Big Shark Marketing recently launched Dawdreyor Maintenance- professional property maintenance services in Michigan. The domain is great- crews4hire.com. Easy to remember!

It is still a common misconception among web site owners that a web hosting company is responsible to promote their site in the search engines.  I hear this often where a hosting client will call and say “there’s a company trying to sell me search engine marketing services. I thought you provided that with your hosting?” or “Don’t you submit my site when I started hosting with you?”.

Let’s first define what Web Hosting is. According to Dictionary.com Web Hosting means: A business providing hardware and services to store, maintain, and present Web sites and provide Internet connection to those sites.

This says Web Hosting is a place to store web files. It allows you to say my site is “BigSharkMarketing.com” and people will see it when they type this into a web browser.

Marketing a web site to the search engines is a separate and major component to your business. Think of it this way: You wouldn’t assume your landlord for your company’s building would automatically promote your business on billboards, postcards, yellow pages would you? Online world it’s the same concept.

Now there are many hosting companies these days offering web marketing as a service and that can be to your benefit. Often they will provide combined services and discounts by using both programs. What you do want to consider is making sure they actually have a staff of experienced SEO professionals and not rely on the IT department to optimize and promote your web site (no offense to IT people out there. I certainly couldn’t program or manage networks and nor would I want to offer it ).

Ask your hosting provider if they have SEO services or better yet, check out this site: http://www.hostservices.net -

This is a phrase I use often whenever a client is interested in web site design with Big Shark Marketing or if they have come to me to improve their current site rankings.

As part of any site design, the search engines should be included within your plan. Simply designing a site to make it look flashy or exciting will not necessarily help it rank well in the search engines. The functionality of the site when it comes to search engines should include:

• Individual Web Pages that focus on particular services or products you want to promote
• Individual Web Pages should have well-written text on each of them that talks about the product or service as well as sell it.
• Pages should be programmed in HTML/HTM if possible. If a database is necessary, consider PHP.
• Use static URLs
• Consider each page name to include a keyword within it. For example: http://www.bigsharkmarketing.com/search-engine-optimization.html
• Include a nice introduction on your home page. Have at least 2-3 paragraphs of text on the home page that talk about the business, services, or products you want to focus on the most. Make sure keywords people may type in are considered when writing the text.
• Avoid too much flash. Flash programming has come a long way and in recent months search engines like Google have begun reading and even including sites with heavy flash in their indexes. It certainly isn’t a good idea though to design all in flash. Avoid flash navigation (or at least have a text based version on the footer perhaps), and especially avoid flash intro pages.
• NO Flash intro pages! As I just mentioned, when someone comes to your first page, they are not going to dazzled by a flashy intro. It will not only annoy a visitor, but it may prevent a search engine from reading your page properly, continuing onto other pages of your site and thus no or poor rankings.

Over the years,  I have seen a variety of ways to get a web site to rank in the search engines. Everything from stuffing keywords, hiding text, link ‘bombing’ and the old school ‘doorway pages’.

Content - updated, well-written text for web sites is still one of the most imporant and valuable elements for good search engine rankings. You can create content easily by blogging, writing articles, and adding relavent pages to your web site.

Many people  are concerned that they do not have time or the ability to blog, or write articles. If you own a web site business, you more than likely have the knowledge of the products or services you are offering. Try to commit 1 morning or evening a week or even every few weeks to write about what you know; news, updates, information pertaining to a product or service you sell.

Content is considered one of the most important elements of good SEO but is only 1 of the factors needed for rankings.

Taking cover and scaling back on your advertising is the normal business reaction to what is happening in our economy today. With people trying to save money on high gas prices and looking for great deals, more and more are choosing the internet as their shopping alternative.  As a business owner, there are many ways to continue promoting your web site online without having to spend a fortune! Here are some simple ideas and tips to consider during these difficult times:

• Improve Search Engine Rankings- One of the biggest areas of your online marketing; having good rankings among the search engines is essential and can pay off if done properly.  If you need to hire an SEO Company do so with caution. Avoid the site that “Guarantee first page rankings”. No reputable SEO Company can do that without either bidding for placement (AKA Pay Per Click) or some type of trick that can either harm your rankings over time or obtain the wrong type of visitors. Search Engine Optimization is a process that will take time, and should be done by a reputable company with experience.
• Blogging- This is a FREE way to promote your site, services or products. Setting up a blog is easy and it can be done via your site or other blog locations such as blogger.com or wordpress.com
• Articles- Write about your services or products and submit to article sites. Most of these are free, but a few may require a small membership. Articles allow you to be the authority on your service or product and it also provides a way to link back to your website- free traffic!
•  Press Releases- Online PR is a bit different than traditional. One of the biggest advantages includes having copy (text) that links back to your site which in turn can increase your search engine rankings. Online PR can also be posted within search engine rankings especially in Google. Submitting your PR can cost anywhere from $60-$600. There are some free areas as well.
• Smaller-Localized Pay per Click- If you currently run a PPC campaign but it’s costing you more than your selling, consider consolidating it to a smaller campaign or even target your local market. Another option is to focus on 2-3 of your main products or services that bring in the most money.
• Social Networking- Sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are all becoming a great tool for online businesses. Use it to promote services, gain feedback on products or ideas, as well as advertising (Facebook for example has their own pay per click program at affordable rates). Youtube is another form of marketing to consider for your business. Be creative!
• Email Marketing- Still a viable form of marketing, if you have generated a list of clients over time (those who have purchased from you before or have requested to receive newsletters and information) you can safely send promotions, general newsletters and announcements to them. This can be an affordable way to remind them that you are here, and you may have a great service or product to offer them at this time. Make sure you use either a company that offers email marketing or a vendor that is reliable in this industry such as Constantcontact.com.

We definitely have some bumpy roads ahead of us, but if you invest your time and money wisely, you can still make money in this weak economy.  Let us  at Big Shark Marketing help you with a FREE Web Site analysis today and see where simple updates and modifications can make a difference in your web business.

As we approach the final month of summer, many web site owners are looking forward to the 4th quarter stretch; especially the holidays.  With gas prices out of control, many consumers are expected to shop online more than ever this season.

Now is the time to review your marketing strategy for the upcoming months. Marketing in the online world consists of a variety of factors including search engine rankings, pay per click advertising, email newsletters and the web site’s overall design and layout.

Here are some basic tips to consider for your online business:

•    Good Keywords- Is your web site optimized for the right keywords; those that visitors will search for to buy your products or services?

•    Search Engine Rankings- How does your site currently rank among Google, YAHOO, and MSN?

•    Pay Per Click Advertising- If you’re currently using pay per click marketing (Google AdWords,   YAHOO Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter, ASK, etc) make sure you are tracking your ads properly. Are they converting into sales or leads? Are you paying too much for keywords not related to your business? Should you be advertising locally rather than nationally? Need info on Pay Per Click? Click Here.

•    Web Site Design- How does your current web site look?  Does everything work properly? No broken links, missing images, misaligned text? Make sure the site is presentable to your customers.

•    Does your web site provide helpful information for your visitors? How are your prices compared to others in your industry? What offers can you provide for the holidays- Tax-free shopping? Reduced or free shipping offers? Buy 1 Get 1 offers, Coupons, Etc?

We recently launched a small yet very effective web site that is a classic example of combining good design and marketing.

CapeCoralHomeVultures.com - is a web site based in SouthWest Florida (Cape Coral, Ft. Myers area) that offers information on foreclosed property, buying, and managing foreclosures and pre-foreclosures in the SouthWest area of Florida.

As the site launched in July, the client initiated an agressive Pay Per Click Campaign on YAHOO and Google AdWords and has seen viable traffic and strong leads almost instantly.

Check it out: http://www.capecoralhomevultures.com

Professional SEO Companies have known as a rule of thumb that excessive use of Flash design can inhibit your ability to rank well in the search engines.

Within the last month, Google announced that its search engine has learned how to crawl Flash. As Google states on their official blog: Now that we’ve launched our Flash indexing algorithm, web designers can expect improved visibility of their published Flash content, and you can expect to see better search results and snippets.

What does this all mean?  What Google is stating is they have developed a means of crawling “TEXTUAL” content within Flash files that are designed in buttons, menus, banners, and as they have stated self-contained web sites (those designed in Flash). URLs that are linked within Flash files are also crawled and may be added to their search results. Images that are using Flash are currently not supported by Google.

To Summarize:

• Google is now crawling text in some Flash Files.
• The Flash has to be in SWF format.
• SWF files can be gadgets, buttons, banners, menus, and self-contained web sites
• Basically if your site contains these elements, Google will find them and there’s really no need to do anything but wait and see what the results are.

This is just another step in allowing better search results for the variety of design and programming that’s out there today.

After 10 years of optimizing web sites, we still see many that have ‘bad’ seo techniques that result in poor rankings. Here are some basic tips to avoid:

• Over-stuffing Keywords. Adding a free for all in phrases to meta tags, or even stuffing them within your text.
• Hiding Keywords. Unbelievably, we still see this technique which was considered ’standard’ 10 years ago. Never hide text on a web page. Search engines are actually aware of this technique and can go as far as ‘banning’ your web site for this practice.
• Stuffing ALT Tags- The property tag of your images can be of use in SEO, but stuffing them with keywords (or even entire paragraphs of copy) can get you in trouble.
• Bad linking techniques- Linking to irrelevant web sites, or web sites who also practice bad SEO techniques will only make your chances of ranking well much worse.
• Too little text- too many images.
• Too much Flash animation or Java

Whether you plan on designing a web site yourself or hiring a professional, here are some tips to keep in mind (and make sure your designer follows your suggestions as well):

•  Flash design should be kept a minimum. Search engines will have a difficult time ‘reading’ a page that is entirely made of flash animation. Flash should be an embedded file that does not consume the time of a visitor (in other words, having to wait to navigate or click on other pages because of the flash).
• Avoid introductory home pages- these are blank, ‘click here to enter’ pages that a visitor has to view before even seeing the site. Worse, some designers do flash ’splash’ pages thinking that a cool animation is a great asset to a web site. This is actually a BAD thing for both search engines and visitors who don’t want to wait or click.
• Make sure your text on the site is actual text. There are still designs out there where the text is placed into graphics. Some times designers do this in order to use different font styles for an appealing look. Unfortunately, search engines cannot read the text in this form (and therefore cannot index or ‘rank’ your web pages).
• Missing contact information- nothing is worse than a web site that does not have email, phones or contact forms.
• Consider not using excessive Java, flashing, blinking text, scrolling or trailing ‘mice’ or loud music that distracts visitors.