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Thanks!
Sarah

More and more companies are popping up on the web offering you all forms of marketing from search engine optimization, to blogging and pay per click. Whether you are just starting your website or need to improve your existing business online, having a reputable and reliable web marketing company can make or break your online business.

So what do you need? Several factors will determine the services based on cost and demand. A Pay per Click campaign may be a good option but if the market value is too expensive for your budget, you may need to hold off this form of advertising for awhile and choose some other alternatives.

Finding a web marketing company that offers a variety of services is a good start. Many of these companies are skilled in the different aspects of promotion and can typically offer services that fit into your price range.

Some companies specialize in a specific type of marketing such as search engine optimization. While this is definitely a very important factor of your business marketing, it is only a portion of what you may need to successfully market your goods or services.

Here are some general ‘rules’ to go by when searching for a web marketing company:

• How long has this company or individual(s) been working with web marketing?
• Do they offer a variety of services to choose from?
• Can they provide an analysis of your website with some recommendations of the right services for your business?
• Avoid companies that promise a certain number of rankings or make guarantees and offers that do not seem realistic or proven.
• Make sure the company or individual you hire abides by white hat techniques and nothing that can harm or get your website ‘banned’ from a search engine (see Webmaster Central on Google for some suggestions on proper techniques).
• If you are unsure what techniques are correct, ask them some of the processes involved in your marketing campaigns.
• If you are choosing a Pay per Click service, be sure to ask for access to your account(s). Most major Pay per Click programs such as the ones offered by Google can allow individual access to accounts.
• If someone is going to blog for your company, be sure they have some general understanding of what you do or sell. Monitor the blog on a regular basis to ensure nothing inaccurate or harmful is being said about you or your company.
• Email marketing campaigns should run through a reliable third party service and should NEVER be used through your own server (or hosting company server). Using your own email server or hosting provider can possibly ban your IP address, domain or even shut down an entire email server if not properly used. Check for any SPAM policies to protect you and your business before engaging in an email marketing service.
• Read all agreements or contracts before signing- that is pretty obvious.

Overall some of the best ways to find a web marketing company is word of mouth. Ask other professionals or business owners who they use or recommend. Check out some of the web marketing or search engine associations such as SEMPO.org, E marketing association and even the BBB.org. Your hosting provider may also offer marketing services as well or can recommend a place for you.

Believe it or not, as I sit here in the 95+ temps writing about (and wishing they were here) the holidays,  it is definitely something a website owner should be thinking about as well.

If you own an ecommerce store or offer anything tangible that relies on Christmas shoppers, August and September should be key months to begin if not sooner.

Keep in mind, most online shoppers start in October.. even before "Black Friday" in November. Many online retailers start the season in October hoping to cash in on savvy shoppers looking for a great deal and a way to avoid the malls, grab that toy that will be the hot one of the season, and even get some great shipping rates (many offer free especially this time of year).

What you need to know.

First, assess your website's structure; do you offer a shopping cart? Do you need to? Are there outdated products or prices that need to be corrected? Does the site sell?

Update your email / mailing lists. Make sure your email and mailing lists are up-to-date. Take out duplicates, and perhaps do a 'test' run on an email campaign by offering a web poll, or wish list ideas to your clients now so you can see how good your list and how committed your clients are to your web business.

Review your website statistics. Check the stats of your website on a weekly basis. Who is coming to your site? Where do they leave the most? what is the average time they stay?

How well does your website rank? Organic rankings, pay per click campaigns, etc should all be reviewed and updated at this time. Be ready and prepared to add more pages for organic seo, add/delete or modfiy pay per click accounts.

All of these important tips will help launch your website business into full season mode.

So many website owners fail to realize that running a website is a full-time business. With so many people running both brick and mortar stores, or even multiple websites, they forget a website cannot simply 'run on it's own'.

Here are a few very common mistakes webmasters or owner forget or simple choose not to do:

• Monitoring your website and not just with the search engines.... Failing to see who visits your website, how/why they left or chose to buy your products or services is basically driving blindfolded in my opinion.  If you don't use website statistics either with your hosting provider, or another service such as Google Analytics, you pose a serious risk in website business failure.
• A HIT COUNTER is NOT statistics. I can say this till I'm blue in the face, but so many websites still do this. One last time-- A HIT COUNTER IS NOT STATISTICS.
• Keeping your website content 'fresh'. Blogging, articles, press releases, or just simple content updates throughout the site shows your visitors you do care about your business and also shows the search engines you may have something worthwhile to talk about. There's no reason why your site should still have 2005 rates... very very bad.
• Having a decent amount of content. Again, this ties into good SEO and good visitor retention.
• Properly designed web pages. If you must design on your own (and there's nothing wrong with it) do not design using framesets or entirely in flash.  Take a class if you must to get some general tips, or read some helpful webmaster blogs if you can. Using your Uncle's Brother's Sister's Cousin to create your website may not be the wisest choice.

I see this often enough to mention this very common mistake that many times can cost a website their rankings in the search engines.

If you decide it is time to redesign the look of your website, please take some extra steps before doing so. Many people will redesign not only the visual look of their site, but delete, add and rename existing pages.

If your site is already ranking, altering a page name even if it's just the file extension can impact your rankings. For example, your current website's home page is index.html. Your designer creates a great looking new home page and names it index.htm. To a search engine, this is a different web page, and while you launch your great new website, visitors finding your 'cached' web page on the search engines see a dead link!

Here are some very simple suggestions to avoid what could be a potential disaster to your web business:

• Try to keep as many of the original page names as possible. The home page should be named the same unless you are going from a static home page to a dynamic (301 should be created in this case).
• If you have to rename or move pages, create a 301 redirect for each page you move.
• Create a 404 error page with the look of your new design. Include the navigation so if a vistor does find this error page, he or she can still navigate throughout the website.
• Once you launch your site, run a 'broken link check' (try Xenu for free!) which will crawl your web pages and find any broken links to pages that you may have missed.

If you are hiring a web design company, please make sure you address these issues with them prior to launching your brand new site.