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Part 2: Driving Traffic to Your New Website for Pennies a Day

June 23rd, 2010

Obsolete Book - 5/365

photo credit: Jamiesrabbits - "Hello? Operator? I'm looking for someone who can point me towards the 21st century..."

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Last week, in the first half of this 2 part series, we offered a few ways to help you get your website off the ground by providing free methods of driving traffic to your website to help your organic search engine rankings. This includes updating your website with regular content and link building with your closest business partners and associations, among other things.

All of our provided free methods work great, however they can take a significant amount of time to produce results. Now, we’re not all perfect – often, when we don’t see results right away we’re bound to fall off the wagon eventually. There’s no real reason to fret over it though, because unlike those 10 unsightly pounds you have circled in red permanent marker on the top of your New Years Resolution list every January, your immediate problems can be resolved with only a pocket full of change. We’re not talking thousands of dollars or even hundreds. You can essentially purchase extra traffic for the cost of a ham sandwich. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Branding Tips, General News, Tips and Tricks

Part 1: Driving Traffic to Your New Website – For FREE

June 16th, 2010

141 Little Suamico House 26

photo credit: MorrowLess - Corn on the Ty Cobb anyone?

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

It’s the nature of the entrepreneur. You’ve invested some money into your website, giving it a fresh new look and all kinds of great new features that are going to have your customers drooling and itching to throw fistfuls of cash at you like Steve Jobs at an Apple Developers Conference. Now you want to start cashing in a return on your investment.

Alas, you’ve launched the website and not much is happening. You’ve built it, so why aren’t they coming? Well unfortunately, unlike the vast cornfields of Iowa that are inhabited by hoards of dead baseball players just waiting to flock to Kevin Costner’s house for a game of poltergeist stickball, search engines don’t give you that automatic drawing power just because you’re there. You need to earn their respect. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Branding Tips, General News, Tips and Tricks

Avoid Being Locked Out of Your Own Website

April 14th, 2010

Locked

photo credit: _RoScO_

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

It’s a common problem that pops up from some businesses… “How do I get control of my domain?” It could be that you purchased the domain several years ago and have lost the account information, or perhaps you had originally hired someone else to manage the domain for you and you’ve since parted ways. Whatever the reason, it’s important that you always keep a record of where your domain is registered.

So what exactly is a domain?

It’s pretty simple really… your domain is your website’s address. For example, the domain of this website is www.pointclickmedia.ca.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Sniffing Out A New Home

February 17th, 2010

Not Me. I'm an Angel.

photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Everyone wants to be the top dog when it comes to search engine rankings. It’s a highly competitive field out there. But for small businesses who are just beginning to establish a web presence, it can be like trying to observe the constellations through the Hubble Space Telescope. You can see it, but how will we ever get there? Proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not something that just magically happens. It’s not as simple as placing some keywords underneath your pillow and hoping that the SEO fairy pays you a visit with a nice new ranking.

In reality, search engines are more like an abused dog that you’d adopt from the local animal shelter. He’s very hesitant to trust anyone due to years of being beaten and mistreated by others and it will take time to earn that trust. So you put food and water out for him, take him for walks, pet him and scratch him behind the ears, but in the end, he’ll come around when he’s good and ready.

SEO works much the same way. Due to years of people trying to cheat search engines to obtain a higher ranking, search engines will not begin ranking you until they see what you’re all about. When search engine robots are sent out seeking data across the world to index pages, they’re looking for certain things such as:

Are you new?
Are you a legitimate business?
Are you spamming or trying to cheat me?
Have you done anything to your site lately to make me come back?

As these robots keep returning to your website and seeing that you are in fact a legitimate business and are not looking to beat the system for a few extra ad impressions on your website, they’ll begin to come around and you’ll start earning brownie points over time. As you keep performing credible updates and keeping solid content flowing throughout your website it adds to your online reputation with search engines. The process takes time though, so you’ll need lots of patience.

But I need traffic now…

Most search engines now have what are called ‘artificial rankings’, whereby a business can purchase a top ranking. Many companies prefer to purchase a higher artificial ranking while they wait for their organic search ranking to climb the ladder. The cost for these rankings are dependent on the competitiveness of your industry and the keywords you want people to find you with, however many artificial rankings can be had for merely pennies a click.

The days of filling the background of your page with white text to trick search engines into thinking you have loads of important content are long gone. Google and the like don’t care much for the funny business and you’ll find yourself blacklisted pretty quick for trying such techniques. Much like our canine friend, he’s been through a lot of trauma in his life and he’s not ready to start wagging his tail when you come in through the door just yet. All you can do is keep treating him like the best friend that he is until he returns the favour.

If you’re in need of some Kibble n’ Bits for your search engine ranking, contact Point.Click Media.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Getting Your Blog Up and Running

January 13th, 2010

Adam West - portrait smile

photo credit: el fedora - Holy Baffling Bloggers! It's Adam West!

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Keeping up with your blog can be a daunting task. Many bloggers are hungry to get going and only a few short weeks into it realize that they’ve severely underestimated the work involved in keeping all portions of their website up to date. Our goal this week is to help those that may have lost a bit of that hunger and help make their lives a bit easier. Here are just a few common mistakes that bloggers tend to make that can often have them screaming uncle before they even really get going. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Do-It-Yourself SEO

November 18th, 2009

The Wall is Made of Lava

photo credit: Orin Zebest

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

By now, if you’ve put any amount of time into developing your brand on the web, you’ve likely figured out quite quickly that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key to solidifying your web presence. But operating a successful website is not quite the Field Of Dreams you thought it might be… you’ve built it, but they didn’t come.

SEO can be overwhelming at first glance, and depending on your expectations it can be a real challenge. In fact, this is why some businesses go out and hire SEO specialists to focus on this one task: keeping your name on that elusive first page of search results. However, there are some tricks you can do yourself to help your search engine ranking that will save you much needed time and effort in the long run, and since we all know that time is money, your wallet will thank you.

So, let’s get to it shall we?

1. Put Keywords in Your Content

When developing content for your website, be it a blog post or simply your About Us page, it’s a good idea to sit down before you begin and brainstorm a list of keywords that you’d like to be found with. When you begin writing the content, pepper those keywords throughout your writing. The more search engines see these keywords on your site, they’ll start to get a better idea of what your business is all about and can begin to rank your website properly.

2. Link Building

Do you belong to any industry associations? Local Chamber of Commerce or enterprise groups? Ask these groups and associations for a link swap, where they’ll list your company on their website in exchange for your self promotion as a member of their association on your website. Submit your link to the Yellowpages website. Anywhere your company contact information appears on the web should have your website address plastered at the bottom. It’s kind of like a popularity contest; the more inbound links from other websites, the more search engines have to rank you with.

3. Expand Your Social Network

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn… you’ve heard about it a million times. So why aren’t you on board? The thing about social networking is that it allows for as much shameless self promotion as you wish, so long as it’s tasteful (wink, wink). If you’re a little uncomfortable discussing your business with close friends and relatives, there are oodles of social networking sites out there just for business people and entrepreneurs (like the aforementioned LinkedIn).

4. The Little Things

Hank Scorpio, the James Bond-esque villain from The Simpsons once told his new employee Homer: “Well Homer, you can’t argue with the little things. It’s the little things that make up life.” Even our daily actions that we sometimes take for granted can have great meaning and potential.

*Cough*EMAIL*Cough*

*Sneeze*BLOGGING*Sneeze*

Gesundheit.

Putting your website address in your email signature, putting keywords in your blog titles, adding captions to your photo galleries… all the little things that you may think “What’s the point?” can have the most impact of all. The little things often add up to big results.

You don’t always need to hire an SEO guru or buy ad space and special website plugins to achieve the results you want. Of course it all depends what you want to get out of it, but more often than not a business that takes care of the basics will be recognized for it. It’s not like you need to throw a sacrificial offering into Mt. Pinatubo to gain brownie points with the Greek God of Google. Follow the rules, be persistent, and most of all, have patience. You won’t see instant improvement. It can take weeks, months, even years but if you keep on developing your Search Engine Optimization you will see results.

Looking to get started? Contact Point.Click Media.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

What do I really need in a hosting package?

November 12th, 2009

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Knowing what you need is always best when it comes to your budget. This much is common sense. But how do you know what you need when putting together a website? The last thing you want is to have a boatload of extra fees and charges on top of what you’ve budgeted for your website. Hosting packages are a good example. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Keeping the Peace in the Browser Wars

September 9th, 2009

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Over the past, oh lets say, couple million years or so, while orbiting around a giant fireball and surrounded by various vacuums and vortices that could suck your face out through your nether regions, mankind has come across some very important discoveries. One of mankind’s greatest achievements is simply realizing that some things just don’t get along like cats and dogs, socks and sandals, or Internet Explorer and… anything.

Yes, it’s the browser wars. Microsoft, Apple, Firefox, and even Google are all fighting for your love like the divorced parents of a child TV star and it’s up to you, Doogie Howser, to please them all. Every browser is created with a built-in rendering engine that deciphers your website’s code and places the items within the page the way it sees fit for you, the user, to see. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Part 2 – Usability: What to Avoid

September 2nd, 2009

365 x43 An iPhone-free navigation technique

photo credit: David Masters

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Last week we took a look at website usability and how it affects your Search Engine Optimization, your website in general, and your overall business. Making sure your customers can easily navigate to the information or product they are seeking is just as important on the web as it is in your physical store.

This week we’re looking at some of the usability problems that plague most websites and how to avoid them: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Domain tips

June 24th, 2008

Lately we’ve had more and more clients ask us about emails or bills they have received asking them to “reserve their domains” or to purchase a particular domain for an unreasonable amount because they have someone else interested in that particular name.  If you’ve seen this kind of thing going around, then like so many other business owners, you’ve been targeted by a scammer. If you read the quick post we placed on the feed yesterday you know that the FTC in the US just recently shut down a Canadian company that was scamming small businesses in this manner.

So what do you do? Read on.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tips and Tricks

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