Design To The Finish Line

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of boosting the ranking of a website in search engines without paying money.

The more a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive. This helps give a web site web presence.

The term “SEO” refers to “search engine optimization”.

When a website is search engine friendly it is because it has been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

Here are some of the terms which can help you understand SEO -

1. Affiliate Marketing
A means of revenue sharing which allows merchants to enlist website owners to use their websites as a type of outside sales force where the affiliate websites earns a referral fee, based on click-throughs to the merchant site based on a set criteria.

2. Alt Tag
ALT tags filled with keywords which properly describe your site and image can help keyword frequency better search rankings. ALT tags also make websites more accessible to visually impaired people using text readers.

3. Backlinks
These are the number of inbound links to a website from other websites, which is one indication of the popularity of the website.

4. CTR
Called a “click-through-rate”, it’s a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. The rate is determined by dividing the “number of users who clicked on an ad” by the “number of times the ad was delivered” (known as impressions). For example, if a web ad was delivered 200 times and two people clicked on it, then the CTR would be 4%.

5. Keywords
A word or phrase that targeted prospects are likely to search for to find a website.

6. Long Tail Keywords
A combination of highly searched keyword phrases that generates relevant phrases. Long tail in keywords can provide a significant amount of traffic to a website.

7. PPC
PPC means “Pay-per-click” where advertisers pay a website owner when their ad is clicked on.

8. Google PageRank
A system where Google ranks website pages based on a scale of 1 to 10. Higher page rank usually means higher placement on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).

9. Google Trends
A search that reflects what keywords people are searching for on a daily basis used to determine keywords and article marketing.

10. Rank
How well a website appears in search engine results. Rank and position affect your click-through rates and conversion rates for website landing pages.

If you are not getting the results in search engines you need for your website to be a success, we can help. Call us at 707-578-1390 today and we can help you with your web content and help you determine how effective your web pages are to your website marketing plan.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion and connect with them on Facebook at facebook.com/forwardmotionstudios.

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Website statistics are a business owner’s friend. Web statistics help you know the number of visitors to your website and what they are doing once they land on your site. These figures, when analyzed help you understand what is an isn’t working with your website and your Internet marketing plan.

Unique Visitors
A unique visitor is an individual person who views your website within a specified time period. Each person visiting your site is counted only once during this time period.

Hits
When visitors visit any page in a website, the page they land on counts as one hit. In fact, every page they click on counts as a “hit”.

Number of visits
This is the number of times that your website has been visited. Compare it with the number of unique visitors, and you will get an idea of the number of people who are returning to your website.

Referring URLS
The website address where your visitor was before they came to your website. It is good to pay attention to where your visitors come from, either by search engines, email addresses and websites so you can determine if your marketing efforts are paying off.

Duration of Visit
How long people are staying on your website. If they are not staying long you may need to review your content.

Page impressions
How many people are visiting each page. You may find people are only visiting your home page and not going any further into your site.

Exit Page
The last page requested by a site visitor – the page least persuasive in keeping visitors at your website.

Keywords
The words visitors are using to find your website.

Understanding your website statistics is important part of your overall Internet marketing strategy. They can alert you to which web pages on your website are more popular than others and which ones need some attention – or aren’t important; where your visitors are coming from; what keywords are being used from your content and if you need to consider re-writing your content to include more keyword phrases.

If you are not sure how to access your website statistics or what they mean, or do you even have them installed? Call us at 707-578-1390 today and we can help you with your web analytics and how effective your web pages are to your Internet marketing plan.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.

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My assistant is always using Facebook and tweeting her status, why can’t I just learn social media from her?

Social media for your business is a very different animal from social media for diversion. Would you hire your mom to take your wedding photographs just because she uses a digital camera, and likes taking photographs?  Clearly, for something as important as wedding photographs, you would want to hire a professional – someone with experience who understands where missteps happen with wedding photography.

The same can be said for hiring a professional social media consultant, or expert.

A professional can guide you on the right and wrong ways to use social media.

Yes, there are wrong ways to us social media – just ask any college graduate who put all his drunk frat photos online and is now trying to land an office job.

Because there are lots of ways to embarrass yourself on Twitter and Facebook by revealing too much. Does your assistant really have the business savvy to understand friendly-but-not-too-friendly business networking?  Can your assistant assess the networks you may want to be a part of;  the ones which won’t work for your business; and the ones that would be a complete waste of time?

Will he/she be able to keep you current with the ever-changing face of social networking?

And what about your online voice?

Your online voice (or personality) is how you want your company to appear to the world.

This online voice is not only part of your overall brand, but it becomes an interactive experience for a business when social media gets added to the mix. One of the first questions a professional social media expert will ask a business owner is, “Who is the voice of your brand and what will they share with the world?” The answer is a very important decision in and of itself.

It’s important for a business to dedicate time towards creating a social media personality outline.

There are multiple identity combinations that businesses might use to increase brand visibility and converse with customers.

Can your assistant teach you this?

If not, don’t despair.

Santa Rosa Web Design company Forward Motion Studios can help you find the right social media voice and platform to share your company brand. We also teach classes in Social Media 101 for Businesses.  Stop by http://forwardmotionstudios.com/socialmediaseminar.html and registered to be notified when we will be holding our next series of classes.

You can also call us at 707-578-1390 to schedule a private social media consultation.

Just remember to learn social media fundamentals from a professional, then find what works best for your business and apply it!

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts.

Contact us for a free estimate / consultation by calling 707-578-1390.

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• 5 Questions Every Business Owner Should Answer Before Using Social Media
• 10 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website
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