring in some new minds, technology, and research.
This will lead to some interesting upcomings:
- What does Google have packed away to combat the new merge? We can probably expect more features in existing tools. (Google has enough tools, they probably won’t add too many more)
- What search technology will emerge from Microsoft and Yahoo?
- Which company will dominate search?
Just some fun questions to sit on.
Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve spent the last few days bed ridden. But fortunately, I’ve been able to brainstorm some ideas. Like i just mentioned in bold above, I will have some nice new tools I’ve been writing up later on.
- Joe
Tags: Google, microsoft, yahoo
Forget the old-school marketing of yesterday - its dead. Today’s generation and generations to come will ultimately be exposed to something entirely new: Mobile Marketing. Emerging as the next big thing, one can’t help but ask; “what’s so great about it?” Mobile Marketing is the future, and it’s already taking the industry by storm.
But what exactly is this new and exciting possibility, and how long has it been around? Actually Mobile Marketing has existed since the late 90’s but has found a recent boom in the current decade, especially this past year of 07.
Understand the market
Understanding what this market is can be quite a task at first, but once you get a grip on it you’ll be fine. A great example of Mobile Marketing involves that catchy ringtone commercial. There are dozens of said commercials popping up in between my television shows asking me to “text the number on the screen to receive a free ringtone.” I’ve done just that, and if you do you’ll get your ringtone and nice bill to go along with it. You’ll text to a 5 or 6 digit number, send some keyword and then get something in return. But what’s been taking place isn’t even the end. What could be and what eventually will be taking place is much, much more exciting.
Mobile Devices
The advancement of such cellphones and gadgets as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the Blackberry now make surfing the net anytime a breeze. Equipped with software allowing them to browse the World Wide Web, these new toys are the next generation’s best friend. Not only will people be affected by the advancement of these extremely popular devices, but Mobile Marketing will be too.
Mobile Market - soon to appear as the leading component in any good marketing plan.
Google is on board
Google has even jumped into the market. Directions, weather, definitions, local business and phone number searches are all free services Google provides to anyone. Yes it is amazing. This is just the beginning; many companies are now jumping at the idea of Mobile Websites and Google is too (Google Mobile Adsense). Yes, not only can businesses purchase ads for the average internet user to spot on their home computer but anyone browsing the net with their iPod Touch might notice the familiar “Ads By Google” logo somewhere in their Safari browser window.
The ’next big thing’ is right around the corner and hundreds of companies are jumping on board. Make yourself a part of the future, and you won’t regret it. Mobile Marketing can be your niche, your ticket. It’ll be a big help in pushing your company to the forefront, and beyond. As our own Joe Tyson put it “Mobile Marketing and Google Adsense is expanding into every market. You’ll want to order a pizza so you’ll text Google.”
- Brian
For the last 5 or 6 years that I’ve been doing web development, I’ve always been hit with one popular question: “OH JOE WILL YOU PRETTY, PRETTY PLEASE EXCHANGE LINKS WITH ME JOE!! PLEASE!” And like 3 years ago that was a great question! Some sites even found me asking for the same one. But now in our good old year of 2008, link exchanges are dead. Actually, they’re more than dead – they might even land you in a hole with google.
Why they used to work
These link exchanges used to work because hey – a link was a link. The important thing was that you were getting linked from a decent site, and others were recognizing your site. Webmasters also didn’t invest time into writing new content for websites as much as the internet demands in our 2007/2008 standard. The most sufficient way to tell about another site was to throw up a little “button” or “link” exchange to let others know about your site.
Quick and dirty “How Google Works”
When you search Google, your results come back in way under a second, so how does google do it? Well, the first thing that probably clicks in your mind is that google must have a database called “Google.” In this database, they have a table called “Websites,” and in this table there’s like billions and billions of rows (one for each website). And google must store each website that it crawls into this database, and when a user searches they do some crazy query.. Right?
Not even close. In a nut shell (I’ll write a post soon on my theory of how Google Works), Google stores every word and phrase that it comes across into a big massive keyword database linking to results ranked by a magical page rank number. When you search a keyword, it gathers all the keywords and runs through a bunch of magical algorithms and comes out with a bunch of pretty results (And it does it really fast).
So what!?
Well, you see. Part of that big fancy algorithm that google runs through is finding page context for links. When Google’s spiders crawl your website, they find the “context” and “scope” of the page and associate the links in the article with those keywords. So moving on…
What happens in 2008 with Links
In 2008, Google has evolved and become a smarter search engine. Google is all about offering “contextual” and “relative” search results (See Tim Nash’s Article for a good review on how search engine relativity works). That’s why google has that fancy algorithm to determine the context of a link.
So with that knowledge, you can come to the conclusion that linking outside of context just won’t work.
What does work?
Before you can actually expect to get any decent contextual links – you have to actually build legitimate relationships. For example, if you are homeless what method is going to be more effective: going to a guys door and begging for a home to live in, or meeting a guy, building up a relationship/friendship with him, and asking if you can have a place to stay for a while until you build back up your life. Obviously building a friendship/relationship with the guy is going to be the most effective approach.
Take that logic, and apply it to your dealings with webmasters. When I get an email from a guy saying, “Joe, please add me to your blogroll and exchange me links plz kthx bye.” I will do 2 things, 1.) Delete it, 2.) Ignore the guy for being rude.
However, if I get an email from a guy who says, “Hey Joe, I’ve read some of your blog posts and you have inspired me to start up a blog. Would you mind checking out my blog and let me know what you think? The link is www.ilovejoetysonblog.com . Thanks, your #1 fan.” Now this email would get me to check out the blog, and maybe even subscribe to the feed if there’s any decent content.
Next, leave some comments on the blog you are trying to hook up with. If they social network with Sphinn, reddit, digg, or any of the other 10,000 social networking sites – leave some comments. Let them know you are sincerely out there watching the blog.
What will this get me, Joe?
Well, it won’t give you instant gratification – and you shouldn’t expect it. However, it will help you build some relationships with other bloggers in the blogosphere, and if you post relative content, you might just get quoted in a post and get a nice back link.
Conclusion
Basically, if google only sees one link to you on a page – you probably won’t build much backing from Google. If Google see’s that you are being linked in blogs and on context, you’ll build more keywords and legit back links which = higher pagerank and more keywords for your blog. Even if you all out fail at building legit backlinks, at least you’ll make some friends along the way.
Tags: basics, Google, googlecide, guides, help, marketing, ranking, Research, SEO, Tips, whitehat seo
Following up from my previous post about Googlecide, you can also kill yourself if you are in a rush to make money. Google regulates it’s adsense in a lot of similar ways as it does its search. Google mainly does this because they have a good reputation for publishing ads on a quality websites, and delivering high return on investments (ROI) to advertisers.
1.) Don’t commit Googlecide
First things first – you can’t commit googlecide or else you’ll be finding yourself banned from adsense as well. Google has quality to assure its end users and advertisers, and the only way they can do that is if their name only appears on quality websites.
Go back and read my post on Googlecide if you haven’t already.
2.) DO NOT Click your own Ads
It can be tempting to earn some more $$ by clicking your own ads, but google has really tightened down on this. No matter how well you think your tracks are covered, watch out! Google will probably find out.
On another note – if you live in a family household it might also be a good idea to let your family know that you don’t need their help clicking the ads. Let your family know about your good standing with Google, and how important it is for all clicks to be organic.
3.) Make sure your ads are visible, don’t hide them!
Hey, why not make your ads the same color as your sites background right? Hide them by camouflaging them with busy background images; after all… you still get paid for page views. While this can be tempting, it’s against Google’s Terms of Service and they’ll catch you.
Clicks pay a lot better than page impressions/views, so make your ads visible in places where people will click them. Google makes the ads targeted so they will be related to your content.
4.) Begging for ad clicks = bad idea
A lot of webmasters will try to “hint” that you should click ads, or sometimes even hold contests to see who will click the most ads. Or I even get the occasional webmaster hitting me up on IM asking for me to go to the website and click ads. Don’t do this, Google has magical ESP powers and will ban you.
Also, do not categorize your ads or title them with anything more than “sponsored links.” It’s against Google’s terms of service to call them anything. When google catches you doing this, you’ll get suspended.
5.) Change the code Adsense gives you
When you create an ad in Adsense, you are given a snippet of code to put where you want your ads to show up. Do not edit the code, it’s against Google’s Terms and leads them to think you are trying to cheat advertisers. Great way to get banned, bad way to make $$.
6.) Automated Proxy Clicker Bots
Sounds like something from the future, huh? But a lot of webmasters are using these special bots. They use proxies and robots which automatically click Ads. The problem for people trying this – google has really sophisticated catching methods, and this is one of the main reasons webmasters get banned.
Going along side of this – there are a lot of tempting human-powered setups to get Google Clicks (like trade systems). Google will ban you for trying these, because hey… If advertisers wanted to do these schemes, they’d just sign up themselves, right?
7.) Use those Adsense “Packages”
There are a bunch of “Full Content Packages” with hundreds of articles on niche topics that a lot of people try to sell. Google sees these as duplicate content, and will not only deindex you from the Search, but they may suspend your Adsense account as well.
Use your own content, be original!
8.) Make Ad-Only pages
It seems stupid that anyone would do this anyway, but some sneaky webmasters will try and create an entire page with nothing but ads and a few “keywords” hidden around the page. Google states in its guidelines that “Weather or not the page content is relevant” you just can’t make pages to “Hang Ads.” This is because Google Adsense sells advertising to Advertisers based on “Content Matching” not “Ad Hanging.”
Make every page have a content-driven target. Don’t just make pages to put ads, make pages to place content. This is the best way to safeguard your bets with Google Adsense.
9.) Use “Taboo” Topics on your site
Google straight out prohibits the placement of ads on sites containing content with firearms, tobacco, alcohol, weapons, and drugs. And well, Google is “Keyword” based, so if they see these keywords it’ll be a surefire bet to fire off some red flags. Use some common sense; only place your ads on safe topics.
If your site uses one of these topics, Adsense isn’t for you.
10.) Don’t keyword Flood
There are a lot of scripts which try to “Adsense Bomb” your ads to show different ads and keywords (Sometimes containing higher CPCs). But this is like Googlebombing, google will catch it – it’s just a matter of time. Google has a lot of really complex algorithms for figuring these tricks out, and they will get you banned.
Conclusion
This is not a “full list” of ways to get banned from Google Adsense, but it should give some basic insight. Don’t get trapped by all the schemes out on the internet to help you “EARN MORE WITH ADSENSE.” Most of these have saturated the market, and google has already setup filters to detect and ban them automatically. Play it safe, follow the basic guidelines, and use some common sense. If you are trying to trick Google, you are going to lose.
Tags: adsense, basics, Building, Do It Yourself, Google, googlecide, guides, help, marketing, SEO, Tips, web development
You just registered your domain name, got your hosting setup, designed a great site, and put up some content. Great! What’s next!? When’s google going to come? How do I get ranked?
These are probably the same questions you are asking, or have once asked. And every veteran webmaster will tell you the same things, optimize and wait. But there are the select few who refuse to wait, and sometimes wonder into a different market.
Blackhat SEO is all it takes to commit Googlecide
When webmasters start getting itchy to get higher ranks, they start venturing into new avenues that’ll get them ranked quick. Sometimes it involves using multiple titles, googlebombing, or even registering hundreds of domains and cloaking. Below are some of the top 10 ways to get kicked out of Google’s search database.
Step 1: Cloaking
Cloaking is where you design your website so search engines see special “keywords” and “content” (bot bait), and humans/visitors see something else. It’s like when you search for “phones” and end up on a website about “mailboxes.” No one likes being tricked, and you’ll get figured out from either a report or one of Google’s methods.
Step 2: Duplicate Content
A lot of blackhat webmasters/seo’s (unethical SEO/webmasters) try and earn higher page rank by using content that already exists on another website. For example – the blackhat will copy and paste articles from about.com and put them on their own website in order to have more content, and earn higher page rank with the keywords. Copying and pasting larger amounts of text from other sites is not only a copyright violation, but google is known to ban sites that use this method.
Step 3: Automatically Generated Content
It’s a great idea to duplicate content when trying to get banned, and even to have a robot write it for you! Just think how smart you’ll like when you have smarterchild responses on your website!
Just like using duplicate content, having a machine write it is really easy for google to detect. There are also programs that blackhats will use to “change” content from other websites, but google will find out either from reports or from their AI Detection setups they use.
Once google catches you using automatically generated content, you can say “Adios” to your page rank!
Step 4: Buy those “Instant Adsense”
I never see these in google anymore (because google removes them as soon as they find them). If you are trying to get banned from google, it’s a great idea to buy these. Instant Adsense sites are those “packaged” websites with 500 articles per niche that throw up an adsense ad. Google almost always bans these because they are 1.) Duplicate content, and 2.) Present multiple themes for a website, or are unusable.
Step 5: Use unrelated keywords in your meta tags, and around your site
Even though Meta keywords don’t rank up in Google’s importance, they do still help google figure out who is spamming. When you list your keywords in your Meta tags, try to use as many unrelated keywords you can. It’s the best way to tell google that you don’t want to be in their index because you are full of spam! For example, if your website is about “Dog Feces,” your keywords should use every word in the dictionary for the letter “B”.
Step 6: Link to other spam sites (or bad neighborhoods)
When you link to a spamming side or bad neighborhood, google will be quick to lower your PageRank. When you link to other sites, make sure you never ever link to Good Citizens (Good sites), because they’ll just associate your site with those “good sites.” You don’t want that, google ranks good sites too high.
If you don’t know how to find “Bad neighborhoods,” check the Google PageRank of the site you are linking.
Step 7: Use LOTS of Hidden Text
When committing Googlecide, hiding lots of keywords is a great method. Try making the font color of words the same as the background color. While your at it, put these hidden texts in <h1> tags to ensure google knows you are just trying to spam. To add extra icing to the cake, try using small teeny tiny text at the bottom of the page, always a grand way to get banned!
Not only will Google detect the color contrast, they’ll add you right to the list of sites to ban!
Step 8: Title Stack
Try adding extra <title> tags in your head to get more keywords in. Google’s bots are incredibly intelligent, and will notice that you have several title tags. The great thing about this method is, they’ll know exactly what keywords you are trying to target and they’ll make sure you don’t rank in any of them!
Step 9: Add lots of viruses, spyware, and adware to your site
Not only do users just eat this stuff right up, you’ll make lots of money by damaging computers! And lets not forget google, they love this. Because google has joined up with StopBadWare.com to put an end to sites who have trojans, viruses, and other badware on their website.
Step 10: Setup some doorway pages
Gateway pages or “Doorway pages” are sites and pages that you can setup for one key term – but when a user goes to them, they send you off to different content (Generally by giving you a big button to click). This really helps because you’ll almost never be targeted, and google associates these with “cloaking” sites.
So if you are looking to get a quick ban, setup some doorway pages.
Conclusion
If you are looking to get dropped from Google’s page results, follow these 10 basic steps. If you aren’t looking to get knocked off google, don’t be an idiot. Write your own content, and use ethical whitehat tactics to get ranked higher in google. You can also contact CelTrust to optimize your website for you (just an option ;-).
Tags: adware, basics, CelTrust, Do It Yourself, Google, googlecide, guides, Research, SEO, spyware, viruses, whitehat seo
It’s an interesting world. Everyone is always working to “reach new customers” and “be the best.” But how many people who says this go off and do the exact same thing that everyone else does? We all want to be #1 in the top 10 for the hottest keywords, we always want to reach new customers, and we are always in it for the customer.
It’s important to be that company who is just a little unorthodox in their methods. A company that has a basic understanding of who their customers are. Everyone is looking for a “friend” these days, even in business. Be that friend, do something different. Here’s a basic breakdown to get you on the right path, just in case you aren’t “kickin’ it” like you originally hoped.
Who are you!?
Just take a few minutes one day and dig down into the deeper search results of Google. Just try searching for some terms in a popular market. For this example, we’ll use “Web Hosting.” There’s probably 2 billion web hosts in existence, and oddly the first 50 pages on Google for “Web Hosting” are probably companies actually doing good.
Go to some of these sites; see how you fit in the big picture. Find your corporate identity, and see how you can stick out.
Lesson 1: Get an understanding of who you are in the “Big Scheme of Things” and under the “Big Keywords”
What do you do?
Almost every website I’ve come across for web hosting tells me how great their support is, how much cheaper their plans are, and how much faster their servers are… Oh yeah! Don’t let me forget, 24/7 uptime GURANTEED or your “MONEY BACK!” These words have become synonymous with anyone doing web hosting. You can’t depend on these cliché phrases to keep you afloat on the market.
You have to do something different… And…
Do it better
If are you depending on these cliché phrases to keep you going, like “Excellent Web Hosting!” do some research on Excellent Web Hosting and figure out what everyone else is doing. Be critical, find some flaws, and see what customer reviews are of these companies. Once you have some general knowledge of what these other companies are doing, blow them out of the water by offering a fix-all solution.
Lesson 2: Find a problem, and fix it
Are you different?
Put on a whig, and go into the middle of the city and dance to some polka music. While you’re at it, play a bagpipe and throw in some gangsta’ moves. And while you’re having a good time being different, look around and observe. Who is everyone paying attention to? Probably you (if they aren’t, try taking off all your clothes and making obscene gestures – at least you’ll get the police to come around… Wait… if the police come, maybe someone called them, and that means you’re virally marketing!!).
It’s the same way in business. You have to be different, shocking, and interesting. If you offer web hosting, try naming your plans something different – start a theme. Take a minute to think about some of the main companies you deal with on a daily basis – do they do something unique? What makes you attracted to them? If it’s just the prices, you might just be cheap.
Lesson 3: Be different. Do some viral marketing, dance naked in the streets… People will make all kinds of phone calls! These days you might even appear on youtube… Oh the beauty!
Are you mean and grouchy?
Nothing kills me more than when I go to a tech support website targeting not-so-technologically advanced people and they never use any “English” words. I’m not saying they’re French or Spanish, but to the average person, they sure as rattlesnakes aren’t English. (Seriously, who knows what ‘Critical Processing’ really means?)
Lesson 4: Make your website friendly for everyone. I recommend using a thesaurus and finding smaller words (If you’re doing the opposite, STOP NOW). Use some words and sentences that won’t intimidate your user, and geezz… Why not, while you’re at it – crack a joke or two. People might just giggle a bit.
Conclusion
Seriously, get out there. Be a little more friendly and different. Take off all your clothes and streak in the streets naked once in a while. Be interesting, start a cult following. Make your company like a good friend, and start “kickin’ it.” Before you know it, you’ll be “reaching new customers” and if you pick the right markets – you too can “be the best.”
Tags: basics, Building, Business Services, help, marketing, Research, SEO, Tips, web development, web hosting
It’s easy to rush over to a cheap web host, and register a domain. For a few extra dollars, you can probably even get a free WYSIWYG editor to make your site with little to no html knowledge. And it doesn’t stop there, the features offered by leading hosts is endless. But what is important when looking over all these options? And how effective can some of these tools be in getting your Google PageRank up?
The Basic Needs of your Site
Before you can start putting together the strategy for your website, you have to understand the exact needs of your website. For this example, we’ll pretend that our host gives us a fancy “enhanced” web-based website editor, frontpage extentions (for publishing websites directly from frontpage), and PHP 4 & 5 support. This will give us a few avenues that we can take for developing our site. First, I’ll explain what each of these features offer us.
The Fancy “Enhanced” web-based website editor/builder (Wysiwyg)
These editors are full web-based editors that allow you to manipulate your websites content with drag and drop capabilities. For this setup, you can get your website going without having any html knowledge. All that you generally need to know is how to read, make items bold, and the basic use of a mouse (simple stuff right?). This setup has some great pro’s and con’s, just a brief overview here:
Pros to Wysiwyg Editors
- You don’t need to know any html
- All the formatting is done for you
- It is just like writing up a document in Microsoft Word
- They support quick and easy access to creating links, inserting images, and sometimes even spell check.
Cons to Wysiwyg Editors
- They are often times limited, and only allow you to edit segments of a site in a template
- If you are editing a template with a Wysiwyg, they may not support all the formatting
- In systems like Joomla, you have to save the data before seeing the actual formatting for special styles
- Most of them still have tons of bugs and flaws
FrontPage, or other “Web Site Builder” software
These wonderful programs have taken the typical wysiwyg editor and pumped them with steroids. These editors will allow you to edit your website with ease. You can generally design your template, and edit all of your text in one easy place. Dreamweaver is a much more professional suite for editing a webpage and it’s template (and it puts out cleaner code), but it may feel limited if you don’t have good knowledge on editing websites. I’ll Focus these pro’s and con’s on frontpage, since that’s where most people start.
Pros to FrontPage
- It’s very drag-and-drop style
- It does everything the Wysiwyg web-based editors do
- Supports editing style sheets, and doing more advanced editing
- With frontpage extensions, you can have a website up in just a few clicks
Cons to Frontpage
- I’ll get beat up for saying this: But it’s incredibly bloated
- It’s easy to make a really unprofessional looking website
- If you use one of its premade templates, your site will look like it’s come back from the 90’s
- It’s code is really messy and has all kinds of specialized microsoft tags (not very optimal for search engines)
Why you shouldn’t use either of these setups (PHP is the way to go)
Most modern websites are either using custom website templates with beautiful CSS (Cascading style sheets) and a clean structure for designers, or they’re running a CMS (Content Management System). If you are looking to get up a site fast, that looks professional, this is the path to go. Fork out the money, hire a designer, or have a web marketing firm develop your site. I would recommend looking for a service who tailors Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. This can push the final price up, but it is well worth it.
The part you were waiting
I didn’t write this blog just to throw this last line in, but… CelTrust does offer the development services you might be looking for 
. If you are looking to get a website up that is SEO optimized, and designed to represent your company - contact us. We are looking for a few smaller companies who would like to be take part in some of our new services we are going to be offering (preferably Amherst, Vermilion, Lorain Ohio Area)
Tags: Business Services, CelTrust, dreamweaver, frontpage, Google, Lorain, marketing, Ohio, Research, SEO, web development, web hosting, wysiwyg
