Judith Palfrey is a professional web site developer for 14 years and has developed some special websites to help small businesses advertise in their local community using the Internet. She is also the President of Shopping Portals, Inc. affiliated with Palfrey Associates. To learn more about her services visit: www.ShopGaithersburg.com, www.PalfreyAssoc.com, www.ShoppingPortals.us. This is an exclusive article Judith has written for our Weblog.
Some tips to think about when deciding to have a web site built
People are always asking me: what is the best way to advertise using the Internet.
Well it depends on your goals. Over the last six years I have seen Internet use increase as well as Internet advertising increase. In fact, all recent research shows that 2007 has been a banner year for Internet advertising. It makes since to advertise online when you realize that the time spent online was up, too, with consumers spending an average of 11 hours per week on the Web. That is up from nine hours in 2006 and eight in 2005. There are many ways now to advertise online most of them mean you need your own web site. Then once your web site is built you need to get it found in Search Results. There is the “sticking” point. This is not easy unless you have someone who knows Internet marketing and/or how to get you found in the Search Results; known as SEO.
Well I have a different take on how to get my clients found in Search Result. A few years ago I realized that Search Engines were going to get more granular with search results; meaning they were headed in the direction of wanting more searches to focus on a specific areas of the world, the US, a city/town/community. I started searching the Internet to see who was providing Community Websites with a focus on community services. The only sites I found were all in Europe. I decided then that I wanted to provide a way for local community businesses to use the Internet to advertise their products and services whether they had a web site or not. That is how www.ShopGaitherburg.com was born.
ShopGaithersburg.com represents a suburb of Washington, DC. Over the last 20 years this community has doubled in size as a community in Northern Montgomery County, Maryland. I realized that there where a lot of businesses that wanted to use the Internet to advertise, but either couldn’t afford developing a web site of their own, or they didn’t think the Internet would work for their type of business. I started by asking prospective clients, when was the last time you got a call from the phonebook. Many of us can remember when the phonebook was a “booster-chair” for our children. Well it isn’t any longer and more businesses are giving up their phonebook ads for the Internet, because people looking for services want more information than just a company name and phone number.
My theory was that a business didn’t need a website of their own to advertise to the local community on the Internet; they needed to be connected with a GOOD website and their single page would be their advertising. Well it works!!! Now I have 5 other community web sites open and 17 domains opening over the next two years.
Here’s what I have learned. SEO is not magic and I don’t wave a magic wand to get my clients found at the top of the Search Engine Results. They get there through hard work and my clear understanding of what it takes to get my clients ranked as high as possible. It’s not “rocket science”! It works because the Search Results are now focusing on local community areas. Here are three (3) points to consider when you want better Search Rankings:
1. Google gives HEAVY weight to the TITLE tag of your web site. Your Title tag can be read by you in the blue space at the very top of your screen. It can be found in the HEADER Code of the source code used to develop your web site. Your TITLE tag should NOT have the name of your company or the name of your web site. It should have a couple of short sentences using your keywords.
2. Make sure each page of your web site has a different Title tag. Your web site designer can do this for you. Each page should have good content and the Title tag should be relevant to content on the page.
3. Your content and code is the only thing Search Engines can read. Don’t put your most important content and links behind Flash. Ask your designer to put text links at the bottom of each page of your site if you are using Flash. This will help Google and all other Search Engines index your entire web site content.
All advertising online is increasing and there are projections that US online advertising could be more than double as a percentage of total media, rising from only a 6% share of total media in 2006, to slightly more than a 12% share by 2010. National advertisers are now placing more emphasis in online advertising then in radio. “Pay Per Click” as online advertising is growing as well. This type of advertising can be very expensive for small businesses since you will have to bid against bigger businesses for the same keywords. Small businesses need to determine what the ROI will be per prospect from the Internet to decide if this type of advertising is worth the money.
As I stated earlier consumers are now spending more time online, what this means to small businesses is that more consumers want to learn about products and services online. Research has also shown that a small business with a web presence is considered more professional then other businesses without a web presence.
If you’re looking for someone to build your web site here are a couple of things to consider:
• Make sure they know more then just how to use Dream Weaver to design.
• Ask how they prepare web sites for the Search Engines.
There are designers that will design a great looking picture on the Internet and expect you to market your web site. The problem with that; generally business owners don’t know anything about marketing their web site.
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We Set Up a Website and Sales Increased 1,000%
In 2001, my firm, TRIO Display, was essentially a retail design group that produced stores for professional sports teams, museums, and a myriad of individual specialty retailers. Staff was steady at four to five designers and artists and we pulled in subcontractors as needed. Display sales and design fees ranged from $500,000 to $650,000 per year, which was enough for all of us to live comfortably.
2001 was a wake-up year for me, as it was for many business owners. September 11 made me realize that if I got hit by a truck, my little business was gone and my family, while insured, would still suffer a diminution in lifestyle. I thought about expanding my business by growing the fixture end via a print catalog. I’d been in the mail order fixture business previously and knew that making a real dent required enough capital to send out at least 100,000 catalogs. Even then you were lucky if four percent of the people who received them actually opened them and that, in fact, it takes three to five mailings before customers take you seriously.
In 2002, the Web was moving forward, as was e-commerce, but the only way to reach the top of the search engines was through expensive search engine optimization (SEO, a method of manipulating website copy to push your website listing up in the natural listings) and that seemed like so much high-tech voodoo to me. Companies were spending lots of money to acquire catchy Web names and to promote them but these were no guarantee of success. In April of 2002, while using Yahoo (a portal site) for a search, I noticed some highlighted listings with a dollar amount placed after the entry. Something like this: www.dogleashes.com (.15¢). I was intrigued by the number, so I did a little research and it led me to a company called Overture.
I discovered that Overture had set up a keyword brokerage (a keyword is the search word someone puts into a search engine such as Google or Yahoo). Working with Overture a firm could bid on keywords that would allow placement at the top of a Yahoo Web search. At the time our website was a 4-page brochure detailing our design services. I took one look at Overture’s program and had an absolute epiphany. I remember calling one of my associates and telling him that I had just discovered the future of our business.
Within a week we had interviewed several Web designers and hired one on a full-time, interim basis. We started building the site focusing on retail design. The keywords were very inexpensive and we spent less then $500 per month but gained new clients within days. In fact we pulled in $10,000 in design fees within four weeks and that was followed by selling the store fixtures to the customers we had designed the stores for.
With a little excess cash we invested in the site partnering with vendors to show their product on our site while they drop-shipped orders for us. Within a year, Triodisplay.com went from four pages to several thousand. We also kept raising the ante with our Overture bids and in the second year joined with Google in an Adwords campaign that soon eclipsed what we were doing with Overture. Sales doubled the first year and we hired more salespeople, designers, and a full-time Web marketer with whom I attended various industry seminars.
Five years later it’s 2007 and we now have 22 employees and still hire subs as necessary. Business is ten times what it was in 2002, and we show a profit every year while still providing competitive salaries, medical care, and profit sharing.
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Love for Vintage
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