Basics of Setting Up a Website

When you decide to start a new website, there are a couple of things you should take into consideration before getting started. You’ll need to make some choices about your domain, hosting and hiring a website designer.

When you’re choosing a domain, there are several directions that you can go. You can choose a domain to brand your business, to appeal to the search engines or sometimes you can combine the two. Picking a domain to brand your business involves choosing a domain that matches the name of your company, your motto or some other group of words that are directly related to your business.

Choosing a search engine friendly domain name is a bit more complicated. The following are tips on how to find that search engine friendly domain name for your business with great marketing potential.

Choose a top level domain versus a .info domain name, if it is available. Most people search for domain names typing in a .com extension. However, you can also be quite successful with a .net or a .org extension. It’s not uncommon for website owners to buy several versions of their domain name with different extensions. If multiple extensions are available, consider buying them to keep competitors from buying them later and benefiting from your success.

When choosing a domain name for search engine optimization purposes, you’ll want to determine the best keywords to include in your domain. You can do this type of research on your own, to a certain extent, using tools that are freely available on the web. However, the number of times a keyword phrase is searched is only part of the equation. You also want to make sure that the competition for the term is reasonable. If you need help with choosing a domain, check out our a la carte services for our keyword research pricing.

No matter what domain you choose, always have it hosted by your own hosting server. There are many free website builders that offer free hosting but you will not have your own domain name. For example, if you were with Freewebs.com, it would be freewebs.com/andyourname here. This domain name does not look professional and it is too hard for your potential customers to remember. Today, there are many web hosting packages that offer a free domain name registration. Take advantage of it so that you stand out from the rest.

Make sure that the domain is registered in YOUR name, not in your website designer’s name, not in your hosting company’s name. Even if your hosting company offers to register your domain for you, make sure that you will be listed as the technical contact. You may want to register it yourself if you have any doubts about how the registration will be handled, even if it means passing up on a “free” offer. If you ever want to change hosts or designers, you’ll be glad you spent the ten minutes and $20, vs. the hassle and potential expense of trying to reclaim a domain if it wasn’t registered in your name.

Speaking of hosting, there are many options out there. Hosting companies have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, we recommend a different host to clients planning an informational website than we do for clients who need a full ecommerce site. If you are planning to have a blog or any special extensions, you’ll want to make sure that the host you choose can support those. If you have any doubts, contact a website designer, describe what you want and ask for hosting recommendations.

Finally, if you’re not comfortable designing the site yourself, you’re going to need to find a website designer. Of course, we’d love to help you out, but no matter who you choose, make sure that you ask to see some examples of the designer’s work. You may want to even find some websites you like and see who the designer of that site is. Talk to the company before hiring someone. In fact, talk to them a couple of times. Make sure they explain things in a way you understand, that you feel comfortable talking to them and that they return messages in a timely manner.

While you may be tempted to immediately go with the cheapest designer, you’ll want to make sure to choose someone who can complete the project in a timely manner and who will not disappear before the project is complete. Having to start over with a new designer will NOT result in money or time savings.

So, those are the basics. Choose a good domain, pick hosting that fits your website’s needs and find a website designer you enjoy working with. If we can help you with any of these areas, please call us at 832-497-1610 or fill out our contact form on this site.

Think Facebook Doesn’t Matter?

A lot of business owners like to think that Facebook isn’t really important to their business. Isn’t that just a place to play Farmville and Mafia Wars? Does any serious business really take place there? Is it really necessary to my business?

This piece of news may change the way you look at Facebook. Last week Facebook surpassed Google as the most visited website on the internet. So, if you think you can ignore Facebook, does that mean you think you can ignore Google? Visitors to Google are still growing– up 9%. But visitors to Facebook were up… wait for it… 185%!

So, what does that mean for your business? There are a few things you should absolutely be doing.

Make sure your business has a fan page

Even if you have a personal page (which is better than nothing), you should really still have a fan page. It’s not that hard. Once you’ve set up the page, invite all your friends, colleagues and customers to become fans. Don’t have time or inclination to do that? Check out our services page for our social networking package.

Use Events

You can use Events to run specials, not just to run events. Having a March Madness sale? Create an event. It will automatically promote on your Facebook page. And when your fans RSVP, this information goes on their wall, going out to all of their friends, serving as an instantaneous promotion tool.

Post Regularly

It doesn’t have to be profound. Integrate Facebook with your company blog. Or your Twitter account. Send public thank yous to clients or employees. Give your clients hints for how to better utilize your services. Give them hints to make their lives easier. Post inspirational quotes sometimes. You don’t have to post every single day, but you should aim for at least once a week. Set aside 15 minutes a week (at least) to work on your social networking.

Obviously there’s a lot more you could do with Facebook. This is just the bare minimum. But it’s something every business can and should do to take advantage of the rising number of Facebook visitors.

Why Search Engine Rankings Matter

You may have noticed we haven’t written a blog post in a few weeks. Once every two years we write an Olympics blog– one for the Winter Olympics and one for the Summer Olympics (this one hasn’t yet undergone a facelift– look for that soon). For a couple of weeks every two years, every spare moment is spent watching and writing about the Olympics. What does that have to do with your Search Engine Results Page (SERP)? Keep reading, and I’ll let you know.

In the current age of Pay Per Click, it can become easy to ask– does it matter where I rank? After all with the right PPC manager, I can appear on the front page any day I want. That may be true and, certainly, given enough money you can buy a spot in the Sponsored Ads.

However, PPC cannot buy you authority. People who know those are sponsored ads know that you paid to be placed there and that it has nothing to do with the quality of your site. Sometimes that may not matter. It depends whose attention you’re trying to attract.

Ranking for Olympic related terms is, as you can imagine, challenging. When we wrote our first Olympics blog– 2006TurinOlympics.com, it ranked in the top three for the phrase 2006 Turin Olympics. Not only did this lead to a huge amount of traffic, over 200,000 page impressions for the month of February in 2006, but it also lead to being quoted in the Washington Post.

Of course, then we had the domain working for us. But after the Turin Olympics, we decided to create the ongoing winter and summer Olympics blogs. That meant we would no longer be attempting to rank for a specific Olympics, but for the more general (and, therefore, more difficult) terms winter Olympics and summer Olympics. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, we ran into a problem with our ranking. While we ranked well early on, our site completely disappeared the day of the Opening Ceremony and didn’t reappear for over half of the Olympics.

We were concerned we were going to have the same result with this winter’s Olympic blog. Sure enough, when we started out, our rankings were pretty low and so was our traffic. Once we started adding content, though, we were able to rise to 12th in the rankings for “winter Olympics” and to maintain a number 1 ranking for “winter Olympics news”– not bad considering five of the top ten positions were held by the official IOC site, the official Vancouver site, and NBC’s Olympics site. As our rankings rose, so did our traffic. And, apparently, so did our profile and authority in the eyes of others.

During the second week of the Olympics, we were contacted by a representative of the public relations firm running Proctor and Gamble’s Olympics campaign. Would we be interested in interviewing a couple of the women from the U.S. women’s hockey team? Um, sure. That resulted in this post about Jenny Potter.

When Sherry (my co-writer for the blog) emailed our contact to say thanks, she offered to set up another interview. That resulted in this interview with Kristy Yamaguchi. Not bad for a couple of “amateurs” writing an Olympics blog.

So, what’s my point? I know that the pr firm rep found us through the search engines. She didn’t pick a random company who was paying for sponsored links. She picked a website that ranked well for the terms she was searching. Our ranking gave us automatic authority in the eyes of others. In turn, that gave us the opportunity to conduct a couple of interviews that allowed us to create some unique content that will allow us to gain even more traffic. I hope you can see how this could be a good thing for your business.

Even if you’re not trying to conduct interviews or writing a blog on your website (although if you’re not, we really must talk), a top ranking for your keywords WILL promote you as an expert. If you’re searching for Houston widgets, which company are you going to do business with? The one ranked number one or even number four? Or the one ranked twentieth? Whether you, personally, think your ranking should make a difference in your potential customers’ eyes, it does.

Am I saying Pay Per Click is bad and that no one should go that route? Certainly not! More traffic is more traffic and a well-designed PPC campaign can be especially helpful as you’re building your organic search ranking or if you’re in a really competitive niche. But PPC will not help demonstrate that you’re an expert. Natural search results just might.

What’s Your Story?

What story does your website tell your customers? Is it a hard luck story of a business that hasn’t undergone a revision in ten years? Is it a story about a cutting edge company that’s up on the latest trends? Your website’s appearance certainly DOES tell a story, but today I want to talk about a different kind of storytelling.

Today’s customer will go out of their way to avoid “advertising”. On the television, we fast forward through commercials. On the computer, we employ pop up blockers. So, how do you get your message out there to a population that is putting their hands over their ears and singing “la, la, la”?

There’s good news because everybody likes a good story. Blendtec has really tapped into people’s desire for a good story with their “Will it Blend?” series of videos. Originally, they just blended things like marbles, but now they’ve started blending brand name items, so that they advertise Blendtec, as well as the company that makes the item their blending (that’s smart marketing!).

So, how can you use storytelling on your website?

First, you can write about your company’s story. Make good use of that “About Me” or “About Us” space. Don’t just give the bare minimum details. Tell us a tale.

Is this a third generation family business started in Grandaddy’s basement? Did your parents go without to send you to college so that you could fulfill your dream? Did you leave a high paying corporate job to strike out on your own, braving the entrepreneurial waters? Don’t have a tale? DON’T make one up!!! Find another place on your website to practice storytelling.

Tell us an anecdote about your customers. First person, we call these testimonials. But you can tell stories about your clients third person, as well (you’ll probably want to make sure these are positive and don’t use names or identifying details without permission).

Let’s say you have a car repair business, and you helped someone get home to their family for Thanksgiving by staying late the night before the holiday. That’s a good story! It tells something about the lengths you’re willing to go to, your commitment to your customers and, if told right, it should make for an interesting read.

Educate your visitors. Tell them an interesting tidbit of history about your area of expertise. Coffee companies do this a lot. They tell you about why different roasts are different. They give you the history of coffee. They manage to increase your enjoyment of their product (and convince you of their expert status) by telling you more about something you may have been drinking for years.

One caveat– do make sure your educational information is interesting. If you can’t figure out how to make your writing interesting, hire someone who’s an expert. It will be money well-spent. Just because it’s educational does NOT mean that it’s automatically storytelling.

Finally, you can experiment with using something other than the written word to tell your story. Whether it’s videos or pictures, today’s audience is very visually oriented.

Show them pictures of that before and after renovation. Give a video tour of your manufacturing facility. If you’re really creative (or are willing to hire someone really creative), you can create a cliffhanger serial about an employee or pretend client that changes on a regular basis and keeps visitors coming back for more.

This is just a small taste of the possibilities for storytelling on your website. Take a look at your site and see where it could benefit from a bit of a story.

Think Social Media is a Fad?

Think that social media is a flash in the pan that will pass, and you’ll just “hunker down” until it passes you by? Or that social networking is nice for teens but has nothing to do with your business? Watch this quick video and let us know if you still feel that way.