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Why You Can't Rush or Cram SEO

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:43:42 GMT

Why You Can't Rush or Cram SEO

Most of us have had the experience, at some point in our younger lives, of staying up all night to cram for a particularly nasty test, or finish a paper that we just couldn't help putting off until the last minute. In fact, there are more than a few of us who try to pull the same tricks when it comes to our professional lives. And guess what? Sometimes it actually works quite well.

And one of the times that it doesn't is when we are trying to improve our rankings on the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Here's why: Google doesn't grade your site the way it would a test; instead, the search engine’s spiders take attendance, seeing how much fresh content you add over time, and actually look for discrepancies and inconsistencies to make sure you aren't trying to game the system.

It's not the most popular sentiment in the world, but moving through the search engine rankings takes some time, effort, and especially patience. But don't let that discourage you – if you can stick with it long enough to see your site show up on the first or second page, then you'll probably start seeing a lot more customers at the same time!

Reliable Website Hosting Services

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:43:21 GMT

Reliable Website Hosting Services

Web hosting is a service that has become one of the most sought after services since the inception of the internet as a mass medium. And in lieu of the demand, website hosting companies have also come up in multitudes. Being one of the key factors in website development, web hosting is one of the costliest and one of the most complex internet-oriented services offered by companies today. But employing professional services for web hosting has its exclusive benefits too. The latest updates in the web hosting industry, complete back-up support and customizable plans to suit your budget and needs are some of the short-term benefits that professional web hosting provides. The long-term gains of a good web hosting plan are online brand building and business expansion.

Website design is also one of the primary components of a successful website development project, as are web hosting services. Simple, effective website design can greatly influence the retention of traffic inflow. A good web design that helps the user to navigate better and doesn’t clutter up the overall appearance of the website helps in enhancing the conversion rate. It also helps display and define the products and services available on the site in a clear way, which in turn helps increase user interactivity. Website design has evolved from the plain basics in the early times of the internet to the visually astute details with extensive implementation of graphics and other software applications. Attractive web designs are also considered a prima facie hallmark of professionalism and quality. As is the case with the website hosting companies, website design too is an art and very few can actually perform it to help the client succeed.

However, among the hordes of hosting companies available in the market, there are only some that you can employ for a profitable result. While all web hosts can provide you with a server and exposure to the target audience, only some can actually help you convert the traffic into consumers. One of these experienced and professional website development companies is Melcher Web Hosting, a company targeted at individuals and businesses who wish to host their web sites on the net. The company has been focusing only in two core topics since its inception: web hosting and website design. It has in its possession an experienced and deft team of professionals who have been in the website design and development industry for long.

For small, medium or large-sized businesses and interested individuals, Melcher Media & Design offers quality, affordable prices and a complete after-sales backup team in place, the ideal web hosting solution!

The Importance of Websites in Advertising

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:33:48 GMT

The Importance of Websites in Advertising

In today’s over-crowded market, where consumers are tasked with sifting through mountains of mass advertising to find relevant information, it is down right difficult for Regina businesses to determine where to spend valuable advertising dollars. In a downturned economy where the average person is being more cautious on where they spend their money, businesses simply can’t afford to try out untested advertising methods without knowing they will return the investment. If the average consumer has become conditioned to ignore conventional advertising while searching for “real” information and advertising budgets have become the first casualties of our recent economic woes, then what can Regina businesses do to promote their companies and grow their brands?

Melcher Media & Design believes investing in your corporate website is without a doubt the safest and most effective investment you will make this year when advertising. His theory makes sense when you consider that many potential customers use the internet to “investigate” purchases they are considering making in order collect as much information as they can on their own terms. Having a website to promote to people so that they can go there and find the information that means something to them and the situation that they find themselves in seems a lot more rational then simply estimating the one key message that will “speak to” the most people possible. The fact is: people are going to search out your web site and find out more about your company so it is smart to be prepared.

“A website is an extension of a company and if the site looks bad then customers will judge the whole company based on it.” After searching the web and looking at your competitors or other industry leader’s web sites, it probably isn’t hard to see what makes a website “good” or “bad” in the customer’s eyes. Recent innovations in the way people can navigate or travel through the sites or the ability to actually purchase goods directly through homepages have become staples of great sites. These additional features used to be for the very elite web pages that but through web developers like Melcher Media & Design, virtually any company can have advanced functions like these built in for very reasonable prices. “Animation, cool graphics, the ability to quickly update their own content, streaming news updates and social networking” are some of the other most popular new features Dwayne’s company has been adding into local websites to refresh and renew them for the next generation of consumer.

We understand the need for a slick website and all the great new features we can build into it but the question still remains: how does a company find the right resources to develop their web site? The reality is that many people have the ability to make a website in some capacity so it comes down to who has the most tools to create the vision your company wants, who has the most reasonable pricing structure and who has the right attitude when serving you as their customer. Melcher Media & Design is a Regina-based company that has developed relatively small sites for some clients and very large sites for others so they will tell you it really depends on how complex and unique the project really is when it comes to cost. Their advice is to simply ask for quotes and get a good feel for the team you will be working with, as you will generally get a wide range of prices and service commitment levels.

A Great Piece of Social Media Marketing Advice

Tue, 24 May 2011 20:35:19 GMT

A Great Piece of Social Media Marketing Advice

There aren't a lot of things you could accurately say "work" or don't when it comes to social media marketing. After all, the whole idea is still relatively new, and there are lots of businesses of all sizes that are finding new customers and better client relationships through a variety of different methods.

But it is safe to say that we have figured out a couple of things to stay away from. And so, we'd like to offer you one solid, immutable piece of social media marketing advice: don't say anything on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that you wouldn't want made public.
This might sound obvious, but it's a rule that marketers break all the time… and frequently come to wish they hadn't. It isn't just that it's so easy to pass a poster message on – intentionally or not – but that in this day and age, your online reputation can spread to thousands of people in a heartbeat.

If you're tempted to say something sensitive via a social media site, ask yourself whether you wouldn't be better off delivering the message in a different way, or not at all. What you tweet or post today could end up being on the web for a very long time, so don't make something private that you'll want to take back later.

The Best Way to Play Defense on Search Engines

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:38:48 GMT

The Best Way to Play Defense on Search Engines

Few things are quite as aggravating as spending months optimizing the pages of your site, coming up with new content, analyzing the competition, and otherwise doing everything else it takes to make your search engine optimization plan succeed… only to find that someone has come out of nowhere to claim a better ranking on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. And yet, it happens all the time.

There are a lot of reasons that can occur, but one of the most common is that the new company simply has a more search engine-friendly URL than you do. All the major engines place a lot of weight on the name of your domain, and in some cases that can cause a new site – even one that doesn't have much content in only a few links – to steal a prime position almost overnight. So what should your company do to protect itself? A good first step is to look for the obvious keywords in your industry, including your geographic area.

Note which URLs are available, and reserve any that haven't been gobbled up by a competitor yet. Even if you never end up using them, buying specific keyword domains is a great strategy. For a few dollars, you might just be able to prevent a competitor from jumping ahead of you in search engine optimization.

How Often are You Refining Your PPC Campaigns?

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:22:41 GMT

How Often are You Refining Your PPC Campaigns?

When a lot of small businesses first start "dipping their toes" into the online marketing tool, pay per click advertising (or PPC for short) is often their first stop. And why not? It's quick, efficient, and effective. A good ad words campaign can be set up in a day or two and bring you hundreds of interested buyers every day.

But to get the most out of it, you have to refine your campaigns once in a while.

Very few ads and keywords begin at anywhere near the level of profitability they could achieve without a minor bit of tweaking. It's inevitable that, no matter how hard you work at planning your campaigns, some of your clicks will be wasted. That means money going down the drain on visitors who are never going to buy. And conversely, you'll always find that there were a few words or phrases that didn't seem important when you started, but turnout being more profitable than thought later.

The point to be made is that refining your pay per click campaigns from time to time can make them less expensive and more effective at once. So when was the last time you checked up on yours?

Inbound Marketing: The customer finds you!

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:03:00 GMT

Inbound Marketing: The customer finds you!

Article by Globe and Mail

Traditional marketing techniques, also known as outbound marketing, are becoming less effective at attracting new prospects to a business. Your customers are now smarter and more equipped with choices than ever before, and they are readily turning to online resources such as search engines, blogs and social media to choose who they do business with.

Boston-based Hubspot, which coined the term inbound marketing, has reported that 54 per cent of businesses plan to increase their inbound marketing budgets this year, as outlined in its 2011 State of Inbound Marketing report.

It’s no surprise that Canadian businesses are also investing in inbound marketing best practices, including increasing involvement in corporate blogging, creating search-engine-friendly websites, and supporting active social media profiles – all of which helps reach prospects and engage customers more effectively.

Take, for example, Hamilton, Ont.-based Cupcake Diner, a mobile cupcake shop. Owner Natalie Ravoi uses a comprehensive inbound-marketing strategy involving regular updates to her website, to her Facebook fan page, and to her Twitter feed. By connecting with her customers in near real-time fashion, Ms. Ravoi uses Facebook and Twitter as her primary means of notifying customers of her cupcake van’s location that day.

The strategy is a direct channel to her growing base of prospective and current customers, which currently number 1,900 Facebook fans and 836 Twitter followers.

Inbound marketing return-on-investment

Hubspot reports that inbound-marketing-generated leads cost as much as 60-per-cent less than leads generated by outbound marketing efforts, such as cold-calling, direct mail, radio, and TV advertisements.

By its very nature, inbound marketing levels the playing field for small businesses to compete on the web, without the need for expansive budgets or specialized talent.

Looking for ways to get started on your path to inbound marketing success? Here are three best practices to employ:

Create compelling content

The first step is to create compelling, interesting and useful content. Soft-selling customers with content they can use is a sure-fire way of building trust and credibility for your products and services. Content that gets consumed easily includes blog posts, video, eBooks, and white papers.

With free tools such as Wordpress for blogging, YouTube for video, and Slideshare and Docstoc to host ebooks and presentations, sharing compelling content is easier than ever.

Having trouble with content ideas? Start by creating material that addresses frequently asked questions you encounter in your day-to-day business. Next, compile industry information, surveys, and seek out guest authors and industry experts to add to the commentary.

The benefits are numerous – ranging from enhancing positive perceptions of your business by customers before they’ve even contacted you, to helping you reduce customer-support wait times.

Create a search engine friendly website

The second step is to ensure that your content can be found in as many ways as possible. Making it accessible to search engines such as Google is imperative, and Google’s own SEO Starter Guide provides business owners with a primer on making their websites search engine friendly.

The quality and quantity of links from other websites linking back to your own is one of the ways search engines determine how a piece of content is ranked. One of the key mantras of inbound marketing is that good content gets rewarded with quality inbound links. This not only creates awareness from relevant parties and ensuing traffic to your site, it also elevates your content’s search engine rankings.

Share your content via social media

The third and final step is to share content on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Use Social Media Optimization to make it easy to share content directly from your website by following easy to implement steps such as embedding Facebook’s ‘like’ button and Twitter’s ‘tweet’ button into your blog posts.

Setting this up isn’t complicated. In fact, it’s relatively simple to connect your social media profiles to update whenever you post new content on your corporate blog. This ensures that your content gets noticed by followers on different platforms simultaneously, amplifying its overall reach.

Inbound marketing ultimately offers businesses a unique value proposition – it costs less than traditional marketing methods, it offers better targeting to attract qualified leads, and most importantly, it helps you ‘earn’ your way to better visibility rather than having to pay for costly exposure.

When a New Web Design Isn't Enough...

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:50:48 GMT

When a New Web Design Isn't Enough...

Redesigning and relaunching your company's website can help you do a lot of things, especially boost sales and create more interest amongst your potential customers. For all the wonderful benefits that come with a strong web presence, however, it isn't always a magic bullet. The biggest reason is usually that your other marketing materials are lacking.

Here are three quick things you might consider changing your tuning up at the same time as yor small business website:

Your company's logo.

There are few things that look worse than an old, tired logo stuck on a brand-new website. It's like finding a five-star hotel in the middle of a Third World slum – it's just never going to look right. If your logo isn’t giving people a positive impression of your company, pay a little extra and have it upgraded at the same time as your website.

Staff and product photos.

Likewise, visitors to your site should feel like you are friendly, competent, and professional. That's hard to accomplish if you are using grainy or outdated photographs. This is another area where a few dollars and a couple of hours can make an enormous long-term impact on your online profits.

Your sales copy. In the end, even the best-looking website in a world isn't going to help you much if your marketing message isn't compelling. If you don't have someone who's good with words at your disposal, spend a little on a high-powered copywriter – it won't take you long to earn your investment back.

A Good First Step Toward Making LinkedIn Work For You

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:58:57 GMT

A Good First Step Toward Making LinkedIn Work For You

As far as social media marketing goes, LinkedIn is a great place to devote a lot of the early attention. Not only is it easy and intuitive to use, but the site itself is built to be a direct line into decision-makers at nearly every level of nearly every company.

But how do you get started and take advantage?

After you've filled out your profile and made connections to some existing clients or colleagues, the best thing you can probably do for your LinkedIn profile is ask a few satisfied customers to write positive, but honest recommendations about you. Why is this so important? Because the one thing that makes social media different, and somewhat better than other forms of online marketing – search engine optimization included – is that it's a wonderful forum for word-of-mouth marketing. The more people you have seen good things about you, the easier it is to bring in new customers.

Having good recommendations and testimonials is a cornerstone of any online marketing effort, but when it comes to LinkedIn, it's absolutely crucial. So sign up if you haven't, and then make sure your next move is to get your happy customers to spread the good word.

New Interactive Tablet Brochures Available from Melcher Media & Design

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:45:14 GMT

New Interactive Tablet Brochures Available from Melcher Media & Design

Regina-based Melcher Media & Design has launched a new tool for all businesses and promotional ventures to refresh the classic brochure and bring it into the next generation.

Essentially Melcher has captured a structured yet animated and interactive marketing message and begun to enable their clients to showcase an innovative side to their presentations and advertisements. Its an interactive touch screen or mouse click application that can be loaded to tablets (including iPad, Samsung, Acer as well as others)

Insightwest Research, one of Melcher Media’s clients, has had an Interactive Brochure developed to provide a tour to their clients and stakeholders of the specific messaging and information they feel is most impactful to new and / or returning viewers. A demonstration of this customer application can be seen at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DCvyJ8XUCs You can also see other tablet brochures on their YouTube channel as well.

Melcher Media & Design is very excited about adding this tool to more of its exiting and future customer base as it the Saskatchewan firm believes that the Interactive Brochure will be very effective in sales presentations, publishing reports, socializing corporate information and adding an extra “touch” of innovation and quality to proposals.