by Charles Oropallo | Jan 2, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Customers want specific info about products and services. If there have been no changes since your website launched, they’ll look somewhere else.
New info triggers search engines to re-scan your website and index it according to what it sees as current and popular, relative to other websites in your industry. Distinctive and useful content helps the search engines recognize what your site is about. Posting new content on a regular basis gives the search engines a reason to scan your site more often.
Updating depends on your industry and who your competition is. The important thing is to review your site on a regular basis. We recommend a website review at least once a month.
Ensure your contact information up to date – nothing is worse than nonworking phone numbers or wrong hours. Your navigation hyperlinks all need to work as well. Good testimonials are an absolute plus. Noteworthy news posted can also help broadcasting your latest and greatest developments.
If you’re website doesn’t allow you to easily change the text in it, you should consider updating to one that will.
Keeping your website material up to date will help keep your current clients as well as add new ones.
by Charles Oropallo | Dec 26, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
It’s great to have “a friend in the web business,” isn’t it? That’s usually what people think when friends offer to help with one’s website. Web development is very complex. Every situation doesn’t end badly but I can tell you from experience many do.
A major problem is the “one person show” issue. For about 6 years CharlesWorks was only Charles – limited by what one could do in finite weekly hours. Being constantly asked what happens during vacations or sickness. The first hire happened to gain time to focus more. Another person to focus on business and office management. That allowed us to handle far more clients.
Now with 9 people it was unimaginable then we’d ever handle thousands of websites. Or that the first hire would still be here as my General Manager and develop her graphic, web and marketing abilities to an expert level over that time.
We have many folks we’ve helped after having negative experiences with their friends helping them. Think of how badly it can end when you put your business presence in a single person’s hands whose main life’s focus may not even be web work. Especially if your business is your bread and butter!
by Charles Oropallo | Dec 5, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Email, Internet, Introduction, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Here we are in the Shopping Season. Lots of business people talk about shopping local. Many don’t walk the talk. Shopping local works when it’s a reciprocal process – when we buy from each other. It isn’t always feasible – but making a best attempt is beneficial for most – and noticed.
The web is mostly about business. Stuff gets sold. It’s about making sales directly online and/or encouraging brick and mortar store visits.
I’m a strong proponent of local shopping. As a web guy – not a financial expert – common sense tells me spending my money in another part of the country (or the world) prospers THAT place at my neighborhood’s expense. Many businesses justify shopping elsewhere for web related services because they’re simply price shopping. Is that really the best deal?
Ask yourself “What is new business worth?” One single piece of business in a year due to a direct referral from your web vendor (or its employees) usually more than covers any perceived difference in web costs. Even if that business is the vendor itself.
Ask us WHERE you’re hosted so you know WHERE your web services money goes. Plenty of truly local businesses are right around you to do local business with.
by Charles Oropallo | Nov 28, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Updates, WordPress
Do-it-yourself website builders make it sound SO easy! And they can be. But there can be a steep price to pay.
I see ads every now and then boasting about how you can build a website in an evening with no previous experience. Several times a month we have people who have fallen into that trap, then contact us to help them out of it.
The biggest issue with these do-it-yourself sites is that you don’t own your site! The platform/servers the site is built on is proprietary – so you’re locked in to that company. Couple that with the fact that the site can’t be easily customized. Also, your site looks like numerous others. Many of these sites are not found well in the search engines. They have layers of coding that makes it easy to make changes but harder for the search engines to “see” what they’re about.
Do-it-yourself sites are generally not through local companies either. So if doing business with local people who will send business back to you is important – that’s another reason to avoid them.
When thinking of having a website built, take the time to ask a developer about options. Simply ask, “Do I own my website?”
by Charles Oropallo | Nov 14, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Internet, Introduction, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Websites don’t just appear out of thin air. They must be built. There are numerous products to assist with this. Many are what are called Content Management Systems (CMS). The most popular today is called WordPress. Nearly 1/3 of all websites use it.
A somewhat typical
WordPress logoWordPress started as a blog software. It’s capabilities evolved over time to include pages, navigation and all the components needed for a web presence.
Just as anyone can build a home or paint a house or even perform their own dental work – anyone can make a website. All you need are the right tools and lots of time to spend learning how to do it, right? That’s why we hire contractors and painters and go to a dentist. WordPress developers save folks the time of developing the website – so they can be busy doing what they are best at.
WordPress software is free. However, website development takes time and is best done by professionals familiar with it.
Be wary of the promise of a website “anyone can build”. Those result in trapping you to a particular vendor – meaning you do not own your website. With WordPress you can go anywhere and most importantly you own the work you paid for.
Charles Oropallo (Charles@CharlesWorks.com) started CharlesWorks in Peterborough NH in 1998. His team does website design, hosting, search engine optimization (SEO) and related web services.
by Charles Oropallo | Nov 7, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of raising a site’s ranking with the search engines. Sites can have different rankings on various search engines. Each search engine’s scoring methods vary and are closely guarded secrets. Where you “rank” is how close you are to the top (e.g., 1 vs 100).
No one can promise a #1 placement. Only paying the search engine itself can guarantee that! However, there ARE things that can be done for better placement. Understand that search engines are like artificial intelligence. They “read” the text in a site to gain understanding of what a site is about – much like humans do. They understand context and categorize topics.
There’s no magical trick to gaining website search engine ranking. Plenty of information in a website’s text about its products or services is key. More written info about a topic equals more relevant search results.
While photos help aesthetics, text still “tells” search engines what a site’s about. Don’t be afraid to write in great detail about your products and services. Remember: The more pages there are on a site about a topic – the more relevant the site becomes about that topic.
Charles Oropallo (Charles@CharlesWorks.com) started CharlesWorks in Peterborough NH in 1998. His team does website design, hosting, search engine optimization (SEO) and related web services.
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