Revamping Websites

The only real reasons to redesign your company’s website is if you want to get found by more prospects, convert more prospects into leads and customers, and possibly, for branding purposes, but only IF it drives those first two goals.
A business website should generate leads and drive conversions. So how do you do that?

• Create great content, with a strong call to action
• Optimize that content for search (using SEO)
• Promote that content using social media

If you decide to go ahead with your website redesign, be careful to avoid these pitfalls:

• Removing valuable content
• Losing value of inbound links
• Losing keyword rankings
• Changing good conversion tools

Before you start redesigning, take a look at your current content. Make sure you don’t take away anything that is useful, keyword-rich, and converting visitors into leads.  Take advantage of some web tools that are available such as websitegrader.com from Hubspot. This site will help you evaluate your website for traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also offers advice on how to improve your website from a marketing perspective.

Let’s face it, if you destroy your content and lose keyword rankings all for the sake of a “fresh-looking website,” you’re liable to get a drop in traffic and leads, and that means you’ve wasted a lot of time, effort and money for nothing.

Can Google+ Compete with Facebook?

Have you seen a new black menu bar at the top of Google? It’s apparently part of a new social project the search engine is launching called Google+. The project is still in the testing phase and only a handful of people have been able to take it for a test-drive, but it’s clearly designed as a direct response to Facebook. Google+ will have sections for profile information, photos, videos and the equivalent of the Facebook wall, known as the “Stream.”

One feature of Google+ is known as Circles, where you can drag and drop your friends and family into different lists, like on Facebook or Twitter.

Another feature, called Hangouts, enables you to start a video chat with up to 10 people, as well as traditional instant messaging.

It will be interesting to see if this project is more successful than Google Buzz. If Google can handle the privacy issues better than Facebook, it could give the social networking giant a run for its money. If youwant to try, click here to request an invitation,or view a Google+ demo here .

6 Places to Add Keywords to Your LinkedIn Profile

Ask someone in business today what social networking tool they use, and you will probably hear Facebook or Twitter.  LinkedIn is the number one social networking site on the planet today. And it’s the number one site for anyone looking to build their business or career.


Export LinkedIn Contacts
One reason LinkedIn is so powerful is that it makes it easy for you to export your database. That’s the reason we use networking tools, right? To connect with people. You can’t do that easily on Facebook – you can only download your friends’ email addresses, not the people who like your business page, and you can’t get any email addresses from your Twitter followers.

Why Use LinkedIn?
LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to connect with 70 million professionals in over 200 countries. Plus executives from all the Fortune 500 companies are members – so you’re keeping pretty good company!

Create a Keyword-Rich Profile
The first thing you need to do to get started on LinkedIn is to create a profile. This is your opportunity to tell the rest of the community who you are, what you do and what makes your business unique.  It may be tempting to post your resume here, as many people did when LinkedIn first began. But if you want to reach particular contacts through LinkedIn’s search feature, you need to optimize your profile with keywords.

Here are 6 places to add keywords to your LinkedIn Profile:

1. Professional Headline – located underneath your name; include keywords here to emphasize your skills as a copywriter, and your niche as well.
2. Current Occupation
3. Past Occupation
4. Websites – LinkedIn’s default choices are “My Website,” “My Company,” and “My Blog.” But, when you edit your profile, you can choose “Other” and replace those headings with keywords that describe your website, company, blog, or other social networking site, like Facebook, for example.
5. Summary – This is the area where you can advertise your services to your target market. A lot of people list their resume here, but as a copywriter, this is your opportunity to use the persuasive sales-writing skills you’ve learned to market your own services.
6. Specialties – A list of keywords related to your business.

Google vs. Facebook

No wonder Google wants to get into social networking in a big way. Facebook is beating Google at its own game.

This week that Facebook has passed Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites. Web measurement firm Compete Inc. found that during December, 15 percent of traffic to major Web portals like Yahoo, MSN & AOL came from Facebook and MySpace. Of that traffic total, 13 percent came from Facebook.  Google came in third with 7 percent, just behind E-Bay.

Facebook’s growth is incredible. The social networking site recently said it now has 400 million active members (including about 225 million added in the past 12 months). Compete said its size now rivals that of the major Web portals, and its demographics mirror those of the Internet in general.

Google isn’t giving up without a fight. Last week, it purchased Aardvark, a social-media search engine for questions and answers, and unveiled Google Buzz, which allows Gmail users to post updates, videos, photos and links in the “Facebook” style.

Google Buzz – A new social web

So what exactly is Google Buzz? Used on a PC or mobile, Buzz reminds us of an RSS combined with all of your social networking—all within the existing Gmail and Google.com infrastructure.

 Buzz's five key features include:

• Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)
• "Rich fast sharing" combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing
• Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)
• Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content, like the photo viewer we mentioned above)
• "Recommended Buzz" puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you're not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback.

Google Buzz is available, and it should come up as a new tab in Gmail anytime now.

Ipad : A Suitable Mobile Ads Platform?

Whether you think the iPad is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or just another over-hyped product, Apple’s new device is sure to please the mobile advertising industry.  They’ve been laboring to optimize their ads and websites for the tiny screen sizes of smart phones. But the iPad’s 9.7 inch screen should make it much easier to see traditional display ads, such as those seen on magazines or TV episodes.  Plus, the iPad offers the personalization and geo-locational features of a smart-phone.

However, one downside of the iPad is its inability to support Adobe Flash, the software many online ads rely on. As a result, mobile marketers who use Flash won’t be able to adapt their existing ads. They will have to develop new kinds of ads to reach iPad users.

On the other hand, users will be able to download applications for the iPad, creating similar advertising opportunities to those found with the iPhone.  Apple had recently announced plans to buy Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising platform. Analysts say that deal makes much more sense for Apple now due to the increased market for mobile ads for the iPad.

Is Social Media relevant to Business?

“Social media is great for keeping in touch with people, but it takes too much time, and I’m not sure how it benefits my business.”

How many times have you heard that comment? I personally hear it quite frequently. And a recent informal inquiry of my clients and business associates showed the majority of them feel the same way.  Although, most of them do like the fact that social media is a quick, easy and free way to reach a big audience, and maintain a personal connection.

Business owners and executives are interested in learning more about social networking sites, particularly how to use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to grow their business. Not knowing how to use social media is probably the main reason why a majority of my respondents said they spend less than 30 minutes a week on social media.

Another reason a lot of people are unsure about how to use social networking sites for their business is the fact that they don’t know how to measure ROI.  There are tools out there to help you do this such as Addictomatic and Tweetalyzer, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post.

8 Tools To Assess Social Media Metrics

Social media will be  the top priority over search engine optimization for 45% of marketers this year, according to a recent emarketer.com survey.  With that much attention being given, it’s becoming more important for marketers to be able to gauge their ROI from social media. Here is a list of 8 tools to help assess social media metrics:

Google Analytics – This free tool lets you track incoming links and the activities of the users they send.

Omniture – For a fee, Omniture has tools to track your Facebook and Twitter metrics.

PostRank Analytics – Not only does PostRank measure social engagement on other platforms and services, it allows you to see the messages and comments from other sites that contribute to your stats.

HootSuite – This Twitter manager offers click data that enables you to see if those clicks translate into transactions or impressions on your other sites.

Addictomatic – This search engine puts together a visual representation of your presence across social media sites. It can help marketers identify which elements of a corporate presence should be improved, such as photo or video results.

Tweetlevel – A tool to measure a person’s importance on Twitter. Besides taking into account how many followers a Twitter user has, it places more importance on whether the Twitter user actively participates within the community, and how much trust people have in what the user is saying.

Twitalyzer – Web Analytics Demystified built this analytics application which allows people to track their Twitter use over time. One metric, the signal-to-noise ratio, measures how often people pass information, as opposed to anecdote.

Twinfluence Rank – An automated third party tool developed by Innovation Insight, Twinfluence uses APIs to measure influence and includes factors such as the quality of the group of followers.

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SEO Best Practices for Video Marketing

When you create a video to promote your business, how do you get anyone to see it? Search Engine Optimization, of course!

SEO isn’t just for Web sites. Your videos can reach more online viewers when you create them using best SEO practices.

Here are 6 tips to remember regarding SEO for Video:

1. Create Useful, Relevant Content – Videos won’t be a successful marketing tool unless they contain useful content. Remember – you’re not making a music video! Think substance, over style. Be sure to include relevant keywords in your audio and video content as well.
2. Shorter is Better – Attention spans are short today. Your videos should run between 3 and 5 minutes for optimal viewing.  Don’t despair if that’s not enough time to cover everything. Just break up the content into two or three parts. Tease the second part at the end of the first video to entice your viewer to keep watching!
3. Keyword-rich Titles – Include relevant keywords in your video’s title, as this will likely be the first thing the search engines look for in deciding where to rank your content.
4. Keyword-rich Descriptions  – Make sure your video has a keyword-rich description that details what the video is about.
5. Tags – Tag your videos with relevant keywords.  You may also consider adding the word “video” to the title, description and tag, such many people add the word “video” to their search phrase. 
6. Ratings and Reviews – Allow viewers to rate and review your video. The higher your rating, the more authority your video is perceived to have by the search engines. In addition, if your video gets a great review, it’s more likely to be shared – so your video gets seen by more people.

Web Analytics – Improving Website Performance

We all know that SEO and social media marketing are great tools to get your website to rank high on the search engines.  But another tool is even more vital to an online business’ success, even though it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: web site analytics.

With web analytics, you can measure:

• how a visitor arrived at your site
• what pages were viewed
• what action was taken – ideally, a conversion

Web analytics can be confusing. There are so many different charts and graphs available to review. Google Analytics, for instance, tells you how long someone stayed on your site, what keywords were used to find you, and the percentage of new visits, among other things.

Here’s one example of how you can use analytics to effectively measure a marketing campaign:
Let’s say you offer a white paper for download to your target audience. Of the 100 people who visit your landing page, only five of them complete the download (conversion). This suggests there may be a problem with your landing page.  Maybe the design is poor, the copy is confusing, or a visitor has to give too much personal information. Now, you have the opportunity to make some changes, and use analytics again to see if there’s any improvement in conversions.

Web analytics can help you keep track of what areas of your site are working, and which need to be updated. For instance, if visitors aren’t going to a web page as often as they once did, you may need to freshen up the content. Or if one of your pages isn’t getting any traffic, that may indicate a problem with navigation or promotional channels. Maybe a link is broken, or visitor didn’t find what they expected when they clicked on an ad.

Spend some time exploring the opportunities web analytics offers. The more familiar you become with the measurements it offers, the more you can use it to help you improve your website’s performance, and ultimately, your company’s profitability.

E-Mail Marketing: A Good Solution for Small Businesses

It’s a no-brainer that small businesses should reduce expenses during a recession to help maintain profitability.

But which expenses?  If you think marketing should be cut back, you couldn’t be more wrong! Marketing should be stepped up during bad economic times, so a company will be well-positioned to take advantage of the economic recovery.

A new study by Hurwitz & Associates, reported in eMarketing.com, supports this theory as it relates to small businesses.  The study found that two-thirds of small businesses that expected increased revenues had raised or planned to raise marketing spending.  That compares with just 32% to 36% of businesses with flat or declining revenues.

The study also found that small businesses are keeping marketing costs in check by switching to cheaper, web-based tools such as social media, e-mail newsletters and search. E-mail in particular, is likely to remain a vital force for marketing.

The decision that small businesses need to make is whether to outsource their online marketing needs to freelance copywriters, or handle the work in-house.  The DIY (do-it-yourself) instinct may be “cheaper,” from a strict-cost standpoint, but it may wind up costing a company more in the long run due to the time spent on blog-writing, e-mail marketing campaigns, and social network management.

Case Studies: A Valuable Marketing Tools

Many businesses typically include testimonials on their website as a way to convince potential clients to buy their products or services.

But if you want to go the extra mile to promote your business, a much stronger marketing  tool to use is the case study. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. A case study allows you to go into detail about why your product or service is superior to your competitor’s. Instead of relying on a customer quote, you can use specific facts and figures to demonstrate how you were able to enhance your customer’s sales,  productivity, etc.
2. A case study allows you to paint a compelling story for a potential client by illustrating the challenge your customer faced, the solution your company provided, and the results.
3. A case study is a powerful sales tool, since the more case studies you have to show to a potential client, the easier it will be to convince that client to do business with you.

How do you go about producing a case study?  The first thing you should do is interview your best customers to see if they’d be willing to be featured in a case study. If you’ve got a client who raves about your product or service, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get them to talk about their experiences.  Ask the client to provide concrete details on how their company benefited from your product/service.
After that, the format is straight forward. The case study should include the company’s background, the challenge it faced in the marketplace, the solution your company provided, and the results.
The finished product can be displayed on your company website, or printed for inclusion in an information packet you hand out to potential clients.

A case study is only a great tool if it’s written in a manner that will enable it to convert your leads into sales.  If you’re a small business owner who isn’t comfortable writing this type of marketing material, hire a professional copywriter to do it for you.

Five things to do before moving to the Cloud

Before moving an enterprise application to the cloud, you need to be sure that your expectations are realistic and your objectives match what the cloud can deliver. The following steps can help guide the thought process when considering a cloud deployment, and provide a starting point for moving forward.

1.   Determine your cloud objectives.  

What are you trying to accomplish? Is the cloud a solution for reducing costs, faster provisioning, data center consolidation, all of the above? Sometimes all goals align, where the cloud allows you to save money, be more responsive and avoid huge infrastructure investments all at the same time. But it may not be possible to realize all the benefits for a given organization or use case. For example, if there’s extra capacity in your data center there may be no obvious consolidation advantage to putting an application in the cloud. However, there could be other issues at play that justify the move, such as high operating costs or an infrastructure that makes it difficult for users to get the support they need.

2.   Pick an application that makes sense.

 For example, how much latency is acceptable to users? The laws of physics slow things down over the Internet and network performance will vary, so if you need millisecond response the cloud may not work for your application. How critical is the application? You may not want to put an application in the cloud upon which the business depends even if infrastructure limitations (scaling, support, response time, etc.) make it seem like an attractive option. Get your feet wet before diving in -- a safer approach might be to start with a low-risk, back office (not-strategic) application before setting your sights on more ambitious targets.

3.   Involve the CSO/risk management team from the beginning. 

 The cloud, perhaps even more than other technology shifts, has raised red flags about security since your applications and data will potentially be moving outside of the enterprise firewall. Engage your company’s security experts and decision makers from the beginning to understand their perspective and address their concerns directly. Get them involved in the discussion early so they’ll understand why the cloud is important to the business and how you want to use it. Give them a chance to review their security concerns with potential vendors before you sign up.

4.   Decide which cloud(s) are acceptable.  Finding a cloud that’s best suited to your needs is as critical as identifying the right target applications. Cloud offerings vary widely—in their APIs, configurations, storage infrastructure, networking options, pricing structures and SLAs. Some of the variables will be essential for your requirements, while others are simply nice to haves. The process is like evaluating any other technology offering, except the environment is probably new and unfamiliar. You may want assistance from a partner with cloud expertise who can help you qualify the various cloud options to make sure you make the right choice.

5.   Create a sandbox where people can experiment.

All of the different user groups should be able to see how a cloud-based application compares to a traditional one. Give business users, administrators and developers a chance to evaluate the benefits of the cloud from their perspective, as well as the limitations. Application experts can use the sandbox to run functionality and performance testing on the application in the cloud to see how it behaves compared to the traditional environment, and if any differences are acceptable.

 Once you’ve done the necessary due-diligence, you’re ready to get started with beta testing and proof-of-concept pilots with vendors. In an area as hyped as the cloud there’s really no better way to learn than hands-on, and these basic best practices will help lay the foundation for a successful cloud strategy.

Why Cloud is now at the companies top priorities?

In the most difficult economic climate in decades, companies are reevaluating their strategies and looking for new ways to reduce data center costs and overhead while improving responsiveness to business requirements. Cloud computing has emerged as a much more agile and efficient approach than what companies have done in the past: adding more compute, storage and networking capacity or trying to get more out of what they already own.

Cloud computing did not emerge from a vacuum, but has its origins in three technology trends that most companies are already familiar with. These developments were all born out of the same need -- to drive down costs, simplify data center operations and allow IT to be as agile as possible. As these trends have become pervasive, they've helped put the cloud at the top of the priorities.

Data consolidation: Consolidating sprawling data centers has become a top IT priority as companies struggle with out-of-control costs for hardware, power, administration and service. Many companies have seen their data centers grow beyond anything they ever anticipated, with the result that in many cases they're not only running out of space, they're increasingly running out of power and cooling as well. In response, they look for innovative ways to reduce their data center footprints - to move out anything that adds cost and complexity, and takes up extra real estate.

Growth of virtualization: Many organizations now operate in virtualized environments, where applications can be quickly deployed to available resources, rather than assigning them to a specific physical machine. Not only does this optimize utilization of equipment, it allows IT to become much more responsive to the needs of the business.

Emergence of SaaS: The Software as a Service (SaaS) model has become widely accepted, in which applications are hosted by outside service providers that can apply specialized expertise, the right hardware and economies of scale. The idea of running certain apps outside the walls of the organization is recognized as not only acceptable but often preferable, where an external provider delivers the service just as well (if not better) than companies trying to do it themselves.

Cloud computing builds on these trends, and goes several steps further, providing new capabilities for enterprise computing:

• Not just consolidating the data center, but creating the optimum environment both within the data center and in the external cloud, to match changing demands for computing resources

• Not just virtualizing applications across internal systems, but across whatever environment is most appropriate and cost effective

• Not just software as a service, but enterprise applications running in the cloud on the cloud provider's infrastructure

The ability to run applications in the cloud promises to radically alter the balance sheet by which IT projects are judged, where initial capital expense and ongoing operating costs are factored against value delivered and how quickly resources become available. Companies now have the opportunity to do something much more significant than make small incremental improvements -- particularly as new cloud deployment and management tools come to market. That's why more and more IT executives are making cloud computing a top priority as they plan their strategies for 2010 and beyond.

What is cloud computing?

Every business bigger than one person needs somewhere to store its data and run its business applications and communications, including email. A generation of businesses has installed a server — or many servers in a data centre — and hired specialist IT staff to run it.

With cloud computing, you instead rent capacity in a provider’s data center, and connect over the internet. The provider’s staff install, maintain and upgrade hardware and software as required. Typically you’ll rent a service, such as data storage or email or accounting, rather than ‘a server’ as such, and pay per user or per business per month.

Why is it called cloud computing?
Network diagrams have traditionally used a cloud symbol to denote ‘the internet’ or, before that, the telephone network outside the customer’s zone of responsibility.

What services are on offer?
You name it. Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Windows Hotmail are email in the cloud. In the lucrative business productivity market, Google Docs and Google Apps compete directly with Microsoft Office and Exchange — the latter now ‘in the cloud’ as Microsoft Online Services.
Accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), project management, email marketing, spam and virus filtering, data storage, ecommerce, online publishing, audio and video streaming, general databases — all available in the cloud.

Why use cloud computing?
Potentially cloud services are cheaper and more flexible. Because they’re internet-based, you can access them from anywhere — often including mobile devices.
Most servers and internet links lie idle most of the time. Cloud providers host many businesses on a pool of hardware, sharing the cost of servers, electricity, data links, backup systems, IT staff and even real estate. A cloud provider can quickly add extra capacity or scale it back again when you need it. Capital expenditure on servers and up-front software licenses, and the unpredictable costs of dealing with emergencies, are replaced by a predictable operational cost.

Can it really cut IT costs by 80%?
That’s hype. Hardware and internet costs are dropping, sure, but supporting end users is still a significant cost. Moving to the cloud removes the cost of maintaining your own systems, but you still need to configure the generic cloud-based service to match your business’ unique needs, train your staff and help them find lost spreadsheets.

Is there a downside?
You become dependent on your cloud providers. If there’s no easy way to extract your data in a usable format, your business success is now intertwined with theirs. There may also be legal and privacy issues: will your data become subject to the privacy and data retention laws of another country; will you still be compliant with your industry requirements in Australia?

Is it secure?
Big cloud providers like Microsoft and Google have some of the best security staff on the planet. Their backup procedures are likely to be better than yours too. (Where are your business data backups right now?) However big cloud providers do represent an attractive target to hackers — if they can break in.

Is cloud computing “radically new”?
Not everyone thinks it’s that big a change. It’s more evolution than revolution. “Cloud computing is not only the future of computing, it is the present, and the entire past of computing is all cloud,” said Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation and the world’s sixth richest man, in a passionately entertaining rant last year. “It’s not water vapor. All it is is a computer attached to a network. What are you talking about? I mean, what do you think Google runs on?” As Ellison points out, CRM provider Salesforce.com has been running more than a decade.

In many ways cloud computing is indeed just the current buzzword for what has also been called utility computing, grid computing, software as a service (SaaS), IBM’s ‘On Demand’ branded services, the application service provider (ASP) model, or even good ol’ mainframe timesharing.

Improving Ranking: The Title Tag

With 2009 rapidly coming to a close, it’s time to start making plans for 2010. And what better way to do that than to talk about upcoming trends in Search Engine Optimization.

In the past, I’ve talked about how important it is for each Web page to have a unique, keyword-rich title to display on a search engine results page. That advice is still relevant, and will continue to be so in 2010. But I’m not talking about the “Title Meta Tag” that displays at the very top of your web browser. I’m talking about a different “Title Tag.”  This one contains text that pops up in a box when your mouse hovers over a particular word or image on a Web page.

This Title Tag gives you the opportunity to add a fuller, keyword-rich description of the image or word the title refers to.  Remember, the search engine spiders are pretty savvy.  They want to see unique content. So don’t repeat the same keywords in your title tag. Use slightly different words that still contain the meaning you want to get across to your visitor.

If you’re planning on revamping your Web site in the new year, keep title tags in mind. They can be a useful tool to enhance your search engine rankings!

Facebook Fan Page: A Cost Effective Tool for Your Business

Facebook’s growth as a social network has been phenomenal this year. 300 million active users and counting. But it’s not just individuals any more. More and more businesses have hopped on the Facebook bandwagon and are setting up Fan Pages.


Before you hop aboard, think about what you want to accomplish as a business owner. If you’re intention is to network with executives in certain target industries, you might want to consider using LinkedIn instead.


But if you want to reach out to potential customers, find out what they’re interested in, cultivate relationships, and best of all, not pay a dime to do it, then you should consider creating a Facebook fan page for your company. It’s not a hard process to get a fan page set up. You just need to select a category:

• Local
• Brand, Product or organization
• Artist, Band or Public Figure

Then, you need to give your page a name.  After that, it’s a matter of customizing it, as you would do with your own personal page.  You can provide links to your Website, include images, and background information about your company.

Now, you can start interacting with your audience. Start by inviting your current contacts to become fans. Then, start to conduct surveys, share important updates, hold contests, promote events you’re attending and include helpful resources.

The more useful information you provide, the more likely it will be that your fans will return, interact with you, and maybe even suggest your fan page to their connections. Don’t forget to take advantage of Facebox’s Fan Box widget either.  You can place this icon on your own Website to gain more fans and share your Facebook updates.

Remember – be careful what you post. Facebook frowns on spamming, Make sure you follow the social network’s Write-up on Warnings and Terms and Conditions.  You don’t want to accidentially misuse the site and have your content removed, or worse, your account disabled.

You might find it daunting trying to find the time to manage your Facebook fan page.  There are two ways to go about this. You can  dedicate 30 minutes a day to monitoring the page yourself or hire an administrator to review the site, and post new content to it.  As with any marketing strategy, the key to making your Facebook fan page successful is to be consistent.

Optimizing Websites: A Necessity

It still amazes me when I come across a marketing company that designs websites, but doesn’t optimize them for the search engines.


What is the point of designing a website that looks attractive and has excellent content describing a company’s product or service? Don’t you want to market your business to the widest possible audience?  I guess, if your business is making a ton of money already, you don’t have to. But how many companies can honestly say they’re in a position to turn away business, especially in this economy?

When you fail to optimize your site for the search engines, your company’s marketing department (or you, the owner, if you have a small business) will have to work that much harder to get the word out. Not to mention, why invest your hard-earned money on a website if you’re not going to maximize its potential?  Talk about squandering your ROI.
If you don’t optimize your website, there are only a few ways someone can find your website online:

• You get the website’s URL directly from someone at the company.
• You link to it from another company’s website.
• You link to it from a social media platform such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Maybe that’s why some companies feel they don’t need to spend the money on optimizing their website. They think they can get the word out through social media. And they may be right, to an extent.  But optimizing your website doesn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, you can find plenty of tips online to do this yourself.  At the very least, you should come up with unique, keyword-rich titles and descriptions for your web pages.  You don’t have to worry about coming up with a list of keywords for the meta tag, since the major search engines don’t use them anymore.


But if you don’t have the time or the inclination, hire someone to do it for you. If your web designer isn’t proficient, find an SEO specialist or ask your friends for a referral!

Why “Home” has no place as a website title

How many times have you searched on Google and found a listing where the title only said “Home Page” or “Home”? You have to look below the title to the description to discover the company’s name and/or its business. Why does this happen?

Most likely, it’s a lack of knowledge, time and/or money.
Companies that use “Home” or “Home Page” as the only title for their main landing page may not realize they are limiting their ability to attract new customers.
These firms may not have the budget to hire a web designer and/or a copywriter proficient in search engine optimization who would explain why it’s vital to have keywords in a title.
An SEO copywriter knows that web page titles and descriptions must contain keywords that people use to search for a particular product or service in order to attract the search engines and potential customers.

Some companies try to save money by creating their own sites, using a simple template provided by a website hosting company. But that decision may wind up costing them money, because the failure to include keywords means potential customers may not be able to find their site on Google.
A company that relies on “home page” for its title doesn’t provide any clues about its business. Someone searching online must rely on the description that is displayed on the search engine results page (SERP). But if there are no keywords in the description either, the chances of a site appearing among the first ten or even 20 listings are slim to none.

A few hosting companies won’t let you eliminate the word “Home” from the website’s title. But don’t let that stop you from adding keywords in a short description following the word “home.” If you can’t figure out how do it yourself, ask your hosting company’s technical support group to make the changes for you. And if they won’t do it, find someone else who will.

“Home” may be where the heart is, but your potential customers won’t go there, unless you give them a keyword to show the way.