Net Results
Helping your business succeed online.
Published by nrichmedia (www.nrichmedia.com)
Volume 5, Issue 4 – May 2010
In This Issue
Welcome
As summer is attempting an appearance here on the island, I can see that there are a lot of tasks to be done outside. The vegetable garden needs to be planted, the lawn is constantly growing, and there is often a blanket and book in the back yard that need attention!
As these warmer days entice us outside it gets harder to sit down at the computer and work on things that aren't as pressing as, say, an email to a customer or paying a bill. However, it is important to take a few minutes every day to ensure that your new (or existing) web site is achieving its full potential.
Featured Article: What to Do After Your Web Site Has Gone Up
You've just spent a whole lot of time and energy and probably money into getting your web site written, designed, and produced. It's now live on the Internet for all to see. So now you can sit back, relax, and let all that new business come to you, right?
Hmmm... no. Unfortunately that's not quite how it works. Much to the chagrin of many people, just "putting up a shingle" doesn't usually bring in much business (unless, of course, you're the first barber in a one-block town of scraggly-haired individuals...). And it almost never works on the Web.
So, to save you months of waiting, in frustration, for new customers to magically find your web site, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: even though your site may be "done" (and that's really a relative term), there's still work to do in terms of getting the word out about your site. In fact it's an ongoing process. Especially these days when nearly everyone has a web site, you have to keep up with — and hopefully ahead of — the competition or you'll get left behind.
For starters, hopefully you, your web developer, and/or copywriter will have written and built your site with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. We've talked about the basics of SEO before, so I won't go into details on that now, but make sure your site is produced in this manner so that at least it has a fighting chance of getting picked up by Google and other search engines.
Once your site is live there are several things to consider in terms of achieving and maintaining good search engine rankings and generally publicizing your site.
Most of these suggestions revolve around getting links to your site. Many people confuse this with linking to other web sites, which doesn't really do much, if any good (in fact, in some instances, can be harmful to your site's ranking, so be careful not to link to disreputable sites). It's the linking of outside sites to your site — i.e., incoming links — that help your site's Google ranking.
Following is a list of suggestions that you or your web developer can consider right after your site has gone live and as a long-term strategy for your web site:
1. Submit a site map to Google and get listed in Google's Local Listings (if you have a single geographic location). Both are free and don't involve much time or effort. The site map should speed up the (often long) time it can take to get your site indexed by Google. The local listing will get your site to show up, with location on a map, near the top of the Google listings for relevant geographic searches.
2. Get your site listed on any (preferably free) professional associations' sites that you're a member of. Many of these organizations are happy to list your business (including your web site URL) in their online directory.
3. See if there might be any complementary businesses out there that would be willing to recommend/list your practice on their site. For example, if you're a massage therapist, perhaps there's a chiropractor who refers clients to you. If so ask if he/she would be willing to add a link on his/her web site to yours. Often they'll ask for a reciprocal link (i.e., one back to their site) to return the favour, so make sure you trust that person and are willing to do that.
4. If you don't already have accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, these are great ways of pointing people to your site. Social networking can be time consuming, but like anything, you get out of it what you put in. Sign up for accounts and make a commitment to spend, say, five minutes a day on updates.
5. Submitting to ezine article sites. The more the better. These can be new articles or ones you've previously written and posted elsewhere. Most article submission sites are free and posting to them can significantly increase exposure to audiences that you might not normally reach. The more that people see your name as author of valuable articles, the more they come to trust and respect you and, hopefully, eventually want to give you their business.
6. Post comments on relevant blogs or forums that allow you to put your URL in your signature. Find a few blogs in your industry or area of interest and spend a few minutes each day or a couple times a week and add some thoughtful comments at the end of a post that grabbed your attention.
7. Submit testimonials. If you've used a service or bought a product that you really like, see if that person's or company's web site publishes customer feedback, again, preferably with your name and your site's URL at the end. This can be another quick and easy way to get links to your site.
The more links (and "quality" links for relevant and/or reputable sites) you can get to your site, the better. But, don't ever sign up with "link farms" — spammers that email you asking for a link exchange.
I don't normally recommend paying for links. But if there are some relevant (to your field), high-traffic sites for which you think the return on investment would be worth it, you might consider trying one or a few. But, personally, I prefer to give the above, free methods a try before paying.
Same thing goes for Google Adwords and other paid campaigns. I don't know of too many people that have had much (if any) success with them. They can work well for certain products (and, maybe, services), but to succeed with them a lot of work and know-how needs to go into the campaign. You can lose a lot of money before you know it.
Finally, remember to keep your site's content fresh. We covered this in our May 2008 newsletter, so won't go into details again here, but the more content you can add to your site or blog and the more often you update it, the better your chances of succeeding in the search engines will be.
And don't ever forget about the tried and true methods of putting your site's URL on all printed material — business cards, brochures, letterhead, etc. — and simply telling people your URL. It all helps!
* * * * *
Want more valuable information like this to help your socially responsible
business become an online success and get the results you've been looking
for? Subscribe to Net Results, our FREE
quarterly newsletter by filling in the form at the top left of this
page.
We're Accepting Articles
Looking for a great opportunity to market your cause and have a positive impact on a new audience? We are now accepting submissions for our Articles page. All articles must focus on a topic of social responsibility or pertaining to environmental issues.
Although the articles that we post are not intended as self-promotional tools, we are happy to include a short bio and link to your web site, which may help with your site's Google rankings and overall exposure.
Please submit your article (with a short bio), in Word format, to info@nrichmedia.com for consideration.
About nrichmedia
nrichmedia creates innovative and unique web sites and other multimedia
for ethical and socially responsible businesses and organizations.
We also offer green web hosting, web site maintenance, CD-ROM production,
and more.
nrichmedia was founded by Nathaniel Richman in 2000. Nathaniel graduated
from the Vancouver Film School with a Certificate of Recommendation
in Multimedia Studies in 1997 and has been working in the web design
and new media industry ever since. He previously received a Bachelor
of Mathematics degree (Honours Actuarial Science) from the University
of Waterloo and worked in the pension consulting industry.
Nathaniel works with other designers and programmers, according to the
needs of the project, to provide the client with the most professionally
designed web site and other marketing material as possible.
"Nathaniel and nrichmedia are extremely professional, creative and patient! After more than 8 years in business my site was ready for an overhaul and they worked their magic to create a fresh look with updated features that worked within my budget.
Not only are they great designers but, more importantly, they actually listen to what your needs are and deliver at or above your expectations. I am so lucky to have found nrichmedia and I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for a new or updated site."
- Sarah Seads, owner of Equilibrium Lifestyle Management,
Comox Valley, Vancouver Island
To learn more about nrichmedia’s services, view
our online portfolio, and read glowing
testimonials from many satisfied clients, please visit www.nrichmedia.com.
Green Web Hosting
nrichmedia is pleased to be offering green web hosting services. Our
standard package includes 500MB of disk space (which is usually way
more than most small to medium sized businesses require), email and
webmail accounts, and web statistics which allow you to track how many
visitors there are to your site, where they come from, what search
terms they used to find your site, etc.
What makes our web hosting green? A few things, really:
- Our hosting is shared on powerful, energy
efficient servers so the amount of electricity we use is minimized. We maintain our
own dedicated environment within these servers so that we have full
control over performance and security.
- The electricity used by the servers comes from hydropower, which,
although not ideal, is one of the more environmentally
friendly means
of power generation.
- We’ve purchased wind power certificates to offset the
amount of electricity that we do use. Wind power is, of course, a natural, clean, and abundant energy source with
little or no negative impact on the environment.
If you would like to switch to nrichmedia’s green web hosting,
please click here for details.
Charitable Causes
nrichmedia donates 5% of proceeds on all projects of $500 and above
to charitable organizations. We are pleased to have supported and continue
to support several worthy causes. To see a list of the organizations
we support, please visit www.nrichmedia.com/causes.htm.
The Not-to-be Missed Link: climatecounts.org
This is a must visit site before you head out shopping, book a flight, or open a new bank account. Climate Counts is a "collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change."
They score various corporations climate impact in an effort to encourage consumers to put their money towards socially and environmentally conscious businesses and to "spur corporate climate responsibility".
Visit: www.climatecounts.org
Archives
To view previous editions of Net Results, visit www.nrichmedia.com/archives.htm.
Pass it on and Enjoy
Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone who might find
it useful.
Want more valuable information like this to help your socially responsible
business become an online success and get the results you've been looking
for? Subscribe to Net Results, our FREE
quarterly newsletter by filling in the form at the top left of this
page.
 nrichmedia
is located in Courtenay (in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island),
British Columbia, Canada, and thinks and works globally! Thanks
to the Internet, we're able to create web sites and other multimedia
for clients all over the world. You can contact us by
or by telephone, at 250.871.7424.
|
